Leo Monahan

Daniel Leo Monahan (December 13, 1926 – March 27, 2013) was an American sportswriter. He became a full-time journalist in 1950, and had a career which lasted 30 years combined with the Daily Record, the Record American, and the Herald American which then merged into the Boston Herald. He later contributed to Sports Illustrated and the Sporting News, and served as the director of information at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He traveled with and reported on the Boston Bruins, and was recognized with the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award from the Hockey Hall of Fame for his journalism.

Early life Daniel Leo Monahan was born on December 13, 1926, in Boston, Massachusetts. His father Daniel Monahan was a printer for the Boston Evening Transcript, and died when Monahan was 11 years old. He grew up in South Boston, started delivering a paper route at age 14, and worked a 20-hour shift on weekends as a copy boy at the Daily Record. He enlisted in the United States Navy at age 17, and served for two years during World War II. After the war, he attended Boston College supported by G.I. Bill. He met his future wife Stella Frechette while dancing at Harvard Square in 1947. He graduated in 1950, and the couple married later in the same year.

Career Monahan became a full-time journalist in 1950. He adopted the name "D. Leo Monahan" to distinguish himself from similarly named writers, and jokingly said the initial "D" stood for "dazzling". Monahan also contributed to Sports Illustrated as a correspondent for Boston, Monahan was later a columnist for the Sporting News, and served as the director of information at the University of Massachusetts Boston from December 1980 onwards. Fellow sports journalist Bob Ryan described Monahan by saying, "His deep love for the sport resonated in every sentence and paragraph. He was a very strong personality, for sure, and extremely opinionated".