Allison Danzig

Allison ‘Al’ Danzig is an American sportswriter who wrote about US college football, rowing, squash and many Olympic games. He was however, most known for writing about tennis. He is credited as being the first sportswriter to enter the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Rhode Island. He was born on February 1898 in Waco, Texas. He grew up in New York. Danzig retired in 1967, leaving a career that spanned decades. Before his death, he named Bill Tidden as the greatest Tennis Player he had ever covered.

Writing ran in the family for Danzig. His sister wrote a hit song in the 1940s. He studied at Cornell University and while there, he served as the co-editor of the university’s The Daily Sun News. He also dabbled in football and played a tailback for the university team. Danzig also served in the US army during World War I.

A few years after graduation, he later on joined the New York Times as a writer. Before that, he worked at the Brooklyn Eagle. He remained at the Times until his retirement in the late 1960s. His first writing gigs included writing obituaries. He also considered being a foreign correspondent.

Danzig was inducted in to the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1968 – a year after his retirement from the Times. He is considered to be the ‘widest regarded literary voice’ of Tennis and of other sports. This writer is known for always dressing up immaculately, in a coat and tie, whenever he covered a game. He was also the first sports write to ever be presented The Danzig Award in 1963. The award committee was established by the Longwood Cricket Club to honor leading Tennis writers.