AUSTIN, TEXAS – April 23, 2012 – The University of Texas at Austin College of Communication's Texas Program in Sports and Media (TPSM) will host presentations by award-winning sportswriter Frank Deford and David Maraniss, an associate editor at The Washington Post, during the week of April 23.

Deford and Maraniss' presentations are part of TPSM’s McGarr Symposium on Sports and Society, which hosts discussions by sports media professionals about cultural issues related to sports.

All events are free and open to the public, although space is limited and reservations are required for Deford's presentation. Please email friends@lbjlibrary.net to confirm attendance.

Following is a schedule of events:

Deford will discuss his recent memoir, "Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter," at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, April 25 in the LBJ Auditorium at the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum, 2313 Red River St.

Deford has received several honors, including the Associated Press Sports Editors' 2012 Red Smith Award and the Washington Journalism Review's Magazine Writer of the Year award. The National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters named him to its Hall of Fame, and the American Journalism Review cited him as the nation's finest sportswriter.

On the radio, Deford serves as a commentator every Wednesday on NPR's "Morning Edition" and, on television, he is the senior correspondent on the HBO show "Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel." In magazines, he is senior contributing writer at Sports Illustrated.

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 cystic fibrosis – have been made into movies.

David Maraniss, an associate editor at The Washington Post, will present the Frank Deford Lecture in Sports Journalism at 4 p.m. on Thursday, April 26 at Room 3.202 Student Activity Center, 2201 Speedway.

Part of the McGarr Symposium, the Deford Lecture is an annual celebration of the sportswriter's craft. It was established after Deford's address to the University of Texas at Austin campus in 2010.


Maraniss has written the following five critically-acclaimed and bestselling books: "When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi," "First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton," "They Marched Into Sunlight – War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967," "Clemente – The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero" and "Rome 1960: The Summer Olympics That Stirred the World."

Maraniss is a three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, winning in 1993 for national reporting in his coverage of then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton. He also was part of The Washington Post team that won a 2008 Pulitzer for the newspaper's coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting.

Maraniss has received the George Polk Award, the Dirksen Prize for Congressional Reporting, the American Society of Newspaper Editors' Laventhol Prize for Deadline Writing and the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize.

One of the nation's foremost institutions for the study of advertising and public relations, communication sciences and disorders, communication studies, journalism and radio-TV-film, The University of Texas at Austin College of Communication is preparing students to thrive in an era of media convergence. Serving more than 4,500 undergraduate and graduate students, the College is nationally recognized for its faculty members, research and student media.

CONTACT: Laura Byerley, 512-471-2182 or Christopher Hart, 512-471-2431.