One of the longest-running feuds in sports media appears to have been settled.
Rico Bosco, a late-thirties Barstool Sports personality whose real name is Terrence Mayrose, has held a grudge against star ESPN NBA reporter Adrian Wojnarowski for more than a decade over a direct message sent by Wojnarowski about now-UConn head coach Danny Hurley.
On “Pardon My Take” this week, after co-hosts Dan Katz and PFT Commenter rehashed the situation, Wojnarowski issued his public apology — sort of.
“I apologize that Danny Hurley left Wagner,” Wojnarowski said with a smirk.
“And he didn’t stay in the Northeast Conference, where he would’ve dominated. He might’ve won a national championship at Wagner.”
The saga began when Hurley was coaching Wagner in late 2011 and Bosco, a Staten Island native, was delighting in the successful run they were on.
After Wagner stunned a nationally ranked Pittsburgh team, Bosco sent a tweet (on a former, since-deleted account) about how much he’s enjoyed having Hurley around and that it would be bittersweet to see him move on to bigger and better things.
This is when Wojnarowski, who, at the time, was working at Yahoo and was well on his way to becoming an NBA scoop titan, slid into Bosco’s DMs.
“I know him pretty well,” Wojnarowski wrote.
“He isn’t leaving the state of NJ [where he lived], I promise you. He stayed in HS for 9 years, turned down a lot of jobs. I’m right.”
That offseason, Hurley left Wagner for Rhode Island.
Bosco, a headstrong man who, like an old-time professional wrestler, it’s hard to distinguish between the real person and character performance art, has spent the ensuing 12 years demanding a public apology from Wojnarowski.
Bosco approached Wojnarowski at the Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden last year and confronted him about the matter.
During the interaction, Bosco said that Wojnarowski acknowledged he had been wrong about Hurley but declined to publicly apologize for his private message.
Of Bosco, Wojnarowski said on “Pardon My Take” this week: “He got a lot of mileage out of that bit.”
