*Episode note: In the introduction, we incorrectly called the book co-written with Vince Lombardi Running into Daylight. The correct title is Run to Daylight.
In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of journalist and author W. C. Heinz. Most well known for his sports reporting, Heinz was one of the nation’s preeminent sports journalists during the 1940s, 50s, and 60s with a daily column in the New York Sun. Prior to that, he was the Sun’s war correspondent during World War II, sending dispatches from the frontlines. In 1958, he published his first novel, The Professional, which garnered critical acclaim. He also co-wrote Run to Daylight! with football coach Vince Lombardi and co-wrote the novel MASH, which ultimately led to the iconic film and then television show of the same name.
Heinz was a five-time winner of the E. P. Dutton Award for best magazine story of the year, won the A. J. Liebling Award for outstanding boxing writing, and his work has been reprinted in more than 60 anthologies and textbooks. He has been inducted into the National Sports Media Association Hall of Fame, as well as the International Boxing Hall of Fame. And following his death in 2008, the Associated Press Sports Editors posthumously awarded Heinz the Red Smith Award, regarded as the highest honor for sports journalism in the country.
For this episode we are joined by writer Bill Littlefield, former host of NPR’s “Only A Game” program and editor of The Top of His Game: The Best Sportswriting of W. C. Heinz; as well Gayl Heinz, the daughter of W. C. Heinz and literary executor of his works. You can read their full bios below.
Bill and Gayl are interviewed by Nate King, Digital Content Associate at the American Writers Museum. This conversation originally took place January 5, 2024 and was recorded over Zoom.
About our guests:
For 25 years, Bill Littlefield hosted and wrote for NPR’s weekly sports magazine program, “Only A Game,” which he helped to create in 1993. His commentaries enlivened NPR’s Morning Edition and appeared in The Boston Globe and various other papers and magazines. Littlefield is the author of seven books, including two novels, Prospect (Houghton Mifflin) and The Circus in the Woods (Houghton Mifflin.) He was a professor in the English Department at Curry College for 39 years. He is currently working with the Emerson Prison Initiative to help incarcerated men earn college degrees.
Gayl Heinz was born in 1951, the second of her parents’ two daughters, in Greenwich, CT where her parents had moved (from NYC) following the war. When she was 13, her older sister, age 16, passed away following a brief illness. A year later the family moved to Dorset, VT, and went on to complete her high school years in neighboring Manchester, VT. She spent her first two years of college in Pennsylvania and transferred to the University of Vermont for her final two years, graduating in 1973 with a B.A. in Mass Communications. After three years working as a travel agent on Cape Cod, she accepted a position as a manager and part-owner of an agency in Beverly Farms, on the north shore of Boston. She met her husband-to-be on a trip to Greece which he was escorting for TWA, and two years later welcomed their daughter into the world. Over the next few years they expanded their agency locations to six, and after 23 years in the business she sold her ownership to her partner and spent the next several years caring for her daughter and aging parents, traveling back and forth to Vermont. Her mother passed in 2002 at age 88 from Alzheimer’s, her father in 2008 at age 93 following a number of mini strokes. Now, at age 72, she spends winters and springs with her husband in Florida, and they return to Massachusetts for the summer and fall. Aside from the ever-present home repair projects, she keeps busy with gardening and painting, and looks forward to reunions with longtime friends throughout the year.