Grant Wahl and I stood at the back of the room on that afternoon in March 2006. The clock was ticking. The United States men’s national team would be kicking off in a friendly soon, but that game was in Germany, and the two of us were in Atlanta to cover the NCAA Tournament. This was what one might call a conflict of interests.
We were interested in getting to the sports bar we’d picked out to watch the United States in a pre-World Cup match against Germany, but LSU’s pre-Sweet 16 press conference was conflicting with that. And to make it more of a challenge, Tigers All-American Glen "Big Baby" Davis was so danged funny, we didn’t want to bolt and miss anything good.
We got in front of that big-screen TV in time, of course, and we watched the game and continued what had become an annual tradition for us during March Madness. We were among the few writers who covered college basketball nationally at that point, and we were the only ones who gave a hoot about soccer. That became an instant bond. For me, soccer was a growing obsession but rarely something I wrote about for The Sporting News. For Grant, the sport was a longtime passion and a significant portion of his job at Sports Illustrated.
We’d been friends for more than two decades when it began to filter out on Twitter late Friday he had died suddenly while covering the World Cup in Qatar. There were no established voices reporting this immediately, which allowed for the hope it was just an awful rumor that had infected the internet. Then NPR reported it could “confirm” his passing. This was not what anyone who knew him wanted to hear.
Grant was a brilliant and committed journalist and all-around communicator. He covered this World Cup as a writer and podcaster for the on-field adventures of the USMNT but also the issues surrounding Qatar as host, its treatment of migrant workers and its attitude toward those advocating for LBGTQ rights. Whatever he chose as his subject was going to be covered accurately and thoroughly. Those of us who love sports, particularly soccer, are blessed he shared these gifts with us during the 26 years since he initially was hired by Sports Illustrated.
He’d left there a couple years back to start his own publication, GrantWahl.com, and that is where his writings from the 2022 World Cup could be found. They were, as ever, insightful, masterfully written and preternaturally fair.
He had had been writing full time about soccer since 2008, when he was pursued by ESPN to become its primary soccer reporter. He'd released a tremendous book about the pursuit of David Beckham by MLS and the LA Galaxy — "The Beckham Experiment" — and the biggest organization in American sports media wanted the guy who literally wrote the book on soccer. Sports Illustrated countered by allowing him to remain in place and write about the sport full time.
In that sense, Grant personified the growth of American soccer. The sport was becoming big enough in the United States, at last, for SI to have a dedicated soccer writer, and they fought to keep the nation’s best on staff.
Grant told me in October he chose soccer because he loved the stories it allowed him to tell. And because of the travel. London. Barcelona. So many beautiful, fascinating places. He did a wonderful job sharing what he learned from time spent with the biggest figures in the sport.
I saw him less after he left the college basketball beat, but when The Sporting News began to cover soccer more regularly and I got the chance to attend the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, we spent some time together there on the bus to USMNT practices. That was a treat. When my wife and I attended a United States women's national team World Cup game in France in 2019, we got to see him on the street and chat a while.
We had our last in-person conversation in Cincinnati on the day before the USMNT played Morocco in a June friendly and we were at the team hotel for a series of pre-World Cup interviews. He was so proud of his wife, Dr. Celine Gounder; the work she was doing on fighting infectious diseases was a particular topic given how recently we’d been through the COVID-19 pandemic. I could tell he was juggling so much work, though, and chose not to ask if he had any dinner plans. That’s one of those mistakes that will linger a long while.
I could not tell you the first time I met Grant. The collection of other writers one meets when traveling the nation to cover a sport rarely involves a compelling origin story. People show up to cover a game or a practice, and they start to talk because they both care about what they are there to do, and maybe a personal connection develops beyond.
I remember distinctly, though, when the Final Four was in Minneapolis in 2001, being in a bar with a number of other basketball writers on the Wednesday when most who cover the event will arrive in town. Grant showed up at the bar much later because he'd been occupied following the U.S. men’s World Cup qualifier at Honduras. When I asked him how the U.S. had done, he told everyone the story of how he'd watched the game in the basement of a gentleman he'd met through a soccer message board who’d invited him to his house. The telecast was on pay-per-view, so that was the only way a traveling sportswriter might see it.
When I was working recently on a piece about the growth of American soccer in recent years, he recounted that tale for Sporting News readers and revealed he'd remained friends with the guy in the two decades since. That was not hard to believe. Grant was a person you wanted in your circle as long as he was willing.
After that night in Minnesota, I made sure if there was going to be a big soccer game on during the month of the NCAA Tournament, I was going with him to watch it. We enjoyed our little diversions from March Madness for four consecutive years, from St. Louis during the 2005 Final Four (World Cup qualifier vs. Guatemala), the 2006 Sweet 16 in Atlanta, the 2007 Final Four in Atlanta (friendly vs. Guatemala) and the 2008 Sweet 16 in Charlotte (friendly vs. Poland). I learned so much about the sport by seeing how he watched, asking questions about things he understood that still were new to me.
The following year, after he'd left the basketball beat, the Final Four was in Detroit. Once again, on the Wednesday I arrived, the USMNT had a World Cup qualifier scheduled against Trinidad & Tobago in Nashville. No doubt Grant was there, covering it like a pro. I watched alone in my hotel as Jozy Altidore scored a hat trick in a 3-0 victory, and I missed the opportunity to talk over what had happened with my friend Grant. But not like I'll miss him now.