Hockey reporter, stay-at-home dad, and science writer Michael “Mike” Perricone, 72, died at his home in Riverside in the company of family and friends on Dec. 9, 2023. His death marked the end of a years-long battle with Multiple Systems Atrophy (MSA), a rare neurological illness with symptoms similar to Parkinson’s.
Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, and attending Brooklyn Technical High School and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he dreamed of becoming either an engineer or scientist. Over time, however, his love of sports and writing led him to the Chicago Sun-Times where he enjoyed a celebrated career as a beat reporter, covering 12 seasons of the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks. During this time, he met Joan Vanderbeck, the woman to whom he would be married for 37 years, and had a daughter named Jenny Rose, whose birth in 1989 triggered the second of his three careers: stay-at-home dad. Wanting to be actively involved in his daughter’s upbringing while his wife continued her executive career, he quit his sportswriting job and began the challenging and rewarding task of developing parenting skills. For the first year, he wrote a weekly column for the Sun-Times called “Jenny’s Dad” in which he chronicled his chaotic and often humorous experiences as a sports reporter turned parent. These columns were later published collectively in From Deadlines to Diapers: Journal of an At-Home Father, a book that landed him a guest appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
His freelance writing steered him back to his original interest in science and his third career: writer and editor in the field of high-energy physics. Joining the Office of Public Affairs at Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory, in Batavia in 1997, he turned the company’s newsletter into a highly regarded bi-weekly print magazine. In 2004, he helped launch Symmetry, a particle-physics magazine, and served as its executive editor.
In 2007, he retired from Fermilab but stayed connected with Symmetry as a freelance writer and began contributing an annual review of popular physics books. His work at Fermilab alongside many of the world’s leading scientists also inspired him to write The Big Bang, a 2009 book for young adults that explores the early history of the universe. In his final years, he was working on a novel for young adults called Caged about a prep-school hockey player struggling to recover from depression.
He was a frequent letter-writer to the Landmark newspaper.
The family is planning a celebration of Mike’s life in early 2024.