N&O's Tudor receives Skeeter Francis Award

ATLANTA -- Twenty years ago, as chief adminstrator of the Atlantic Coast Sports Media Association, News & Observer sports columnist Caulton Tudor brokered a deal between ACSMA and the Associated Press to name a single all-ACC team.

For that, and in recognition of his four-plus decades covering the ACC, Tudor was honored with ACSMA’s Skeeter Francis Award on Saturday, which recognizes an individual with the media, conference office or member institution whose work has benefited coverage of ACC sports.

Tudor, who started working at the Raleigh Times in 1970 and joined the News & Observer in 1987, is already a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s Hall of Fame. He’s the second member of the News & Observer/Charlotte Observer sports staff to receive the award. Observer sports columnist Ron Green, Sr., was honored in 2000.

As ACSMA administrator, Tudor presented the first two winners with the award, Clemson sports-information director Bob Bradley in 1990 and television innovator C.D. Chesley in 1991.

At that same time, he also worked with the AP to create a unified all-ACC team. Until then, multiple outlets named their own teams.

“Fans were bewildered,” Tudor said. “They couldn’t figure out who was all-ACC and who wasn’t.”

In this year’s voting, Tudor was one of only two voters to leave Virginia forward Mike Scott off his all-ACC first team. As ACC commissioner John Swofford and ACSMA executive director Rob Daniels presented Tudor with the award Saturday, a few boos were heard from the Virginia sections of the arena.

“To this day, all-ACC matters,” Tudor said. “As I got a vivid reminder of today.”