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JOHN HUSAR, 63, TRIBUNE WRITER

John Husar, 63, the Chicago Tribune columnist who wrote as informatively and passionately about his need for a liver transplant as he did about the outdoors, died Thursday in Northwestern Memorial Hospital, little more than a week after receiving part of a new liver from a live donor.

He knew in depth the creatures and flora of Illinois’ streams, lakes and forests, and was among just a few newspapermen to write with authority on the outdoors and the environment. But for the last year, he also shared with readers the details of his struggle with hepatitis C and his need for an organ transplant, announcing his illness in a column the same day Bears great Walter Payton shared with the world his own need for a new liver.

Standing well over 6 feet tall, Mr. Husar was a giant of a man, and like Payton, seemed similarly indestructible. Yet in subsequent columns, Mr. Husar allowed a glimpse into his five near misses with transplants, times when he waited in hospitals as a “backup” in case another recipient could not accept an organ that had been found.

His writing put a personal face on the disparity between the number of people who need transplants and the much smaller number of organs actually available. And because most liver donations come from cadavers, he wrote with raw honesty about the chill he got from waiting for someone else to die so that he might live.

Until he couldn’t write anymore, said his daughter, Laura, a photo editor for the Tribune, Mr. Husar wrote about the outdoors, and his illness as well.

“He felt that his readers deserved to hear the truth, and he also wanted to encourage other people to understand what hepatitis C is,” his daughter said. “Hopefully, by sharing his story with his readers, maybe more people would come forth and become organ donors.”

Though he was known as an outdoors writer for the last two decades, no Tribune sportswriter covered a greater variety of sports. His resume extended from the traditional football, baseball and basketball to the obscure luge, curling and women’s rugby to the bizarre, such as motorball (soccer on motorcyles) and dogsledding.

“He could be absolutely trusted no matter what the assignment, but there was never any doubt he thought the best job on the paper would be the outdoors writer,” retired Tribune sports editor Cooper Rollow said. “He had the curiosity and tenacity of an investigative reporter, coupled with a gentleness that drew people out.”

Mr. Husar covered eight Olympics, specializing in the Winter Games, and was honored in 1988 as one of six United States journalists picked to carry the Olympic torch in Seoul. He was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1980 for a series on conserving natural areas along the Des Plaines River.

Mainly, he wrote about people. He covered famous athletes from Ali to Pele and ordinary characters from fishing guides to dogs, always seeking the human-interest element and usually succeeding with a style that reflected his curiosity for whatever and whomever he encountered. He wrote about Walter Payton and Isiah Thomas and Mike Singletary and about their mothers. “He saw a story in just about everything, and he empathized with the story and the characters involved,” said Tribune writer Mike Conklin.

Early in his career, Mr. Husar worked on the Richard Speck murder investigation and the McCormick Place fire. Since 1984, he covered the outdoors with a special passion, adding issues of environment and ecology to reports on hunting and fishing. It was a beat that fit Mr. Husar’s personality as well as interest, because no subject on the sports pages generates more passion and controversy than the outdoors.

Mr. Husar became such an avid outdoorsman himself that he began to share recipes for squirrel, crow and cattails (from marshes, not alleys). He lamented that he was unable to find a recipe for prairie dog, and then invented his own. He wrote of the real “Roadkill Cafe” in Montana.

Born in Chicago on Jan. 29, 1937, Mr. Husar graduated from St. Rita and played football at Kansas, where he befriended fellow athlete Wilt Chamberlain.

Though not a golfer when he assumed the Tribune’s golf beat, Mr. Husar’s reportorial instincts led him to question mobster ties to the PGA’s Tournament of Champions at La Costa Country Club.

With his imposing height and weighing close to 300 pounds, Mr. Husar was kinder and gentler than he needed to be, choosing to persuade by with his brain rather than his brawn.

“If you asked him a question, you’d better be prepared because you would get an answer, and it would be frank and honest,” said Bill Cullerton, former co-host with Mr. Husar on WGN-AM’s Saturday morning outdoors show.

He traveled the globe on assignment. In 1986, he took a 20-day, 8,000-mile journey into Canada’s Northwest Territories with Tribune publisher Stanton Cook and wrote about the Inuits.

“He found a job in concert with his faith,” said his wife Louise. “He never once harvested an animal without praying over it. It bothered me that doctors kept saying, `He’s not out of the woods yet.’ For John, peace was being in the woods.”

Mr. Husar often acknowledged his gratitude for working “a tough job that somebody had to do.”

“Any day spent fishing or hunting is not deducted from the normal span of life,” he wrote. “In that case, our families had better prepare for the worst. We’ll probably live forever. Each day in the outdoor business is a gift.”

In addition to his wife, he is survived by two daughters Kathryn Coyle and Laura Husar; a son-in-law, Kevin Coyle; four brothers, Michael, Frederick, Matthew and Edward; one sister Jez Husar; and three grandchildren. A son, John T. Husar, preceded him in death.

Visitation for Mr. Husar will be held from 3 p.m. until 9 p.m. Sunday in the Elliston Funeral Home, First and Grant in Hinsdale.

A mass will be said at 10 a.m. Monday in Old St. Pat’s Catholic Church, 700 W. Adams St., Chicago.