Longtime Alabama sports columnist Cecil Hurt dies at 62

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — Cecil Hurt, a longtime sports columnist at The Tuscaloosa News in Alabama, has died of complications from pneumonia. He was 62. The newspaper said that Hurt died at UAB Hospital in Birmingham. He had worked for The Tuscaloosa News since 1982, becoming the newspaper’s sports editor and columnist seven years later. A 1981 graduate of The University of Alabama, Hurt was part of the team that won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of a deadly 2011 tornado. He received the Mel Allen Media Award from the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 2019 and was a two-time selection as the National Sports Media Association’s Alabama Sports Writer of the Year.