Do we like John Schulian?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A long, clean career as a writer and editor with no harmful words or acts found, but not much public record of causes either way.
John Schulian is the sportswriter who walked into Hollywood and came out the other side as a co-creator of Xena: Warrior Princess. Nothing new has surfaced on him lately, so this is a career check rather than a hot-goss one.
He was born in 1945 to a Danish-immigrant father and a Minnesota-born mother, and the family moved so much that he says he did six schools in six years. He gave up a baseball scholarship at the University of Utah to chase journalism, calling it the first truly difficult decision of his life. Then came a Northwestern master's in 1968, an Army stint writing for a post newspaper, and a reporting job in Baltimore.
From there he became a nationally syndicated sports columnist, and he says Sports Illustrated editor Pat Ryan gave him his first assignment there. Later, writer-producer Steven Bochco gave him a shot at television. He moved into TV, joining the Miami Vice staff, and went on to co-create Xena: Warrior Princess.
On the scandal front, there's honestly nothing to report. Searches for court cases, lawsuits and allegations turned up other people with similar names, and none about him. That's the whole list, and we'd rather say so than pad it.
On the harm check, we found no campaigning, conspiracy talk or culture-war grievance in his own words. His later work is editing: Library of America anthologies of sportswriting, football writing included, collecting writers across the decades. Nothing there puts him in bad company, though we found no public statement from him on LGBTQ+ rights or the planet, so this is a pass on absence of harm rather than a record of activism.
What he says about others is generous. He called fellow columnist Jerry Izenberg a writer with a social conscience who broke a lot of new ground, and he has spent years championing other writers' work through those anthologies. He also credits his mentors by name.