AP's Denne Freeman inducted into Texas Sports Hall of Fame

Denne H. Freeman, who served as Texas sports editor for The Associated Press for 31 years before retiring in 1999, is among eight honorees to the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.

The honorees are the first media representatives selected for induction into the state hall since 2004. Click here for a link to the announcement.

The group will be honored at a time and place to be determined. They join the Texas Sports Hall of Fame's inaugural media honorees, a group that included Dan Jenkins, Blackie Sherrod, Dave Campbell, Mickey Herskowitz, Verne Lundquist, Jack Dale, Kern Tips and Frank Fallon.

Freeman joined the AP in Dallas in 1967 after working for United Press International. He became sports editor in May 1968 upon the retirement of Harold Ratliff.

Pro and college football dominated Freeman's time, but he also covered major league baseball, pro and college basketball, the NHL, golf, track and field, and horse racing. He was part of AP teams at the Summer Olympics in Montreal (1976) and Los Angeles ('84), and at all four of golf's majors, the Master's, the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship.

Freeman's main beat through the years was the Dallas Cowboys, from the days of Texas Schramm and Tom Landry to the current regime of Jerry Jones and Chan Gailey. He covered all eight Super Bowls in which the Cowboys appeared during his career and he won the prestigious Headliner's Award for his coverage of Landry's firing by Jones.