Farewell, best friend Mickey Furfari

I lost my longest and best friend in the sportswriting business.

Mickey Furfari, 92, who has been covering WVU since his Morgantown High days in the 1930s, passed away Monday in Morgantown.

Mickey and his late wife Betty’s three children are Mike, Lisa and Jane.

Calling hours will be 2-4 p.m. and 6-8 p.m. Wednesday at Hastings Funeral Home with funeral services Thursday at 11 a.m. at St. John’s Parish on the WVU campus.

Mickey was my first non-faculty mentor during my WVU School of Journalism days.

I worked a 40-hour week at the Dominion News while attending my first semester at WVU. Since the managing editor was an alcoholic who would be gone for hours after drinking his dinner elsewhere, Mickey would help me out, as he did a zillion others before and after me.

Mickey was in the U.S. Army during World War II, and sports editor for the Pacific Stars and Stripes, interrupting his WVU education.
Mickey was self-deprecating. Even though he was known throughout West Virginia for seven decades for his articles and books about WVU, Mickey never considered himself special.

I did.

Mickey and I chatted by phone every 2 or 3 weeks till recently, even after he moved to Pierpoint in Morgantown.

We disagreed sometimes on WVU, but Mickey would say: “That’s alright. You don’t have to agree with me. But we will always be friends.”

Indeed, Mickey.

Even though he was legally blind, he continued to write out his columns by hand, scratching them out on legal pads in this age of computers.

He paid someone to enter them into the computer for him. Then they made their way to the newspapers that carried his columns and articles. He usually wrote two stories every week, even in his 90s.

Mickey was so respected by former WVU athletic stars that they always returned his phone calls for interviews. They knew he would treat them fairly.

WVU athletes often sought out Mickey for their interviews. Again, because they trusted him.

This is a sad day for me. There will never be another Mickey covering WVU sports.

RIP and kudos, Mickey. You taught me a lot about journalism and how to be a decent human being.