Meet Maggie Hendricks

Maggie is a versatile and passionate reporter on all sports – and especially women’s athletics and athletes. She is back with Yahoo Sports after working for the Olympics website and Bally Sports. Over her 16-year career she also has hosted a weekly radio show on 670 the Score in Chicago and worked for the Athletic and USA Today. Her work has been noted by Best American Sportswriting, APSE, and the Gracie Awards. In her spare time, Maggie is a quilter, baker, sewist and embroidery/cross stitcher. She lives in Chicago with her husband Pete and awesome dog Sully. 

What inspires you?

The athletes I cover. I’m lucky enough to cover women’s sports, and the athletes I write about are unafraid of what people think of them in a way I quite frankly envy. Though they play different sports, come from all over the world and are in every different size and shape, they have one common feature. They are unapologetically themselves, and I always find that inspiring. 

What expression or saying do you love? 

“I can do it because I am doing it.” My friend Stephanie Stradley told me that her late sister used this as her mantra to remind herself of what she is capable of. I have this statement embroidered on a hoop in my office. (I paid for someone to make it before I knew how to embroider. Maybe it was foreshadowing!) Whenever I’m struggling with getting something done and questioning myself, I repeat, “I can do it because I am doing it.” It’s helped me finish everything from a tough story to a quilt to the Ride for AIDS. 

If we came over for dinner, what would you prepare for us?

Manicotti! My grandmother was from the South, but she married into an Italian family and quickly learned how to cook Italian food from her father-in-law. She loved to cook for our family, and she passed that on to me. I would make my grandmother’s spaghetti gravy – yes, I call it gravy, that’s just how we do it in my hometown of Melrose Park – and manicotti stuffed with different cheeses and if you so desire, sausage or ground beef. 

Who is your favorite character? (tv, literary, whatever)

Kira Nerys of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Her arc over the course of the show was filled with growth, reckoning with her past and learning from it so she could move on to a better future. She was tough but always motivated with love. There aren’t many characters for women written as well as Nerys. 

What is the greatest purchase you have ever made?

I have two. One is my sewing machine, because it changed my life. Learning to make clothes that fit me helped me learn to love myself, and learning to make quilts brought me to my quilt guild, giving me incredible friendships and the belief that I am, in fact, capable of creating art. The other is my magnifying glass with a light in it. I’m 45, and well, aging happens. I was struggling to see a cross-stitch pattern, and I spent a day sulking over it. Then I realized I could actually do something about it, and I ordered the magnifying glass. I don’t have to stop doing the things I love because I’m getting older if I’m brave enough to ask for help.

Want to know more? Connect with Maggie on Instagram and BlueSky