J.A. Adande has been one of ESPN’s top reporters since he joined the company full-time in 2007, leaving the Los Angeles Times for the Worldwide Leader. Adande has long been a regular on Around The Horn and expanded his role over the years to include sideline reporting on NBA broadcasts along with his work on written and televised features.
After a decade with ESPN, Adande is leaving. He’s among the hundreds that have recently left ESPN, but he’s one of the few to do so on his own terms. Adande will focus on his role as a professor and Director of Sports Journalism at Northwestern University, which he took over last year.
The move is an admirable one from Adande, who is choosing to focus on helping his students rather than trying to manage a balance of two full-time jobs. Adande took to Twitter on Thursday morning to thank a great number of people at ESPN for their help over his time with the company.
A few words… pic.twitter.com/ARvcH9IrkM
— J.A. Adande (@jadande) August 10, 2017
As Adande told Ryan Glasspiegel of The Big Lead, his decision to leave ESPN was a difficult one, but something he felt he needed to do in order to give the proper amount of attention to his job at Northwestern.
“Mainly, I couldn’t do two jobs at once,” Adande said. “Last year, when I started the Northwestern job, I really wasn’t ready to say I used to work for ESPN. I wasn’t quite ready to give that up. But now, I’m at a place where I just want to focus on Northwestern. I really want to wake up in the morning and obsess over one thing.”
It’s a big loss for ESPN, which has already seen a number of very talented and beloved personalities let go due to budget cuts. Adande was a talented writer, but his ability to work across multiple platforms and contribute to written and video content both on the website and television made him an extremely valuable piece. As Glasspiegel notes, there’s still a possibility that Adande could return to Around The Horn in the future as Kevin Blackistone did, but for now, ESPN must find a replacement for the versatile Adande.
