Jewel of the Sports World: The Story of the Hickok Belt Award

by Scott Pitoniak, Ali Muhammad (Foreword by)

For a quarter century, the winner of the S. Rae Hickok Professional Athlete of the Year award received the most renowned prize for sports in America. It was the Hickok Belt an alligator-skin belt with a 5-pound, solid gold buckle encrusted with diamonds, rubies and sapphires. New York Yankee slugger Mickey Mantle won the Hickok in 1956, boxer Carmen Basilio in 1957, golfer Arnold Palmer in 1960, NFL running back Jim Brown in 1964, and baseball legend Sandy Koufax hit the jackpot twice in 1963 and 1965. Nationally recognized sports columnist and author Scott Pitoniak tells the story of the award, the winners and its history in Jewel of the Sports The Story of the Hickok Belt Award. The book includes a foreword by Muhammad Ali (who won in 1974) and is published by RIT Press, a scholarly publishing enterprise at Rochester Institute of Technology.

152 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 2010

About the author

Scott Pitoniak is considered the most decorated sports writer in Rochester media history. He has received over 100 national and regional journalism honors and has been inducted into the Frontier Field Walk of Fame (1999), the Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications Hall of Fame (200), and the Rome Sports Hall of Fame (2009). He served as a torchbearer for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games.

Pitoniak graduated from Syracuse University in 1977. He currently has a column in the Rochester Business Journal and does blogging and occasional on-air work for WROC-TV 8. He previously wrote for the Democrat and Chronicle.