I was probably less blindsided than many others when this news that among other PEOPLE’s Angelique Brenes broke yesterday afternoon:
Linda Cohn is saying goodbye to ESPN after more than three decades at the network…The longtime SportsCenter anchor, 66, announced that she will retire on June 30, bringing to a close a groundbreaking 34-year run that made her the longest-tenured SportsCenter anchor in ESPN history, according to the press release…Cohn has anchored more editions of SportsCenter than anyone in the network’s history, according to the release. She joined ESPN in July 1992 and hosted her first SportsCenter on July 11 of that year.
“The main thing I want to say is thank you. Thank you for your support. Thank you for all of the messages. Thank you for all the kind words,” Cohn said in a video shared to her Instagram Stories.
I got that video fed through that and her other social media feeds earlier in the day, including her somewhat less fan-facing Facebook profiles. Some of you know that Linda and I were classmates at SUNY Oswego, both broadcasting majors and living in adjacent same-sex dorms in the center of campus that had a common dining hall and rec area. Linda was a regular visitor to the study area in the building that housed all of the campus media, a lot more disciplined even then than I was, and we shared some common friends. We shared a love for hockey, far and away the school’s most significant sport, and when she became the goaltender on the school’s embryonic women’s club team she earned a bit of celebrity status. I was the sports editor of the student newspaper and knew enough to know that there was more than enough room for covering them even though they technically weren’t a varsity team–we didn’t have football and our men’s basketball team was in the process of threatening the all-time NCAA record for consecutive losses. Linda was always pleasant and appreciative, and I’ll confess I had more than a small crush on her in the process. Not that college me would have had a chance in hell and besides, she was very much taken.
And as it turned out I eventually had more interactions with that lucky gentleman than I did her, though he has had nowhere near the public-facing life as she has. You’d have to go deep into the rabbit hole that is THE HINDUSTAN TIMES to find out something about him, which their Ojas Jaiswal provided:
In 1980, while still attending college at SUNY Oswego, Linda Cohn married Stew Kaufman, whom she had met during her student years. The couple remained together for nearly three decades and raised two children, daughter Sammy and son Dan Kaufman. Their marriage came to an end in 2008 after 28 years.
Stew was the lab assistant who attempted to guide me through radio production while he quietly confessed to the few of us trying to splice audio tape and instead slashing our index fingers that he and Linda were going to take the plunge. He went on to a career in market research, and our paths occasionally crossed at conventions and reunions. I even had a preview of that pending divorce at our 25th reunion when, with the help of a couple of IPAs he confided that “things weren’t going all that great on the home front”.
Shortly after that I got one of the few chances to give back to our alma mater which Linda has so generously supported when her teammate and a classmate I knew slightly better who had become the now varsity women’s hockey team coach was in hot pursuit of a coveted young goaltending talent from Alaska who also happened to be very interested in broadcasting. Linda and I were asked to tag-team this young lady by testifying that it was indeed possible to be both an athlete and a Hollywood executive with an Oswego degree–something we both alleged Alaska-Anchorage, Division I or not, could not offer. She came to Oswego and not only got her degree but led the team to its first-ever post-season appearance. I was later told that my willingness to open doors for her in Los Angeles was what closed the deal; she briefly pursued that opportunity and I got to treat her and her girlfriend to lunch at the FOX commissary in what for me was one of my prouder moments.
Linda has amassed awards and accolades aplenty over her iconic career. As THE ATHLETIC’s Dan Shanoff and Andrew Marchand reminded she was inducted into the National Sports Media Association Hall of Fame in 2017. But she had been inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame 14 years earlier, which was upgraded to inclusion in the International wing in 2024. And of course she is a member of the Oswego State Athletics Hall of Fame. That’s as impressive a hat trick as any I’ve witnessed.
There’s plenty of other places where one can catch up on her amazing and influential career today. The statement from ESPN President of Content Burke Magnus for starters. Her 2008 autobiography CONE-HEAD, still very much worth nn Amazon 1-click. Her revealing interview with Rich Eisen that was dropped on his THIS WAS SPORTSCENTER feed last weekend. And I have little doubt her Friday night ESPN swan song, where for one last time she will contribute to SportsCenter and NHL draft coverage, will produce, as she put it, a lot more “happy tears” than those she shed today.
Our little school on the shores of Lake Ontario has had plenty of other fine alums, Al Roker and her ESPN colleague Steve Levy among them. That said, I’ve never seen either of them lace up their ice skates, and I know I couldn’t even stand on a pair myself. Now add hose other awards, not to mention her outsized influence on multiple generations of aspiring women seeking careers in sportscasting and media–even those who aren’t capable of stopping a hockey puck from entering a net at over 100 miles per hour. That all makes Linda Cohn, for my money, the greatest Laker of all. 
Until next time…