Tony Massarotti (LA '89) has seen a good amount of success in his 40-odd years. Currently a co-host of the CBS radio show "Felger and Massarotti" on 98.5 The Sports Hub, the sportswriter has worked for The Boston Herald and The Boston Globe and is the author of four books. His success even earned him Massachusetts Sportswriter of the Year in both 2000 and 2008.
Now, the alum has one more award to add to his mantle. The Tufts Alumni Association on Saturday gave him the Distinguished Achievement Award, an honor bestowed upon former Jumbos for outstanding achievement in their professions. Yet in spite of Massarotti's success and the honors he has picked up along the way, when it came to the one he received last weekend, Massarotti couldn't say what he had done to deserve it.
"I'm flattered," he said. "I don't know that anything I've done is all that distinguished. … I don't know what kind of contribution I'm making to society, but I really enjoy doing what I do. There are certainly people more deserving, and I'm flattered."
George (Bud) Guzzi (A '56), whose son knows Massarotti very well, nominated the writer for the Distinguished Achievement Award, calling him exceptionally worthy of the award.
"I think Tony was just a natural [choice]. He's a local kid, he comes from a great family," Guzzi said. "Tony's like an icon around here. He's like the little brother who knows much more than you do. … Tony is a great writer, and he gets Sportswriter of the Year. He's very well respected and deserving of the award."
Massarotti got a taste for journalism as a writer and later editor at the Daily. The experience he got from the school newspaper, Massarotti said, was vital to launching his career.
"My sister gave me the best piece of advice: No matter what you learn in the classroom, the experience is invaluable," he said. "What you learn outside is more important. You have to be willing to bite the bullet. When you're doing that sort of stuff, you're investing in your own future."
Massarotti graduated from Tufts with a degree in English and classics, a double major that he says was more accidental than anything else.
"My grand delusion was I was going to double major in English and math, because I thought that would be unique," he said.
In his acceptance speech Saturday, Massarotti named English and music lecturer Michael Ullman as an influential figure during his time at Tufts, a sentiment by which Ullman was flattered.
"He came to my nonfiction writing class," Ullman said. "And he wasn't a natural writer, but he had something which is better in some way. He had a real love of his subject, which is sports, and he had things he wanted to say about sports. Actually, after he made the decision to become a writer, I became really hard on him. He's a very genial guy, unpretentious. He could take the kind of criticism I was giving him. He would take anything that would help him get to that goal."
Ullman and Massarotti still keep in touch today.
"Occasionally we exchange emails," Ullman said. "I complain to him about the Red Sox."
Guzzi said it was unusual for a writer to receive the Distinguished Achievement Award, a seemingly odd occurrence, given Tufts' strong emphasis on liberal arts.
"Usually people who get the awards are scientists or doctors or educators, and I don't remember the last time a writer got it," Guzzi said. "Tony's a writer, he's on radio, he's been on TV, he's written books — he's an all-around athlete in the field. He's a journalist. It's just enjoyable listening to someone who knows baseball. It's good to see a local kid make good."
Massarotti has two sisters who also graduated from Tufts and between the three of them, they have an accumulated 16 years of Tufts schooling under their belts. One of his sisters, Elena Massarotti (J '80, M '84), also received an Alumni Award in 2006.
Saturday was not Massarotti's first time back on the Hill since his graduation. In the spring of 2004, he returned as an educator, teaching Newsrooms, Locker Rooms and Press Boxes in the ExCollege. The course centered on the struggles that accompany sports reporting in the age of talk radio, cable television and the web, he said.
"I came home and said to my wife, ‘This is going to be a lot harder than I thought,'" he said. "I was shocked when the semester ended because I thought I had really gotten to know a lot of the students. We really were a group. Some of them I'll hear from every once in a while. It was an extremely rewarding experience."
Reflecting on his own years as an undergraduate, Massarotti credited Tufts for giving him his start.
"In my case, [Tufts] was directly responsible for how I began," Massarotti said. "When I graduated, I took a part-time job, ostensibly a paid internship at The Boston Herald and that was facilitated through an alumni relation. I would not be doing what I'm doing if it weren't for Tufts."
