As the plane approached La Guardia airport, I looked down on
the sparkling skyscrapers of Manhattan, but in my mind there was a dark void.
For the first time in more than a dozen visits to New York City, I would not be
greeted by a big hug from Donn Bernstein.
Bernie, or Double-N to his spell-checking friends, was a
blazing force of good human nature. His boisterous personality, projected by a
booming voice, might have scared the daylights out of you upon an initial encounter,
but inevitably you would warm up to his spirited presence, and often become his
friend for life.
His was a sportswriter and publicist by profession. He
started as a newspaper reporter in Berkeley and his native San Francisco.
College football was his favorite beat, and that brought him to Santa Barbara
in 1964, when UCSB hired former Stanford coach “Cactus Jack” Curtice and brought
in Bernie as the school’s first sports information director (SID).