Remembering Grant Wahl…
Still trying to make sense of the devastating news that Grant Wahl is no longer with us.
What a gut punch.
It’s so hard to process on so many levels.
He was a great journalist, an unwavering champion of the beautiful game, and a huge catalyst for its rise in the US. But perhaps more importantly, Grant was just an all-around great guy. The kind of guy who, in the middle of a busy schedule covering the women’s World Cup in Paris in 2019, agrees to have lunch with an old college classmate who gets in touch out of the blue.
And then tries to engage that classmate’s 10-year-old son about his interest in soccer.
And then volunteers to put on the Swedish Viking horns we brought him as a joke and pose for this silly picture with a smile on his face.
Way back when, Grant was the editor when I wrote for our college newspaper. I’ll never forget how he backed me up when we learned that I’d been lied to in interviews with members of a sports team.
He followed up with the team’s leadership and vowed never to cover them again as long as he was editor. It was a sobering lesson for me as a young journalist — that people will lie to your face. But the way Grant handled it was also demonstrative — and set the bar for me when it comes to what makes a good editor, and colleague.
And I still remember when I saw his byline in Sports Illustrated for the first time. I was scurrying about the PBS newsroom at the dawn of my career and couldn’t help but be inspired knowing that Grant had “made it”. Maybe I could make it too. When I emailed to congratulate him, he was, as always, self-effacing and humble in his response, asking me about how things were going and making me feel that he was rooting for me. It was that sort of genuine interest that no doubt helped him build so many strong relationships and get so many great stories over the years.
In my home state of Minnesota, Grant was immortalized in a limited edition scarf produced by Minnesota United supporters stating emphatically: “You know nothing Grant Wahl” after he (wrongly) predicted that Minnesota United would likely be “one of the worst teams in MLS history”. And Grant being Grant, he took it all in stride.
Our contact since college was sporadic to be sure (he in New York and me in Sweden) but whenever I’d ping him with a text — about US soccer, Zlatan, the state of journalism, or the KC Chiefs — he’d always respond promptly and with good humor, as if we were in the middle of a conversation started yesterday.
I gave up long ago trying to compare my “career” in journalism to Grant’s — doing so was an exercise in futility. He was the real deal and on a completely different level. But when you were around Grant, it never felt that way. He had a deep and genuine interest in the stories of others. He was that same great guy I knew in college; a fellow midwesterner who migrated east for college with an interest in sports, journalism, and the wider world.
Today I find myself one of tens of thousands — probably more — around the world who are mourning Grant’s improbable and untimely death at such a young age. I can only imagine how hard this must be for his wife Celine, his immediate family, and those who had the good fortune to work and play with him on a daily basis. My heart aches.
As hard as it is to swallow the news, I am buoyed by the long and wonderful legacy of written words he left us all and which will continue to shape our understanding of the beautiful game and the world around us.
RIP Grant. And thanks for everything you did. You will be sorely missed.
