Tom Goldman

Tom Goldman is NPR's sports correspondent. His reports can be heard throughout NPR's news programming, including Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and NPR.org.

With a beat covering the entire world of professional sports, both in and outside of the United States, Goldman reporting covers the broad spectrum of athletics from the people to the business of athletics.

During his more than 20 years with NPR, Goldman has covered every major athletic competition including the Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA Finals, golf and tennis championships, and the Olympic Games.

His pieces are diverse and include both perspective and context. Goldman often explores people's motivations for doing what they do, whether it's solo sailing around the world or pursuing a gold medal. In his reporting, Goldman searches for the stories about the inspirational and relatable amateur and professional athletes.

Goldman contributed to NPR's 2009 Edward R. Murrow award for his coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and to a 2010 Murrow award for contribution to a series on high school football, "Friday Night Lives." Earlier in his career, Goldman's piece about Native American basketball players earned a 2004 Dick Schaap Excellence in Sports Journalism Award from the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University and a 2004 Unity Award from the Radio-Television News Directors Association.

In January 1990, Goldman came to NPR to work as an associate producer for sports with Morning Edition. For the next seven years he reported, edited and produced stories and programs. In June 1997, he became NPR's first full time sports correspondent.

For five years before NPR, Goldman worked as a news reporter and then news director in local public radio. In 1984, he spent a year living on an Israeli kibbutz. Two years prior he took his first professional job in radio in Anchorage, Alaska, at the Alaska Public Radio Network.

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5:28pm

Wed July 25, 2012
Sports

Lawmakers Call On Olympics To Honor 1972 Victims

Originally published on Sun July 29, 2012 9:19 am

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

And I'm Robert Siegel.

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4:30am

Mon July 16, 2012
Sports

After Damning Report, Will NCAA Sanction PSU Football?

Originally published on Mon July 16, 2012 5:45 am

Last week's report by former FBI Director Louis Freeh confirmed what many said all along, that the Penn State child sex scandal was the biggest and most damaging in college sports history. Now that the report has been released, the focus is turning to the NCAA and what action it will take, if any.

5:13am

Wed June 27, 2012
Sports

College Presidents Approve Switch To Football Playoff System

Originally published on Wed June 27, 2012 7:08 am

Transcript

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

College football fans are belting out a one word chant this morning: Finally. As in finally, there's a post-season playoff at the sport's highest level. Yesterday, a committee of college presidents approved a four-team, three game plan. When it starts in 2014, it'll end major college football's isolation as the only big time team sport that does not decide its championship with a playoff. NPR's Tom Goldman has more.

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6:11pm

Fri June 22, 2012
Sports

40 Years On, Title IX Still Shapes Female Athletes

Originally published on Fri June 22, 2012 6:30 pm

Title IX, which turns 40 on Saturday, has helped reverse years of bias, banning sex discrimination in federally funded schools and colleges.

Its guarantee of equal access to sports was a small part of the original legislation. But it's become the most recognizable part of Title IX. That guarantee has not always played out, and the law has its critics. For four decades, however, it's played a huge part in shaping lives.

'I Can Handle This World'

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4:54am

Fri June 22, 2012
Sports

LeBron James Leads Heat To NBA Title

Originally published on Fri June 22, 2012 7:17 am

The Miami Heat are the new NBA champions. Thursday night in Miami, they beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 5, 121 to 106. LeBron James had 26 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists.

6:03am

Wed June 13, 2012
Sports

Oklahoma City Rolls Past Miami In Game 1

Originally published on Wed June 13, 2012 7:00 am

The Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Miami Heat 105-94 on Tuesday night in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

8:05am

Tue April 3, 2012
The Two-Way

In Women's Title Game, Baylor Goes For History

Credit Nati Harnik / AP

Kentucky is now in the record books as this year's NCAA Division I men's basketball champion after its 67-59 win over Kansas last night.

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6:23am

Sun April 1, 2012
Sports

Finally, The Payoff In Women's NCAA Basketball

Credit Charles Rex Arbogast / AP

The NCAA Division 1 women's tournament gets criticized for not having enough true March Madness moments, when the Davids rise up and beat the Goliaths in nerve-jangling upsets. Such is the power structure in the women's game, with largely untouchable elite teams.

The payoff comes when all those elite teams gather, as they have in Denver, in such a show of force and talent that a fan tends not to miss the little guys.

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8:00am

Sun March 18, 2012
Sports

NCAA Madness Marches On

Credit Rick Bowmer / AP

The madness marches on. Sunday holds eight more games in the NCAA Division 1 men's basketball tournament. On Saturday, thankfully, there were no major rip-up-your-bracket upsets. That is, if your bracket was in still in one piece. But there was plenty of drama. Two of the most exciting games were at the sub-regional in Portland, Ore.

March Madness isn't just screaming crowds and grown men and women chanting things like the University of New Mexico's "Everyone's a Lobo, woof, woof, woof." In fact, sometimes there's drama in hushed silence.

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4:25pm

Thu March 8, 2012
The Two-Way

Peyton Manning Is A Hall Of Fame Tipper Too

Credit Joey Foley / Getty Images

The tears over Peyton Manning's departure from Indianapolis have dried ... and it's business time as the rehabbing quarterback starts doing 'eeny meeny miney mo' with his suitors (ESPN reports 12 of the NFL's 32 teams have contacted Manning's 'people').

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