Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [377]
STEVE BERTHIAUME:
She’s got to be used to it by now, but it made us uncomfortable. It just isn’t safe. Forget about annoying; this is dangerous.
RECE DAVIS:
She’s a very gregarious and outgoing girl. She’s very talkative and nice, and she’s friendly with people, but she understands the distance she needs to keep and does a good job of it. It’s really not easy. Especially people who will sometimes have a little liquid courage and—maybe “mob mentality” is too strong a term to use—but when there are ten frat guys together, and one of them is a little braver than the next, it’s just tough.
Amidst the various suspensions and firings, one little-noticed arrival in Bristol, although lacking the dazzle of some others, would prove to be the gift that kept on giving for the network. That was the hiring of Michelle Beadle as a new on-air personality.
Growing up, Beadle had never imagined being on air for ESPN. She was so insecure about her looks, she wouldn’t even wear shorts. Beadle attended the University of Texas at San Antonio and wound up taking off three years between her junior and senior years, much to the dismay of her parents. She waited tables and traveled around the country. When she got back home, her father told her, “Do something. I don’t care what it is, just do something,” so she interned for the San Antonio Spurs. They shoved her in front of the camera one day and, though the first attempt was (according to her) “hideous,” the camera man told Beadle, “Just ignore the camera.” She did, and things were immediately better. She never looked back.
Beadle bounced among many jobs and several networks before hearing about auditions for the new SportsNation program on ESPN2. SportsNation was going to be a daily afternoon sports show that heavily solicited viewer contributions, ideas, and opinions, the concept being to bridge the gap between viewers and viewed. The last of 142 people to audition, Beadle balked when asked to compose a list of improvements she’d make to the show. Considering the assignment a joke, Beadle said later that she simply dashed off “a sarcastic list of ten stupid things”—doing such an amusing job of it that ESPN executives felt she’d be perfect.
Beadle turned out to be the ideal cohost (opposite the especially quirky Colin Cowherd, a man who seemed never to have an unspoken thought): smart but ingenuous, pretty but not distractingly sexual. “Beadlemania” was born and helped make SportsNation not just a success but also a draw for ESPN’s youngest and most heavily male audience—a sponsor’s dream.
Disarmingly unaffected and self-effacing, Beadle prefers to “come off as intelligent and witty and myself” rather than be regarded as a babe. She takes her new fame and status in stride—perhaps because she doesn’t quite believe it’s actually happening.
MICHELLE BEADLE:
I met with the guys who came up with the show—Jamie Horowitz, Kevin Wilde, and David Jacoby. I didn’t know it was a meeting for a specific show; I just thought it was another of those meetings my agent had been dragging me to and which would never amount to anything. But it wasn’t even a meeting; it was literally us sitting around a table telling inappropriate stories. And then I came in and auditioned. I was the last one, due to scheduling issues.
They knew they wanted Colin; he was already part of the deal. I’d heard nightmares about him—misogynist, jerk, he’s this, he’s that—so I came in with my wall up a little bit, but it was the most fun audition I’d ever had.
COLIN COWHERD:
They had me be part of the interviews with seven or eight women. I told the producers, “I just need someone who can throw a punch and take a punch, because the stuff I’m vomiting on the air can be offensive,