Zipp – The Impact of Henry Hardin Newman Book Signing
Alabama Sports Hall of Fame & Museum 2150 Richard Arrington Jr Blvd N, Birmingham, Alabama 35203
Frances Newman Morris, also known as “Bee,” has written a book about her father. Henry Hardin “Zipp” Newman was longtime Sports Editor for The Birmingham News. Newman leveraged the popularity of sports by raising funds for worthy causes. As one of the founders of Birmingham’s Monday Morning Quarterback Club, Newman promoted high school football games as special events to raise funds for Birmingham’s Crippled Children’s Clinic and Hospital, an eye clinic, and to fight tuberculosis.The University of Alabama’s Crimson Tide football team was invited to play in the 1926 Rose Bowl Game in Pasadena, California. Alabama was the first team from the South to play in the “granddaddy” of all bowl games, but not the first Southern school to be invited. Morris describes in her book the details of how UA received itsinvitation. Zipp Newman attended and covered that first Rose Bowl game when Alabama defeated the heavily favored Washington Huskies by one point. From that time on Newman reported on all of Alabama’s Rose Bowl appearances. As a nineteen-year-old reporter, Newman was assigned to report on the 1913 football game between Auburn University and Vanderbilt University – two powerhouse teams at the time. That game was played at Rickwood Field. Newman was a known and respected sports journalist across the Southeast.
He also enjoyed national recognition and invited other sports journalists to call the play-by-play of the high school charity games on Thanksgiving Day each year. One of those play-by-play announcers was Red Barber. After his retirement in 1959, Newman continued to write for the News as Sports Editor Emeritus until his death in 1977. In 1969 Newman’s book The Impact of Southern Football was published.
Impact provided historical and statistical documentation of Southern sports. But probably more importantly, Zipp wrote short biographies of notable people in college sports. Zipp knew how to make friends. Zipp was one of the founders of the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. The Alabama State Legislature created the “State of Alabama Sports Hall of Fame” on August 14,1967. Henry Hardin Newman was inducted into the Hall of Fame with the Class o f1975. Bee Morris had for many years wanted to write a book about her father. Three years ago, she asked Hoover resident Woody Norman to assist her in researching and writing her book. Norman authored the biography of United States Ambassador William Jelks Cabaniss, Jr. of Mountain Brook. Zipp – The Impact of Henry Hardin Newman is based on more than one-hundred letters written over many years to Zipp from friends, acquaintances, and strangers.
Bee Morris’s book will be published on May 29, 2019 with a book-signing event at the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame & Museum the same day.