Background
Deford began his career as a researcher in the baseball department of Sports Illustrated in 1962. In addition to his Sports Illustrated duties, he has also been a correspondent for HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel since 1995; and a regular Wednesday commentator for National Public Radio since 1980. His 1981 novel Everybody's All-American was named one of Sports Illustrated's Top 25 Sports Books of All Time and was later made into a film of the same title. However, most of Deford's fiction is set in the sports realm. The most recent of his ten novels is the acclaimed Bliss, Remembered, a 1930s romance between a pretty young American and the son of a German diplomat; the story is written from the point of view of the woman. He has also been a screenwriter on the films Trading Hearts (1987) and Four Minutes" (2005).
In 1989 Deford left Sports Illustrated and NPR to serve as editor-in-chief of The National, a short-lived U.S. sports newspaper. It debuted January 31, 1990 and folded after eighteen months. The newspaper was published daily in tabloid format. After then writing for Newsweek and Vanity Fair, Deford subsequently returned to Sports Illustrated as senior contributing writer.
Deford served as chairman of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation for seventeen years, until 1999, and remains chairman emeritus. He became involved in cystic fibrosis education and advocacy after his daughter, Alexandra ("Alex") was diagnosed with the illness in 1972. After Alex died on January 19, 1980, at the age of eight, Deford chronicled her life in the memoir Alex: The Life of a Child. The book was made into a movie starring Craig T. Nelson and Bonnie Bedelia in 1986. In 1997, the book was reissued in an expanded edition, with updated information on the Defords and Alex's friends.
Deford grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and attended the Calvert School and Gilman School in Baltimore. He is a graduate of Princeton University and now resides in Westport, Connecticut, with his wife, Carol, a former fashion model. They have two surviving children: Christian (b. 1969) and Scarlet (b. 1980). Scarlet was adopted as an infant from the Philippines a few months after the loss of Alex. Deford has two grandchildren; Annabel (b. 2010) and Hunter (b. 2012). Deford met his wife in Delaware and they were married in 1965.
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