On the recordDecember 14, 2022
Most people knew Grant Wahl as a leading soccer journalist. I knew him as a classmate and as someone I admired. Sadly, we lost Grant this past weekend, and I join the many people here in America and around the world who are celebrating his life. Grant and I went to college together. Before he covered soccer for worldwide news organizations, he was the sportswriter for our school paper. As an undergrad, Grant visited South America and fell in love with soccer. While he was there, he watched clubs train, watched games, and developed the passion of a convert. By 1998, he was covering the World Cup for Sports Illustrated. How cool is that? His love of soccer was infectious. He made others appreciate this sport because he did. In one commemoration of Grant, Christian Stone wrote: ``Wahl became the definitive chronicler of the sport in North America, a world traveler who applied rigor, depth, and passion, without being pedantic or precious, to his coverage. He visited six of the seven continents several times over, introduced the world to a generation of U.S. woman rock stars . . ., coaxed private audiences out of some of the planet's most reclusive stars . . . , and led a life of globetrotting freedom, adventure, and pleasure that was Bourdain- like.'' But Grant's greatest passion was not the sport he loved. It was the woman he loved, Celine, who he met at Princeton and married in 2001.…





