Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [321]
TONY KORNHEISER:
I had never watched Monday Night Football. It was on too late. I went to sleep. I never saw one complete game in twenty years.
Walsh called up and said, “Skipper and I are coming down.” I hadn’t known Skipper well. I hadn’t met him very often, a few times here and there. “What do you want?” “We want to talk to you.” “What do you want to talk to me about?” “We just want to talk to you.” “Okay.” I hung up, and I said to my wife, “This is going to be bad.” She said, “Why?” I said, “They could offer me Monday Night Football.” So they came down and told me they wanted me to do Monday Night Football. And my exact response was “Get the fuck out of here. No, seriously, get the fuck out of here. Why me? Why are you doing this? Why are you ruining my life?”
They said, “Why are we ruining your life?” and I said, “Because I have to take it. I love my life now. I got radio. I got PTI. I’m happy. I just bought a house in Delaware, you know? Everything is great, and I’m going to have to do this because no one can refuse this.” Then I said, “I’m not qualified for it. I don’t know anything about football. I don’t particularly like football. I’m terrified of airplanes. I don’t know how to do this—and I cannot say no to you. Get out and die!”
Here’s what I thought: “I’m going to fail.”
I had to do it because Cosell had done it, and I thought, “Why should only jocks do this? Where is it written in the Constitution that because a guy played football, he has the automatic right to sit in that booth? Goddammit, I want this for people like me.” And I don’t want to sound selfless here, but that’s part of the thinking—because if I do well or well enough, then maybe the next person doesn’t have to be a jock. How hard is football? If I’ve spent thirty-five years as a sportswriter, you think I don’t know you get six for a touchdown? You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t know you get three for a field goal? C’mon, c’mon. And I can actually speak English okay, so that would be a difference between me and the guy who spent his whole life playing football. Now, not all of them are like that, but it’s that thinking that says, “We have divine right of booth.” No, you don’t. No, you don’t.
MIKE TIRICO:
Monday Night Football is one of the unique things in our business because it’s lasted so long. I mean, stuff doesn’t last forty years in sports, in television, and especially in sports television—and at that point it was thirty-six. So the whole uniqueness of it made it one of those “wow” moments of my life. I remember being in the house and taking the phone call. I think my delay in saying yes came out of shock, to be honest with you. It certainly was a surprise.
I knew that Kornheiser was in the mix right away, and I assumed that Joe was staying. When it got to my radar, I was pretty much under the assumption it was going to be myself, Joe, and Tony. I was not in the pre-Tony discussion, and candidly, I think part of the equation was, I think, Tony would certainly be different, less like calling a pure game and more of the elements of a studio show, because Tony is topic driven and issue driven. Because of that, my experience of hosting studio shows for many years and doing play-by-play made the natural triangle work with Joe and Tony. At least in concept it was going to work.
JOE THEISMANN:
The first telecast we did, he sat there sweating, and I kept telling him, “Don’t worry. You’ll be great.” Tony was as nervous a puppy as you’re going to absolutely find. When he first sat down in front of that camera, I sort of chuckled. Amy is the girl that takes care of him, and God bless her. You know, Tony would need his bottles of water. He’d have to have his little pretzel before. He’d have his washcloth that he brought to pat himself down with. He was a little finicky. It was fun to watch. We all have our little idiosyncrasies. I’d watch Tony, the way he’d prepare. The things