The same types of rumors that plagued Adrian Wojnarowski during his tenure at Yahoo Sports and ESPN have followed him to his job running the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball program.
Wojnarowski retired from his perch as the top NBA insider two years ago to return to his alma mater as general manager of the men’s hoops team. In the role, Wojnarowski has his hands in recruiting, fundraising, and everything else the Atlantic 10 program needs to succeed.
But the Bonnies have not been successful. They are hovering around a .500 record, a backslide from last season. Earlier this week, news broke that longtime head coach Mark Schmidt was retiring at the end of the season. While Wojnarowski issued a statement praising Schmidt’s tenure at the school, one local columnist says the reporting on his role in the move was understated.
A new column from Eric Firkel, the publisher of the local Olean Star newspaper, alleges that Wojnarowski did Schmidt dirty. Not only does Firkel write that Wojnarowski disguised Schmidt’s firing as a retirement, but accuses him of planting a false narrative with ESPN.
On Saturday morning, about an hour before ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported that Schmidt was expected to “retire” at the conclusion of the season, Firkel reported at the Olean Star that Schmidt had, in fact, been fired.
“Schmidt, who has one-year left on his contract was informed this week by St. Bonaventure men’s basketball General Manager Adrian ‘Woj’ Wojnarowski and Athletic Director Robert Beretta that he will be relieved of his duties at the end of this season.”
Many other outlets ran with Thamel’s report, and by the afternoon, St. Bonaventure had published a press release announcing Schmidt’s retirement, which included a quote from Schmidt himself.
Firkel’s story included further detail about the fractures between Schmidt and Wojnarowski.
Multiple St. Bonaventure sources, on background, reported that the relationship between Schmidt and Wojnarowski deteriorated considerably over the past year. According to sources, Woj did not recruit certain players that Schmidt wanted to target and he brought in players that did not fit Schmidt’s system. Then as the season wore on, Woj took issue with Schmidt not giving players that he had a big hand in recruiting enough minutes.
In a follow-up column published Wednesday, Firkel repeated these details, also writing that, “(Woj’s) fingerprints were all over the leak of Mark’s firing to ESPN.”
“Worse, Woj has a low opinion of us in Olean. He (and (AD Robert) Beretta and (university President Jeff) Gingerich) think we are all stupid if they thought we’d fall for their planned ‘media roll out’ of Mark’s planned retirement,” Firkel added. “Then Woj spent Saturday’s game hiding in his office at the Reilly Center with security posted at the door.”
Since his transition from Yahoo to ESPN, colleagues have accused Wojnarowski of ruling the Worldwide Leader’s basketball coverage with an iron fist. Some accused him of dictating layoffs upon his arrival (an allegation he has refuted), while others have criticized the way his perspective (and ties to the mega-agency CAA) shaped the tone of ESPN’s NBA reporting across its entire staff.
There’s no concrete evidence of Wojnarowski’s behavior at ESPN, and it is one report against another on the Schmidt story. But the pattern of Wojnarowski’s former colleagues feeling scorned is hard to ignore.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.