Columnists
Enberg was born in Mount Clemens, Michigan. He studied at Central Michigan University and Indiana University, earning master's and doctorate degrees in health sciences at the latter institution. While a student at Indiana, Enberg voiced the first radio broadcast of the Little 500, the bike racing event memorialized in the film Breaking Away. He was also the play-by-play announcer for IU football and basketball games. From 1961 to 1965 he was an assistant professor and baseball coach at California State University, Northridge, then known as San Fernando Valley State College.
Dick Enberg is also a member of Phi Sigma Kappa.
No wonder Dennis Dodd loves bowl season. His life kicked off just hours before the 1957 New Year's Day bowls. To him, though, The Grandaddy of Them All isn't necessarily the Rose Bowl. Dennis' grandfather Daniel Barnard was a legendary amateur soccer star in St. Louis in the 1920s. Later, Grandpa worked for the railroad shuttling fans from St. Louis to South Bend on Notre Dame football Saturdays. After somehow getting a journalism degree at the University of Missouri, Dennis started his career in Sherman, Texas. From 1981-89 he worked at the Kansas City Star, pausing long enough to propose to his lovely wife during the seventh-inning stretch of Game 5 of the 1987 World Series. Next were stops at the St. Louis Sun, The National(New York), Omaha World-Herald and SportsWriters Direct. He has worked for CBSSports.com since February 1998 and saw his first game in South Bend later that year. Somewhere, Grandpa was watching.
Gayle Bryan is the publishing director of Fair Game, the 100% Women’s Soccer Magazine. She covers women’s soccer from the youth level through college and the national teams including the NCAA Women’s College Cup, the Algarve Cup, and the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Bryan has authored four books and has contributed to
ESPN Soccernet and
Goal,
The New York Times Soccer Blog.
Michael Lewis covers soccer for the New York Daily News and is editor of BigAppleSoccer.com. He can be reached at SoccerWriter516 at aol.com.
A typical fall Saturday for Blair Kerkhoff growing up in Raleigh, N.C., was to take in a Duke or North Carolina game in the afternoon (no lights) and a North Carolina State game at night. He graduated from Appalachian State and joined for the Roanoke (Va.) Times & World-News in 1981 and since then has spent nearly every school-year Saturday in a press box or on press row. Blair has been covering college sports for the Kansas City Star since 1989 and is proud to say he lives in the hometown of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.
Martin Renzhofer has worked at the Salt Lake Tribune since 1990. He is responsible for coverage of collegiate basketball, soccer and volleyball as well as professional baseball.
Scott is the editor of Colorado Hockey Insider and has the pleasure of covering three of the top collegiate teams in the country: Colorado College, Denver University and the Air Force Academy. He also covers all levels of football and lacrosse in his home state.
Adam Wodon has been covering college hockey since 1988, and has since been the play-by-play broadcaster for Princeton University and Cornell University, and in professional hockey. He worked at USCHO.com for nine years, before starting up College Hockey News (collegehockeynews.com), where he is Publisher and Managing Editor, and a prominent voice on issues of national importance.
Other key roles include being an analyst for College Sports Television's (now CBS College Sports) regular college hockey coverage for three years. And he has worked for ESPN, as reporter and analyst on the 2004 Frozen Four game broadcasts, 2003-05 NCAA Tournament broadcasts, and 2003-05 NCAA Tournament Selection Shows.
Overall, Wodon has worked 17 years in the tv/radio and newspaper business.
Mechelle Voepel has covered women's basketball since 1984, when she began her journalism career at the University of Missouri. She has watched a remarkable journey of growth for the sport, which continues each season. She has written about women's basketball for ESPN.com since 1996. During that time, she also covered both the Summer and Winter Olympics, the Women's World Cup soccer tournament and several professional golf major tournaments.
Seth Davis is working his fifth year as a contributor for CBS Sports' coverage of the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. He serves as analyst on AT THE HALF, the Network's college basketball halftime show. Davis first gained the reputation as a college basketball expert as a writer for Sports Illustrated. He also has served as an analyst for CBS College Sports Network (CSTV) since 2004 and is regular contributor to SI.com, where he authors his popular "Hoop Thoughts" column.
Seth Davis's book, When March Went Mad: Magic, Bird and the Game That Transformed Basketball, will be published by Times Books in March. You can pre-order it
here.
