Danny Ventura, longtime Boston Herald high school sports reporter, a true legend in Eastern Mass.

For the final few moments of his radio show Wednesday, Michael Felger spotlighted something he felt was more important than the Jaylen Brown trade fallout.

Read more Varsity News: Our favorite games, plays, players, venues and more from 2025-26

He was remembering a friend, a colleague, whose passion and selflessness made him an unforgettable presence in Boston sports in the last few decades.

As much as someone can have a higher calling in journalism, Felger said, Danny Ventura had one: “Actually doing something for the communities on a grass-roots level, and for those kids, and for those coaches, and for those programs,” Felger said. “It’s none of the stuff that we do. It’s just really all the good parts.”

Ventura’s lifelong passion was the good side of sports. If you played, coached, or followed high school athletics in this area over the last 35-plus years, you probably knew him and read his stories.

In that space, to those people, “Danny V.” was a legend.

“There was nothing phony about him,” Xaverian football coach Al Fornaro said. That meant that when he’d ask a nervous teenager about their performance, “he’d get answers from the heart.”

Ventura, the Boston Herald’s high school sports reporter extraordinaire, lost his battle with urethral cancer on Tuesday, a year to the day he gave his notice of retirement. He was 66.

According to friends, Ventura was splitting his time between East Boston and the condo in Pompano Beach, Fla., that he shared with his wife, Carla. They expressed regret he didn’t get more time to enjoy the sun, after spending so much of his life shining it on others.

“Danny V. was high school sports,” said MIAA executive director Bob Baldwin, a former basketball coach and school administrator. “Getting the story right, emphasizing the goodness in student athletes and coaches, and caring about the institution of interscholastic athletics, Danny V. made a significant impact.”

For fans of high school sports, he was the source of information, the final word. He disarmed tongue-tied athletes with a joke and chatted up their families with a smile. If you were a reporter working the same game, you were playing catch-up — though he would help anyone who asked, and mentored dozens of younger colleagues.

“He knew every coach, every coach’s predecessor, every quarterback, every quarterback’s mother, father, sister, and brother,” former Herald executive editor Joe Sciacca said. “He wasn’t just looking at stats. He was looking at people. He knew their histories. He followed their progress. He stayed in touch. He was a true example of excellence in local journalism.”

Ventura started the Sweet 16 football rankings at the Herald in 1993, and was involved in covering all the big games. He was the authority on rankings. But his rolodex was so massive because he was always digging for more, and treating unknown players like stars.

“He was willing to invest his time and saw value in everyone,” said ESPN college basketball commentator Pat Bradley, who starred at Arkansas out of Everett High. “He showed up. It didn’t seem like a job for him. I think he was born to do it.”

Donato Ventura was born in 1960, four years after Pompeo and Anita (Quintiliani) Ventura immigrated to the United States from Italy and settled in Brighton. Pompeo, who died in 2020 at age 90, was born in San Donato val di Comino, a mountain village halfway between Rome and Naples.

Read more Willson Contreras to participate in Home Run Derby at All-Star Game

A product of St. Columbkille High and Boston University, Ventura was a basketball player and city kid who worked in the Red Sox ticket office while trying to start a journalism career.

He spent his first five years in the business at the Dedham Transcript, starting with a two-game tryout for $100 in 1986. He cut his teeth covering Norwood, Dedham, Walpole, and Westwood sports.

“He would come in from a game and turn around a well-written game story in like, 18 minutes,” said Globe high school sports editor Craig Larson, who worked with him at the Transcript. “He set the pace. He made us all better.”

He was laid off in 1990, but the editor who gave him his break, Hank Hryniewicz, had become Sunday sports editor at the Herald. Ventura spent 35 years as the selfless engine driving the paper’s high school sports coverage.

“He never elevated himself above anyone he was covering,” Hryniewicz said. “He was just looking for the story. He was so remarkably good at his job because he was so remarkably good at connecting with people.”

Catholic Memorial coach John DiBiaso, formerly of Everett, recalled him as “relentless” in making sure everyone was duly recognized for their successes. “He got every single score from every school,” DiBiaso said. “Every touchdown, every point, every run.” And, DiBiaso added, every college commitment, or unique success story, no matter on which field or court in Eastern Massachusetts.

This was no small feat, especially in the pre-internet days. The only path to success was to have contacts like Danny V., and the drive to match.

A nickname that stuck to him — “the godfather of high school sports” — didn’t quite land with Herald football writer Karen Guregian.

“You can’t be sitting at a desk doing nothing to earn that kind of reputation,” she said. “He paid attention everywhere, and he would touch base or cross paths and make sure every school in our area knew he was paying attention.”

Of course, his rivals across town followed his every move. Larson recalled the morning dread of discovering what was under Ventura’s byline. “He was relentless, and he did it with a smile,” Larson said. “He would get after it every single day.”

Former Globe high school sports editor Bob Holmes, who left the Herald for the Globe in 1996, remained close with Ventura as they competed for stories. “Danny got the better of me more than I got the better of him,” said Holmes, who shared Ventura’s passion for the Detroit Lions. “He was just so connected with so many people who will be very stunned by this news.”

According to members of the small group text of former teammates — which he titled “Herald Nation” — Ventura kept his condition quiet. After informing them of his diagnosis on Jan. 3, “he was very, very positive,” Hryniewicz said. “He was ready for the fight.”

Read more Jake Bennett pitches in again to lead Red Sox past White Sox for fifth straight win