| J. A. Adande | |
| Birth Place: | Los Angeles, California, U.S |
| Alma Mater: | Northwestern University |
| Employer: | Northwestern University |
| Director of Sports Journalism | |
J.A. Adande (; born 1970)[1] is an American sportswriter, commentator and educator, who currently serves as the Director of Sports Journalism at Northwestern University.
Adande was born in Los Angeles, to Desire Adande and Elizabeth Oberstein, a dance professor at El Camino College. Oberstein died in 2020, after her battle with cancer.[2] Adande's grandfather, Gerson "Gus" Oberstein (1914-2003), was a violinist who had played with jazzmen Joe Roland and Charlie Parker, and with the Berkeley Symphony for twenty years.[3]
Adande attended Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California, where he served as sports editor and co-editor-in-chief of the student newspaper and graduated in 1988.[4]
Adande earned a BA in journalism from Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 1992.[5] [6] He was sports editor of The Daily Northwestern, the student newspaper, and interned with Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, and Washington Post.[4]
After graduating from Northwestern, Adande held full-time reporter jobs at the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, and Washington Post.[4]
From 2004 to 2015, he taught sports journalism classes at the University of Southern California.[6]
Adande joined ESPN.com as an NBA columnist in August 2007. The panel at Around the Horn all congratulated him on the job and played a joke "Buy or Sell" segment about Adande's comments about joining ESPN. He was an NBA analyst on SportsCenter.[7]
He was a regular panelist on ESPN's Around The Horn (ATH), starting in 2007, and after a period away, returned as a panelist in January 2018. He was formerly an American sports columnist and sideline reporter who covered the National Basketball Association for ESPN, and was also a regular guest host on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption television shows.[8] Adande is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, and also served as an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Journalism.[9] [10]
Adande announced via Twitter in August 2017 that he was relocating to Chicago and becoming director of the new sports journalism program at Northwestern University, as well as a faculty member of the Medill School of Journalism.[11]
During his time at ESPN, Adande covered the Olympic Games, Wimbledon, the Super Bowl, the NCAA Final Four, and the NBA Finals.[12]
Adande was honored as the 2024 Curt Gowdy Print Media Award Recipient from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.[13]