Friends, family and former colleagues are mourning the loss of Bill Soliday, who kept Bay Area readers entertained and informed for 40 years.
Soliday, who worked for the Hayward Daily Review, Oakland Tribune and this news organization from 1968 through 2008, died on Feb. 1 at age 78 after a two-year battle with cancer.
Best known for his work covering the Oakland Raiders and the NFL starting in 1969, Soliday was also a columnist and versatile journalist who wrote with humor and perspective as well as tackling serious subjects and issues. He covered the 49ers when the Raiders moved to Los Angeles, then returned to the Raiders beat upon their return to Oakland in 1995.
Carl Steward, a former Bay Area News Group columnist, called Soliday “perhaps the most underrated sports writer in the Bay Area . . . he had an engaging style, a crackling sense of humor, a wisdom grounded in personal experience and loads of raw perspective.”
Soliday became the Raiders’ beat writer in 1969, which coincided with John Madden’s first season as head coach.
“John Madden used to sit in his office with a handful of writers every day after practice and just shoot the (bull),” Soliday told the Napa Valley-Register in 2016. “He would tell you what he really thought. It was understood it was off the record and he trusted us. I learned more about football in those years than at any time since.”
Late Raiders owner Al Davis, who rarely talked with the media, called Soliday “Billy” and consented to a two and a half hour sit-down interview when the Alameda Newspaper Group named Davis the most significant sports figure of the 20th century.
The following was Soliday’s lead paragraph in a long-form story on Davis:
“He is a mover. A shaker. A rebel. An iconoclast. A plaintiff. A defendant. Some say he is the football version of a saint. Others say scoundrel.”
Davis had the story laminated and placed on a wall outside the door of his office at team headquarters in Alameda.
Soliday covered 19 Super Bowls and was the beat writer for eight world champions — three with the Raiders and five with the 49ers. A member of the Board of Directors of the Pro Football Writers of America, Soliday estimated he had traveled 1.5 million miles covering the NFL.
In a Facebook post, Ron Borges, a former Oakland Tribune writer who later worked for the Boston Herald and Boston Globe, said, “In 50 years in the newspaper business, I never met a guy with a better sense of humor or a firmer understanding about how the NFL works and how the real world works too.”
Jim Jenkins, a longtime friend and former Raiders beat reporter for the Sacramento Bee, said, “Nobody, but nobody, was more thorough or worked harder covering a team.”
With a deep bass voice one colleague compared to actor James Earl Jones, Soliday could be passionate and appear gruff but was generous with his time and wisdom with young writers.
“I was thoroughly intimidated by him,” said Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area and a former co-worker. “It didn’t take long for me to get to know him and discover the real Bill Soliday. Under his rough exterior was a kind, fun-loving person who would have done anything for me or any of his friends and colleagues.”
Soliday kept copious and meticulous notes and brought volumes of research material on game days in addition to an oversized keyboard for his laptop. He even used a stopwatch for the hang-time of punters, something he started when Ray Guy, a future Hall of Famer, joined the Raiders. Nonetheless, Soliday had a running battle with technology
“No one I’ve known was faster to cuss out a disobedient laptop. And then laugh about it 20 minutes later,” said former colleague Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area. “Bill had a cranky exterior wrapped around a heart of gold.”
Always on the lookout for a story, Soliday one day saw Raiders backup quarterback Wade Wilson injecting himself in the locker room. As a diabetic himself, Soliday later approached Wilson and ended up with a story on the challenges and dangers of playing in the NFL with diabetes.
A popular weekly feature was Soliday’s “NFL Crystal Ball” in which he selected the winner of Sunday’s games with insight as well as wicked humor. One selection between a pair of also-rans contained the following summary:
“I wouldn’t use either one of these rotting, stinking, fly-infested cattle carcasses to shelter my dog from the rain. Other than that, I hope they have a nice day.”
Soliday applied his head for stats to co-founding a fantasy baseball league in the early 1970s in which points were awarded for offensive numbers. Soliday would compile the stats from the entire league and circulate the results to other league members each morning. He was also introduced to Strat-O-Matic baseball through co-worker John Hickey.
“I don’t want to say he became obsessed, but I think he bought every set of the cards for at least three decades,” Hickey said.
“By my calculation, it was about 10 hours work,” former co-worker Dave Del Grande said. “Not sure how he did it. But he did. Every day. It’s a streak for which even DiMaggio would be proud.”
Another passion for Soliday was fastpitch softball and the Daily Review Bears, a team he founded in 1971 and wound up playing and/or managing until 2018 while winning a handful of championships.
Soliday’s love for softball flourished while he was in the Army and stationed in Okinawa during the ’60s. A powerful hitter, Soliday’s favorite athletic moment came when he blasted two home runs against an All-Air Force fireballer.
However, those who played for Soliday on the Daily Review Bears point to his impromptu, late-inning at-bat at a Lake Tahoe tournament in the late 1990s as their favorite memory from his playing days. By then, physical ailments prevented Soliday from playing much, but that day he was forced from his role as scorekeeper and into action as a pinch hitter after one of his players was thrown out of a close game. Soliday’s brusque side was on display as he grumbled while carefully balancing a cigarette on a fence before making his way to the plate in the only shoes he brought to the ballpark — his slippers.
On the first pitch he saw, Soliday bounced a ball into center field to tie the game and help lead to the winning run. As the Bears went wild, an agitated Soliday brushed off congratulatory high fives and slaps on the back while bemoaning the sight of his carefully placed cigarette half buried in the dirt.
Some of the best stories involving Soliday never made it into print. He once inadvertently knocked over Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi at Kezar Stadium. Another time, 49ers defensive end Charles Haley pushed Soliday away from an interview scrum, the two went nose-to-nose. Haley backed down when Soliday, measuring every word, said, `Go ahead! Buy my house!”
Former Mercury News columnist Mark Purdy may have summed up Soliday best when he said, “It would have been far more interesting to have players write about Bill and his personality than vice-versa. He was a singular and unforgettable colleague.”
Soliday is survived by his wife Martha and adult children Heather and Kent. Plans for a celebration of life are pending.
