ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 15, 1996 TAG: 9608150053
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SOUTHINGTON, CONN.
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE SPORTS ANNOUNCER drowns in an apparent pool accident at age 46.
Tom Mees, one of ESPN's original sports anchors, drowned Wednesday in an accident in his next-door neighbor's pool, where he was watching his two daughters. His wife told police he couldn't swim.
Police initially told The Associated Press that Mees, 46, jumped into the pool to save his 4-year-old daughter, Gabrielle. They said later that account could not be confirmed. An autopsy was scheduled for today.
``We believe at this point there was no rescue attempt,'' said police Capt. Domenic Lombardo, adding police are classifying the death a swimming accident.
Authorities said the only people present during the accident were Mees and his two daughters, Gabrielle and 8-year-old Lauren. They had not extensively interviewed the children by late Wednesday.
Mees' wife, Michelle, found her husband at the bottom of the pool after their older daughter ran to their home next door to get her, police said. The younger child was out of the pool.
His wife then began screaming for help. A lawn maintenance man, Jeff Krupinski, jumped over the fence and swam to the bottom, dragging Mees to the shallow end and then onto the deck. A rescue squad arrived seconds later, summoned by Michelle Mees' 911 call.
``It looked like he was sitting at the bottom of the pool,'' Krupinski said.
Southington Police said an officer at the scene reported that an anguished Michelle Mees kept saying ``He couldn't swim, he couldn't swim'' as they tried to revive him.
Mees had no pulse or respiration when he was brought to Bradley Memorial Hospital at about 2:50 p.m., said Richard Corcoran, hospital vice president. Resuscitation efforts failed and he died about 3:15 p.m.
``Tom was an ESPN pioneer and the entire ESPN family is devastated by this terrible news,'' said Steve Bornstein, president of the sports cable network, which is headquartered in neighboring Bristol.
Charley Steiner, an ESPN boxing analyst and sportscaster, said he talked with Mees about an hour before the accident, meeting him in the company parking lot. Steiner said they talked of Mees' shift from studio work to hockey play-by-play, which he ``adored.''
``He said it gave him more time to spend with his family,'' Steiner said.
Mees was the anchor of the nightly highlights show `SportsCenter' from the ESPN's inception on Sept. 7, 1979, until 1993.
Since then, he worked as the play-by-play NHL commentator on sister network ESPN2, usually calling two games a week. Over the past two years, he also broadcast college football and basketball and hosted the NHL draft.
In a tribute to Mees after a `SportsCenter' segment, anchor Keith Olbermann said: ``Nothing and no one here will ever be the same without him.''
Mees, a 1972 graduate of the University of Delaware, got his start in broadcasting at WILM-AM in Wilmington, Del., where he was sports director for six years. He was sports director at WECA-TV in Tallahassee, Fla., before going to ESPN.
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Mees. color.by CNB