Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [126]
In terms of sexual conduct at the office, ESPN had remained like a wild frontier town; when a “mission statement” was posted on the wall, some members of the night shift plastered it with tomatoes. As more women arrived in Bristol, a handful of ESPN men continued to misbehave. Women would find themselves being followed home at night by guys they worked beside during the day. E-mail was still new in the nineties and its illicit possibilities were just being discovered, including, of course, porn as a come-hither ploy that often offended rather than enticed.
No fewer than fifty cases of sexual harassment were reported by women on the staff to ESPN management in the first half of the 1990s.
It was by no means a simple matter of good guys and bad guys. Two men in their twenties who were accused of sexual misconduct also happened to be two of the best-liked, hardest-working people in the production department. When executives attempted to impose punishment, older workers protested. One of the most venerable cautioned an executive to make sure sanctions were imposed equitably across the board—that is, the rules should apply to the vice presidents as well as to the production assistants at the other end of the spectrum. The intent was fairness, but the implication was that offenders might not be found exclusively in the lower ranks.
One of the most notorious cases to arise was that of Mike Tirico, who became very unpopular with some of the women on staff. They said Tirico never took “no,” or even “leave me alone,” for an answer, and that some of his flirtations got way out of line—especially offensive, some argued, because Tirico claimed to be happily married.
One woman told of being approached by Tirico at a 1992 staff party with the come-on, “You are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.” Even though firmly rebuffed, Tirico would not relent, and reportedly followed the woman to her car when she left the party, then reached in through the car window and thrust his hand between her legs as she attempted to start the engine.
Such incidents were hushed up at the time by the old-boy network, but Tirico got the equivalent of counseling from executives who more than once took him to lunch because they hated to see such a bright talent self-destruct—and because he seemed unable to handle his own urges. They also met with Tirico’s aggrieved wife, Debbie. Finally, though Tirico insisted the charges were based solely on “misunderstandings,” management had to take some kind of action: Tirico was suspended for three months without pay, during which time he did not appear on the air.
Some said the punishment was too harsh, others found it almost laughably insufficient. But at least management had acknowledged they had a problem, and although it would be overstating to say the floodgates flew open, there subsequently were enough sexual harassment charges to keep executives busy—in fact, to become a major drain on their time. A concerted attempt was made to keep the problems in-house, as when one of the managers in the radio division was charged with sending obscene e-mails to a female employee.
Eventually, though, the human resources people became inundated and outside counseling was brought in to help deal with the ongoing problem—a problem that would, indeed, continue into the next millennium, with some lurid cases becoming nationally notorious and helping earn ESPN a reputation as a nest of “horndogs” who had all the self-control of the fraternity brothers in Animal House.
JULIE ANDERSON:
Nobody was being reprimanded for anything. With Tirico it was obvious that they had to do something, so he was suspended, but then he came back and nothing changed. And then he got all these really big assignments, including Monday Night Football. I was mad that they didn’t do anything to him. He was very flirty—and he was married—and he used to say things like “So when are you going to marry me? When are we going to get married?” They didn’t do anything