WOJBOMB: WoJ leaving to become GM of St. Bonaventure. What do GMs do again?

Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.

This isn’t a sentence I’m used to typing in this newsletter…but the most interesting news in college sports this week centers around St. Bonaventure.

Adrian Wojnarowski, better known as 'Woj’ to anybody with a Twitter account and even casual NBA fandom, announced on Wednesday that he’s decided to hang up his reporter shoes. That news wasn’t entirely shocking, as Woj’s dedication to breaking virtually every NBA related news item, from the massive to the mundane, was without peer.

If you want to master the insider scoops game, you eventually have the kind of person who is worried about showering for a few minutes without looking at their phone, lest they miss a text message about T.J McConnell signing a contract extension. Nobody mastered that game like Woj, which had to come at a great cost.

What is surprising is what Woj is doing next. It isn’t moving to cushier TV gigs. It isn’t parking his butt on the beach with a tropical beverage for the next 10 months.

He’s going back to his alma mater, St. Bonaventure, to serve as the new General Manager for the men’s basketball program.

What does that mean? Great question. But first, a word from a sponsor:

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I think it’s worth taking a step back here for a second. What does a general manager actually, like, do?

US pro sports all have GMs, even if their organizational charts might look a little different. Generally, the GM is the point person for handling scouting, roster retention, player acquisition, drafting, and contracts. This individual could sometimes be the person who decides to hire or fire a head coach. Depending on the team, the GM could also be responsible for the advanced stats folks and various business operations. It’s a big job.

But in college? It’s not exactly a one to one comparison. There’s no CBA that would provide structure and transparency for player payments or movement, so one can’t exactly be a college sports cap-ologist the same way one could in the NBA. Professional teams don’t need to fundraise, but college programs certainly do. Athlete educational development, alumni relations, and public relations also aren’t generally the most important things a professional GM does…but they could fall under a college GM purview. And, it goes without saying, that in college, this person would unquestionably serve under the head coach, not the other way around.

I have little doubt that Wojnarowski will ultimately be successful in whatever role the GM gig ends up becoming at St. Bonaventure. He’s maybe the most famous living St. Bonaventure grad period, and certainly the most famous anywhere in the sports world. There won’t be a GM in college athletics who will be better connected to agents, coaches, executives and leaders in professional basketball than Woj, and his long and distinguished career in media won him plenty of friends among the pencil pusher set as well.

But if a school’s strategy is just “hire the most famous, internationally respected authority on the sport we can that’s connected to our university”, well….a lot of schools aren’t going to love their applicant pool. Dudes like Woj just don’t grow on trees.

So who do you hire?

It’s interesting…many schools have hired in-house personnel to focus on NIL education, dealmaking and strategy, but there isn’t exactly a default career path to get to that point. Some schools have hired folks with a background in multimedia rights sales, others from the athletic apparel world, some from compliance, media, and more…and I think we’re early enough in the process that there’s no consensus best practice.

Is your “head of NIL” the type of gig that a very smart and ambitious 26-year-old could do? Do you need a mid-40s executive type? The best influencer marketing specialist you can find? The jury is still out…and maybe the answer is different depending on budget and school type.

My hunch is that will also be different, depending on the head coach, school budget, and school profile…and what the NIL regulatory world looks like in a few years. Some GM types probably don’t need to be expert Ball Knowers so long as they’re great fundraisers and networkers. Some could potentially be former professional scouts or coaches who can excel as a second set of eyes around player scouting and development. Honestly, I think this is also a role that somebody who excelled in political fundraising or campaign management could probably excel in too.

Shoot, a few NIL collectives have hired former beat writers…maybe a GM role could be a landing spot for other journalists looking to flee the industry, leveraging their connections with fans and donors. Not everybody is Woj, but maybe the Woj of Ft. Wayne could become an asset for the Mastodons.

Would I ever want to do something like this? Uh…..maybe?

I know I’m not the first reporter to ever think about this. After all, if you spend 60+ hours a week writing about certain problems…isn’t it only natural for a part of your brain to wonder…wouldn’t it be nice to try to actually solve some of them?

Now, I’ve been running Extra Points long enough to know that I would not want to be an athletic director…and that I probably wouldn’t be a very good one anyway.

But there have been moments when I’ve wondered if any of the other gigs in an actual athletic department or conference office wouldn’t be interesting…something in sponsorships, NIL, education…or perhaps in building better connections between the athletic department and the rest of campus?

I can’t say I’ve ever really thought about going back to work for my actual alma mater. I only spent two years at Ohio State’s main campus, and it’s not like the athletic department that brings in roughly one gazillion dollars a year is some scrappy underdog begging for the insights of a weirdo outsider. Ohio State is going to be fine.

But the school where I started my college education, little ol’ American University? Or the closest thing to a hometown school now, UIC? Perhaps some other mid-major here in the Great Lakes region?

I’m not looking to quit Extra Points or anything, but sure, who among us that writes for a living hasn’t thought about this at least a little bit?

Or, failing that, who hasn’t fantasized about adopting some smaller college if they won the lottery? If I know my readers, I think a lot of y’all are the sort of people who, if they suddenly came into wealth, would eventually think “okay, NOW is the time to lead Weber State to greatness. NOW I can afford to drop bags in the Big Sky.”

Kudos to Woj for getting to do something almost none of us working in sports media ever get to do…picking his next gig completely on his own terms. He’s won no matter what happens next.

But I’ll be interested in not just what his gig ends up looking like for the Bonnies, but how that role evolves in the near future. We’ve seen reporters leave for jobs in recruiting. We’ve even seen one leave to become an assistant basketball coach. Is press pox to player personnel a potential pathway for others?

If some of his media colleagues end up following him into college sports….I wouldn’t be surprised if Woj finds a way to break the story anyway.