My name is Leah Vann. I’ve been a professional journalist for seven years covering sports at the high school, collegiate and professional levels, in addition to freelance work covering health, religion and sociological disparities.

After graduating with a Biology degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 2017, my options were limited. I had only worked two years at the student newspaper before deciding on journalism. I drove my truck with a U-Haul attached to work at a small town newspaper in Mason City, Iowa, covering high school and community college sports for the entire north Iowa region. I worked there, then moved to Colorado for a job as the sports editor and photographer at the Steamboat Pilot & Today before returning to school for my master’s in journalism at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism.

When I completed my master’s at Medill, I worked to publish my master’s project: ‘Friday Night Lights’ turns 30: Revisiting race relations in Odessa in The Sunday Long Read. During my time in graduate school, I also published pieces highlighting mental healthcare disparities in the Little Village neighborhood, racism in fencing, the cultures of Chicago’s team sports bars and more. My personal essay on wearing masks during the pandemic shutdown was published in NBC News Think. Four months after graduating, I got my first beat writing job back in Iowa at The Gazette, covering the Iowa Hawkeyes. Eight months in to that job, I took a leap of faith, moving to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to cover LSU baseball and football for the The Advocate/New Orleans Times-Picayune. There, I covered the beginning of the Brian Kelly era in football and a national championship-winning baseball team. I returned to Texas to cover the Texas Longhorns, but found my true passion was in baseball and human interest stories. I moved to Houston for my first job covering a professional team, in addition to focusing on more stories that are outside the lines for Chron.com.