Arash Markazi has spent 20 years covering sports locally and nationally as a sports columnist at the Los Angeles Times and a senior writer at ESPN and Sports Illustrated. He became a columnist at SI.com and was on the cover of Sports Illustrated on Campus after graduating from the University of Southern California in 2004 and winning the Allan Malamud Memorial Scholarship and the Jim Murray Memorial Scholarship, named after his two favorite sports columnists at the Los Angeles Times. He later became an adjunct professor at USC and was on the board of directors for the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation while helping launch ESPNLA.com and adding esports coverage to the Los Angeles Times.