Gwen Knapp

Mary Gwen Knapp (November 18, 1961 – January 20, 2023) was an American sports journalist. During her career as sportswriter, she wrote for newspapers including The Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Francisco Examiner, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The New York Times. She also wrote for the Sports on Earth website. As one of the few female sports columnists at major metropolitan newspapers in the 1990s, Knapp developed a national reputation for going beyond the headlines to explore issues such as drugs, sexism, homophobia, and racism in sports. She was a finalist for numerous sports journalism awards, and won the Associated Press Sports Writers award for column writing in 1998. and sports editor for The Harvard Crimson, a student newspaper. One of her most popular articles at the Inquirer was published on July 4, 1993, when she wrote about a historic doubleheader played by the Philadelphia Phillies which finished at 4:40 in the morning, and interviewed the fans, umpires, groundskeepers, and the announcer, in addition to the baseball players.

San Francisco Examiner In 1995, Knapp joined the San Francisco Examiner as a sports columnist, When Tiger Woods won his first major championship, the 1997 Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, she interviewed four African American golfers in their 50s and 60s who watched and celebrated at the Chuck Corica Golf Complex in Alameda, California, about what his victory meant to them.

In 1998, Knapp won two awards in the Associated Press Sports Writers contest, including first place in column writing on topics such as the "anti-gay posturing" of NFL football player Reggie White, and the near-disqualification of Canadian snowboarder and Olympic gold medalist Ross Rebagliati for testing positive for marijuana use. She also won fourth place in the game story category that year, and was a finalist for best feature story. after the staffs of the Examiner and Chronicle were combined. As early as 2001, Knapp started expressing concern that cyclist Lance Armstrong might be taking performance-enhancing drugs, and drew an angry letter to the editor from Armstrong himself in 2004, denying her allegations. and analyzed the ongoing media "obsession" with his pursuit of an all-time home-run record and induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, as well as the twist and turns of his legal saga.

In 2009, Knapp was one of the few American sports journalists who commented on tennis star Andy Roddick's decision to boycott the Dubai Tennis Championships and forego defending his title, commending him for taking a stand against the United Arab Emirates government's refusal to grant a visa to Israeli player Shahar Pe'er to play in the women's tournament.

The New York Times In 2014, Knapp joined The New York Times as editor, writing for the foreign and national desks before returning to sports as a senior staff editor.

Personal life and death Knapp continued to live in San Francisco while writing for Sports on Earth, but later moved to the East Coast to be closer to her family.