Veteran Austin American-Statesman columnist and sports editor Kirk Bohls and his wife Vicki have endowed a permanent grant to fund an annual scholarship for a Daily Texan sports journalist.
Kirk and Vicki’s $50,000 donation will fully endow a new annual scholarship, and comes as the Friends of The Daily Texan, Inc. work this year to raise funds to fund for long-term availability all 13 grants that will be awarded next year.
The $2,500 award will be presented each year at the Friends of The Daily Texan Hall of Fame dinner and will recognize the achievements of a sports-focused staff member at The Daily Texan.
Bohls said he and Vicki decided to establish the scholarship because of the importance of providing support to aspiring journalists.
“Vicki and I are thrilled to play a small part in aiding journalism’s cause especially at this time in history when it’s needed more than ever to groom great reporters,” Bohls said.
The Bohls donation will provide permanent support for an annual sports journalism award to a deserving student, said John Reetz, president of Friends of The Daily Texan, Inc.
“The generosity of Kirk and Vicki will provide financial support for aspiring sports journalists for years to come,” Reetz said. “Many Texan staffers work several jobs in addition to their work at the student newspaper, and this assistance is of critical importance to student journalists.”
Bohls is currently marking his 50th year at the Austin American-Statesman and is considered one of the best and most knowledgeable sports journalists in Texas, and the country.
He has been Texas Sportswriter of the Year six times.
He began at The Daily Texan in 1971.
“I had come to the University of Texas — same as my older brother Kent and my father Leon, who actually was on the football team as a player whose best work came in practice in the 1930s — in the fall of 1969. On a journalism scholarship, no less.
“That said, I didn’t take a journalism class until my junior year. I took some basic J classes and signed up for an upper-grad course without having the required prerequisites. When I went to see Griff Singer about the issue, he told me to bring some clippings of my past work. Thinking about my articles in the Taylor Daily Press where I wrote about pool openings and obituaries and was a part-time photographer, I left the Journalism building with little hope that I’d be approved for the course and almost decided not to return the next day.”
But he did go back to see Griff. “I said what the hell, showed up at Griff’s office. He was busy on the phone but waved me in from the doorway, and I cringed as I lay my articles on his desk. He perused them quickly and gave me the thumbs up. I couldn’t believe it. I floated out of that room.”
The next two years, he worked at the Daily Texan, covering everything from parking woes to professor workloads, and dealing with the UT administration and writing news stories better prepared me for the life of a writer. It sure wasn’t the $40 a month pay scale when I became sports editor my last two semesters that drew me into that world.
“I learned so much under so many great professors. I soaked up every lesson. I once wrote an enterprise piece on air pollution — the good kind — perpetrated by the Butter Krust factory on Airport Boulevard.
“It was a wild adventure getting to interview coaches like Darrell Royal and Leon Black and a young Cliff Gustafson. I learned how to write all kinds of stories and columns — all of them overly verbose — how to write on deadline, how to work under pressure, how to juggle work and school demands and how to manage and work with my colleagues. It’s been a joyful ride.”
Vicki and Kirk have been married for 48 years.
Vicki Stafford Bohls, born in Overton, Texas, is a 1973 graduate of Taylor High School and a 1977 graduate of then-Southwest Texas State, now known as Texas State, as a theater major. She also got her teaching certificate from the University of Texas so she could teach English.
Vicki worked for 11 years as a middle school language arts, theater and English at Hill Country Middle School and West Ridge Middle School before embarking upon a career as a Realtor for Coldwell Banker for 11 years.
Vicki also was a gifted actress. She starred in multiple commercials locally as well as performing on the “Rescue 9-1-1” television show. She and Kirk have raised three wonderful sons, Ryan, John Tyler and Zach, have a daughter-in-law Lindsay, who is married to John Tyler, and have two grandsons, Brewer and Ford.
Kirk almost took a detour early in his career that would have taken him to Lubbock, not Austin.
“I came within five minutes of accepting a job in Lubbock in May 1973 upon my graduation, but Statesman sports editor Lou Maysel called me just before a Friday noon deadline from the Avalanche Journal and offered me a position he said the paper created for me.
“I immediately said yes and after wondering what I’d spend my millions on with my $125 weekly salary, the last 50 years have flown by. It’s been entirely a labor of love as my passion for newspapers only grew.”
Kirk has won writing awards while at the Statesman and has been named Texas Sportswriter of the Year six times and “I have had the most perfect career anyone could ever wish for.
“But I trace it all back to those fulfilling days at the Daily Texan and can’t thank Griff and so many others enough. I am honored to be a Texan alumnus.
Bohls is a members of The Daily Texan Hall of Fame, sponsored by the Friends of The Daily Texan, Inc.
In addition to countless columns, he has published two books with co-writer John Maher: Bleeding Orange: Trouble and Triumph Deep in the Heart of Texas Football and Long Live the Longhorns! 100 Years of Texas Football.
He is the host and co-producer of the podcast “On Second Thought “with co-host Cedric Golden as well, discussing a variety of topics mostly centered around the Texas Longhorns.
What has he learned during those many years?
In a Texas Monthly interview in 2013, I talked about “On being a sportswriter”:
“Somebody told me a long time ago that, if you’re a columnist, you know you’re doing your job right if half the people that read you think you’re a homer, and the other half think you hate their favorite school. To me, the most important thing is credibility.”
And On being Sportswriter of the Year:
“You’re as good as your next day’s column. I look at it as I’m blessed and privileged that I have this job. I get as excited about it today as I did the day I came over from The Daily Texan and started covering high schools in 1973. I just love sports, and I love newspapers—that to me is the perfect marriage.”