WSJ names new sports reporter

Wall Street Journal sports editor Sam Walker sent out the following staff announcement on Friday:

Please join me in welcoming Ben Cohen to the sports bureau as a full-time reporter based in New York.

Ben is hardly a stranger to these parts. He joined the Journal as a sports intern in 2010 and has been writing for us, and occasionally pinch-editing, ever since. Ben has focused on college basketball and college football and has been a key part of our coverage of the 2010 World Cup and the 2012 London Olympics. In that time he’s also been a prolific writer of a-heds, covering everything from pay phones, cheese and show dogs to NBA players who wear snazzy eyeglasses.

Before coming to the Journal, Ben was an intern at Deadspin and the researcher for Andre Agassi’s bestselling memoir, “Open.” He’s written for a bunch of other websites, including Grantland, GQ, Vanity Fair and Tablet. Not many people know this about Ben because he keeps it pretty close to the vest, but he graduated from Duke. And in case you’d forgotten, the Observer famously selected Ben as one of its “50 Media Power Bachelors” for 2011 (the sports desk has not forgotten, nor will we—ever).

Please extend Ben every kindness as he settles into his new/old job.