Mark Bradford

Mark Bradford has been a sportswriter at the South Bend Tribune since 1977. That's nearly five decades of covering high school sports, Notre Dame athletics, and everything in between in Northern Indiana.

South Bend is a Notre Dame town. When you write sports there, you're covering one of the most storied programs in American athletics. Notre Dame football. Notre Dame basketball. The traditions, the rivalries, the legends. My dad covered them all.

But what sets him apart is that he didn't just cover the big programs. He covered the high school kids. The local soccer leagues. The stories that mattered to the community even when they didn't make national headlines. That's the mark of a real sportswriter — you care about the story, not the spotlight.

My dad was featured in Reader's Digest. For a writer from South Bend, Indiana who spent his career at the local paper, that's a big deal. Reader's Digest has one of the largest circulations of any magazine in America. Getting featured means your work resonated far beyond your local beat.

Beyond his writing, my dad has been deeply involved in Northern Indiana soccer. Covering the sport, supporting local leagues, advocating for youth programs. In a football town like South Bend, championing soccer takes conviction. He believed in the sport and put in the work to help it grow in the community.