Remembering Dan

REMEMBERING DAN
3rd Annual TETCO Dan Cook Memorial Classic Slated for June 13

Alice Cook Ashton recalls that her dad, legendary sports anchor and writer Dan Cook, loved to play tennis; so much so that even when he was in ill health, the 81 year old was adamant about going to hit the ball at the courts. “Even when there was absolutely no way he could play, he would say, ‘Pretty soon I’m going to go play tennis,’ and he would go take out all of his tennis equipment,” Ashton says.

Although Cook died July 3, 2008, his legend lives on with the 3rd annual TETCO Dan Cook Memorial Classic starting at 8:30 a.m. Monday, June 13 at The Club at Sonterra. Proceeds benefit SA Youth. Admission is $225 per player and includes breakfast, goodie bag with golf shirt, lunch, cart and the awards ceremony. To register, visit www.dancookgolf.com or call (210) 223-3131 Ext. 207.

In the early ‘90s, a San Antonio Express-News colleague told Cook about SA Youth and the financial difficulty and struggles it faced to keep its doors open. After Cook toured the center, he wrote a column about it. Soon after, readers donated $40,000 to the nonprofit organization. Over the years, Dan raised thousands of dollars for SA Youth’s programs. In 2001, its very first center, the former Downtown Youth Drop-In Center, was renamed the Dan Cook Center.

Incidentally, Cook had a decades-long friendship with Tom Turner Sr., founder of TETCO. “One of the reasons we got involved with SA Youth and the golf tournament is because of Dan Cook, who was one of my grandfather’s best friends,” says Jon Turner, TETCO vice chairman.

Ashton, who is the youngest of four siblings, remembers the stories her father shared regarding Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio, whom he got to know. As a 19 year old, he once stayed out all night with baseball Hall of Famer Dizzy Dean much to the worry of his two aunts, who raised him in his native Houston. “That was back in the day when there were no cell phones,” she says with a laugh.

Ashton was grateful for the outpouring of support for her dad during funeral services, which, she says, he would not have expected at all. “It would have surprised him,” she says, “because he was just doing what he loved to do – write about sports. He loved the people of San Antonio so much, which is why he never left. Toward the end of his life, he didn’t understand why people wanted to use his name in a golf tournament.”

TETCO is the title sponsor of the tournament. Other sponsors include KENS5, San Antonio Express-News, Blonde Creative, Silver Eagle Distributors, Anheuser-Busch, Coca-Cola, Valero, Pepsi, Diageo Guinness, GET Electric, MillerCoors, Sarma, generations federal credit union, TekSystems, and Crown Imports.