Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [358]
The guys over at ESPN seem to be doing just fine without me. But if I were president of the network for a day, I might find some time to devote to working together and moving beyond the same old debates year after year—by finally creating a college football playoff system.
When Alex Rodriguez decided in February of 2009 that he would discuss his long-denied steroid problem in an exclusive interview with ESPN’s Peter Gammons, there was much backroom maneuvering in Bristol. Despite Gammons’s tenure, ability, and professional stature, ESPN executives wanted him to sit down with über–interview coach John Sawatsky for a refresher course.
Sawatsky had come to Bristol initially as a consultant after John Walsh read an article about him—“The Question Man”—in the American Journalism Review. But Mark Shapiro wanted him full-time—on staff—and brought him on-campus. Born in Winkler, Manitoba, Canada, in 1948, Sawatsky worked as an investigative journalist in the eighties (blowing the lid off, among others, the “misdeeds” of Canadian Mounties) but grew increasingly fascinated by the art and science of interviewing. He developed a three-day seminar that dispensed such imparted wisdom as “Questions are precise instruments” and tactics to avoid asking anything that could be answered with a yes or no.
After his arrival in Bristol, anchors, reporters, and producers were encouraged, or required, to take Sawatsky’s exhaustive three-day workshop. Many found it helpful, despite complaints that it went on too long. Some of those who participated changed their interviewing style as a result; many would even arrange to meet up with Sawatsky prior to embarking on a big assignment. Others, however—usually big stars and big names—balked at attending the seminars at all or went grudgingly.
JOHN SAWATSKY, Senior Director of Talent Development:
We’ve had some real successes here. Of course there were some complete misses as well. I was deeply involved with the A-Rod interview. When we got the interview, Vince Doria, my boss, put me on the case to get some questions going. I talked with a few others and came up with a comprehensive question list. Now, the problem here sometimes is when you get a big personality like Peter Gammons, who is a Hall of Famer, they don’t want the help. He basically put the question list aside and went on his own, but he didn’t even ask the most basic questions. Consequently, A-Rod had to do a press conference later on to fill in all the missing links, all the blanks for questions that Peter didn’t ask.
After Rodriguez admitted taking steroids, some people felt that Gammons should have pressed him harder for more information about when, how much, and why; Gammons had let Rodriguez off “easy,” it was charged. Gammons wasn’t going to be bothered by critics or comments from the blogosphere, however. He approached the case from a different vantage point.
PETER GAMMONS:
I was working out at a gym in Boston, and got a call from a guy I knew who had been helping Alex with the SI.com story that he had flunked the drug test. He said, “Would you be interested in coming down to Miami? I think that Alex is going to have to tell his side here.” So I got a hold of Vince and Jay Levy and they said, “Yeah, go ahead.” I got the first plane I could get down to Miami. What was funny was that Alex originally was going to do it at seven or eight o’clock at night, but he was not prepared.