Irwin Smallwood

He was small in stature, yet he was giant in North Carolina journalism, a national award-winning sportswriter and respected newspaper editor who helped make the Greensboro Daily News (now the News & Record) one of the best papers of its size in the country.

Irwin also was a man of deep faith, a member of Greensboro’s Congregational United Church of Christ since the 1940s, and a dignified, fierce fighter for social justice. He advocated for women, people of color and the LGBTQ+ community, plus any cause or organization that made Greensboro a better, more equitable and vibrant place to live.

So, when Irwin died, appropriately enough during Saturday night’s Carolina-Duke men’s basketball game, he was far from alone.

At his bedside were family members he loved. Quietly in the background was playing the first round of the NCAA tournament on ESPN. Across the city were the people who loved him –– journalists, retired journalists, city officials, former city officials, politicians, retired politicians, sports executives, residents young and old, and people from almost every house of worship in Greensboro.

They will remember Irwin for his many roles: father, husband, and friend, but also as a mentor, coach, writer and editor at the Daily News and at UNC-Greensboro, where he taught journalism for almost 20 years.

With his impish grin and easy good humor, he was a friend to all who met him, including every member of the staff at Wesley Long during his final illness – from the first doctors in the ER and ICU to the housekeepers who cleaned his room during his final two-week hospital stay.

With his quick wit and sharp memory, he could share fascinating and detailed stories of everything he had covered over the years, from ACC sports to NC history and politics. He could recall every date, place and statistic. He knew the names of the people involved, the drama that ensued and the background that made it memorable. He knew all that because he was there. He had covered so many stories. Like this one.

One early Friday morning in May 1953, cigarette smoke billowed from a second-floor room at the Sedgefield Country Club when representatives from seven southeastern universities opened the door and emerged to make an announcement. They had decided to leave the Southern Conference and form what they call the Atlantic Coast Conference, the ACC. Outside, with notepad in hand, stood Irwin. Irwin had missed his deadline. It was too late. But he had stayed. He had a feeling something big would happen. And he was right.

That’s just one story. One of so many.

Irwin’s interest in writing sports began with his first job as a teenager, tearing tickets and snagging fly balls at Greensboro’s War Memorial Stadium. In 1942, at age 16, he started as a copy boy at the Greensboro Daily News. Graduating from Greensboro (Grimsley) High School in 1944, he joined the U.S. Navy in the V-12 program at UNC-Chapel Hill.

After his graduation from Carolina in 1947, Irwin came back to work as a sportswriter for the Daily News. He rose through the ranks to associate sports editor, executive sports editor, city editor, managing editor and deputy executive editor. He retired in February 1989.

After more than 40 years on the job, he continued to contribute stories when asked – after his last published article in 2023, he realized his writing had been in the N&R for more than 8 consecutive decades. In retirement, he liked to call himself the “oldest rat in the barn.”

Irwin won countless writing awards, especially for his passion –– golf. For three consecutive years in the 1960s he won first place in the news division of the national golf writing competition. He also won numerous writing awards on the state and regional level.

Irwin’s accomplishments earned him a spot in the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame, the Carolina Golf Hall of Fame and the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. He also received the Marvin “Skeeter” Francis Award for his significant contributions to the coverage of the ACC.

But the writers he worked with don’t remember him for that. They remember him for his grace, his patience, his humanity, and his drive to stand up for what’s right.

At the 1984 Masters Tournament in Augusta, Ga., Irwin spoke out at a meeting of the Golf Writers Association of America to challenge Augusta National’s longstanding policy of excluding women from their men’s locker room and men’s only restaurant, which made it impossible for female golf writers to do their job. The next year, that policy was changed forever.

