LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – WDRB sports journalist Rick Bozich was inducted into the Indiana Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame on Sunday afternoon in Indianapolis. For Bozich, it was another honor in a storied career. And it won't be the last.

It’s been 14 years since he was inducted to the U.S. Basketball Writers’ Hall of Fame. He was introduced for induction by Michigan State coach Tom Izzo. Since then, he’s been a featured guest on a podcast hosted by Mike Krzyzewski, usually the first media member sought out by North Carolina coach Roy Williams when the Tar Heels visited town, and a trusted confidante of the most famous college basketball analyst of them all, Dick Vitale. Just to name a few.

In short, Bozich has been keeping Hall of Fame company for a while. I mention these things first because they, not awards, bring him more satisfaction. And I’ll apologize in advance for writing far more about him than he’ll feel comfortable with.

WDRB has compiled a great tribute to Bozich’s life and work to run on the air. In it, you hear from co-workers, colleagues, friends and family. Here, you’ll hear just from me. I’ve had a front-row seat to his career for the past 23 years, and I saw it from a distance even before that. I want to share a few thoughts on one of the men who has shaped my life and career.

I first met Rick Bozich while folding copies of The Louisville Times to deliver on a paper route in Fern Creek. I remember reading his prediction that N.C. State would upset Houston in the newspaper in the 1983 NCAA championship game. You can look it up. I was a sophomore in high school.

His journalism career began in 1968 as a Gary Post-Tribune gold-star carrier. After graduating from Merrillville High School, Bozich arrived at Indiana University in 1971, earning a bachelor's degree in journalism and political science.

He's best known around here for his 34 years of work at the Louisville Times and Courier-Journal, and for the past 11 years at WDRB Television.

When I took a sports clerk job at The Courier-Journal in 1991, Bozich seemed bigger than life. If I ever talked much to him, I can’t remember. He was off in far-flung places, covering the Olympics, or Super Bowl, or Final Four, or NBA Finals. I was answering the phones.

He not only seemed bigger than life, but he was. At 6-6, he towers over most of us more traditional-sized humans. I remember our first commercial shoot at the newspaper – and then again at WDRB – I looked like a hobbit.

If Rick looks like a giant in the profession, it’s because he is. I watched him on ESPN’s “Sports Reporters” show with guys like Mike Lupica, Bob Ryan, John Feinstein and Mitch Albom. Again, Hall of Fame company.

I got to spend time with him on road trips when I came back to the newspaper as University of Louisville beat reporter. I remember after one Liberty Bowl, C-J reporter Rusty Hampton had broken a story alleging recruiting violations within the Kentucky football program, and the paper wanted Bozich and me to stay in Memphis to confront one of the coaches involved with some money orders the paper had obtained. We engaged in some cloak-and-dagger to get the faxed money orders, and set off for the coach’s address to knock on his door and ask about them.

On the way to the front door, I'll never forget Bozich saying, “I just want to tell you, if he has a bunch of dogs, I’m out of here.”

There were no dogs. And the coach wasn’t home. But I had no doubt, if either had been the case, Bozich would’ve gotten the story. I watched him do it too many times.

Shortly after being promoted to sports columnist at The Courier-Journal, our sports editor, Harry Bryan, and I were talking about Rick and his approach. Harry told me, “Rick has the ability to say the perfect thing in the perfect way at the perfect time better than any writer I’ve ever worked with.”

And that, folks, is the absolute truth.

In Tubby Smith’s final weeks as basketball coach Kentucky, I wondered how things would play out, and had wrestled with what to write. We all respected Tubby, but could tell that things weren’t working. One morning, I opened the newspaper and Bozich had artfully, gracefully, explained that the time had come for the two to part ways, managing to treat both sides with respect and accuracy.

IMAGES | Scenes from Rick Bozich's Hall of Fame career

A while back, I was looking through some things Rick had written and ran across his column on Playboy magnate Hugh Hefner before the 2000 Kentucky Derby, in which Hefner had a horse running.

“Always remember one thing,” Bozich quoted Hef as saying. “Man cannot live by sports alone.”

