McGeehan entered Stanford University, but left within the first year as he enlisted in the U.S. Army to fight in the Spanish–American War.
They met while working on one of the San Francisco papers and went East when McGeehan felt it was time to move on.
Although many of his columns and much of his work was related to boxing, he covered nearly all sports and write at length about his extensive travels.
He fished and hunted moose in Canada, and spent much time in Europe especially in the Balkans and traveling around the Mediterranean.
McGeehan had many excellent descriptive phrases related to various activities: Boxing was the manly art of modified murder or the Cauliflower industry.