Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [96]
She stood up in a meeting and said, “Guys, you know what, all this bullshit’s got to stop; we’re trying to do our jobs just like you are, and this is preventing us from doing our jobs.” She ended up going to human resources to report two guys that I was pretty friendly with, but at the time, neither guy knew that Karie and I were dating. I remember both of those guys being hauled in, but I never talked with them about it. They were not fired. They were given a warning.
CHRIS BERMAN:
I was not at the cafeteria meeting, but Karie was right, I’m sure of that. I liked her. She was a great-looking woman; still is, the last time I saw her.
As far as the women were concerned, I will say this: we looked out for each other. If somebody had a problem, a couple of the guys took care of it. If I talked to someone, I would say, “Take it easy. We’re all still friends. Don’t make anybody uncomfortable here.” If someone was uncomfortable and they came to the right people, it was “Cut that shit out.” If there were a couple of the camera ladies having trouble with some guys, they would let the right people know about it and it was policed. The right guys didn’t stand for that. But maybe I was naive.
BILL CREASY:
We did have some women on the air and on staff, but we certainly were looking for more. I’m a great believer in having a lot of women around you while you work. That was my track record at CBS. I like the idea of having female talent and female executives. I know it’s quite sexist, but when you have a pretty girl around the office, it’s a little bit happier than having an ugly girl. And if that pretty girl is good, then you’ve just sort of added to tree of your growth. I firmly believe that.
FRED GAUDELLI:
I give John Walsh and Steve Anderson credit. They said, “Hey look, what Karie said is 1,000 percent right, this crap has got to stop right here, right now.” And there wasn’t any wavering on their part.
STEVE ANDERSON:
We used to do research, focus groups and things like that, to have a better understanding of what people wanted. In all the discussions over the course of years, we would get over and over, back to 1988, “I don’t know why you guys put women on SportsCenter. Nobody wants to get their sports from women.” You would hear that all the time. And then we hire Robin and within two years, “You guys just don’t get it, you shouldn’t put women on SportsCenter, women don’t know about sports—except Robin Roberts.” Whatever it was, Robin was able to connect with those guys who believe that they don’t want their sports from women. She was an original in that way.
KARIE ROSS:
Drugs were very prevalent back then. One time I was out on the road with a producer and camera man, and they pulled out some marijuana to start smoking. I just came unglued. I said, “You guys can’t do that; you just cannot do that. Cannot, cannot, cannot. We are driving. We’re on the job.” And I just said that if we get pulled over right now, it won’t be your name in the paper, it’ll be mine. I was so mad that they put me in that situation. And they never did after that. Something like that could be a career killer.
I’d actually never seen a bong in my entire life, then I walked into this party and there’s potato chips, dip, beer, and I said, “What’s that?” Well it was a bong, and they all started laughing at me because they couldn’t believe I didn’t know what a bong was. I just said, “I have to get out of here,” and I left. In fact, any time there were drugs at all, I wound up leaving right away. We all know it’s guilt by association.
GAYLE GARDNER:
George Grande tried to talk me out of going to NBC, but I had put in over five years at ESPN and was ready to go. It was a very small place; you kind of knew everyone who was there, and