Dan Jenkins signs Wright Thompson's copy of a Jenkins' novel as John Walsh looks on at the Jenkins Medal awards dinner in Dallas. photo by Hannah Varnell
Bob Costas to deliver 2018 Deford Lecture
Iconic sports broadcaster Bob Costas will deliver the 2018 Frank Deford Lecture in Sports Journalism. The lecture will be held on April 30 from 1:30 to 3:00 pm in BMC 2.106. The event is free and open to the university community.
Bob Costas has won 28 Emmy awards – more than any sports broadcaster. His versatility has been recognized with awards and nominations in the categories of hosting, play-by-play, writing, journalism, news, and entertainment. He is the only person ever to have won Emmy’s in news, sports, and entertainment. His news Emmy was awarded for his 2011 interview with Jerry Sandusky, the central figure in the Penn State scandal. His entertainment Emmy came in 1993 for his acclaimed late night program “Later with Bob Costas.”
Costas’ peers have named him the “National Sportscaster of the Year” a record eight times, and in 2012, he was elected to the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame. Also in 2012, he was selected for the Walter Cronkite Award for distinction in journalism. He and Al Michaels are the only sports broadcasters to be so honored.
In the summer of 2018, Costas will be inducted into the broadcaster’s ring of the Baseball Hall of Fame. He joins broadcasting luminaries such as: Vin Scully, Red Barber, Mel Allen, Jack Buck, Ernie Harwell, and Dick Enberg. The award, named after former Baseball Commissioner, Ford C Frick, honors those who have demonstrated “excellence in baseball broadcasting.”
From the “Baseball Game of the Week” in the 1980s, through his hosting of the Olympics, the late night interview program “Later…with Bob Costas,” his programs on HBO, and more, Costas has been a prominent part of the coverage of every major sport over the past three decades. His thoughtful commentaries on a variety of issues have established him as one of his generation’s most distinctive voices.
The 2016 Rio, Brazil Summer Olympic Games were Costas' 12th for NBC. Additionally, he has hosted seven Super Bowls, and has been part of the coverage as either play-by play announcer, or host of seven World Series, and ten NBA Finals. Costas has been a prominent part of NBC’s presentations of other major events, including the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes, as well as the U. S. Open Golf Championship.
Frank Deford (1938-12017) was one of the most versatile of American writers and an icon among sportswriters for a generation (or three). Beginning in 1962, he cut a distinguished figure amongst a chort of significant writers who worked at Sports Illustrated, defining the way Americans understood and conceived of sports for many decades. In addition, Deford made signifcant contributions to Morning Edition on National Public Radio, HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, The National Sports Daily and scores of magazines and print publications. He is also the author of 13 books.
As a journalist, Mr. Deford was elected to the Hall of Fame of the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters. Six times at Sports Illustrated Frank Deford was voted by his peers as U.S. Sportswriter of The Year. The American Journalism Review has likewise cited him as the nation’s finest sportswriter, and twice he was voted Magazine Writer of The Year by the Washington Journalism Review.
UT-Austin initiated the Frank Deford Lecture in Sports Journalism in 2010 to ground his legacy in tangible form for a new generation of sportswriters and critical thinkers.
