Will Leitch

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William F. Leitch (born October 10, 1975 in Mattoon, Illinois) is a writer based in New York City and the founding editor of the Gawker Media sports blog Deadspin. Leitch is a contributing editor at New York, a contributor to The New York Times, GQ, Fast Company and Slate, and has published three books, Catch, a novel, Life as a Loser, a memoir, and God Save The Fan, a book of sports essays.

Contents 1 Background 2 Career 2.1 The Black Table 2.2 Deadspin 2.3 Other work 3 Criticism 4 Books authored 5 See also 6 Footnotes 7 Pieces authored by Leitch 8 External links

[edit] Background

Leitch grew up in Mattoon, Illinois, which is also the setting of Catch. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While there, he was an editor at the University's paper, the Daily Illini. He now lives in Brooklyn.

One of Leitch's first glances with fame came when he appeared on one of the early episodes of Win Ben Stein's Money. In an excerpt from Life as a Loser, published on Blacktable.com, Leitch describes the experience of taping this episode within hours of being dumped by his fiancée (a fact that co-host Jimmy Kimmel included in Leitch's introduction).

[edit] Career

[edit] The Black Table

In January 2003, Leitch became a founding editor of the website The Black Table, with Eric Gillin, A.J. Daulerio and Aileen Gallagher. His Life As A Loser column ran online for five years and was ultimately compiled into a book of the same title, with a foreword written by Tom Perrotta.

[edit] Deadspin

In September 2005, Leitch became the founding editor of Deadspin. Deadspin is the most popular independent sports blog on the web,^{[1][not in citation given]} and has been profiled in Sports Illustrated^[2][3][4] and The New York Times.^[5] Leitch announced on June 5, 2008 that he would be leaving Deadspin at the end of the month to become a contributing editor at New York magazine.

[edit] Other work

During the 2007 NCAA Tournament, Leitch wrote a daily column for TimesSelect, the paid section of The New York Times.^[6] During the 2007 baseball playoffs, Leitch wrote a daily column for The New York Times' Web site.^[7]

Leitch was featured in the February 2008 issue of Penthouse magazine.

[edit] Criticism

Leitch was criticized by Pulitzer-Prize winning author Buzz Bissinger on an April 2008 episode of Costas Now for the lack of quality writing on sports blogs. He has also faced criticism for comments in his book that questioned the blackness of some prominent African-American sports figures such as Tony Dungy and Bryant Gumbel.^[8][9]

[edit] Books authored

• Life As A Loser. Arriviste Press, Inc.. 2004. ISBN 0-9746270-0-3. 
• Catch. Razorbill. 2005. ISBN 978-1-59514-069-2. 
• God Save The Fan. HarperCollins. 2008. ISBN 978-0061351785. 

[edit] See also

• Deadspin

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] Pieces authored by Leitch

• Leitch on New York
• Leitch on Deadspin
• Leitch on The New York Times
• Life as a Loser column

[edit] External links

• The Will Leitch Experience