Dick Weiss, the influential and long-time sports writer with The New York Daily News and most recently a global columnist for Blue Star Media, will be jointly honored on Wednesday by the National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame (NFF) and the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) when he is presented the FWAA’s Bert McGrane Award during the Annual Enshrinement Festival. The sold-out event will take place at the Omni Hotel at CNN Center in Atlanta, and ESPN3 will carry the event live, starting at 7:30 p.m. ET.
“The National Football Foundation is proud to partner with the FWAA to present the Bert McGrane Award to Dick Weiss whose award-winning insights have been a staple of the college football world for the past 30 years,” said NFF President & CEO Steve Hatchell. “The award’s past recipients include some of the most passionate contributors to the game, and it is fitting that we annually provide our national stage to acknowledge their significant work in enhancing the enjoyment of our sport for millions of fans nationwide.”
Weiss becomes the 40th recipient of the award, which is symbolic of the association’s Hall of Fame and is presented to an FWAA member who has performed great service to the organization and/or the writing profession. The announcement of Weiss being named the 2013 recipient occurred Jan. 7, 2013 at the association’s annual awards breakfast in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., before this year’s BCS National Championship. Weiss’ name will join the names of the previous McGrane winners as part of a display at the new College Football Hall of Fame, which is being built in Atlanta and will open in the fall of 2014.
“Dick Weiss has always had a passion for college football,” said FWAA Executive Director Steve Richardson. “He has strived and succeeded in giving his readership the best stories in college football as he relentlessly traveled the country. Most importantly, Dick has always had a great concern for the profession. Many times Dick has pushed for better working conditions for writers behind the scenes and worked within the system to achieve that agenda.”
The award is named after Bert McGrane, a Des Moines, Iowa sports writer, who was the executive secretary of the FWAA from the early 1940s until 1973. Current FWAA President and longtime Los Angeles Timescolumnist Chris Dufresne will present the award to Weiss.
“I feel humbled and honored to receive this award from the Football Writers Association,” Weiss said at the time of the announcement. “So many of the past recipients – Furman Bisher of the Atlanta Constitution, Paul Zimmerman of the Los Angeles Times, Edwin Pope of the Miami Herald, Blackie Sherrod of The Dallas Morning News, Maury White of the Des Moines Register and Dick Herbert of the Raleigh News & Observer – were giants in our profession who gave college football a bigger than life feeling. They made us want to read the Sunday papers. Recent recipients like Steve Richardson, Mark Blaudschun, Tony Barnhart and Dave Sittler have carried on the same tradition. I am pleased to be in their company.”
Weiss, a longtime FWAA member, served as president of the FWAA in 2004. He covered college sports for The New York Daily News since 1993 and before that held a similar post for about 10 years at the Philadelphia Daily News. He graduated from Temple in 1969 and then worked at the Baltimore Sun and the Trenton Timesbefore moving to the Philadelphia Daily News. He has covered 40 NCAA Final Fours and 28 national championship college football games.
Weiss has been the recipient of the Curt Gowdy Print Media Award and the Jim Murray Outstanding Sportswriter Award, the latter given by the All-American Football Foundation. Last October, Weiss captured the Lew Klein Alumni in the Media Award at Temple University. The award is given to distinguished Temple alumni who have made outstanding contributions in the media. Weiss is a past president of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association (1993-94) and also became a member of that organization’s Hall of Fame in 1997.
