John was born in Laramie, Wyoming and into a military family. John moved frequently in his early childhood, so many times it was hard to count all the cities. His main interest as a child was basketball, which he excelled at from an early age. His dream was to play in the NBA, but after failing to make his high school team -- which went 33-1 his senior year -- he pondered a future as a drummer with the rock band he had joined in prep school.
The impetus to become a journalist came when John was in junior college and in search of a major. He concentrated on English as a major, but his passion for sports came to the forefront when the school paper put an ad out looking for a sports editor. John got the nod and began writing at a prolific pace.
Guided carefully by veteran writers, he was soon offered a position in the school's public affairs office as the sports information coordinator. His development earned him a spot on the distinguished Cal State University Fullerton Daily Titan newspaper where he eventually became the sports editor. After college and part-time work at the Orange County Register in Santa Ana, Calif., he covered baseball as the No. 2 man at the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.
In 1990, John decided to challenge himself and improve his observation skills by moving to a totally new and unique cultural environment -- a place where the language and culture would force him to rely on his senses. The place he chose was Japan, and the city he moved to was Nagoya.
In 1995, John and a partner decided to create a local biweekly paper, dubbing it the Chubu Weekly. The Chubu Weekly was Nagoya's first English newspaper to report on local happenings and events in Aichi and its surrounding prefectures, known as the Chubu region. The paper gave English-speaking readers there a chance to learn more about local events that the Tokyo-based papers failed to cover. John wrote about everything from mayoral and gubernatorial elections to the 2005 World Expo Japan and local sports, including the Chunichi Dragons.
That experience laid the groundwork for his 2005 move to The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, where he reports on professional baseball, football, and basketball.
John is a self-taught fluent speaker of Japanese whose love and passion for sports form his daily routine, which includes distance running.