Alumna Becomes First Woman Inducted Into the Football Writers Association of America Hall of Fame
Kelly Whiteside traveled the country during her high-profile career as a sportswriter, but in all those years her time at Rutgers was never far from her thoughts and she’s never forgotten where the roots for her success were planted.
She spent 14 years at USA Today (2000-2014) as the lead Olympics writer, World Cup soccer writer and national college football writer. Prior to joining USA Today, she was a reporter at Newsday (1997-2000) and a staff writer at Sports Illustrated (1991-97). She has covered seven Olympics and eight World Cups, as well as the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball and NHL.
Whiteside, a professor at Montclair State University since 2014 and head of its Sports Communication program and Journalism and Digital Media program in Montclair’s School of Communication and Media, recently became the first woman to receive the Football Writers Association of America’s (FWAA) 2025 Bert McGrane Award. This prestigious honor celebrates her significant contributions to journalism, college football, and the FWAA, earning her a place in the association’s Hall of Fame with recognition at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta.
The East Brunswick native and 1990 Rutgers College graduate also made history as the FWAA’s first female president in 2002. Three days following the award presentation, she completed her three-year term on the College Football Playoff Committee, where, for two of those years she was the only woman. “It is a huge honor to be recognized by the FWAA,” Whiteside said. “I enjoyed my time serving on the College Football Playoff Committee and appreciated how my opinion was valued, respected and heard.”
What she credits most for building the foundation for her career is the countless hours she spent with the Daily Targum.
“Basically I majored in the Targum,” she quipped. “That’s where I spent most of my time. It’s where my friends were. So it was definitely the best training ground for what I wanted to do as a reporter. And it really spurred me on to go to grad school and eventually a career in journalism. It was the place where my passion for journalism ignited.”
In her spare time, the modest Whiteside found the time to double major in English and Journalism, graduating cum laude with a 3.8 GPA before going on to earn a master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University.
At the Targum she quickly rose up the ranks. As a sophomore Whiteside was elected Associate Sports Editor. The following year she was elected Sports Editor. Then, as a senior in 1989-90, she ran for and was elected Editor-in-Chief.
The fact she ended up attending Rutgers was always a foregone conclusion. “I was born into a Rutgers family,” she said. Her three older siblings had all attended Rutgers and her late father Joseph P. Whiteside was the University’s Senior Vice-President/Treasurer before, during and after her four years at RU, serving in this capacity from 1976-2000.
“It was just assumed that I would go to Rutgers. But it wouldn’t be accurate at all to say I was forced there or really felt any pressure at all,” she recalled. “I wanted to go to Rutgers. So, it was a super easy decision. We’re a Rutgers family and that’s what my brothers and sister had done. So that’s what I wanted to do as well.”
Whiteside started off as a member of the Scarlet Knight women’s soccer team during her freshman year. But her career basically ended at the same moment it began.
“Literally on the first play of my very first game of my very first year I tore my ACL,” Whiteside said. “That’s how my soccer career began and ended.”
Her lost athletic career would be the Targum’s gain. Some of her fondest Targum memories center around covering the perennially national-ranked RU women’s basketball team, led by All-American Sue Wicks, unequivocally the best player in Rutgers history and now a member of the University’s Hall of Distinguished Alumni and Hall of Fame.
“I can remember when I first met Sue at beginning of my Targum career on the bus traveling to an away game, and being so intimidated by her” Whiteside said. “And I remember she talked to me and I was so star struck that the star of the basketball team and an upperclassmen was speaking with me.”
Whiteside would later cover Wicks for Newsday when she was a member of the WNBA’s New York Liberty – now two professionals interacting within their chosen fields.
“One hundred percent I remember my first meeting with Kelly on the bus,” said Wicks. “I thought she was professional right from the beginning. I thought she was just as professional, just as well prepared as those who were already making a living out of writing. And she was standing there, a young girl just like me. Kelly and I, we just grew up together, I always felt.
“And I loved seeing her name in the most important sports publications in the country,” Wicks added. “And I was like, ‘that’s my girl.’ I think just that strong love of Rutgers we shared, where we grew up together. She’s been very important to my life and a friendship and a professional relationship and someone who I admire deeply. So, yeah, I love Kelly.”
In the end, Whiteside says working at the Targum was one of the best decisions she’s ever made, laying the groundwork for all that would follow in her pioneering career – a career that has reached its pinnacle with her enshrinement as the first female Hall of Fame inductee into the FWAA Hall of Fame.
Throughout her success, Whiteside remained Rutgers through and through.
“As my career grew, I’d find myself covering college football games on the biggest stages. I might be in the press box at a Michigan-Ohio State game, but I’d have a window at the bottom of my laptop open to the Rutgers game,” she said. “Obviously, Rutgers is the team I root for - the only team I root for actually.”
