Terry Taylor, first woman AP sports editor, dies at age 71 - ESPN

NEW YORK — Terry R. Taylor, who in two trailblazing decades as the first woman sports editor of The Associated Press transformed the news agency's emphasis into multilayered coverage of rigorous reporting, entertaining enterprise and edgy analysis, has died. She was 71.

Taylor died Tuesday at her home in Paoli, Pennsylvania, according to her husband, Tony Rentschler. She was diagnosed in 2013 with breast cancer that metastasized three years later. She stopped chemotherapy treatment last December when the side effects became intolerable, he said.

«Terry was truly a trailblazer in journalism, paving the way for so many women to ascend into leadership, both in sports departments and throughout the industry,» said Julie Pace, senior vice president and executive editor of the AP. «Her legacy at AP has been an enduring one, and that will no doubt continue.»

Taylor ran the AP sports department from 1992 until 2013 and believed she was on duty close to 24 hours a day. She arrived in the office around 10 a.m. most weekdays, usually staying until 7 or 8 p.m. and then remained constantly on the phone until West Coast night games ended — or even all night when the America's Cup sailing took place in Australia. She led the AP's coverage of 14 Olympics.

«There were, of course, doubters when I appointed her as AP's first female sports editor, but she soon silenced them, by force of talent and personality,» Louis D. Boccardi, the AP's president and CEO from 1985 to 2003, said Wednesday. «Beyond doubt, a Hall of Famer.»

She was demanding with exacting standards, for herself and others. She had a personal shopper at Saks Fifth Avenue and reporters who arrived in the office wearing shorts were sent home to switch into more proper attire.

«