Earl Austin Jr., the “Awesome One”, celebrates 30 years as Sports Editor of The St. Louis American

In the sports world, he’s known throughout the state of Missouri simply as the awesome one. You see him around so many high school games every single weekend. He’s the one with an encyclopedic memory of all that is St. Louis sports. He’s Earl Austin Jr, and he’s the long time, nearly 30 year sports editor of the venerable Saint Louis American, one of the top weekly newspapers in the nation.

He’s an award winning sportswriter and a fixture on local radio and television shows in Saint Louis. He’s also had stints at the suburban journals and the Post-Dispatch. Austin has been covering girls and boys high school sports in the Saint Louis metropolitan area for nearly 30 years, including covering, amazingly, more than 500 state championships in Missouri and Illinois. While Austin is an expert in high school basketball, football and track, he’s covered numerous other disciplines, including swimming, tennis, wrestling, volleyball and so much more.

He’s covered numerous high school athletes that went on to excel at the professional level, including Justin Tatum, Ezekiel Elliott, Bradley Beal, Larry Hughes, Napheesa Collier, David Lee, Darius Miles and many more, including more than a dozen Olympic medalists.

Austin recently began his 33rd season as a radio color analyst for the Saint Louis University men’s basketball program. And he was also recently inducted into SLU’s Hall of Fame.

Austin has basketball in his blood and glows when you mention he’s the nephew of NBA Hall of Famer Wes Unseld, who was named to the NBA’s list of the greatest 75 players of all time. As an athlete, Austin was a four-year starter for Linwood University’s men’s basketball team from 1982 to 1986. Three times he was named the men’s basketball MVP. He was named the school’s Male Athlete of the Year in 1985 and won the Lindenwood Athletics Director Award in the 1985-86 season.

Nearly 40 years later, Austin is still the school’s career leader with 1972 points and 840 rebounds. He was inducted into the Lindenwood Athletic Hall of Fame in 2007 and had his jersey retired in 2014. Recently in 2022, Austin also became the color analyst for Lindenwood University Basketball on ESPN+.

Among his many other accolades, Austin has been inducted into the McCluer North Hall of Fame, where he played basketball in high school, and the Missouri Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. He was named a Living Legend by the Greater Saint Louis Association of Black Journalists, and recently he was inducted into the prestigious Saint Louis Sports Hall of Fame.