Justin Block

Justin is a New York-born, Portland-based writer and presenter covering the most meaningful aspects of sport and culture. Currently available for freelance and full-time jobs, his past work includes full-time positions as a Digital Copywriter for Nike Global Football, Nike Coaching, Nike SNKRS, News Anchor for Complex, and an Associate Sports Editor at The Huffington Post. His work has also appeared on Complex Sports, Complex Music, Highsnobiety, Triangle Offense, Eight By Eight Magazine, and Liverpool FC and the New York Cosmos' team websites. He holds a B.S. in Sports Management from New York University. 

Most notably at The Huffington Post and Complex, Justin covered sports' convergence with issues and topics of race, gender, politics, business, public policy, The Internet, style, and even hip-hop culture. Sports are omnipresent across all aspects of our society today, and Justin's news and feature writing has reflected the most important and zeitgeisty stories of the day. He's interested in creating a wider meaning outside of the box score, but study and fandom of sport's games, players and teams is what drives him.

A self-starter by nature, Justin began his dive into media in the 7th grade, when he began blogging on The Sporting News' blog platform under an alias. Sparked by the simple joy of writing about sports, he continued his foray into media throughout high school and college. In the years prior to breaking into the industry via an internship with Complex Music, he launched and created content for his own sports YouTube channel and accompanying website, JLBSportsTV, as well as his own hip-hop blog, BrilliantlyBlunt. 

Embracing his inner-homer when necessary, Justin's favorite sports teams are the New York Knicks, New York Yankees, Green Bay Packers, Scuderia Ferrari, and Liverpool FC. He's romantic about futbol, basketball and football. Most importantly, however, he wears a Michael Jordan Crying Face mask at all times, because a Scott Van Pelt co-sign is all he needs for validation. 

Random fact: Justin is a distant relative of Ross Youngs, a World Series champion and baseball Hall of Famer who tragically died at 30 from a kidney disorder.