George Dohrmann

Last updated
George Dohrmann
Born
George Anderson Dohrmann [1]

(1973-02-14) February 14, 1973 (age 51)
NationalityU. S. Citizen
EducationBA American Studies,
  Notre Dame (1995)
MFA in Creative Writing,
  University of San Francisco
Alma mater University of Notre Dame
OccupationSports writer
Known forInvestigative reporting
SpouseSharon
ChildrenJessica
Parent(s)George and Suzette
Notes
[2]   [3]   [4]

George Dohrmann (born February 14, 1973), is an editor and writer for The Athletic , the 2000 Pulitzer Prize winner for beat reporting, [2] and author of Play Their Hearts Out , which received the 2011 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing. [3]

Contents

Background and career

In college, he wrote for The Observer.

In 2000, while working at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Dohrmann won a Pulitzer Prize for a series of stories that uncovered widespread academic fraud in the University of Minnesota men's basketball program. The Citation says,

Awarded to George Dohrmann of St. Paul Pioneer Press for his determined reporting, despite negative reader reaction, that revealed academic fraud in the men's basketball program at the University of Minnesota. [5]

A few months after winning the prize he joined Sports Illustrated where he worked as a senior writer dealing with investigative projects into college basketball, college football and soccer. [4]

Dohrmann published his first book, Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine, on October 5, 2010, through Ballantine Books. The book was the result of more than eight years of investigative work. The book "reveals a cutthroat world where boys as young as eight or nine are subjected to a dizzying torrent of scrutiny and exploitation. At the book's heart are the personal stories of two compelling figures: Joe Keller, an ambitious coach with a master plan to find and promote 'the next LeBron,' and Demetrius Walker, a fatherless latchkey kid who falls under Keller's sway and struggles to live up to unrealistic expectations." [3]

Awards
Associated Press Sports Editors, second place, enterprise reporting, 1995. [2]
Associated Press Sports Editors, second place, investigative reporting, 1996. [2]
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting, 2000. [2]
Winner of the Award for Excellence in Coverage of Youth Sports, 2010. Play Their Hearts Out [6]
Winner of the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing, 2011. Play Their Hearts Out [7]
Career
Los Angeles Times, staff writer, Sports section, 1995–1997. [2]
St. Paul Pioneer Press, staff writer, Sports section, 1997–2000. [2]
Sports Illustrated, senior writer, 2000–2015 [4]
Works

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tracy Kidder</span> American writer and Pulitzer Prize winner

John Tracy Kidder is an American writer of nonfiction books. He received the Pulitzer Prize for his The Soul of a New Machine (1981), about the creation of a new computer at Data General Corporation. He has received praise and awards for other works, including his biography of Paul Farmer, a physician and anthropologist, titled Mountains Beyond Mountains (2003).

<i>St. Paul Pioneer Press</i> Newspaper based in St. Paul, Minnesota

The St. Paul Pioneer Press is a newspaper based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. It serves the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area. Circulation is heaviest in the east metro, including Ramsey, Dakota, and Washington counties, along with western Wisconsin, eastern Minnesota and Anoka County, Minnesota. The paper's main rival is the Star Tribune, based in neighboring Minneapolis. The Pioneer Press is owned by MediaNews Group, controlled by Alden Global Capital. It no longer includes "St. Paul" as part of its name in either its print or online edition, but its owner still lists the paper's name as the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the paper also calls itself the St. Paul Pioneer Press on its Facebook and Twitter pages. Its URL and digital presence is TwinCities.com.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colson Whitehead</span> American novelist (born 1969)

Arch Colson Chipp Whitehead is an American novelist. He is the author of nine novels, including his 1999 debut The Intuitionist; The Underground Railroad (2016), for which he won the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; and The Nickel Boys, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction again in 2020, making him one of only four writers ever to win the prize twice. He has also published two books of nonfiction. In 2002, he received a MacArthur Fellowship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Smiley</span> American novelist (born 1949)

Jane Smiley is an American novelist. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992 for her novel A Thousand Acres (1991).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice McDermott</span> American writer, novelist, essayist (born 1953)

Alice McDermott is an American writer and university professor. For her 1998 novel Charming Billy she won an American Book Award and the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. She was shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner award for fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tim Kurkjian</span> American baseball journalist

Tim Kurkjian is a Major League Baseball (MLB) analyst on ESPN's Baseball Tonight and SportsCenter. He is also a contributor to ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jackie MacMullan</span> American journalist

Jackie "Mac" MacMullan Boyle is a retired American freelance newspaper sportswriter and NBA columnist for the sports website ESPN.com. She retired from ESPN on August 31, 2021.

