Tom Farrey

B.S. Journalism, 1996

Tom is an enterprise reporter whose work has been recognized among the nation’s best on television, in print and online. A pioneer in cross-platform, long-form journalism, Farrey’s pieces have won two sports journalism Emmy Awards for Outside the Lines and his stories have also appeared on SportsCenter, E:60, ABC’s World News Tonight, ESPN.com, and in ESPN the Magazine.

He is the author of Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children (ESPN Books). The 2008 book is now a required text in university courses on more than a dozen campuses, from Oregon State to the University of Florida. The book’s insights continue to be explored through The Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program, which Farrey directs.

Farrey began working with ESPN in 1996, as deputy editor of the website that later became known as ESPN.com. As a reporter, he developed the first integrated television-online investigative packages for the Emmy Award-winning Outside the Lines. His 2011 report on sexual molestation allegations against longtime AAU president Bobby Dodd led to a series of reforms by the largest organization in youth sports. His 2010 E:60 profile of former college football player Preston Plevretes, and subsequent Outside the Lines reports including one on NFL players and families who are withholding their children from tackle football, have advanced and sharpened the debate about the future of America’s favorite game.

In 2001, Farrey’s exclusive report on the torture of Iraqi athletes by Saddam Hussein’s son Uday, the nation’s top Olympic official, led to the disbanding of the Iraqi Olympic governing body by the International Olympic Committee. Internationally, Farrey has delivered reports from Europe, Africa, Australia and Latin America. His hour-long ESPN documentary, “Witness to a Defection,” on Cuban baseball defectors included a hometown interview with future major league star Jose Contreras before he fled the country. In 1999, he drew early attention to use of steroids by baseball players with a hidden-camera investigation of Tijuana pharmacies. In 2004, his series on the corrupt business of recruiting Dominican baseball prospects won top national honors from the Sigma Delta Chi/Society of Professional Journalists.