George Plimpton Named Liebling Award Winner
Colin Hart Wins Fleischer
 JANUARY 3, 2012 -- George Plimpton, the elegant literary adventurer who graced boxing with witty, insightful prose and once had his nose broken in the line of duty, will receive this year’s A.J. Liebling Award. The Boxing Writers Association of America presents the award in memory of Liebling, the legendary New Yorker wordsmith who called his favorite sport "The Sweet Science."
Plimpton, who died in 2003, at age 76, was the author of one book about boxing, "Shadow Box," and wrote about fights and fighters for Sports Illustrated, Harper’s, and Esquire, most memorably during the heyday of Muhammad Ali. It wasn’t Ali who broke his nose, however. Archie Moore delivered that blow during a sparring session that Plimpton had arranged. What Ali, who was never good at remembering names, did was give the tall, patrician Plimpton a nickname he couldn’t forget: "Kennedy."
Plimpton came to prominence in the world of literature as the editor and one of the founders of the Paris Review. He was also a prominent figure in New York’s social scene, with his lockjaw accent, unfailing good humor, and boundless enthusiasm for new experiences. It was his enthusiasm that led him to become America’s leading participatory journalist.
Following a trail blazed by Paul Gallico in the 1920s, he became the amateur who forever took his place among professionals and wrote memorably - and hilariously - and about his inevitable failure. Among other things, he played quarterback for the Detroit Lions, goalie for the Boston Bruins, and tympani for the New York Philharmonic. At the behest of his editors at Sports Illustrated, he wound up in the ring at Stillman’s Gym with Moore, who was then the light-heavyweight champ and a bit of an intellectual himself.
There is no available evidence that Liebling ever sparred with a world champion, as Plimpton did when he went three rounds with Moore in 1959, but little doubt exists that the two writers were kindred spirits. Plimpton himself acknowledged the connection when he was reunited with Moore while working on a story for Esquire more than 30 years later. One minute they were talking about Moore’s loss to Rocky Marciano; the next Plimpton was thinking about Liebling: "(He) had once written that if you got hit on the nose by a professional prizefighter, you were linked to a kind of genealogical tree of people who had bopped each other on the nose. It stretched back to Victorian times. It also meant, because Archie had bopped me on the nose in our ‘fight,’ that I was connected not only to Marciano but to Joe Louis, back through Jack Dempsey and John L. Sullivan to Jem Mace and also to Piano-Mover Jones!"
In winning the Liebling award, Plimpton, who wrote or edited 26 books, including the classic “Paper Lion,” joins such previous honorees as Pete Hamill, John Lardner, Larry Merchant, and F.X. Toole. He will be honored at the BWAA’s annual awards banquet in the spring. John Schulian was chairman of the committee that selected Plimpton. The committee’s members were Dave Anderson, Bernard Fernandez, Richard Hoffer, and Ed Schuyler. All are past winners of the BWAA’s Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism
 Colin Hart has been chosen as the 2011 winner of the Nat Fleischer award for "Excellence in Boxing Journalism." The vote was conducted among past
winners of the Fleischer award.
Hart, 76, becomes the first writer from England to win this award and the third Brit, after Hugh McIlvanney in 1986 and Ken Jones in 1992. The award was
first given by the BWAA in 1972, to Barney Nagler.
Hart has been covering boxing for 47 years, primarily for The London Sun as a mass circulation correspondent and columnist. His duties for The Sun also included reporting on Track & Field. Hart has covered eight Olympic Games.
The first fight that Hart covered was a memorable one: the Muhammad Ali - Joe Frazier match at Madison Square Garden in 1971. Thereafter he covered all of Ali's major fights as well as those of other legendary boxers.
Hart has won numerous writing awards, but none as big as the Fleischer, he
says. "This is the best Christmas present I can have" said Hart, upon hearing the
news. "I am deeply honored and flattered that my name can be mentioned
alongside the other talented writers who have won the award."
Hearns, Johnson, Roach, Buffer, Bernstein Punch Into Hall of Fame
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January 27, 2012
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It's Barneys Time!
As the annual awards dinner is expected to be held early in 2012, possibly as soon as late April, it is imperative that those wishing to enter the BWAA's annual Barneys writing contest start going through their clips and tearsheets and mail those entries to
BWAA “Barneys”
P.O. Box 1082
Drexel Hill, PA 19026, as soon as possible, preferably in advance of the Feb. 2 deadline. Except for photography, the contest is open only to paid-up BWAA members.
Make sure all entries include the following: Name of the publication or web site in which the story appeared, category entered and date of publication or first appearance on-line or on newsstands. If tearsheets include copy on both sides, please send a separate sheet for both. The writing categories are:
CATEGORY A, EVENT COVERAGE: Coverage of a particular fight or fight card, AFTER the fact, and must have been published within 36 hours of the event’s conclusion. Advances fall more in the features category.
CATEGORY B, COLUMN: This category is reserved for opinion or point-of-view pieces in which you take a stand on a particular subject and let readers know in no uncertain terms what that stand is.
CATEGORY C, NEWS STORY: Coverage of breaking news.
CATEGORY D1, FEATURE UNDER 1,750 WORDS: Pretty much self-explanatory.
CATEGORY D2, FEATURE OVER 1,750 WORDS: Ditto.
CATEGORY E, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING: Investigative reporting means delving deeper into a particular subject, sometimes requiring a series of stories or a main with sidebars, to fully explain what it all means and why it should be important to the reader.
PHOTOGRAPHY: There are two photography categories, ACTION and FEATURE. Photographers do not need to be BWAA members to enter the contest. Entry requires submission of hardcopy 8x10 prints -- no more than one for ACTION and one for FEATURE -- to the above mailing address. Winning photographers will be asked to provide digital versions to be printed in the awards journal and on the website.
JOIN THE BWAA
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