I first met John Mullin when I was in high school. I was tennis mad, and there were great public tennis courts in a park in a nearby suburb. You could always find someone to hit the ball around with, or to play some serious tennis.

Like many of my tennis buddies, John was half a dozen years older than I was. He was a much better player but he was always good natured and would play a few sets with me when we ran into each other at the courts. I lost touch with him after I went to college.

One day in the late 1980s I stepped into the elevator at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange where I worked and saw this very handsome bearded man standing there. We stared at each other briefly but neither of us could place the other. We ran into each other again a few months later, and we stopped to introduce ourselves and figured out the old connection. We'd have lunch every so often, engaging in some pretty lively and far-ranging discussions. I heard he had left the Merc and ended up at a local paper, covering the Chicago Bears.

I ran into him again on the train platform here in Arlington Heights; the paper he worked for is headquartered here. Every so often I would look him up online to see what he was doing. I knew he had moved from the Daily Herald to the Chicago Tribune but didn't know he had moved to Comcast Sports, still covering the Bears.

Guess I'm at the age when finding an obituary is becoming a more common occurrence. I have no idea why I decided to google him last night, when I learned that he died just a few weeks ago.

I found article after article from colleagues who talked about what a great guy he was.

His story is a true example of a life well lived. Rather than feeling sad, I felt uplifted by his example, and also grateful for the good fortune of our paths having crossed a few times in our lives.

RIP John

Couple of other links...

https://www.nbcchicago.com/new...moon-mullin/2861225/

John's YouTube channel. Watched the last one. Same guy I knew so many years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/channe...oXQ9KTVHMooZA/videos