Letter: Leahey a good sport even as target of joke

Soon after I announced my retirement from the University of Hawaii in 2000, I was speaking at the Quarterback Club luncheon. Sportscaster Jim Leahey asked a question from the floor: “Dr. Mortimer, why did you really retire?”

I replied, “Jim, I have lost a lot of hair and put on some weight doing this job, and I was afraid I would begin to look like you!”

Jim laughed as hard as everybody else and returned the insults at my retirement banquet. He was good to be around (“Jim Leahey, voice of Hawaii sports for nearly 60 years, dies,” Star-Advertiser, Jan. 31).

Ken Mortimer

President and chancellor emeritus, University of Hawaii

Tacoma, Wash.

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