In 1998, when the American football journalist Grant Wahl covered his first World Cup, at age 24, for Sports Illustrated, football was considered a sort of JV at America’s most influential sports publication. While most young writers of his generation aspired to cover more established American sports like baseball, basketball or football, Wahl, who died Saturday morning while covering the world Cup in Qatar, at the age of 49, had fallen in love with this sport. He foresaw a world rhythm that he could own. And in doing so, he helped elevate a game, beloved around the world but long rejected in America, to heights once unimaginable in the United States.
“For much of its history, Sports Illustratedlike most major media companies, had been rather dismissive of football,” says Chris Stone, former editor-in-chief of Sports Illustrated, now deputy editor at Los Angeles Times. “A lot of people ride the wave of popularity of a sport. Grant really helped create a lot of the popularity of football in this country.
Wahl’s untimely death in Qatar, where he wrote daily articles on the World Cup for his own account subscription site on Substack, shocked the football world. Wahl collapsed in the press box during overtime of the Argentina-Netherlands match on Saturday and died in a hospital in Qatar. Wahl was working around the clock in Qatar and had been ill during his time there. “My body finally collapsed,” he wrote on December 5. “Three weeks of little sleep, high stress and a lot of work can do that to you. What had been a cold for the past 10 days turned into something more serious on the night of USA-Netherlands game, and I could feel my upper chest take on a new level of pressure and discomfort. I didn’t have Covid (I get tested regularly here), but I went to the medical clinic at the main media center today, and they said I probably had bronchitis. They gave me a course of antibiotics and some strong cough syrup, and I’m already feeling a little better a few hours later. But still: no good.
“I cough a lot,” Wahl also said in a podcast before he died. “It sometimes sounds like a death rattle.”
Wahl said he caught up on some sleep during the two-day break between the round of 16 and quarterfinals.
Wahl has aggressively covered the struggles of Qatar’s migrant workers. “They don’t care” read a subtitle from December 8 on Wahl’s Substack website. “The organizers of the Qatari World Cup do not even hide their apathy over the deaths of migrant workers, including the most recent one. » Before the United States’ World Cup opener against Wales on November 21, Wahl wrote that security personnel arrested him at Ahmad bin Ali Stadium for wearing a rainbow shirt -sky, in support of the LGBTQ+ community. Homosexuality is criminalized in Qatar. He was eventually granted access to the match and Wahl said FIFA apologized. He wore the shirt to the media center.
Stunned reactions spread around the world. “We extend our deepest condolences to Grant’s family, friends and many close colleagues in the media,” a spokesperson for Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy wrote in a statement. “We are in contact with the US Embassy and relevant local authorities to ensure that the process of repatriating the body is in accordance with the family’s wishes.” FIFA noted that Wahl was recently honored, along with other journalists, for covering eight consecutive men’s World Cups. Football confirmed Wahl’s untimely death. “Here in the United States, Grant’s passion for soccer and his commitment to elevating its visibility in our sporting landscape have played a major role in helping to generate interest and respect for our beautiful game,” said US Soccer in a press release. “Equally important, Grant’s belief in the power of gaming to advance human rights has been and will continue to be an inspiration to all. »
“I am so grateful for my husband’s support @GrantWahl“The family of the footballer and so many friends who reached out to us this evening,” said Wahl’s wife, noted epidemiologist Céline Gounder. wrote on Twitter. “I’m completely in shock.”
“Rural Church Mouse”
Wahl grew up in the Kansas City area and attended Princeton University. For his senior thesis, he spent a summer in Argentina studying the political culture of soccer teams. Wahl excelled as a sports editor at the Daily Princetonian, his preternatural talent evident to anyone reading his coverage of the Princeton football and basketball teams. (I was one of those impressed readers, as a student two years younger than Grant). “Long after Pete Carril leaves the coaching profession, last night’s scene will remain etched in the national consciousness,” Wahl wrote during his senior year of the now-famous basketball player Princeton. upset victory against UCLA during the 1996 NCAA basketball tournament. Princeton was led by Carril, the school’s irascible and diminutive coach who died in August. “Here is Carril, the rural church mouse of college basketball, rushing into an ethereal, postmodern dome, coaching 1995 Coach of the Year, UCLA’s Jim Harrick.”
After college, Wahl turned down an offer from Miami Herald for fact-checking work at Sports Illustrated. But he quickly rose through the editorial ranks and was assigned to his first World Cup just two years after graduating from college. For many years, Wahl split his time between football and college basketball. In 2002, he even wrote SI’s first cover of LeBron James, entitled “The Chosen One”. (James was a high school student when the article came out).
“He was always pretty cool to be around,” James said Friday night. “He spent a lot of time in my hometown of Akron covering me over time before this cover story was published. And I always watched from afar. Even when I moved up the ranks and turned professional and he sort of moved on to a different sport and things of that nature over the years, every time his name came up I would always think back to me as a teenager and having Grant in my ranks. our building at (St. Vincent-St. Mary High School). So it’s a tragic loss. It’s unfortunate to lose someone as great as him and I wish his family the best, like I said. And may he rest in paradise.
Cover the beautiful game
Around 2010, Wahl convinced Sports Illustrated editors to let him cover football full time. “For Grant, there was something about sports, internationalism and the excitement of a rocket about to take off,” says his longtime Sports Illustrated colleague L. Jon Wertheim. “For Grant, when the match started, it was the least interesting moment. It was everything that surrounded him: politics, the force of good and corruption. It was this prism for humanity.
He’s built an enviable following of nearly 855,000 people, for example, on Twitter, covering the game from every angle. He has written profiles and books on stars, like David Beckham and Leo Messi, while sharing stories of being robbed at gunpoint in Honduras And candidate for FIFA presidency. In addition to writing cover stories for Sports Illustrated, he has worked in television, for Fox Sports and more recently, CBS Sports. In 2020, Wahl and Sports Illustrated parted ways under less than amicable circumstances, but Wahl went out on his own, making his subscription website a must-read for any halfway serious football fan.
It is no coincidence that, for example, as Wahl’s career took off, Americans could watch Premier League matches on Saturdays on NBC or began to follow the American women’s team with great intensity. As America’s most prominent soccer journalist, he sparked interest in the machinations of international club teams and analyzed women’s soccer with the same care as that of men.
“He always covered the game conscientiously,” Leeds United coach Jesse Marsch told TIME through tears after learning of Wahl’s death. Marsch met Wahl in the winter of 1994, when they were stuck in the Princeton infirmary, watching the Lillehammer Olympics together. Wahl has covered Marsch throughout his Major League Soccer career, and his training stops in the United States and overseas. “He was trying to talk about women’s football as much as men’s football,” Marsch explains. “He spoke about important topics, like the fight for LGBTQ rights, until his death. He was aware that this was a global game and how important it was to treat it as such. He did it with heart, he did it with integrity. He did it the right way.
Wahl always took the time to give back, whether it was lecturing in journalism classes or mentoring young journalists looking to follow in his footsteps. He single-handedly improved media coverage of American football. Those who follow Wahl can only try to meet his standards. “The one thing you can never say about Grant is that he didn’t care,” says one of Wahl’s mentees, an ESPN football analyst. Luis Miguel Echegaraywho worked with Wahl at Sports Illustrated. “He cared deeply, not only about sport, but what sport can do for communities. And it’s so profound, because we live in a time where everyone is just clicking. He didn’t care. And that’s the most important thing for me. We will never have another Grant Wahl.
Correction, December 10
The original version of this story incorrectly stated Grant Wahl’s age at the time of his death. He was 49, not 48. Wahl was 24 when he covered his first World Cup in 1998.
