Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [119]
MIKE McQUADE:
Southington Taxi, Keith’s normal taxi service, raised their rates, and he refused to pay it, so he hung up a sign, “If you want to drive me home, I’ll pay you X amount of dollars per trip.” He put fliers in all the production assistants’ mailboxes offering $6.25 to have the honor of driving Keith home after SportsCenter. I drove him home sometimes, and I didn’t even live in that direction. Sometimes I would go into his house, we’d have a beer or two, and look at some of his baseball cards. There were binders and binders and binders of baseball cards. Sometimes we’d just talk shop—you know, how the show went, different ideas for the show, that type of thing.
JOHN WALSH:
Keith didn’t drive and I had said to him, “Look, I have this wonderful guy named Forest who comes to my house, picks me up, and takes me home. He’s terrific, he’s retired, he’s available all the time. You should use him.” So for a period of time, Forest drove me and Keith; sometimes I would get feedback from him about how Keith was thinking.
CHARLEY STEINER:
I hired Keith Olbermann in 1980 in New York on the radio. Keith is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. In those days, he was frustrated that the other kids couldn’t keep up with him. So intellectually he was a genius and socially he was, well, a special-needs student. When I heard he was coming to ESPN I knew it would take some getting used to—on everyone’s part. But when he arrived in ’92, I was caught up in covering the Tyson rape trial. That was a really big deal for me and ESPN.
Before the Holyfield fight had been postponed, the producer Julie Anderson and I went to Don King’s condo in Vegas to interview Tyson. It was about ten o’clock in the morning, and King answers the door. Instead of the hair going north and south, he’s clearly just out of bed and it’s going east and west. And his red silk robe is open. This is no way to start the day.
We go into the condo with two camera men, and immediately, King starts screaming at me. He couldn’t believe we were covering the allegations. “False! False!” So while the camera guys are unpacking and getting set up, I’m off in the corner with King, and we’re screaming at each other. I had no idea what was going on with Julie.
JULIE ANDERSON:
When we drove up there the first day, lined up outside the condo were five Mercedes-Benzes that Tyson had just bought for his entourage, and one of the guys was outside scrubbing them down. So we go inside, and in the living room, scattered all over the floor, were all these porn movies. All over the place. Don King was mad because of something Dan Patrick had said on the air about Tyson that he thought was insulting. Charley said, “I’m not responsible for what Dan Patrick says,” and then Don went on about the media and how the media was all these white men who were united against black people, Don King and Mike Tyson in particular. It turned into a real screaming match. They’re both big personalities and I never heard Charley’s voice that loud. I mean honest to God, it reminded me of being a little kid when parents would start screaming; they were screaming, screaming.
Meanwhile, the crew is unpacking; they’re bringing things in and out of the house, so every once in a while a crew guy comes in and then leaves. It was decided that the first day, Charley would interview Tyson, and I would produce. Then I would go the second day alone and interview King and the entourage, because we were working on a huge Tyson piece. I was also doing his childhood, and we had even gone to Bed-Stuy and found his second grade teacher—that’s how far back I went. So anyway, the crew is getting stuff outside, and Charley and Don King are still yelling at each other off in the corner. At this point, I’m really afraid they’re going to get into a fight.
And on the