This was SportsCenter is presented by Gusto. When's the last time payroll was the easy part of your week? With Gusto, it can be. Gusto is the all-in-one platform designed to take the hassle out of managing your team, from payroll and compliance to hiring, onboarding, and more. With Gusto, you can get back two full days each month with all the time you've saved.
Try Gusto today at gusto.com slash TWSC and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com slash TWSC. One more time, gusto.com slash TWSC. Welcome to the latest edition of This Was Sports Center. Legacy pod looking back at the OG days of uh The worldwide leader in sports, as it used to be known, and of course, the show Sports Center.
And joining me here is a man who did Sports Center back in the day before he became the voice of college football and tennis and so much more. From ESPN, my friend Chris Fowler. Good to see you, Chris. I'm not original gangsta, but I'm like maybe. First generation.
You are OG. It is a remarkable run that you are still on right now. Good to see you, by the way. Good to see you too. Looking forward to it.
You're one of the few guests of this Sports Center who was actually at my wedding.
So There's a connection there.
Well, because again, you know, a lot of people associate me, obviously, with Stu from back in my day, or Dan, who was also at the wedding, serving drinks as well. Same table, yeah. Same table. We were all there. But, you know, you and I are not, you know, associated with one another.
By people who might be on the outside looking in, but you're a dear friend who I've known now for three decades, and I'm so psyched that you're here. I treasure that. No, it's the truth. And I wanted to share that off the top, as well as let everybody who takes in this show know, you know, we have a significant history in that regard. But you're also not, in a way, because of everything you've done associated with Sports Center.
From that day, but you did sports activities. I did a lot of sports back in the day. Yes, I did. Right?
So, let's just start, I guess, with this whole business of you joining. ESPN. You joined ESPN in 86, right? That was your first year there. Where'd you come from?
I was in Denver a year out of school, went to school in Boulder and worked at a local station. It was an NBC-owned and operated station in Denver.
So it was a good station, really good sports station. And I put together the whole tape and it got to ESPN. How'd it get to ESPN? I sent mine to a headhunter. Yeah, I had a consultant helping me out.
They got it there. It got to Al Jaffe's desk. Oh, yeah. And they might come up in this. It's already been coming up all the time.
That's how he's the one who called me at my desk in Redding, California.
So when I found out ESPN was interested, I thought. Sports center. Yeah.
Well yeah, no. What do you mean? Scholastic Sports America was what they had in mind, which was a high school sports show they were starting up. I'm Chris Fowler. Those stories, plus a lot more, coming up in the next half hour on ESPN Scholastic Sports America.
I looked 11 years old, man. It would have been weird to be on Sports Center, but I didn't. That's what I knew of ESPN. I was in college from 80 to 85, red shirt year, the early years of ESPN.
So I was a viewer from day one. I watched Sports Center, but that was not what they were calling me about. I got to Sports Center eventually, but it wasn't really a gold or a destination. It was. It was a high school sports show.
Okay. The offices were in a trailer in the parking lot. Of Bristol, Connecticut. Yes, I. I assume because they were short on office space, And not because they didn't want our little show commingling with Important people.
We were in the parking lot in the trailer. Sure.
So, yeah, this is year seven of ESPN's existence, pretty much. Yeah.
Is where you get a phone call from Al Jaffe to offer you a job of hosting Scholastic Space. I got summoned to Bristol for an interview. Because I had a few other, you know, go-read scores and. Cincinnati is a number three guy, or Topeka, Kansas, that kind of thing. And those were the conventional jobs to take.
That's what you were supposed to do. That's what we were told in journalism school. If you want to get into sports, you start at the entry-level local markets, you get a tape as soon as you can, you move up the ladder, and eventually you get to a station where I ended up. Starting because I was in a top 20 market. But as the cub reporter doing the things that they were not interested in doing, the main guys, like.
No Broncos or Nuggets for me. I was covering. CU football, which was terrible. Denver Pioneers hockey, regattas in the mountains. I mean, that kind of thing.
But it was a great experience. I got to put together features and write stuff about. Topics that you had to really kind of think about how to sell. Right. And that reel got me hired for this show in ESPN where we were doing the same thing, a magazine show doing features.