Dave Armstrong and his signature "Wow!" have been a favorite for over a generation of Midwest college basketball fans. In 1988, Dave began working for the Big 8 Conference, and continues with the Big 12 today, calling the action each week on ESPN’s Plus Network. In total, Dave has had a “center-court” seat for literally hundreds of games for more that twenty years. In addition to his current work in college basketball, Dave is the play-by-play announcer for ESPNU’s College Football Primetime. He has had the opportunity to call games in the Big 12, the Big East, the Big 10, and the Atlantic Coast Conference. Dave is also familiar to baseball fans as the television voice of both the Kansas City Royals and the Colorado Rockies for almost a decade. In addition, Dave works for The Baseball Network and Baseball Saturday Night on FX and served as the play-by-play voice with the Seattle Seahawks. Dave has just written his first book, “Driving From Here to WOW!” and currently resides in Overland Park, Kansas.
Stacey Dales joined ESPN as a women’s college basketball studio analyst in the 2002-03 season. Fresh from leading the Oklahoma Sooners to the 2002 NCAA Championship game, Dales joined ESPN for its unprecedented coverage of all 63 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament games. The two-time Kodak/WBCA All-American added college football and college basketball sideline reporting duties to her assignments in the 2004-05 season. While Dales continued to cover women’s college hoops as an analyst and men’s college football and basketball as a reporter, she was also promoted to work the studio as an analyst for men’s basketball coverage during the 2006-07 season—she was at this time, the first female analyst to do so at ESPN. While Dales enjoyed a fine career in television, she also flourished as an athlete. Dales was the third pick overall to the Washington Mystics in the 2002 WNBA Draft and became a WNBA All-Star in her rookie campaign. After three years in Washington, Stacey took a one-year hiatus from the game, before returning to the expansion Chicago Sky franchise in 2006, where she would complete two solid seasons serving as Captain. Widely known for her on and off-the-court leadership skills, Dales was also a member of the Canadian National Women’s Team (1999-2003) that competed in both the 1999 Pan Am Games and 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. A two-time Academic All-American, Dales graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a bachelor’s degree in communications, and was named both the CoSIDA Academic All-American of the Year for basketball as well as the ever prestigious NCAA Woman of the Year in 2002.
Robert Vlahakis has served as the Senior Editor of "Inside Lacrosse" since 2000. Prior to his time with the publication, he was the Founder of "Face-off Lacrosse Yearbook" where he worked from 1994-2000. Bob's work was recognized in 1996 when he was named the recipient of the Doyle Smith Media Award for College Lacrosse.
Mike Eidelbes is co-founder and managing editor of InsideCollegeHockey.com. Now in its seventh season, INCH is regarded as the most comprehensive and authoritative website devoted to NCAA Division I men's college hockey. The INCH Podcast, which debuted in 2005, was named one of five essential hockey podcasts by USA Hockey Magazine in 2007. Prior to founding InsideCollegeHockey.com, Eidelbes was sports information director for hockey at the University of Denver and Michigan State University. A native of Grand Rapids, Minn., he currently resides with his wife and daughter in East Lansing, Mich.
John Akers has been the managing editor of Basketball Times since 2001. He also covered college sports for 16 seasons at the San Jose Mercury News and for four years at the Ames (Iowa) Daily Tribune.
A native of Syracuse, N.Y. Bill Plummer III has been involved in amateur softball for more than 40 years and is in his 30th year at the ASA National Office in Oklahoma City. He has been a district commissioner, player, manager and umpire during his career. Since 1996 he has been the manager of the ASA National Softball Hall of Fame, editor of THE INSIDE PITCH, Trade Show Manager and ASA Historian. He has written widely about the sport contributing to 11 books and including being author of THE GAME AMERICA PLAYS: CELEBRATING 75 YEARS OF THE AMATEUR SOFTBALL ASSOCIATION, (October 2008), which takes an inside look at the past 75 years of the ASA, softball’s NGB. Plummer, 64, is a 1973 graduate of Indiana University and is a former sports writer and baseball scout.
Mel Greenberg covers college and pro women’s basketball for the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he has worked for 39 years. Greenberg pioneered national coverage of the game, including the original Top 25 women's college poll. His knowledge has earned him nicknames such as "The Guru" and "The Godfather." He was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007.
Mark Etheridge has covered college baseball since 1999 and has established himself as one of the prominent voices in the sport. He has written for several newspapers and online outlets and has also served as an analyst for College Sports Television (now CBS College Sports) and CSS-TV as a baseball bracketologist. He is a regular guest on sports-talk radio shows around the nation. Readers can follow his work at SEBaseball.com.
