KYW sports reporter Jack O'Rourke dies

Veteran KYW Newsradio sports reporter Jack O'Rourke, 80, died Friday night after covering the Phillies-Cardinals game at Citizens Bank Park.

Station news director Steve Butler said Mr. O'Rourke had collapsed in the press box after filing his last story, and was taken to Jefferson University Methodist Hospital at Broad and Wolf Streets by ambulance.

The cause of death was believed to be an aortic aneurysm, Butler said.

Ed Deal, a press-box attendant, said Mr. O'Rourke was conscious when he was taken to the ambulance.

He was the second KYW reporter to die in less than a week. On Tuesday, Karin Phillips, 53, the station's community-affairs reporter, died after a brief illness.

David Montgomery, president of the Phillies, described Mr. O'Rourke as a terrific journalist and "just a gracious guy who had a good word for everybody."

Montgomery noted that O'Rourke would often arrive in Clearwater, Fla., to cover spring training even before some of the team's executives.

"He was sort of the signal," Montgomery said. "When I heard Jack O'Rourke reporting from Clearwater, I got excited because I knew it was right around the corner."

Butler noted that Mr. O'Rourke was one of the few staffers left who were at KYW when the station changed to an all-news format in the 1960s. "Jack was a terrific guy," Butler said.

Mr. O'Rourke was noted for "his grin and the twinkle in his eye," KYW newscaster John Ostapkovich said on-air Saturday morning.

"He was always in a good mood," KYW sports reporter Tom Maloney said in an interview. ". . . Obviously, he loved what he does, or what he did."

There had been no indication that anything was wrong with Mr. O'Rourke, colleague Ron Corbin said.

"I talked to him from the Phillies game [Friday], not only on the air but before the game, too," Corbin said. "He was talking about covering the rest of the weekend and a couple of games during the coming week."

"Jack was one of the most kind, caring people I think I've ever met," Corbin said. "I don't think I ever saw Jack mad at anything or anyone."

"If you came into work and you were having a downer of a day, a couple of minutes with Jack and everything was just fine.

Mr. O'Rourke, who was completing his 15th year covering the Phillies for the station, was in "retirement mode" of sorts, Butler said, so he covered weekend games.

During his KYW career, he covered the 76ers and the Flyers as well, his colleagues recalled.

Mr. O'Rourke, who lived in East Norriton, grew up in the Boston area and graduated from Emerson College in Boston. He later was awarded a Ford Foundation grant to study at Duke University.

Mr. O'Rourke worked for KYW twice during his long broadcasting career. From 1966 to 1969, he was an anchor and City Hall bureau chief.

In 1969, he went to work for NBC Radio in New York, remaining with the network for 20 years.

At NBC, he was either reporter or producer for several Olympic Games in the 1970s and 1980s as well as Super Bowls XIII through XXII, and a 1976 Ali-Norton fight.

He was the radio network's executive sports producer from 1983 to 1989, and won a George Foster Peabody Award for his work.

"A nice guy finishing first," Ostapkovich said in his tribute.

Returning to Philadelphia in 1989, he briefly worked part time for all-sports WIP-AM, returning to KYW Radio and the sports beat later that year.

Colleagues said that Mr. O'Rourke had had no intention of retiring.

"I used to joke with him all the time about that," Corbin said. "Then when he'd go to spring training every year, I'd say: 'Jack, I don't know why you still want to go, because we're going to want an awful lot of stuff from you. Don't even take your golf clubs with you.' "

Mr. O'Rourke is survived by two daughters, Robin Grant and Teresa Ecker; two sons, Kevin and Sean; and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements are pending.