Truly shooting from hip

ROGER CARLSON

It’s like apples, oranges and grapes when you consider editors,

writers and photographers, but when you get the right mix at a

newspaper there is a finished blend which, well, is sometimes hard to

come by. And at a small newspaper with a community base, it is so

essential.

It was like that in 1964 when I began my sports writing career at

the Pilot as a part-timer, and in 1968 when I became a full-time

writer.

The Pilot building on Bay Street in Costa Mesa was a one-floor

layout with the front desk on the southwest corner and directly

behind, with a thin wall separating it, was the Pilot’s photo

department as 1966 approached: Lee Payne, Richard Koehler and Dick

Drake, who departed not long after that for somewhere in the South

Pacific.

I never knew Drake very well, but funny stories followed him for

years.

It was one of my first impressions, perhaps because of the noisy

arguments that were spewed through the plywood walls, usually with

Drake at the center of it.

Colorful would be the best way to describe the verbiage in an era

of cigarette smoke and a virtually all-male news staff with the

exception of the “soc department,� where a pro named Bea Anderson

commanded an all-female staff dedicated to the area’s society news.

It was a golden era of personalities at the Daily Pilot in the

‘60s, shooting and writing from the seats of your pants, and there

were a lot of right answers, especially with Koehler and Payne, who

would be the Pilot’s 1-2 photographic punch for many years.

Payne, who had four sons go through Newport Harbor High, started

with the Costa Mesa Globe Herald in November of 1961, a

three-days-a-week local.

Four years later the Pilot bought the Newport Beach News Press, a

weekly, which brought Koehler aboard, producing an odd-couple blend

of laid-back and go-get-’em as the Daily Pilot, emerged.

Koehler, originally the heart of Newport Harbor High’s school

newspaper, arrived with the nickname of “Scoop Koehler� because as a

lifeguard dispatcher he would hear the police calls and off he’d go

on his motor scooter, almost always the first, and often, the only

photographer at the scene for the benefit of the News Press.

There have been many who have been around for a while over the

years at the Pilot, but no one comes close to the credit lines piled

up by Koehler and Payne, whose pictures told the stories, despite

constant reproduction problems in the pressroom.

The two had every right to sue for defamation of talent.

Payne, whose droll wit seemed personified by his slumping demeanor

against the walls under the basket, and Koehler, usually sweating by

halftime from scurrying around.

My best recollections of the two center around a football, one at

El Toro High, the other at Davidson Field on the Newport Harbor

campus.

At El Toro, when Pilot coverage included the Chargers in the ‘70s

and ‘80s, it was at a preseason photo shoot on the practice field

where we would get “mugs� of all the varsity players and a few “posed

action� shots of the quarterback passing the ball, top runners doing

what they do and the best receivers catching the ball.

The quarterback was a good-sized kid and I asked him to pass me

the ball from some 10 yards away while Koehler, a few feet off to my

left and behind me, would have an angle to get the passer’s motion

and the ball coming forward.

The quarterback snapped off a crisp pass, but when the ball

arrived it didn’t come to me, but straight for Koehler.

The ball hit the front of the camera as Koehler held it to his

eyes and forehead, knocking Koehler flat on his back. We surrounded

Koehler with concern, but he jumped up, despite visible damage, wiped

his brow and in his typical manner, barked, “OK, now, this time let’s

throw the ball to Roger.�

That was Koehler. All business, regardless of blood or bruises.

At Newport Harbor on a fall night in the early ‘90s I was covering

a Corona del Mar game and with less than a minute to go made my usual

descent from the press box to the field to complete my notes and get

a quick angle toward the coach for comments before heading back to

the office.

A Corona del Mar defensive back intercepted and came rushing down

the sideline where, about five yards upfield from myself, was Payne

and his camera.

The player collided with Payne in a brush-back manner and Payne,

looking straight ahead, never saw him coming and was sent backward as

if he were the king on a chess board, the back of his head hitting

the hard surface leading up to the long jump pit, the camera still in

his hands against his chest.

After a few moments they were able to get Payne to the players’

bench and I approached Payne to make sure he would be all right to

return to the Pilot.

Payne, very much in the same manner you always knew, responded

with wry wit from his droll delivery. Hit hard and his head surely in

a daze, he didn’t sound any different than usual.

The game was over in a fews moments and I was off to see the coach

for comments. When I had completed my notes I turned toward the bench

only to see Payne had left the area.

When I returned to to Bay Street there was a fire truck in the

Pilot’s parking lot and upon reaching the newsroom, there was Payne,

stretched out on the floor with paramedics tending to him after he

had collapsed in the photo office.

He was taken to the hospital and a couple of days later was back

none for the worse with his familiar smile and gait.

Koehler, a resident of Costa Mesa, moved on to the Los Angeles

Times around 1990 and is still there.

Payne, still at his Peninsula Point residence in Newport Beach, is

retired, occasionally offering lectures about his times with the

Pilot, from his days with a 4 x 5 speed graphic camera to digital

moments before his retirement in the early 90s.

The speed graphic was a camera that looked more like a 12-inch box

with large plates which were required for each shot. They’re very

prominent in the black and white Thin Man movies.

Over the years scrapbooks and their stories and pictures tend to

become yellow and brittle, and the photos may fade a bit, but I do

believe the credit lines of Lee Payne and Richard Koehler will always

remain crystal clear.

Hey! See you next Sunday!

* ROGER CARLSON is the former sports editor for the Daily Pilot.

His column appears on Sundays. He can be reached by e-mail at

[email protected].