Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [38]
The nice thing about going to ESPN back then was that sports was not just important, it was the only thing going on there, so you didn’t have to fight for time.
ANDY BRILLIANT:
The town was nothing but a broken-down shopping center. Most of the stores were closed. I remember there was shattered glass all over the place. That was about all there was to the town. I remember the last Christmas I was still at HBO, they used to have these annual Christmas parties at like Studio 54, and they were pretty incredible affairs. In 1980, just after I landed at ESPN, we were invited by Chet to a function in Bristol where we had a table. I guess we were being honored by the Lions Club. My wife wound up sitting next to Chet’s wife, Harriet, and Harriet was telling her that she had to go to the local Marshalls store and buy these bolts of cloth so she could make a dress for $15—and this was the president’s wife!
Then this one guy’s girlfriend was evidently this Cuban whore who sat at the table with us, so it was kind of a very strange set of circumstances. I had to console my wife on the way home; she was just absolutely in tears: “What have you done to me?”
BILL CREASY:
Chet and Scotty owned homes in the Hartford area, and Chet really pushed me to buy a house and be part of the community, to prove my allegiance. They arranged for real-estate agents to take me around, and I’d go look at little three-bedroom ranch houses, all that kind of crap, but the truth is, I didn’t want to live up there, and they didn’t want to keep paying for my room at the Holiday Inn. Chet wrote me a personal letter—very laudatory—about how much they couldn’t have accomplished if I hadn’t been part of the team, and a lot of other good stuff. Then four months later, he had Scotty tell me that we’d come to the end of the rope. I had to buy a house and live up there or I had to go. I left.
STEVE BORNSTEIN:
I thought Bill kind of abandoned us, and he became persona non grata to Chet and Scotty after turning them down. They felt betrayed. But he wasn’t about to give up his lifestyle.
BOB GUTKOWSKI, Vice President of Programming:
I’d been working at NBC Sports for twelve years, and it’s May of 1981. Chet makes me an offer to become head of programming and I was struggling with what to do. At NBC, Ohlmeyer’s temper was really starting to get to me, so I sat down with my wife and told her, “I’m gonna do this ESPN thing, but I’m not going to tell anybody until after Wimbledon so we can get another trip to Wimbledon.” We loved going to Wimbledon, and I figured when I got back, I would resign.
So we go to Wimbledon, and word starts to get out that Gutkowski is going to be leaving. I figured, we’re here now, let’s tell them. So I tell my boss, and he doesn’t try and convince me not to do it, but warns me, “Don’t say anything until we get back, because we don’t want Ohlmeyer to find out.” They thought Ohlmeyer was starting to become fond of me, and he would’ve gotten pissed if I left. So I said, “All right, fine, I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
So on the final day of Wimbledon, my wife and I are walking in the park there and we see Don and his wife. I say to him, “Don, I’ll see ya. Take care.” And he says, “Yeah, I’ll see ya next week.” And I said, “No, I really mean, see ya. I resign.” And he goes, “You can’t do this. You have to give me a chance to talk to you.” So my wife and I take the regular flight home, and Don takes the Concorde. By the time I get home that evening, there are four messages: “You have to call Don Ohlmeyer.” So I call Don, and he says, “You have to see me tomorrow in my office at nine o’clock in the morning.” So I go to his office, and he says, “I don’t want you to go,” and he offers me the vice presidency of NBC Sports programming, and I’m thinking, “You gotta be fucking kidding me.” He says, “I don’t want you to go. We’ll move Geoff