At its peak, Jim Murray’s readership in the Los Angeles Times was over a million, PLUS those who read his syndicated column in papers like the Anchorage Daily News, Baton Rouge’s The Advocate, Belleville (Illinois) News-Democrat, Honolulu Advertiser, Kailua-Kona’s West Hawaii Today and Kaneohe’s Midweek Magazine, Eugene (Oregon) Register-Guard, Pennylvania’s Greensburg Tribune-Review and Hazleton Standard-Speaker, Greenville (SC) Sports Journal, and the Newark News, Jersey Journal, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Among other papers that subscribed to Jim’s syndicated column were The Indianapolis Star, Kokomo Tribune and Hammond (Ind.) Times, the Cleveland (Ohio) Press, Dayton Journal-Press, Lorain (Ohio) Journal, Mansfield News-Journal, plus other newspapers located in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Virginia, etc.

Honolulu Star-Bulletin sports writer, Cindy Luis, shared this comment in 2006 when she served as a judge for the JMMF scholarship essay competition. “I became a Jim Murray fan when attending UCLA in the 1970s and reading his fine columns in t he L.A. Times. It continued while as the sports editor of the Pacific Daily News in Guam (1978-81). I looked forward to finding Jim's columns on the wire and sharing his wit and wisdom with our readers.”

Did you know that Jim Murray was read internationally?  For example, he was syndicated in the Asahi, Japan, Evening News and the Bangkok Post.

His column was published in “Stars & Stripes”, a daily newspaper published for the U.S. military, DoD civilians, contractors, and their families. Published continuously in Europe since 1942, and since 1945 in the Pacific, Stars and Stripes operates as a First Amendment newspaper, free of control and censorship.

While in the United States Army and stationed in Alaska (1961-1963), former Los Angeles Times and Baltimore Sun editor, John S. Carroll, shared a tent with a young soldier from southern California whose mother would send him envelopes filled with Jim Murray columns clipped from the LA Times.  Reading by flashlight at night, John’s tent mate would laugh uproariously, subsequently sharing his reading material with John. Another Jim Murray fan was born.

As Bill Conlin, sports columnist at the Philadelphia Daily News, wrote December 7, 2008, “As the print-newspaper industry goes the way of clipper ships, gas lamps and horse-drawn trolleys, I thought about the powerful tug of the giants who dra gged me into this endangered business.”

Conlin continues, “On the West Coast, the whip-crack of his prose muted by the lack of major league baseball, a mild-mannered, obsessive listener named Jim Murray was regaling Los Angeles Times readers. “

For 37 years Jim Murray entertained and informed many with his Pulitzer Prize-winning prose.  The Jim Murray Memorial Foundation website, www.jimmurrayfoundation.org, continues to share Jim’s columns.  If you are in the JMMF database, you also receive vintage Jim Murray columns as they relate to current events.

We now have a new generation of writers who are aware of Jim Murray’s impact on sports journalism. It is important that we preserve Jim’s writings as a link to the history that unfolded while he was with us and help the young writers who follow in his footsteps.

The Jim Murray Memorial Foundation needs your financial support in order to continue providing journalism scholarships to deserving and talented students. Each dollar is important, no matter if you give $5.00 or $5,000.00, or anything in between.

The JMMF Pay Pal link is an easy way to donate. Or, please send your donations to the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 995, La Quinta, CA  92247-0995.

THANK YOU!