About Joan Ryan

By Megan Schneider

Two female sportswriters, both by the name of Joan Ryan, have experienced firsthand the changing world of sports journalism as they played integral roles in breaking down the gender barrier in a male-dominated field. The inclusion of women drastically changed the landscape of sports as athletes, coaches and male counterparts alike adjusted to this paradigm shift.

Joan Ryan, 54, was born in the Bronx in New York City. She attended the University of Florida, where she earned a degree in journalism with a focus on editing in 1981. She received her first job three days after graduation as a copy editor for the Orlando Sentinel, a job she thought not many people wanted.

She moved to San Francisco in 1985 as a full-time sports columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, where she covered boxing with the help of her husband, Barry Tompkins, a longtime FOX sportscaster. Then in 1994, the Chronicle hired her to continue writing columns and features for the metro section, but after her passion switched to longform journalism; thus, she took to a career as an author.

Her career as a journalist has earned her many accolades, including the prestigious Edgar A. Poe Award from the White House Correspondents Association, 13 Associated Press Sports Editors writing awards, the National Headliner Award and the Women’s Sports Foundation’s Journalism Award.  

Joan Ryan, 78, launched her career as a sports journalist when her husband, Frank Ryan, became the starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. However, when she graduated from the Rice Institute in Houston, Texas, with a degree in English literature in 1958, she did not know that she would write about sports.

The Ryan family then moved to Washington, where her husband played for the Washington Redskins during the 1969 and 1970 seasons. Here, Dave Burgin, the sports editor of the Washington Star, sought her out to cover sports at both the college and professional level.

She then was a member of the sports department at The Washington Post under sports editor George Solomon, where she was a columnist and also reported on the famous Indianapolis 500 in which A.J. Foyt earned his fourth title for this race, a record that remains unbroken.