Dave Klein, a longtime NFL reporter and columnist who covered the [Giants](https://www.nj.com/giants/) for decades at The Star-Ledger with an acerbic wit and became just one of two sportswriters to attend the first 54 Super Bowls, died on Wednesday. He was 85.
Klein began his career at the newspaper in 1961 after he said pharmacy school “bored the hell out of” him. His father, Willie, was the longtime sports editor at the time. His brother, Moss, joined him on the staff in 1972 and became the Yankees beat writer four years later.
“Dave was a big guy with a big personality, and he wrote big,” Moss Klein said. “He was outspoken and sarcastic, and his writing style was very entertaining. He was an asset to the paper because people knew him.”
A colleague once wrote that Klein was “a major-league chop-buster, equal parts amusing and biting and never at a loss for opinions.” His combativeness was part of his charm. His brother bragged that Klein once told a loudmouth reporter — ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith — to pipe down in a press box.
Klein’s weekly NFL picks column, which greeted Star-Ledger readers for years each Sunday morning during the season, was a mix of analysis and self-deprecating humor. He was part of the newspaper’s [golden age of sports coverage](https://www.nj.com/sports/2025/02/the-star-ledger-had-the-best-damn-sports-section-in-the-country-okay-were-biased.html), writing about everything from the Olympics, to the “Battle of the Sexes” between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, to Rutgers’ memorable men’s basketball run to the 1976 Final Four.
But he was most known for his coverage of the Giants.
“I always felt like we had a good relationship,” Hall of Fame Giants coach Bill Parcells said. “I enjoyed being around him. He had a lot of good history in New Jersey, which is where I’m from. I was always interested to hear what he had to say about things. ... Those guys that have been on that beat a long time, they have a lot of knowledge and background about the team. And he had that. I enjoyed working with him. I really did.”
Klein chronicled the team’s first two Super Bowl championships after the 1986 and 1990 seasons for The Star-Ledger, bringing to life the exploits of Lawrence Taylor and Phil Simms for a generation of success-starved Giants fans.
“We are saddened to hear of Dave’s passing,” the Giants said in a statement. “He devoted much of his professional life to covering our organization and keeping our fans informed. Our thoughts are with Dave’s family, friends and readers.”
Those were hardly the only two installments of the big game that Klein watched from the press box. At Super Bowl I on Jan. 15, 1967 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Klein was among 338 media members credentialed — a fraction of the roughly 6,000 media credentials that are issued for the game now. Klein had no idea that the game would become one of the biggest sports and cultural events in the nation.
“People didn’t think the game was going to last,” Klein said in 2022. “Tickets were like $10. I had some friends who wanted to go, and they asked me if I could get them some seats. I went to the NFL office in New York and the woman said, ‘How many do you want?’ I think I bought 12 of them at 10 bucks apiece.”
The NFL honored Klein, along with longtime Star-Ledger columnist Jerry Izenberg and Detroit News columnist Jerry Green, at Super Bowl 50 as the only three writers to cover every installment of the game to that point. Klein continued covering the Super Bowl until 2021, when he missed Super Bowl 55 in Tampa, Fla.
“I’ve come to the realization (the streak) is not an accomplishment as much as it is a happy stroke of longevity,’’ Klein had said a few years earlier.
Klein, who was born in Newark and graduated from Weequahic High in 1958, left The Star-Ledger in 1996 to launch a newsletter, e-Giants, and run a company that arranged travel to road games. He continued to cover the team for its next two championships, writing 35 books, including “The Game of Their Lives” about the 1958 NFL Championship Game.
“I learned quickly when you covered the Giants for The Star-Ledger, there was an incredibly high standard to live up to,” said Mike Garafolo, an NFL Network reporter who worked the Giants beat early in his career. “That’s in large part to a lineage of beat writers that included Dave. He was considered the foremost expert on the team during the time he covered them, and that reputation lived on for years.”
Klein is survived by his wife, Carole; his son, Aaron, and daughter-in-law Meg; his daughter, Mindy, and son-in-law Scott; his granddaughter Talia; and his brother, Moss, and wife Joyce.
Services will be held Sunday at 11 a.m. at Bloomfield Cooper funeral home in Ocean Township with burial to follow at Beth Israel Cemetery in Woodbridge.
_Staff writer Darryl Slater contributed to this report._