George M. Knue spent his entire career with the Tribune, rising from working in its suburban editions as an intern to building a highly regarded high school sports section, and culminating with developing and leading several of the Tribune’s digital news sites from the outset of the internet era into the mid-2010s.
Along the way, Knue built a reputation for his intelligence, effectiveness and moxie, as well as for his kindness and ability to mentor his staff, colleagues said.
“George was so smart about how to work with any kind of person in journalism,” said Chris Malcolm, the former executive sports editor of ChicagoSports.com and the former Tribune online sports editor who is now director of digital content at the Big Ten Network. “It was a high-paced environment, but he was always calm and passionate at the same time. He taught me a lot about how to be an editor overseeing a staff and driving them to do hard work and still be a decent human being.”
Knue, 74, died of complications from cardiac sarcoidosis on Nov. 11 at UChicago Medicine AdventHealth La Grange Hospital in La Grange, said his wife of 48 years, Jonell. Knue had been a longtime Western Springs resident.
Born in Indianapolis in 1951, Knue moved with his family to La Grange when he was about 5 years old, his wife said. He graduated from Lyons Township High School in La Grange in 1969, where he worked on the school newspaper.
Knue earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1973. While still in college, Knue was hired by Bob Rockafield, the sports editor of the Suburban Trib (a Tribune-owned suburban news supplement) to answer phones and take sports scores.
“George was different from the other kids. He never missed a shift. I don’t remember him ever getting anything wrong,” recalled former Tribune sports reporter Alan Solomon. “While most other part-time kids kind of faded away, George stayed part-time through college, and when Rock had the chance to hire him, he did.”
At the Suburban Trib, Knue rose from being a reporter to assistant sports editor and then sports editor, succeeding Bill Van Kirk, a Tribune editor who in his later years oversaw systems and telecommunications at the paper.
“George was a self-starter. He never questioned any assignment,” Van Kirk said. “He would immediately start figuring out the best way to get it done.”
One of Knue’s lasting achievements at the Suburban Trib was helping to cofound the “Mr. Basketball” award for an Illinois high school boys basketball player, developed in conjunction with the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association.
In 1981, the Tribune folded the Suburban Trib into the daily newspaper, and Knue joined the daily paper’s sports staff. Although Knue worked a variety of jobs in the sports department between 1982 and 1993, he largely built a reputation for overseeing strong high school sports coverage and developing the Preps Plus section of the newspaper.
Tribune “In the Wake of the News” columnist Paul Sullivan became a sports writer in 1987, and his first boss in the sports department was Knue.
“I was fortunate to work with him in an era when prep sports were such an integral part of our readership strategy,” Sullivan said. “Keeping track of so many different teams and athletes in the Chicago area was a 24/7 job, and George was always on top of what was happening as the Preps Plus czar. He was also such a great guy, you’d do anything to make him happy.”
Sullivan also recalled Knue’s effectiveness at motivating his staff, as well as his competitive instincts.
“For many of us, Preps Plus was our first lesson in keeping stats, interviewing teen athletes and coaches who were often grouchy after a loss,” Sullivan said. “We learned how to file on deadline from schools, an ordeal that involved finding a phone in pre-cellphone days. George’s mantra was ‘Get fired up,’ always trying to motivate us to be interested in driving out to some far-flung suburb on a Friday night to cover a game. He knew what games would help sell papers, but also made sure our coverage of the Chicago Public League was top-notch.”
Knue’s daughter, Brianna, remembered his father’s love for sports and also his interest in underdog stories, or stories “of some team that nobody ever thought was going to be good enough.”“That was part of what he loved too, and part of the reason he was so interested in sports,” she said.
Former Tribune sports reporter K.C. Johnson started as a part-time employee in the sports department in 1990. He recalled inputting details from local soccer, volleyball or football games to be inputted into the computer system and then published as high school roundups, and how Knue “made you feel like you were doing important work.”
“He demanded accuracy and professionalism. And he pushed you to get better by rewarding you with gradually increased responsibility such as actually writing the roundups — if you were up for it,” said Johnson, who now covers the Bulls for Chicago Sports Network. “George knew not every worker was the same. And yet he made sure to try to utilize whatever strengths each worker displayed to make the collective whole more powerful and efficient. To be a demanding yet fair and compassionate boss isn’t easy. And yet George, as decent a person as you’ll find, excelled at it.”
In 1993, Knue left the Tribune’s sports department to serve as a bureau chief for the paper’s south and southwest suburban editions. Then, in 1997, he shifted to a role with the Tribune’s interactive news, working to launch the paper’s ChicagoSports.com website and developing the website ChicagoBreakingNews.com, which was later collapsed into the Tribune’s main website.
“He was very smart about journalism and yet he never stopped learning,” Malcolm said. “I know he was often the smartest person in the room, but he never acted like it. And because of that, he got the best out of people. He was an old-school newspaper guy who was fascinated by the internet. I loved that. It was infectious to all of us.”
Knue’s son, Jordan, said that upon Knue’s retirement, he reflected that his big regret was that he wouldn’t be able to continue working to find a solution to how best to deliver breaking news in a digital world.
After retiring from the Tribune in 2015, Knue enjoyed spending time with his grandchildren, as well as traveling and woodworking, his son said. Knue also had battled heart troubles, his son said.
“He fought for 10-plus years, and probably lived longer than would have been estimated,” Jordan Knue said.
In addition to his wife, daughter and son, Knue is survived by two grandchildren; three brothers, Jack, Rick and Bill; and three sisters, Judy Lorenz, Mary Lou Knytych and Barbara Barnes.
A visitation will take place from 4 to 8 p.m. on Nov. 17 at Hallowell & James Funeral Home, 1025 W. 55th Street, Countryside.
A burial service will be private.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
