Campus Life

Heard on campus: Sports Illustrated baseball writer Tom Verducci

"The best stories begin with personal curiosity. It makes your writing better and makes your reporting better because you want to found out the information for yourself."

-- Tom Verducci, a 1982 Penn State graduate and baseball writer for Sports Illustrated since 1993. Verducci spoke at the opening session of the Foster Conference of Distinguished Writers ata Penn State. Verducci said that as a journalism student at Penn State, he learned from former Penn State Professor Tom Berner that, "If you don't have facts, you don't have a story. It's as simple as that." Verducci said that he always knew he wanted to be a sportswriter, even before he came to Penn State, but "Here's where it crystalized." He said that returning to Penn State as a speaker for the Foster Conference of Distinguished Writers meant a lot to him. The conference continues today (March 29), with Steve Lopez, Los Angeles Times columnist, who will speak at 10:10 a.m. in Foster Auditorium of Pattee Library.
For more photos from Verducci's talk, go to http://live.psu.edu/still_life/2006_03_28_verducci online.

Tom Verducci opened the Foster Conference of Distinguished Writers. For more photos, click on the image above. Credit: Annemarie Mountz / Penn StateCreative Commons

Last Updated November 18, 2010