Sports Columnist Frank Deford, 78

(ATR) Sports writer Frank Deford is remembered for his sophisticated and philosophical style of writing. He met many of the world’s great athletes across a career that began in 1962 with Sports Illustrated and ended this year with his final commentaries for National Public Radio.

Deford died at home in Key West, Florida on May 29.

Deford delivered 1,656 commentaries for NPR from 1980. While he exalted Olympians, he never had much patience for "the blazers" as he called the IOC and other authorities in the Olympic world.

NPR considered him the "scholar of sports".

Deford was born in Baltimore and was a Princeton graduate. "Over Time" is the title of his memoir, written in 2012.

"The wonderful thing about delivering sports commentary on NPR was that because it has such a broad audience, I was able to reach people who otherwise had little or no interest in sport — especially as an important part of our human culture," Deford said in an NPR story about his career.

"Nothing made me happier than to hear from literally hundreds of listeners who would tell me how much the commentaries revealed about a subject they otherwise had never cared much for," he said.

Here are links to some of his Olympic-inspired commentaries from the NPR website, www.npr.org.

On Katie Ladecky at the Rio Olympics

On the question of why cities want the bother of hosting the Olympics.

Recognition of a memorial for the Israeli athletes who died at the Munich Olympics.

Why figure skating deserves to be an Olympic sport.

Why it was a bad idea to have the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

During the 2012 Olympics, Deford tried to answer the question of who is the greatest Olympian.

In this 2010 piece, Deford critiques the impact of TV on the Winter Olympics.

Deford delivered his final commentary on May 3.

Written by Ed Hula.

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