Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [21]
BOB LEY, Anchor:
I went to Seton Hall and was on WOR radio. Then TV3 started suburban cablevision over in East Orange, New Jersey, just a couple of miles from where I went to school, and they needed somebody to do high school sports. So I started doing per diem work there and eventually they took me on for a full year, and I was a sports director. This is a time when there was no local cable in North Jersey, no local programming, so we were giving them stuff they’d never had before. We were even giving them election returns. I was producing all that and anchoring a lot of games. After about three years of doing that, I got a tip about an article in April of ’79, Sports Illustrated, about a network that was about to start. So I sent a tape up to Connecticut and got a letter back on this blue bizarre logo stationery—I must have one of the few copies that’s still in existence of the old logo, the ESP Network. It was from Lou Palmer, an anchor, who was a fellow Seton Hall alum, writing back.
So I’m asleep in my apartment, it’s a Monday morning, probably had been out late the night before, and there’s a phone call in the kitchen. Could you come up to Connecticut for an interview? I’m not thoroughly awake, but I say, “Yes, I’ll be up there this Friday. I’m sorry, your name again?” And the guy says, “Scotty Connal.” Well, my jaw dropped. I knew of Scotty. I said, “My God, you’re a legend. I’ll see you Friday.”
A couple hours later the phone rings, and New Jersey Public Television wants me to come in for a job there. I interviewed with ESPN on Friday of that week, and Scotty basically offered me a job as he was walking me to the door. The next day, I had an interview with New York Public Television in Newark, and they offered me the job as their number two sports guy, where I would anchor on weekends out of New York and Philly, then report three days a week.
I was twenty-four. I had two job offers on consecutive days. And I had a day to make up my mind in eighteen hours. The fact that Scotty was there was a big deal for me. The biggest.
I went back a couple weeks later to find a place to live, and Scotty introduced me to Chet. Chet sat me down in the office, told me, “We’re hiring you for what you know. We’re hiring you for your opinions.” I was sitting there thinking, “I’m talking to this guy who was the head of NBC Sports, who was the boss of Curt Gowdy. What the hell do I know? What opinions do I have that they care about?”
LEE LEONARD, Anchor:
Right before ESPN I was at NBC Sports for four years doing a show called Grandstand with Bryant Gumbel. It was a typical Sunday wraparound show between sporting events. Basically, during football season it was like the NFL Today, which I had done for a year at CBS, then I worked with Chet and Scotty at NBC. But I didn’t give up NBC Sports, NBC Sports gave me up. One day there was this big guy roaming around our studio, and I said, “Throw this fucking guy out. He bothers me.” His name was Don Ohlmeyer. He was my new boss. So when my agent said, “Do you want to go up and talk to these people?” I said, “Sure.”
They hired a bunch of guys like Jim Simpson, a real professional play-by-play guy, and they had some young guys who wanted to do play-by-play, I guess, but nobody wanted to be in the studio. Chet said to me, “You know how to do a studio show. We want you to anchor our studio show.” So I did.
There was no running water in the building, and you had to go out to a port-o-san in the parking lot. Technically they didn’t really know what they were doing; they had rented a truck which acted as a control room, and there was no way they were ready to go on the air.
CHRIS BERMAN, Anchor:
John Wilkes Booth was born on my birthday and so were a couple of other assassins. I was bummed when I heard that. Willie Mays and Joe Namath were heroes, but so was Lincoln.
I knew what I wanted to do when I was fourteen. Although I played varsity basketball and varsity soccer, I didn’t play football. Big boy but didn