Peter Vecsey was the first newspaper columnist to specialize in the NBA. He also made league gossip into an art form.

He reckoned he acquired his nose for interesting stories through “osmosis” as his father was a sports editor and mother a society editor at the Long Island Press. During high school Peter Vecsey worked as a statistician for the Daily News on baseball box scores for two seasons and wound up dropping out of Hofstra after one year to re-take a full-time job at the paper.  Aside from a two-year stint as a green beret Vecsey spent 14 years at the Daily News and began writing stories for the paper in 1967. Though baseball was his first love he began covering the New Jersey Nets consistently in the 1969-70 season about six years before the ABA-NBA merger.

Vecsey’s immersion in basketball as a reporter was enriched by his participation as a player and coach in the fabled Rucker Tournament in Harlem. It was there that Vecsey met and began a lifelong friendship with an emerging star named Julius Erving. “He always had a lot of confidence” Erving who would also later work with Vecsey on NBC said of first meeting with Vecsey “He had a swag about him.” Vecsey moved on from the Daily News to the New York Post where he wrote for another 36 years. During those years he also served as a television analyst most notably with NBC and TNT raising his national profile.

One secret to his longevity and success was that nobody was too sacred to be called out in his columns or commentary and criticized if Vecsey believed their performance or conduct warranted it. Vecsey’s fearlessness was a hallmark of his reporting career and made him a legend in his field. He is a member of New York City’s Basketball Hall of Fame and has been honored by his alma mater Archbishop Malloy High School and Ruckers. The jewel in his crown of honors came in 2009 when he was inducted in to the National Basketball Hall of Fame.

Presented here is Peter Vecsey’s Curt Gowdy Print Media Award.  The award was presented to Vecsey by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on September 10 2009 for his “Outstanding Lifetime Coverage of Basketball.” The 13-inch tall trophy is quite a hefty combination of marble and cast metal. One of the most prestigious media awards in all of sports this is the first example that we are aware of to be offered publicly.