Frank DeFord

Frank Deford
Frank Deford speaking at the Bridgeport Public Library in Bridgeport, Connecticut, September 21, 2007
Born	Benjamin Franklin Deford III (1938-12-16) December 16, 1938 (age 78) Baltimore, Maryland
Education	Princeton University
Occupation	Journalist, Novelist
Spouse(s)	Carol Penner Deford
Children	3

Frank Deford (born Benjamin Franklin Deford III on December 16, 1938 in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American sportswriter and novelist.

In addition to his 50-year tenure at Sports Illustrated, where he now holds the title of Senior Contributing Writer, Deford appears monthly on National Public Radio and as Senior Correspondent for Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel on HBO. He has written 18 books, nine of them novels. A member of the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame, Deford was six times voted Sportswriter of the Year by the members of that organization, and was twice voted Magazine Writer of the Year by the Washington Journalism Review.

In 2012 he became the first magazine recipient of the Red Smith Award. In 2013 he was presented with the William Allen White Citation for "excellence in journalism" by the University of Kansas and became the first sports journalist ever to receive the National Press Foundation's highest honor, the W.M. Kiplinger Award for Distinguished Contributions to Journalism. Deford's archives are held by the University of Texas, where an annual lecture is presented in his name. He is a long-time advocate for research and treatment of cystic fibrosis.

Deford grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, the oldest of three sons, and attended the Calvert School and Gilman School in Baltimore. He is a graduate of Princeton University and now resides in Westport, Connecticut, with his wife, the former Carol Penner, who had been a fashion model. They have two surviving children: Christian (b. 1969) and Scarlet (b. 1980). Scarlet was adopted as an infant from the Philippines a few months after Alex's death. Deford has two grandchildren; Annabel (b. 2010) and Hunter (b. 2012). Deford met his wife in Delaware and they were married in Newport, Rhode Island in 1965.