Key Points
- Linda Cohn, ESPN's longest-tenured SportsCenter anchor, retires June 30 after 34 years.
- She hosted more than 5,500 editions of SportsCenter — more than any other anchor in ESPN history.
- Her first SportsCenter aired at 2 a.m. on July 11, 1992.
- In 1987, she became the first full-time female sports anchor on a U.S. national radio network.
Linda Cohn's last day at ESPN is June 30. The longest-tenured SportsCenter anchor in the network's history is retiring after 34 years, having hosted more than 5,500 editions of the show — a record no other anchor has approached.
The run
Cohn's first SportsCenter aired at 2 a.m. on July 11, 1992, co-anchoring with Chris Myers in the slot nobody watches. She stayed for three decades and more than five thousand broadcasts, outlasting every format change, every set redesign, and every pivot in how sports media defines itself. Her 5,000th edition, on February 21, 2016, was honored live on air. She added another 500-plus in the decade after, while also carrying ESPN's hockey coverage on a reduced SportsCenter schedule. Her final on-air appearances come June 26: the 6 p.m., 10 p.m., and 11 p.m. ET editions.
Before the desk
Cohn played goalie on her high school boys' hockey team at Newfield High on Long Island after her mother found a league that would take her. She graduated from SUNY Oswego in 1981 — where she tended goal for the women's ice hockey team — and moved through radio at WALK-AM/FM, WCBS, and WGBB before ABC hired her in 1987 as the first full-time female sports anchor on a U.S. national radio network. SportsChannel America and then KIRO-TV in Seattle followed before ESPN came calling.
"What I'm most proud of is that my career lasted long enough for me to see little girls grow up watching SportsCenter, enter this business and succeed in it," Cohn said. "If my journey helped make that path a little easier for them, then that's the achievement I'll cherish most."
The national sports desks kept turning over through the summer. At CBS, lead NFL analyst Tony Romo was placed on leave until further notice on July 31 after an OWI arrest in Milwaukee County, with J.J. Watt moving into the lead game-analyst chair.
Source: ESPN Press Room, ESPN
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