Lonnel Cole is a native of St. Louis and was a media studies major at Webster University. He has been covering high school sports in the area since the late1980's for a variety of weekly publications. He has covered the Public High League during its apex in the late 1980's, when as many as four basketball programs (Vashon, Beaumont, Soldan and McKinley) were contending for the large or small-school state titles a number of years, through the early part of the 2000 decade ,when Vashon alone carried the PHL banner by winning three straight Missouri Class 4 boys titles. He also covered Sumner's football program when the Bulldogs won consecutive state titles in 1990 and 1991. His favorite professional sports teams are the Los Angeles Lakers and Oakland Raiders. His favorite TV shows include Seinfeld, King Of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond and Everybody Hates Chris.and ESPN's First Take.