Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [406]
Gratitude also goes to those at other networks, league offices, and, most significantly, former ESPN employees for their openness. We are no less grateful to those who were interviewed but chose not to be quoted by name and those who, only because of space limitations, did not make the final cut. To them go apologies as well as thanks. To those who were not interviewed, it wasn’t personal. There are literally thousands who could have made compelling contributions to this book; there just wasn’t enough time and space to include everyone.
Maura Mandt’s army of ESPY professionals, particularly Jennifer Aiello, were selflessly helpful, as were many publicists, agents, and others representing those who participated.
All the interviews were recorded on old-fashioned cassette tapes, because the one and only Harriet Schnitzer, who started transcribing tapes more than twenty-five years ago for Running in Place: Inside the Senate, prefers tapes. She is a marvel. However, the workload would have been unmanageable without an incredible lineup helping out as well: Katie Andrew, Martin Beiser, Lila Blaylock, Jennifer Haubrich, Bari Laskow, Oliver Miller-Farrell, Ryan Mitchell, Victoria Rosner, Alex Shapiro, and Avi Zenilman all provided invaluable support. To push the sports metaphor further: what a team.
Steve Skaggs, a dear friend, took time to read the manuscript and thus make the work journey more stimulating. Michael Ferman, a brother in spirit, makes the life journey more stimulating.
This book has been published at Little, Brown because that’s where their extraordinary editor in chief Geoff Shandler resides. The world would be a smarter place if he could take a look at everything before its final version. Gratitude extends to his colleagues at Little, Brown—Karen Andrews, Amanda Brown, Nicole Dewey, Heather Fain, Peggy Freudenthal, Holly Hartman, Keith Hayes, Laura Keefe, Karen Landry, Pamela Marshall, Liese Mayer, Amanda Tobier, Mary Tondorf-Dick, and Betsy Uhrig—and their gifted, gracious leader, Michael Pietsch.
If Sloan Harris were to leave the agency business and become, say, a dentist, we would be his willing and even eager patients; were he to become an architect, we’d be at his office door asking him to design our houses. He is tireless in his devotion and deserves our warm professional—and personal—indebtedness.
Finally: loving appreciation to Chloe Tess Miller, humanitarian and artist; to Sophie Alexandra Miller, athlete and scholar; and to Zachary Samuel Miller, idealist and visionary, for their incredible patience and heartfelt encouragement. These three gifts from G-d are the children of one coauthor and the G-dchildren of the other. In both roles, in their exuberance and delight, they put us to shame.
Not Much Joy in Mudville. The beginnings of the E.S.P. Network (later changed to ESPN) were nothing if not humble. Here a billboard welcomes visitors to Bristol, Connecticut, where ground was about to be broken for the first ESPN building, the Broadcast Center, in 1979.
Opening Night. It’s showtime, or almost. George Grande (left) and Lee Leonard make last-minute preparations for the first-ever telecast of SportsCenter on ESPN’s premiere night, September 7, 1979.
Chris “Boomer” Berman, twenty-six, with former New York Jets great Freeman McNeill (right), at ESPN’s second annual coverage of the NFL draft in 1981. No one had thought to try turning the draft into a TV show until ESPN, desperate for programming, transformed it into a national marathon. It never went away.
A persistent fixture on ESPN in its early years was Australian rules football. With little money to spend and few big-ticket events within reach, ESPN scrounged the back alleys of sport for events that no one else wanted—perhaps had never even heard of.
Two Bristol Pillars. Former basketball coach Dick Vitale chats with Bob Ley on an