Bozich, McCann, Axthelm feted

Axthelm

Bozich

McCann

The next three inductees into the U.S. Basketball Writers Association's Hall of Fame have covered much of basketball's most hallowed ground – New York City, Kentucky, Indiana and North Carolina.

Rick Bozich of the Louisville Courier-Journal, Gary McCann of The Herald of Rock Hill, S.C., and the late Pete Axthelm of Newsweek and ESPN will be honored at the USBWA's annual awards breakfast at the Final Four in Detroit, on April 6.

Axthelm wrote for the New York Herald Tribune and Sports Illustrated but was best known for the 20 years he spent at Newsweek, first as sports editor and then as a columnist and contributing editor. He was also a sports television commentator for NBC and later ESPN.

He authored "City Game, Basketball in New York," the first book to seriously explore college-basketball recruiting. The book covered the glory and tragedy of New York basketball. It combined an account of the championship season of the New York Knicks with a study of those who played in ghetto playgrounds and became neighborhood legends but never played professionally.

Axthelm died in 1991 of liver failure at the age of 47.

Bozich is in his 31st year at the Louisville Courier-Journal and Times. He replaced USBWA Hall of Fame member Dick Fenlon as sports columnist at the Times in 1981 and became a Courier-Journal columnist in 1986. He has covered 27 of the last 28 NCAA Final Fours and seven NCAA championship teams at Kentucky, Louisville and Indiana.

Bozich served as USBWA president in 2003-04 and has won more than 20 USBWA writing contest awards and six from APSE. He has also been a college basketball correspondent for Sports Illustrated since 1986.

McCann is in his 38th year as a sportswriter. Since 1998, he has been sports editor of The Herald. He started his career at the Burlington Times-News in 1971 and moved to the Greensboro News & Record in 1981 before leaving to replace the legendary Bob Hammel as sports editor at the Bloomington, Ind., Herald-Times in 1996.

McCann has covered 17 Final Fours and numerous ACC tournaments and has won 10 USBWA writing awards and more than 20 other state and national writing awards.