Adam Schefter was surprised the first time he heard his friend Adrian Wojnarowski was considering retiring from his job as ESPN’s NBA reporter. When Wojnarowski announced his decision Wednesday, though, he wasn’t. That’s because Schefter is part of a small circle in sports media that knows what the job of being an insider entails.
“To me, you don’t do these jobs. You live these jobs. And Woj was done living the job.
He wanted to live his life,” said Schefter, who has had an NFL Insider role for 21 years, first at NFL Network and since 2009 at ESPN. Wojnarowski, whose breaking news reports on social media had their own nickname, dropped the mother of all Wojbombs when he announced his departure from ESPN for the newly created position of general manager of the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball program.
During a news conference scheduled Wednesday at the upstate New York campus, he will discuss the decision to return to his alma mater. “He’s been at the top of his craft for so long, we all looked up to him,” said Pierre LeBrun, the NHL insider for Canada’s TSN and senior columnist for The Athletic. “I mean, he was the insider with the capital I in our industry.
And, to be able to park that now and start something completely different is really impressive.” Wojnarowski’s decision to be one of the first significant insiders to leave on their own and try something new is also surprising because some thought it might have happened sooner. “It’s a toug.