Thursday, October 15, 2009

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Floor Statement Honoring Furman Bisher
Remarks as Delivered on the Senate Floor

Mr. President, on Sunday of this past week, an event of journalistic magnitude took place in the city of Atlanta and the State of Georgia. A man by the name of Furman Bisher published his last sports column in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He typed that column on the same manual Royal typewriter upon which he typed his first column 59 years ago.

Furman Bisher is a distinguished employee of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a distinguished resident of our city and our State. Unlike many in his profession, he had a profound positive effect on his city and his State and on sports.

Furman Bisher started writing in Atlanta, GA when Atlanta's only professional sports team was the Atlanta Crackers, a Double-A team playing in a small bandbox stadium in Ponce de Leon Park. In the 1960s, as his career emerged, he, along with Jesse Adler, were the principal writers of sports in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He began to be published in other magazines, magazines such as Sports magazine, magazines such as the Sporting News. He developed respect around the United States as a gifted, talented, and honest sports writer.

Had it not been for Furman Bisher, the Atlanta Braves probably would not be in Atlanta, GA because when Mills B. Lane and Mayor Ivan Allen risked what then was a huge amount of money, $18 million, to build a major league sports stadium without a sports team, it was not until Furman Bisher went and talked to the Bartholomay family who were getting ready to move the Milwaukee Braves from Milwaukee and convinced them to bring major league baseball for the first time ever to the South.

The same was true a few years later when Rankin Smith petitioned to buy the first NFL franchise to exist in the South, and that $7.5 million purchase happened for a lot of reasons but probably the most important of which was Furman Bisher.

What is so great about Furman is he could make sports come alive, from cricket to football, from boxing to golf. His writing on boxing is historic and his following of Atlanta native Evander Holyfield helped elevate Evander to where he became the Heavyweight Champion of the World. But probably nothing was more important than the years of coverage of the greatest golf tournament on the face of the Earth--the Masters. None other than Bobby Jones, none other than Jack Nicklaus, none other than Arnold Palmer, none other thank Tiger Woods acknowledged that the gifted writing of Furman Bisher about that treasured tournament helped to elevate it to where it is today, the preeminent event in golf around the world.

A lot of people contribute a lot to their profession. We in Georgia are proud of so many who have given so much to our State. Today I want to pay tribute to a man who for 59 dedicated years covered sports in Georgia and made it possible for many great things to happen, a man who was gifted, a man was talented and a man who, even today, shares his wisdom and his commitment to sports as he approaches his 91st birthday.

On a personal note, as a young boy and a sports fan in the late 1940s and 1950s, I used to rush to the mailbox to get our Atlanta Journal and our Atlanta Constitution and I didn't go to the funny papers, I didn't go to the comics, I didn't go to the crossword puzzle. I went to Furman Bisher. Furman was a great writer and to me an inspiration for sports in Atlanta, GA. I wish him and his family the very best in their retirement.