Who is Frank Isola? Wiki Bio
Frank Isola was born in Maryland, USA, on 29 August 1966 – his zodiac sign is Virgo and he holds American nationality. He is a journalist and a sportswriter, best known for working for the New York Daily News, and for covering the National Basketball Association (NBA) for them from 1996 to 2018.
Early life and education
Frank was raised an only child in a middle-class family – his father was a journalist while his mother was a housewife.
He became interested in his father’s work at a very early age, and was also very keen on playing sports such as football and soccer. He attended a local high school in Maryland, where he began reporting on the high school’s football team for fun. After matriculation, he enrolled at the University of Maryland, College Park where he played soccer for the university’s team. Upon graduation, he began working as a journalist, while playing sports only occasionally with his friends and colleagues from work.
Career as a sportswriter
Frank started working for the New York Daily News in 1996 at the age of 30, and began by covering the New York Knicks basketball club competing in the NBA league; he subsequently worked the same job for 22 years before being fired in 2018. During this time he became the most hated man at Madison Square Garden, because the Knicks didn’t allow anyone to interview players or coaches one-on-one, and Frank had problems with this as he wanted to cover his favorite team in detail. As Frank explained it ‘The assistant coaches, they’re sometimes afraid to even look at you, it’s the most bizarre working atmosphere’.
He stated how people at Madison Square Garden thought that you were either with them or against them ,and as Frank covered many of their loses and accused the team of not paying enough attention to their injured players, he started being hated by the entire team and their fans.
After he was let go in 2018, he began appearing on Brooklyn Nets basketball game broadcasts airing on the YES Network, while he can also be seen in the ESPN show entitled “Around the Horn”.
Frank “has also made guest appearances in ”SportsNet New York” and “Pardon the Interruption”, while he is currently working as a host of the show “The Starting Lineup”, which is airing on the SiriusXM NBA Radio. It was announced on 1 October 2018 that Frank would start working as a senior writer for The Athletic subscription-based sports journalism website.
Frank has won several awards during his career, such an APSE sports writing award in 1998, two New York Emmy Awards in 2009 and 2010, and was in 2015 voted the New York Sportswriter of the Year.
Love life and wife
Frank met his Russian wife Tonja while attending college, but the two only started dating after nearly a year of being friends. They married in 1989, and Tonja gave birth to their first child, a son named Liam in 2000, who is currently attending Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
A year later, she gave birth to their daughter named Gabrielle, who is currently attending Villanova University, a private Catholic research university in Radnor Township, Pennsylvania. Gabrielle is into soccer, and is currently playing for the Villanova Wildcats.
There have been no rumors nor controversies surrounding Frank’s married life. It’s said that his daughter Gabrielle is currently in a relationship with a boy whom she met at college, and that the two have already become engaged – rumor has it that Frank disagreed with getting engaged that early in life, but is trying to accept it as he wants to stay in good relations with his daughter.
His son Liam has been in a relationship with his girlfriend for over a year now.
Hobbies and other interests
Frank is a huge fan of sports, and likes watching basketball, football and soccer the most, while he no longer plays any. He enjoys watching movies with his wife in their spare time, and some of his favorite actors and actresses are Robert De Niro, Matt Damon, and Angelina Jolie, while some of the movies he enjoys watching the most are “The Deer Hunter”, “Catch Me If You Can”, and “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider”.
Frank travelled all around the US to attend the Nicks’ games, while he has also been to several European countries with his wife, such as Switzerland, Spain and Portugal. He enjoys tasting various cuisines – his favorite is Italian. Frank is a big lover of animals with his favorites being dogs, but his wife’s favorite are cats, leading to them adopting a young dog and cat, which then grew up together.
Appearance and net worth
Frank is 53 years old. He has short brown hair and brown eyes, is 5ft 5ins (1.65m) tall, and weighs around 136lbs (62kgs). As of early 2020, his net worth is estimated at over $3 million.