Grant Wahl Was a Giant in Journalism Whose Sudden Passing Leaves a Hole in the US Sports World — And In Hearts of Those Who Knew Him

Photos via Getty Images and Courtesy of Grant Wahl

Grant Wahl passed suddenly yesterday while covering the World Cup in Qatar, leaving behind his wife, Celine Gounder, and their dog Zizou.

The circumstances surrounding his death seem mysterious at first blush —perhaps related to his detainment for wearing a rainbow shirt in support of LGTBQ  — but a recent bout with bronchitis combined with exhaustively covering the quadrennial tournament appears to get the best of his body, by his recent comments. But this is not about his passing; this is about his life.

Like many that ran in the same circles or worked with or were close to Grant, I considered him a friend. He and I both grew up in the same suburban Kansas City community, though he went to the rival Shawnee Mission East to my Shawnee Mission South, and we shared a love for the Royals and Kansas Jayhawks.

I first met Grant while producing a college basketball show for MTV and CBS Sports in 2002 called March Madness Uncensored. MTV was still a powerful brand at that time, and I had no problem booking literally any sports broadcaster or college basketball coach, or dignitary I wanted. It was a dream job, but all my subjects seemed to lack the ability to nail why the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament was so riveting as they were all too close to the story or caught up in sports TV speak.

I knew Grant’s byline since he was effectively the lead college basketball scribe at Sports Illustrated at the time, so I reached out to him to see if he’d sit for us and be interviewed for the show. And he was perfect. Right off the bat, he explained why March Madness was so compelling in a way that was smart and relatable to our potential viewers that no one else had mentioned. He was so good that the first soundbite of the clip show was his, ahead of Coach K, Charles Barkley, or other college hoops dignitaries like Dick Enberg or Billy Packer.

I like to take credit for being the first person to put Grant on television, though I have no idea if it’s true. But in the moments when someone of his stature passes, there is an instinct to celebrate life by connecting one’s own experiences to the death of a loved one. And Grant was a loved one, evidenced by the outpouring of love and respect from an often grizzled set of sports journalists that came to know him, mostly on the college basketball beat.

Jeff Pearlman, Dan Wolken, Pat Forde, Stewart Mandel, Doug Gottlieb, and Bob Ley are just a handful of top journalists sharing their grief and love for Grant now on Twitter, most of whom, again, knew him from basketball.

But Grant is far better known globally as the preeminent soccer journalist in the United States and perhaps even globally. In the early aughts, Grant made a calculated decision to no longer pursue college basketball as his primary beat and instead saw an opportunity to be THE MAN who could cover the growth of soccer in America.

Grant has told me and talked publicly about this decision that stemmed from his time at Princeton while former US Men’s National Team coach Bob Bradley was coaching the men’s soccer team. He consulted Bradley about the seemingly risky shift of focus and received all the encouragement he needed, and suddenly, Grant was the soccer guy at Sports Illustrated.

It was a remarkably savvy and prescient career move, as the US was just starting to awaken to the global phenomena of football. He authored two must-read books, The David Beckham Experiment, which journaled the English greats entry to MLS and American pop culture, and Masters of the Modern Game, which reveals his tactical nous of how the game has developed.

Back when soccer barely was on most Americans’ radars, Grant was able to push his stories to the covers of national magazines and newspapers. The impact he had on growing the sport here, and just as importantly, creating the groundwork for future American soccer media can’t be understated.

And because Grant represented a massive and largely untapped market, he had access to the world’s greatest current players and legends of the game. You name the soccer star — David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo, Thierry Henry, to name just a few — Grant had their numbers and access for comment.

The soccer world knew Grant well and trusted him because he was a smart, fair, and terrific journalist. In an era of access journalism, where too many scribes play soft with famous subjects so they can rub shoulders, Grant did the opposite. He had access but did not hold back, and as a result, his respect and stature in a dark world of celebrity sports only grew.

Grant spent some time as an on-air contributor at CBS Sports but eventually returned to writing solely. He left Sports Illustrated a few years in a bit of a dust-up which illustrated just how incompetent many new media corporations are, and eventually launched his own subscription-based substack and podcast called Planet Futbol, which had over 15,000 paid subscribers.

He openly discussed his travails with legacy media and the risks involved with doing his own thing in this wonderful Q&A with K.J. Edelman.  Two years later, he was making a good living on his outstanding journalism, which only reasserts his unicorn status in the business.

Anyone who came into contact with Grant felt his grace, intellect, and loving charm. He was, at heart, a simple midwestern kid who made it big, but never forgot his roots and remained grounded at a time when so many others in his position would have lost the plot.

Grant was recently honored by FIFA, along with a number of international journalists, for covering his eighth (!) World Cup, and proudly shared this image of receiving a trophy from Brazillian legend Ronaldo Nazário.  

I share it here because you can see Grant beaming with pride at this moment in a manner that befits his lovely spirit.

I had recently been DMing Grant following news of his detainment and helped book him for an interview on NewsNation’s On Balance. My last words to him in that exchange were, “stay safe.”

We also messaged briefly ahead of the US-Iran match, and my last note to him was, “stay strong.” I think he’d appreciate my joke here…if only he’d listened to me.

Thank you, Grant Wahl, for not just being a beacon of light in journalism but, more importantly, being a world-class human being.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.