Oct. 29, 2003 – LeBron James makes his National Basketball League debut for the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Sacramento Kings. As the No. 1 overall pick of the 2003 NBA Draft and a consensus superstar, James took the court in front of a national audience on the back half of an ESPN Wednesday doubleheader. Even though the Cavaliers lost the game 106-92, James compiled 25 points, nine assists, six rebounds in four steals while playing all but six minutes of the game, a load quite uncommon for most rookies today. Brian Windhorst was there, and he had to file a story mere moments after the final buzzer.
“They started the season on the West Coast,” Windhorst said of the Cavaliers. “That doesn’t happen anymore; they don’t have teams start the season on long road trips, but they did that year. I remember at the end of that road trip – coming back going, ‘I don’t know if I’m good enough. I don’t know if I have what it takes.’”
20 seasons and 38,363 additional points later, James is the NBA’s all-time scoring leader and recognized as one of the best players to ever step on the harwood. A four-time NBA champion with three different franchises, he has been one of the defining stars of the league since his debut, and a compelling personality for journalists to report on.
Oftentimes, Windhorst has been associated with James not only because of his time as a Cleveland Cavaliers beat writer, but also since their backgrounds are somewhat intertwined. Through it all, endurance and perseverance has propelled James and Windhorst as respected figures in their industries; ones who have made an inextricable impact on basketball in different ways.
“I remember sitting in the studio at the lottery in Secaucus, N.J. in May 2003, and they did the lottery and went to commercial break,” Windhorst said. “Denver, Memphis and Cleveland were in the last three, and I remember sitting there… thinking, ‘Well, it’s possible my life is going to radically change here in this next five minutes.’”
James’ initial tenure in Cleveland may have been at the mercy of an entropic selection process based on odds and the logo displayed on one ping-pong ball – but it took talent, hard work and determination for him to even reach that point. The same can be said for Windhorst, a reporter who spent years developing versatility and fostering professional relationships to become a bonafide source of information.
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The softball field was a familiar setting for Windhorst in his youth. As a native of Akron, Ohio, he was well within driving distance of Cleveland, a metropolis with a bevy of professional sports teams. One of his earliest experiences working in sports media came in keeping the scorebook for the high school softball team at St. Vincent-St. Mary, coached by his mother Merrylou.
Windhorst was no stranger to athletics and competed in golf as a high school student, yet he found enjoyment in being around the environment rather than playing in the games themselves. As a result, he landed a part-time job as a clerk with the Akron Beacon-Journal where he was responsible for documenting scores and assisting reporters in compiling statistics for their stories.
“I was working 5:00 to 11:00 PM shifts… sort of sitting on the periphery but watching the newspaper get put together on deadline three or four nights a week,” Windhorst explained. “That’s where I got my start.”
When it was time to apply for college, Windhorst received admissions offers at journalism schools around the country. Being in the industry through high school and having no desire to leave his job at the Akron Beacon-Journal, he decided to remain close to home and enrolled at Kent State University.
His prudentiality paid dividends when he was afforded the chance to cover games and write 300-word recaps in college for high school basketball, wrestling and other sports. It altered his perspective on working in the industry, divulging changing trends and means of coverage that may have gone unnoticed had his formative application of journalism been solely focused in the classroom.
“I was in these classes with these professors teaching me about the alleged newspaper industry and I was going, ‘Maybe that’s the way it was when you worked in it 10 years ago, but it’s not like the way it is now,’” Windhorst recalls. “I was way real-world-ing it over the school.”
By the end of his college career, Windhorst had six years experience at the newspaper, but unfortunately had to sacrifice his social life in the process. The first Kent State football game he attended was as a reporter, and he never had the chance to engage in regular college activities because of his stringent work schedule and unrelenting inclination to succeed. The newspaper also represented an external outlet to hone his craft, especially since Windhorst struggled to get opportunities elsewhere, applying for over 80 internships and receiving none of them.
“I’m sad to say that I didn’t make any lifelong friends in college,” Windhorst said. “I definitely traded that because I would come back to Akron three or four nights a week to work on the desk and cover games.”
Through repetitions came invaluable experience and a trial run at the age of 25 as a traveling beat reporter covering the Cavaliers. Windhorst worked on a provisional basis, approaching his bosses when there was an upcoming road trip to ask permission to book plane tickets. Over his early days in this role, the newspaper was interviewing established reporters to eventually take over; however, once some time passed, management told him he had the job.
To begin the 2003 regular season, the Cavaliers had a three-game road trip with stops in Sacramento, Phoenix and Portland before their home opener against the Indiana Pacers. The buzz around the team was centered on James though, and as a reporter, Windhorst had to appeal to his audience insofar as properly covering the rookie phenom.
“I was, to a certain extent, paralleling LeBron,” Windhorst said. “My main job was to cover LeBron – and I covered the whole team – but he was going through all of the learning curves too. In a strange way, there was a parallel track there.”
Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Paul Silas, as any coach would, conducted regular media availability to update reporters on the state of the team. Yet Silas went out of his way for Windhorst, imparting wisdom and knowledge about the league and helping to catalyze his development. He continues to implement lessons Silas taught him and affirms that he learned more from him than he did in four years of college, by no fault of the school itself.
“Very often in the NBA – and I think even more so now than 20 years ago – there’s very much of an adversarial relationship between the coach and the beat writers,” Windhorst said. “It’s either adversarial or it’s too cozy. In this case, he was literally teaching me.”
Over his time with the Akron Beacon Journal, Windhorst traveled with the Cavaliers on its beat and excelled as a journalist. While he and James attended the same high school and knew each other’s mothers, he always ensured to maintain professionalism and covered him fairly. Conversely, Windhorst affirms that James never exhibited favoritism towards him but rather possessed an understanding of their shared backgrounds.
The advantage Windhorst held in their mutual understanding of one another, however, was a level of heightened trust. For example, Windhorst spoke to James on the night his son Bronny was born in 2004, and watched as his professional basketball career quickly evolved. Moreover, he covered his negotiations to land a shoe deal, which has since turned into a historical lifetime contract with Nike.
“It wasn’t like he was handing me sit-down one-on-one interviews four times a year,” Windhorst expressed. “I wasn’t going over to his house on Thanksgiving, nor did I want to. I always covered him straight, and a lot of what he did was very positive. The guy had a pretty spectacular career, and so I was writing about a lot of positive stuff.”
In 2008, Windhorst continued to cover the Cavaliers, albeit for The Plain Dealer, and the team where they continued a stretch of finishing first or second in the division for five consecutive seasons. James went on to capture back-to-back MVP awards for his regular season performances in 2008-09 and 2009-10 and proceeded to embark on a memorable, free agency tour.
It led up to “The Decision,” a televised special on ESPN where James famously revealed he was “taking [his] talents to South Beach.” By joining guard Dwayne Wade and forward-center Chris Bosh, James cemented a formidable “Big 3” and, in turn, took much of the national spotlight off of the Cavaliers.
By the start of the 2010-11 season, Windhorst had been hired by ESPN and relocated to Miami to cover the Heat as its beat reporter. The decision to leave Cleveland was difficult for Windhorst just as it was for James; however, it was a chance to join a national outlet and report on a team with the potential to make history.
Despite joining a network with extensive content and programming based on linear television at the time, Windhorst strictly reported in the written word. He affirms there was no sense of animus towards him, but rather negligence regarding his role since it was relatively experimental at that scale.
“It was a new concept to have a team-based reporter at ESPN,” Windhorst said. “We just didn’t have much of it, especially for our really high-profile teams. ESPN reporters or the television reporters and crews would be coming through Miami, and they would never say a word to me. There would be plenty of SportsCenters going on and they never even knew my name.”
Once the Heat proved they were the team to beat in the NBA, Windhorst began occasionally appearing on television – but always alongside an experienced ESPN reporter, such as Rachel Nichols and Mark Schwartz. Direct talkbacks were prohibited, but eventually, the network began putting Windhorst on SportsCenter and other programming regularly. In fact, he was appearing on television every half hour on the hour during the team’s series against the Pacers, having received little to no formal training.
“I only had one suit jacket with me on the trip – it’s like a four-day trip – and I had to wear it 3-4 days in a row,” Windhorst said. “….I remember Rachel Nichols went over to Walgreens next to the arena and brought me my first makeup compact and said, ‘Here, you need to put this on your face; your face is red.’”
Windhorst was not initially hired to be on television, but as time went on his role began to gradually transition in that direction. Two years into his time at the network, he met with executives and asked for chances to demonstrate his versatility. The conversation resulted in his move to New York City where he worked on studio television programming and covering a larger scope of the NBA.
Moreover, he still covered the Heat during the team’s northeast and west coast road trips, along with attending select homestands in Miami, Fla. He also received proper coaching about how to appear on television from ESPN’s company headquarters in Bristol, Conn.
Four years and two championships later, James was once again a free agent and drawing interest from nearly all corners of the NBA. Windhorst, having covered the Cavaliers and Heat during James’ time, was assigned to work from Bristol, Conn. to give viewers inside information about the process.
“I had obviously been there to start doing some TV stuff, but I was there for so long that I ran out of ties,” Windhorst said. “The only place I could get a tie anywhere near there was a Target down the street from the campus. I went in there and I think they had four ties, and I brought all four of them because I was that desperate.”
The insatiable desire for information led to frequent on-air appearances by Windhorst, even amid the network broadcasting the 2014 FIFA World Cup, which received a 2.8 share in the ratings. During gaps between matchups, ESPN presented special editions of SportsCenter and maintained a large audience, helping augment the reach of his reporting.
“They would bring me on to those SportsCenters for LeBron updates because it was one of the most important things going on in the world of sports other than the World Cup,” Windhorst said. “I think some people who had never heard of me before or weren’t familiar with me before at the company saw me perform on those SportsCenters.”
