Woj Bomb: Adrian Wojnarowski retires from ESPN to become GM of his beloved St. Bonaventure

If you only know Adrian Wojnarowski as an NBA insider, Twitter newsbreaker, draft pick revealer and ESPN personality, then his recent Woj Bomb – as his true-but-out-of-nowhere reports became famous – may not make sense.

On Wednesday morning, Wojnarowski, 55, tweeted that he would retire from sports journalism and leave his lucrative and influential post as the NBA's most influential and famous reporter at ESPN.

The Chaser: He is leaving the university to become the general manager of his beloved alma mater, St. Bonaventure University, where he will lead recruiting and NIL efforts to help his good friend and coach Mark Schmidt keep the proud Bonnie program relevant and eventually return to the NCAA Tournament.

“I am extremely excited and honored to return to St. Bonaventure and have the opportunity to serve the university,” Wojnarowski said in a statement.

And once again, a man at the peak of his journalistic and groundbreaking abilities, with the dream job and salary of every sportswriter in the country, voluntarily resigns from his post with three years left on his contract and chooses to head a mid-major college basketball program in a small snowbelt town in western New York State.

If Wojnarowski, with his contacts and experience, wanted to leave journalism and move into the competition business, he could have easily started working for a sports agency or an NBA front office. At least one other major college program, after hearing rumors of Woj's move, offered him a similar job and a chance to win a national title.

He said no.

Instead, he took advantage of the freedom that came with earning money so that he didn't need any more money to create his dream job. It doesn't get much better than that.

“I’m really excited,” he said.

All of this speaks to two qualities I know about Wojnarowski from three decades of friendship and both working with and against each other – he spent more than a decade here at Yahoo Sports.

First, Woj is as gifted as a writer and reporter as can be in sports journalism, but the secret to his success lay in his competitive spirit, which could turn into insane.

Second, outside of his family, there is nothing he loves more than St. Bonaventure, the school where a boy from Bristol, Connecticut, found his feet, found his confidence, and found his wife, Amy.

When it comes to sports journalism, Woj's drive wasn't the excitement of breaking a story or writing a great column, but of beating the other guy. Starting as an intern at the Hartford Courant, through stints as a college reporter in Waterbury, Connecticut, to columnist in Fresno, California, and North Jersey, he was driven to climb higher and higher in the industry.

At Yahoo, he eventually became a hard-hitting NBA columnist and later an unparalleled news hero. At ESPN, his work brought him fame and fortune.

But money and attention were never the most important thing. He and his family still live in the same house they did when he was a columnist for a suburban newspaper. He always preferred simple meals. He never changed his clothes under the bright lights of the television, which he saw as a means to an end (more shady stories) rather than the end.

Winning was always the most important thing for him. For him, it was always a zero-sum game. Every night, he was concerned with knowing what competition was in front of him and beating them in any way possible.

So he'll stop chasing rumors and news tips and start focusing on getting better players and ultimately winning for the Bonnies. He'll use his relationships and talents to try to win championships for the team he likes best.

He wasn't interested in landing a high-profile job with the NBA, nor was he interested in becoming a reporter because he never wanted to go to ESPN (he turned down the offer repeatedly over the years before finally accepting it).

This is about competition.

A better recruit, not a Woj bomb.

That makes perfect sense. Good luck to the rest of the Atlantic 10, because while the Bonnies may never be good enough to win a real Final Four, this guy doesn't lose when he sets his mind to something.