Frank Deford
Frank Deford
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Full Name and Common Aliases
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Full name: Frank Nelson Deford Jr.
Common aliases: None notable.
Birth and Death Dates
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Born on October 16, 1939
Died on May 28, 2017
Nationality and Profession(s)
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Nationality: American
Profession: Sportswriter, Columnist, Author, Journalist, Broadcaster
Early Life and Background
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Frank Deford was born in Aberdeen, Maryland, to Frank Nelson Deford Sr. and Elizabeth Nelson Deford. His family later moved to Baltimore, where he grew up with a passion for sports and writing. Deford's early life was marked by an enthusiasm for baseball, which would become a lifelong interest.
As a young man, Deford attended the University of Michigan, where he developed his skills as a writer and studied English literature. After graduating in 1961, he began working as a sportswriter for the Baltimore News-Post.
Major Accomplishments
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Deford's career spanned over five decades, during which he made significant contributions to the world of sports journalism. Some of his major accomplishments include:
Working as a columnist for Sports Illustrated (1965-2010), where he covered various sports and wrote in-depth profiles on athletes.
Publishing several books, including "There They Were: The Story of the First Matched Game Between the New York Knickerbockers and the Philadelphia Athletics" and "There They Were: The Story of Baseball's Most Historic Games".
Serving as a regular contributor to NPR's Morning Edition program, offering commentary on sports-related topics.
Being awarded multiple Emmy Awards for his work in broadcasting.
Notable Works or Actions
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Some notable works by Deford include:
"Lasting Memories: Sports and the American Experience" (1992)
"Over Time: My Years with the New York Yankees" (1991)
Deford was also known for his advocacy of fair pay for college athletes. In 2014, he co-authored an article with Dave Zirin, arguing that the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) stance on athlete compensation was unjust.
Impact and Legacy
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Throughout his career, Deford's writings had a significant impact on the sports world. He brought attention to various social issues, such as athlete exploitation and racism in sports.
Deford's legacy extends beyond his writing. He played an instrumental role in shaping the narrative of sports journalism, leaving behind a lasting impression on readers and writers alike.
Why They Are Widely Quoted or Remembered
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Frank Deford is widely quoted and remembered for several reasons:
His unique voice and style brought sports journalism to life.
He fearlessly addressed social issues in the sports world.
* His work continues to inspire new generations of writers.
As a prominent figure in American sports journalism, Frank Deford's quotes provide valuable insights into the world of sports.
Quotes by Frank Deford
You have to do what the market requires of you... You either keep swimming, or you sink.
Football teams represent cities and colleges and schools. The people have built great stadiums, and the game is culturally intertwined with our calendar. We don't go back to college for the college. We go back for a football game, and, yes, we even call that 'homecoming.'
So much about big-time college sports is criticized. But the worst scandal is almost never mentioned: the academic fraud wherein the student-athletes, so-called, are admitted without even remotely adequate credentials and then aren't educated so much as they are just kept eligible.
What we accepted as great art - whether the book, the script, the painting, the symphony - is that which could be saved and savored. But the performances of the athletic artists who ran and jumped and wrestled were gone with the wind.
When I was covering games, and this is back in the '60s, you'd go into the manager's office. I can still visualize Earl Weaver from the Baltimore Orioles. I can just see Earl now in his underwear... with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, holding court. And that was the way it was done then.
I remember one time I wrote something very, very critical about Wilt Chamberlain. The next time I saw him - and Wilt was not a man, as huge as he was - he was not a man of confrontation. And we were in the Lakers locker room. And he sent Jerry West over, and he said, 'Frank, Wilt would like you to leave.'
The hardest thing in the world is to write something critical about someone and then show up the next day in the locker room. I mean, that is not fun, and that takes an awful lot of guts. And I never enjoyed that.
The dollar is a winner. The euro is a tie. Get off the dime, Europe, and play to win.
Sport is an art: it has incredible appeal everywhere on this earth, and it fills so many human hearts with passion that it's impossible to dismiss.