Kelly Whiteside
ATLANTA (FWAA) -- Longtime FWAA member and 2002 FWAA President Kelly Whiteside has been named the FWAA's 2025 Bert McGrane winner and will be honored at a dinner in Atlanta tonight hosted by the National Football Foundation and presented by the More Family. The event kicks off festivities leading up to the College Football Playoff National Championship Game on Monday night.
"It doesn’t get any better or bigger than this," Whiteside said. "College football is a sport I grew up on, covered for most of my career and then lived the last three years on the CFP committee. The FWAA believed in me when I had the honor to serve as the organization’s president and that truly was a career highlight. Thank you for this unbelievable honor. If I could only retire now, but spring semester awaits."
The McGrane Award is the FWAA's highest honor and goes to a member who has made great contributions to the FWAA, journalism and to college football. It is the association's Hall of Fame, and the recipient is recognized at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta.
McGrane, from the Des Moines Register, was the association's first executive director in the early 1940s until 1973.
Whiteside, the first female Bert McGrane Awatd recipient, was a national college football writer for 14 years at USA Today and also covered seven Olympics and nine World Cups (men's and women's), all the major professional sports and different college sports. She has been a Professor at Montclair State since 2014.
"Kelly was our first female President during an era when more women were starting to come into the field," said FWAA Executive Director Steve Richardson. "The profession and college football have greatly benefited from that. Kelly has also added the dimension of being an educator in the field and to top that off has been a member of the CFP Selection Committee for the past three years. She is a very well-rounded individual. And she definitely knows sports."
A graduate of Rutgers University and the Columbia Journalism School, Kelly grew up with Rutgers football. She was a soccer player and played at Rutgers, but after suffering a torn ACL, she decided in a career in journalism after writing for the school paper.
"My first brush with journalism greatness was with Christine Brennan. I had applied for an AWSM internship when I was at Rutgers, I was a runner-up, “Whiteside recalled. “She was unbelievably kind. I applied again when I was at Columbia J School, and I was runner-up again. She again was unbelievably supportive. But turns out this time, runner-up status landed me an internship at Sports Illustrated which launched my career and turned into my first job. (So thanks for this award, it’s nice to finally finish first!)."
Whiteside was part of the “college football rat pack,” a group of national writers who traveled and covered the best college games of week starting in the 1990s. So she was in good company, and with several fellow FWAA Past Presidents in the entourage.
“My mentors along the way … some of them will likely be in the room tonight, I hope. Malcolm (Moran), Hoops (Dick Weiss), Ivan (Maisel), Blau (Mark Blaudschun), Rich (Rosenblatt) , Bags (Andy Bagnato) – and Duf (the late Chris Dufresne) of course – and everyone else who was part of that merry traveling band of national writers in the late ‘90s and 2000s."
“Kelly has always been the proto type of a reporter who does her job,” Blaudschun said. “She also has paid her dues over the years and her transformation from reporting to the academic side has been a loss for our (writing) profession. She has also been a good friend over the years as we traveled the country covering college football."
Lasting memories of big games?
“Best football game I ever covered was the 2006 Rose Bowl between Texas and USC,” Whiteside said. ”The Trojans were riding a 34-game winning streak and were led by Heisman winners Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart. But Longhorns quarterback Vince Young had a heroic night, scoring the go-ahead touchdown on 4th-and-5 with just 19 seconds remaining
Runner-up: "Rutgers win over Louisville in 2006, Pandemonium in Piscataway, just because it was a moment of joy after spending most of my life growing up as a Rutgers fan which was mostly misery."
Best sporting event: "The 1999 Women’s World Cup – Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, Brandi Chastain and Brianna Scurry winning it all in the Rose Bowl. (Plus President Clinton’s Secret Service team pulled out their guns on me when I mistakenly ran into their elevator but that’s a story for another day.)"
She has been there and done it and can apply her past experiences to teaching her students no matter how the media has changed over the years.
“I think because the business has changed, I’m training future storytellers – whether they tell that story in an Instagram post, a podcast, a TV highlight or (be still my heart) a written story. The landscape has changed from the traveling circus of beat writers that I was a part of but the mission is still the same – get it right, draw the reader (or viewer) in, make deadline and try to have a little fun along the way."
Her three-year tour of duty on the CFP Selection Committee ends with the title game on Monday night.
"What I learned from my three years on the CFP Selection Committee was ..." Whiteside said."… how to watch a game in an hour and half, thanks to the TV cuts; how delicious the bacon is at the Gaylord Texan, where the meetings are held; how humbling it was to be in a room of really smart football minds, from All-Pro linemen to great coaches and seasoned athletic directors; how privileged we are to have a media spot on such an important committee; how insane Florida State fans are (death threats, seriously!); how I was an outsider – the only woman on the committee for two years – PLUS a media person but my opinion was as valued and as heard as any insider.
"To be honest, there’s no bombshells. People would be surprised with how much work goes into the process, how much debate, care and deliberation there is and how much respect there is in the room for differing opinions."
Founded in 1941, the Football Writers Association of America consists of journalists, broadcasters, publicists, photographers and key executives in all areas of college football. The FWAA works to govern media access and game-day operations while presenting awards and honors, including an annual All-America team. For more information about the FWAA and its programs and initiatives, contact Executive Director Steve Richardson at 214-870-6516 or tiger@fwaa.com.