Pat Forde Joining Sports Illustrated to Cover College Sports, More

The award-winning journalist is joining the SI staff as a senior writer, beginning Nov. 1.

Sports Illustrated announced today that award-winning journalist Pat Forde is joining its staff as a senior writer. For three decades, Forde has been one of sports media’s most important voices on college sports, while also distinguishing himself with Pulitzer Prize-nominated investigative work and stellar coverage of the Olympics and horse racing. He will contribute stories from across the sports landscape on all of SI’s digital, print, video and audio platforms.

Over his illustrious career spanning more than three decades, Forde has become one of the country’s most respected and prolific sports journalists. His work has been honored by the Associated Press Sports Editors and published in the Best American Sportswriting anthology, and over the past eight years he built a broad following as a national columnist and feature writer at Yahoo!. He is also an analyst for Big Ten Network. He will continue to write his signature columns, Forde-Yard Dash (college football) and Forde Minutes (college basketball), for Sports Illustrated.

“As we shape the present and future of Sports Illustrated, our goal is to have the pre-eminent journalists in each sport,” said SI co-editor in chief Ryan Hunt. “We want the best of the best. And no one embodies our new direction and vision as well as Pat.”

Forde has been with Yahoo! for the last eight years; prior to that he spent seven years at ESPN contributing across television, print and digital. He spent the first 17 years of his career at the (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal, where his investigative work detailing academic scandals in the football and basketball programs at the University of Louisville earned him a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 1990. Over his career he has also won dozens of national awards from the Associated Press Sports Editors.

“From the time I first became an SI subscriber at age 13, this was always the dream destination for me. As a full-grown adult, the reality is even more exciting,” said Forde, who will start with SI on Nov. 1. “The opportunity to work with an elite collection of writers—Michael Rosenberg, Greg Bishop, Robert Klemko, Jenny Vrentas, Albert Breer, Jon Wertheim, Grant Wahl, Tom Verducci, Stephanie Apstein, Chris Mannix, Ross Dellenger, Laken Litman and many others—is thrilling and energizing.”

“Telling sports stories of all genres, across all platforms, is what SI does best, and I can't wait to be part of the team.”

You can follow Pat on Twitter at @ByPatForde.