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meetings and present our results. Stu would often suggest that we stay at his home, or close to his home, because we were essentially on call. We’d be presented with screwdrivers with three fingers of Stoli at seven o’clock in the morning, you know, to start the workday, and then we’d be dragged out to lunch somewhere for another two or three martinis. Then by 3:00 or 3:30, everyone’s concentration would be wandering, and it would be time to go down to the country club and pull up a chair at that point. There was very little sober deliberation going on. We were kind of taking a sip and, you know, dumping stuff in wastebaskets, because we couldn’t function this way. Stu was literally physiologically dependent at that point. He wasn’t eating any food. All of his calories were coming right out of the bottle, and he would start at breakfast and go right through the day. He would get progressively harder and harder to deal with as you got closer to four o’clock in the afternoon, when the serious drinking would start up.

GEORGE GRANDE:

There’s no way to overstate the legitimacy that Chet and Scotty brought to the company both inside and out. Give Bill Rasmussen the credit he is due—he had the idea—and Stu gets credit because his influence secured the Getty money. But Chet Simmons and Scotty Connal, in my mind, were a unique combination in sports television. Chet was brilliant, had great foresight, and could meet in a tank with sharks to battle them tooth and nail. Remember, the businesspeople in the sports profession can be very tough. And then on the other hand, you’ve got Scotty, and nobody was ever better at running the production side. Without these two men, people would have looked at ESPN in the early days and said, “This is a lark; it’s never going to make it.” And in that case, that might have been right.

BILL GRIMES:

The dynamics of ESPN changed dramatically when Chet left to go to the USFL. All of a sudden it became New York—me, Roger, and Steve—against Bristol—Scotty, Bill Fitts, and a couple others. We all banded together. There would be no ESPN if it weren’t for Scotty Connal and the people who surrounded him, but there was a line drawn between us and them, and after Chet left, that’s when I began to say it’s probably going to be time for some people to move on.

ABC’s initial investment in ESPN introduced ABC executive Herb Granath to the small executive gang in Bristol. Granath, who had a strong bond with ABC founder Leonard Goldenson, would now become a key player for Evey, Grimes, and Werner. Granath understood the largely uncharted world of cable more than most broadcast executives did; he had been involved in several of ABC’s joint efforts with cable already. He was more cautious than the ESPN guys, however, and very protective of what he considered the proper channels of communication.

The relationship between Granath and Grimes would be a pivotal one for both ESPN and ABC, and it would be a powerful reminder that first impressions not only matter but often have huge consequences.

BILL GRIMES:

Stu said to me, “ABC owns a piece of this thing now and the person you are going to be working with is this guy Herb Granath at ABC, and I want to get you two guys together.” Now, to put this story in perspective, you need to know that I lived in Darien, Connecticut, and there is a line that divides it from the next town, Norwalk. Darien is kind of an upscale Waspy place, and Norwalk, to the east of Darien, is a blue-collarish kind of a town. This might sound completely trivial as you hear this but when I get to the point of the story, I think it makes a more significant point. So I go see Herb Granath, and we have a lovely, nice chat about things. Blah, blah, blah. There’s a little pause, and I say to him, “Oh, by the way, where do you live?” And he says, “I live in Darien, Connecticut.” I said, “What a coincidence! I do too. Whereabouts do you live?” And he says, “I live on Maywood Road.” I said, “I’ll be darned. I live on Maywood Road too.” Now I see him clench up a little bit and his smile went away. And that