Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [286]
I was producing that night. Brr. Chaos really. Not only from the league’s standpoint, but from our standpoint. The brawl happens, and the next thing you know, we’re on the air. And as soon as we started, John was very, very offended by what the fans had done. I was as culpable as everyone else. I got caught up too.
Was it chaotic? Sure. But that’s what the producer’s there for. The producer is supposed to cut through the chaos and be able to be the voice of reason and get guys back on track. But I didn’t do that. I allowed them to continue down one path. It’s okay to have an opinion, but if you’re not going to balance that opinion—especially on a sensitive topic like this one—it doesn’t become just an opinion anymore, it becomes “the network stance.”
I had a two-hour ride home after doing the show in New York, and it was tough. That’s when it hit me: we did not do ourselves proud today.
JOHN SAUNDERS:
So the next day is Saturday, and I’m in the studio at ABC, doing college football. The phone rings, and it’s Mark Shapiro. I’m thinking, “Oh, he probably wants to congratulate me for what a nice job I did covering the fight last night.” So I get on the phone and he goes, “John, what were you thinking?! You can’t say that! You can’t take on the fans! You can’t support the players for going into the stands!” And we had a very spirited discussion about it. I said the same thing: “Mark, if someone were to come up and throw a cup on you, you trying to tell me you would just walk away? You know you would go after the person. Anybody would.” And I said, “The other thing, Mark, is that you don’t understand what it’s like to be an athlete in the arena and have your adrenaline peaked to a certain level just to play the game, and now it’s peaked even higher by what’s going on, because a fight breaks out, and now somebody throws something at you, and you’re not reacting rationally but it’s understandable why you’re not reacting rationally. The other thing you don’t understand is what it’s like to be black and to be in that situation. You feel immediately disrespected. It’s not just that somebody threw a cup of water on you. The immediate thought as it happened is, they threw it on me because I’m black.” And so we had the conversation, and he totally disagreed with me. I don’t know this for a fact, but I have heard through a third party that David Stern had asked for me to be fired. Again, I don’t know that for a fact.
DAVID STERN:
I have never asked that someone at ESPN be removed or suspended for any opinion expressed about the NBA. It is complete fabrication if anyone suggests otherwise.
JOHN SAUNDERS:
They did have a meeting: Mark Shapiro, John Walsh, Steve Anderson, Norby Williamson, and, I believe, Vince Doria. They were all white faces in the room. I pointed that out: “You’re trying to tell me I need to adjust and promise y’all I will never do this again, but there’s not one of you in here who can understand where I was coming from.” And sometimes that happens with content as well.
JIM GRAY:
The night Ron Artest went into the stands, I was courtside. Mark didn’t like the way the studio folks had responded on the air. He thought it was harsh to call fans punks and he thought it was so wrong to basically be siding with the player. He called me up after the game and said, “You’re the only one that made us proud last night; you were the only one that held the objectivity from a journalistic standpoint. You were the only one that was asking the players, participants, fans, and the police all the right questions, and it was a great moment for you.” And he added, “I gotta get the rest of us on board.” I’m not trying to be critical of the people I was on the air with, Mike Breen and Bill Walton. I think they handled it very well, but the studio wasn’t on the course he wanted to chart. And you know, it turned out to be a whole big megillah because obviously David Stern didn’t like it either. And David Stern didn’t like the fact that in any way, shape, or form, whether the fans were responsible or not, they could be blamed.