Some 450 people jammed into Congregation Ohev Shalom in Wallingford for Andy Jasner’s memorial service on Monday. Of course it was unspeakably sad, because Andy – son of Phil, the late, legendary Sixers beat writer and an accomplished sports journalist himself – died too young, at age 55, and was a married father of three daughters.
But it was also uplifting and hopeful. Even a little amusing at times.
His long-time friend, Seth Kean, told the crowd that Andy would have no doubt found it hilarious that his funeral was sold out. That besides several writer types – the Daily News, Phil’s old shop, was well-represented – former Sixers player and coach Doug Collins was on hand, as were dozens and dozens of people Andy touched in other ways.
Then Seth revealed that he and Andy regularly got together to watch “The Brady Bunch” (yes, “The Brady Bunch”) while at Syracuse … and admitted they would often do so on Fridays, when seemingly everyone else on campus was doing college-kid things.
Andy’s brother-in-law, Eddie Goldstein, also eulogized him. He chuckled at the memory of Andy wearing sweats when they met for the first time, over breakfast. (And here the sportswriters in the crowd nodded knowingly, remembering that sweats had been a prominent part of Phil’s wardrobe as well.)
All of this contributed to a fuller, richer picture of Andy than the one many of us had gleaned from various press boxes on various game nights. We obviously knew he loved hoops, because really, how could he not, given who his dad was? But we didn’t know that Allen Iverson called him every year on his birthday, as Goldstein said. Or that Julius Erving had attended his wedding, raising the the possibility of the coolest version of the Electric Slide ever seen.
And we knew Andy loved his family – wife Taryn and daughters Jordana, Shira and Leah. But we didn’t know how fully immersed he was in each of their lives. Jordana, bound for Vanderbilt in the coming days, said during her eulogy that he was so giddy about her college choice that he purchased all manner of merch during her campus visit, and that a Vandy pullover immediately joined his sartorial rotation.
She also recalled that on the afternoon of July 31, she asked him to repair with her to a nearby softball field to hit her some fly balls, as she had an important game coming up. He was happy to do so, even though he had just returned home after giving tennis lessons to the kids at Arrowhead Day Camp in nearby West Chester, as he had for years.
But something didn’t seem right, Jordana recalled. Her dad seemed to be dragging a little more than usual.
Several hours later, his heart gave out.
Which maybe said as much about the man as anything else – that he was perfectly willing to put aside whatever might have been bothering him to serve someone else. And the way Rabbi Kelilah Miller told it in her remarks, he had always been geared that way.
With Phil often on the road, covering the Sixers, it was left to young Andy to care for his mom, Susan, who battled lupus while he was growing up. Andy once told me that she underwent no fewer than 42 surgical procedures, but the disease took her life in 2005.
Phil died of cancer five years later, at age 68. Then as now, it was left to others to carry on, to carry along with them the best of what the departed had left behind. And indeed Jordana vowed to continue the family legacy, to boldly power ahead.
“Until we meet again,” she said as she wrapped up her eulogy.
She was addressing her father as if he was there. As if he always would be. Because in a very real sense, that is the case – that the good within him will forever endure.
Thanks for writing this gordie thoughtful
As usual
Thanks, Hoops. Much appreciated.
Thanks for writing this, Gordie. There was so much that could have been said that day about Andy- Seth and Eddie hit many of them, but way too much to be said in even a 2,000 word column.
Thanks, Eric. It was a very moving day, and an apt sendoff for a guy like Andy.