John Valenti is a nine-time Pulitzer Prize-nominated and national award-winning journalist who has worked for Newsday since 1981 and appeared on hundreds of radio and TV shows, including NPR and Good Morning America. He headed the 1997 Newsday investigation into New York Islanders owner John Spano, resulting in a federal fraud conviction, earning First Place in the Associated Press Sports Editors national competition for Best Investigative Reporting and inspiring the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 episode Big Shot. Author of the critically acclaimed Swee’pea (Simon & Schuster / Atria Books) about New York City playground basketball star Lloyd (Swee’pea) Daniels, Valenti was part of a two-man team whose investigation of the University of Nevada- Las Vegas led to the resignation of coach Jerry Tarkanian — and a death-penalty ban from the NCAA Tournament. Honored multiple times by The Society of the Silurians, Valenti once posed as a limo driver to get a story, was threatened by a mob associate out of Wise Guy and has interviewed a wide array of subjects, including Michael Jordan, Mike Tyson, Mario Andretti, Wayne Gretzky, Steffi Graf, Pele and the first two men to walk on the Moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. A traveler, he’s been to 45 states and more than 20 countries. A candidate for the NASA Journalist in Space Project and graduate of Oceanside (N.Y.) High School and Hofstra University, he has been writing poetry most of his life.