Sports writer and broadcaster Frank Deford to speak on January 30

Sports writer and broadcaster Frank Deford to speak on January 30

Monday, Jan. 30, the Key West Friends of the Library will welcome Frank Deford to their Speaker Series podium. Lectures are at the Key West Theater, 512 Eaton St. Admission is free. The talks begin promptly at 6:00 p.m., but seating begins at 5:30 on a first come first serve basis.

Frank Deford is a well-known sports writer and broadcaster. He wrote his first piece for Sports Illustrated in 1962, and is currently the magazine’s Senior Contributing Writer. He recorded his first commentary for NPR in 1980, and continues as a commentator every Wednesday on the radio network’s Morning Edition.

Deford has written 20 books. The novel Everybody’s All-American was turned into a movie starring Dennis Quaid and Jessica Lang. Alex: The Life Of A Child, his memoir about his daughter who died of cystic fibrosis, became a TV movie starring Craig T. Nelson and Bonnie Bedelia. Two of his original screenplays have also been filmed. His most recent book is I’d Know That Voice Anywhere: My Favorite NPR Commentaries.

Named Sportswriter of the Year six times by the National Sports Media Association, and elected to the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame, Deford has also been awarded the presidential medal from the National Endowment of the Humanities. He has been described by The Sporting News as “the most influential sports voice among members of the print media.” GQ has called him “The world’s greatest sportswriter.”

Jay Johnson in the San Francisco Chronicle credited Deford with producing some of the best magazine writing of the second half of the 20th century, “ . . . stories that helped elevate sports writing from a purple-prosed pursuit of no consequence into journalism taken seriously.”

Radio work taught Deford to condense essays for reading in three minutes, a liberating challenge. Working for an audience not totally made up of sports purists also allows him to talk about sports in broad terms, to connect them to our culture and paint sport large.

Deford served as national chairman of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation for 16 years. He remains chairman emeritus.

For more information go to http://friendsofthekeywestlibrary.org and click on lecture series.

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