The inside story of Adrian Wojnarowski's new career

BY RACHEL LENZI / The Buffalo News

Nov. 1, 2024

Adrian Wojnarowski walked into an empty room inside the Reilly Center and examined his surroundings. The memories of his college days at St. Bonaventure came flooding back.

Shirking off editing responsibilities to take a few shots on at the basketball court. Examining a phone bill for more than $1,000, which included dozens of calls to Sports Phone, a popular New York City sports information hotline. (That was the doing of one of Wojnarowski’s good friends, Mike Vaccaro, now a sports columnist for the New York Post.) Meeting his wife, Amy, when he was a journalism student.

It all happened here.

This was where Wojnarowski – now better known as “Woj” across basketball, across sports journalism and across the world – started the new chapter of his life in September.

“This isn’t a random, empty space,” Wojnarowski said to Rhonda Monahan, an athletic department assistant who showed him the workroom on the lower floor of the Reilly Center.

This, he explained, was the one-time office of the Bona Venture, the university’s student newspaper – a major part of Wojnarowski’s formative years. Now it’s another piece in Wojnarowski’s career metamorphosis, from ESPN’s $7-million-per-year basketball insider to behind-the-scenes general manager of the Bonnies men’s basketball program.

This change didn’t come overnight. Rather, it was a seed Wojnarowski planted in the spring and grew until September, when it became official: He was leaving his spot as ESPN’s most prominent NBA reporter and news-breaker to help his alma mater forge new ground in the ever-changing landscape of college basketball.

The move shocked almost everyone who knew his name – he’s doing what?! – aside from a handful of confidants and people at Bona.

It was fitting that he would start the first days of his new career in a familiar space.

That room was at the intersection of what led Wojnarowski into journalism and back to Bona and into college sports, where players have much more personal power than they did when Wojnarowski was in college in the late 1980s and early ’90s.

Bob Beretta, Bona’s athletic director, said the role of general manager had been in the works since at least the spring semester, and that Wojnarowski’s interest in the opening grew as the spring and summer progressed.

He joins a program led by longtime coach Mark Schmidt, who’s been in charge since 2007 but has seen plenty of change and challenges. The Bonnies are 57-41 since their latest Atlantic 10 championship in 2021, and they are picked to finished 10th in the 15-team conference this season.

“I am not trying to build a general manager career in college sports,” said Wojnarowski, a 1991 Bona graduate. “I want to contribute at St. Bonaventure. It’s a turbulent, unique time in the business, and I want to help Bonaventure navigate through this. We don’t want to just compete in the Atlantic 10. We don’t want to just be in the Atlantic 10. We want to continue to be elite in the Atlantic 10. We want to continue to compete for championships and postseason bids.

“Being able to tell the story of coach’s program and how he’s built this, and player development, and off-the-court stuff, and team success and a chance to play big-time basketball in a smaller campus environment … but to help with the NIL, to help put something sustainable in place. That’s the goal: to have something that’s going to last beyond all of us here; that we have a structure in place.”

But ... why?

We'll get to that.

What does Woj do as a GM?

St. Bonaventure’s task is to make the men’s basketball program sustainable within an ecosystem that continues to change. That change is a result of new rulings that have allowed athletes to start earning money off their name, image and likeness (NIL), and for third-party collectives to amass more money to facilitate deals.

Sustainability comes when a program can competitively recruit and retain players, and when it can build an alliance among vested parties, acquiring partnerships for cash, human capital and services that benefit a program.

Case in point: the Bonnies men’s basketball program. In each of the past three offseasons, it lost at least five players from its roster – including those who have left for lucrative NIL opportunities with larger, richer schools.

Roster turnover is common these days from coast to coast – a byproduct of the transfer portal, which allows players to join other programs without penalty, and continually grow opportunities to profit from NIL.

College sports was already big business. Now it’s turning into a nearly unregulated big business.

Some basketball programs already have deep NIL infrastructure in place. The Washington Post reported in October that eight schools, including Colorado, UCLA, Kansas and Purdue, have athletes who have received about 22,000 NIL payments worth $35 million total, including a $1.2 million transaction to an unnamed athlete at Kansas.

The powerhouses are trying to keep up. Mid-majors must strive to offer what they can to keep their players and to entice other transfers.

Schmidt, the Bonnies’ coach, has a stock answer to describe what it takes to remain competitive in college basketball: “Adapt or die.”

As part of keeping up, Bona is making a major play to leverage Wojnarowski’s reputation, but also to utilize myriad connections he has in basketball.

