INDIANAPOLIS (USBWA) – The U.S. Basketball Writers Association Hall of Fame Class of 2025 honors seven reporters and columnists who have covered men’s and women’s basketball for a total of more than 230 years.
Doug Feinberg of The Associated Press and Milton Kent, formerly of the Baltimore Sun, will be honored during an awards brunch at the Hilton Tampa Downtown on Friday, April 4 at 10 a.m.
John Clay of the Lexington Herald-Leader, Chuck Culpepper of the Washington Post, Kevin McNamara of KevinMcSports.com and the Providence Journal and the late Al Featherston of the Durham Herald-Sun and Bob Holt of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette will be honored at the awards luncheon at the Grand Hyatt San Antonio River Walk on Monday, April 7 at 11:30 a.m.
Clay has been with the Herald-Leader for more than 40 years. He has been a columnist since 2000, providing much-needed context, insight and perspective for followers of the Kentucky Wildcats from Tubby Smith to Mark Pope.
Culpepper, a former Herald-Leader columnist now at the Washington Post, has had his byline appear everywhere from the National in Abu Dhabi to the defunct National Sports Daily. He once said of an unforgettable moment during his time in Lexington, speaking about the Wildcats, “... they played 36 games and the last one that I wrote was the one in Philadelphia against Duke ... where the lead changed five times in the last 31 seconds of overtime. And then Laettner hits the shot at the end and you have to write it in 30 seconds.”
Featherston was an influential presence in the coverage of Atlantic Coast Conference basketball for more than 30 years from the time he joined the Durham Sun in 1974. In a conference known for its very public personality conflicts, he became respected as a beat writer covering Duke, North Carolina and N.C. State before becoming a columnist. Known for his encyclopedic knowledge, Al attended every ACC men’s basketball tournament from the first one in 1954 until the 2010s. He died in November 2018.
Feinberg has been with The Associated Press since 1995, covering women’s basketball at the college, professional and international levels since 2006. He has covered every Women’s Final Four since 2008, plus five Olympic tournaments and four women’s World Championships and World Cups. Feinberg has supervised the AP women’s basketball poll since 2006. He received the Mel Greenberg Media Award from the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association in 2018.
Holt was once described by former Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson as “a Columbo-type guy. He had all the answers, but he asked them anyway just to find out if you knew the answers.” Holt, an institution at the Democrat Gazette, was a member of the USBWA board last year before his sudden passing. He was named Arkansas sportswriter of the year four times by the National Sports Media Association and was a finalist in 2024. He was inducted into the Arkansas Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame in 2022.
Kent, now a Professor of Practice at Morgan State University, first covered men’s and women’s basketball for the Baltimore Evening Sun in 1989 and continued at the Sun in 1991. His coverage defined the rise of the women’s program at the University of Maryland. He also covered sports media and women’s basketball at AOL Fanhouse.
Starting in 1991, McNamara’s coverage of the Providence College Friars made him the longest-tenured beat reporter in the history of the Big East conference. For more than a decade he was a columnist at Basketball Times. He is a three-time Rhode Island Sportswriter of the Year, a two-time winner in the USBWA Best Writing contest and a multiple winner in the Associated Press/New England competition. In addition to his work on the website he launched, he hosts the KevinMcSports Hour on WPRO radio in Providence.
Related link:
USBWA Hall of Famers