A pioneer in sportswriting grew up loving games with family
01:09 AM CST on Sunday, March 2, 2008
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As she once put it, Margaret Koy Kistler became a "partner" with her father, Ernie Koy Sr., when she was 2.
"The most natural place in the world for me," she told The Dallas Morning News more than 40 years ago, "was sitting beside him at a game."
Ernie, a star at Texas in football in the '30s and a fast outfielder who played baseball for the Dodgers and Reds, would give his precocious daughter the game program, with instructions that she should memorize the players' names and numbers.
"Who's number sixty-three?" he'd ask, and little Margaret would rattle off a name, position and hometown.
Father taught daughter well. The Koys were and are a close family, united by a love of each other and sports, as well. Margaret's older brother, Ernie Jr., and younger brother, Ted, also starred at Texas in football and played in the NFL.
"I had to pick up some angle of sports," Margaret told The News, "or couldn't have been a Koy."
So after she graduated from Texas, Margaret became a sportswriter, by all accounts the first female sportswriter in Texas history.
Maybe it doesn't seem such a stretch now. But in 1967, the testosterone levels in press boxes ran pretty high.
Margaret had to get permission from district representatives to enter them, just so she could do her job for the Abilene Reporter-News.
Once, at a press box in San Angelo, the sergeant-at-arms met her at the door: No entry.
"If I can't get in, that's it," she told the fellow. "I'm the only sports writer we have."
Her persistence and the intercession of San Angelo's sports editor ultimately prevailed, and Margaret did her duty.
Her sportswriting career lasted only a short eight months, but it was memorable. The coaches she encountered, among them Spike Dykes and David McWilliams, learned that she'd stand up for herself. If challenged, she could diagram a play. Maybe above all else, she was a Koy, and that counted for something, especially in the '60s.
Had Ernie and Jane Koy had three boys instead of two, the middle child might have given the others a run. As it was, Ken Dabbs, who coached in the Koys' hometown of Bellville, said the best punter he ever had was Ernie Jr., and the second-best was Margaret.
When she was 10, Margaret's sandlot baseball team suffered a bitter loss at the hands of brother Ernie's, which left her in despair. Ernie didn't get it. Why the long face? Girls can't play in the major leagues, anyway.
Margaret ran home and confronted her mother.
"Is it true that girls can't play major league baseball?"
"Why, yes, Margaret."
Recalling the incident for The News in '99, Margaret said, "I think it took me about two days to get over that."
Ernie Jr. made up for his thoughtless comments in '68 when, talking to another sportswriter, he assessed Margaret's football skills.
"I think she'd have been a terrific player," he said. "Too bad she took up sportswriting."
After giving up the press box, Margaret worked in the Austin bureau of The News and The Temple Daily Telegram. Later she worked with her husband, Clay, and resettled in her hometown, close to family.
The circle is a little tighter now. A little more than a year after her father passed away at 97, Margaret died last week of a heart attack at 63. Here's betting he saved a seat for her.
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