McGinn, Gardner ending standout careers at Journal Sentinel

Brett Favre left the Packers after 16 seasons and 275 consecutive starts at quarterback. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar took his skyhook to Los Angeles after six all-star seasons and an NBA title with the Bucks. Two-time MVP Robin Yount retired after a 20-year Hall of Fame career with the Brewers.

They were days most sports fans in Wisconsin hoped would never come.

Such is that day today.

Veteran sportswriters Bob McGinn and Charles Gardner have decided to leave the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel after long and illustrious careers here.

McGinn, 65, has covered the Green Bay Packers for The Milwaukee Journal and Journal Sentinel since 1991, spanning the years from Ron Wolf to Ted Thompson. He came to Milwaukee after 16 years at the Green Bay Press-Gazette, including seven on the Packers beat. He hasn't missed a Packers game since taking over the beat in 1984.

In 2011, he was selected by the Pro Football Writers of America as recipient of the prestigious Dick McCann Award for long and distinguished reporting, placing him in the writers' wing of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. In Wisconsin, he is a six-time winner of the Sportswriter of the Year award from the National Sports Media Association.

Gardner, 61, has covered the Bucks since 2003 and has been the lead beat writer since the 2009-'10 season.

He came to the Milwaukee Sentinel in 1989 from the La Crosse Tribune and has covered a variety of sports in addition to the Bucks, including Marquette basketball, the Admirals, and local and World Cup soccer, covering both the '99 Women’s World Cup and the '06 World Cup. He also was part of the Journal Sentinel's reporting teams at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and Super Bowl XXXI when the Packers beat the Patriots.

Bob and his wife, Pat, plan to move to the Ann Arbor area in their home state of Michigan and see what the future brings. Here's betting, and hoping, you'll see his byline again from time to time. Charles and his wife, Pat, look forward to relaxing and enjoying their lake home, and I'm sure he will find time to write, too.

Both McGinn and Gardner shared a work ethic and commitment to the job that carried them through grueling days in press boxes and locker rooms, on airplanes and at the keyboard.

"My whole thing was trying to unravel the mysteries of the game," McGinn told Sports Illustrated in an in-depth feature on him in January.

That always started for McGinn with meticulous reporting. His basement is the National Archives of Packers football, packed with shelves and filing cabinets containing newspaper clippings, handwritten interview transcripts, color-coded game notes, stat sheets and media guides going back to Bart Starr's coaching days.

McGinn also established relationships with scores of NFL scouts, assistant coaches and personnel executives to "help me understand that I'm not a know-it-all," he said. "They know more about the game than I'll ever know," he has often said, which may or may not be true.

RELATED: McGinn's 2017 NFL draft rankings and analysis

Gardner, too, leveraged relationships across the NBA to bring readers the latest news on the Bucks and a clear understanding of their play. His relentless questioning of coaches and players was a hallmark of his reporting.

"Hearing from the players and developing relationships with them was important. I worked hard at that," Gardner said. "Often I followed players from the day of the draft through multiple years with the Bucks.

"I always tell readers I have a great job because it's a people-first job. If you enjoy people and their stories, covering the NBA is a dream job. It was for me."

As their sports editor, I have worked with both Bob and Charles since the 1990s. They embody the core mission of sports journalism: Find the news, cover the game, explain it, analyze it from all angles with no fear or favor, tell the stories of the athletes, and entertain your readers along the way.

They developed sources to help them understand what they were writing about. They were tireless in this pursuit. They were ultimate pros at their jobs.

In McGinn's case, too, he leaves not only a legacy of excellence in reporting on the Packers but a trail of younger reporters he mentored, from Greg Bedard to Tyler Dunne to Michael Cohen. There's certainly no "next man up" here; Bob will be missed indescribably. But the example he set was forged in many reporters who worked alongside him.

The example both of these reporters set for sports journalism in Wisconsin will be missed, but it will live on.