Career
Wilbon began working for The Washington Post in 1980 after summer internships at the newspaper in 1979 and 1980. He covered college sports, Major League Baseball, the National Football League and the National Basketball Association before being promoted to full-time columnist in February 1990. His column in the Post, which dealt as much with the culture of sports as the action on the court or field, appeared up to four times a week until he left to work full-time for ESPN on December 7, 2010.
In his career, Wilbon has covered ten Summer and Winter Olympic Games for The Washington Post, every Super Bowl since 1987, nearly every Final Four since 1982 and each year's NBA Finals since 1987.
After contributing to ESPN's The Sports Reporters and other shows on the cable network, he began co-hosting ESPN's daily Pardon the Interruption (PTI) with Tony Kornheiser on October 22, 2001. He is also a member of ABC's NBA Countdown (which he hosts with Jalen Rose, Bill Simmons and Magic Johnson) which is the pre-game show for the network's NBA telecasts.
In addition to his work at The Washington Post, PTI and ESPN, Wilbon appeared weekly on WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. with WRC Sports Director George Michael, and Pro Football Hall of Famers John Riggins and Sonny Jurgensen on Redskins Report during the football season. He also appeared with Michael, USA Today basketball writer David Aldridge and Tony Kornheiser on Full Court Press during the basketball season. Both of these shows were canceled in December 2008 due to budget cuts. In 2001 Wilbon was named the top sports columnist by the Society of Professional Journalists. Wilbon also forged a close friendship with former Marshall and current NFL quarterback Byron Leftwich while the young passer was a standout player for HD Woodson in Washington, D.C. In recent years, he has become more known as an ESPN personality, and in late 2006, agreed to a multi-year contract extension with ESPN that will give the network priority in conflicts with his newspaper assignments. The first major example of this happened on February 4, 2007, when Wilbon covered a Detroit Pistons-Cleveland Cavaliers game instead of Super Bowl XLI.
On December 7, 2010, he wrote his last column for the Washington Post and officially dedicated full time to work for ESPN and ABC.
Read more about this topic: Michael Wilbon
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