Sally Jenkins

About

Sports columnist, author, and feature writer who has composed over 10 individual books, including No Finish Line, Every Second Counts, and The State of Jones. A finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize, she has written for major outlets like the Washington Post and Sports Illustrated and served as a correspondent for both NPR and CNBC. Some of the most famed pieces on which she has worked include her 2012 interview with disgraced Penn State University former football coach Joe Paterno, her collaboration with and published support of competitive bike racer Lance Armstrong, and her scathing review of the United States Center for SafeSport, an organization launched to curtail sexual abuse in sports programs, in 2022. 

Before Fame

She graduated with a degree in English literature from Stanford University in the year 1982. Her first book, Men Will Be Boys: The Modern Woman Explains Football and Other Amusing Male Rituals, was published in 1996. Her first #1 best seller came in 2000, with the book It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life, which she co-wrote with Lance Armstrong. The book earned a 2000 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award and a Christopher Award for Adult Books. 

Trivia

She has been named Sports Columnist of the Year by the Associated Press 5 times between 2001 and 2021. Between 2001 and 2011, she earned 3 Sports Columnist of the Year Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists. She also became the first woman to ever be inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame in 2005.

Family Life

She is the daughter of the late sportswriter Dan Jenkins, who has been inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2012, in the category of Lifetime Achievement.

Associated With

She co-wrote the #1 bestselling book Sum It Up: 1098 Victories, A Couple of Irrelevant Losses and a Life in Perspective with iconic basketball coach Pat Summitt.