Ben Affleck to Present Top Award at 2013 ESPYS to Boston Marathoner With Cerebral Palsy and His Teammate/Father

By Tonyt Maglio

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Boston native Ben Affleck will present the Jimmy V Perseverance award at the 2013 ESPYS on July 17, ESPN said Tuesday.

The award will go to Dick and Rick Hoyt, a father-and-son team who have been racing together for more than 30 years. Rick, 51, was born with cerebral palsy and is unable to use his hands and legs; his father, 73, has pushed his son in a custom-made running chair in more than 1,000 endurance events, including triathlons and marathons.

This past Boston Marathon was to be their last, but as Team Hoyt was one mile away from the finish line, the tragic bombings occurred. They have vowed to run again next year.

The other top award of the evening, the "Arthur Ashe Courage Award," will be presented by LeBron James to Robin Roberts. Roberts is a former athlete and trailblazer in journalism who has now overcome life-threatening illnesses twice.

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Author Tim O'Brien wins Pritzker award for military writing

(Reuters) - U.S. author Tim O'Brien was awarded the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award, the first fiction writer to win the six-year-old prize, the Pritzker Military Library in Chicago said on Tuesday.

O'Brien, a Vietnam War veteran, is best known for his 1990 story collection "The Things They Carried" about a platoon of U.S. soldiers in the Vietnam War.

"Tim O'Brien's fiction about Vietnam, which derives from his own experience as a soldier, is haunting, evocative and wonderfully inventive," historian Rick Atkinson, the 2011 award winner, said in a statement.

"Yet his writing transcends that particular war in that particular era to illuminate our sense of war universally," Atkinson added.

Minnesota native O'Brien, 66, also won the National Book Award for Fiction for his 1978 war novel, "Going After Cacciato."

The lifetime achievement award hands out a $100,000 cash prize annually. Past winners include U.S. Civil War historian James McPherson and British historian Max Hastings.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and David Gregorio)

View the original article here

Author Tim O'Brien wins Pritzker award for military writing

(Reuters) - U.S. author Tim O'Brien was awarded the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award, the first fiction writer to win the six-year-old prize, the Pritzker Military Library in Chicago said on Tuesday.

O'Brien, a Vietnam War veteran, is best known for his 1990 story collection "The Things They Carried" about a platoon of U.S. soldiers in the Vietnam War.

"Tim O'Brien's fiction about Vietnam, which derives from his own experience as a soldier, is haunting, evocative and wonderfully inventive," historian Rick Atkinson, the 2011 award winner, said in a statement.

"Yet his writing transcends that particular war in that particular era to illuminate our sense of war universally," Atkinson added.

Minnesota native O'Brien, 66, also won the National Book Award for Fiction for his 1978 war novel, "Going After Cacciato."

The lifetime achievement award hands out a $100,000 cash prize annually. Past winners include U.S. Civil War historian James McPherson and British historian Max Hastings.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and David Gregorio)

View the original article here