Editor’s note: Former Times staff member Mike Kupper has written many obituaries for this publication through the years. Today, we feature his obituary that he wrote in advance of his death.
The world’s luckiest man has finally used all his earthly good fortune. Mike Kupper, husband, dad, grandpa and longtime sportswriter/editor, died September 17th of renal failure. He was 88.
But what a life it was! Realizing fairly early that at 5-foot-8 and 130 pounds, a desired career as an athlete was not realistic, Mike thought that if he couldn’t play the games well, maybe he could write well about them and set out to become a sportswriter. And, with some fantastic breaks along the way, he became one, first at his hometown newspaper, the Waukesha (Wis.) Freeman, then on to 25 years at the Milwaukee Journal, capping his career with a 23-year stint as senior assistant sports editor at the Los Angeles Times.
Fifty-one years of covering college and pro football and basketball, major league baseball, national auto racing, winter and summer Olympics, Super Bowls, World Series, NCAA and NBA Finals, Indianapolis and Daytona 500s, the Kentucky Derby, covering some of the greatest athletes and coaches in the world, writing game stories, news stories, features, columns and various opinion pieces, later helping promising young writers achieve their potential. … All of this at a time when newspapers were particularly relevant. It was all he ever wanted and more. And, he got paid for it.
That, though, was just the professional side. The personal side was even better. That’s because he got to share it with Mary Ann, his wife of 54-plus years. Of all the great things that happened to Mike, and there were many, the former Mary Ann Cummins was the absolute best. The sailing wasn’t always smooth but it never was dull, it never lacked love and, oh, the fun they had.
When, at the rather advanced age of 47, Mike announced that there was a job offer from the L.A. Times and that they could be moving from their longtime Wisconsin home to Southern California, Mary Ann advised him to take two aspirin, go to bed and talk about it in the morning. But of course, being the loving, loyal, supportive wife she was, she went along with the plan, carving out a rewarding career herself as dean of students at Louisville High School in Woodland Hills. Her death in 2016 was the low point in Mike’s life.
Then, there were the children. Unable to have their own, Mike and Mary Ann were fortunate enough to adopt four beautiful babies, Dan (DeDe), the late Christopher, Katherine Mullen (Christopher), and Sarah (Marc) Pelletier. They all grew up to be lovely people and provided the elder Kuppers with delightful grandchildren, Angela (Matt) Mundt and the late Amanda Kupper; Christian, Rachael, Gabriel and Amelia Moreno, and Sebastian, Sophie and Genevieve Pelletier. How lucky could one man get?
Mike was born in Baraboo, Wis., long-time home of the Ringling Bros. of circus fame, amidst the depths of the Great Depression, and grew up there during World War II. The family moved to Waukesha after the war, Mike graduating from Catholic Memorial High School there, then earning a journalism degree at Marquette University in Milwaukee.
If sportswriting was his first passion, music was his second. He was not a musician himself but he loved jazz — straight-ahead and Dixieland — and swing most of all. He also could sing a little, lending his bass voice to church choirs in Wisconsin and Southern California, and serving as song leader in various prison-ministry services.
Funeral services are pending. Please skip the flowers and, if you can, send a donation to the Mary Ann Kupper scholarship fund at Louisville High School in Woodland Hills or Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles.
