David Aldridge (born ) is an American sports journalist who works as a writer for ''

The Athletic ''The Athletic'' is a subscription-based sports website that provides national and local coverage in 47 North American cities as well as the United Kingdom. ''The Athletic'' also covers national stories from top professional and college sports ...

''. He was previously a reporter for

Turner Sports Warner Bros. Discovery Sports (WBD Sports) is the division of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) that is responsible for sports broadcasts on its parent company's various channels in the United States, including TBS, TNT, AT&T SportsNet, and TruTV. ...

, contributing to their NBA and

MLB Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

coverage. Other outlets that Aldridge has written and contributed for include

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

NBA TV NBA TV is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Basketball Association (NBA) and operated by Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit. Dedicated to basketball, the network features exhibition, regula ...

, NBA.com, ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', ''

The Philadelphia Inquirer ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Pennsy ...

'', and

TBD To be announced (TBA), to be confirmed (TBC), to be determined or decided or declared (TBD), and other variations, are placeholder terms used very broadly in event planning to indicate that although something is scheduled or expected to happen, a ...

. In 2016, he was awarded the

Curt Gowdy Media Award The Curt Gowdy Media Award is an annual award given by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame to outstanding basketball writers and broadcasters. It is named for American sportscaster Curt Gowdy, who was the Hall of Fame's president for ...

by the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Biography

Education and early career

Aldridge was born in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

He is a graduate of

DeMatha Catholic High School DeMatha Catholic High School is a four-year Catholic high school for boys located in Hyattsville, Maryland, United States. Named after John of Matha, DeMatha is under the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington and is a member of the Washington ...

and American University and worked as a writer for ''

'', where he spent nine years. During that time Aldridge was a beat writer covering Georgetown University basketball, the

Washington Bullets The Washington Wizards are an American professional basketball team based in Washington, D.C. The Wizards compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division. The team plays ...

, and the

Washington Redskins The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) N ...

. He also covered the

1992 Summer Olympics The 1992 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1992, ca, Jocs Olímpics d'estiu de 1992), officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XXV Olimpiada, ca, Jocs de la XXV Olimpíada) and commonly known as ...

in Barcelona, national

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

and football, the Super Bowl, the

Stanley Cup playoffs The Stanley Cup playoffs (french: Les séries éliminatoires de la Coupe Stanley) is an elimination tournament in the National Hockey League (NHL) consisting of four rounds of best-of-seven series to determine the league champion and the winner ...

, the

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...

, the

Indianapolis 500 The Indianapolis 500, formally known as the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, and commonly called the Indy 500, is an annual automobile race held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of Indi ...

, and the U.S. Open tennis championships. To this day he is still an avid fan of American University men's basketball.

ESPN

Before joining

TNT Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...

in 2004, Aldridge reported for ESPN for eight years, primarily covering the NBA while occasionally doing NFL pieces. He wrote for ESPN.com and contributed to ESPN Radio. Aldridge frequently appeared on SportsCenter as well as ''NBA 2 Night'' (now ''

NBA Fastbreak ''NBA Tonight'' is a National Basketball Association studio program that airs on ESPN. The program used to air as part of ESPN's ''The Trifecta''. Formerly known as ''NBA 2Night'' and NBA Fastbreak, the program, hosted by various ESPN personalities ...

'') and ''NBA Today.'' Aldridge conducted interviews for the ''SportsCenter'' "Sunday Conversations" with

LeBron James LeBron Raymone James Sr. (; born December 30, 1984) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed "King James", he is widely considered one of the greatest p ...

, Allen Iverson, Shaquille O'Neal,

Karl Malone Karl Anthony Malone (born July 24, 1963) is an American former professional basketball player in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed "the Mailman", he is considered one of the greatest power forwards in NBA history. Malone sp ...

and many others. He worked as an NBA sideline reporter both for ABC and ESPN in 2003 and 2004.

''The Philadelphia Inquirer''

Aldridge worked at ''

'' from 2004 to 2008, covering the National Football League and National Basketball Association as a reporter and columnist. He was part of the ''Inquirer'' team that received a second-place award for the series "The Future of Pro Sports" in 2005 from the Society of Professional Journalists, Greater Philadelphia Chapter. He was initially scheduled to be one of dozens laid off at the paper in January 2007,blogs.philly.com
but was retained.

Turner Sports

He worked as the "Insider" for

's ''

Inside the NBA ''Inside the NBA'', branded for sponsorship purposes as ''Inside the NBA presented by Kia'', is the postgame show for '' NBA on TNT'' broadcasts. The program features host Ernie Johnson with analysts Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley, and Shaquille ...

'' and did sideline reporting work during the regular season, All-Star Weekend and the NBA playoffs. He was also co-host of the weekly show ''The Beat'' on

, and was a commentator for other '' NBA on TNT'' features. He also worked as a sideline reporter for television broadcasts of college football games and the Major League Baseball divisional series.

''The Tony Kornheiser Show''

From February 2007 through June 2008, Aldridge appeared on ''

The Tony Kornheiser Show ''The Tony Kornheiser Show'' is a sports podcast talk show out of Washington, D.C., hosted by Tony Kornheiser, which was originally a sports radio talk show appeared on WTEM from 1992 to 1997; on ESPN Radio between 1998 and 2004; back on WTEM ...

'' on

Washington Post Radio Washington Post Radio was a short-lived attempt by Bonneville Broadcasting and ''The Washington Post'' to create a commercial long-form all-news radio network in the style of National Public Radio. The small network of stations based in the Washin ...

and later WWWT in Washington, D.C. as co-host. He returned as sometime co-host of the latest incarnation on

WTEM WTEM (980 AM) is a commercial sports radio station licensed to serve Washington, D.C. Owned by Audacy, Inc., the station services the Washington metropolitan area as the flagship station of the Washington Wizards. WTEM is also the co-flagship ...

in September 2009. As of 2016, he is a regular co-host on the show.

''The Athletic''

In late 2018, Aldridge left Turner Sports to join the staff of ''

'' as a writer.

References

External links

Archive of Aldridge's ESPN.com contributions
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aldridge, David African-American writers American newspaper reporters and correspondents American television reporters and correspondents American sportswriters American University alumni Living people National Basketball Association broadcasters Journalists from Washington, D.C. Major League Baseball broadcasters DeMatha Catholic High School alumni College football announcers College basketball announcers in the United States 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people Year of birth missing (living people)