The longtime Cleveland sportswriter has died

Veteran sports journalist Dan Coughlin has died, according to his colleagues at Fox 8.

“It is with a very heavy heart that we announce the passing of our friend and colleague Dan Coughlin,” Fox 8 wrote on its website, adding, “We have truly lost a legend and a great friend.”

Coughlin established himself as a sportswriter for the Plain Dealer, working there from 1964 to 1982. He has worked at Fox 8 since 1983, most recently as a contributor to the show “Friday Night Touchdown.”

During his long career as a Cleveland sports reporter, he received numerous awards for his work in print and television.

In 2017, he was inducted into the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame, which honored his career with the following words:

Dan has been covering Cleveland sports in print and on air since 1964, when he joined The Plain Dealer shortly after his discharge from the Army at age 25.

His first assignment was the high school beat, and over the course of 18 years at The Plain Dealer he covered virtually everything and won major awards. For most of his time, he was Chuck Heaton's backup with the Browns and Russ Schneider's backup with the Indians. By the late 1970s he was a full-time baseball writer. He covered major college football games, including major bowl games involving Notre Dame. He was a boxing writer, covering fights from the old Cleveland Arena to Madison Square Garden, including the Ali Frazier series. He competed in 17 Indianapolis 500s and several European races. He became a football writer during the short era of major professional football with the Cleveland Stokers. He was on the sidelines during the U.S. hockey team's victory over the Soviets at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid. Dan and Chuck Webster once turned slow-pitch softball into a big hit.

He liked to say that he prepared for football season by changing the ribbon on his portable typewriter every Labor Day. “I covered the big high school game on Friday, a big college game on Saturday and the Browns every Sunday. And they paid me for it. “It was like going to Cedar Point every weekend,” he said. With his family growing in 1982, he needed a larger house and accepted an offer from the Cleveland Press, which went out of business three months later. Still, the Coughlin family got their bigger house and Dan started a new career in television at Fox 8. He's still there 35 years later.

Dan began his career as a newspaper reporter on the high school beat and now he still covers high school football games on television every Friday night.

Both Dan and his wife Maddy grew up in Lakewood and now live in Rocky River. They have four adult children and 11 grandchildren.

Dan attended St. Edward High School and Notre Dame. He served on St. Edward's Board of Trustees for 20 years. He is a past president of the Press Club of Cleveland and will be inducted into the Greater Cleveland Softball Hall of Fame for an unknown reason.