Adam Schefter's biggest accomplishment

Saw SportsCenter this morning which featured an interview with Schefter that also showed a picture of him on front row at the Knicks game this weekend checking his phone. He said he had to do it. Because NFL news was breaking and he had to tend to it. (Seems like an out-of-control obsession in many ways.)

Anyway, Schefter is a guy who's obviously very good at breaking news. He does it every day. And it's become an addiction for him and those like him.

But here's the question ... what is the biggest story he's ever broken? Seems like there's an endless amount of effort put forth in breaking "transaction" news. Like the draft compensation the Browns just got for trading Colt McCoy. Or the salary numbers of Wes Welker's contract. Obviously, Schefter has made his brand and carved out his niche and become a mega-success story. But someone asked today, what's the biggest story he's ever broken? The one you'd tell people about at a cocktail party. And I wasn't sure there was one.

Has there been one? And if not, how do we explain why he became so large?

 

Shanny to the Skins? But that comes with the caveat of knowing he and Shanny wrote a book together and I think have the same agent.

 

Maybe its just me, but I don't really count "scoops" that are just news that will be announced eventually (often within hours) anyway (DL/Active-Inactive/Trade/Cut/Hire). Breaking something that someone doesn't want public or doesn't need to make public. That's news.

 

Love him or hate him, and I understand both sides, nobody works harder than Schefter.

He broke John Elway's retirement.

The Rocky Mountain News had a story that morning that said, "Source: Elway said to be nearing a decision" and The Denver Post had a special section and a copywritten story by Schefter with quotes from Elway confirming that he was retiring because he had to have hip surgery. This wasn't a "beat them by a few hours" scoop. This was a good old fashioned, "pick up both papers, one has the story, the other doesn't."

 

I miss those days when you either had the story or you missed it by a day. Now too many people accept it when people just cut and paste and add a "sources say" for attribution.

 

Still remember Al Davis calling Schefter a "false rumor monger" for reporting that the Raiders were about to fire Art Shell again.

Which is exactly what they did two weeks later.

 

He used to follow The Dwarf around at Michigan football games -- always bearing right and a pace behind -- chewing on a pen and drooling, eating free hot dogs at the Michigan Daily at a hockey game he was a spectator at ... that's the Adam Schefter (and Rich Eisen for that matter) I always think of...
Had he not done research into Albom's book on Bo, he would be writing somewhere.
But because he his the right spot at the right time (when Albom was respected and actually worked) "As a research assistant to Mitch Albom at the Detroit Free Press, Schefter did news updates from campus for the paper. Yet, despite all of his experience and persistence, not a single newspaper would hire him. "
Poor guy.

 

This post is a study in incoherence.

 

To piggyback on Orgeron and Mizzou and contribute to the threadjack: Those were the days, weren't they?

I remember in the early 2000s I worked in a two-newspaper market where we battled pretty fiercely. I could barely sleep the night before I thought I got something. I'd bound out of bed and just start tearing through their paper as soon as it got on the doorstep. It was an enormous rush when they didn't (and a terrible start to the day if they beat us on something).

The business really started to change at a pretty breakneck speed after that, going through this transition period where you had to decide whether to hold it until morning or put it up online, figuring someone was going to get it, too. Sometimes, we'd put it online late, like 11 or 12, after we knew they couldn't get it any more that night.

 

Yeah, then he got his Masters at Northwestern and was covering the Broncos about a year later.

I get why people don't like Schefter. The way he left the Rocky Mountain News for The Denver Post was one of the worst "fuck yous" I've ever heard about in this business and he did it to one of the true good guy sports editors (Forbis) and if memory serves, the RMN staff found out Schefter had left when they read about it in The Post that morning. I think Forbis was in Atlanta at the Olympics when it happened.

A lot of the criticism of Schefter is more than warranted. He was always nice to me, but I saw him be a complete dick to a lot of people for no reason whatsoever. But during my time as a sports writer, I never met a writer who worked harder than Schefter. It's one thing to be like that early in your career, but he's kept that pace for 20+ years, which is pretty amazing.

 

I think Glazer has matched him scoop for scoop over the years.

 

Nah, just sloppy editing... the quote was something I found online from Everything Dallas Cowboys.
He is indeed a hard worker, but I still feel Albom gave him his push to get in the door.