Longtime MSNBC sports columnist, Mike Celizic '70, died this morning after a fourteen month battle with cancer. Celizic grew up in Leroy Township, Ohio, a rural community 30 miles east of Cleveland, and graduated from Painesville Riverside High, where he was co-captain of the football team and valedictorian. He earned a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Notre Dame, spending his sophomore year studying in Innsbruck, Austria. A one-time bureau chief in the New Jersey Statehouse, Celizic became a sportswriter in 1983 with The Record of Hackensack, N.J. and began his career as a columnist a year later. Since then, he’s covered every Olympic Summer Games since Los Angeles in 1984, as well as the 1988 Calgary Winter Games and the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games. He’s covered every major American sporting event, from the Final Four to the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup to major prize fights, the Masters to U.S. Open tennis. He also wrote the book "The Biggest Game of Them All" -- the 1966 Notre Dame vs. Michigan State game. Here's a link to a couple of stories about Mike and the last column he wrote for his NBC blog about battling cancer: "Adventures in Cancerland" -- A MUST READ:
LINK: MIKE'S LAST COLUMN
LINK: MIKE CELIZIC
LINK: FORMER RECORD EAGLE COLUMNIST DIES
