Steve Buckley is taking his talents to, well, Boston.
The longtime and much-heralded Boston sports columnist has announced he has left the Boston Herald and will be writing for The Athletic, the sports Web site launched two years ago.
Buckley was a columnist for the Herald since 1995, chronicling the rise of Boston pro-sports teams as perennial contenders for league titles. In that time he covered the winning of 10 pro-sport championships including five Super Bowl titles for the New England Patriots. His opening salvo for The Athletic is about this period of success for New England sports teams.
“This has everything to do with something new and exciting and adventurous for me,” Buckley told Outsports. “When you get to be my age you think new and adventurous career opportunities might have moved on, and doing something like that appealed to me. To be asked to be part of this is very exciting.”
In a column in 2001, Buckley came out publicly as gay. Since then he has continued to focus on covering Boston sports, and his new role at The Athletic will be entirely Boston-centric. Though once or twice a year he has written about an LGBTQ issue when it has hit the sports world.
“When Jason Collins was signed in the NBA, or when Michael Sam was drafted int he NFL, these were things that demanded they be written about,” Buckley said.
He also currently has a podcast with gay fellow Boston sportswriter Alex Reimer called Two Outs, in which the two talk about LGBTQ issues in sports.
It’s not particularly noteworthy but it is worth noting that Buckley was recruited by The Athletic for his writing prowess regardless of whether he’s gay or not. As we’ve said for years, the majority of people in sports, like those at The Athletic, couldn’t care less about some dude’s sexual orientation.
Buckley has been a friend of Outsports for years and was a participant in our very first Outsports Pride event two years ago in Chicago. We wish him nothing but success in his new gig.
