![\"\"](\"https:\/\/jem.utk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Gene-Wojciechowski-in-classroom-1024x683.jpg\")
\u201cGene was a pleasure to meet and listen to in class,\u201d School of Journalism and Media student Jace Brown said. \u201cHe’s very humble about his career despite his impact on the journalism industry.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scovel said she is grateful Wojciechowski took the time to speak to her sports reporting class. She has no doubt he inspired her students to tell meaningful, vulnerable stories on and off the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI know this was the highlight of the semester for so many of my students,\u201d Scovel said. \u201cWe’re so lucky to have Gene as a College of Communication and Information alum.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wojciechowski said he always enjoys coming back to Rocky Top, especially when he can interact with students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt truly is an honor to be asked to talk to students and I don\u2019t take that lightly,\u201d Wojciechowski said. \u201cI don\u2019t have all the answers. I don\u2019t have happy answers but I do have experience. And so, if that experience helps somebody in some small way, I\u2019m happy to try.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018A series of happy accidents\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While he is best known as a sports journalist, it was not his goal as a young man. Wojciechowski said his career in sports journalism was the result of \u201ca series of happy accidents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wojciechowski was in high school when the Watergate scandal dominated national consciousness. He said that event inspired him to pursue journalism as he wanted to emulate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Choosing to attend UT for journalism was a much less romanticized decision \u2014 depending on one\u2019s point of view. He was simply following his high school girlfriend to her college of choice. But, while young love brought him here, Wojciechowski said UT found its way into his heart from day one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe minute I walked onto campus, I loved it,\u201d Wojciechowski said. \u201cI mean everything about it was cool to me and none of that has ever waned.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wojciechowski still recalls the names of all the professors that helped shape who he is today. He recalls one particular experience with Donald G. Hileman, the former dean of the College of Communications, the forerunner to the College of Communication and Information. For the final exam, Hileman made it very clear that students needed to spell out everything on the test to receive full marks. Wojciechowski said for one of his answers he wrote \u2018ABC\u2019 for the name of the broadcast network and while he knew it was correct, Hileman marked it wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An upset Wojciechowski argued with Hileman about the lost credit for his correct answer, but to no avail. Hileman made it clear to spell out everything and Wojciechowski ignored that directive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wojciechowski said he has never forgotten that interaction because Hileman was teaching him the essence of what a reporter is supposed to do: pay attention to the details. A lesson that stills serves him well to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wojciechowski also still has graded papers from Professor June Adamson who taught him feature writing. As part of her instruction, Adamson would leave helpful, constructive criticisms of his writing in the margins. Wojciechowski said decades later those notes still apply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s just two examples, I could give you a dozen,\u201d Wojciechowski said. \u201cThose professors, staff members, teaching assistants and everybody there made me better when I didn\u2019t know anything, but thought I did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wojciechowski said while he covered some sports at The Daily Beacon<\/em>, he never had any intention of covering sports professionally. Wojciechowski said he was interested in covering politics and his first reporting job at a Fort Lauderdale newspaper was to cover the city council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, on his first day, a sports reporter asked if he wanted to switch beats for a week because they had always wanted to cover city council. Wojciechowski said this would never happen today but the editor at the time approved it and he never looked back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wojciechowski said the assignments back then weren\u2019t anything glamorous, adding he covered the lowest rungs of sports such as taking photos and writing the bios of six-year-old soccer players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nonetheless, he kept at it and a week turned into years. Wojciechowski said by the third year he felt his career wasn\u2019t going anywhere and was ready to quit journalism. He applied to law school and while waiting to hear about his applications, he won his first Associated Press Sports Editor Writing Award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That changed everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He started receiving calls from other sports desks around the country about job openings. With new opportunities available he felt reenergized about the profession and accepted a position at the Denver Post covering the Denver Broncos. Since then, he has worked for other newspapers such as the Dallas Morning News, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune where he covered professional and college sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His success in newspaper eventually caught the attention of ESPN, and in 1998 became senior writer for ESPN the Magazine. He also worked for ESPN.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut, once I got there and other parts of ESPN became aware of my work, I just kind of, again by accident, slipped into the TV side of it,\u201d Wojciechowski said. \u201cIt was the greatest 26 years I\u2019ve ever had because it made me reinvent myself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wojciechowski parted ways with ESPN in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout his journalism career, Wojciechowski has won numerous awards including four Associated Press Sports Editors national awards, a Sports Emmy and Edward R. Murrow awards for his work. He has also been honored by a number of organizations including the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, the College Football Writers Association of America, the Pro Football Writers, and the Los Angeles Press Club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond journalism, Wojciechowski also authored or co-authored several books. As an author, he worked with various athletes and sports personalities like Bill Walton, Kirk Herbstreit, Jerome Bettis and more. Wojciechowski said while some books were an absolute joy to work on and others had him feeling he \u201crather stick knitting needles in my eyes,\u201d it was always a great learning experience and a form of storytelling he has grown to enjoy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether it was in print or on-air, Wojciechowski said he is humbled and honored by the number of people who graciously allowed him to tell their story, adding that storytelling is what he loves to do and sports just happened to be the medium through which he was able to tell those stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSports isn\u2019t just covering games,\u201d Wojciechowski said. \u201cSports cover the gamut of our society but most of all sports is about the humans. It is the human condition. That\u2019s what I love about sports.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The first time Gene Wojciechowski (\u201979) was on camera it went horribly. It was at the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia and Wojciechowski was covering the Masters Tournament for ESPN. He was charged with delivering a two-minute live report that morning. The plan was that once on air, fellow ESPN broadcaster Scott Van Pelt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":283,"featured_media":67698,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,8,56,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-news","category-news","category-school-of-journalism-media","category-student-news"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/jem.utk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Gene-with-Daily-Beacon-Gift-1024x670.jpg\"){kind=tracking}