Michael MacCambridge

MacCambridge was born in Houston, Texas, but lived the majority of his youth in Kansas City, Missouri, moving there at age 8 after 3 years in Franklin, Nebraska and Omaha, Nebraska.{{cite web|title=Sports Illustrated learned to mix the highbrow with the middlebrow|work=St. Louis Post Dispatch|first=Dave|last=Dorr|url=https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/141856408/|url-access=subscription |accessdate=January 25, 2018|date=November 9, 1997}} He graduated from The Barstow School in 1981. He attended Marquette University for two years before transferring to Creighton University, where he graduated with a B.S. in journalism in 1985. The following year he earned a Master's degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.{{cite web|url=https://2016austinfilmfestivalandconfere.sched.com/speaker/michael_maccambridge.1vedqxci|title=Michael MacCambridge, moderator|date=2016|page=2016 Austin Film Festival and Conference Schedule}}

MacCambridge began his career as a copy editor and staff writer at the Omaha World-Herald. He was hired by Daily Variety as a staff writer/reviewer in 1987. In 1988 he was hired by the Austin American-Statesman as a pop music critic; in 1990 he became the American-Statesman{{'}}s film critic, a position he held until 1995. During his tenure at the American-Statesman, he founded the Society of Texas Film Critics.

He departed to launch a career as an author, which began upon the 1997 release of The Franchise: A History Of Sports Illustrated Magazine. The Franchise was named a New York Times Noteworthy Book that year.{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/07/books/notable-books-of-the-year-1997.html|title=Notable Books of the Year 1997|date=December 7, 1997|work=The New York Times}} He then edited the New York Times bestseller ESPN SportsCentury, which accompanied the release of ESPN's Top 100 athletes of the 20th Century. The book featured an introduction by David Halberstam and original essays by Dick Schaap, Joyce Carol Oates, Tony Kornheiser, Nelson George and Roy Blount Jr., among others.{{cite web|url=https://www.amazon.com/ESPN-SportsCentury-Michael-MacCambridge/dp/0786864710/ref=la_B000AP8408_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1512434622&sr=1-8|title=ESPN SportsCentury}}

In 2004 Random House released MacCambridge's America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation.{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/books/review/americas-game-the-real-national-pastime.html|title='America's Game': The Real National Pastime|date=November 7, 2004|first=Richard|last=Sandomir|work=The New York Times}} Jonathan Yardley listed the book as among 2004's most distinguished releases, and Chris Willis of NFL Films rated America's Game the "top pro football book of all-time."

MacCambridge served as editor of the 2005 ESPN College Football Encyclopedia, which Sports Illustrated described as "of truly Biblical proportions...Massive in scope and minute in detail, it's a worthy successor to its ancestor, The Baseball Encyclopedia."{{cite web|url=https://www.si.com/vault/2005/10/03/8357618/a-bible-for-the-faithful-|title=A Bible for the Faithful|date=October 3, 2005|first=Charles|last=Hirshberg|work=Sports Illustrated}}

In 2016 MacCambridge completed the biography Chuck Noll: His Life's Work, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press.{{cite web|url=http://www.pittsburghmagazine.com/Pittsburgh-Magazine/September-2016/Immaculate-Misconception/|title=Immaculate Misconception|date=August 24, 2016|first=Mike|last=Prisuta|work=Pittsburgh Magazine}}

MacCambridge contributed an essay on the post-World War II rise of pro football to the 2009 release of A New Literary History of America by Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors. He has also contributed freelance columns and essays to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Sports Illustrated, among other publications.{{cite web|url=https://2016austinfilmfestivalandconfere.sched.com/speaker/michael_maccambridge.1vedqxci|others=Michael MacCambridge, moderator|date=2016|title=2016 Austin Film Festival and Conference Schedule}}

In August 2019 MacCambridge and Neil Atkinson began Red Letters, a weekly correspondence about the Liverpool Football Club for the Liverpool Echo's American website.{{cite web|url=https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/liverpool-fc-red-letters-madrid-16690221 |title=RED LETTERS/2 AUGUST 2019: MADRID AFTERGLOW, GOING AGAIN AND CARPOOLING WITH GARY GILLESPIE |last=Atkinson |first=Neil and MacCambridge, Michael |date=August 2, 2019 |work=Liverpool Echo }}

File:MacCambridge at Jenkins event.jpg

MacCambridge co-chairs (along with Sally Jenkins) the awards jury for the Dan Jenkins Medal For Excellence in Sportswriting, sponsored by the University of Texas. He has also served as a Fellow at that university's Center for Sports Communication & Media in the Moody College of Communication since 2018.{{cite web|url=https://moody.utexas.edu/centers/sports-communication-media/cscm-fellows |title=CSCM Fellows }}

MacCambridge was married to Danica Frost from 1995 to 2005; they have two children, Miles and Ella. He resides in Austin, Texas. He is a devoted fan of the Kansas City Chiefs, and was hired as the editorial coordinator of the Chiefs' Hall Of Honor, which opened in 2010.{{cite web|url=https://www.kansascity.com/sports/nfl/kansas-city-chiefs/article239563228.html |title=Why we love the Chiefs:Famous Kansas Citians share their passion |date=January 28, 2020 |first=Jeff |last=Rosen |work=Kansas City Star }}

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Category:1963 births

Category:Living people