Promotions on the WSJ sports desk

Wall Street Journal managing editor Gerard Baker sent out the following staff announcement on Friday morning:

Our highly talented sports team continues to out-run, out-hit, out-score, out-box and generally vanquish all-comers for intelligent sports coverage and so I’m delighted to announce some changes designed to give it an even bigger global, digital and real-time lead.

Sam Walker becomes global sports editor. In this expanded role, Sam and his team will extend the reach of the Journal’s unique and much-admired brand of sports coverage. In addition to working more closely with our news desks and bureaux around the world to coordinate coverage of major news stories and global events like the upcoming Olympics and World Cup, Sam and senior editor Kevin Helliker will step up the paper’s efforts to conduct larger global investigations. The global sports desk will also work to create a 24-hour system for editing and curating real-time sports news across all print editions, digital platforms and real-time blogs — and leap boldly into the digital future with more liveblogs, video features, interactives and exercises in social media.

The New York-based sports desk will work closely with editors Joshua Robinson in London and Will Davies in Hong Kong, who will be the lead contacts for sports coverage in their regions.

Sam came to Dow Jones in 1998 as a reporter for Weekend Journal. He became the paper’s “On Sports” columnist in 2002 and sports editor in 2009. He is the founding editor of the Journal’s prizewinning and indispensable daily sports pages.  Before the Journal, Sam worked at the Christian Science Monitor and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He is the author of the 2006 book Fantasyland.

Darren Everson is appointed deputy sports editor. In this new role, Darren will be responsible for the day-to-day planning and production of the print and online sports pages and coordination of our coverage of real-time news. Darren, an organizational wizard who is preternaturally cool under fire, will be the first point of contact for breaking sports news worldwide and for coordinating coverage of major events.

Darren joined the Journal in 2006 after nine years as a sports reporter at the Daily News. After a stint covering travel for PJ, he joined the sports staff in 2008 where he distinguished himself as the paper’s first-ever college football writer. Darren is a Michigan native, a University of Michigan graduate and  an outfielder on the Journal’s four-time media-league champion softball team.

Geoff Foster becomes digital, multimedia and special projects editor for sports. In this newly created role, Geoff will focus on creating sports content that will help the Journal conquer new platforms and engage new readers. He will be responsible for long-lead projects aimed at special events, while also overseeing the videos, interactive graphics, social media promotions, home page design and any number of things that haven’t been invented yet. He’ll continue to oversee the sports page’s much-imitated but inimitable quantitative feature, “The Count” and look for ways to build it into a bustling franchise.

Geoff helped launch the daily sports page in 2009 and the Greater New York sports pages in 2010. He has been a creative force behind dozens of the paper’s best sports stories and multimedia bits, including “Blindfold Brackets,” “Homemade Highlights,” and the Sports Retort podcast. A New York native and Michigan graduate, Geoff came to the Dow Jones from the New York Sun, where he was sports editor. He likes to relax by sailing into deep water to fish for 200-pound tuna.

Please join me in congratulating Sam, Darren and Geoff on their new roles.