Malika Andrews recalls being noticed by Adrian Wojnarowski as college student: ‘That was something special to me’

As the host of ESPN’s NBA Today and NBA Countdown, Malika Andrews now finds herself in a position where she is undoubtedly one of the biggest personalities at the network. But once upon a time, she was just a college student at the University of Portland who was thrilled to have Adrian Wojnarowski read her work.

On Wednesday, Andrews joined Andrew Marchand on his weekly podcast, The Main Event, to discuss how her career in sports media came to be, remembering how an interaction with Wojnarowski, who read a story written by Andrews about Portland hiring former Trail Blazers legend Terry Porter, left a significant impression on her.

“Adrian Wojnarowski came to campus to interview Terry Porter for the Woj pod at the time,” said Andrews. “Woj is such a newspaper purist that when he was walking around campus and saw one of the newspaper stands and a paper on it, he saw Terry’s face, he picked it up and he tucked it under his arm. As he was getting ready for this interview, or after this interview, he read it and he didn’t think it was terrible.

“So when he was in town a couple of weeks later at the Nike Hoops Summit — I saw him at the Nike Hoops Summit, I was there covering it, I think with the AP as a stringer. I walked up to him. So nervous, shaking, because he is one of the great writers really. That’s how I knew Woj, before the tweets, before the breaking news. His way of turning phrases is masterful. So I walked up to him, super nervous to introduce myself sweaty. And he said, ‘Oh, Malika Andrews, did you write that story on Terry Porter?’ You would have thought that you just told me that I won the lottery.

“I was so shocked he had any idea who I was. Let alone that my work was something that he remembered. That it was worth saying to someone. That was something always was special to me. I still have that story somewhere.”

CLIP; Woj discovered Malika Andrews at the University of Portland https://t.co/nAlBgJVRT6 pic.twitter.com/8zEQazql45

— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) April 9, 2025

Wojnarowski would then show Andrews’ work to editors at ESPN, which ultimately planted the seed in the heads of the higher-ups at the network to ultimately hire her just three years after their first meeting.

The two were colleagues at ESPN from 2018, when Andrews was hired, until Wojnarowski’s ultimate retirement from the sports media industry this past September.

Since his decision to depart for the position within the St. Bonaventure Men’s Basketball program, many former colleagues have spoken about the kind of colleague that Wojnarowski was and the kind of impact he left on the sports media industry.

Andrews’ comments here only further proves that for as great as Wojnarowski was at his job, he was perhaps even a greater eye for talent, as Malika Andrews has gone on to do some great things for ESPN in her coverage of the NBA.