Steve Gardner Fantasy Sports Pioneer

By Emil Kadlec
Emil Kadlec

Steve Gardner loved sports from a very young age. The first thing he ever wanted to do as a youth was a radio play-by-play announcer.

He actually started doing radio in high school. He filled in for sportscasters over the summer at a local station in Charlottesville Virginia. He went to James Madison University and majored in communication with a concentration on radio, TV and film.

Worked in several radio jobs before getting his first big break as a news-by-phone service at USA Today. He started at USA Today information network in December 1993 and then moved to USAToday.com in 1996. He was the USA Today website's baseball editor in 1998 just in time for the McGwire versus Sosa home run battle. He started writing fantasy baseball columns for Sports Weekly - took over for John Hunt in 2006 and still going. He also did the fantasy sports weekly radio show from 2008 to 2012.

He then was promoted to the USA Today senior fantasy editor as he combined with KFFL.com in 2012. Edited award-winning fantasy baseball and football magazines from 2012 to 2015. He hosted an FSWA award-winning fantasy baseball podcast from 2015 to 2017.

Now he's the reporter/editor for USA Today Sports since 2018.

His top highlights at USA Today are covering 18 World Series, six major league baseball All-Star games and one Super Bowl. He is the first person to be a member of both the BBWAA and the FSWA.  As a BBWAA member, he will cast his first vote for the Baseball Hall of Fame in December 2020 for the Hall’s Class of 2021. LABR Commissioner from 2006 to present and six-time LABR champion and two-time Tout Wars champion.

He was Fantasy Pros number one most accurate baseball ranker in 2014.

Check out the entire Fantasy Sports Pioneer Interview Series.

 

2/25/2020