The Bass Fishing Hall of Fame’s Board of Directors awarded B.A.S.S. CEO Bruck Akin a Meritorious Service Award upon his retirement in 2021. This special award from the Board is reserved exclusively and sparingly to properly recognize select individuals and organizations deemed to have made significant contributions to bass fishing.

Akin served as the B.A.S.S. CEO for a decade, during one of many critical periods in the organization’s history. He guided the organization’s expansion in television, internet and face-to-face interactions. Specifically, he oversaw the beginning of a multiyear television deal with FOX Sports, which ensured live broadcast coverage for every Elite Series event and the Bassmaster Classic for the first time in history. Under Akin’s leadership, B.A.S.S. also set records for attendance at both the Bassmaster Classic and Elite Series events, introduced junior, high school and kayak tournament trails, revived the Redfish Cup Championship and recorded growth in almost every facet of its business, including membership, viewership, readership and digital engagement, with record-breaking engagement on Bassmaster.com and Bassmaster social media channels in 2021. He had intended to leave earlier, but chose to stay an extra year to provide needed exceptional guidance through the pandemic. For that effort, he was named one of the Birmingham Business Journal’s Executives of Influence for 2020. Akin also exercised effective leadership in the sportfishing industry as part of the American Sportfishing Association Board of Directors and as an active member of the Center for Sportfishing Policy and Keep America Fishing.

Akin is a 1980 graduate of the University of Alabama who spent over two decades prior to joining B.A.S.S. with the Southern Progress Corporation, a Division of Time, Inc.