Michael Voepel is an American sportswriter. He has reported on women's sports for

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

since 1996 and has been described by the company as "the foremost authority on women's basketball".

Biography

Voepel was born in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, California, and he grew up in Moscow Mills, Missouri. Voepel studied journalism at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...

, where he reported on his first women's basketball game and graduated in 1987. Voepel's first job was in Jackson, Tennessee, and he later worked for news outlets in Columbia, Newport News, and

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...

, including the ''

Columbia Daily Tribune The ''Columbia Daily Tribune'', commonly referred to as the ''Columbia Tribune'' or the ''Tribune'', is one of two daily newspapers in Columbia, Missouri, the other being the '' Columbia Missourian''. It is the only daily newspaper in Columbia who ...

'' and ''

The Kansas City Star ''The Kansas City Star'' is a newspaper based in Kansas City, Missouri. Published since 1880, the paper is the recipient of eight Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Star'' is most notable for its influence on the career of President Harry S. Truman and as ...

''. In 1996, Voepel joined

ESPN.com ESPN.com is the official website of ESPN. It is owned by ESPN Internet Ventures, a division of ESPN Inc. History Since launching in April 1995 as ESPNET.SportsZone.com (ESPNET SportsZone), the website has developed numerous sections including: ...

to cover women's basketball, both collegiate and professional, and has since attended multiple collegiate Women's Final Four national semi-finals. Voepel has also covered other college sports and attended the

Summer Olympic Games The Summer Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'été), also known as the Games of the Olympiad, and often referred to as the Summer Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inau ...

, the

Winter Olympic Games The Winter Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'hiver) is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were he ...

, the

FIFA Women's World Cup The FIFA Women's World Cup is an international association football competition contested by the senior women's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association ( FIFA), the sport's international governing bo ...

, and various professional golf tournaments. Voepel received the 2003

Mel Greenberg Media Award The Mel Greenberg Media Award, named after Women's Basketball Hall of Fame Legend Mel Greenberg, is presented annually by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) to "a member of the media who has best displayed a commitment to women’s ba ...

, awarded by the

Women's Basketball Coaches Association The Women's Basketball Coaches Association is an association of coaches of women's basketball teams at all levels. The organization was formed in 1981, with the goal of addressing the needs of women's basketball coaches. The mission of the WBCA ...

, for his writing for ''The Kansas City Star'' and ESPN. Since 2008, Voepel has exclusively reported for ESPN.com. Voepel was honored by the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2014. In early 2022, Voepel received the Curt Gowdy Media Award for print media from the

Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 1000 Hall of Fame Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It serves as basketball's most complete library, in addition to promoting and pres ...

for contributions to basketball media. Formerly known by the name Mechelle, Voepel came out as

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

that August and explained he had begun a

gender transition Gender transition is the process of changing one's gender presentation or sex characteristics to accord with one's internal sense of gender identity – the idea of what it means to be a man or a woman,Brown, M. L. & Rounsley, C. A. (1996) ''True ...

and would begin using the

byline The byline (or by-line in British English) on a newspaper or magazine article gives the name of the writer of the article. Bylines are commonly placed between the headline and the text of the article, although some magazines (notably ''Reader's D ...

M.A. Voepel and masculine personal pronouns. Voepel wrote that winning the Curt Gowdy Media Award earlier that year motivated him to make the announcement, because he wanted to accept the award as his "authentic self" at the award ceremony the following month.

References

External links

ESPN Press Room profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Voepel, Michael 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American LGBT journalists American transgender writers Sportswriters from Missouri LGBT people from Missouri Living people Transgender male writers University of Missouri alumni Year of birth missing (living people)