T.J. Quinn and the late Pedro Gomez were more than ESPN colleagues. They were longtime friends before working together at The Worldwide Leader in Sports. Gomez suddenly passed away in 2021 , but his legacy lives on. Quinn sits on the board of The Pedro Gomez Foundation , which aims to help others pursue and achieve their dreams in sports journalism and education. Sandi Gomez , Pedro’s wife of nearly 30 years, is the foundation’s executive director.
On Nov. 15, the foundation will host the Pedropalooza Gala in Phoenix, Arizona. The charity event is open to the public and will feature auctions, fundraising, and live music. We recently caught up with Quinn to talk about Gomez and Quinn’s career as an investigative reporter at ESPN. To register for Pedropalooza, visit here .
Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Awful Announcing: Why should someone support The Pedro Gomez Foundation?
T.J. Quinn: “If they support the things that he supported and that we do, then that’s all the reason. We’ve got an internship that we do with the Arizona Republic and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. We do a fully funded summer internship for bilingual young journalists because that was a huge thing for Pedro. When he spoke particularly to student groups, he would tell young bilingual prospective journalists: ‘Embrace that. That’s this huge gift that you bring to this job. This ability to speak to communities that don’t always speak to each other.’ So we were looking for a way to help foster that. We’ve already been able to endow scholarships at Arizona State at the Cronkite School , and the University of Arizona. Also, the charity that the Major League Baseball Umpires Union supports, UMPS CARE , we’ll send kids to their training camps.”