Steven Ira "Steve" Wulf (born December 4, 1950) is an American magazine journalist, editor, and book writer. A former
executive editor
Executive ( exe., exec., execu.) may refer to:
Role or title
* Executive, a senior management role in an organization
** Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators
** Executive dire ...
at ''
ESPN The Magazine
''ESPN The Magazine'' was an American monthly sports magazine published by the ESPN sports network in Bristol, Connecticut. The first issue was published on March 11, 1998. Initially published every other week, it scaled back to 24 issues a year ...
'', Wulf continues to write for ''ESPN The Magazine'' as well as ESPN.com. Before joining ESPN, Wulf worked for numerous publications, including ''The Evening Sun'' in
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
, NY, ''Sports Illustrated'', ''Entertainment Weekly'', ''The Economist'', and ''Time''. While working at ''SI'' as an associate writer, he met his wife, Jane Bachman Wulf, who was the magazine's chief of reporters.
Early life and education
Wulf was born in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
,
New York, and raised in
Troy
Troy ( el, Τροία and Latin: Troia, Hittite: 𒋫𒊒𒄿𒊭 ''Truwiša'') or Ilion ( el, Ίλιον and Latin: Ilium, Hittite: 𒃾𒇻𒊭 ''Wiluša'') was an ancient city located at Hisarlik in present-day Turkey, south-west of Ç ...
, New York.
He attended high school at
The Albany Academy
The Albany Academy is an independent college preparatory day school for boys in Albany, New York, USA, enrolling students from Preschool (age 3) to Grade 12. It was established in 1813 by a charter signed by Mayor Philip Schuyler Van Renssela ...
, in
Albany, New York; and graduated from
Hamilton College
Hamilton College is a private liberal arts college in Clinton, Oneida County, New York. It was founded as Hamilton-Oneida Academy in 1793 and was chartered as Hamilton College in 1812 in honor of inaugural trustee Alexander Hamilton, following ...
, in
Clinton, NY, with a degree in English.
After graduating from Hamilton, Wulf climbed into his '69 Chevy Malibu and visited every newspaper in the Northeast until he found a job.
Career
Wulf found his first job at ''The Evening Sun'', a local newspaper in Norwich, NY. As Wulf once recalled in a story he wrote for ''Sports Illustrated'', he spent "15 months as a—no—''the'' sportswriter for ''The Evening Sun''." In one particularly humorous moment during the slow summer months, Wulf once quoted himself in the recap of a local softball game. After a 29-5 victory, Wulf was the only player to go hitless and, having no choice but to interview the player, he "quoted" him as saying, "I went through a two-game batting slump in one night. But I think that I, more than anyone, was responsible for keeping the score down."
After leaving Norwich, Wulf migrated south and worked for the Fort Lauderdale News as its horse-racing writer. He later did free-lance work for newspapers in Boston before becoming a fact-checker at ''Sports Illustrated''. He worked his way up to becoming a staff writer, and then later moved to ''Time Magazine''. When ESPN decided to start its own magazine, Wulf left ''Time'' to become one of ''ESPN The Magazine's'' original editors.
Books
In addition to his forty years of newspaper and magazine writing, Wulf has published various books including:
* ''0:01: Parting Shots from the World of Sports''
* ''Baseball Anecdotes''
* ''I Was Right On Time''
* ''Legends of the Field''
* ''The Mighty Book Of Sports''
Film and television
Wulf consulted in the making of the
documentary television series ''
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...
'', directed by
Ken Burns, and has appeared on numerous episodes of ''ESPN
SportsCentury
''SportsCentury'' is an ESPN biography television program that reviews the people and events that defined sports in North America throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Using stock footage, on-camera interviews, and photographs of their athletic l ...
'' as well as ESPN's ''30 for 30'' series.
Michael Jordan article
In March 1994, Wulf wrote an article about
Michael Jordan's minor-league-baseball career, which was featured on the cover with the headline "Bag It Michael". Due to the incendiary headline, Jordan cut off official communication with ''
Sports Illustrated
''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twi ...
'' and his silence continues to this day.
''30 for 30''
Wulf also appeared numerous times in ''
30 for 30'', a documentary series on
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%). Th ...
television. He was interviewed for ''Silly Little Game'', a documentary about the genesis of rotisserie league baseball, as well as ''Jordan Rides the Bus''. In ''Jordan'', Wulf recounts his controversial ''Sports Illustrated'' article about Michael's attempt to play baseball. He admits to being too critical of Jordan, but also reveals that he visited the legendary basketball player a second time and wrote a story about how he was showing signs of major-league potential. ''Sports Illustrated'' did not run the second story.
Personal
Wulf has been married since October, 1984. He and his wife Jane have two sons, Bo and John, as well as twin daughters, Eve and Elizabeth. Wulf often writes about his children and boasts on his Twitter page that he is "the father of four pitchers."
See also
*
List of Hamilton College people
*
List of people from New York City
Many notable people were either born in New York City or adopted it as their home.
People from New York City
0-50
*50 Cent (Curtis Jackson, born 1975) – businessman and rapper
*6ix9ine (Daniel Hernandez, born 1996) – rapper ...
*
List of sports writers
References
External links
* Datebase (undated).
"Previous Steve Wulf Columns" ''
ESPN The Magazine
''ESPN The Magazine'' was an American monthly sports magazine published by the ESPN sports network in Bristol, Connecticut. The first issue was published on March 11, 1998. Initially published every other week, it scaled back to 24 issues a year ...
''. Retrieved August 5, 2012.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wulf, Steve Ira
1950 births
20th-century American writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American magazine editors
Journalists from New York City
Living people
Sportspeople from Troy, New York
Hamilton College (New York) alumni
Sportspeople from New York City
Sportswriters from New York (state)
Writers from New York City
Sports Illustrated
ESPN people
The Albany Academy alumni