Still relevant after all these years.

Byline: Ron Bellamy / The Register-Guard

It took Blaine Newnham four columns to say goodbye to Eugene when he left The Register-Guard for The Seattle Times in the summer of 1982.

We still tease him about that.

By contrast, Newnham spent just one column last Sunday telling Times readers that after 34 years as a sports columnist in the Pacific Northwest, writing three or four times a week (and more), that he's stepping away from daily journalism at age 63, both to play more golf and to write about the game he loves.

Perhaps, after almost 45 years in journalism, Blaine's become more efficient. Perhaps, because he'll continue to write a Sunday column for the Times, he's saving his final farewell. Perhaps, considering that he was also sports editor of The Register-Guard - he was 29 when he got the job in 1971 - there was no one then to tell him he couldn't write four columns going out the door.

Or perhaps it was this: That Newnham's era was so vibrant and so important - in terms of the teams and personalities he covered, and his enduring impact on this newspaper's sports section - that one column wasn't enough.

It's hard to do him justice. He remains the quintessential Eugene sports columnist. His columns had passion, opinions, insights, fairness, integrity. He understood - and cherished - this community.

The Register-Guard sports section - with its focused coverage of the University of Oregon, its commitment of resources to covering OSU and prep sports, its attempt to provide a main local story every day and to be the paper-of-record for national sports, and its compelling use of photographs - is fundamentally the section that evolved during his tenure.

In his first column, he wrote about leaving the Oakland Tribune and arriving in Eugene.

"Out of the clinging fog they came, two elderly joggers. It was a man and his wife, each clad in matching green and gold sweatshirts and Adidas shoes. Their dog, of course, was along for the run. To complete the Eugene syndrome, the joggers each held small, tightly wrapped umbrellas."

Newnham's second column focused on former Oregon receiver Bob Newland, the North Eugene kid, making the team with the New Orleans Saints.

Soon, in the fall of '71, he was writing about the last UO football season under Jerry Frei, and the first basketball season under Dick Harter, and the effort by Bob Newland Sr. to secure the 1972 Olympic Track & Field Trials.

By that November, he'd found his favorite golf course.

"And on the eighth day, God hit a 3-iron stiff to the pin on the 11th hole at Tokatee. And even if He three-putted, God couldn't get angry. ... Even He had to be overwhelmed by what He had created."

Over the years, Newnham would write about Jon Anderson, the mayor's son, finishing third in the 10,000 meters to make the Olympic team at Hayward Field. About the fabled race between Henry Rono and Alberto Salazar. About the day Steve Prefontaine finished fourth in the 5,000 meters in the Munich Olympics, and his last race at Hayward Field, hours before his death, 30 years ago.

"As I drove to work I thought about seeing Pre jogging along East Amazon in wintry mornings. ... It couldn't be true."

There was Ronnie Lee and the Kamikaze Kids. Rich Brooks and Reggie Ogburn. The credits scandal that enmeshed Oregon and other programs. The UO president who told Newnham he'd rather be "whipped in a public square" than watch another football game like Oregon's 5-0 loss to San Jose State.

Along the way, Blaine Newnham has become one my best friends, a mentor and a role model. I'll miss him in the press box; I'm thrilled that he's chosen to leave daily journalism with his health, new goals and an admirable golf swing.

"Richard Ford, the author, called sportswriting `the best kind of ordinary life.' I agree. You don't get rich, but your life is filled with riches, not to mention late-night deadlines, weekend work and cold coffee."

Readers of this newspaper were richer for Newnham's work. Such was his impact that you still are.