Jeremy Schaap has been with ESPN since 1996, and based in New York since 1998. He is a correspondent for E:60, ESPN’s first multi-themed prime-time newsmagazine program which debuted Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2007, and also makes appearances on SportsCenter and Outside the Line which he serves as substitute host. In addition, he is the substitute host for The Sports Reporters on Sundays and contributes to ABC’s Nightline and World News Tonight.
Schaap has won six Sports Emmy Awards and other honors for his work, which usually focuses on not on simply who won or lost, but on breaking news, investigative journalism and profiling intriguing stories and personalities. Among his many highlights are memorable contentious interviews with Bob Knight in 2000, breaking the story in 2003 concerning improprieties at the University of Georgia basketball team which led to coach Jim Harrick’s dismissal, and writing the New York Times bestseller Cinderella Man, which in 2005 became an Emmy-winning ESPN documentary about heavyweight champion James Braddock.
Schaap joined ESPN in 1994 as the producer for the New York bureau, working on segments for Outside the Lines, and covering the NBA, NHL and NFL playoffs, the NCAA Men’s Final Four and soccer’s World Cup in 1994. He moved in front of the camera in 1996 as ESPN’s first reporter based in Dallas before returning to New York.
Schaap has covered virtually all sports – the four major team leagues, golf, horse racing, boxing, college sports, the Olympics and soccer’s FIFA World Cup, serving as a reporter for ESPN and ABC during the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, focusing primarily on the U.S. Men’s National Team. Additionally, he hosted ESPN Classic’s Classic Sports Reporters, where a panel of renowned sportswriters examined sports headlines of the past, and ESPN Radio’s Saturday morning The Sporting Life.
On Sept. 12, 2000, Schaap conducted a one-on-one, exclusive interview with former Indiana University coach Bob Knight – the first by Knight after being fired by the university two days earlier. In the New York Post, Phil Mushnick called the interview, which turned confrontational, "A slam dunk... one that should be stored in the annals of sports broadcast journalism."
He also was the first reporter to interview Darryl Strawberry in 1998 after the New York Yankee was diagnosed with colon cancer, and in 1997, Schaap became the first American journalist to report the story of Puerto Rican scout Luis Rosa, imprisoned in the Dominican Republic on charges of sexual assault. In June 2001, Schaap reported on the growing Japanese impact on Major League Baseball in a five-part series entitled “Japan’s Rising Sons.” The series featured extensive enterprise reporting in Japan and the United States.
In February 2003, Schaap broke the story of allegations of improper conduct leveled against Georgia’s basketball program by Tony Cole, a former player. The investigation led to both Georgia’s withdrawal from the NCAA tournament and the departure of head coach Jim Harrick. John Jackson of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, “The report was the kind of first-rate reporting rarely seen on TV. Jeremy Schaap's reporting was fair and balanced.”
Schaap has been honored often for his work. In 2001, he was cited by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for his two-part story on a white Florida high school football coach whose use of a racial epithet sparked a local furor. In 2006, Schaap received the annual journalism award of the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications, for a story on Morgan State’s lacrosse team, the only lacrosse team ever fielded by a historically black college.
In a poignant moment in 2006, Schaap won his fifth Sports Emmy Award, the one named for his award-winning journalist father who passed away in 2001 – the Dick Schaap Award for Writing. It was for the SportsCenter feature, “Finding Bobby Fischer.” He had previously won three for his work on Outside the Lines and one as a feature producer for SportsCenter.
A year later, he received another honor in his father’s name – the Dick Schaap Lifetime Achievement Award, given by the Greater New York Chapter of the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America. On November 11, 2010, Schaap served as MC for the ALS Association Greater New York Chapter’s 16th Annual Lou Gehrig Sports Awards Benefit in New York.
Before joining ESPN, Schaap, was a writer for NBC’s Atlanta Summer Olympics daytime show (hosted by Greg Gumbel), and a writer and producer for NBC’s Wimbledon coverage. In 1994, Schaap was a writer for CBS’s Lillehammer Winter Olympics primetime show. His television career also includes covering sports and general news for New York 1 News (1992-94), and serving as an associate editor of special projects for the Winter and Summer Olympics for Sports Illustrated (1991-92). His writing has been published in the international edition of Time magazine,
A native of New York City, Schaap is a 1991 graduate of Cornell University. He also authored Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics, published in 2007.
Jeremy Schaap, ESPN reporter and best-selling author, is available exclusively through IMG Speakers bureau for speaking engagements. Jeremy Schaap is also available for moderating and emceeing/ hosting opportunities, celebrity appearances, corporate hospitality events, meet and greets, and much more. Please contact IMG Speakers at 212-774-6735 or speakers@imgworld.com for more information on booking Jeremy Schaap.
