Thirty years after he graduated from Creighton, alumnus Cliff Brunt returns to campus as the 2025 Alumni Merit Award honoree and spends time sharing his expertise with current CSDJ students.

When Cliff Brunt, of Creighton University’s class of 1996, walked back into the classrooms of Creighton’s Department of Computer Science, Design and Journalism (CSDJ) this spring, he said it felt like “stepping right back into the room where it all started.”  

Memories of late nights on the Creightonian staff, advice from mentors who believed in him and the spark that launched a decades-long career in sports journalism all came rushing back.  

Nearly 30 years after graduating, Brunt returned to campus not as a student but as the 2025 Alumni Merit Award honoree for the College of Arts and Sciences.  

For the Associated Press sportswriter — who has covered four Olympic Games, the NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder and some of the biggest moments in athletics — the recognition carried with it an overwhelming sense of gratitude for where it all began.  

Clifton “Cliff” L. Brunt II has taken his Creighton education from the classrooms of Hitchcock Communications Center to press boxes around the world.    

Brunt, who covers not only the Oklahoma City Thunder, but also the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University athletic programs and the Women’s College World Series, says his journey began in Omaha classrooms long before Creighton.  

He credits Omaha North High School journalism teacher and Creighton alumn Michael Krainak with steering him toward the field.  

“I got a C in his class because I wasn’t really interested in turning stuff in. I could write, but I didn’t turn things in,” Brunt said. “One day, he pulls me aside and says, ‘Why weren’t you in my class today?’ I said, ‘I don’t have your class.’ He said, ‘Go down to the office and get your new schedule.’ He had changed my schedule and put me in his journalism class. That’s how it started.”  

By the time he graduated high school, Brunt was a state champion in sports newswriting. At Creighton, he found the guidance he needed to turn that early spark into a career.  

“I wouldn’t have been in a position to speak to you guys if it hadn’t been for Dr. Wirth,” Brunt said of his longtime mentor and former journalism chair. “Y’all wouldn’t even know who I was if it wasn’t for Dr. Wirth. She pulled me to the middle and said, ‘Okay, you’ve got potential, but you’ve got work to do.’ She really helped me stay grounded and focused and gave me a good foundation to grow after I left Creighton.”  

That foundation has carried Brunt through more than two decades in journalism, from the Omaha World Herald to the Associated Press.   

“No matter how many times I go to the Olympics, it still feels like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Brunt said. “You get to see the best of the best laying it all on the line to do what they love.”  

But some of his most meaningful stories trace back to Omaha. He points to his 2001 project on the decline of Black participation in baseball and his later work chronicling the life of Marlin Briscoe, the first Black quarterback to start a game in modern professional football — and an Omaha native.  

“I had a tough time finding Marlin when it came time to write the story,” Brunt said. “Good old Uncle John — my Uncle John Cooper — knew everybody in Omaha in the Black community. Less than two hours later, I had the number. And I had Marlin on the phone.”  

Brunt interviewed Briscoe in 2018 on the 50th anniversary of his first NFL start and later wrote his obituary.  

“That was a great honor,” Brunt said. “The care that has to be taken in doing it — I take that very seriously.”  

The path hasn’t always been easy. A first-generation college graduate, Brunt said financial pressures and imposter syndrome were major hurdles.  

“It was uncharted territory for our family,” he said. “There was the financial roadblock, the uncharted territory roadblock, the imposter syndrome roadblock. I overcame it because I wanted a better life. I thought about the kids I would have someday and wanted them to have better opportunities than I had.”  

That perseverance made the Alumni Merit Award ceremony especially meaningful. Brunt described how his wife and fellow Creighton alumna, Christina Mushi-Brunt, their daughters and even college friends from out of state surprised him by attending.  

“My wife kept it a secret the whole time,” Brunt said. “They really kind of sprung that on me. Good friends, great friends who traveled a great distance to make it extra special.”  

Returning to the same Creighton classroom where he once sat as a student brought his journey full circle.  

“It’s always humbling to go back to places that formed you,” he said. “I didn’t know that when I was a student … that the things that have happened since then would be possible. To be in a position now to tell my story, and to have people actually listening, was pretty special.”  

As the conversation came to an end, Brunt paused to reflect on what it meant to be back in the pages of The Creightonian.  

“This is, this is incredible. This is absolutely insane and something that I never could have seen. I’m just so happy to, in any capacity, contribute to The Creightonian, but in this particular way, it’s extra special,” he said.  

Brunt hopes Creighton students take away the same lesson that has guided his career: connections matter.  

“People who believe in you — that’s what you want to build,” he said.