Jim Litke has been a sports columnist for The Associated Press since 1989. After graduating from the University of Missouri in 1974, he was a sports, news and feature writer, then a columnist for the New Haven (Conn.) Register from 1974 to 1977. Litke later received a master’s degree from the University of Chicago. He joined the AP in Chicago in 1978. There, he has handled both reporting, including OIympic assignments, and supervising duties, leading the coverage of the Tylenol-cyanide investigation, for which the bureau won the Lisagor Award. In 1981, he won the inaugural John L. Dougherty Award from the Associated Press Managing Editors for a collection of stories. He also won the Chicago bureau's Charlie Chamberlain Award in 1985. Litke is a multiple winner of the Grimsley Award, given by the Associated Press Sports Editors, for a distinguished body of work.  The Society of Professional Journalists honored Litke in 2007 with the Sigma Delta Chi Award for sports column writing.