Charley Walters is looking for news and willing to compete with other reporters 24-7 to be first with a scoop. The St. Paul Pioneer Press columnist recently talked with Sports Headliners about his career including his passion for beating everybody else on a sports story.
Walters has worked for the St. Paul daily newspapers since the 1970’s and for about 25 years has been writing his popular notes column with headings like “Don’t Print That,” “Behind the Lockers,” “A Little Birdie Says,” and “Psst.” His commitment to report the news once had him hiding behind a Christmas tree to learn about a baseball player’s contract. He also hid behind a rock outside Winter Park waiting for Vikings general manager Mike Lynn.
About three years ago Walters was sitting in his car on a bitterly cold January morning at 5 a.m. Equipped with binoculars and laptop, he was looking for confirmation that Tim Brewster would be the next Gophers football coach.
Years ago Walters and another St. Paul newspaper reporter, Charles (Buck) Hallman, made a middle of the night visit to Lou Nanne’s house. “We go over there at 3:15 in the morning, his house in Edina,” Walters said. “Hallman is knocking on the door. I am standing with him. …Louie finally comes to the door and starts cussing us out and says, ‘What are you guys doing here?’ Charley says, ‘We want to find out who the next North Stars coach is going to be.’ ”
By 4:30 a.m. Nanne, the North Stars general manager, gave in and told the persistent twosome that Bill Mahoney would be named coach later that day. Hallman and Walters broke the story when it was published in the afternoon edition of the St. Paul Dispatch.
Sometimes Walters receives a news tip from unexpected places. Walters got word on the Timberwolves being sold and moving to New Orleans from a source who was sitting in a bathroom stall when he overhead two guys talking about it.
The bathroom tipster could also be referred to as one of Walters’ “little birdies.” How many does he have?
“Flocks of them,” Walters said. “I’ve got them everywhere. I’ve even got them at the Minneapolis newspaper. I’ve got people there that for some reasons would rather have some things in my column than another one. There’s people all over the place that if they trust you and respect you, they will answer questions and help out.”
Walters said he has the phone numbers for 3,500 contacts. He’s been collecting those numbers since journalism school at the University of Minnesota. It was there that he received some advice from teacher Steven Hartgen that Walters has long remembered.
“I was sitting in the front row because I don’t hear that well, and it was reporting 1101,” Walters said. “The first day of class Hartgen came in there and said, ‘I am going to give you students Hartgen rule No. 1. …Here’s my rule, whenever you are interviewing anybody, asking anybody a question, at the same time be asking why is this son of a bitch lying to me? So that’s probably the best advice I’ve had in my 35 year newspaper career in St. Paul.”