Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [34]
I think we went on the air at eight in the morning. The network had been on the air for just seven months, and we were basically doing what we had been doing all that time—making it up as we went along. We’d switch back and forth between Bristol and New York, and before you know it, it was four o’clock in the afternoon. Eventually it became apparent that we weren’t going to realize Chet’s worst nightmare—which was that it was just going to be a god-awful mess.
VINCE PAPALE, Pro Football Analyst:
I was shocked that I was asked to participate, but it sounded cool. Everything was done on the fly, and even though I played all the sports I’ve played, being a sportscaster was not a religion to me, so when it came to recalling names and facts, I wasn’t that great at it. I was pretty much overwhelmed. It was the longest day I ever had on TV, totally exhausting.
GEORGE GRANDE:
We had about thirty people doing the draft, and a friend from CBS came over, and said, “Where is everybody?” and I said, “This is it.” He said, “Well, if we were doing it,” meaning CBS, “we’d have 130 people here.” But that was the joy of it. It was us against the world, us against all the odds.
We sat down at 6:30 to go on the air at 8:00 a.m. and I didn’t get up till eight o’clock at night. I didn’t go to the bathroom from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
We all realized this was the start of something, a major step for us. Chet and Scotty would say, “Someday we’re going to have a Super Bowl. We don’t know when that will be, but we’re going to have the NFL, we’re going to have Major League Baseball, the NBA, and we’re going to have the NHL, but right now we have to build on a solid foundation with visions of getting there at some point in time.” And I think that first step into the big time was the NFL draft.
CHET SIMMONS:
Every day was a different challenge. Every day was a battle to survive. The NCAA tournament was great for us, but it came and went. The draft put us in business with the NFL, and that was huge. We were starting to get a little bit of attention, but we still needed more ideas, more money, and good people.
BILL CREASY:
Before I got to ESPN, I was working on a project for Warner Communications. A fellow named John Lack hired me. They were doing this new channel called QUBE and trying to get more subscribers, and thought Ohio State football would help. So I was sent out to Columbus to get the rights to games, which we would tape and then show Saturday night. Steve Ross, who ran Warner, decided that even though I knew television, I should go with someone who really knew football. So he had Allie Sherman, the former head coach of the Giants, go with me. He was a legend, very famous, and very intimidating.
We get to the local station that’s going to do the production with us, and there’s this overweight, bearded, young guy with an afro there with his boss, who says to me, “Say hi to my head of production, Steve Bornstein.” So the meeting starts, and Allie, in his acquired Southern accent, having graduated from Brooklyn College, launches in. “Boys, I’ll tell you what we want. We’re gonna need eight cameras, three tape machines, audio at four or five locations”—I mean, he goes on and on about what he wants. I was shocked by how strong he was coming on and all he was asking for. All of a sudden, over here to my right, young Steve with the afro and beard looks at him and says, “Mr. Sherman, with all due respect, this is what you’re going to get: Only three cameras, one tape machine, and one truck. And that’s it.” I looked at him and said to myself, “I love this fucking guy.”
STEVE BORNSTEIN, Chairman:
I always liked sports but was kind of a hacker. When I left college, I wanted to be a television sports