Halberstam remembered for his grace, compassion

He filled a room with his voice, with his presence, and he captured the island with his heart.

The untimely death of David Halberstam saddened islanders. "He was one of a kind," his friend, Eugenie Vorhees said. "We're lucky to have known him." ROB BENCHLEY FILE As the reality of David Halberstam's untimely death sank in, islanders and those who knew him through Nantucket remembered a life well-lived, and one that was tragically cut too short.

Halberstam was killed in a car accident in Menlo Park, California Monday. He spoke at UC-Berkeley Saturday evening and was reportedly on his way to meet New York Giants great Y. A. Tittle for a book he was researching about the 1958 NFLchampionship game.

He was a writer whose work resonated throughout the world, and he was a man who made an impact on the lives of many.

"He wasn't half over with what he wanted to do," Eugenie Voorhees, a close friend for many years, said yesterday. "He did everything for everybody. He was one of the great mentors; he'd constantly shepherd young writers around and introduce them to all the right people. When my daugh- ter was in college, he took the time to help her when she was writing her senior thesis. He's one of a kind."

"There are a million stories about David helping young journalists, because that's who he was," said fellow Pulitzer Prize-winner Stan Grossfeld.

Word of his death stunned those who knew him. "I had the news on and I thought I'd misheard the report," said Andy Oates, former owner of Nantucket Looms, whose photograph of the author graced one of Halberstam's book covers. "It was a shock."

Jason Mleczko, who grew up with Halberstam's daughter, Julia, also grew up fishing with the author on the Mleczko family's charter boats. "He's probably one of the most inspiring men I've ever known," Mleczko said, while noting that Halberstam had helped him with his own writing in the last couple of years.

David White met Halberstam at the old Opera House restaurant, and "we hit it off immediately." The two shared a love of politics and baseball. "He told me once that the Yankees were in his DNA but that he liked the Red Sox, too."

White treasured Halberstam's friendship. "When he wrote "The Teammates" (his book about the friendship of Red Sox greats Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky) he became very close to Red Sox management, and he took me to the 2004 World Series. Here I was, sitting in the front row of Fenway Park, watching Schilling with the bloody sock with David and the retired president of Dartmouth College and the retired head of the Groton School. When the New York Times called him for a quote about the Red Sox winning the World Series, he had them call me to get the perspective of a Red Sox fan."

"He was certainly a towering figure," said Mimi Beman, owner of Mitchell's Book Corner. "The whole family took pleasure in reading. I will miss, among other things, his nuggets about the new authors he'd discovered."

Halberstam's zest for the outdoors would often find him in a scull on Polpis Harbor; or fishing with his friends David Fine and Tom Mleczko; or, as White pointed out, "fly-fishing all over the world. He certainly lived a full life."

"He was a great guy," Grossfeld said, "and a young 73. He had a generosity of spirit that was unparalleled. When I was a struggling photojournalist living in a basement in Boston, I tracked him down and asked him if he'd do the introduction to my first book ("Nantucket: The Other Season"). I didn't have a publisher at the time, and I dropped off the photos to him in New York. The next day I was back in Boston, and his distinctive voice was on the other end of the line. 'I'll do the intro,' he said, 'but with one caveat.' I asked him what that was, and he said to get that picture of Nixon standing at Tom Nevers Head out of the book, and I did."

Some years later, Halberstam's recommendation helped Grossfeld to be named one of the 70 finalists considered for the first journalist in space program, a program cut short by the Challenger disaster.

"He had a great sense of history; he was the nation's preeminent historian," Grossfeld said, while also noting that he'll miss Halberstam's booming voice, one akin to one of the author's favorite subjects: Ted Williams.

He was on a first-name basis with hall of fame athletes and presidents; with the famous and with those who shunned fame. "He knew people from all walks of life," White said. "His Nantucket was of the time when you could be in the Chicken Box and have a good conversation with the guy next to you who happened to belong to the yacht club. He really loved the common man."

"He was always glad to see you," Voorhees said. "Whatever was going on in his life, at that moment you were the one."

He won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the Vietnam War. Although his later books "The Best and the Brightest," "The Powers That Be" and "War in a Time of Peace" earned him renown as an author of politics and political themes, he had forged a second identity as a top sportswriter, with breakthrough books like "The Breaks of the Game," "The Amateurs," "October 1964" and his most recent book, "The Education of a Coach," about fellow islander and New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick. "It was two Nantucket guys stumbling into each other," Halberstam said when the book was published in 2005. "I picked up on his being special back when he was coaching with the New York Giants. While I'd been watching him over the years, he'd been reading my books."

Belichick said in a statement Monday night that he was "heartbroken" by the news of Halbertam's passing.

In a 2003 interview with "Nantucket Magazine," Halberstam spoke of his love of Nantucket:

"It's been a great sanctuary - to come, to work, to rest and to leave with some degree of renewal. I feel a great debt to the island, it's a wonderful place for a writer. . . .

"Mostly it's people that we know through our daughter, raising kids. A lot of old friends. I've fished with David Fine for 30 years. We get on Mleczko's boat, and it's like two old comedians doing a vaudeville act: 'Who's going to catch the first fish? Who's going to catch the largest fish? That friendship is . . . it's like a gift."

Islanders spoke of his intense love of his family. "David was very close to Jean and Julia," Oates said, while Voorhees noted: "They were a complete unit, he, and Jean and Julia.

"Nantucket was lucky to have him around," she

continued. "We're lucky to have known him." I