Formerly teased with the nickname of 'Uncle Jesse', because of the way he and the John Stamos character from Full House both meticulously groom their jet-black hair, Arash Markazi sat with a shaven head talking to friends and family for the duration of a six hour treatment.
In a reclinable hospital chair with a needle stuck in the top of his hand and a variety of drugs flowing through his veins, Markazi was fighting against cancer for the second time in his short 25-year old life.
Though it would seem like a strange fit, Markazi wrote about the experience in one of his columns for Sports Illustrated's online publication. The 2006 article was an open letter to Boston Red Sox rookie pitcher Jon Lester, who had just been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, the same type of cancer Markazi had battled twice.
Unlike most sports journalists, Markazi didn't work his way up doing game recaps and other typical articles after he graduated from college. Sure, he did those type of articles while he was at the University of Southern California and writing for the school paper, the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Daily News, the Associated Press, XXL, SLAM magazine, and King magazine, but once he graduated, he shot straight to his dream job -- working for Sports Illustrated.
Thanks to a summer internship with Sports Illustrated for Kids while in school, Markazi had the connections to make the giant leap from stringing high school games for the LA Times to writing in-depth portraits of athletes like Wayne Gretzky or soccer star Renaldo for SI. He made the transition in seemingly record time as he went from graduation to writing for Sports Illustrated on Campus to eventually getting his own column -- The Hot Read -- on SI.com.
Born in Oklahoma City but raised in Los Angeles, Markazi went to Arizona State after graduating from Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, CA. However, he transferred to USC and graduated from the Annenberg School of Communication with a degree in print journalism before moving to work in SI's New York offices.
The now 29-year old Markazi has traveled across the globe for many assignments. For example in the late spring/early summer months of 2006, he wrote articles about events in Paris, New York, London, and Germany. He now resides back in Los Angeles where he is the lone Sports Illustrated staffer in the nation's second largest media capital.
A lot of Markazi's articles focus on social interactions with many stars -- something that has drawn the ire of some bloggers commenting on his work. From looking at Markazi's Facebook photos, one can see some of the celebrity athletes he has hung out with and then subsequently written what some think to be fluff pieces:
The "'column' adds absolutely nothing to either the literary or sporting worlds." - Cafe 227
Markazi does not appear to be deterred by the remarks of those negative on his work as he continues to smile and pose with athletes, celebrities, and a slew of attractive women, including when he is doing a little mud wrestling.
Instead, he just turns out humorous articles that give a sense of the humans behind the pads and uniforms that many people look up to as heroes when in reality Markazi is the one that some should be looking to as a hero as a member of the Jim Murray Foundation's Board of Directors and as a champion of cancer research.
Plus, it's hard not to like a man that schooled Magic Johnson when he was 10-years old.
Shotgun Spratling
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