Bill Carter
Sport: Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism
Induction Year: 1988
University: LSU
Bill Carter accepted publisher Joe D. Smith’s offer to be the sports editor at The Alexandria Daily Town Talk in 1959, and he energized a sports section that had previously relied heavily on wire reports, covering LSU himself and greatly expanding the high school coverage. He served as the paper’s sports editor for 28 years until 1987. He was awarded the Louisiana Sports Writers Association’s Distinguished Service Award in 1988, thus earning him membership in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. That same year he also won the LSWA’s Mac Russo Award, presented annually to a person who has contributed to the progress, ideals and fellowship of the LSWA.
In 1964, Carter received the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association’s Sportswriter of the Year Award for the state of Louisiana. He was especially renowned for his thorough coverage of LSU football when Charles McClendon was the Tigers’ head coach.
With his Kentucky background, he was also proficient in covering basketball and was a regular reporter for two decades at NCAA Final Four Tournaments, including the breakthrough Final Four in 1979 that featured Magic Johnson and Michigan State and Larry Bird and Indiana State in the championship game.
Carter also organized and covered the Preptacular Track and Field Meet at Bolton High School, which had a run in the 1960s and annually attracted top high school track and field athletes from throughout the state and the region.
He once did a column from a spring training interview session with Hall of Famer Ted Williams, one of baseball’s greatest hitters, on none other than how to hit a baseball.