Elliot Olshansky fell in love with college hockey while attending Dartmouth College, and has been covering the sport ever since. A web editor and staff writer for the New York Daily News, Elliot writes a weekly article for NYDailyNews.com profiling Rangers, Islanders and Devils prospects in college hockey, along with local products. Prior to his arrival at the News, Elliot was the national college hockey columnist for CSTV.com, covering nearly 250 games from Maine to Colorado over the course of four seasons. In addition to his work for the News, Elliot writes the Hobey Watch Blog for US College Hockey Online, tracking the race for the Hobey Baker Memorial Award. He resides in Hartsdale, N.Y.
Quint Kessenich is a presentor for the ESPN family of networks covering both college and professional lacrosse, basketball, football, wrestling, track and field and horse racing. He is a former All-American lacrosse goalkeeper. He attended the Johns Hopkins University from 1987 to 1990, where he was a two-time winner of the Ensign C. Markland Kelly, Jr. Award as the nation's best goalie. He has covered 15 NCAA lacrosse championships as the TV analyst. Kessenich played one year of professional lacrosse with the Baltimore Thunder in 1999. He's a regular contributor to Inside Lacrosse magazine. He's a volunteer assistant coach at the Boys' latin School in Baltimore, MD where he has run his lacrosse goalie camp for more than a decade.
Quint attended Lynbrook High School in Lynbrook, New York, where he starred in soccer, wrestling and lacrosse.
Steve Lavin is in his sixth season as College Basketball Analyst on ABC and ESPN . Lavin will once again work alongside broadcasting partner Brent Musburger sharing his perspective on college basketball. Additionally Lavin provides color commentary and expertise on ESPN’s coverage of the NBA Pre Draft Camp as well as the NBA Draft.
Lavin’s coaching perspective was forged over 15 years as a Division I college basketball coach at both UCLA and Purdue University. As UCLA Head Basketball Coach from 1996-2003 Lavin compiled a record of 145-78. In his inaugural season as head coach, Lavin directed the Bruins to the 1997 Pac-10 Championship and the NCAA Elite Eight.
During Lavin’s tenure as a head coach, he was one of only two coaches in the country, along with Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, to lead his team to five NCAA “Sweet 16s” in six years (‘02, ’01, ’00, ’98, ’97). Lavin guided UCLA to six consecutive 20+ game winning seasons and to six consecutive NCAA tournaments. As head coach, his career record in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament is 10-1.
In 2001, after the Bruins finished 23-9, Lavin was honored with the Pacific-10 Coach of the Year award. He is the only head coach in NCAA Men’s Basketball history to lead his team to victory over the No. 1 team in the country in four consecutive collegiate seasons (Arizona ’03, Kansas ’02, Stanford ’01, Stanford ’00). As head coach Lavin had a 12-4 record in contest involving overtime periods. Additionally Lavin’s Bruins had a 10-4 record against the rival USC Trojans.
During his time working the sidelines at both Purdue and UCLA, Lavin’s teams qualified for 13 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances (1989-2002). Lavin was an assistant coach on the Bruins 1995 National Championship team that finished with a 32-1 record.
As head coach at UCLA, Lavin recruited and signed the No. 1 rated recruiting class in the country in both 1998 and 2001. He signed seven McDonald’s High School All-Americans. One or more of his former UCLA players or recruits was chosen in the NBA draft over ten consecutive years (1997-2006). As a result, the Bruins have the longest streak of any college in the country of consecutive years having a player drafted to the NBA. Seven of Lavin’s former Bruin recruits or players are currently members of NBA teams.
In March of 2003, after twelve years on the UCLA staff, Lavin had his first losing season (10-19) as a head coach and was relieved of his duties. Shortly thereafter, Lavin was signed to a multi-year contract with ESPN and ABC where he provides color commentary as both game and studio analyst.
In April of 2006 Steve Lavin strongly considered a return to the coaching ranks when presented with the opportunity to become to head basketball coach of the North Carolina State University Wolfpack. Lavin chose to continue his broadcasting career and signed a new six year contract with ABC and ESPN that will keep him with the network through 2012.
Lavin is frequently an invited keynote speaker throughout the country for business, community and collegiate events. He addresses a wide range of topics including effective communication, motivation, management, recruiting, leadership, and naturally, college basketball.
Geoff Shannon is associate editor at Inside Lacrosse magazine, a Baltimore-based publication that covers the Fastest Game on Two Feet from top to bottom. An ‘04 graduate of Tulane University, Geoff previously worked as a reporter and editor in Louisiana before moving back to Baltimore following Hurricane Katrina. Geoff’s articles have appeared in several print and online publications including Baltimore magazine, the Tulanian and Baltimore Business Journal. He is a native of Baltimore, Md.
