Denny Dressman

DENNY DRESSMAN is a 2008 inductee into the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame; a past president of the Colorado Press Association; and a previous winner of the Ohio Associated Press Sports Editors’ award for Best Sports Column as well as recipient of numerous other writing awards, including the 2015 Colorado Authors’ League Best Feature Article Award. He is president of the Colorado Authors’ League, effective January 1, 2016, and previously was vice-president responsible for enrichment programs. He writes frequently for Colorado Avid Golfer magazine and occasionally for other publications; and has taught writing classes in the University of Denver University College Adult Enrichment Program. A career newespaperman who retired in 2007, Dressman is the author of eight non-fiction books. His latest book is THE IDEA WITHIN: David Griggs and his quest for meaning in public art, released in November 2016. In 2015 he published HEARD but not SEEN: Richard Nixon, Frank Robinson and The All-Star Game’s Most Debated Play – a behind-the-scenes look at the 1970 Major League Baseball All-Star Game and the historic Pete Rose-Ray Fosse home plate collision that decided it. It was nominated for the Best Baseball Book of 2015 Award. Before that Dressman collaborated with Dr. John Elliff of Sterling, Colorado on Sterling Heroes of World War II, a widely popular collection of first-person accounts of service by northeastern Colorado veterans in the early 1940s.That book was published in July 2012, and in November 2013 became available nationally in audio form through the network of libraries that partner with the unit of The Library of Congress known as the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, which delivers services to the print-disabled. Dressman published his fourth book, Eddie Robinson “ . . . he was the Martin Luther King of football” (ComServ Books), in January, 2010. It earned finalist recognition in both the 2010 Colorado Book Awards, in the biography category, and in the 2010 Next Generation Indie National Book Awards for historical non-fiction. A screenplay based on the Eddie Robinson biography that Dressman co-authored with Boulder, Colorado screenwriter Bruce Leaf won first place in the Biopic Screenplay category at the All Sports Los Angeles Film Festival in November 2013. Titled “Coach Rob,” the script previously received a Seahorse Award for Feature Screenplay at the annual Moondance Film Festival in New York City in 2012. In 2015 Dressman, Leaf and Arthur Thomas of Main Man Films of Denver formed COACH ROB -The Movie, LLC to produce the movie. Dressman’s retirement from the Rocky Mountain News in Denver concluded a 43-year newspaper career. He spent the last 25 years at the News, joining the newspaper as executive sports editor in 1982 and subsequently serving as assistant managing editor/news, vice president/labor and human resources, and associate managing editor/administration. Dressman began his daily newspaper career as a reporter and sports writer at The Kentucky Post in Covington, Kentucky, then worked as a sports writer and columnist at The Louisville Times and Courier-Journal and The Cincinnati Enquirer, where he later held the positions of city editor and assistant managing editor. In 1979 he was named editor of the Oakland Tribune in Oakland, California. He also is the author of: Gerry Faust: Notre Dame’s Man In Motion (A.S. Barnes, 1980); Yes I Can! Yes You Can! Tackle Diabetes and Win! (ComServ Books, 2005), the story of University of Colorado All-American and National Football League star lineman Jay Leeuwenburg, who played nine years in the NFL despite Type 1 diabetes; and The Diabetes Antidote An Exercise Prescription To Prevent Type 2, To Combat Type 1 (ComServ Books, 2007), a fitness advice book co-authored with Doug Burns, 2006 winner of the Natural Mr. Universe title who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age seven. Dressman also has edited almost a dozen books and short story anthologies, including Jack Grout: A Legacy In Golf, which details the life and career of the man who taught Jack Nicklaus how to play golf and was the great golfer’s only teacher throughout his illustrious pro career; 2040: American Exodus, a political novel; and From Cuba To Cooperstown: The Tani Perez Story, to be released in March 2017.