National Football League

Atlanta sports writer Bisher dies at 93

Published Mar. 19, 2012 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

Renowned sports writer Furman Bisher, who spent 59 years with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution before retiring in 2009, died Sunday from a heart attack at the age of 93.

Bisher served as president of the Football Writers Association of America from 1959 to 1960 and president of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association from 1974 to 1976.

He co-wrote the first autobiography of Braves great Hank Aaron, titled "Aaron, RF," and was awarded the Red Smith Award -- America's most prestigious sports writing honor -- in 1988.

Bisher covered the Masters, Kentucky Derby and Georgia-Georgia Tech football games more than 50 times, and nearly every Super Bowl.

"He put more quality words on newsprint than any other writer in the last half of the 20th century," former Journal-Constitution editor Jim Minter said late Sunday. "He never wrote a bad column."

Bisher, who was born Nov. 4, 1918, in North Carolina, began his career at the Lumberton Voice in 1940, and later became an editor at the Charlotte News.