John McNamara (sportswriter)

John McNamara, born July 30, 1961 in Bethesda, MD was a sportswriter in the Washington Metro area, beginning as a high school sports editor in 1977 until he was murdered in the Capital Gazette shooting on June 28, 2018.
During his life, McNamara was a prolific journalist, covering sports and news in Maryland. He had written and edited for the St. John's College High School Sabre newspaper, the University of Maryland College Park Diamondback newspaper, the Washington Post, the Hagerstown Herald-Mail, the Prince George's County (MD) Journal and The Capital in Annapolis, MD. He wrote three books on sports prior to his death, and appeared as a guest commentator on line for the Washington Post, and on radio on the Rick "Doc" Walker" show, and with Johnny Holliday to discuss Baltimore Orioles, and Washington Nationals baseball and on the Maryland Sports Radio Network. McNamara was a voter in the Associated Press Top 25 NCAA basketball poll. He won several awards for his writing from the Maryland - DC - Delaware Press Association. https://annapolisalways.org/john-mcnamara/
McNamara kept a blog, The Capital of Basketball: The Inside Scoop on DC Hoop at www.capitalofbasketball.com, which reported stories, interviews, anniversaries, and other historical interest with great players whom he had watched in person when they played in at the high school level in the area. Others he interviewed and covered had become luminaries of area high school basketball earlier, such as local and national celebrities James Brown and Coach Morgan Wootten, each bing one of many community philanthropists from the DeMatha Catholic High School and the WCAC, and other high schools in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. Because many local star players returned to the area to coach, and continued a legacy of caring, thoughtful teaching and mentoring, the region's basketball culture is driven by these personalities. McNamara covered the youth play of rising stars including dozens of NBA players, many of whom went on to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Players he interviewed in high school included Len Bias, David Robinson, and Markelle Fultz. His interviews included earlier players such as Austin Carr and Dave Bing; among the other NBA No. 1 overall picks from the area were the incomparable Elgin Baylor (Spingarn High School) in 1958 and Fred Hetzel (Landon School) in 1965.
McNamara wrote or co-wrote a total of four books on sports history. These are Cole Classics! Maryland's Men and Moments in 2001; University of Maryland Men's Basketball 2002 National Champions in 2002; and University of Maryland Football Vault in 2009. His last book, The Capital of Basketball: A History of DC Area High School Hoops, was completed by his wife, Andrea Chamblee, and sportswriter colleague, David Elfin after his death and published in 2019.
McNamara is memorialized on the Journalists Memorial at the Newseumhttps://www.newseum.org/exhibits/online/journalists-memorial/#search/honoreedetails2/5ceefbc1ef045e000787f20b/ and named in a Special Award of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize.https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/capital-gazette-annapolis-md
McNamara's life and untimely death have been captured in a CBS Sports mini-documentary, Remembering John McNamara. Another CBS mini-documentary by Mike Wise, "Survived By", reported on Andrea Chamblee's own work completing his last book and also as a gun violence prevention activist, as well as the work of the other widows and children of the journalists murdered in the Capital Gazette shooting. 
Tributes to McNamara and his writing include those by national sports columnist John Feinstein,; WMAR American Broadcasting Company Baltimore, (MD) ; The Washington Post ; The Wall Street Journal ; The Athletic ; USA Today ; The Sporting News ; Book Authority ; Capital Gazette ; NPR The Kojo Nnamdi Show; The Washingtonian ; The Washington Independent Review of Books ; Washington Monthly ; Montgomery County Media; WTOP-FM radio , and Baltimore Baseball - Books of the Year 
== References ==
Category:Sportswriters
Category:American sportswriters
Category:American men sportswriters
Category:1961 births
Category:2018 deaths
Category:Mass shootings
Category:Mass shootings in the United States