Elizabeth Merrill is a senior writer for ESPN, covering a wide variety of topics across multiple sports and related subjects. She joined ESPN in March of 2007, working on NFL coverage and quick-turn news stories for several years before moving to the features and enterprise unit.
Along the way she has covered the Olympics in Beijing, collaborated on a feature about a Kansas City Chiefs superfan who was also a bank robber and written about sports from football to volleyball.
Her 2019 feature about former Villanova basketball star Shelly Pennefather giving up a lucrative professional contract to become a cloistered nun earned wide recognition, including the 2020 Dan Jenkins Medal for Best Sportswriting from the University of Texas journalism school. The story accompanied an SC Featured segment on ESPN SportsCenter.
Before coming to ESPN, she worked as a sports writer for the Omaha World-Herald for 11 years, including five seasons covering Nebraska football. She then moved to the Kansas City Star for two seasons as the Chiefs beat writer.
She is a graduate of the University of Nebraska at Omaha with a B.S. degree in Journalism/Communications and a minor in history. She often speaks to journalism classes around the country.
Away from work, she enjoys concerts and baseball, as well as pickleball and her cats. She also is a volunteer for a Catholic Charities food bank.
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