Phi Delta Theta Sports Hall of Fame Inductee

Grantland Rice was a sports writer and poet whose columns became nationally syndicated beginning in 1930. Rice is known as the Dean of American Sports Writers and the most famous sports writer in America during the first half of the 20th century. His poetry included Alumni Football, which ends with the lines: “For when the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name, He marks not that you won or lost, but how you played the game.”

To honor his 50 years in journalism, the Grantland Rice Fellowship in Journalism was established with the New York Community Trust in 1951. In 1954, the Football Writers Association established the Grantland Rice Memorial Award given to an outstanding college player chosen by the association. The Grantland Rice Bowl, a college bowl game named in his honor, was played from 1964 to 1977. He received the J.G. Taylor Spink Award posthumously in 1966 from the Baseball Writers Association of America for meritorious contributions to baseball writing.

Today, the Fred Russell-Grantland Rice Sports Writing Scholarship provides a partial tuition scholarship to an entering Vanderbilt student interested in the field of sports journalism.