Sports Illustrated Writer to Speak on Campus About College Football

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Andy Staples

Andy Staples, a senior writer with Sports Illustrated, will speak about the business of college football on the University of Arkansas campus on Friday, Sept. 14.

The recreation and sport management program in the College of Education and Health Professions is sponsoring Staples’ visit. He will speak at 1:45 p.m. in Room 316 of the Health, Physical Education and Recreation Building with Steve Dittmore, assistant professor of recreation and sport management, moderating.

The presentation is free and open to the public but space is limited. Topics will include college football playoffs, whether student-athletes should be paid and the role of television in college football.

Staples covers college football and recruiting for Sports Illustrated, which hired him in January 2008. He formerly covered the University of Tennessee for the Chattanooga Times Free Press and the University of Florida for the Tampa Tribune.

Staples graduated from the University of Florida in 2000 with a journalism degree and
no job. Four weeks after he received his diploma, a friend who wrote for the Tampa Tribune talked the preps editor into letting Staples string for the paper. His first assignment was a story on a basketball camp run by a local high school coach and attended mostly by elementary school students.