Author and commentator, Frank Deford is among the most versatile of American writers. The author of fifteen books, his latest, The Entitled, a novel about celebrity, sex and baseball, was published in 2007 to exceptional reviews. He is currently working on his tenth novel, a love story set in World War II.
On radio, Deford may be heard as a commentator every Wednesday on Morning Edition on National Public Radio and, on television, he is a regular correspondent on the HBO show, RealSports With Bryant Gumbel. In magazines, he is Senior Contributing Writier at Sports Illustrated - an assocation that dates back to 1962.
Moreover, two of Deford's books - the novel, Everybody's All-American, and Alex: The Life Of A Child, his memoir about his daughter who died of cyctic fibrosis - have been made into movies. Two of his original screenplays have also been filmed.
As a journalist, Deford has been elected to the Hall of Fame of the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters. Six times at Sports Illustrated 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.
Deford has also been presented with the National Magazine Award for profiles, a Christopher Award, and journalism Honor Awards from the University of Missouri and Northeastern University, and he has received many honorary degrees. The Sporting News has described Deford as "the most influential sports voice among members of the print media," and the magazine GQ has called him, simply, "the world's greatest sportswriter." In broadcast, Deford has won both an Emmy and a George Foster Peabody Award. ESPN presented a television biography of Deford's life and work, You Write Better Than You Play. A popular lecturer, Deford has spoken at well over a hundred colleges, as well as at forums, conventions and on cruise ships around the world,
For sixteen years, Deford served as national chairman of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and he remains chairman emeritus. He resides in Westport, Connecticut wth his wife, Carol. They have two grown children - a son, Christian, and a daughter, Scarlet. A native of Baltimore, Deford is a graduate of Princeton University, where he has taught in American Studies.
