Frank Deford (1938–2017,) fully Benjamin Franklin Deford III, was an American sportswriter. He was regarded as the most exceptional sportswriter of his era, and his highly-praised historical novels have ranged far afield.
Born in Baltimore, Deford wrote for the Sports Illustrated 1962–2017, was a regular on HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, and delivered 1,656 commentaries about the human side of sports on NPR’s Morning Edition 1980–2017. He also wrote for Newsweek and Vanity Fair and was the editor-in-chief of The National, the first daily U.S. sports newspaper.
Deford wrote 18 books, nine of them novels, about such varied topics: Love and Infamy (1993; about Japan before Pearl Harbor,) The Other Adonis (2001; about reincarnation,) An American Summer (2002; about the polio epidemic,) The Entitled (2007; about modern celebrity and the sport of baseball,) and Bliss, Remembered (2010; a 1930s romance.)
Two of Deford’s books have been made into movies—the novel Everybody’s All-American (1981; film, 1988) and the memoir about his daughter who died of cystic fibrosis, Alex: The Life of a Child (1983; film, 1986.) Two of his original screenplays were filmed, Trading Hearts (1988) and Four Minutes (2005.)
Deford won the 2013 National Humanities Medal, the first such honor for a sportswriter.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Frank Deford
You can tell all you need to about a society from how it treats animals and beaches.
—Frank Deford
Topics: Society
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