Shaun Assael

As a freelancer, Shaun Assael was a regular contributor to The Village Voice,[4] The New York Observer, and 7 Days magazine. His work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times,[5] Esquire,[6][7] New York, Smart Money, Maxim, Men's Fitness,[8] Rolling Stone, Board Member, and The Daily Beast.[9] A July 2007 Glamour (magazine) feature about the 1979 gang rape and murder of Hope College student Janet Chandler won a third place national Headliner Award for Magazine Writing & Reporting.[10]

Shaun Assael joined the development team that launched ESPN The Magazine in March 1998.[11] As a senior writer,[12] he has covered a wide range of subjects with a focus on crime reporting, including: the Securitas depot robbery, the largest cash robbery in British History pulled off by UFC star "Lightning" Lee Murray;[13] the 2015 FIFA corruption case,[14] and NFL pro Marvin Harrison's involvement in a shooting incident in Philadelphia.[15] His profile of Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay's battle with drugs[16] was listed in USA Today For the Win's list of top sports stories of 2014.[17]

Dubbed the magazine's "longtime steroid expert"[18] by the Wall Street Journal, Assael has covered some of the sport world's most notorious scandals involving performance-enhancing drugs. In December 2004, his interview with BALCO Labs founder Victor Conte revealed Conte's allegations of PED use by Olympic track and field athlete Marion Jones.[19][20] On December 13, 2007, Assael broke the news that Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens would be implicated in the Mitchell Report in a story dictated to his editor from the backseat of a taxi.[21] For an ESPN special report on steroids in Major League Baseball,[22] Assael, along with colleagues Peter Keating and Jon Pessah, took first place for magazine writing and reporting of a major news event in the 2006 National Headliner Award.[23]

As a member of ESPN's Enterprise Unit, he is a regular contributor to ESPN network's Outside the Lines and has made appearances on E:60. His 2015 Outside the Lines investigation of the suspicious hanging death of a North Carolina teen Lennon Lacy[24] won the Bronze World Medal for best sports journalism at the 2016 New York Festival TV & Film Awards,[25] third place in the 2016 National Headliner Award for sports or human interest feature,[26] and a Silver Radio winner for documentary on social issues from the 2016 World's Best Radio Competition.[27]