'King of community journalism' Chip Mundy dies in car crash

It's not often a local reporter is known beyond the schools, neighborhoods and city halls of the places they trod to get the story.

But Chip Mundy, a retired longtime sports reporter for the Jackson Citizen Patriot, was no ordinary reporter. He chose to stay in Jackson, as much as sports reporting chose him, his family said. He wrote about young, emerging athletes because, as he said, so often the pros, the star athletes, followed by the press became jaded by the pursuit, MLive reported.

So when news of his death in a car crash Monday, Aug. 14, 2023, broke, it reached beyond the city and local newsrooms.

Mr. Mundy, 68, worked at the Citizen Patriot from 1986 to 2011 and is remembered by friends, family and colleagues as someone who cared, a jokester and an avid sports fan who loved to tell the stories of local athletes.

He was a "champion for the small-college kids," covering Albion College football when they won a championship in 1994, and generations of local athletes, said former colleague and friend Mike Pryson.

"That kind of stuff was really fantastic for the community, and I know the community really loved it," Pryson said. "He was the king of community journalism. ... He found what he loved right here in Jackson."

It made sense that Mr. Mundy stayed with the Citizen Patriot. He grew up in Jackson with three older sisters and graduated from Parkside High School. He served as sports editor at the Brooklyn Exponent and Albion Recorder from 1980-86.

"He was a good person, as simple as that," said Mr. Mundy's sister, Karyl Mundy. "He spent his whole life in Jackson, Michigan, with sports."

His love of sports, particularly the Detroit Tigers and the University of Michigan teams, was inherited from his father at a young age, his sister said.

"His love of writing came out through sports," Mundy, 80, said. "The sports come first, of course."

Readers could imagine being at the games, feeling the drama, his sister said.

"In his sports writing, it wasn't so much about who he covered with the big names. He liked to do the little names too, the little guy that got shoved under the carpet that did good things," Mundy said.

Mr. Mundy died in a head-on collision at about 5:45 p.m. Monday at the intersection of West Michigan Avenue and Robinson Road in Jackson, his sister said. He was taken to a local hospital and died by 8:30 p.m.

In addition to his sister, Mr. Mundy is survived by sisters Patricia and Deborah Ward; a niece; a nephew; and two grand-nieces. Mr. Mundy never married.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Charles and Beverly Mundy. A celebration of life is expected within the next month, his family said.

Pryson worked with Mr. Mundy at the Citizen Patriot's sports section for 21 years and said the news of his death shook him. Mr. Mundy was a fixture in the community and died "way too young," Pryson said.

Mr. Mundy's sports editor at the paper, Chris Iott, described him as "a legend" and "a throwback." Covering sports in his hometown was always his dream, Iott said.

"He loved telling stories. He just liked writing stories about local athletes," Iott said. "He was always super proud and really content with talking to high school athletes, college athletes that were local and just telling local stories."

Mr. Mundy covered generations of athletes, Iott said.

"It was old-school journalism. ... We covered high school sports hard, and very thoroughly and very accurately, and I would say Chip was a key cog in that," Iott said.

Iott and Pryson remembered the frenzy of covering high school sports on football Fridays and weekends with Mr. Mundy.

"(Mr. Mundy) was a beast on Fridays and Saturday nights, especially when we were putting out that morning paper with all that live sports," Pryson said. "It was the best job in the world and having Chip there with us — I mean, geez — it was a well-oiled machine."

Brad Flory, Mr. Mundy's longtime coworker at the Citizen Patriot, said Mr. Mundy was friendly to everyone and fun to work with. Mr. Mundy, Flory said, came up with creative nicknames for his coworkers.

"He really cared about what he covered, the local sports teams and the people that were on them — he really cared about those people," Flory said. "He had a way of, I don't know, endearing himself to people."

One of the most significant figures in Mr. Mundy's sports writing career was a high school classmate, former NFL coach Tony Dungy. Dungy, who now works as an NBC sports analyst, and Mr. Mundy attended their 50th high school class reunion last month, according to a Facebook post.

Mr. Mundy covered Dungy's football career from the 11th grade through his Super Bowl XLI win as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts and his induction into the NFL Hall of Fame in 2016, according to the post.

"Tony always made time for me," Mr. Mundy said on Facebook.

Dungy said he was devastated by the news of his friend's death. Mr. Mundy always kept him abreast of news about Jackson's young athletes. It was important to him to showcase people who grew up in their hometown, Dungy said.

"He has been just a tremendous friend and just a good advocate for sports in the city of Jackson. He was one of those guys who didn't leave; he stayed there," Dungy said. "He was one of those guys who just really felt a commitment to our city and to our young people, and that was pretty special."

His favorite memories are of talking about games in high school.

"We met in junior high and I played a lot of sports, and Chip kind of always wrote about them," Dungy said. "He wrote for the school newspaper and the yearbook and everything, and he just loved it. In my bigger games in college NFL, playing, coaching, he was always there to cover."

Mr. Mundy loved music and was a fan of the progressive rock genre and bands like Pink Floyd and Supertramp, according to Flory and Karyl Mundy. Flory remembered attending a Supertramp concert in New Buffalo in February 2020, during which Mr. Mundy, sitting in the third row, was acknowledged by the group's lead singer, Roger Hodgson.

"During the concert, like halfway through, Roger Hodgson, the star of the show, one of the biggest stars in '70s classic rock, said: 'This next song is dedicated to Chip Mundy,'" Flory said. "I almost fell out of my chair. ... He had a way of endearing himself (to others)."

Mr. Mundy also was a competitive bowler and "the biggest baseball fan you'll ever want to meet," Pryson said. He remembered Mr. Mundy habitually taking off work for the Detroit Tigers' Opening Day and naming his cat Sam Crawford after the former Tiger and MLB Hall of Famer.

"We would go through the entire night, you know, talking about nothing about baseball in the summer," Pryson said.

Mr. Mundy had been working on a book about Tigers pitcher Denny McLain's 30 wins during the 1968 season, a major feat, his sister said. A friend of the family is going to make sure the book is published, his sister said.

"He was unable to play the game, but he wrote about it perfectly," she said. "It doesn't make any difference about how big or small somebody is, it's what he sees in them."

Over the course of his career, Mr. Mundy was able to tie together his love of writing about people and his love of sports, Dungy said.

"He'd write stories about sporting events and about people, but they were more than just 'Hey, here's who won and here's why,'" Dungy said. "He wrote about the people, and that, to me, was awesome."

hmackay@detroitnews.com