Dave Krider
Sportswriter
Inducted: July 9, 1997
15th Annual Induction Ceremony
San Antonio, Texas
(The following appeared in that year’s HOF induction program)
As a sportswriter covering high school sports for more than 35 years, Dave Krider is the first newspaper journalist to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
After 30 years as sports editor at the LaPorte Herald-Argus in LaPorte, Indiana, Krider joined the staff of USA Today in 1994 as a full-time sportswriter. He has been associated with USA Today since its inception in 1982, having been the sole person to rate teams and select All-America teams for the paper in high school football and basketball. He added high school baseball rankings to his resume in 1989 and has done high school girls basketball for the past two years.
Krider began his association with high school sports in 1970, when he wrote for the nation's first national prep magazine, Letterman. After the magazine folded in 1974, he started a 17-year run as a prep columnist for Basketball Weekly and Basketball Times, doing team ratings, player features and All-America teams. In 1976, Krider began reporting on high school basketball for Street and Smith's Basketball Magazine, a position he has held for the past 21 years.
Krider has interviewed many sports legends on their way up through the high school ranks. He wrote the first national stories on Magic Johnson and Patrick Ewing while both were in high school, and he later penned a cover story on Chris Webber for High School Sports Magazine.
Krider has won several awards during his career. He was a two-time winner of the Ernie Pyle Award for sports writing while a student at Indiana University. In 1980, he received the Ray Meyer Award for his contributions to Indiana high school basketball. Earlier this year, he became the first high school writer to be inducted into the United States Basketball Writers Hall of Fame.
Krider was born on June 30, 1939, in Elkhart, Indiana. He and his wife, Lois, now reside in LaPorte, Indiana.
