Tom McEwen (sportswriter)

Thomas Massey "Tom" McEwen (March 16, 1923 – June 5, 2011) was an American sportswriter and sports editor for The Tampa Tribune in Tampa, Florida from 1962 until 1991, although he continued writing his column until 2001. From 2001 to shortly before his death in 2011 McEwen continued to write for the Tampa Bay Online. He was the Sports Editor during an era of growth for The Tampa Tribune and the Tampa bay area, and also during a period of great expansion of sports there. Some credit McEwen with being among the most influential newspaper sports journalists of his day, affecting major development for sports in the Tampa Bay Area and facilitating the establishment of professional sports there, notably the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tampa Bay Rays and the Tampa Bay Lightning.

McEwen was born in 1923 in rural Wauchula, Florida, where the cattle and citrus industries were most prominent. He followed his older brother, who later became a distinguished lawyer and state attorney in Tampa, James Milton "Red" McEwen to the University of Florida in Gainesville for a degree in journalism. He served as editor of the University of Florida college newspaper The Alligator.

It was from the University of Florida in 1944 that he was called to military service in the Pacific. He was trained at Fort Hood and arrived in the Philippines at the end of the occupation by the Japanese... "he entered as a private and exited as a captain while serving in the Pacific Theatre as a platoon leader with the U.S. Army's 785th Tank Battalion. Later, he served as a prison officer of Prisoner of War Camp No. 1 in the Philippines, running a camp that included 2,000 prisoners. He retained a military tie in the Army reserves and then the U.S. National Guard until his retirement from the Florida Guard in 1976, as lieutenant colonel. He received the Florida Order of Merit for his service in the guard." Coming home from the Philippines, McEwen wrote sports for the Fort Myers News Press in the 1950s, then was hired by the St. Petersburg Times in 1958 and then by the The Tampa Tribune in 1962.

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