Jackie "Mac" MacMullan (born October 7, 1960) is an American freelance newspaper sportswriter and NBA columnist for the sports website ESPN.com. A graduate of the University of New Hampshire, where she played Division I basketball for the Wildcats, MacMullan was a columnist and associate editor of the Boston Globe until she took a buyout from the paper in March 2008. She began writing for the Globe in 1982. From 1995 to 2000 she covered the NBA as a senior writer for Sports Illustrated.
In 1999, MacMullan collaborated with Larry Bird on his autobiography Bird Watching: on Playing and Coaching the Game I Love. She published Magic and Bird: Basketball's Awed Couple about Bird and rival Magic Johnson in 2003, and in 2006 released Geno: In Pursuit of Perfection with Geno Auriemma and Diana Taurasi, a work that has come under heavy fire for putting a sports columnist in a business relationship with a sports personality she covers in the media.
In 2011 MacMullan collaborated with NBA superstar Shaquille O'Neal to write his autobiography.
MacMullan has been a correspondent for several cable television networks including ESPN, CNNSI, and NESN, as well as WHDH-TV in Boston. She is a regular panelist on the ESPN program Around the Horn. She has also co-hosted episodes of the network's Pardon the Interruption, most recently on May 11, 2012.
In response to MacMullan's departure from the Globe, she had this to say in an email to the blog site Boston Sports Media Watch:
| “ | It’s just time for me. My kids are growing up too fast, and I don’t want to miss anything. I’ll still do some freelance work but I’m not planning on taking another full-time job right now. It would be counter-productive to why I’m doing this in the first place. | ” |
On May 12, 2010, Jackie MacMullan and longtime Cleveland Cavaliers radio play-by-play announcer Joe Tait received the Curt Gowdy Media Award from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The awards are presented annually to members of the print and electronic media who made a significant contribution to the game of basketball. MacMullan was the first woman to receive the honor in its 21-year history.
Famous quotes containing the word jackie:
“I have nothing against the Queen of England. Even in my heart I never resented her for not being Jackie Kennedy. She is, to my mind, a very gallant lady, victimized by whoever it is who designs the tops of her uniforms.”
—Leonard Cohen (b. 1934)