James Patrick Murray was an American sportswriter. He worked at the Los Angeles Times from 1961 until his death in 1998, and his column was nationally syndicated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Ebershoff</span> American writer, editor, and teacher

David Ebershoff is an American writer, editor, and teacher. His debut novel, The Danish Girl, was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film of the same name in 2015, while his third novel, The 19th Wife, was adapted into a television movie of the same name in 2010.

Dohrmann is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

David Poole Anderson was an American sportswriter based in New York City. In 1981 he won a Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary on sporting events. He was the author of 21 books and more than 350 magazine articles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Todd Gallagher</span> American writer

Todd Gallagher is an American comedy writer, performance artist, and director. He has worked with ESPN and is known for his book, Andy Roddick Beat Me With a Frying Pan: Taking the Field with Pro Athletes and Olympic Legends to Answer Sports' Fans Burning Questions.

Paul Harding is an American musician and author, best known for his debut novel Tinkers (2009), which won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2010 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, among other honors. He is currently the director of the Creative Writing and Literature MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton, as well as Interim Associate Provost of Stony Brook University's Lichtenstein Center.

The PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing was awarded by the PEN America to honor "a nonfiction book about sports." The award was established in 2010 and is awarded to a title that is "biographical, investigative, historical, or analytical" in nature. Judges have included Robert Lipsyte, Tim O'Brien, and Susan Orlean. In June 2019 ESPN announced it would no longer partner with PEN. The awards have not been rebooted by PEN as of April 2021.

<i>Play Their Hearts Out</i> 2010 nonfiction book by George Dohrmann

Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine, by George Dohrmann, is an exposé of the underbelly of grassroots youth basketball in the AAU. The author follows the lives of the coach and players of an elite team, documenting the exploitation and manipulation of the children and their families by coaches seeking the best players, and the influence of shoe and sports gear companies seeking to use the sport to promote their products. Dohrmann is a senior writer with Sports Illustrated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eli Saslow</span> American journalist (born 1982)

Eli Eric Saslow is an American journalist, currently a writer-at-large for The New York Times. He has also written for The Washington Post and ESPN The Magazine. He is a 2014 and a 2023 winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a recipient of the George Polk award and other honors. He was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing in 2013, 2016 and 2017. He is a Writers Guild of America screenwriter, and the co-writer for Four Good Days, which stars Mila Kunis and Glenn Close and was nominated for an Academy Award. He has published three books, including the best-selling Rising Out of Hatred, which won the 2019 Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Minnesota basketball scandal</span>

The University of Minnesota basketball scandal involved National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) rules violations, most notably academic dishonesty, committed by the University of Minnesota men's basketball program. The story broke the day before the 1999 NCAA Tournament, when the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported that Minnesota academic counseling office manager Jan Gangelhoff had done coursework for at least 20 Minnesota basketball players since 1993.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Branch (journalist)</span> American journalist and writer

John Branch is an American journalist and writer who currently works at the New York Times, covering topics related to sports and California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mitchell S. Jackson</span> American writer

Mitchell S. Jackson is an American writer. He is the author of the 2013 novel The Residue Years, as well as Oversoul (2012), an ebook collection of essays and short stories. Jackson is a Whiting Award recipient and a former winner of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. In 2021, while an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Chicago, he won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing for his profile of Ahmaud Arbery for Runner's World. As of 2021, Jackson is the John O. Whiteman Dean's Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at Arizona State University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Maraniss</span> American author

Andrew Maraniss is an American author, best known for his book, "Strong Inside: Perry Wallace and the collision of race and sports in the south", depicting Perry Wallace, the first African-American to play college basketball under an athletic scholarship in the Southeastern Conference in the 1960s. The book was on the New York Times best-seller list in both the sports and civil rights categories for four consecutive months. It received the 2015 Lillian Smith Book Award and a Special Recognition Award by the Robert F. Kennedy Book Awards Foundation.

References

  1. The Commencement Exercises . University of Notre Dame: May 19, 1995. p. 36.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Beat Reporting – Biography". The Pulitzer Prize Winners 2000. The Pulitzer Board. Retrieved 4 March 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 Dohrmann, George (2010). Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine (unabridged ed.). Random House LLC. ISBN   978-0345523167.
  4. 1 2 3 "George Dohrmann - About George". georgedohrmann.com. Archived from the original on 6 March 2014. Retrieved 4 March 2014.
  5. "Pulitzer Prize – Citation". The Pulitzer Prize Winners 2000. The Pulitzer Board. Retrieved 4 March 2014.
  6. "Award for Excellence in Coverage of Youth Sports". Penn State College of Communications.
  7. "2011 ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing". PEN American Center. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 7 March 2014.