ESPN Press Room: Bio

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Jackie MacMullan, one of the most accomplished and respected journalists in sports, is retiring from ESPN at the end of the month. Her final day is August 31.

The pioneering journalist, who has been a staple of NBA media coverage for 40 years, became the first woman to receive the prestigious Curt Gowdy Media Award from the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010. MacMullan joined ESPN in 2010 as a senior writer and her work has been prominently featured on nearly every ESPN platform, including ESPN.com, SportsCenter, Outside The Lines and The Jump. In addition to her work covering the NBA, MacMullan has been a cornerstone of ESPN’s popular show Around The Horn, where she’s made nearly 900 appearances.

“I feel fortunate to have collaborated with so many incredibly talented people during my 10-plus years at ESPN,” said MacMullan. “Sometimes you just know when you’re ready to dial it back, and this is the right time for me. I’m grateful for the memories, but especially for the friends I’ve made along the way. Thank you to my ESPN colleagues for all of your support.”

MacMullan will appear today, Wednesday, August 18, on ESPN’s The Jump, at 3 p.m. ET. Her final appearance for ESPN is Tuesday, August 31, on Around The Horn at 5 p.m.

Cristina Daglas, ESPN senior deputy editor:

“Jackie is a trailblazer not because she was one of the first women covering sports or the NBA. Rather, Jackie is a trailblazer because people talked about her without mentioning sex or gender. It was about the work, an incredible catalogue of work, that has appeared on every ESPN platform. Simply put, Jackie is one of the greatest journalists ESPN has ever seen. And she did it all while providing mentorship to both editors and writers, ensuring whether she meant to or not, that pieces of her will remain here long after she exits.”

MacMullan has earned multiple national awards from the Associated Press for her investigative reporting and feature writing. In 2019, MacMullan received the PEN/ESPN Lifetime Achievement Award for Literary Sports Writing – the first female recognized with this honor. The Association for Women in Sports Media (AWSM) also selected her as the 2019 recipient of its Mary Garber Pioneer Award, the organization’s highest honor.

For more than 20 years, MacMullan was a sports columnist and editor for The Boston Globe. Beginning in 1982, she covered an impressive collection of high profile events, including the 1986 World Series, the 1987 Stanley Cup Finals, the 1988 Olympic Games, as well as several Final Four tournaments and NBA Finals events. She was named columnist – the first female columnist in the history of the newspaper – and associate editor of the Globe in January 2002. She occupied that position until 2008.

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