SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (FWAA) Mark Blaudschun, longtime writer of the Boston Globe and the FWAA's warhorse of the press box, has been named the 2007 recipient of the Football Writers Association of America's Bert McGrane Award, it was announced during the FWAA annual awards breakfast on Jan. 8.
The McGrane Award, symbolic of the Association's Hall of Fame, is presented to an FWAA member who has performed great service to the organization and/or the writing profession. It is named after McGrane, a Des Moines, Iowa, writer who was the executive secretary of the FWAA from the early 1940s until 1973.
"It is a great honor to get," Blaudschun said. "I can't believe it. It is special because of the organization."
Blaudschun, 58, was the 56th president of the FWAA in 1999 and has been the press relations liaison with BCS games. Upon his naming as the Bert McGrane winner, Blaudschun also will take over as the chairman of the membership honors committee, which consists of past McGrane winners and selects the Hall of Famer each year.
"Mark has been very instrumental in the development of press operations in the BCS bowls and has been a real champion of news media's rights in the press box during the regular season as well," said Steve Richardson, FWAA Executive Director. "He is very deserving of this honor as a long-time bulldog of the press box. He will make a fine chairman of the McGrane Committee."
Blaudschun, a graduate of the University of Miami, has worked at the Boston Globe for two decades. He has covered national college football and basketball in addition to covering the New England Patriots for three seasons. Blaudschun also has worked at The Dallas Morning News and the City Magazine in San Francisco after getting his start at two East Coast newspapers.
Blaudschun will be honored next summer during the National Football Foundation's Hall of Fame induction weekend in South Bend, Ind., and his name will be placed in the College Football Hall of Fame's rotunda.
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Bert McGrane Award