Linda Cohn, who has anchored more \u201cSportsCenter\u201d episodes than anyone in ESPN\u2019s history and been a trailblazing presence for women in sports media, will retire at the end of June. She will make her final appearances on SportsCenter on Friday.<\/p>\n
Cohn hosted her first SportsCenter on July 11, 1992, the 2 a.m. ET edition. Her 5,000th appearance came in 2016, and she was inducted into the National Sports Media Association Hall of Fame in 2017. She relocated from Connecticut to Los Angeles in 2018, where she anchored late-night SportsCenter editions from L.A. until last year, when ESPN stopped producing the show in L.A.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I\u2019m most proud of is that my career lasted long enough for me to see little girls grow up watching SportsCenter, enter this business, and succeed in it,\u201d Cohn said in a release from ESPN. \u201cIf my journey helped make that path a little easier for them, then that\u2019s the achievement I\u2019ll cherish most.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cohn was a frequent contributor to ESPN\u2019s hockey coverage. In college, she was a goalie for Oswego State University in New York. Cohn recalled one of her favorite moments at ESPN was participating in an open tryout to be the Florida Panthers\u2019 emergency backup goalie in 2015.<\/p>\n
ESPN announced plans for her to appear in-studio multiple times on Friday, including the 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. SportsCenters, and she will appear with longtime co-host John Buccigross during coverage of the NHL Draft. Her final appearance will be during the 11 p.m. edition.<\/p>\n
\u201cLinda Cohn is a legend and a major part of the history of ESPN,\u201d ESPN President of Content Burke Magnus said in a network statement. \u201cShe has brought enthusiasm, personality and her love of sports to our audience for more than 30 years and her contributions to ESPN both in front of and behind the camera would make a very long list.\u201d<\/p>\n
Analysis<\/p>\n
Linda Cohn never got her own \u201cSportsCenter,\u201d never got to be paired in a star tandem like Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann and never had the legendary catchphrases like Stuart Scott. But if you wanted the best face on ESPN\u2019s most famous promotion for the program, \u201cThis is SportsCenter,\u201d it very well should be Cohn\u2019s. She was SportsCenter, just that reliable presence with the facts, some light quips and the highlights. You knew you were going to get a great show.<\/p>\n
At ESPN internally, the executives in charge have often preached about putting the show before the individual, while rewarding the people who do the opposite the most handsomely. Cohn did very well in her career, but never had the full marquee. But she was as good as anyone, putting the games and news she was narrating first. She really was everything the network should be. \u2014 Andrew Marchand<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Linda Cohn, who has anchored more \u201cSportsCenter\u201d episodes than anyone in ESPN\u2019s history and been a trailblazing presence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,26282,437],"class_list":["post-490371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports-business","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}