Lee Benson, who grew up flinging newspapers from his bicycle near Mount Jordan Junior High, will be inducted into the Utah Sports Hall of Fame on Monday, Sept. 14, at the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City.

The Jordan High graduate spent five decades at the Deseret News, covering 16 Super Bowls, 10 Olympic Games, 14 Final Fours and eight NBA Finals. He was named Utah Sportswriter of the Year 14 times in 15 years, from 1976 to 1990, as voted by members of the National Sports Media Association. He has written 30 books.

"It's surreal to go into a Hall of Fame with the majority of people I have been on the other side of the aisle, being the guy asking the questions," Benson told the Sandy Journal.

Now 78, Benson still writes a weekly column.

His Sandy roots run deep. As a 12-year-old paperboy, he and his identical twin brother, the late Dee Benson, delivered the Deseret News on their bicycles while their cocker spaniel-sheepdog mix, Pokey, ran alongside. At Jordan High, he was a student body officer, tennis player and after-school custodian before heading to BYU, where he wrote his first published article for The Daily Universe after covering a wrestling meet.

Benson has said his brother shaped everything he wrote. "In journalism school, they tell you to have one person in mind when you write stories," he said in his official Hall of Fame biography. "That person was Dee. I never wrote anything that wasn't to him."

As Deseret News sports editor, Benson served on the Utah Sports Hall of Fame selection committee, according to the Sandy Journal. He is credited with discovering or nurturing fellow sportswriters Doug Robinson, Brad Rock and Mike Sorensen. He later spent 25 years as a full-time sportswriter before shifting to general-interest columns, and once rode a bicycle across Utah writing about slices of everyday life along the way.

Jody Genessy, a former Deseret News sportswriter and Utah Sports Hall of Fame Foundation board member, said Benson shaped his own career. Genessy told the Sandy Journal he was "one of many sportswriters who wanted to be Lee Benson when I grew up."

Benson joins a 2026 inductee class that includes two-time Olympic freestyle skiing medalist Shannon Bahrke, Pro Football Hall of Fame sculptor Blair Buswell, jockey Cody Jensen and wrestler Ben Kjar. The induction banquet begins with a 6:15 p.m. reception; dinner follows at 7 p.m. Tickets are $90 per person or $900 for a table of 10.

The Utah Sports Hall of Fame Museum is at 99 W. South Temple, Suite 102, in City Creek Center, Salt Lake City, open Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., with free admission.