Deadline Adventures

Abstract:

What I Learned in 43 Years Of Sports Writing While Having Lunch With Muhammad Ali, Meeting Fidel Castro At A Bowling Alley And Playing Golf With Neil Armstrong.

MARK PURDY was a sports columnist at the San Jose Mercury News from 1984 until his retirement in 2017. Since then, he has been teaching at San Jose State, serving on the Bay Area 2019 Host Committee For The College Football Playoff National Championship Game, volunteering for History San Jose and goofing off as much as possible. During his column-writing tenure, Purdy covered 14 Olympic Games, 32 Super Bowls, 22 World Series and numerous other high-profile sports events. During his Mercury News tenure, Purdy was honored by the Wall Street Journal for writing one of America’s Top 10 sports columns. On multiple occasions, he was named to the Associated Press Sports Editors annual list of America’s Top 10 Sports Columnists. In the Bay Area, he is known as the newspaper columnist who gave the name "McCovey Cove" to the body of water behind right field at AT&T Park as a tribute to former Giants' slugger Willie McCovey. In 1989, Purdy was a member of the Mercury News staff that received a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the "World Series earthquake" that struck the area just before Game 3 at Candlestick Park. Purdy has made broadcast appearances on ABC's Nightline, Court TV and ESPN "Outside the Lines," as well as on NBC Sports Bay Area’s programming. A native of Celina, Ohio, Purdy is a 1974 graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. He previously held reporting or column writing positions at the Cincinnati Enquirer, Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune.