Earl McRae

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Earl McRae is one of Canada's top, award-winning journalists, currently writing a daily general interest column for the Ottawa Sun.

McRae has won the National Magazine Gold Award for sports journalism three times, the top honour in its field, plus two Silvers, and been nominated eight times. He has also won 10 column-writing Dunlop Awards for the Sun Media chain, as well as three Ontario Newspaper Association award for columns. He was runner-up finalist in 2006 for the National Newspaper Award in sports writing for his piece on former heavyweight boxer George Chuvalo. He is the author of two books--Requiem For Reggie and The Victors And The Vanquished--both collections of his magazine sports profiles. The late American author and editor Dick Schaap, then of NBC Sports, said of McRae: "No one north or south of the Great Lakes writes more insightful, more readable profiles of athletes than Earl McRae." The dean of hockey authors, Stan Fischler of New York, said: "Earl McRae is simply the best writer of sports stories in North America." One of McRae's magazine articles in which he entered the world duck-calling contest was published in the book The Treasury Of Great Canadian Humour. In 2007, McRae won the Canadian Consumers' Choice Man Of The Year honour in a Leger Marketing poll of consumers in the Ottawa-Gatineau area. McRae has worked for the Ottawa Journal, Cornwall Standard-Freeholder, Peterborough Examiner, Toronto Star, Canadian Magazine, Ottawa Citizen. He has been a daily columnist for 17 years with the Ottawa Sun, the last 10 as a general-interest columnist. He has worked in television, radio, and film. He has been a CBC-TV sports anchor in Toronto where he also had his own nightly sports talk show on radio. McRae was the writer of TV biographies on boxer Sugar Ray Leonard, NFL quarterback Joe Montana, and marathoners Bill Rodgers and Alberto Salazar which were shown around the globe as part of the World's Greatest Athletes series.

McRae is founder of the Elvis Sighting Society headquartered at Moe's World Famous Newport Restaurant in Ottawa. It has raised more than half a million dollars for local charities. He also remains good friends with its owner, Moe Atallah. He has appeared twice on television's Jerry Springer Show to make his case that Elvis is alive and well and living in Tweed, Ontario, Canada.

Over the last 40 years McRae has covered some of the biggest stories in news including the Mike Tyson trial in 1992 and Princess Diana's Funeral in 1997 to name just two. In 1996 he was accused by then CFL commissioner Larry Smith of being partially responsible for the folding of the Ottawa Rough Riders. Smith had said McRae's columns were generally negative towards the teams lack of success and that McRae had focused too much on the fact the Rough Riders hadn't had a winning season in 17 years.

He has five children and currently resides in Ottawa, Ontario. His son is voice actor Dave McRae.