Seven Sportswriters Who

Good choice, Jake. As for women, Jackie Mac is probably the most influential in that her career was both pioneering and absolutely identical to the career path of any star male sportswriter. She's always been "normal" which was amazing for someone who started when she did when women writers had to be exceptional in every way just to get into the field.
FWIW, I always enjoyed hanging out with women columnists and reporters because they almost always talked about writing while my male peers, even those with whom I was friends, almost never did.

 

Melissa Ludtke.

 

Alma proposed Sally Jenkins a couple pages ago.

 

ya can basically chart his career along the axis of the Paterno story.

He landed his supposed dream job at SI, and I loved his work there. And then he was at SOA and other places. I don't even know where he is now. I guess I should get back on Twitter to know, but he hasn't been moving the needle at all lately.

 

I went back and noticed that a few minutes ago. Must have skimmed right over that amidst the collection of greatest men ever.

My apologies to @Alma.

 

Nope.

Don't gotta shoehorn people in just for window dressing. I've worked with many female writers and columnists of note, including Johnette Howard. She's not among the top 7 sports writers who had the greatest impact on the profession. Not even close. Nor is Jemele Hill.

 

Songbird has a point.

But one of the awful truths of sexism and racism is that it becomes self-perpetuating.

There are fewer women who leap to mind as sports writers because there are fewer women sports writers. Same for African-American sports writers.

In addition to Ludtke (google her) I'd suggest Lisa Olson. And the late Le Anne Schreiber. Maybe Jane Leavy or Laura Hillenbrand. Bonnie Ford? Liz Merrill?

The best long form woman writing sports today is probably Louisa Thomas.

Hall of Fame or Mt. Olympus I'll leave to others.

That said there are many, many more women writing in the last fifteen years than there were in the previous hundred and fifteen.

 

For what's it worth, of the women from my generation, I think Johnette Howard is the best pure writer.

 

Johnette's a terrific writer. Jane Leavy has become a preeminent sports biographer, and that is a genre very few men or women have excelled at. I think we need a clearer definition of influential here. To determine the influence of women writers, we probably need to ask the current generation of women writers about who influenced THEM. Us guys are just speculating.

 

I would rate Bob Ryan as having a greater impact than McMullen because he came before her and I think he was so good at writing about the Celtics he influenced a lot of game reporting by others in a way I don't know if McMullen did.

I will admit I am not a huge Sally Jenkins fan. Mostly it because I read her when I was living in Northern Virginia. she was at the Washington Post and she insisted on living in New York. I did not find her compelling enough to read on a national topic when the Post had great local columnists. I also don't think she influenced a lot of people in the way her father did, for example.

But sports writing is still mail dominated. Even in the last 25 years who has been the a dominant national writer in the way that Reilly or Simmons has been? The only female Spink Award winner is Clare Smith, the only McCann winner is Charean Williams and the only woman in the Basketball Writers Hall of Fame is Mary Garber. The population is small.

 

So... wait. You're scolding the board for not doing something that you also cannot do? There are certainly women working today who might be on such a list in the future. Susan Slusser is as good as any beat writer. Mina Kimes is terrific. Lisa Olson hasn't received enough credit as a pure journalist because she had to be a pioneer, too. But like @Azrael said, women weren't given the same opportunities as men even twenty years ago. You're going to take W.C. Heinz off the mountain to make room for Johnette Howard (who's great—her Joey Kocur story still haunts me) for the sake of appearances? That's patronizing as hell.

 

This board features lots of folks with high levels of historical context who can shed much more intelligent light on a discussion like this and that's what I was looking for while going thru the thread. Christine Brennan started in '81. Jane Leavy has been doing it for a long time too. Both of them have won awards and accolades galore, unless those were for ceremonial purposes only. Jack Nicklaus called Jean Giambrone "a true professional in her craft" while MacMullen and Jenkins have been cited on this thread but only Jenkins thru the first 5 pages which is just kind of funny when you really think about it. And your line about Heinz is a non-sequitur as I never said take him off the mountain. Just trying to calibrate the conversation a bit. And remember, the point of this thread, if I'm correct in understanding it, is a reimagining of such a mountain. We have 50 years, give or take, of women sportswriters to choose from. We can do better than Sally Jenkins being the only mention thru 5 pages.