Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [70]
In its first few years of existence, “ESPN” was something short of a magic acronym. If you worked there and tried dropping the name, you were more likely to receive a blank stare of bewilderment than a delighted smile of recognition. But ESPN had been beaming its highly specialized, increasingly polished product into more and more homes, clubs, and corner bars, and staff could console themselves with the anticipation that a breakthrough had to be right around the corner.
Thus, every bit of recognition was somehow gratifying—just a sign, just a moment in time, whatever form that might take…
FRED GAUDELLI:
A couple weeks before the Big East championships—this was the great ’86 tournament, where St. John’s beat Syracuse—Jeff Israel, Mo Davenport, and I were sent out to shoot scenics for the tournament. We went to Brownsville, Brooklyn, where Pearl Washington was from, then we went to the South Bronx, where Walter Berry came from. We were going all around the city in the freezing cold of winter trying to get what we could. Now it’s about eight o’clock at night and we’re in Lower Manhattan. So we go, “Hey, let’s try to get on the roof of the World Trade Center and get some great shots.” We go there and get in the elevator and head up to Windows on the World, which I think was the last floor, and we ask them, “Hey, can we get up to the roof? We want to take some shots of Lower Manhattan. We’re with ESPN.” And they told us that we needed to get prior clearance to get on the roof, that we just couldn’t walk up there. So I asked, “Is there anybody we can talk to about it?” And they say, “There’s a security guard over there, try him.” We asked the security guard, “Can we just go up for twenty minutes,” and I think Mo had an ESPN hat on, and next thing you know, we’re giving him the hat and he’s letting three guys with no clearances and a camera on top of the World Trade Center. We were standing right next to the big antenna!
STUART EVEY:
One night, I thought I’d have a cocktail, and then after I finished it, I decided to have a cup of coffee. Next thing I knew I put some liquor in my coffee, and it went on and on. I had about three or four of those—all night—and I wasn’t drunk. But I knew the time had come. I couldn’t even enjoy a cup of coffee without the stuff. So finally we went to the Betty Ford clinic. They say a miracle happens in A.A., and I think this was a miracle. They introduced me, and everybody stood in a line and hugged me, “Stu, it’s great to have you,” on and on and on. The last guy was a little fellow. He worked for the Denver Broncos. They didn’t know what I did. He had been in there for a while and was going to leave the next day. He put his arms around me and he said, “Goddamn you smell good, Stu,” because he could smell the alcohol. I had nobody to blame but myself. And I’ll tell you what, I haven’t had a desire to have a drink since.
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Ripeness Is All: 1987–1991
“But the real glory of science is that we can find a way of thinking such that the law is evident.”
—Richard P. Feynman
DENNIS CONNER, America’s Cup Skipper:
How would you like to have someone come into your bedroom with a camera while you were fucking your wife and she was screaming? Unless you were ever part of a team sport, you would never know what it’s like to work for thirty-six months together, training all the time, and then have someone intrude. Because the last thing in the whole world you would want is to have people you don’t even know onboard hearing you say “fuck” or “shit” or “what the hell is happening here.” That’s not including all the gear on the boat, production people coming and going in our compound,