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#LCo5kSC: What anchoring my 5,000th SportsCenter means to me, by Linda Cohn

EDITOR’S NOTE: Linda Cohn will anchor her 5,000th SportsCenter on Sunday, Feb. 21, at 8 a.m. ET on ESPN. No other person has anchored that many SportsCenters in ESPN’s 36-year history. Front Row’s tribute week to Cohn begins today with this first-person piece in which Cohn describes what the milestone means to her.

For the past 23 years, I’ve had the privilege to be able to do something I dearly love: talk about sports to people who love sports as much as I do.

Sunday is number 5,000, but it’s not going to be my last rodeo
. . .I’m just going to work each day doing what I love to do.

I’ve been doing a lot of interviews leading up to my 5,000th SportsCenter and one of the questions I’ve been asked the most is whether I knew I had done that many shows? And my response has been no, I really hadn’t thought about it because when you’re doing a job you enjoy, and going from show to show, game to game, you’re not keeping track. I didn’t have a ledger that said ‘OK, This is show number 4,897’ or anything like that.

Earlier this year, I was told I’d done more SportsCenters than anyone else, and then when I was told the number, I was surprised. It made me start thinking back over the years to the different anchors I’ve worked with, the different sets we’ve had, some great moments and memories and just the overall joy of doing this job.

When I did my first show on July 11, 1992, at 2 a.m. with Chris Myers, I had just moved from Seattle. I had real-life things going on at the time: My daughter was 15 months old, and I wanted to get off to a great start. And I just remember I really didn’t want to mess up, I was anxious for viewers to like me, and I wanted them to realize that I was a fan just like them, and I wasn’t playing a role, I really do love sports, and I wanted that passion to show.

Sunday is number 5,000, but it’s not going to be my last rodeo. As players and athletes always talk about it, how they don’t look at a number or body of work until that body of work is over, that’s how I compare this. I’m just going to work each day doing what I love to do.

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