DRIVE DOWN Main St. in Allegany, N.Y., past strip malls and sandwich shops and a never-ending line of steel poles with Buffalo Bills flags dangling from them and you will eventually come upon a piece of local history. The Burton Hotel first opened its doors in the 1930s, a post-prohibition, no-frills bar and grill that suited the blue-collar locals it catered to. Students from nearby St. Bonaventure eventually adopted it, drawn in by the cheap beer in plastic cups and well-seasoned half-pound burgers, banding together each night to sing “Piano Man” after the bartenders announced last call. The relationship proved mutually beneficial: It was Bonnies alumni that saved the Burton in 2019, swooping in to buy the business just before it would have been forced to close. The place stopped operating as a hotel long ago, but its owners still rent out three apartments above the bar. Student-athletes occupy two of them. The world’s most famous NBA reporter lives in the other.
In September, Adrian Wojnarowski announced his retirement from media, abruptly walking away from ESPN (and a $7.3 million annual salary) to return to his alma mater, St. Bonaventure, in the newly created position of general manager of the men’s basketball program (and $75,000 a year). The New York Times covered it. So did CNN, Fox News and CNBC. On ESPN, the network’s remaining news breakers—Adam Schefter, Pete Thamel and Jeff Passan—hit the airwaves to pay tribute. On social media, millions of followers with alerts set for his posts—Woj bombs, as they became known—fired off some version of the same question: Why?
