The Messenger 10.26.07

Nationally-renowned sports columnist Frank Deford will speak at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 8 in the Elam Center at the University of Tennessee at Martin.
With decades of experience as author, columnist and television and radio personality, Deford has become, in the words of GQ magazine, “the world’s greatest sportswriter.”
A native of Baltimore and a graduate of Princeton University, where he has taught in the American Studies Program, Deford has authored 16 books. Two of his books, “Everybody’s All-American” and “Alex: The Life of a Child,” his memoir of his daughter who died of cystic fibrosis, have been made into movies, while a third, “Casey On The Loose,” is being turned into a Broadway musical. His current book, “The Entitled,” is a novel about celebrity, sex and baseball.
Deford has achieved eminence as both sportswriter and sportscaster, first as a writer and editor for Sports Illustrated and, more recently, as a correspondent on HBO’s “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel,” and as a commentator on Morning Edition on National Public Radio.
His work as a journalist has been rewarded with almost every major honor that can be bestowed upon a journalist. He has been elected to the Hall of Fame of the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters; he has been elected six times as Sportswriter of the Year by his peers; he was twice voted Magazine Writer of the Year by the Washington Journalism Review; he has received both an Emmy Award and a George Foster Peabody Award for his broadcasting work; and he received a CableAce Award for his HBO Sports documentary, “Arthur Ashe: Citizen of the World” (1994).
His life and work were dramatized in ESPN’s film biography, “You Work Better Than You Play.” His honest and forthright style has led Sporting News to call Frank Deford “the most influential sports voice among members of the print media.”
Deford also is noted for his charity work, most prominently for having served for 16 years as national chairman of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, for which he remains chairman emeritus.
“Frank Deford has been a prominent voice in the sports world for generations of fans and observers of the games,” said Dr. Dan McDonough, UT Martin Honors Programs director.
“While many of us read his work in Sports Illustrated, where his articles still can be found, a new generation may know him better through his television and radio work. Regardless of which medium one chooses, Deford has always looked at the sporting world with a loving, but critical eye. Appreciating and celebrating the positive aspects of sports, he has never hesitated to comment on the seamier sides which have occasionally threatened the integrity of the games. Join us in exploring Deford’s unique perspective on the good and the bad in the modern sporting world.”
The presentation is free and open to the public. For more information, contact McDonough at danmc@utm.edu or (731) 881-7436.