Edwin Pope Wins Red Smith Award

Sports editor Edwin Pope of the Miami Herald has been named the winner of the Red Smith Award, presented by the Associated Press Sports Editors for “major contributions to sports journalism.”

Pope, 60, is the ninth and youngest winner of the annual award, which honors lifetime achievement. The award was created in 1981 by the APSE and is named for the late New York Times sports columnist.

“For anyone to get any sort of award with Red Smith’s name on it is a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Pope said. “You talk with athletes at the Super Bowl, World Series, Final Four and Kentucky Derby about that being their dream come true. But this is the type of thing you don’t even dream about because it would be presumptuous.”

Pope has been writing about sports for 49 years. During that time, he has been one of the country’s most-honored sports columnists.

He is the only three-time recipient of the National Headliners Club award for “consistently outstanding columns.” He also won an Eclipse Award in 1987 for coverage of thoroughbred racing.

“Pope was a perfect choice,” said Dave Smith, executive sports editor of the Dallas Morning News and chairman of the award selection committee, which consists of 13 past presidents of APSE.

At 15, Pope became the youngest sports editor of any daily newspaper with the Athens, Ga., Banner-Herald. He worked for United Press International and the Atlanta Constitution before being named executive sports editor of the Atlanta Journal at 26.

He joined the Miami Herald in 1956.

He has covered almost every major sports events, including all 23 Super Bowls.

Red Smith, who died in 1982, was the first winner of the award. Since then, winners have been:

Jim Murray of The Los Angeles Times; Shirley Povich of the Washington Post; Fred Russell of the Nashville Banner; Blackie Sherrod of the Dallas Morning News; Si Burick of the Dayton Daily News; Will Grimsley of the Associated Press, and Furman Bisher of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.