Will McDonough

William "Will" McDonough (July 6, 1935–January 9, 2003) was an American sportswriter for the Boston Globe who also worked as an on-air football reporter for CBS and NBC.

The youngest of nine children of Irish immigrants, McDonough grew up in working-class South Boston. He attended The English High School, where he starred in baseball as a pitcher and in football as a quarterback. While attending Northeastern University, McDonough started at the Boston Globe as an co-op intern / copy boy in 1955 to cover school sports, and he was hired by the Globe full-time after graduation in 1957. In 1960, after McDonough had been promoted to sportswriter, he was assigned as the beat reporter for the Boston Patriots of the start-up American Football League and remained one of the country's premier football reporters until his retirement in 2001. During his 40+ years writing career with the Globe (interrupted only by a brief departure in 1973), McDonough worked with other legendary Globe sportswriters such as Peter Gammons, Bob Ryan, and Leigh Montville. Beginning in 1993, he was named an associate editor of the Globe.

McDonough became a hero among Boston sportswriters after a 1979 altercation with Patriots cornerback Raymond Clayborn, in which the 44-year-old McDonough leveled Clayborn in the locker room after the third-year cornerback had poked him in the eye. However, McDonough's main fame was due to the number of "scoops" and exclusive stories that he broke while with the Globe. At the time of his death, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue called him the "most influential reporter covering the NFL."

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