Melissa Isaacson

Melissa Isaacson leads the graduate journalism Sports Specialization program, and teaches undergraduate and graduate reporting and writing classes. She is the faculty advisor for Northwestern’s chapter of the Association of Women in Sports Media and serves on the Intercollegiate Athletics Committee, an advisory group to the president.

Isaacson’s students have consistently produced published work, averaging more than 30 pieces during their annual week-long Medill Explores trip to Arizona as well as major enterprise projects, including the 40-year retrospective series on the 1984 L.A. Olympic Games for USA Today.

A sportswriter for more than three decades, Isaacson was named one of the “Most Influential Women in Chicago Sports Media” by the Tribune. Most recently, she was a general assignment reporter and columnist in ESPN.com’s international division, covering the pro tennis tour and Olympic Games. In 19 years at the Tribune, she was the principal beat writer covering the NBA champion Chicago Bulls teams for five years and later, the Chicago Bears for seven seasons. She was also a general sports columnist, becoming the first woman in all three of those roles.

Isaacson previously worked on the staffs of Florida Today, USA Today and the Orlando Sentinel, where she received AP Sports Editors awards for beat writing, investigative and feature reporting. She was awarded the Chicago Headline Club’s Peter Lisagor Award for top feature story of 2008 for her Tribune Magazine piece examining her parents’ dual struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Isaacson is the author of three books, most recently "State: A Team, A Triumph, A Transformation," which chronicles her experience on a state championship-winning high school basketball team and its transformational journey after the passage of Title IX. It was named one of the top sports books of 2019 by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Forbes, featured on the TODAY Show and is used in high school classrooms throughout the Chicago area.