SHAUN ASSAEL

Shaun Assael is an award-winning journalist and author. As a senior writer with ESPN: The Magazine, he has covered everything from NASCAR to the NFL, and now works as an investigative reporter. In Steroid Nation: Juiced Home Run Totals, Anti-Aging Miracles, And a Hercules in Every High School - The Secret History of America’s True Drug Addiction, Assael pens the authoritative history of America’s—and perhaps the world’s—most insidious drug addiction. Part detective story, part medical investigation, and part sociological examination, Steroid Nation is a groundbreaking work on the most compelling story in the sports world today.

In the tradition of And the Band Played On, Assael looks at America’s complicated love affair with steroids and how it has grown. Steroid Nation presents a chilling portrait of a nation enamored with artificially pumped-up success. Chronicling steroid use far beyond the headlines, it begins with the bodybuilders of Venice Beach in the 1970s and continues through to the NFL’s Raiders of the ‘80s and ‘90s and the baseball scandals of today. Assael also reveals the dramatic story of the godfather of the steroid movement: Dan Duchaine, who wrote The Original Underground Steroid Handbook in 1981.

In 1995, he attended his first NASCAR race. Two months later, he had a contract to write a book. The result was his 1998 chronicle, Wide Open: Days and Nights on the NASCAR Tour. In 2002 he co-authored the New York Times best-seller, Sex, Lies and Headlocks: The Real Story of Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment.

As Wide Open was being published, ESPN: The Magazine was being launched. Assael joined the team that worked on its debut issue and has worked there ever since. In 2005, he co-wrote a special issue on steroids in baseball that won first place in the “National Headliner Awards.”

Assael graduated from NYU in 1983 and began his career as a crime reporter in Florida. In the late ‘80s, he went to work for the American Lawyer and continued to write about law at The Village Voice and The New York Observer.

His work has also appeared in publications such as Esquire and the New York Times. He currently works and resides in New York.