Mike Jensen spent 35 years covering basketball and other sports for the Philadelphia Inquirer. In 2024, he was inducted into the Big 5 Hall of Fame. In addition, he won national Eclipse Awards for his horse racing coverage of Smarty Jones in 2004 and Barbaro in 2006. In 2023, he was named Pennsylvania Sportswriter of the Year and won the 2024 Jim O'Connell Award by the United States Basketball Writers Association for Excellence in Beat Reporting. He still has the trophy for winning a foul-shooting contest at the 1976 Julius Erving Basketball Camp.
