Gary Smith (born October 27, 1953) [1] is an American sportswriter. He is best known for his lengthy human interest stories in Sports Illustrated , where he worked from 1983 to 2013. [2]
Gary Smith (born October 27, 1953) [1] is an American sportswriter. He is best known for his lengthy human interest stories in Sports Illustrated , where he worked from 1983 to 2013. [2]
Smith worked as a sportswriter for the Wilmington News Journal , the Philadelphia Daily News , the New York Daily News , and Inside Sports before joining Sports Illustrated. [1] His writing has also appeared in Time , Rolling Stone , and Esquire . [3]
For many years, Smith's role as senior writer at Sports Illustrated has been to write four lengthy feature articles per year, most of which are in-depth personality profiles. [1] [3] His wife, Sally, has described his motivation as follows: "He is not satisfied with putting facts together. He wants to understand what is the core conflict that has driven that person. He hopes to tell a secret that a person might not be aware of." [4] Several of Smith's subjects have attested to his profound insight. [5]
Smith has received many awards and honors for his work at Sports Illustrated. He won the National Magazine Award for non-fiction, the magazine equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, a record four times and was a finalist for the award a record ten times. [2] [5] His stories have appeared in The Best American Sports Writing series a record 12 times. [3] Some of his literary peers have called him "the best magazine writer in America" [4] [6] and "America's best sportswriter". [6] He also has been cited as a role model by younger sportswriters. [7] [8]
He was inducted into the Delaware Sports Hall of Fame as part of its 2020/2021 class. [9]
Smith has published two books; both are collections of his magazine features:
Richard Ford is an American novelist and short story author, and writer of a series of novels featuring the character Frank Bascombe.
Sports journalism is a form of writing that reports on matters pertaining to sporting topics and competitions. Sports journalism has its roots in coverage of horse racing and boxing in the early 1800s, mainly targeted towards elites, and into the 1900s transitioned into an integral part of the news business with newspapers having dedicated sports sections. The increased popularity of sports amongst the middle and lower class led to the more coverage of sports content in publications. The appetite for sports resulted in sports-only media such as Sports Illustrated and ESPN. There are many different forms of sports journalism, ranging from play-by-play and game recaps to analysis and investigative journalism on important developments in the sport. Technology and the internet age has massively changed the sports journalism space as it is struggling with the same problems that the broader category of print journalism is struggling with, mainly not being able to cover costs due to falling subscriptions. New forms of internet blogging and tweeting in the current millennium have pushed the boundaries of sports journalism.
Richard Paul Reilly is an American sportswriter. Long known for being the "back page" columnist for Sports Illustrated, Reilly moved to ESPN on June 1, 2008, where he was a featured columnist for ESPN.com and wrote the back page column for ESPN the Magazine. Reilly hosted ESPN's Homecoming with Rick Reilly, an interview show, and he is a contributing essayist for ESPN SportsCenter and ABC Sports.
Steve Rushin is an American journalist, sportswriter and novelist. He was named the 2005 National Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, and is a four-time finalist for the National Magazine Award.
Fred Russell was an American sportswriter from Tennessee who served as sports editor for the Nashville Banner newspaper for 68 years (1930–1998). He was a member of the Heisman Trophy Committee, president of the Football Writers Association of America and a member of several sports-related Halls of Fame. He served for nearly 30 years as chairman of the College Football Hall of Fame Honors Court, a group responsible for selecting College Football Hall of Fame members. Known for his sense of humor and story-telling ability, Russell authored several books about sports and sports humor. Over his career he wrote over 12,000 sports columns under the title, "Sideline Sidelights".
Benjamin Franklin Deford III was an American sportswriter and novelist. From 1980 until his death in 2017, he was a regular sports commentator on NPR's Morning Edition radio program.
Jeremy Schaap is an American sportswriter, television reporter and author. Schaap is an 11-time Emmy Awards winner for his work on ESPN's E:60, SportsCenter, and Outside the Lines.
Ron Borges is an American sportswriter for the Talk of Fame Network. He has previously written for The Boston Globe, the Boston Herald and was a regular guest on The Mike Felger Show, which aired on 890 ESPN radio until July 2008. Borges also was a regular contributor to the HBO.com's Boxing website until 2008. Borges also writes for The Sweet Science, a boxing website.
James Patrick Murray was an American sportswriter. He worked at the Los Angeles Times from 1961 until his death in 1998, and his column was nationally syndicated.
Rick Telander is the senior sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. Hired in 1995 from Sports Illustrated, where he was a Senior Writer, Telander's presence at the newspaper was expected to counter the stable of sports columnists the rival Chicago Tribune had.
Wilfred Charles Heinz was an American sportswriter, war correspondent, journalist, and author.
Joe Posnanski, nicknamed "Poz" and "Joe Po", is an American sports journalist. A former senior columnist for Sports Illustrated and columnist for The Kansas City Star, he currently writes for his personal blog JoeBlogs.
Pete Axthelm was a sportswriter and columnist for the New York Herald Tribune, Sports Illustrated, Newsweek and its Inside Sports. During the 1980s, his knowledge of sports and journalistic skill aided him in becoming a sports commentator for The NFL on NBC and NFL Primetime and horse racing on ESPN. While on the pregame telecasts for the NFL in the early 1980s, Axthelm was NBC's answer to CBS' Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder on The NFL Today, providing betting angles to the games. Later in the decade, he would be hired in a similar role by ESPN at the urging of John Walsh, who had been the editor of Inside Sports.
The National Sports Media Association (NSMA), formerly the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, is an organization of sports media members in the United States, and constitutes the American chapter of the International Sports Press Association (AIPS).
Edwin A. "Bud" Shrake, Jr. was an American journalist, sportswriter, novelist, biographer and screenwriter. He co-wrote a series of golfing advice books with golf coach Harvey Penick, including Harvey Penick's Little Red Book, a golf guide that became the best-selling sports book in publishing history. Called a “lion of Texas letters” by the Austin American-Statesman, Shrake was a member of the Texas Film Hall of Fame, and received the Lon Tinkle lifetime achievement award from the Texas Institute of Letters and the Texas Book Festival Bookend Award.
Daniel Thomas Jenkins was an American author and sportswriter who often wrote for Sports Illustrated. He was also a high-standard amateur golfer who played college golf at Texas Christian University.
Richard Leonard Young was an American sportswriter best known for his direct and abrasive style, and his 45-year association with the New York Daily News. He was elected to the writers' wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1978, and was a former president of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.
Ira Berkow is an American sports reporter, columnist, and writer. He shared the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, which was awarded to the staff of The New York Times for their series How Race Is Lived in America.
Bill Dwyre is a sportswriter and former newspaper sports editor. Notable for his long tenure as sports editor of the Los Angeles Times beginning in June 1981, he moved to the writing ranks full-time in June 2006, but for virtually his whole career he has worked as both an editor and writer, and today writes several weekly columns for the LA Times.
Frank Graham Sr. was an American sportswriter and biographer. He covered sports in New York for the New York Sun from 1915 to 1943 and for the New York Journal-American from 1945 to 1965. He was also a successful author, writing biographies of politician Al Smith and athletes Lou Gehrig and John McGraw, as well as histories of the New York Yankees, New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers. Graham's writing style was notable for his use of lengthy passages of "unrelieved dialogue" in developing portraits of the persons about whom he wrote. Graham was posthumously honored by the Baseball Writers' Association of America with the J. G. Taylor Spink Award in 1971, and by the Boxing Writers Association of America with the A. J. Liebling Award in 1997, the highest award bestowed by each organization.
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