SportsHighLight is written by a small bench of editors and analysts. We don’t farm out posts to ghost-writers, we don’t hide behind generic bylines, and we don’t run AI copy without a human running it back. The bylines below are editorial lanes maintained by the site — one of us writes the piece, another edits it, and the same standards apply to every sentence either of us files.
The editorial structure is documented in our About page and the standards each piece passes through are detailed in our Editorial Policy. Below: who covers what, how to reach us, and where to find each author’s work.
Marcus Whitfield
NFL beat · Methods desk lead
Covers: NFL play-calling, EPA, success rate, CPOE, pressure-adjusted EPA, route concepts, coverage charts. Methods desk lead for explainers across all beats.
About: Marcus has been writing about football analytics for the better part of a decade. He runs our Methods desk — the explainer work that translates EPA, win probability, route concepts, and coverage data into prose a reader can use without a glossary. He is the editor who signs off on any piece that touches an advanced metric, and the person most likely to push a draft back with the note “name the limit, not just the number.”
Editorial role: primary byline on NFL coverage and the Methods desk. Secondary editor across all beats whenever a piece introduces or relies on an advanced metric.
Reach Marcus: editorial inquiries via [email protected]; NFL tips via [email protected]. Read his archive at /author/marcus-whitfield.
Jess Tanaka
NBA & WNBA lead
Covers: NBA and WNBA — lineup data, tracking-data interpretation, possession value, shot quality, on/off impact, usage curves, pace and rotation patterns.
About: Jess writes the bulk of our basketball coverage on both sides — men’s and women’s. Her work leans on lineup data, second-spectrum-style tracking interpretation, and the habit of watching the same possession four times before writing the sentence that explains it. She wrote our Possession Trap series and most of the WNBA pace pieces; she’s also the editor most likely to push back on a hot take with a chart.
Editorial role: primary byline on NBA and WNBA. Editor for basketball pieces across the site, including Methods explainers that touch tracking data, lineup analytics, or pace stats.
Reach Jess: editorial inquiries via [email protected]; basketball tips via [email protected]. Read her archive at /author/jess-tanaka.
D. Reyes
Soccer correspondent
Covers: Soccer / club football — xG, expected threat (xT), packing, PPDA, pressing structure, pass network maps, set-piece patterns, tactical reads across Europe, the Americas, and international windows.
About: D. handles the soccer beat. They favor xG, pass network maps, and pressing structure over transfer-rumor churn, and write the long-form tactical reads in our Soccer category. If a piece in that beat mentions packing, PPDA, or expected threat, they wrote it or they edited it.
Editorial role: primary byline on Soccer. Editor for any cross-beat piece that touches international competition or club football structure.
Reach D.: editorial inquiries via [email protected]; soccer tips via [email protected]. Read their archive at /author/d-reyes.
Owen Brennan
College Football & Newsroom
Covers: College football — recruiting analytics, NIL incentives, conference realignment, transfer-portal flows, scheme-vs-talent reads. Newsroom — the lifecycle of a sports take from raw play to Sunday-morning panel.
About: Owen runs the College Football beat and the Newsroom — the desk that covers how a story moves through the sports-media ecosystem before it lands as a take on a panel show. He pays close attention to recruiting analytics, NIL incentives, conference realignment, and the rhetorical lifecycle of a single play turned narrative. The Twitter Take Cycle piece is his.
Editorial role: primary byline on College Football and Newsroom. Editor for any piece that touches sports-media criticism or coverage of how coverage itself happens.
Reach Owen: editorial inquiries via [email protected]; college football tips via [email protected]. Read his archive at /author/owen-brennan.
How a piece gets made
Every article on SportsHighLight is written by one of the four editors above and edited by a second. There is no third-party publishing partner, no syndicated wire, no generative-AI byline. When a piece uses an advanced metric, Marcus reads it for methods integrity even if he didn’t write it. When a piece touches lineup or tracking data, Jess does the same. The Methods desk holds final sign-off on any article whose argument depends on a specific stat.
We do not accept payment for editorial coverage, and we don’t allow advertisers, sponsors, or partners to influence what we cover or how we cover it. Corrections are made promptly, public, and dated — full process in our Editorial Policy.
A note on bylines
SportsHighLight uses named editorial bylines for recurring coverage lanes. These bylines represent site editorial lanes maintained through the SportsHighLight editorial process; they are not presented as independent outside credentials unless a profile explicitly says so. The goal is to give every reader a single name to hold accountable for a given beat — a person to write to with a tip, a correction, a counter-argument — while keeping the editorial emphasis on the quality of the work itself, not on inflated personal claims.
If a piece is written or reviewed by an externally credentialed contributor, that is stated directly on the article or on the contributor’s profile.
Want to write for SportsHighLight?
We occasionally accept pitches from writers we don’t already work with. The submission guidelines — what we look for, what we don’t, how to pitch — live on our Contact page under “Editorial pitches and writer submissions.”
New here? Start with our reading guide — the short tour of how to navigate the site by sport, by method, or by the long-form pieces we’re proudest of.