Alumni Gazette

TRAILBLAZER: Thomas is honored by the National Association of Black Journalists. (Photo: Morehouse College)

Ron Thomas ’71, a veteran sports reporter and director of the Morehouse College Journalism and Sports Program, won the 2017 Legacy Award from the National Association of Black Journalists. The award is presented annually to “a black print, broadcast, digital or photo journalist of extraordinary accomplishment who has broken barriers and blazed trails.” Thomas—who reported for USA Today and the San Francisco Chronicle, and is the author of They Cleared the Lane: The NBA’s Black Pioneers (Bison Books, 2004)—was cited for his own work in addition to his role as an educator and mentor.

Thomas has also been celebrated for work that places sports and the business of sports in social and cultural context. In 2011 he won the Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Sports Journalism from Northeastern University School of Journalism and its educational and consulting center, Sport in Society.