“What we accepted as great art - whether the book, the script, the painting, the symphony - is that which could be saved and savored. But the performances of the athletic artists who ran and jumped and wrestled were gone with the wind.”

American sportswriter and novelist

Frank Deford was an American sportswriter and novelist. He was born in 1938 and died in 2017. He is best known for his long career writing about sports and for his familiar presence on radio. From 1980 until his death, Deford was a regular sports commentator on NPR's Morning Edition. His work moved between journalism and fiction, and his public voice was closely associated with sports writing, commentary, and the culture around athletics.