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Julie DiCaro’s career in the sports media industry is interesting, considering where she started and what she has become. DiCaro is easily one of the most underrated sportswriters in the business and one of the best. She comes face-to-face with topics that some writers wouldn’t even dream about discussing and brings a strong female voice to an industry that has so few. That’s why Julie DiCaro is this week’s spotlight.
DiCaro’s career first began when she attended Indiana University, studying Journalism and French. After that, she received a law degree from DePaul University and worked as an attorney. After 15 years of being an attorney, DiCaro changed her passion from law into sports, “the world of her first love” as DiCaro said herself.
Growing up in Illinois, DiCaro loves most of the Chicago teams but is most passionate about the Chicago Cubs. Her love for the Cubs is what began her career in sports. She started off writing about the Chicago Cubs on her own before being noticed by various media outlets. She worked as a freelance writer from 2008-2012 before starting her own sports network. Known as ‘Aerys Sports’, DiCaro managed a sports blog written entirely by women…doesn’t that sound familiar!
After that, she worked for the WGN Radio station in Chicago. She would appear on air along with blogging and managing social media pages. Most recently, DiCaro has become a sports radio anchor for WSCR and a columnist for the Sports Illustrated’s blog, ‘The Cauldron’. DiCaro is such an interesting sports writer because she focuses on issues that are often overshadowed by sports.
She spoke of her own rape to discuss her point-of-view on the Jameis Winston case which is something that most writers wouldn’t dare to reveal to anyone, let alone the public. She also discusses domestic violence and sexism throughout sports. She has written pieces discussing Janay Rice, on believing Jameis Winston’s accuser, women being included in the NHL and NFL along with many other topics.
However, I’ve decided to focus on two of her pieces. The first is entitled ‘Where Are The Women In The Peyton Manning Discussion?’. Written for CBS Chicago, DiCaro doesn’t hold back discussing the sexual harassment case that allegedly occurred while Manning was in college. She talks about how it’s not fair to so easily proclaim Manning’s innocence when we truly don’t know what happened and to allow women to talk about the issue of sexual harassment instead of men giving their view on something that is clearly a women’s issue. The second article was written for Sports Illustrated, ‘No more: The NFL’s Failure to Educate its Owners about Domestic Abuse.’ DiCaro discussed all of the domestic violence cases in the NFL and the fact that the NFL has no knowledge on how to handle them correctly. The biggest and most important point that DiCaro makes is that the NFL won’t actually fix the issue, but instead never talk about it and pretend it is not a problem.