In his first month on campus, he continued to craft his job description – the general manager’s role can vary at each program – and do some heavy lifting.

As general manager of the Bonnies, Wojnarowski oversees acquisitions for NIL funding. He utilizes his network of agents, basketball contacts and St. Bonaventure alumni to help current Bonnies navigate their futures, or to offer recruits and their families some perspective on how St. Bonaventure could benefit them.

Part of his job is to reconnect Bonnies basketball players from the past to the current program.

Another part is telling stories – about the coaches, the players and the program, especially to sway donors to invest. A massive part of Wojnarowski’s career as a journalist was his ability to tell someone’s story. In that respect, this job is similar.

“We’re narrating a story about our program and our university,” Wojnarowski said. “I find myself very focused on that. ... You’re getting a sense that it matches up with what interests them. That part of the storytelling is what you’re doing, every day. You want to have a purpose to every conversation you have, where you’re informing them.”

What do college basketball GMs do?

In pro sports, general managers have been part of the infrastructure from the beginning. It’s a high-level, front-facing role responsible for team operations, contract negotiations, roster management and hiring and firing staff.

In college, general managers for football and basketball teams are new.

The NCAA has no official data on how many college basketball programs have general managers, but programs big and small are adding them, including Bona, Duke, George Washington, Butler, Howard, Arizona, Michigan and Arkansas.

Being the general manager of a college basketball program is not a one-size-fits-all job, though, and it is often entry-level or mid-level. St. Bonaventure is a private institution and is not required to disclose Wojnarowski’s salary, but one would be apt to conclude it’s not on par with the nearly $7 million per year he was making at ESPN, according to a report by The Athletic.

“Positions are being created for what that particular university and athletic department needs,” said Baker Dunleavy, general manager for Villanova men’s and women’s basketball. “They’re more a kind of hybrid (of) business and sports roles, that are meant to allow the coaching staffs in revenue-generating sports to focus on coaching and recruiting, and not so much in the business of college basketball.”

Dunleavy continually monitors NCAA rules in regard to NIL. He evaluates how Villanova’s players have access to NIL opportunities through Villanova’s collective, and monitors how a future revenue-sharing model could impact Villanova and all NCAA members – the result of House v. NCAA, which includes a landmark $2.78 billion settlement. Basically, it’s to make sure the men’s and women’s basketball staffs have the infrastructure to recruit and capitalize on NIL opportunities.

“When you’re an assistant coach, you’re a specialist,” said Dunleavy, who joined Villanova in April 2023 after six seasons as Quinnipiac men’s basketball coach. “As a head coach, you’re more of a CEO and have to make broad-based decisions for the good of the program. I enjoyed that part of the job. What’s drawn me to this role is to be able to mix those skills that I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of, in coaching, and with my degree from Villanova (in finance and business).

“The newness, the trial and error, trying things, throwing things at the wall a little bit – it’s intimidating,” he said. “It’s a little bit of a new frontier. But that’s the most fun part of it.”

As men’s basketball general manager at Syracuse, Alex Kline has a hand in multiple aspects. Roster construction. NIL and collective work. Being fair when orchestrating deals for players.

It’s much different from the NBA, where Kline spent four years as a scout with the New York Knicks, helping the organization prepare for the NBA draft, the trade deadline and free agency. He’s in a new position at Syracuse, working under second-year coach Adrian Autry.

“You prepare for any and every scenario, similar to the NBA and free agency,” Kline said. “The fun of it is trying to turn it into its own Fortune 500 company, because head coaches are now CEOs. We are now running essentially Fortune 500 companies or trying to build our program to be Fortune 500 companies where you have to be the best of the best.

“It’s kind of pushing us every day, in different categories. How do we improve our social media presence? How do we improve our marketing? How do we improve our in-game experience? How do we improve just about every facet of what we do? We have to be intentional, in every facet of everything we do.”

At the College of Charleston in South Carolina, Christen Cunningham explains that as the men’s basketball general manager, “I’m dealing with all fronts here.”

What falls under Cunningham’s proverbial umbrella: Recruiting. Dealing with a recruit or his representation, such as a parent or an agent, who wants to know how NIL works and how they benefit from it. Cunningham works with Charleston’s NIL collective, identifying ways to maximize player availability.

He also works with donors, because donors want to know how their investment is being utilized.

Cunningham, who played at Samford and Louisville, is also a full-time assistant coach on Chris Mack’s staff at Charleston.

