L. Jon Wertheim
L. Jon Wertheim, the deputy managing editor and a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, is one of the most accomplished sports journalists in America. His work has been cited in The Best American Sports Writing anthology numerous times, as well as in The Best American Crime Writing. He is the author of various book including New York Times bestsellers Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won (co-written with University of Chicago finance professor Tobias Moskowitz) and You Can't make This Up (with sportscaster Al Michaels.) His most recent book, This is your Brain on Sports, will be released in February 2016.
Wertheim joined SI in 1996 and quickly became one of the magazine's most authoritative voices on tennis, the NBA, sports business and law and social issues. He has written some of the magazine's most memorable pieces. One of the chief investigative writers and reporters for SI, Wertheim has explored a wide range of subjects, from high school hazing to performance-enhancing drugs and steroids in sports. His weekly Tennis Mailbag on SI.com is considered a must read among tennis aficionados. Wertheim is a commentator for The Tennis Channel and essayist and feature correspondent for FS1. He also speaks about sports business issues on college campuses and for corporate audiences.
A native of Bloomington, Ind., where his late father was a distinguished English professor at Indiana University, Wertheim cites past and present SI writers Frank Deford, Curry Kirkpatrick, Jack McCallum and Steve Rushin as sportswriting inspirations. He is also an admirer of John Updike and David Foster Wallace, as well as Martin Amis, Simon Barnes and John McPhee.
Wertheim is 1993 graduate of Yale University and received a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997. He resides in New York City with his wife, Ellie, a divorce mediator and family lawyer. The couple has a son and a daughter. Asked what he considers his favorite sport to cover, Wertheim says he is partial to tennis. "It's a beautiful sport between the lines," he says, "a mixed gendered and international cast, and bottomlessly rich subject material."
