Inducted June 28, 2024
Rick Cleveland has chronicled Mississippi sports for five decades with a combination of reporting, institutional knowledge and storytelling that has made him one of the state’s most recognizable journalists.
A Hattiesburg native, Cleveland began writing professionally at an age when most future journalists were still reading the sports page rather than contributing to it. He was just 13 when he began covering sports for the Hattiesburg American.
Born in 1952, Cleveland grew up immersed in journalism and athletics. His father, Ace Cleveland, was public relations director and sports information director at the University of Southern Mississippi and later became a member of both the university's Alumni Hall of Fame and Sports Hall of Fame. Rick Cleveland continued writing for the Hattiesburg American through high school and while attending Southern Miss, where he earned a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1975.
His newspaper career took him from Hattiesburg to Louisiana, where he worked for the Monroe News Star/Morning World, and then to Jackson. There, Cleveland built the largest portion of his career at the Jackson Daily News and Clarion Ledger, serving at various times as sports reporter, assistant sports editor, sports editor, executive sports editor and columnist. He covered Mississippi State and Ole Miss as a beat reporter before becoming one of the state's leading sports columnists. Altogether, Cleveland spent more than three decades with the Jackson newspapers.
His work extended well beyond game stories and scores. Cleveland became known for columns that placed Mississippi sports within the broader stories of the people and communities that produced them. From high school fields and small-town gymnasiums to Southeastern Conference stadiums and professional sports, his writing documented generations of Mississippi athletes, coaches and fans.
Cleveland left the Clarion Ledger in 2012 to become executive director of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, an institution whose mission closely matched his own career-long interest in preserving the state's athletic history. He served there for four years before returning to full-time journalism in 2016 as sports columnist for Mississippi Today. His columns also have been syndicated to newspapers across Mississippi.
Over the course of his career, Cleveland has accumulated an extraordinary collection of professional honors. He has been named Mississippi Sports Writer of the Year more than a dozen times and has received numerous state, regional and national awards for reporting and column writing. In 2000, the Mississippi Press Association Education Foundation honored him with its Distinguished Mississippian Award. He later received the Richard Wright Award for Literary Excellence, becoming the first sports writer to receive the honor.
Cleveland's career has also earned recognition from many of the institutions and communities he has covered. He was inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in 2017, the inaugural Hattiesburg Hall of Fame in 2018, the University of Southern Mississippi's Mass Communication and Journalism Hall of Fame in 2018 and the Southern Miss Alumni Hall of Fame in 2023. He also is the author of several books about Mississippi sports, including The Mississippi Football Book, published in 2023.
In 2024, Cleveland added another distinction when he became the first sports journalist inducted into the Mississippi Press Association Hall of Fame. His selection recognized not simply the longevity of his career but his role in elevating sports writing as an important part of Mississippi journalism.
Few journalists have observed Mississippi sports for as long, from as many vantage points, or with Cleveland's depth of knowledge. He has covered legendary athletes and coaches, championship teams and unforgettable games, but much of his most enduring work has focused on the people behind the statistics — the personalities, relationships, traditions and communities that give sports their meaning.
