KANSAS CITY, Mo. (A.W.)—Kansas City Star sports columnist Vahe Gregorian was recently named the National Sports Media Association’s Missouri Sportswriter of the Year for the fifth time.
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Gregorian’s love of football began when he was a child playing in the Swarthmore, Pa. Pop Warner league. He was class president of Swarthmore High School during his senior year. He then made the varsity football team at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated in 1983 with a bachelor’s degree in English and continued his studies at the University of Missouri’s Graduate School of Journalism, the country’s oldest school of journalism, where he earned a master’s in 1988.
In 2004, Gregorian was chosen as a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, where he focused on history and the demise of sportsmanship.
Gregorian, who has been a writer at the Kansas City Star since 2013, has also co-authored several books, including High Hopes: Taking the Purple to Pasadena, and was nominated for a Pulitzer in 2000 while writing for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
In late Feb. 2017, Gregorian was named a top 10 columnists for large market newspapers with circulation of more than 175,000, by members of the Associated Press Sports Editors. His work was also recognized as part of a reporting team that was named one of the top 10 projects for the year.
My name is Jackie Smith and I used to play a little football for the Cardinals when Viah was in St Louis…. I believe Viah would like to hear about a project I am involved with to honor our military heroes.