BRIAN ROSENTHAL/The Daily Northwestern
ESPN personality, Washington Post columnist and Northwestern alumnus Michael Wilbon spoke to a packed Owen L. Coon Forum on Friday night, sharing his insight on subjects from the future of journalism to the NBA playoffs to fatherhood and married life.
“Your social lives must suck,” Wilbon, Medill ’80, said as he was welcomed with raucous applause. “Friday night and you’re listening to me?”
Wilbon riffed about life at NU and as an alumnus, saying that the university was his home and a place he “loved to come back to visit.”
Wilbon, who was raised on the South Side of Chicago, began working at the Washington Post as an intern after his junior year at NU. He has written for the publication ever since and is now a columnist in addition to his work at ESPN and with ABC’s coverage of the National Basketball Association.
He was insistent that the event consist of more than him on the stage talking at students and instead took questions from the audience.
“I prepared some stuff, and then I left it at home,” he said. “This is a discussion. Not a speech, not a lecture.”
A sports journalist for nearly three decades, Wilbon also discussed his thoughts about the future of journalism and his distaste for blogs.
Though he is known for co-hosting ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption,” Wilbon said in his heart he remains a sportswriter.
“We’re like pandas or something,” he said of his profession. “We’re going extinct.”
The subject of Wildcat football elicited passionate comments from many students and fans in the audience.
Wilbon lamented that during his four years at NU, he never saw a single football victory in person as the team accumulated a record of 3-31-1. He said he was upset that, given the season the team had last year, attendance at football games was still lacking.
“Don’t you all take the football team for granted,” he said. “Don’t be a jerk. Get your asses to the game!”
Wilbon praised NU football coach Pat Fitzgerald, who was in attendance.
After the speech, Fitzgerald said he was happy to have been discussed so warmly by Wilbon.
“I’m humbled that Mike would mention me in his speech,” the coach said. “To be as generous as he is to be here to give back to Northwestern is amazing.”
The Wildcats’ 1996 Rose Bowl experience was a topic that made Wilbon even more animated than usual.
“My wife hates it when I say it was the greatest weekend of my life,” he said. “It was the greatest weekend of my life.”
For A&O Productions, which co-sponsored the event with the Alumni Association, the evening was the result of a long-standing desire to bring Wilbon to campus.
A&O Chairman Adam Pumm, who previously served as A&O’s chairman of speakers and special events, said there were a number of compelling reasons to host Wilbon.
“A&O just feels like he’s one of Northwestern’s most well-known alumni, and he appeals to a different segment of campus than the speakers we usually bring,” the Weinberg junior said.
When Wilbon asked how many in the audience were in Medill or involved in writing, a significant portion responded positively.
Wilbon stressed that after all his years covering sports, he remains an avid fan, especially of Chicago teams.
“Anybody who’s a sportswriter who doesn’t like to talk about sports should get the hell out,” he said. “You’re an embarrassment to the profession.”
Related: Q&A with NU alumnus and sports journalist Michael WilbonVideo: The Daily sits down with Michael Wilbon
