Who We Are

Press Pros Magazine.com is a local daily website featuring narrative stories about area high school and college sports in the counties of west-central Ohio. Featuring narrative writing and borrowing from the original photo format of Sports Illustrated Magazine, the online magazine is a popular source for readers who appreciate our online convenience and unrestricted editorial space.

Press Pros Magazine has attracted some of the iconic names of Ohio sports writing — Hal McCoy (former Reds beat writer for the Dayton Daily News), Greg Hoard (the Cincinnati Post and Enquirer), Mark Znidar (the Columbus Dispatch), Bruce Hooley (ESPN and Sports Illustrated.com), Steve Blackledge (the Columbus Dispatch), Greg Billing (Dayton and Springfield papers), and others. In short, Press Pros brings a professional profile to high school sports coverage with commitment and high standards in place.

Launched on August 10, 2010, Press Pros is read in all 88 Ohio counties, 33 U.S. states (as of 2021), and worldwide by people who want to keep up with local sports stories from back home. We cover Ohio high school sports, the Ohio State Buckeyes, the Dayton Flyers, and wherever the next good game leads our writers.

Our online magazine also provides a convenient platform for local small businesses to profile goods and services to a broader market for a fraction of the cost of conventional media marketing.

Combining the best in traditional values, editorial content, and an ever-changing roster of contributors, we have served millions and continue attracting new readers every day. We hope you’re the next one.

Sonny Fulks, Publisher and Editor

Meet Our Authors

Sonny Fulks

Sonny Fulks is a graduate of Ohio State University where he pitched four varsity seasons for the Buckeyes from 1971 through 1974. He furthered his baseball experience as a minor league umpire for seven seasons, working for the Florida State League (A), the Southern League (AA), and the American Association (AAA).

He has written for numerous websites, and for the past fourteen years has served as columnist and photo editor for The Gettysburg Magazine, published by the University of Nebraska Press, in Lincoln Nebraska. His interests include history, support for amateur baseball, and the outdoors, and he has a music degree from Ohio State University.

Bruce Hooley

Bruce Hooley was sports editor of the Troy Daily News from 1983-86 and has covered Ohio State athletics for more than 25 years. Bruce was the OSU beat reporter for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland from 1987-2005. From 2005-2011 he hosted the afternoon show on ESPN radio 1460 AM, in Columbus, before taking on a similar ESPN talk position with WKNR, 850 AM, in Cleveland.

Most recently Hooley has served as the beat reporter for Ohio State football and basketball for Sports Illustrated.com. The author of "That's Why I'm Here: The Chris and Stefanie Spielman Story, he returns for his second chapter as Buckeye beat reporter and columnist at large with Press Pros.

Julie Wright

A native of Covington, 1980 Covington High School Alumni. Julie was a cheerleader for the Covington Buccaneers for 9 years. Her most memorable moment was her Sr. year cheering at the Rubber Bowl in Akron for the 1979 State Football Championship game (losing to Mogadore in double over-time).

Julie was also active in volleyball, track and softball in high school. Julie has 4 grown children who were all active in sports. Julie's love of sports comes naturally, her father, Richard McMaken has not missed a Covington basketball game in over 47 years. She also feels this is not a job with Press Pros Magazines - It's an opportunity..adventure and a passion for the love of a great game.

Hal McCoy

Hal McCoy is a former beat writer for the Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio), covering the Cincinnati Reds baseball team. He was honored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002 as the winner of the J. G. Taylor Spink Award, which is awarded annually "for meritorious contributions to baseball writing." He has won 52 Ohio and national writing awards and was the first non-Cincinnati newsperson elected to the Cincinnati Journalists Hall of Fame. He also was inducted into the National Sports Media Association Hall of Fame and the Irish-American Baseball Hall of Fame. He has a stone on Dayton's Walk of Fame and the press box at Dayton's Howell Field is named the Hal McCoy Press Box.

McCoy has been the Cincinnati BBWAA Chapter Chair 22 times and was the BBWAA national president in 1997. He is the third writer from the Dayton Daily News to win the J. G. Taylor Spink Award, joining Si Burick (1982) and Ritter Collett (1991). Residing in Englewood, Ohio, McCoy is an honors graduate in journalism from Kent State University.

