Alumni Q&A: Henry Bushnell ’13

Henry Bushnell is a senior sports writer for The Athletic, covering soccer. He is spending his first year with the publication telling stories leading up to the 2026 Men’s World Cup, which will take place this June and July all across the U.S.

Bushnell joined The Athletic last summer (he formerly worked at Yahoo Sports), and introduced himself to its readership through an article outlining his ambition to, “tell stories about the sport’s raw beauty, about the feelings and community it inspires.”

We spoke with Bushnell, not long after that first post went live, about his background in both athletics and journalism, and his conviction that soccer is a lens through which to grapple with complex topics, like inequity, power, and politics. 

What was your relationship to sports growing up?

Henry Bushnell: My childhood was: playing soccer in fall, basketball in winter, and baseball in spring. And I watched a ton of all those sports, plus American football. But I didn’t really consume sports journalism; I was more into statistics, not stories.  

It wasn’t until college, when I began investing my time and energy in the craft of writing, that I started reading the best sports journalism I could find. During my freshman year, I wrote for a student-run website that covered sports.

As I got into it, I began to understand the power of journalism more broadly—what it can be, and what it can do.

Did you dabble in journalism or sports writing at GFS? Were there any memorable teachers who helped shape your perception of yourself as a writer? 

I didn’t do too much journalism or writing about sports at GFS, but I took an Essentially English class in eleventh grade, Autobiographical Writing with Connie Thompson, who is retired now. I vividly remember that she wrote in the margin of one of my stories, “Have you thought about becoming a sports writer or a journalist?”

I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life at that time, but soon after that, I decided to apply to journalism school. That shows the power of teachers believing in kids. I think GFS teachers are really great at doing that.

When did you first realize that sports writing can be a powerful platform for storytelling?

I wrote a story in college, an oral history about the Northwestern football team’s famous 1995 season. They’d never been good, but that year they had this magical season. The story ended up being about faith, hope, and camaraderie—all these things that are important in life beyond sports.

Probably only a few thousand people read it, but some of the people who did reached out to me and thanked me. It impressed upon me that when you do this job well, it really can be meaningful for people. 

Why is soccer your primary focus now?

The universality and diversity of soccer are really appealing to me. It touches so many corners of the world and segments of society. Through soccer, I’ve had the opportunity to write about geopolitics, science, race, class, gender, human rights, labor rights.

And on a human level, a soccer team is a group of people from all sorts of backgrounds, families and situations who have to forge relationships with one another. That makes for a lot of compelling stories about them as individuals, the interpersonal dynamics between them, and the world they live in.

There’s also the community aspect. Teams and clubs become institutions that have these followings all over the world. Communities get built around teams, and the fans develop relationships and friendships that go way beyond cheering for the team. 

What kinds of stories do you hope to tell around the 2026 Men’s World Cup?

I think the biggest stories of this World Cup will be about things like transportation and immigration policy. It’s going to be difficult for some fans from other countries, like Egypt or Colombia, to get visas to follow their teams to the U.S.

Some Americans might not even realize how much the U.S. restricts travel here, and how difficult the process is. When stories are told about issues like this, it naturally opens readers’ minds to different aspects of the world.

—Emily Kovach