Bud Collins, American Journalist and Television Sportscaster

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:30:00 EST

Bud Collins (COM’55) — journalist, author, and television sportscaster whose career has spanned more than a half-century — is an authority on tennis, which he began covering in 1963. In his talk, he regales the audience with anecdotes from his early sports-reporting days, when boxing was his beat (he covered the Muhammad Ali–Sonny Liston fights) through the 2009 Australian Open (he predicted, correctly, Rafael Nadal would beat Roger Federer).

Collins’s first stint as a tennis commentator was at Boston’s WGBH-TV. The sport was not covered regularly at the time, he recalls. “I found out the people who covered tennis were the staff drunk or the people on the boss’s you-know-what list,” he says. But he saw history being made when Arthur Ashe became the only black male tennis player to win the U.S. Open, in 1968, and Wimbledon, in 1975.

He also recounted his first meeting, in 1963, with Ali, then known as Cassius Clay. “What a great one he was,” Collins says. “He was unabashedly egotistical, but in a nice way.”

Collins’s talk was followed by a question-and-answer session.

March 3, 2009, 5:30 p.m.
Metcalf Hall

Video length is 01:11:15.

About the speakers:
Bud Collins (COM’55) began his journalism career in 1955, working at the Boston Herald while attending graduate school at Boston University. He later joined the Boston Globe, and, in 1963, began doing tennis commentary for WGBH-TV. He worked for NBC from 1972 to 2007. He currently appears regularly on ESPN and the Tennis Channel. Collins has written several different editions of tennis encyclopedias and is the author of numerous books on the sport and its players. His autobiography, My Life with the Pros, was published in 1989. A member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame and the Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame he won, in 1999, the Red Smith Award, considered the highest accolade in sports writing. His papers are part of the holdings of the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.

Jack Falla Discusses His Novel "Saved"

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 19:00:00 EST

Jack Falla (COM’67,’90), a lecturer in journalism in the College of Communication, reads from his new sports-fiction novel Saved. The book, about a hockey player nearing retirement who wants to win the Stanley Cup, is sportswriter Falla’s first work of fiction. Veteran Boston goaltender Jean Pierre Savard is concerned mainly with money and sex, after he lost his father and his wife at a young age. Approaching retirement, Savard and his teammate and best friend, Cam Carter, are focusing on winning the Stanley Cup. A late season trade sends Carter to another team, and the best friends face each other in the Stanley Cup final game. Falla says that the book is to a very small extent autobiographical.

February 7, 2008, 7 p.m.
Barnes and Noble at BU

Video length is 00:15:15.

About the speaker:
Jack Falla (COM’67,’90), a lecturer in journalism in the College of Communication, is a veteran sports journalist. The New England native is a former Sports Illustrated staff writer. He previously wrote Home Ice: Reflections on Backyard Rinks and Frozen Ponds, a collection of essays about the way backyard skating rinks and frozen ponds form communities. He’s also the author of Sports Illustrated Hockey: Learn to Play the Modern Way, and NCAA: The Voice of College Sports. He edited Quest for the Cup: A History of the Stanley Cup Finals, 1893-2001.

BUniverse

Bud Collins, American Journalist and Television Sportscaster

Jack Falla Discusses His Novel "Saved"