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then—I would say twenty-seven—and I really think that time and perspective have provided me with a lot of insights so I could gain more longevity in the business. I don’t have to deal with too much now, because quite frankly, I’m forty and could be half these kids’ mother. But on the occasions when I do come up against it, I’m prepared. I deal with it all through humor, because it’s like when a shark senses fear, they win. If an athlete knows that they’re backing you into a corner, and you respond in a fashion that shows them that you can’t handle yourself, they win—whether you cave to their request or not. So if a player or coach ever hits on me, I’m like, “Honey, you don’t want to go there; you can’t handle it.” I just make a joke about it. Then it doesn’t make them feel uncomfortable that they’re being rejected. By handling it that way, I’ve found that maybe I get a little smidgen of extra respect, because I don’t try to diminish them, and I don’t make what could have plausibly been a real awkward moment even more so by the way I responded.

MITCH ALBOM:

Skip Bayless and I were hired to do a version of Sports Reporters on ESPN’s prime Monday football program, along with Joe Theismann, Phil Simms, and Mike Tirico. So I had to be in Bristol on Mondays. The next morning, I’d wake up and go see Morrie [Schwartz], and that’s how it ended up being Tuesdays with Morrie. It was such a contrast because on Monday night I’d be talking all this football stuff, arguing over whether John Elway still has it, and then boom, the next day I’m sitting with Morrie, who is dying and it’s all about the meaning of life and terminal illness. I thought, “Wow, this is a lot of life rolled into twenty-four hours.”

I didn’t decide to do the book until I found out that Morrie didn’t have the money for his medical bills. The whole reason I wrote the book was to pay his medical bills. Sometimes I would go down to New York after seeing him, to try to find a publisher to publish the book; we got turned down everywhere. It was “No, no, you’re a sportswriter; this is about death, it’s boring, nobody wants it.” It was only two weeks before he died that we actually finally solidified the deal with Doubleday.

They printed twenty thousand copies when I wrote it, and I gave Morrie all the money and just said, “Pay off your bills.” It was a labor of love. They printed twenty thousand more copies the following August. Now, worldwide, it has sold sixteen or seventeen million copies.

HOWARD KATZ:

The Clinton White House approached us about doing a show on race relations in the United States and offered the president to be the host and moderator of a panel discussion. We did a live town hall meeting in April of 1998, and it was great television. Two days later, we had an ESPN group meeting in New York, and I walked into the board meeting and Roone stood up and gave me a hug. He said, “I’ve never been so proud to be associated with ESPN as I was last night, to see the president of the United States hosting a show on ESPN on a really important and relevant topic. I really can’t tell you how proud I am.” Well, for me, that was absolutely as good as it got.

BOB LEY:

The entire national press corps was in the back of the hall because they wanted their shot at him about Monica Lewinsky, which had bubbled up several months earlier. I wasn’t allowed to ask him anything about the intern issue, because there were ground rules surrounding his appearance. Trust me, I was not about to take that opportunity.

SUZY KOLBER:

My contract was coming up, and pretty much every assignment they had given me I had done pretty well, SportsCenter, Extreme Games, or whatever. [Fox Sports president] David Hill called me, and my agent, Kenny Linder, really wanted me to go to Fox; the money was unbelievable. ESPN, I think, had a right to match anything, and I think it was John Walsh who called me and said, “We’re not going to match the number you’re saying right now, but go out and see what you can find.” I said, “John, the number’s going to get bigger.” And it sure did. I still didn