Longtime SportsCenter anchor joins University of Missouri journalism staff
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Former SportsCenter anchor and Mizzou alum John Anderson is returning to Columbia to join the Missouri School of Journalism's staff, beginning in Jan. 2025.
The school said that Anderson’s final SportsCenter episode will air on Friday, June 28, however MU added that he does still plan to remain active in the sports journalism world and will even collaborate with ESPN on occasion. He first started his time with the network in 1999 and ended up becoming one of its most well-known anchors, winning four Emmy awards.
When Anderson first started at ESPN, he was actually an anchor on ESPNews. However, he first got his start as a local sports anchor at a multiple markets, including Tulsa and Phoenix. Arizona was his final stop before his career took off to ESPN in 1999.
Anderson's real first start came in Columbia, though. He graduated from the University of Missouri with a bachelor's degree from the journalism school in 1987. During his time in Columbia, he was also a four-year member of the track team and was even a captain during his senior season.
He never lost his connection to his roots, even through his more than two decades at ESPN. In 2003, he pioneered an internship for Mizzou students to come work in production at ESPN in Bristol, Connecticut for a summer. The opportunity has been around for 22 years now and Anderson even said that it has inspired all SEC schools to send interns to Bristol, after MU joined the conference in 2011.
Now, Anderson will have an opportunity to work with the future of journalism on a regular basis.
“I come from a line of educators,” Anderson said in a press release. “My grandparents were teachers, and my mother, being raised by those people, had respect for teachers. Two of my uncles taught math. That sort of trickled down to me.”
Anderson is set to take on his first-ever teaching role and believes now, more than ever, that the lessons students are learning at journalism school across America are more important than ever.
“The value of being correct, as opposed to right and wrong — Missouri taught me that you are responsible not only for what you say but what people hear,” Anderson said. “I’m really glad that I am rooted in a schooling that was very much, ‘hey, let’s start with the basics. Get the facts and present them correctly.’ That’s foundational. It’s a tenet of the whole job, and it seems obvious, but it’s become something that is so important to think about every time you make a keystroke.”
Anderson will begin his new role during the second semester of the 2024-25 school year.
