Mike Lupica Wins Damon Runyon Award

PRLog (Press Release) - Oct. 27, 2012 - The Denver Press Club has named prolific sportswriter, TV and radio broadcaster,
and book author Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News as recipient of the 19th Annual Damon Runyon Award.

Lupica will accept the award at a banquet in his honor on Friday, April 12, 2013, at the Denver Marriott City Center, 1701 California St. The club also will introduce the six winners of its college journalism scholarships that night.

Tickets are $110 and can be purchased online at www.blacktie-colorado.com; go to April 12 on the Denver events calendar page. Tickets are $90 for members of the Denver Press Club, Denver Woman's Press Club, Colorado Press Women, the Colorado chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the Colorado chapter of the Public Relations Society of America and the Colorado Association of Black Journalists.

This event is open to everyone. In addition, DPC offers a $25 ticket to attend the VIP reception at the club, which goes from 5-6 p.m.

Lupica is one of the most prominent sportswriters in America and his columns are considered must reading. In addition, he also now writes columns about New York City politics in the Daily News.

He began his newspaper career covering the New York Knicks for the New York Post at age 23. He became the youngest columnist ever at a New York paper with the Daily News, which he joined in 1977.

He’s had a versatile writing career, with magazines, novels, sports biographies, other nonfiction books on sports and starting “The Sporting Life” column for Esquire magazine. He co-wrote autobiographies with Reggie Jackson and Bill Parcells; collaborated with author and screenwriter William Goldman on “Wait ’Til Next Year”; “Shooting from the Lip,” a collection of columns, and other books. Lupica has been a TV anchor for ESPN’s “The Sports Reporters” and hosted “The Mike Lupica Show” on ESPN2.

Each year, the club presents the Runyon award to a journalist whose work best exemplifies the vivid writing style of Damon Runyon, an early member of the Denver Press Club in 1906-07.

Runyon wrote for The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News before going on to fame and glory in New York City as one of the best-read columnists of his day. His collection of short stories, “Guys and Dolls,” later became the basis for the famous musical.

Previous recipients of the award include Jimmy Breslin, Mike Royko, Molly Ivins, Herb Caen, Pete Hamill, Ted Turner, Maureen Dowd, Tom Brokaw, David Halberstam, Ed Bradley, Carl Hiaasen, Seymour Hersh, George Will, Bob Costas, Tim Russert, Rick Reilly, P.J. O’Rourke, Anna Quindlen and Frank Deford.

For more information, contact Bruce Goldberg at 303-803-9226.