“This isn’t a job where you count the hours,” Cunningham said. “You’re not on a set schedule. During the season, it’s basketball-heavy, with a lot of meetings, game-planning and scouting. April and May, it’s strictly about the portal and fundraising, to recruit the next class. But that’s also a never-ending job, the fundraising. That never stops.”

Some advice for Woj

Wojnarowski certainly didn’t make an overnight leap from from sports journalism to college basketball administration.

Still, this was a seismic shift. He took the summer to think it over, long and hard.

During that time, he corresponded with several college GMs – including Kline, who had come aboard at Syracuse in late June. Wojnarowski never let on to Kline that he was preparing for the possibility of a career change, but he asked particular questions.

What do you do in your role?

What’s your take on this scenario?

What are your big challenges?

In retrospect, Kline said, Wojnarowski dropped a big hint. A low-key Woj-bomb, if you will.

“He had told me at one point that this would be a dream job, and I just figured he was talking out loud,” Kline said.

In fact, it’s something that college basketball general managers do among themselves – network. They have to help each other navigate a new territory.

What advice do other GMs give?

Kline: Know what your strengths and weaknesses are. Surround yourself with smart people, starting with the people in the athletic department.

“You really have to be open-minded and have a lot of emotional intelligence when talking to people in the field, and when you have to say, ‘Hey, I need your help,’ ” Kline said.

Cunningham: Recruit, recruit, recruit, whether it’s players, potential donors, community members and people and parties who can form a vested interest in the program.

Dunleavy: “Woj doesn’t need my advice,” he said, tongue firmly in cheek.

What he offered, though, was for Wojnarowski to build upon his passion and connection to St. Bonaventure, as well as to exercise the relationships he has both in the campus community and in basketball. And communicate.

“Keep everyone on the same page and understand why that’s necessary,” Dunleavy said. “That’s a big part we can’t underestimate. You can’t assume people know what’s happening in the landscape. You have to make sure you’re giving information, with an emphasis on the ‘why,’ really clearly, to your people.”

The new chapter begins

The question remains: Why? Why give up a plum, lucrative job to be a midlevel assistant at a mid-major program with an unclear future, in a college landscape loaded with uncertainty?

The answer became clearer Sept. 28.

That night, one of the most seismic moves of the NBA offseason transpired. The Minnesota Timberwolves traded Karl-Anthony Towns to the New York Knicks, part of a three-team deal that also included the Charlotte Hornets.

Had it been a year earlier, Wojnarowski, ESPN’s NBA insider, would have been the first to break the news. Instead, that Friday night, Wojnarowski had dinner with his wife, Amy, near St. Bonaventure’s campus and prepared for one of his first weekends as Bona’s general manager.

“It didn’t have anything to do with me,” he said of the blockbuster trade, with a wry smile.

“I’ve spent a lot of Friday nights at 11 o’clock on that. I was spending Friday night where I am now.”

His office has already been relocated twice inside the building that houses the Bonnies’ home court, the campus post office, the ticket office, the athletic administration offices and the campus bookstore.

The Reilly Center is in the middle of remodeling, and spectators who attend the regular-season opener Monday against Cal State Northridge will notice the new brown-and-white Bonnies logos and crests that festoon the building and Bob Lanier Court.

There are still vestiges of Wojnarowski’s previous life in his new career. He shares podcasts he’s been on with St. Bonaventure players, with advice: “Listen to this, because there’s a few things we discuss that might be helpful to you.”

His phone still buzzes on a semi-regular basis. On a Wednesday afternoon in October, he got messages from as far as New Zealand, as well as a calendar reminder to meet with the Bonnies for a service project at the Warming House, St. Bonaventure’s student-run soup kitchen in Olean.

But in the transition from up-to-the-minute news-breaker to college basketball general manager, Wojnarowski has found another upside.

It’s the beginning of November and his phone doesn’t ring incessantly. He’s not preparing for a television hit or filing a story – or posting on X about some player injury in Portland. Instead of breaking down a major NBA story, he’s ready to help St. Bonaventure construct a path toward a different future in college sports.

“The one thing I would say about it is that I can be much more present with where I am now,” Wojnarowski said. “There’s no call I have to take, in most circumstances. There’s nobody I can’t call back in an hour or two, and I’m not losing anything. Before, you (had) to be in the moment.

“Now, I can sit and talk and spend time with people and I don’t have to be interrupted. I think I’m a better, easier person to be around.”