In the late 1970s, Irwin was the managing editor of the Greensboro Daily News when he assigned reporter Stan Swofford to follow up on a case involving the conviction of 10 people – nine Black men and one white woman –– for arson and conspiracy after a grocery store was burned during the 1971 race riots in Wilmington. Swofford wrote dozens of articles on the Wilmington 10, and for that coverage, in 1978, he was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

In 1978, then-Gov. James Hunt commuted their sentences, and two years later, the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals voided the convictions based on prosecutorial misconduct. In 2013, then-Gov. Bev Perdue pardoned the Wilmington 10. In 2015, Irwin was honored by the UCC’s Racial Justice Ministry at the 30th General Synod in Cleveland, OH, for taking the bold step of authorizing a deeper investigation of a story that was going largely unreported.

Irwin also was a champion for Greensboro. He helped the Greater Greensboro Open, now known as the Wyndham Championship, implement a plan of national public relations for GGO that helped bring added national coverage to the tournament.

He has been involved in covering or working with the city’s major-league golf tournament since 1948. His impact is evident as soon as anyone enters the press room at the Sedgefield Country Club. The media center bears his name.

He also has served as a tournament host for the ACC men’s and women’s basketball tournaments when it was played here. In 2023, when the ACC decided to leave its longtime Greensboro headquarters, Irwin said that Greensboro “will always be the home of the ACC.”

Born to Wortham Irwin Smallwood and Ada Bryant Smallwood in Middlesboro, KY, in Appalachian coal country, raised as a Southern Baptist, he joined Greensboro’s Congregational Christian Church in 1948 when he married Allene Parks, his high school sweetheart. Ever since the formation of the United Church of Christ (UCC) in 1957 and his local church becoming Congregational UCC (CUCC), he has been a booster of the socially progressive Protestant denomination, as well as a passionate builder of ecumenical and interfaith bridges between faith communities.

Over his 75 years as a member at CUCC, he proved himself a gifted lay leader. He loved singing bass in the CUCC choir, as well as teaching Sunday School, and serving in many key church offices – locally and in the Southern Conference of the United Church of Christ (UCC).

During the Civil Rights era, he volunteered with the UCC Office of Communications, which won an “open airways” suit at the U.S. Supreme Court in 1959 to compel Southern TV stations to stop their news blackouts and restore local coverage of state-sanctioned violence against peaceful marchers.

He served in 1975 as a delegate to the Fifth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Nairobi, Kenya, on the way there traveling from the slums of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Soweto in South Africa as a witness for justice. For a quarter century, he was involved in communications work for the National Council of Churches.

Yet, his age never swayed him to stop. He stayed involved with numerous civic affairs, especially efforts to help the most vulnerable in Greensboro. He volunteered with the Greensboro Urban Ministry, and he also was a board member and public relations chair for the local CROP Walk, a worldwide effort to raise money to fight poverty and end hunger.

He is survived by his second wife, of nearly 14 years, Judy C. Glasgow; his daughter, the Rev. Bryn Smallwood-Garcia and her husband, John Smallwood-Garcia of Brookfield, Conn.; his stepchildren, Kelly Williams of Winston-Salem and Kevin Williams and wife Jennifer Williams of Greensboro; his grandchildren, Jacob Smallwood-Garcia of Brookfield, Conn. and Lela Smallwood-Garcia of Los Gatos, Calif. He was predeceased by his first wife Allene Moffitt Parks Smallwood, who died in 2003, and his older sister Barbara Jean Smallwood Nellis, who died in 2021. He leaves behind 3 nieces and a nephew, their children, and countless friends in Greensboro and beyond.

Funeral arrangements are by Hanes Lineberry in Greensboro. A time of public visitation with the family will be held in the Floyd Fellowship Hall at Congregational UCC from 2-4pm and from 6-8pm on Monday, March 11, 2024. A memorial service will be held in the sanctuary at Congregational UCC at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 13, 2024.

The family respectfully requests that, in lieu of flowers, memorial gifts be given to Congregational UCC at congregationalucc.com, or to Greensboro’s Mustard Seed Community Health clinic at mustardseedclinic.org, or to the national Racial Justice Ministry of the UCC at jointhemovementucc.org.