Casagrande: We lost Bob Holt, the one sports writer nobody could hate

It’s easy to hate sports writers.

We’re bathed in cynicism, a second helping of sarcasm and a seething disdain for your favorite team we just can’t hide.

Jerks, all of us.

Everyone but Bob Holt.

A reporter who could make even Nick Saban smile became his own reluctant institution — a humble, self-deprecating antithesis of all that people hate about our profession.

Bob died last night. He was 65.

The hole he leaves in this industry and in his adopted hometown of Fayetteville is larger than he would’ve realized or cared to admit. That’s because the longtime Razorback beat writer for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette was too kind to acknowledge how universally beloved he was.

Truly, he was the unicorn at any SEC media event without a professional rival or enemy. In a business that’s a Bravo reality show without the cameras, Bob might’ve been the only one in a media days workroom who everyone liked.

Even the coaches.

Even … Saban.

Holt’s famously nasally voice paired with frequent and wordy questions made him a star of media days for decades. Though almost bashful in some social settings, the jolly scribe paired a quick wit and a lack of fear with a disarmingly folksy delivery that had to be heard to fully appreciate.

Take 2022 SEC media days for example.

From his traditional front-row seat, Bob hit Saban with a question only Bob could ask in a way only he could ask it.

“I don’t know if you noticed,” Bob said, “it stopped raining right before you came up. I don’t know if you had control over that or not.”

Saban smiled and denied a messiah-level control of the weather with a grin nobody else in that room would’ve received.

That’s what comes with decades of goodwill borne from his genuinely inquisitive nature and disarming personality. Watching him operate at SEC Media Days was an honor, so much so, that I spent a few days 10 years ago writing about him instead of the supposed stars of the event.

Under the headline “Meet Bob Holt, the most curious reporter at SEC Media Days and reluctant cult hero” was the most interesting work of journalism I ever produced in that Hoover hotel ballroom.

“People kind of make fun of me for, I don’t know, wearing people down,” Bob said in the piece. “I’m not comparing myself to [late CBS newsman] Mike Wallace at all, but if you ask someone enough questions … I just have a natural curiosity that I think every reporter should have. I just like to ask questions.”

And it’s true.

Through a smile and friendly delivery, Bob could ask pointed questions. If a coach dodged his first attempt, Bob wouldn’t let him off the hook. He was a throwback, a true newspaperman in an increasingly digital world, who could shiv a coach with a question in the friendliest way possible.

Even better, he insisted on introducing himself before every question as if anybody involved was unaware.

“Bob Holt, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette” became a sing-along style greatest hit of league media gatherings.

Bob loved his cats, the Detroit Tigers and the Green Bay Packers.

Alabama basketball coach Nate Oats, himself a cheesehead, always hit Bob with Packer talk before getting to business at SEC hoops media days.

Everyone just wanted to be Bob’s friend.

I loved hanging with Bob with the selfish hope some of his goodness would rub off. It didn’t.

But any day spent in his orbit was unmistakably better, as cliché as it sounds.

Young writers were starstruck meeting the legend, which was funny because his chronic humility made that admiration almost incompressible.

But he was sneaky funny and could roast a fellow writer like no other.

Like the time Ross Dellenger, now of Yahoo Sports, came bopping out of his Atlanta hotel on the way to the 2018 SEC media days at the College Football Hall of Fame. Seconds after being accosted by a foul-mouthed stranger on the sidewalk, Ross came upon Bob and Democrat-Gazette co-beat writer Tom Murphy.

Still dazed by the bizarre encounter, a smiling Bob added the punchline.

“What’s with the white belt?” became Bob’s line that was repeated at barstools across the SEC for years to come. It was funny because that’s about as mean as Bob could get and the fact he was never mistaken for a fashion icon.

Bob could write, though.

His love for the craft was unmistakable, and if there was an Arkansas native on an SEC roster, coaches could expect to hear from Bob. He was about the finer details — old school and through.

“I don’t work for the Wall Street Journal,” Bob told me in the 2014 piece at media days. “I don’t work for the New York Times. You know, I don’t work for the USA Today. I work for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and like Bill Clinton says, ‘It’s a small, wonderful state,’ but to me, you always have to go for the local angle. I mean, you always have to. … I’ve gotten jokes about that. So-and-so flew over Arkansas, so you’re going to do a story on them.”

In our business, there’s a morbid badge of honor that comes with dying at the keyboard. Well, Bob came close while adding another final act that only old newspapermen could appreciate.

Bob collapsed returning to the press box following postgame interviews at Arkansas’ football season-ending loss at Missouri.

Bob was home in a sense, as a Mizzou grad.

And his final byline was published Sunday morning in a hospital he’d never leave on a ventilator that kept him alive long enough for family to arrive and say their goodbyes.

He is survived by a brother and sister by blood and generations of ink-stained wretches who were friends but felt like family.

Bob was the nicest guy in a business full of jackals — the best kind of unicorn who could never be replaced.

Bob was loved, whether he could admit it or not.

We’ll miss him more than he could’ve ever realized.

And if you have a moment, say a prayer for St. Peter.

Bob’s been at the pearly gates for hours, peppering him with questions about every Razorback in paradise.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.