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Alumni Spotlight: John Hollis ’85
Woodberry journalism students met December 1 with an alumnus who has reached the top of his profession: John Hollis ’85.
John, who works as the university spokesman for George Mason University and is writing a book about his experience being one of only a handful of people around the world who are immune to COVID-19, spent more than twenty years as a journalist. As a sports reporter at the Gainesville Sun and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he covered outstanding football and basketball teams at the University of Florida and Georgia Tech University.
"Sports opened up doors for me beyond my wildest dreams," John said.
Though his career has taken him to forty-six states, thirteen countries, and the biggest events on the sporting calendar, John said some of his favorite moments came away from those packed stadiums. One example he gave was flying out to the University of Arkansas to interview hall of fame basketball coach Nolan Richardson. What was supposed to be a short interview became a two-hour conversation, followed by an invitation from Richardson for Hollis to sit beside him and watch one of the nation’s best coaches run a practice.
After graduating from Woodberry, John attended the University of Virginia before working as a reporter in Fredericksburg and Woodbridge, Virginia. While at the Potomac News in Woodbridge he covered the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, filing stories from Centennial Park after the bombing there and going on several months later to a role at CNN. He was a late applicant to the opening in Gainesville, but Woodberry provided a crucial boost.
“I had already interviewed with the sports editor and assistant sports editor, and next up was the publisher himself, who, like most Kentucky natives I know, professed himself to be a basketball savant of sorts,” John said.
Despite those Kentucky roots, the publisher had previously worked at the Culpeper Star-Exponent. He liked John’s UVa background and asked where the young reporter had attended high school.
“I said I had gone to Woodberry Forest. He just about jumped out of his seat, telling me what a great school it was and how he had frequently visited the beautiful Woodberry campus to play golf with then-Headmaster Emmett Wright,” John recalls. “The Gainesville Sun basically hired me on the spot, setting the stage for my becoming a nationally known college basketball writer and for future jobs. ... None of those later gigs nor any of the book opportunities I've had would have happened without that critical stepping stone job I landed at the Gainesville Sun.”
Covering top-level college sports came with tradeoffs, John noted.
"I went ten years without being in the same state as my family for the holidays," he said. "Yet they knew I was doing what I loved to do."
John moved to more general assignments once he had his own family to strike a life balance.
After describing highlights from his reporting career, John held a lengthy Q&A session with members of the journalism and advanced journalism classes, as well as students who are working with The Oracle and WFSPN. Students asked about how he handled the responsibilities of a beat, built relationships with coaches and players, and how he’d adapted from daily journalism to life in recent years as a book author.
John said that whether he’s working on a book or turning in a newspaper story on deadline, some of the same skills are crucial.
"People want to know that you can listen," he said. "This will distinguish you from others as a journalist."
Woodberry Forest School is an exceptional private school community for high school boys in grades nine through twelve. It is one of the top boarding schools in the United States and one of the only all-boys, all-boarding schools in the country.
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