John McGrath: “It Was a Front-Row Seat to the Greatest Sports Events.”

Press Box Access: A Sports History Podcast

We trek into the Pacific Northwest and catch up with John McGrath about his 40 years of writing about sports. He puts us in Dodger Stadium for Kirk Gibson’s famous home run and recounts other deadline horrors. We’re on the field for The Drive, and with John as he stumbles unexpectedly into memorable Olympic moments. He recalls time with a young Michael Jordan, John Elway in his prime, and Bo Jackson playing baseball. Hear about John butting heads with Ken Griffey Jr., and how a magic run by the Mariners saved baseball in Seattle. Oh, and John shares his reaction behind the keyboard as the Seahawks lined up to pass from the one with a Super Bowl on the line.

McGrath was the sports columnist at the Tacoma News Tribune from 1991 until his retirement in 2018. He was a fixture in Seattle, 45 minutes away, and at national and international sporting events. John covered six Olympics and a slew of World Series, Super Bowls, All-Star Games, Final Fours, and championship boxing matches.

Prior to his 27 years in Tacoma, McGrath was a columnist, based in Chicago, for the National Sports Daily from 1989 until that paper folded in 1991. Before that, he was a sports columnist for the Denver Post from 1984-89. John was a general assignment sports reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution from 1981-84 after working a year at the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi. His journalism career began at the Columbia Daily Tribune in Missouri in 1978-79.

John is a native of Elmhurst, Illinois, outside Chicago. He graduated from the University of Missouri in 1976.

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