Billy Witz followed in his father’s footsteps to Tulane 41 years ago and took the road less traveled in becoming an award-winning sports journalist. Witz (A&S ’84), who currently covers college sports for The New York Times, has been a sportswriter all his life. It’s all he’s known since his early days of walking the uptown campus.

Witz came to Tulane as a freshman in 1980. His father, Mort, briefly played football for the Green Wave but left New Orleans to study photography in Los Angeles. Witz picked up where his father left off by attending Tulane, but didn’t know what he wanted to study when he arrived. He tried business and English before finally settling on sociology, a degree he says is very relevant in today’s journalistic environment. 

“I played baseball in high school and tried out for the Tulane baseball team but didn’t make it,” Witz said. “So, I needed something else to do. One of my good friends in high school was the editor of our high school newspaper, so I decided to give it a shot at Tulane.” 

Witz ended up at the alternative school newspaper, The Torch. Even though the publication had a very brief existence, the experience was enough to pique his curiosity, something the profession still does today, and send him down a career path in journalism.

“I felt incredibly at home at The Torch but had no idea what I was doing. The people there were so smart and quirky and really opened my eyes up to journalism. I was hooked. My first summer of college, I went home and was able to wrangle a clerk job at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner,” Witz said.

Following graduation, Witz began his professional career by taking high school football scores over the phone at the Long Beach (Calif.) Press-Telegram. He later worked at Fox Sports and the Los Angeles Daily News before landing his current job with the Times.

Witz has attended Tulane alumni events in New York City and made it back to campus for this 35th graduation reunion in 2019. 

“The lessons of my Tulane education helped shape the way I think, as have many other things in the last 30 years, but there is no question it’s one of the foundations for me,” Witz said.