SAN ANTONIO — Dan Cook, the San Antonio sports writer credited with coining the phrase "the opera ain't over till the fat lady sings," has died. He was 81.

The San Antonio Express-News, where Cook worked for 51 years, reported that he died Thursday night after a long illness. Cook was also the sports anchor at San Antonio television station KENS from 1956 to 2000. Most of those years the station was owned by the Express-News.

It was on a 1978 newscast that Cook first said: "The opera ain't over till the fat lady sings." He later said that he'd used the phrase in a column two years earlier.

Cook retired from the Express-News in 2003.