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Buzz Bissinger Found Calling In Journalism at PA

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gerard “Buzz” Bissinger ’72 made his first splash at the New York Times not as a reporter, but rather as a delinquent student from Phillips Academy. On the eve of the 1971 Andover-Exeter athletic competitions, Bissinger and six friends drove to the Exeter campus with the hope of painting the Exeter stadium blue. Instead, they were stopped by “an old woman who I think had spent her entire life waiting for that moment. She called the police, we got hauled in by the police and then Dean of Students. We never got near the stadium,” said Bissinger. When the New York Times reported on the event afterwards, the paper branded the group as the “Andover Seven.” But Bissinger’s relationship with the newspaper business did not end there. While at PA, Bissinger pursued journalism as a sports editor and columnist for the Phillipian. “I absolutely loved and adored working at the [Phillipian] and it showed me what I wanted to be…I think without that experience my life would have been very different. I’m not sure if I would have ever become a journalist,” said Bissinger. He continued, “The attitude of the school was that…if you want to spend 50 hours a week on [the paper] that’s fine, but it’s on you to keep up your grades. So it taught me a sense of responsibility and it also allowed me to fall in love with journalism, though my grades suffered for it.” Bissinger was awarded the Pulitzer Price in 1987 for investigative journalism as a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He and his two colleagues, Daniel Biddle and Fredric Tulsky, wrote a six-week piece on the corruption of the Philadelphia court system, which prompted the state and federal governments to conduct investigations. After Bissinger left The Philadelphia Inquirer, he moved to Odessa, Texas in 1990 and wrote his first book Friday Night Lights. He followed the town’s football team, the Permian Panthers, and analyzed the impact of the team on the town. The book quickly rose to the top of the New York Times bestseller list and was later adapted into a film and a hit TV series. During his time at Andover, Bissinger was also a sports commentator for WPAA. Bissinger recalled one particular match he commented on. “We were obliterating Deerfield [in hockey] and there was a huge fight on the rink. The faculty members walked on the ice to try to break it up, and I said, ‘There the faculty go sticking their noses into something they have no business with.’” Former Instructor in Math Bob Maynard, whom Bissinger described as “pretty curmudgeonly” and WPAA’s sole listener, tried to expel Bissinger for the comment. During Bissinger’s time, the late 1960’s and the early 1970’s, the school underwent a period of social turmoil with protests, drug busts and students cutting classes. Before his time, Bissinger said, students had never challenged the administration in such a manner. Bissinger began to discover his self-described “cinematic style of writing” at Andover through his Junior-year English class with Hart Leavitt, former Instructor in English. He said, “[Mr. Leavitt] was the first teacher I had who really sort of showed me and let me know I could write.” After Andover, Bissinger went on to the University of Pennsylvania and quickly joined the campus newspaper, the Daily Pennsylvanian. He soon became the editor of the sports and editorial sections. He said, “I think I got so involved in the paper because I had the confidence to at least think I could be a reporter because of what I had learned in The Phillipian.” Bissinger began his 15-year career in journalism with the Ledger-Star in Norfolk, Virginia, writing long-form narratives. Bissinger moved from the Ledger-Star to the St. Paul Pioneer and then to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “I’m thankful my career had the correct trajectory. I started small [by covering] cops and courts and worked my way up. So, when I went to write my first book I had the experience and the confidence you need to think that you can do it,” said Bissinger. Bissinger moved back to Philadelphia to write “A Prayer for the City” in 1998, which focused on the work of then mayor Edward Rendell. He also wrote “Three Nights in August,” another New York Times bestseller, in 2005. Bissinger noticed that since Andover has gone coeducational, Andover “is less restrictive and seems like a fun place, a place that is a little more relaxed and not as rule conscious. It just seems to have a certain zest that it did not have when I was there.” “I think [my] experience of Andover is something I’ve always carried, if subliminally. It gave you a sense of … competition, because it is a competitive place, whether we like to admit it or not, that is helpful in the workplace,” said Bissinger.