Hal McCoy is a former beat writer for the Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio), covering the Cincinnati Reds baseball team. He was honored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002 as the winner of the J. G. Taylor Spink Award, which is awarded annually "for meritorious contributions to baseball writing." He has won 52 Ohio and national writing awards and was the first non-Cincinnati newsperson elected to the Cincinnati Journalists Hall of Fame. He also was inducted into the National Sports Media Association Hall of Fame and the Irish-American Baseball Hall of Fame. He has a stone on Dayton's Walk of Fame and the press box at Dayton's Howell Field is named the Hal McCoy Press Box. McCoy has been the Cincinnati BBWAA Chapter Chair 22 times and was the BBWAA national president in 1997. He is the third writer from the Dayton Daily News to win the J. G. Taylor Spink Award, joining Si Burick (1982) and Ritter Collett (1991). Residing in Englewood, Ohio, McCoy is an honors graduate in journalism from Kent State University.
The University of Dayton Flyers were seemingly down and doomed, trailing Nevada by 17 points with seven minutes left in their first round NCAA tournament game, but they made it an impossible dream with a 17-point run and a 24-4 finish to snag a 63-60 win to move into a second round game against No. 2 seed Arizona on Saturday.
Even though the University of Dayton Flyers laid an unhatched egg in the Atlantic 10 tournament, losing their first game to Duquesne - the eventual tournament champion - the NCAA was impressed enough with UD's overall accomplishments and invited them as a No. 7 seed to the March Madness party with a game Thursday in Salt Lake City against Nevada.
The University of Dayton Flyers joined the other three top seeds in the Atlantic 10 tournament as losers, 65-57 to Duquesne, a team it had beaten twice during the regular season. The Flyers, the No. 3 seed, joined No. 1 Richmond, No. 2 Loyola Chicago and No. 4 UMass as losers in their first game. The Flyers now await Sunday's announcement of the 68 teams invited to the NCAA tournament, hoping their 24-7 record and resume are good enough.
After surviving a harrowing start against Virginia Commonwealth University Friday, a 26-9 deficit in the first 10 minutes, UD's Flyers roared back to win in overtime in their final regular seasons game and now their sights are set on winning the Atlaantic-10 tournament this week in preparation for a run in The Big Dance as part of their own March Madness.