Sam Landsberger’s close mate Nick Smart remembers the much-loved Herald Sun journalist
They are the questions that will always haunt Nick Smart, the close mate of Sam Landsberger. He writes about the tragic day his great friend’s life ended and the many joyous moments they shared.
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“On my way!! Be there in 10.”
That was the text message my close mate Sam Landsberger sent me on Tuesday morning as I waited at Pillar Of Salt on Church St, not too far from where he lived in Richmond.
We’d organised a brunch catch-up and Sammy, not for the first time, was running late.
As I flicked through the Herald Sun on the share table by the door, I looked up every time someone walked in, waiting to see his big, infectious smile, his laptop bag swung around his shoulder and his ever so slightly dishevelled appearance.
I was expecting him to come bounding in as he did with that gait that chief football writer Mark Robinson – another good mate of Sammy’s – loved to joke made him walk like a pigeon.
When more than 20 minutes had passed and I was on to my second coffee, I crankily grabbed my phone and texted him: “Where the f--- are you?!’
No reply.
If I knew then it was to be the last message we’d exchange, I’d have told him how much I loved and cared for him.
More time passed until a Facebook message from his sister, Sarah, flashed up on my screen at 10.46am, saying he’d been hit by a car.
“Can let u know more when we do,” Sarah wrote.
Good one mate, not falling for that.
A trademark Sammy prank for sure.
I peered back to the door, expecting to see him there giggling at his gag, phone in hand as usual.
It was absolutely something he’d do to me, but to get Sarah in on it?
That was too elaborate, even for him.
It was no joke and this was the start of one of the worst days of my life.
Even now, I can’t help but question everything and wonder how this could have been avoided with thoughts that keep me awake at night.
What if we had picked another cafe in the other direction and he wasn’t crossing that damn intersection?
What if we made it a different time or had made it a different day, would he still be here?
The initial plan was to meet on Monday – why couldn’t we have stuck to that?
There were so many ways it could’ve been avoided, but thinking about all that only makes it worse.
I first thought Sarah’s message was a prank because that’s who Sam was. He was a jokester, he was mischievous, he was cheeky, full of chutzpah, hilariously funny and a bit of an enigma.
We first met in 2012, when we were both a part of the newly created News Corp digital sport team. I’d just moved to Melbourne and our friendship started with a long night at Ponyfish Island, just down from the Herald Sun office in Southbank.
We hit it off, bonded by our love of obscure Simpsons references. The friendship only grew and grew.
We became thick as thieves and in 2015 he flew to the Gold Coast for my buck’s weekend.
In what would be no surprise to anyone who knew him, Sammy was best on ground.
Daylight was second.
Everyone had their favourite Sammy out late – or early – story.
Sam loved to enjoy life and wanted to experience all the good things it had to offer, sometimes in abundance.
A few years later I became the Herald Sun sport chief of staff, which meant managing Sam along with the other reporters in the department.
Managing Sam could be utterly infuriating, as many past and present editors would know.
You’d give him a word limit of 1500 for a long piece and he’d file 3500 and duck for cover.
He would sometimes go AWOL and be uncontactable for days. Radio silence, which was ironic for a bloke whose phone seemed surgically glued to his hand at all times.
Just as you were about to pull your hair out, or file a missing person’s report, he would emerge with a great story and a cheeky grin to disarm your anger.
You just could never stay mad at him.
He was layered and there was certainly a degree of mystery about him, even to his closest friends. I think he liked it that way.
We had many deep, late-night conversations about life and often I had to convince him of how good he was at his craft and how bright his future was. Sam never believed it, but he was that good.
He died not as a rising star of sports journalism, but as a genuine star, destined to be the Herald Sun’s chief football writer down the line.
It came so easily to him, which is not to say he didn’t work hard.
He was constantly on his phone to his contacts, working his yarns, and he never stopped.
He cared desperately about his performance on the Midweek Tackle on Fox Footy this year, and was a perfectionist to the point of being unfairly self-critical.
Just last month he sent me a text message in a panic, minutes after going off air, saying his TV career was over because he’d really stuffed up.
Oh no, what have you done?
“Just watch,” he replied.
Watching it back, it was just Sam stumbling over a word for little more than a second or two.
I assured him it was nothing, but to him it was a disaster.
He had a huge heart, and when I suffered a health emergency in 2018 Sam was one of the first people there. My wife, Nicola, remembers the care and concern in his eyes at the hospital and how upset he was, constantly texting his father Jake, then the Western Bulldogs’ club doctor, to ask medical questions.
He was always in awe of his father and Sam sat sobbing with joy in the stands of the MCG after the Bulldogs won the flag in 2016. They were his childhood love but he desperately wanted the premiership for his dad. Those happy tears were for “Jakey”.
Sam celebrated the premiership and for weeks he’d reply to every single congratulatory text message with the same one-word answer: “Woof.”
He loved and cherished his sisters Jess and Sarah, and his nieces and nephews Zara, Nate, Mason, Ziggy and Lenny.
Earlier this year he told me he loved to babysit them, but drew the line at changing a nappy.
Above all he adored his mother, Anne, who in his last Instagram post he labelled “the best mum” in a touching birthday tribute.
Sam had many peculiar quirks and one was that he referred to his mum and dad solely as “Annie” and “Jakey”.
It was always Annie and her number was saved in his phone as such along with a heart emoji.
When I was with him and she would call, he would answer with a cheerful “Annie!”.
To find out he was speaking to her on the phone when the accident occurred broke my heart all over again. Although, there really was no other person in this world he would’ve rather been speaking to in his final moments.
Sam was so loved and so many cared for him, and I felt honoured to be in his close circle.
He was such a genuine human being and the most caring of friends.
I’ll dearly miss our ridiculous inside jokes, our silly nicknames and even the incessant text messages he’d send me at all hours.
Hardly a day went by that we weren’t texting each other about what was happening in our lives, I loved him dearly and will miss that deeply.
That void will never be filled and that’s what hurts the most.
He loved to drive me nuts with his constant and repeated one-word text messages of “wyd?” (what you doing?) or “mate” until I’d finally give in and reply.
Now I’d give the world for just one more text.
● Nick Smart is a former Herald Sun sport chief of staff and sports reporter.
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