Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [395]
One of the most ambitious and auspicious original projects in ESPN’s history—second only to SportsCentury—began as a brief memo e-mailed to John Skipper and John Walsh in 2007 from dot-com columnist Bill Simmons. He saw ESPN’s thirtieth anniversary looming and envisioned a massive and promising venture: 30 for 30, a series of documentaries each dealing with some theme, team, personality, rivalry, trend, or event—or any other phenomenon—that had played an important role in sports during the three decades that ESPN had been in operation.
Despite the fact that, as Simmons said, “ESPN loves celebrating ourselves,” the films were conceived not as baldly promotional pieces but as a collection of independent cinematic essays about people, places, and things adjudged “too dramatic not to be real.” Press releases dubbed the project “unprecedented,” and it was. It was also one of ESPN’s classiest undertakings.
Simmons thought each film should include at least one appearance by its director—an introduction and an interstitial element—explaining why the film’s subject deserved greater, more comprehensive treatment than it had so far received. But, who were these directors going to be, and where would they come from? Simmons’s friend Connor Schell suggested that outsiders, not ESPN staff, should make the films; Simmons agreed, and the dragnet was on.
What surprised Simmons was that finding enthusiastic filmmakers with a strong interest in sports wasn’t nearly as hard as he thought it would be. In fact, he said, “these people had been waiting for us. They had stories to tell. They just never thought they’d have a chance to tell them.” It turned out, for instance, that actor turned director Peter Berg was “obsessed” with hockey great Wayne Gretzky. Rap star turned actor and director Ice Cube was devoted to the peripatetic Raiders. And it also turned out that the great, Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson (Rain Man, The Natural) still mourned his beloved Baltimore’s loss of the Colts, the pro football team that in 1984 literally stole away in the night and moved to Indianapolis. Having never quite gotten over it, he all but jumped at the chance to make a film about it.
Once a few directors signed up, what Simmons dubbed “the domino effect” kicked in; big names attracted other big names, and they attracted still more. Morgan Freeman wanted to make a film about the 1995 South African rugby championships, and Spike Jonze, teamed with Johnny “Jackass” Knoxville, wanted to immortalize Mat Hoffman and the world of BMX racing on film. And on and on they came.
Controversial subjects were no liability. Steve James said he wanted to make a film about the part that racism played in the Virginia trial of basketball great Allen Iverson, charged at the age of seventeen with “maiming” a woman during a so-called race riot in a small Virginia town (his conviction was later overturned). 30 for 30 was a bold idea and a big risk, but it brought prestige, honor, and a new respectability to ESPN virtually from the outset.
JOHN SKIPPER:
My recollection is that 30 for 30 came out of a number of discussions afterward. As they say, success has many fathers and there were a number of people who contributed a lot, including Connor Schell, John Doll, and Keith. But I think without Bill Simmons, 30 for 30 could not have happened the same way. He was in the initial meetings, and he sent a seminal memo in which he suggested that we do thirty films.
However, a number of folks were critical to this initiative, including Keith Clinkscales, John Walsh, Joan Lynch, Connor Schell, Mike Tomlin, and the great unsung John Dahl. No one has been more influential in the final product than John Dahl, who is himself a documentary filmmaker and who clearly has the best connection to the filmmakers. Any suggestion of singular paternity here is an embellishment.
SPIKE LEE,