By: Penn State University has named its sports journalism program after John Curley, the former president and chairman of Gannett Co. Inc. and the founding editor of USA Today.
The John Curley Center for Sports Journalism was established in 2003 and now has about 170 students, said Douglas Anderson, dean of the university's College of Communications.
"I appreciate it and I am grateful," Curley said at a news conference Tuesday at Beaver Stadium.
Curley was a co-founder of the program and helped lead the search for the center's first Knight Chair in Sports Journalism, Malcolm Moran, who was hired last spring.
"Most of us mere mortals in the journalism business can never hope to receive credit for the start of one institution," said Moran, who has written for USA Today, The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune.
Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, before his weekly news conference, praised Curley for his contributions to college.
"I just want to emphasize that he gave this college of communications a tremendous impetus because of his interest," Paterno said. "I am delighted with what he did."
Curley never attended Penn State but said he has followed the school since his youth because he grew up in Pennsylvania. By age 14, he was working as a part-time sportswriter at the Express in Easton. He earned degrees from Dickinson College and the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University.
Curley's distinguished newspaper career included stops with The Associated Press, Gannett News Service and at the News -Journal in Wilmington, Del., where was publisher before becoming the first editor of USA Today in 1982. He rose to Gannett chairman in 1989 after Allen Neuharth retired.
Curley retired from Gannett in 2001, when he started teaching at Penn State. He is the brother of AP President and CEO Tom Curley.
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