Although James ended up returning to Cleveland, Windhorst remained at ESPN where he continued to report and write about the NBA. Additionally, he started to explore the audio space as a contributor to the TrueHoop podcast and member of the weekly ESPN Radio show, NBA Lockdown Insiders. Today, he contributes to a wide variety of network programming, including SportsCenter, Get Up, First Take and NBA Today, lending his analysis and expertise for viewers worldwide.
On any given day, Windhorst may wake up and attend a production meeting for a studio show, appear on the show and then move to prepare for the next television program later that day. Furthermore, he has written video essays specific to SportsCenter and will collaborate with its features unit to create an end product he narrates from a podcast studio. Additionally, he continues to podcast with his show, Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective, where he is joined by ESPN personalities and reporters to discuss the latest NBA news.
Aside from audiovisual work, Windhorst continues to write columns for ESPN’s website both independently and with colleagues. Some of the stories require more comprehensive reporting, while others, such as during the trading deadline or free agency, are more focused on breaking news. For Windhorst, it helps having a team of skilled reporters to accumulate information and quickly make sense of it all.
“Our reporters work together a lot,” he said. “We are sharing information, sharing sourcing and, as a result, sometimes when there’s a news break, it’s actually like 3-4 people who are involved in the production. Sometimes they get credit; sometimes they don’t, and none of us care about it.”
During the week before the NBA All-Star Game, for example, now-Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James broke the NBA’s all-time scoring record. Less than 48 hours later, the league endured a particularly active trade deadline, highlighted by blockbuster deals that sent Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving out of Brooklyn.
Windhorst and his colleague Ramona Shelburne had been working for approximately six to eight weeks on a story about James breaking the scoring record. On the other hand, the duo spent 12 hours amassing an in-depth piece on what led to Durant being dealt to the Phoenix Suns. As a multifaceted journalist in high demand, Windhorst only slept for three hours per night – and he estimates many of his colleagues received even less reprieve. It is in their relentless work ethic and passion for their work that Windhorst and his team are able to excel on multiple platforms of dissemination.
In essence, advances in technology and changes in consumption have rendered the NBA into a true, 24/7 entity. News could break at any given moment, meaning those who cover the league must stay ready to work and remain informed. It demands self-motivation, maintaining a high standard of work and finding opportunities to grow and never becoming complacent just because of prestige realized or merely inferred.
“When you get hired at ESPN, there’s a temptation to believe that you’ve made it because it’s high-profile and a lot of people get paid very well and you’re going to be maybe recognized – and everything like that – and get instant respect,” Windhorst said. “The real challenge is not getting to ESPN; it’s being able to succeed within ESPN.”
Early in Windhorst’s tenure with the network, some of its television reporters would garner general assignments, meaning that they could be covering both football and basketball in a week. Although they performed at a high level, the network began to transition towards specializing its personnel to cover varying sectors in the sports landscape, recognizing their value and ability to uncover specific information and convey it to viewers.
In utilizing its personnel to report in detail about specific teams and personnel to best appeal to its viewers, the network adopted new technology to provide coast-to-coast coverage. Windhorst was one of the first ESPN personalities to have TVU installed at his home in Omaha, a streaming solution that transmitted HD video back to the network to put over the air.
Initially, he had to contend with a three-second delay, but as the technology evolved, the process was streamlined and made more efficient. It gives Windhorst the ability to appear on several shows per day whether they be linear or nonlinear, along with recording his podcast and writing from home.
“It’s all just about content,” he said. “My job is to find and tell interesting stories, and to have an understanding of what’s going on around the NBA…. On any day, I can be working with multiple legs of the company and multiple platforms.”
Windhorst has covered the league for over two decades and continues to have an earnest desire to work hard and bring basketball fans unparalleled coverage of the sport. Over the years, things have not always worked out his way, but he has consistently found a way to appeal to his audience.
Leaving Cleveland was hardly facile, but it ultimately helped launch his career at the national level and across different means of communication. Being within a company as ubiquitous in professional sports as ESPN, there are only so many roles to fill and an ostensibly immense talent pool, meaning that standing out and persistently advocating for oneself is essential for growth. Part of growing, though, is recognizing that there are many talented people and demonstrating value to executives in areas outside of the craft.
In some ways, it is similar to LeBron James, who is often criticized for losing six of the 10 NBA Finals he played in. Windhorst saw him in tears of joy and tears of sorrow – in jubilation and lamentation – but observed that he always kept going. It is a mindset Windhorst applies in his own career, and one that has resulted in his rapid evolution as a media professional through adaptability and synergy.
“Sometimes you’ve got to take a loss,” Windhorst said. “Sometimes, something doesn’t go your way and you don’t understand it or it’s unfortunate and maybe you even think it’s not fair, but like LeBron, you keep going because you know there’s another game [and] there’s another season.”
