Background

Shirley Lewis Povich was born on July 15, 1905 in Bar Harbor, Maine, United States; the son of Nathan Povich and Rosa (Orlovich) Povich.

Education

Povich graduated from Morse High School in 1922. Later, he was invited to enroll at Georgetown University's law school. Povich attended Georgetown from 1922 until 1924, leaving without a degree.

Career

A summer job as a teenager caddying for the newspaper mogul Edward McLean at the Kebo Valley Club, a Bar Harbor reserve for the wealthy and privileged, led Povich to employment at the Washington Post in 1922, when he was seventeen. McLean persuaded Povich to move to Washington, D.C., offering him $20 per week to caddy and another $12 per week to work as a copyboy. For the next seventy-five years, Povich drew a paycheck every week, as caddy, copyboy, correspondent, and columnist.

On his second day in Washington, Povich began his job as a copyboy at the Washington Post. In August 1924 Povich registered his first byline with a description of the Washington Senators taking over the American League by defeating the New York Yankees.

In 1926 McLean made Povich a sports editor. At age twenty Povich was the youngest sports editor of any major U.S. newspaper. In August 1926 he began his long-running column, "This Morning with Shirley Povich," which was a standard in the Washington Post until his retirement in 1974.

Through the years Povich's column was one of the greatest chronicles of sports. He wrote about the baseball greats Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Sandy Koufax, and Lou Gehrig; the golfers Bobby Jones and Sam Snead; the tennis star Bill Tilden; the fighter Rocky Marciano; and the jockey Earl Sande. He covered many uplifting moments in sports history, ranging from the first World Series win for the Washington Senators in 1924 to Cassius Clay's upset of Sonny Liston to win the heavyweight title in 1964, and on to the 2,131st consecutive game played by Cal Ripken of the Baltimore Orioles in 1995, which broke Lou Gehrig's record. Povich also took up controversial subjects, such as Gene Tunney's defeat of Jack Dempsey in a 1927 heavyweight bout, which was said to be the result of a "long count" that gave Tunney extra time to get up from the floor. Povich also reported on the terrifying events of the 1972 Munich Olympics, when eleven Israeli athletes were murdered by terrorists.

In addition to writing his daily column, Povich became a prolific freelance writer. In 1946, after the Brooklyn Dodgers signed a contract with Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play in the major leagues, Povich wrote an award-winning fifteen-part series called "No More Shutouts" on the impact of the color line in baseball.

After his formal retirement from the Washington Post in 1974, Povich continued writing for the newspaper, taught journalism and sportswriting at leading colleges and universities, and appeared as a guest speaker on television and on Ken Burns's award-winning history of baseball on the Public Broadcasting Service in 1994.

Achievements

• 

  Povich was awarded many honors; among the earliest was the Grantland Rice Award for sportswriting in 1964. He garnered the J. G. Taylor Spink Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1976, and was thereby inducted to the writers wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was a recipient of the Red Smith Award from the Associated Press Sports Editors in 1983 and was elected to the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame in 1984. In 1995 he was given Lifetime Achievement Awards from the National Press Club and the Anti-Defamation League. Povich was the first sportswriter to receive the Fourth Estate Award presented by the National Press Club in 1997.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Washington Senators 1954
  • All those Mornings 1969

Views

Quotations: "Most important, the center will serve as a launching pad for students to learn, actively participate in and develop the journalistic skills they need to meet the challenges facing them as the next generation of sports journalists".

Membership

Shirley Povich was a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America and Baseball Hall of Fame Veterans Committee.

Interests

• baseball

Connections

Shirley Povich married Ethyl Friedman on February 21, 1932. Their marriage produced three children - Maury Povich, David Povich and Lynn Shepard.

Father:

Nathan Povich

Mother:

Rosa (Orlovich) Povich

Spouse:

Ethyl Friedman

child:

David Povich

child:

Lynn Povich

Lynn Povich is an American journalist. In 1975 she became the first woman Senior Editor in Newsweek’s history.

child:

Maurice R. Povich

Maury Povich hosts a syndicated American tabloid talk show Maury.