Biro named Football Writer of the Year |
Friday, 28 January 2011 19:29 |
Ladd Biro of The Sporting News is the 2010 FSWA Fantasy Football Writer of the Year. Biro, who is a nationally syndicated columnist and publishes much his work on a blog titled Fantasy Fools, won the FSWA’s most prestigious award over fellow nominees Matt Schauf of Rapid Draft and David Richard of CBS Sports. He follows KFFL's Ryan Bonini, who won the award last year.
Biro is a previous FSWA award nominee (2009) for the Most Humorous Article. Biro had a laundry list of people and places he wanted to thank which included "the Sporting News, my newspaper clients, the Hollywood Foreign Press and Legedu Naanee for this tremendous honor."
Biro got his start as a fantasy football writer when he emailed the sports editor at the Dallas Morning News in the summer of 2003. Fantasy football was growing in popularity and Biro believed that the newspaper should cover it. He offered himself as the writer to provide the coverage. The editor asked Biro to draft some sample columns and Biro was hired a few days later. In the past seven years, Biro’s clientele has grown to include the aforementioned Sporting News, San Francisco Chronicle, Kansas City Star and several other papers. He has also branched out into syndicated and satellite radio with a weekly show during the NFL season called "Fantasy Files with Ladd Biro" on Sporting News Radio.
George Winkler, the senior editor for fantasy for the Sporting News, said Biro is a deserving winner of the award. Winkler particularly pointed out a column that Biro wrote in September entitled, "Peterson to labor silently in this fantasy league." Ladd detailed his original fantasy football league and how they paid tribute to an owner who passed away by leaving Adrian Peterson undrafted and a free agent throughout the season. Winkler said, "It's difficult to tackle such a serious subject matter and combine it with fantasy football, but Ladd wrote it perfectly. But that's just Ladd being Ladd."
Biro seemed surprised to even be a finalist for the award and said "winning never crossed my mind." Maybe the best part of winning the award for Biro (and a sentiment shared by many fantasy football enthusiasts) was the fact that "perhaps now my wife will finally believe me when I tell her I'm working while sitting glued to the easy chair for 10 hours straight every NFL Sunday."
CLICK HERE to read a local newspaper story about Biro
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