Norm Clarke, an award-winning sportswriter and reporter for the Rocky Mountain News, died early Thursday morning at 82 after battling prostate cancer for more than 20 years.
Clarke, famous for a signature black eyepatch he started wearing after losing his right eye in a childhood accident, took a turn for the worst last Sunday, his longtime friend Andrew Hudson said. Clarke was admitted to the hospital on March 12 after injuring his hip in a fall at his Las Vegas home.
“He talked a lot about how the patch was both a curse and a blessing,” Hudson said. “He had a lot of experiences that made it very difficult for him growing up, but when he put the patch on, he became this iconic guy that everyone recognized right away.”
Clarke began his career in 1963 as a sportswriter for Montana’s Terry Tribune. Over the next five decades, he spent time with the Associated Press, the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News and the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
As a sports reporter in Denver, he produced an award-winning series on illegal sports betting and chronicled Denver’s successful pursuit of a baseball expansion franchise that became the Rockies in 1993.
But he didn’t just cover sports. Clarke was in Candlestick Park covering the World Series for the Rocky Mountain News when the October 1989 earthquake struck San Francisco, he covered the MGM Grand fire in Las Vegas and he wrote about the return of the Iranian hostages for the Associated Press in 1981.
Clarke also led AP coverage of the devastating 1977 fire at the popular Beverly Hills Supper Club entertainment spot just across the river from Cincinnati in Southgate, Kentucky. As Clarke tried to get to the scene, he ran a mile through standstill traffic to get to the club. He was the first to interview Walter Bailey, the busser who interrupted a dinner show and warned people to evacuate, likely saving many lives from the blaze that killed 165.
In Las Vegas, his most recent gig, Clarke covered what he called “the world’s greatest buffet of entertainment news” in a 2024 interview with “Vegas Revealed” podcast co-host Dayna Roselli.
His celebrity sightings and reports of “celebrities behaving badly” included scoops on Britney Spears’ 55-hour Vegas marriage in 2004, Michael Jackson’s surprise return to the city in 2006 after nearly three years in Europe, and Elton John getting booed after losing his temper and throwing a stool and glass of water during a show.
“Norm’s Review-Journal column was so popular he became a celebrity in his own right,” Review-Journal Executive Editor Glenn Cook said by email. “He was a gentleman. Readers loved him. I consistently heard from subscribers who said Norm was the first thing they read every day.”
Hudson said there was no place he could go with Clarke where his friend wasn’t recognized by his fans after befriending the locals in Denver and Las Vegas. Clarke was even recognized by sports fans in San Diego while covering the Broncos’ first Super Bowl win. His sources ranged from card dealers to valets to waiters and waitresses, and they would regularly call him with “all sorts of tips and sightings and things they had seen,” Hudson said.
David McReynolds, Clarke’s close friend and business partner, said that Clarke talked to everyone. He was gracious every time he was stopped by someone and loved every interaction.
“If we all sat down and had a drink tonight, by the time you left you’d be Norm’s friend,” McReynolds said.
When walking through a Las Vegas casino one night with Clarke, McReynolds said the man couldn’t get more than five feet without running into someone he knew — or who knew him — and stopping for a conversation.
Every person he met and every story he wrote was permanently etched into his mind, able to be recalled with ease decades later, according to McReynolds.
“In all of this, he never wanted his legacy to be as a gossip columnist,” Hudson said. Clarke wanted to be remembered as a solid reporter.
Hudson said he visited Clarke last night and woke up to the news that his friend had died.
“Everything just happened very quickly. … It was surreal,” Hudson said. “He was unconscious and I just told him how much he meant to so many people, how he had so many friends who were sending him prayers and well wishes. I’d like to believe he heard me and he understood.”
The only word that Hudson said came to mind when thinking about Clarke was luck — how lucky he and everyone else felt to have met and loved the reporter. Hudson said Clarke was “like a meteor in the sky” and a beloved friend to many.
Clarke was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2001 and battled the disease for more than two decades.
“He’d been suffering for a while and going through chemotherapy,” Hudson said. “He was hopeful, he was planning on moving back here to Denver … and was winding down everything in Vegas, including cancer treatments, but the cancer had spread too far.”
Just days before his death, McReynolds was able to rush a copy of Clarke’s memoir to his hospice room. He said he worked overnight to finish the final details and found a Las Vegas printer to complete the job in 24 hours. The book took 8 years to write as Clarke got sick multiple times during the process, McReynolds said.
“It was like he waited to get a copy of the book in his hand, and that’s when he started to go downhill,” he said.
The two decided that rather than selling the book, they wanted to get it into the hands of as many people as possible. Clarke hoped that his life’s journey could inspire others and that the book would allow his legacy to live on, McReynolds said.
Readers can get a copy of Clarke’s memoir, “Power of the Patch,” for free by emailing books@powerofthepatch.com and paying for shipping. Donations are welcome and will be used solely to purchase more copies of the book for distribution.
McReynolds said copies are also being sent to schools and libraries in the cities where Clarke worked as well as journalism programs.
“It’s weird not being able to talk to him every day,” McReynolds said. “We talked about everything. He was my confidant and I was his confidant. I had no better friend in life.”
Clarke is survived by his wife, Cara; his brother, Jeff Scheid, and his wife Jenny; his sister, Nancy Morast, and her husband Duane; and his brother, Newell Clarke, and his wife Rene.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
