Steve Gardner Fantasy Sports Pioneer
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
- Mon, 1-18-2021 04:55With Brandon Staley leaving to become the head coach of the Chargers, Sean McVay and the Rams are once again looking for a defensive coordinator.
- Mon, 1-18-2021 04:50The two quarterbacks spent a long time together on the Superdome turf after Sunday's tilt, with Tom Brady even slinging one more pass.
- Mon, 1-18-2021 04:47Tom Brady's best game in three tries against New Orleans kept the Buccaneers moving on in the NFL playoffs, and has Saints quarterback Drew Brees headed home - perhaps for good. Brady and the Bucs' offense turned three of four Saints turnovers into touchdowns and Tampa Bay beat New Orleans 30-20 in the divisional round of the playoffs Sunday night.
- Mon, 1-18-2021 04:30Nobody has repeated as Super Bowl champion since the New England Patriots in 2003 and 2004. And those back-to-back titles weren't just down to talent and coaching.
- Mon, 1-18-2021 04:25Despite a 28-point loss in the first meeting back in October, Matt LaFleur's team are the early favorite to advance to Super Bowl LV.
- Mon, 1-18-2021 04:25It's not looking likely that the Minnesota Vikings will be able to land Houston Texans QB Deshaun Watson.
- Mon, 1-18-2021 04:21The Los Angeles Chargers have hired Los Angeles Rams defensive coordinator Brandon Staley as the team's head coach. The Chargers made the decision Sunday after having a second interview with Staley. The interview was held a day after the Rams were eliminated from the playoffs with a 32-18 loss to the Green Bay Packers.
- Mon, 1-18-2021 04:14The Chargers announced their agreement with Brandon Staley as the 17th head coach in franchise history. Staley served as the defensive coordinator for the Rams in 2020 after three seasons as an outside linebackers coach for Chicago (2017-18) and Denver (2019). The Chargers will introduce Staley at a news conference Thursday. “It doesn’t matter if [more]
- Mon, 1-18-2021 04:06What does the general population think of the Chargers' hiring of Brandon Staley as their new head coach?
- Mon, 1-18-2021 03:53Saints quarterback Drew Brees met with the media, more than an hour after Sunday night’s season-ending loss to the Buccaneers. He was asked right out of the gates whether he has played his last game. Prefacing the response by saying, with a smile, that he’s only going to answer the question once, Brees said, “I’m [more]