Russell, Fred(erick McFerrin) 1906-2003

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RUSSELL, Fred(erick McFerrin) 1906-2003

PERSONAL: Born August 27, 1906, in Nashville, TN; died January 26, 2003; son of John E. (a journalist) and Mabel (McFerrin) Russell; married Katherine Wyche Early, November 2, 1933; children: four. Education: Attended Vanderbilt University.

CAREER: Journalist and sportswriter. Worked as a soda jerk and for a title company in Nashville, TN, 1920s; admitted to the Bar of Tennessee, 1927; Nashville Banner, Nashville, TN, reporter, columnist and sports editor, 1928-98; Tennessean, Nashville, TN, sportswriter, beginning 1998; National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame, chairman of honors committee, 1967-92; Heisman Trophy committee, southern chairman, 1946-92; Football Writers Association, president, 1960-61.

AWARDS, HONORS: Grantland Rice Award, 1955; College Football Centennial Award, 1969; writing award, Golf Writers Association of America, 1972; U.S. Olympic Committee award for distinguished journalism, 1976; Distinguished American Award, National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame, 1980; Amos Alonzo Stagg Award, American Football Coaches Association, 1981; National Turf Writers Association Award, 1983; Red Smith Award, Associated Press Sports Editors, 1984; inducted into Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, 1974 and National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame, 1988; Grantland Rice sports writing scholarship established in 1956 renamed the Fred Russell-Grantland Rice sports writing scholarship by Vanderbilt University/Thoroughbred Racing Association, 1986; Fred Russell Baseball Press Box dedicated by Vanderbilt University, 2001.

WRITINGS:

(Editor with Maxwell Benson) Fifty Years of Vanderbilt Football, privately printed (Nashville, TN), 1938.

I'll Go Quietly, McQuiddy (Nashville, TN), 1944.

I'll Try Anything Twice, McQuiddy (Nashville, TN), 1945.

Funny Thing about Sports, McQuiddy (Nashville, TN), 1945.

(With George Leonard) Vol Feats, Nashville Banner (Nashville, TN), 1950.

Bury Me in an Old Press Box: Good Times and Life of a Sportswriter, Barnes (New York, NY), 1957.

(With George Leonard) Big Bowl Football: The Great Postseason Classics, Ronald (New York, NY), 1963.

The Libel Case of Wally Butts vs. the Saturday Evening Post (collection of articles), Nashville Banner (Nashville, TN), 1963.

Also author of column "Sideline" for Nashville Banner; regular contributor to Saturday Evening Post, 1939-62.

SIDELIGHTS: Fred Russell, considered one of the most beloved sportswriters in the South, was a man who literally never retired and wrote more than 12,000 columns for four generations of fans. Russell won many awards for his accomplishments, and Vanderbilt University's Grantland Rice sports writing scholarship, established in the name of another great sportswriting alumni in 1956, was renamed the Fred Russell-Grantland Rice sports writing scholarship in 1986 when the award received an endowment from the Oaklawn Jockey Club on behalf of the Thoroughbred Racing Association.

Russell was born in Nashville, Tennessee, but he spent his first thirteen years in Wartrace, a small town his journalist father thought would provide a better environment for bringing up his children. In 1920 the family returned to Nashville, however, and Russell attended Duncan Preparatory School. After graduation he worked as a soda jerk and saved for an education at Vanderbilt. He studied law and later passed the Bar exam, but he was more impressed by English courses, particularly a freshman class taught by Edwin Mimes. Russell worked for a title company until it was sold, leaving him unemployed. He applied to the Nashville Banner, and owner and publisher Jimmy Stahlman gave him a choice of jobs, as a cub reporter at six dollars a week, or on the classified desk at four times that amount. Russell chose the reporting job.

Russell was at the Banner less than a year when, at age twenty-four, he became sports editor. It was a time of sports legends like Babe Ruth in baseball, Knute Rockne and Red Grange in football, Bobby Jones in golf, Johnny Weismueller in swimming, and Jack Dempsey in boxing. Just as there were great athletes, there were great writers to immortalize them, including Rice, Paul Gallico, and many others. William J. Plott noted in Dictionary of Literary Biography that "humor permeated Russell's writing and his speech.... Most of Russell's daily 'Sideline' pieces were 'notes' columns, a trade expression for columns that are a smorgasbord of short news items, jokes, and humorous anecdotes. Russell also loved carefully crafting practical jokes, some of which required elaborate preparation."

Stories were not confined to Tennessee sports, and Russell wrote many articles about Purdue and Kansas. He served on various committees and for forty-six years was southern chairman of the committee that selected the Heisman Trophy winner. He was not only president of the Football Writers Association, he was a charter member, along with Tom Siler, sports editor of the Knoxville News-Sentinel. Both men contributed to national magazines, Siler to Colliers, and Russell to the Saturday Evening Post, beginning with his first assignment in 1949 and his last when the magazine shut down in the 1960s.

Not all of Russell's writing was about sports. In 1936 he covered the kidnaping of Alice Speed Stoll of Louisville, Kentucky. Her kidnapper, Thomas H. Robinson, Jr., and Russell had been classmates at Vanderbilt, and Russell was able to get an exclusive interview with Robinson before his conviction. In one particular instance Russell drew on his background in law in writing a series of articles about the Wally Butts vs. the Saturday Evening Post libel trial. The Post was sued by the former University of Georgia football coach over an article alleging that Butts and Paul "Bear" Bryant of the University of Alabama had conspired to fix a game. The Banner sent Russell to Atlanta to cover the trial, and when it was over the newspaper collected his articles and published them. Plott noted that Blackie Sherrod, sports editor of the Dallas Morning News, "said Russell covered the libel trial much like Damon Runyon covered murder trials. The idea of a sportswriter being sent to cover a judicial event of national interest was a source of pride for other sportswriters....His prose indicated that he had little problem switching from the world of sports to that of law. Indeed, his attention to details and perceptions of human nature were often evident in his coverage. Russell rarely displayed verse or high metaphor, but his stories and columns usually captured the essence of the subject in clear, easily digested language."

When Wilma Rudolph, the star of the 1960 Olympic Games, died in 1994, Russell, who had covered the Tennessee athlete's amazing career, delivered her eulogy. When the Banner folded, Russell hardly missed a beat. He wrote his last column for the Banner on February 19, 1998 and his first at his new spot at the Tennessean on April 2. Randy Horick wrote in Nashville Scene that Russell "witnessed the reshaping of the entire sports landscape, from college football teams that didn't offer scholarships to athletic departments that are run like corporations; from an era of unpretentious baseball players to a time of millionaire media stars; from the days of cold type and Western Union to real-time, all-the-time information. Russell died in 2003."