Tommy Deas has been covering collegiate sports including football, basketball, baseball, softball and gymnastics for more than 25 years. He began covering fastpitch softball on his first full-time job in Nashville, Tenn., and fell in love with the sport. He has been covering collegiate softball for more than a dozen years, and continues to do so as executive sports editor at The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News.
Steve Richardson, a Dallas-based freelance writer, has covered college and professional sports since the late 1970s. He worked at the Kansas City Star and later at the Dallas Morning News for more than 20 years combined. He has served as a special correspondent for college sports for several publications in recent years and has written, collaborated on, or edited 11 books. Richardson served as editor for 60 Years of the Outland Trophy and collaborated with Rare Air Media for ABC Sports College Football All-Time All-America Team. He has been a correspondent for Sports Illustrated and written freelance articles for numerous publications, including USA Today. A 1975 graduate of the University of Missouri, Richardson has collected writing awards while working in three states. He has covered 24 Final Fours, all the traditional major bowl games, professional sports and two Olympics. He was the president of the United States Basketball Writers Association in 2002-03 and has been executive director of the Football Writers Association of America since 1996.
Brett McMurphy is a college football and basketball reporter for FanHouse.com. He has covered college athletics since 1992, including the last 11 years as the University of South Florida beat writer and has covered the Big East Conference since 2005. He previously worked at the Tampa Tribune. Before coming to Tampa, McMurphy worked two years at the Odessa American, covering Permian High School. A graduate of Oklahoma State University, McMurphy lives in Tampa with his wife and daughter.
George Schroeder is a columnist for The Register-Guard of Eugene, Ore., and the current president of the Football Writers Association of America. He has covered college football in the SEC, Big 12 and Pac-10.
Eric Anderson is the publisher of Wisconsin Soccer Central (www.wisconsinsoccercentral.com), and spent 18 years as an assistant editor, reporter and copy editor in the sports departments of the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison and the La Crosse Tribune. He also plays soccer in three local leagues and is embarking on a youth coaching career. Contact Eric at madisonsoccer@verizon.net.
Ron Higgins is a native of Baton Rouge, La., an LSU Class of ’79 graduate and son of former LSU sports information director Carl “Ace” Higgins. Ron started writing for a daily newspaper, The Advocate in Baton Rouge, without a byline when he was 8 years old and with a byline when he was 12 years old. He played college basketball at Angelina Jr. College until he wrecked his knee. Since graduating from college, he has worked at Tiger Rag in Baton Rouge, the Shreveport (La.) Times, the Shreveport (La.) Journal, the Advocate in Baton Rouge, the Mobile (Ala.) Register and The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, where he has been most of the last 25 years. He has won more than 125 national, regional and state writing awards in his 30-year career writing, such the Tennessee Sports Writers Association’s Writer of the Year six times (including the last five consecutive years). He has also contributed to Sports Illustrated, Sporting News and ESPN.com. He is the immediate past president of The Football Writers Association of America. His favorite sport is college football, though he has covered every sport imaginable and every big event possible including Super Bowls, Final Fours, BCS national championship games, NBA Finals and three Olympics. He is married to the former Paige Blanchard of Baton Rouge, and has two sons, Carl (27) who played football at Southeastern Louisiiana University and who now serves in the military, and Jack (15).
Debbie Antonelli has worked as the radio analyst for the national syndication of the Westwood One/NCAA Radio Network for the past ten Women's Final Fours. Antonelli is one of the nation's most esteemed analysts when it comes to women's basketball. Having completed four seasons as the Fever TV analyst, Antonelli is the lead TV analyst for the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big XII Conference, Southeastern Conference and CSTV's coverage of women's basketball
Kirk Wessler is executive sports editor and columnist for the Peoria (Ill.) Journal Star. A 1977 graduate of Bradley University, he previously worked for the Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune and the Dallas Times-Herald. He serves on the board of directors for the U.S. Basketball Writers Association.
Roman Augustoviz is a general assignment reporter who covers Gophers hockey and other University of Minnesota men's and women's sports.
Hank Wesch covers the University of San Diego and the West Coast Conference for the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Matt Caracappa is the 2009-10 Brian Fishman Intern for USA Hockey, the National Governing Body for the sport of ice hockey in the United States. Based in the national office’s communications department, he assists in various communications projects, event promotions and publishing initiatives, including work with USA Hockey Magazine, the most widely distributed hockey magazine in the world.
