Former ESPN star Adrian Wojnarowski revealed in an interview he was diagnosed with prostate cancer before he decided to leave the company and take a job at St. Bonaventure.
Wojnarowski opened up about the cancer in an interview with Sports Illustrated. He said he went to the doctor in February and blood tests revealed an elevated prostate-specific antigen (PSA). He had a second blood test after an MRI showed nothing. A biopsy later revealed the early-stage cancer.
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Adrian Wojnarowski talks to the media before the 2023 NBA Draft on June 22, 2023 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. (Michael J. LeBrecht II/NBAE via Getty Images)
“When you hear cancer, you think about it going through your body like Pac-Man,” Wojnarowski said. “Prostate cancer, it generally stays confined to your prostate and is typically slow growing.”
He added that the cancer is “pretty limited in scope” and that he’s going through checkups every three months. He said doctors have told him to change his eating habits and surgery is an option but only if he can’t handle the battle mentally, according to Sports Illustrated.
Wojnarowski left the network in September to serve as St. Bonaventure basketball’s first-ever general manager. He said the cancer didn’t make him retire from ESPN but added that it brought some levity to the chaotic days he was spending as the premier NBA insider.
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Adrian Wojnarowski in 2017. (IMAGN)
“I didn’t want to spend one more day of my life waiting on someone’s MRI or hitting an agent at 1 a.m. about an ankle sprain,” he said.
Wojnarowski added that when he went to Chris Mortensen’s memorial, after the late ESPN NFL insider died of throat cancer, he received a sobering reminder.
“It made me remember that the job isn’t everything. In the end it’s just going to be your family and close friends. And it’s also, like, nobody gives a s—. Nobody remembers [breaking stories] in the end. It’s just vapor.”
Wojnarowski graduated from St. Bonaventure with a journalism degree in 1991 and received an honorary doctorate from the school in 2022. The 55-year-old has worked at ESPN since 2017, and his decision to retire came even while he was still under a contract he signed with the Disney-owned media company in 2022.
ESPN Analyst, Adrian Wojnarowski, reports during the 2022 NBA Draft Combine on May 18, 2022 at Wintrust Arena in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Jeff Haynes/NBAE via Getty Images)
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Wojnarowski was voted the National Sports Media Association’s National Sportswriter of the year over a three-year span from 2017 to 2019.
Fox News’ Chantz Martin contributed to this report.
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