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By Root 2296 0

Every single night we had an amazing experience. It was incredible. I remember calling my agent one day and telling him, “I just met the most remarkable kid. This guy one day will run this network.” And I had an agent who was like, “You’re probably going to meet a lot of guys like that as you get further on.” I said, “No, you don’t understand. This guy is about the most unique, different guy I’ve ever met. You have no idea the kind of charisma and presence this kid has at twenty-three. I’ve never seen anybody like him. I’m telling you one day this guy is going to run this network or more.” And my agent just laughed at me—like, “Okay, whatever you say.” But sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. I mean, literally from day one, you could tell this guy was separate from the pack. Number one, he’s the smartest guy in the room; number two, he’s the most charismatic guy in the room; number three, he’s the most loyal guy in the room. I mean, it’s amazing. If he produced you and you had success, he was unbelievably ecstatic for you and the show and the team—which was a really unique quality even for a guy at that age. And he inspired incredible loyalty because he was so loyal to you. He was smart, he was loyal, he was incredibly ambitious, he was fiercely competitive.

I’m telling you, within a few months, he was producing the show and under contract. I called my agent one day and said, “I just met this most remarkable kid named Mark Shapiro. I mean, this guy one day will run this network.”

MARK SHAPIRO:

Roy, who is a terrific interviewer, was the king of, “people will say,” or, “one will say,” where Rome would just say, “Here’s why you’re a malcontent. Tell me why I’m wrong.” Say what you want about Rome but he’s a tough interviewer. He’ll ask anything, even if it gets him beat up.

JIM ROME:

After my contract with ESPN lapsed, I went to FX, which was just getting into sports, and I cohosted something called The FX Sports Show, which ran one season. Then I went to Fox Sports Net for five years. At the end of that, when my deal was coming up again, Mark Shapiro picks up the phone. By now he’s running the whole place. He calls me up and says, “Jim, it’s time for you to come home. It’s time for you to come back to the family. You need to do this.” It was really amazing considering where we started, what I had gone through, what he’d achieved. For him to pick up the phone and say, quote, “It’s time for you to come home. It’s time for you to come back to the family,” was really amazing. So he came out to L.A. on whatever business he had. We met in a hotel—my agent, him, a couple other people. We sat down, and they negotiated the deal on a napkin in fifteen minutes and, just like that, I was back in the family.

JIM EVERETT, Professional Football Player:

I get a call from my agent right after I was traded to New Orleans. It was a quick conversation. He said, “Hey, you’re going to L.A. and you’re going to be on ESPN.” I thought, Great. So I’m going to the studio thinking I was going to be meeting with Roy Firestone. By the time I get there, I find out that no, I’m going to be on ESPN2 with Jim Rome. So I ask, “What’s going on here? Isn’t this the guy that’s been bad-mouthing me on radio the whole time?” So some guy sits me down and says, “Hey listen, this is a big show, this is Jim Rome, I know he’s had some comments about you being like Chris Evert and I’m going to let you know, he told me he’s going to bring it up, but he wants to move on, move forward, he knows you’re excited about going to New Orleans, and that will be the focus. He promises.” I’m like, “That’s fine, I’m a big boy, I can handle it, I’m moving on, I got a great situation with New Orleans.”

In the segment before me, he was dogging Gordie Howe, and I’m thinking, “How does someone who’s never played sports dog Gordie Howe? He’s a hockey legend!” I knew I was in trouble when I went out to the set to meet Jim, and he would not look me in the eye. And I was like, “Huh?” He finally says, “You sit here,” so I sit on this chair, which was like a first-grade chair.