Christine Brennan

She has written seven books on sports, including best-selling Inside Edge, about Olympic figure skating, which was named one of the top 100 sports books of all time by Sports Illustrated in 2002. She is an on-air commentator for ABC News, CNN, PBS NewsHour, and NPR. She has covered every Olympic Games, summer and winter, since the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

In 1988, Brennan was elected the first president of the Association for Women in Sports Media. A longtime advocate for women in sports journalism, she started AWSM's scholarship-internship program for female journalism students, which has honored more than 140 students. She funds two of the scholarships, which are named after her late parents.

Brennan received bachelor's and master's degrees from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. After graduating, she began working for the Miami Herald, becoming the Herald's first female sports reporter in 1981. She covered the Miami Hurricanes during their trip to the 1984 Orange Bowl national championship game, after which she wrote her first book, The Miracle of Miami. At the game, she connected with former classmate Michael Wilbon, who recommended her to his Washington Post editors; she joined the Post's sports staff shortly thereafter. She covered the Washington Redskins beat for three years, then moved on to covering the Olympic Games. She worked for the Post for 12 years before joining USA Today as its national sports columnist in 1997.

Christine Brennan (born May 14, 1958) is a sports columnist for USA Today, a commentator on ABC News, CNN, PBS NewsHour and NPR, and a best-selling author. She was the first female sports reporter for the Miami Herald in 1981, the first woman at the Washington Post on the Washington Redskins beat in 1985, and the first president of the Association for Women in Sports Media in 1988.