Vaunted journalist for NPR, Sports Illustrated

Frank Deford, among the most venerable and versatile voices in sports journalism for the past half-century, died Sunday at age 78.

Sports Illustrated reported that his wife, Carol Deford, told the magazine he was recently treated for pneumonia.

The news left a nation of sportswriters an unenviable task: Writing about a writer better at writing than the rest of us.

While he was best known for writing and reporting, he also made a mark on television, primarily with HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel,” on radio, primarily in 37 years on NPR, and even as an executive.

In 1990 and ‘91 he was editor-in-chief of The National, an ambitious attempt at a national sports daily.

Deford also was national chairman in the 1980s of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, a disease that killed his daughter, Alexandra, at age 8 in 1980, and inspired him to write a book about her that became a television movie.

Deford wrote books, both fiction and nonfiction, but most sports fans will remember him best for his 50 years at Sports Illustrated.

Deford recalled in a 2010 essay, about his early years at SI, a conversation he had with managing editor Andre Laguerre:

“The time he gave me advice was when I wondered whether writing about sports was really substantial. Laguerre simply said, ‘Frankie, it doesn’t matter what you write about. All that matters is how well you write.’ I suppose that has helped sustain me all these years.”

Deford authored the last of his 1,656 commentaries for NPR earlier this month. He closed with this:

“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 grew up in Baltimore, graduated from Princeton and lived in Key West at the time of his death. In a profession not known for sartorial splendor, he was tall, regal, well-dressed, generally well-mannered and widely liked.

President Barack Obama awarded him the National Humanities Medal in 2013.

He is survived by his wife and two children, Christian, born in 1969, and Scarlet, whom he and his wife adopted, as well as two grandchildren.

Deford