National Football Foundation

From football to golf, best-selling books to weekly columns, Dan Jenkins has left an indelible mark on the world of sports journalism during his career that has spanned more than 50 years.

Hired of out of high school by legendary Fort Worth Press sports editor Blackie Sherrod, Jenkins worked full-time while earning his undergrad degree from Texas Christian University in 1953.  Jenkins continued with the paper after college, most notably covering golf legend Ben Hogan. In 1957, he became editor of the Fort Worth Press after Sherrod left for the Dallas Times Herald.  Jenkins' career as editor lasted only three years before he was again hired by his mentor, this time in Dallas.  Two years later, Sports Illustrated discovered Jenkins and brought him to New York City to write about college football.

Jenkins spent the better part of a decade covering college football for Sports Illustrated, covering the game's biggest coaches including Paul "Bear" Bryant, Barry Switzer, Darrell Royal and John McKay.  His columns about college football were later compiled into a novel called Saturday's America.  After writing his first novel Semi-Tough, a fiction novel about professional football, Jenkins started covering the NFL for SI in the early 70's.  During his career at SI, he wrote a record 500-plus feature stories and deadline articles before retiring in 1985.

Since 1985, Jenkins has written a monthly column for Golf Digest and will attend his 200^th major championship in June at the U.S. Open in Farmingdale, New York.  He has also written nine bestsellers including three, Semi-Tough, Dead Solid Perfect and Baja Oklahoma, which have been made into motion pictures.  Jenkins wrote the screen play for the last two.  In 2005, the National Football Foundation named Jenkins its official historian.  During his time with the NFF, he has provided counsel to the NFF's Honors Court during the College Football Hall of Fame selection process and written multiple articles that have appeared in NFF publications.

Jenkins has been inducted into several halls of fame as a writer, including the Texas Sports Hall of Fame with Sherrod, Dave Campbell and Mickey Herskowitz.

He and his wife June live full-time in Fort Worth, Texas and are football season ticket holders at TCU.  His daughter, Sally, is a prize-winning sports columnist for The Washington Post and a best-selling author in her own right. His son Marty works for a construction firm in San Diego, and Dan Jr. runs a jitney service and surf camp in Costa Rica while occasionally positioning his lens as a part-time sports photographer.