Greg Hoard

Born in Indiana and educated in Georgia, Greg Hoard came to Cincinnati in the winter of 1979 as a columnist for the Cincinnati Post sports department, and joined the Cincinnati Enquirer in 1984 as the beat writer for the Cincinnati Reds. He has received numerous awards for his work.

In 1990, he left journalism for television. Hoard worked for WLWT-TV from 1990 through 1993 as sports director and spent 12 years as sports director at WXIX-TV.

His written work has appeared in Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News, Baseball America, Baseball Digest and NFL Game Day. He has appeared on ESPN and NBC’s The Today Show.

Greg is the author of three books: Joe, Rounding Home and Heading for Home; Gary Burbank, Voices in My Head; and, most recently, Hannan’s Way, An Unlikely Trek Through Life. He is currently working on a baseball memoir, parts of which he will share here.

Mark Znidar

Mark Znidar comes to Press Pros Magazine after 33 ½ years at The Columbus Dispatch. From 1996 until September 2018, he staffed high school sports, Ohio colleges that included the Mid-American Conference, Ohio State’s upcoming opponents in football and Ohio State baseball. In the previous three seasons he covered the Columbus Clippers triple-A baseball team.

His other beats were Ohio State basketball (1985-88), Clippers (1985-86 and 1989-93), Cincinnati Bengals (1993-95) and NASCAR (1994-2008). He subbed on the Columbus Blue Jackets and Ohio State women’s basketball beats.

In March 2017, Znidar was inducted into the Ohio Prep Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame.

Znidar was born in Cleveland and raised in Richmond Heights. He graduated from Cleveland St. Joseph High School and the University of Dayton. He also worked for The Atlantic City Press, Lake County News-Herald and Baltimore News-American.

Steve Blackledge

A seven-time Ohio Prep Sportswriters Association writer of the year, Blackledge spent the final 34 years of a four-decade career as the chief prep beat writer for the Columbus Dispatch. A Delaware, Ohio native, Blackledge graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1982 with degrees in journalism and communications.

He served as sports editor of the Wilmington News-Journal for three-plus years. He also worked at the Lake County Telegraph and the Delaware Gazette. In addition to the prep beat, Blackledge has covered the Browns, Indians, Reds, Bengals, Columbus Crew and various Ohio State sports.

Greg Billing

Greg Billing began covering high school, college and professional sports in the Miami Valley in 1988 when he was a junior at Miami East High School. The Wright State University graduate has worked at the Troy Daily News (1996-1997), Springfield News-Sun (1997-2001) and the Dayton Daily News (2001-2016).

He was inducted into the Dayton Auto Racing Fan Club's (DARF) Hall of Fame in 2015 for his auto racing coverage and has also earned numerous Associated Press awards for stories, headline writing and special sports sections. Greg lives in West Milton with his wife and two daughters. When not covering events, he and his wife are cheering for the girls as they play a variety of sports for the Milton-Union Bulldogs.

Andy Anders

Andy Anders writes the Ohio State Buckeyes, OHSSA sports, and sports at large for Press Pros, and graduated from the Ohio State University School of Journalism in the spring of 2020.

In addition, he served as associate sports editor for the Ohio State Lantern (the college daily paper) during his four years at Ohio State is currently involved with other writing pursuits besides Press Pros. A graduate of Unioto High School, Andy is a native of Chillicothe, Ohio.

Jeff Gilbert

Jeff Gilbert is a Clark County native who began his journalism career answering the phone on the Springfield New-Suns sports desk as a college senior. After college, he began a nine-year run at the Northern Virginia Daily and earned several state-wide writing awards while covering high schools, a summer wooden-bat college baseball league and small-college sports. His next stop was at The Roanoke (Va.) Times as assistant sports editor and sports editor.

In 2009, he moved back to Ohio to start the journalism program at his alma mater, Cedarville University, where he still teaches. He has worked as a freelance journalist for a variety of outlets, mostly covering high schools and the Dayton Dragons for the News-Sun and Dayton Daily News, and has won several Ohio Prep Sportstwriters Association awards. In 2022, he won the freelancer best in show award given by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Best of Ohio contest. He covers Ohio State football and high schools for Press Pros