J. A. Adande

 J. A. Adande (born October 25, 1970 in Los Angeles, California) is an American sports columnist who covers the National Basketball Association for ESPN.com. He also serves as a panelist for ESPN's Around the Horn and as a guest host on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption television shows. Adande is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, and also serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Journalism, where he teaches a class entitled "Sports Commentary," and co-teaches a class entitled "Sports Public Relations."

Schooling and early career
J.A. Adande is an alumnus of Crossroads School of Santa Monica, California, along with other famous people such as NBA star Baron Davis and Kate Hudson. Adande served as Editor-in-Chief in 1988 of Crossroads School's newspaper, Crossfire.

Adande received his bachelor of science degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where he served as sports editor of The Daily Northwestern.

Adande first started work at the Los Angeles Times as an intern with the Westside edition in 1990. He continued his internships at The San Bernardino Sun and The Washington Post in 1991 and The Miami Herald in 1992.

He became a full-time staff writer for The Chicago Sun-Times, where he covered Illinois football and basketball and the Chicago Bulls. In 1994, he returned to The Washington Post as a staff writer where he covered college football, college basketball and the Washington Bullets (as they were known at the time).

Recent professional career
In 1997, he returned to the Los Angeles Times to become a sports columnist for the paper's Orange County edition. In 1998, his column began running in all editions. In 1997, Adande was made a member of the BBWAA.

Adande briefly hosted the "Celebrity Sports Talk" radio program with ex-NBA player Marques Johnson in 2002. The show aired on KMPC in Los Angeles and WSNR in New York City.

Adande's assignments at the Los Angeles Times included the Olympic Games, Wimbledon, the Super Bowl, the NCAA Final Four, the NBA, Major League Baseball and World Cup 2006.

In 2007, the Tribune Company, parent company to the Los Angeles Times, sought to cut costs at the newspaper by offering a voluntary buyout package to the newspaper's employees. Adande was one of those who accepted the buyout, and he published his final column (titled "He's outta here") for the newspaper on May 31, 2007. When he announced he was leaving during the June 1, 2007 episode of Around the Horn the other panelists applauded him, among them Kevin Blackistone (who accepted a similar buyout in 2006 from the Dallas Morning News and appears on ATH regularly from a Washington, D.C. studio) who joked, "Aren't there enough people here without a job?"

Around the Horn
As a panelist for Around the Horn, Adande is sometimes known as "Top Cat Killer" for his numerous Showdown victories over Tim Cowlishaw of The Dallas Morning News. (Cowlishaw is sometimes nicknamed "Top Cat" based on his initials.) Adande is also known for the "J.A. Adande Lounge" which he usually mentions during his "Face Time" (which is the 20 to 30 second speech the winner gets after a victory on the show). His birthday was revealed to be October 25 on the episode of that date in 2006 (he won the episode). Another notable Adande feature is his impersonation of NFL analyst (and former quarterback) Ron Jaworski (Jaws). During the NFL season, when the panelists make their weekend predictions, Adande dons his Ron Jaworski jersey and talks in a deepened voice, similar to Jaworski's.

Since leaving the Times, Adande has continued to appear as a panelist on Around the Horn. As of July 25, 2012, he has won on the show 219 times in 803 appearances.

Pardon the Interruption
Adande has appeared as a "Five Good Minutes" guest on Pardon the Interruption and debuted as a substitute host on July 2, 2007 with Dan Le Batard. On August 3, 2007, Adande performed the rare task of being a panelist on "Around the Horn" and a guest host on "Pardon the Interruption" in the same day.

On May 7, 2010 J.A. Adande appeared as a fill in for Tony Kornheiser who was according to Mike Wilbon, "out golfing."

ESPN
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 is also now an NBA analyst on ESPN's hit show, Sportscenter.