During a newspaper career that spanned four decades, former Denver Post sportswriter Tom Kensler developed a vast network of friends and fans. After he suffered a brain aneurysm July 6, which resulted in two surgeries soon afterward in an attempt to relieve pressure on his brain, those friends and fans monitored health updates on social media and sent their prayers for his recovery.
That group is collectively mourning its loss. Kensler, 64, died Friday morning at St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood.
“He was the finest sports journalist I’ve worked with,” said longtime Denver Post sports columnist Woody Paige, who was with the paper when Kensler was hired in September 1989.
During his career that started in the 1970s, Kensler earned the National Sportswriter and Sportscasters Association best-in-state awards for his work in Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado.
He was an editor’s dream, a meticulous reporter who obsessed over accuracy when it came to numbers, figures and names — a trait that remained with him after he retired in June 2015.
“When we did that big Broncos package after the Super Bowl, he sent me a detailed response to us saying that 1 million people attended the parade,” said Denver Post sports editor Scott Monserud. “He did a block-by-block analysis and said it wasn’t possible there were a million people there. I told him it was a guesstimate.”
Born in Ohio, Kensler was a self-described “Air Force brat” who often moved across the country and the world as a child. He returned to his native state to attend Ohio State University, graduating with a master’s degree in 1975 with a focus on business administration and city planning.
But he followed his real passion — sports — and landed a job at what he often joked was as a “one-man sports department” at the Pampa News in Pampa, Texas, in 1977. His career took off soon after and included jobs as a beat reporter covering college football at West Texas A&M for the Amarillo Globe-News then Oklahoma and Oklahoma State while at The Daily Oklahoman in Oklahoma City in the 1980s.
When he was hired by The Denver Post, the ever-optimistic Kensler immediately hit it off with his new colleagues.
“He was always a very social type guy who got along with everyone,” said longtime Post sportswriter Irv Moss.
Added David Plati, the sports media relations director at the University of Colorado: “It’s amazing the number of former athletes he covered who were praying for him, people he covered 20 or 25 years ago who knew he was good and fair, and had a great personality.”
Kensler covered primarily college sports and golf during his 25-year tenure at The Post, including countless bowl games and national championship games, Final Fours in men’s basketball and the four major golf tournaments. His passion for beating the competition, combined with a strong work ethic, yielded many scoops.
Paige recalled the time when he was sports editor that Kensler wanted to cover one of the Colorado teams playing in Hawaii at a time when the travel budget was tight.
“We didn’t normally send people to Hawaii,” Paige said.
Kensler found a friend in Honolulu who’d let him crash on his couch so that he needed only a plane ticket and rental car, and Paige agreed.
“He wrote about eight or nine stories,” Paige said. “He got a couple scoops, and wrote about three stories a day. I called him and said, ‘You’re writing too much. Go enjoy yourself and play golf.’ A lot of guys would just go, enjoy themselves and write one story.”
Kensler grew up with a love of golf, which he learned from his father. His vacations included trips to the United Kingdom with friends to play on the game’s most historic courses.
“He loved giving lessons or comparing the great courses,” said former Post sportswriter Natalie Meisler. “One of his lifetime joys was playing Augusta the first time he covered the Masters.”
Kensler covered every professional golf tournament in Colorado since the early 1990s. His last such assignment was the 2014 BMW Championship at Cherry Hills Country Club. He also loved Colorado golf courses and promoted the game within the state.
“He was the force behind founding the Rocky Mountain Golf Writers Association,” Plati said. “He covered the biggest tournaments in golf, and really had an active love of golf. His handicap was in the single digits, so he was a very good golfer.”
Monserud remembers the time that Kensler bought a new putter and staged a demonstration in the middle of the newsroom.
“He brought in the balls and putter and laid it out in sports because he wanted to show everyone that came by that it was the most amazing putter in the history of golf,” Monserud said. “He wanted to improve his game and help others improve theirs.”
Outside his work, his passions included trout fishing in such places as Cheesman Canyon and being “the world’s biggest fan of Ohio State University,” Paige said. Kensler had plans to attend the Buckeyes’ football game in mid-September at Oklahoma.
He also loved traveling to the New Orleans Jazz Festival, which he attended nearly every year for the past 25 years. He proposed to his wife, Pam, in Jackson Square during her first time at the festival in 2003, and they married that September. “She must have misheard the question because she said yes,” Tom always joked.
“Tom’s a romantic,” Meisler said. “He did the whole one-knee (thing) … She never had a clue it was coming.”
Whether it came to romance or reporting, friends described him as an “old school” guy who was unfailingly polite and gentle, a “true gentleman” in the world of sportswriters who always “had empathy for the athletes, especially young college athletes,” recalled colleague Patrick Saunders. “He was fair, even when he covered a bad team.”
Kensler was a devout Catholic, and made time to attend Mass no matter where he was on the road covering events. He also is remembered for thinking of others. One year, before he was married, he was a little melancholy with no family in town during the holiday season.
“Christmas was approaching, so he got John Elway to sign a football and took it to Children’s Hospital,” Meisler recalled.
Meisler always told everyone that Kensler was her best friend, but she recently updated that thought.
“It dawned on me that Tom was everybody’s best friend,” she said. “You could place him in a Super Bowl or Final Four press room and he would be everyone’s best friend there too.”
A funeral service is scheduled for 11 a.m. Aug. 6 at the Archdiocese of Denver Mortuary Chapel in Wheat Ridge.
Friends and family are sharing memories of Kensler on Facebook.
