Memo from PATRICK STIEGMAN
Vice President and Executive Editor/Producer, ESPN.com

Story posted on May 5, 2009

Patricia Mays

Patricia Mays will be joining ESPN.com next month as Deputy Editor, Page 1.

Patricia has a unique blend of editing and leadership skills, honed over 14 years in daily media. She brings a creative flair, visual sensibility and passion for storytelling to the role, in which she will lead a team that is the proxy for the fan in terms of news and information, multimedia coverage, agenda-setting and site programming. She is a consensus-builder and problem-solver, experienced in working across departments to lead teams and drive results.

Her background as a sports editor at The Press-Enterprise (Riverside, Calif.) and previously assistant sports editor at The Associated Press is well-suited for the Page 1 role – critical decision making in a real-time news environment – and her collaborative skills will strengthen our entire editorial group. She will also partner with design, production, multimedia, television, magazine, marketing, business, advertising and other ESPN teams to optimize the Page 1 experience.

She spent nearly 10 years at AP, working as a reporter, editor and manager on the sports and news desks, both in Detroit and Atlanta. As a supervisor on the AP's National Desk in New York, she directed the daily national news report and served as a lead editor for some of the biggest stories of this decade, including the 2001 terrorist attacks and the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. In 2003, she became the AP's assistant sports editor, responsible for the planning and editing of all national enterprise and special event packages.

Most recently, Mays was the sports editor for The Press-Enterprise, a 180,000-circulation daily newspaper covering inland Southern California. She received her bachelor's degree in journalism from Butler University in Indianapolis – where she grew up – and a master's degree in public administration from the State University of New York at Albany.

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