What you probably don’t know about Rick Bozich is that, apart from his sportswriting career, he is the most solid, straightforward, honest, unflinchingly ethical, upright and trustworthy person you’re likely to encounter on a daily basis. None of us in this business is perfect. We all write things we wish we had back. But his integrity is unassailable.

And he’s gotten to do some pretty cool things. I remember winning a Red Smith Writing Award for some Kentucky Derby story I’d written. Once. They used to give them out in multiple categories after every Derby. Then I thought about Bozich. He holds the record with at least 9. I’ve lost count. At some point it’s just showing off.

Neil Rubin, who wrote the great sports comic strip Gil Thorp, liked Bozich’s writing and named a sportswriter in his fictional town of Milford “Rick Bozich.” What is immortality if not that?

You also may not know that Rick’s father worked in a steel mill in Gary, Ind., and that he might’ve done the same had he not applied the steel-mill kind of work ethic as a sports journalist in college at Indiana University. He covered Bob Knight’s teams, building relationships at the school that he still uses today. He traveled on some road trips as a student journalist, and one of the assistants, who left cupcakes for players in their rooms the nights before games, left one for Bozich, too. That assistant? Mike Krzyzewski.

I’m sure you wouldn’t know that I lost count of the number of days when we’d be sitting in our office at WDRB and Bozich’s phone would ring. I’d hear him say, “It’s Coach Schnellenberger again.” Bozich always picked up. The old coach called him once or twice a week after his retirement, just to discuss football, old times, about anything.

As much as I know this Hall of Fame honor means to him, I’m sure he’d have traded it to see Howard Schnellenberger elected to the football Hall of Fame, something he has lobbied tirelessly for.

He'd probably trade it, too, for his old friend Joe Biddle to be around to share it with him. During the longtime Nashville Tenneessean columnist and radio host's lengthy sickness, Rick visited with him, and stayed in touch. There’s something about getting older that draws you even more to old friends.

I remember visiting Denny Crum’s house with Rick, and climbing up into a deer stand, following the Hall of Fame coach and Hall of Fame sports writer, wondering if it could hold us all.

You might notice this column is jumping around, from past to present, in and out, with little defined structure or form.

For that I’m sorry. To write well about a subject, you have to stand back, empty yourself of emotion temporarily and put together a dispassionate accounting. With Rick, that’s difficult for me.

Maybe it’s why Rick doesn’t write more about the Chicago White Sox.

We took a risk together when we left newspaper work – the only thing either of us really wanted to do – to take a chance on television. It turned out to be the right move for us. I’d never have taken it had he not also been willing.

I pretty much followed Rick. He needed more advice. He’d put 30 years into the newspaper business. He contacted an agent, not to represent him, but to get some advice, really just for that first contract. I thought about that in later years whenever I’d hear Don Yee give an interview. Yeah, Bozich was getting advice from the same guy who advised Tom Brady. Hall of Fame company.

In those days, before making the move, we didn’t talk about the WDRB offer openly. We would refer to the station as “Vandelay Industries,” a tip of the hat to Seinfeld. Between us, we have probably several hundred other euphemisms, inside jokes or running gags. You’ll never hear any of them from me.

We came to TV to see how it would work. And here Bozich went, winning an Emmy with each of his first two TV stories.

Again, showing off.

Finally this. It’s appropriate that Indiana should be honoring Rick with Hall of Fame induction. Nobody has fought harder for coverage of Southern Indiana in the Louisville media than Bozich. He lived in New Albany for much of his newspaper career, and even after crossing the border into Kentucky after marrying his wife, Rhonda, his Hoosier roots have never left him. In the midst of the UK and U of L hysteria, he never would let Indiana, its history, its tradition, its high school and college excellence, take a back seat.

Rick deserves this award. And a great many more. It’s been an honor and an education to work with him. For me, he is indispensable as a journalist, and friend.

Louisville -- and Indiana -- are better places for of his insight. I'm grateful to have spent so much of my career in his Hall of Fame company.

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