WELL PLAYED
Stylish sportswriter, commentator Deford dies at 78
LEGENDARY Sports Illustrated scribe Frank Deford, who won over a legion of fans with witty writing and colorful commentary and launched the nation’s only daily sports newspaper, died Sunday. He was 78.
For decades, Deford’s byline was practically synonymous with the sports magazine. Deford got his start in 1962 — the same year the New York Mets debuted — and covered nearly every major sporting event over a career that spanned more than five decades. He also served as a senior editor emeritus at the magazine.
Until his recent retirement, the sports journalism giant — aside from being a wonderful storyteller, he also stood 6-feet-4 — had been a weekly fixture on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition,” going beyond the box scores and stat sheets to offer a unique perspective on professional fun and games. Deford spent 37 years with NPR.
Deford, known for his lyrical touch and his pencil-thin mustache, recorded his final commentary for the radio network earlier this month in Key West, Fla., where he died. Deford spent winters there and had been battling a lung condition, according to NPR. He grew up in Baltimore and had also lived in Westport, Conn.
“Nothing has pleased me so much as when someone, usually a woman, writes me or tells me that she’s appreciated sports more because
MIKE LUPICA:
NPR allowed me to treat sports seriously as another branch on the tree of culture,” Deford said in his final commentary May 5. “Thank you for listening. Thank you for abiding me. And now, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, I bid you goodbye and take my leave.”
Deford penned 18 books — nine of them novels, including “Everybody’s All-American” in 1981 — and served as a contributor to HBO’s “Real Sports” franchise. One of Deford’s best pieces was a 1999 profile he wrote of NBA Hall-of-Famer Bill Russell.
“Too often when I try to explain the passion of Russell himself and his devotion to his team and to victory, I’m inarticulate,” Deford wrote. “It’s like trying to describe a color to a blind person. All I can say, in tongue-tied exasperation, is, you had to be there. And I’m sorry for you if you weren’t.”
In 1989, Deford became editor-in-chief of The National, the nation’s first daily U.S. sports newspaper, with a murderer’s row lineup of sportswriters. But the paper folded just 18 months later.
In 2012, President Barack Obama made Deford the first sportswriter to be awarded the National Humanities Medal for transforming how we think about sports. He received the award during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on July 10, 2013.
Deford is survived by his wife, the former fashion model Carol Penner, two children, and two grandchildren.