John Oudens is deputy desk head in the Sports Department at The New York Times, where he has worked since 2003. At the Times, he has also been a staff editor on the Metro Desk and the slot for the much-missed Sunday section known as The City. Before coming to the Times, Oudens was a copy editor, senior copy editor, and the national-foreign editor at the Charlotte Observer in Charlotte, North Carolina; a copy editor in news and sports at the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times); a copy editor at the Patriot-Ledger in Quincy, Massachusetts; and assistant sports editor at the Concord Monitor in Concord, New Hampshire. Oudens graduated from the University of Miami.