TAKKLE, Inc. (www.takkle.com), the premier online social network for high school sports announced today that veteran sportswriter Brandon Lilly has joined TAKKLE.com as a feature columnist. Lilly's columns will also be featured on SI.com.
Lilly, who worked for five years as a contributing writer for the New York Times, covering high schools and chronicling the rise of LeBron James, Sebastian Telfair, and others will file weekly in-depth features on high school basketball and contribute regular posts on all high school sports to the TAKKLE blog, currently live at http://blog.takkle.com.
Lilly's debut article on TAKKLE.com profiled Xavier Henry, the 6-foot-6, 220 lbs. guard from Putnam City High School in Oklahoma City, who is currently ranked #21 in the TAKKLE.com and Sports Illustrated Top 25 basketball rankings.
"We are very excited to have Brandon Lilly join our TAKKLE.com editorial team," said David Birnbaum, CEO of TAKKLE Inc. "Brandon's extensive knowledge of high school basketball and the scholastic sports world in general, coupled with his great journalistic reputation made him an ideal choice to become an editorial voice for TAKKLE."
"By giving high school fans an opportunity to share their opinions and thoughts on the finest scholastic football and basketball players in the country, TAKKLE.com has become the voice for high school fans, "said Lilly. "Through my regular editorial contributions, I look forward to providing fans with an insider's perspective on high school athletics."
In addition to the New York Times, Lilly has worked as a special projects editor for ESPN the Magazine, was a columnist for the National Sports Weekly, and worked for studio show for ABC's Wide World of Sports as well as its College Football broadcasts. His work has appeared in the Boston Herald, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Kansas City Star, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
About TAKKLE:
TAKKLE.COM, the premier online social network for high school sports, connects athletes, coaches, fans, friends and recruiters for all high school athletics. On TAKKLE, high school athletes can track and compare their stats, post team schedules, scout rivals, and share videos and photos with their teammates and opponents.
TAKKLE offers advertisers and marketers the ability to strategically target an engaged audience of high school athletes and fans. TAKKLE's investors include Wasserman Media Group LLC, Greycroft Partners LLC, Jack Schneider, Managing Director at Allen & Company, Inc., Sports Illustrated, IJ Smith Enterprises LLC and the New York City Investment Fund.
About Sports Illustrated:
Sports Illustrated (SI) is a multimedia sports brand that takes the consumer into the heart and soul of sports. The SI franchise is anchored by SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, the most respected voice in sports journalism which reaches a weekly audience of nearly 21 million adults, and SI.COM, the magazine's 24/7 sports news website that delivers more than 150 original stories to its users each week. The SI franchise also includes SPORTS ILLUSTRATED KIDS (sikids.com), a monthly magazine targeted to kids age 8 and up; GOLF MAGAZINE and GOLF.COM; FANNATION.COM, a social networking and sports news aggregation platform; SIONCAMPUS.COM, a website dedicated to college sports and the college sports lifestyle; SI PRESENTS the magazine's specialty publishing division; as well as SI BOOKS, SI PICTURES, SI PRODUCTIONS, SI DIGITAL and SI EVENTS. Founded in 1954, SI is a division of Time Inc., the world's leading magazine publishing company and a subsidiary of Time Warner.