Will McDonough

William McDonough (July 6, 1935 – January 9, 2003) was an American sportswriter for The Boston Globe who also worked as an on-air football reporter for CBS and NBC.

Biography

Newspaper career The youngest of nine children of Irish immigrants, McDonough grew up in working-class South Boston.

In 1960, after McDonough had been promoted to sportswriter, he was assigned as the beat reporter for the Boston Patriots of the start-up American Football League and remained one of the country's premier football reporters until his retirement in 2001.

McDonough became a hero among Boston sportswriters after a 1979 altercation with Patriots cornerback Raymond Clayborn, in which the 44-year-old McDonough leveled Clayborn in the locker room after the third-year cornerback had poked him in the eye. However, McDonough's main fame was due to the number of "scoops" and exclusive stories that he broke while with the Globe. At the time of his death, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue called him the "most influential reporter covering the NFL." his bosses said that that was because he saw Clemens as a phony, McDonough also repeatedly referred to former Red Sox player Mo Vaughn as "Mo Money" after Vaughn turned down the Sox's contract offer before the 1998 season to become a free agent after the season.

One of McDonough's biggest scoops came during the week before Super Bowl XXXI when he broke the story that Patriots' head coach Bill Parcells, one of McDonough's best friends, was planning to leave the Patriots after the Super Bowl and become head coach of the New York Jets.

Broadcasting In addition to newspaper reporting, McDonough was a pioneer among journalists who became broadcasters in the late 1970s and early 1980s while maintaining their newspaper positions.

McDonough remained lifelong friends with two other prominent South Boston Irishmen: Massachusetts political leader William "Billy" Bulger and his older brother, Boston organized crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger. A research fund to cure cardiac amyloidosis was set up in his memory at the Brigham and Women's Hospital.

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