You will, almost certainly, never have a reason to go to Olean, New York. Unless you are driving along I-86 in the state’s beautiful Southern Tier, Olean is just one of the thousands of little towns that exist in this country that you’ll never set foot in — hell, the only times I’ve ever been are because my phone told me the nearest Dunkin’ Donuts is off of Exit 24 and a few miles into town, a quick diversion on a trip to somewhere else.
If there is one thing you know about Olean, it is St. Bonaventure, the little Franciscan university with less than 2,000 undergrads in the middle of nowhere that is famous for its basketball program. And of course, there’s one alum who comes to mind when basketball fans in 2024 think about the Bonnies: Adrian Wojnarowski. Until recently, Wojnarowski was known as the top basketball insider in the game, a title he received thanks to his time at Yahoo and, more recently, ESPN.
And then, last month, Wojnarowski stunned basketball fans by announcing his departure from the Worldwide Leader in Sports via a statement he posted to his Twitter account. While he did not immediately reveal his next step, it eventually came out that Woj would accept a role as the general manager for St. Bonaventure men’s basketball. According to ESPN, “the role includes name, image and likeness allocation, recruiting and supporting successful Bonnies coach Mark Schmidt.”
It was news that caught plenty of people off-guard, which included Andrew Nicholson.
“I found out right when it got released,” Nicholson told DIME over the phone. “I’m really thankful for the career that he’s had, everyone loves that he’s coming on board for St. Bonaventure as a general manager. He’s had such a huge impact on basketball and basketball journalism, right? This famous legacy, and because of his reputation for breaking these amazing stories and shaping the modern sports media, is great to have him in our corner at Bonaventure.”
Nicholson had a decorated career in Olean, as he was named the A-10 Player of the Year and an All-American honorable mention in 2011-12. His number, 44, hangs in the rafters at the Reilly Center, and while it’s been 14 years, he’s the last Bonnies alum to get selected in the NBA Draft — the Orlando Magic took Nicholson with the 19th overall pick back in 2012, and he spent five years in the league with the Magic, Washington Wizards, and Brooklyn Nets before continuing his basketball career abroad.
A native of Ontario, Canada, Nicholson had a number of reasons for going to Bonaventure. It was a short drive from home, he’d have minimal distractions living in a small town, and as someone who wanted to major in chemistry, he was impressed by a recently-built science building on campus. And then there was the opportunity to be part of a basketball program that was rich in tradition but found itself in the process of building itself back up after falling on some hard times — the Bonnies won single-digit games in each of the five years before he enrolled.
Nicholson loved that Bonaventure is a “basketball crazy school,” which got hammered home on a college visit to the program’s midnight madness event. And at one point during his four years as a standout for the basketball program, Nicholson served as an instructor at coach Schmidt’s basketball camp, where he crossed paths with Wojnarowski. Nicholson thought it was “amazing” that the NBA newsbreaker was a Bonnie, and the two kept in touch throughout his professional career.
Fast-forward to today and it’s been a while since St. Bonaventure fell on the hard times that preceded Nicholson’s years in Olean — under coach Schmidt, the team has won 20 or more games in five of the last ten years, have two NCAA Tournament and NIT berths each, and have only finished under-.500 once. Things are, generally, going pretty well for the Bonnies, even before the recent high-profile addition to the program.
Still, Nicholson, who plies his trade for Korean Basketball League side Daegu KOGAS Pegasus, is optimistic that someone of Wojnarowski’s stature and with a large Rolodex of connections in the basketball world will be able to get both alums and outsiders to support the program as it strives to accomplish even more, whether it’s in NIL efforts or anything else it might need. He refers to Wojnarowski as “a legend,” and believes “a man of his notoriety and his stature is going to be tremendous in getting people to come in and help the school get to where it needs to go.”
The day before we spoke, Wojnarowski expressed the desire to do “compete and to win, and to do it the St. Bonaventure way.” When asked to explain what he believes that last bit means, Nicholson describes a sense of togetherness among the fans, players, coaches, and anyone else with a vested interest in the team.
And while Nicholson has not yet cut a check as things are in the, in his words, “strategy phase,” he’s willing to do anything necessary to help the program. He, once again, used the phrase “get to where it needs to go,” a sign of the kind of ambition that can convince someone to turn down a $20 million contract to go work for his alma mater’s college basketball program. As for what that means for a tiny school in the Southern Tier of New York State, well…
“Sky’s the limit, right?” Nicholson says when asked about his hopes for the Bonnies. “We just go one step at a time. We start setting goals — winning the A-10 tournament to winning the NCAA Tournament. All those are goals that we’re going to have. We just need to strategize how we’re going to best get the players to come in, alumni to come in to help get the program to where it needs to go.”