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Chicago writer returns to Greenlee

By Wendy Weiskircher
Greenlee Web Team writer

He’s a Cubs fan, so you know he’s a loyal guy.

A few years ago, Bob Condor couldn’t tell people he cheered for the Cubbies--not that he brags about it these days. But with two baseball clubs in town—the Cubs and the White Sox—it wasn’t a good idea for the sports editor of the Chicago Tribune to pledge his allegiance to either side.

Now, the founder of the Chicago Tribune’s health and fitness beat can sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” at Wrigley Field during the seventh-inning stretch if he wants to, because he calls himself “just another writer.”

But don’t be fooled. In his two decades of journalism in two of the nation’s biggest media markets, Condor has racked up two Pulitzer Prize nominations, written for Playboy magazine and authored or co-authored six books.

And it all started at Iowa State.

From Illinois to Iowa

Condor graduated from the University of Illinois in 1978 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. After college, he worked for a real estate management and development firm until he realized something was missing.

“I thought I wanted to be a businessman,” he said. “I was just about to turn 25, and I realized that this was not working. It wasn’t really who I was.”

Condor wanted to get closer to the world of sports, he said, through sports journalism, sports management or even sports information for a university. He enrolled in Iowa State’s graduate journalism program and realized, with the help of two professors, that he wanted to spend his life writing.

“I really found myself at Iowa State,” Condor said. “As a 25-year-old, I was trying to be someone else, someone my parents wanted me to be or what I thought my friends wanted me to be.”

He credits two journalism professors, Tom Emmerson and Eric Abbott, for introducing him to writing, but he took it solo from there.

From Iowa to New York

Condor landed in 1982 at New York’s Sportwise, a 300,000 circulation magazine about regional participant sports.

“But like any good journalist, I was there when the magazine folded,” he said. “It was just before Thanksgiving in 1984, and I was supposed to fly back to Chicago for my 10-year high school reunion. But I decided to stay in New York instead of going home to tell everyone I’d just lost my job.”

He worked as a freelance magazine writer and editor. As his social life began to bloom and his stories began to appear in popular magazines, such as Esquire, Runner’s World, Self, American Health, Parade and, of course, Playboy.

In 1985, Condor signed on with the New York Daily News, where he moved up the ranks from health and fitness columnist to Sunday business section editor to deputy features editor and, finally, to deputy sports editor.

The rumblings in 1988 that he was in line to be promoted to executive sports editor coincided with something much more important in Condor’s life--meeting and falling in love with his future wife.

From New York to Chicago

“I told them I wouldn't take the job, and they said ‘Of course you’ll take it,’” Condor said. “But I said, ‘No, I’m moving back to the Midwest. This is the woman I want to be with.’”

Condor married his wife, Mary, in 1991.

The New York editors told Condor he was crazy. But they helped him find a job at the Chicago Tribune, where he was hired in the fall of 1989 as the features section editor. In May 1990, Condor became sports editor, just in time for the Chicago Bulls’ consecutive national championships in 1991, 1992 and 1993.

“That was a pretty exciting time for me, being a Chicago kid,” he said.But the long hours and tight deadlines were taking a toll. In 1993, Condor stepped down as editor and began to develop the health and fitness beat.

“I seized the opportunity, even though it was kind of a radical idea for an editor to step down and be just another writer,” he said. “But I was tired of spending every Sunday in the fall covering football and covering the Bulls 11-plus months out of the year.

“I wanted to reorder my life a little bit and spend some waking hours with my wife,” Condor said. “Besides, it’s a topic I really care about, really have a passion for. And that, for a journalist, can take you a long way.”

Under Condor’s direction, the Chicago Tribune launched a new Sunday section, simply called Q for quality of life, he said. The section debuted in September, and Condor said Internet and television versions of Q will be ready for broadcast by the end of the year.

And back again to Iowa

Condor met with students, faculty and area media professionals in October at Iowa State. His two-day stay was his second official trip back to Ames. In the spring of 2000, Condor taught an eight-week class about sports and journalism.

“When I left in the spring of 2000, it was such a positive experience that the idea was that I’d be willing to come back again and do something,” he said. “Tom (Emmerson) called and posed the idea of whether I could get away for a few days this fall, and I welcomed the opportunity.”

Condor lectured to reporting, editing and advertising classes, and met with News Group members, and the Iowa State Daily and Ethos magazine staffs.

“I feel a sense of gratitude that I can come back and spend a couple of days and contribute even modestly to Iowa State,” he said.

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Last updated: March 10, 2006
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