He Made Everyone Feel Like His Equal

About three months after I started working at The Times in 1991, I was assigned to cover TeamTennis and was given a laptop computer to use for the night. My main job at the time was to answer phones and run errands for the editors putting the section together each night. I tucked my laptop under my desk and ran some errands and when I came back about 15 minutes later, Jim Murray was standing at my desk, holding my laptop.

I wasn’t sure what to do. He must have seen my nervousness and said “Are you Houston?”

I made a motion that was as close to a nod as I could manage. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “My computer at home broke and I need a new one so I can write my column for tomorrow. Your computer is the only laptop left in the building. Is it OK if I use it?” I nodded again, and then he said something I’ll never forget. “I really apologize if this inconveniences you, Houston.”

And every time I talked to him after that, he always took time to make me feel like an individual, rather than as “the guy who answers the phones.” And in time, that quality in him was much more important to me than his quality as a writer.