After four outstanding seasons of service as a beat writer with the Cleveland Cavaliers for cleveland.com, Akron native Joe Vardon has announced that he will be leaving the popular website Cavs fans hold close to heart to pursue another venture.
Vardon made the announcement on Monday morning, just hours before the start of the Cavs’ annual Media Day gathering.
Though he’s just 38 years of age, Vardon — a graduate of Wooster College — has an established background in journalism. One of his first jobs in the field was covering Cleveland sports, including the Cavaliers. His work was later noticed by the Toledo Blade (a daily newspaper in Toledo, Ohio), who hired him to cover a variety of sports beats and investigative news projects.
For the rocord, Vardon has also worked for The Columbus Dispatch, The Wooster Daily Record, and Dix Communications.
When LeBron James returned to the Cavaliers in 2014, Vardon’s career took off, so to speak. Alongside a handful of other talented reporters at cleveland.com, Vardon was tasked with covering all facets of James’ career — both on and off the court. And when the Cavs won it all in 2016, Vardon was there. In fact, Vardon was there, on the beat, for all four trips to the Finals (2015-18). Not a lot of people may realize this, but he also beat renowned news breakers Shams Charania and Adrian Wojnarowski to James’ free agency decision.
Vardon later revealed that he will now be writing stories for The Athletic.
“And what did the job bring me? How about four Finals, a championship and a parade — the city’s first since 1964,” Vardon writes in his farewell article. “There was pressure and drama and just a modicum of fame (or something like it) from moving in LeBron’s orbit, not to mention the enriching experience of actually working with LeBron. I made lifelong friends (The Athletic’s Jason Lloyd and ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, to name two). I saw the country. Three of them, actually, counting all those playoff games in Canada and the 2014 trip to Brazil.”
“Time and again as we discussed this job opportunity, The Athletic’s top people told me if I have a great story idea, the answer will never be “no,” Vardon adds. “They gave me a super cool title — “NBA senior writer” — which I suppose beats (David) Blatt’s name for me: “grim reaper.” I’m still going to write about the Cavs and travel with the Cavs, but I’ll also expand my reach, dust off some journalistic muscles I haven’t used in a while, and report broader NBA stories that stretch beyond Cleveland.”
Vardon will certainly be missed at cleveland.com, but it’s good to hear that he’ll still be covering the Cavs, albeit on a new platform. Join us in wishing him the best in this new endeavor.