Emmett Smith was the first athlete I ever profiled. Come on. Pensacola Escambia High School was episode one, interview one, Emmett Smith. Welcome to Escambia High School in Pensacola. I do what coach asks us to do.
If it's staying out longer, I might have to stay out longer if I want to stay on his team. If I don't want to stay out no longer, I might have to go ahead and turn my gear and leave right there. The first episode of Scholastic Sports America was Chris Miller sitting down with future Florida Gator star, and obviously the greatest. Most prolific runner in Dallas Cowboy, if not all of NFL history. Absolutely.
The best prospect is Emmett Smith at 5'11 and 195 pounds. He's not big and he's not particularly fast. But he ran for over 3,000 yards last season. And when he suits up, he tears up the opposition. He was the first guest.
He was the first guy. The first episode, he was the first guest. We may have shot other ones, but right. But yeah, he was the first episode. There was a whole big bidding war: the Seminoles and the Gators.
You may not think nobody's looking at you, but somebody's out there looking at you play. And you'll get your chance sooner or later. Just hang in there. Probably under the table, fighting for his services. And we didn't get into that part of it.
No. But it was really cool. And Alonzo Morning and Billy Owens, other future NBA players, Janet Evans and Lance Armstrong. Yeah, that's where you met Lance. Yes, Lance Armstrong is just home from school.
Now it's time to go to work at his part-time job, professional triathlete. That's my way of. of affording the things that I want. You know, like other kids have jobs that So, they can go out on weekends, or so they can buy whatever they want to buy.
So, triathlons is like my job. There were a lot of really amazing people I met. in their high school years And then you'll meet random people who come up to me and say, I was on scholastic sports. Do you remember the archery segment we did in upstate New York? Yeah, yeah.
But that that it was fun and it was two years and then and then I moved up. But you know, that was my entree to ESPN.
Sort of like a faces in the crowd type of show. And that is amazing, Emmett Smith coming straight out of the box. Pretty cool.
So, when did you first get a call from ESPN management to say, Do you want to go on Sports Center? When did that happen for you?
Well, I was there and I had done this show two years, and management called me up and said, Hey, we got a great idea. We want you to go to LA. And be the sports center reporter, kind of West Coast Bureau guy. They had never had one. Out here in LA.
Yeah, they wanted me to be the first one to go out there and they figured, you know, young single guy, Bristol. Yeah.
Certainly's going to want to go to LA and like Go cover the Lakers, Dodgers. And you know, Rich, something it just didn't feel. Right, Timmy. And the conventional, sensible move would have been to say yes to management because that's a good idea, usually, if they want you to do something. to stubbornly say no, I'm not interested.
It could have been risky. And they thought. You're crazy to stay in a high school sports show and not go do. Live sports in LA, but I had just gone from west to east, and I was in the headquarters, such as it was, and it didn't feel right. And then I said no to that.
I thought they were going to put me in another year of that high school show. And then they said a month later, how about doing sidelines in college football and doing features on this pregame show we have on Saturday morning and do college basketball studio and cover the final four? It's like, boom, yes, instantly. But if I had said yes to the other thing, I never would have got game day. And I don't know if I'd be sitting here with the same resume.
So I tell people. You would have covered the Gibson home run, though. I would have done some good things. I might have ended up doing, doing what I ultimately wanted to do. Right.
But it would have been a detour, and you never know. I mean, I just think we're all a product of the choices we make when you get those forks in the road. And going to ESPN was, by the way, not a no-brainer either, because to do this show, not live TV. You know, at a seven-year-old cable network that wasn't viewed by a lot of people as a good move. Um that was a strange choice tool to the people who were advising me.
Advised not to do it. They do not go to ESPN to be the host of Scholastic Sports America. Correct. All those stories plus the record center's honor roll and our nickname of the week. Hi, I'm Chris Fowler in Texarkana, USA, one foot in Texas and one foot in Arkansas.
Welcome to ESPN Scholastic Sports America, the only show covering high school sports in all 50 states. And so I did anyway because I thought it would be fun. And by fun, I mean like fulfilling, challenging, and also You know, outside the box. And then the same thing, saying no to coming out here, which would have been the more conventional choice. Chris Myers ended up being hired for that position soon after.
you know, became friends and but I would have had a good time doing it, but I I wouldn't have gotten Game Day for sure.
Well, it's interesting that let we can detour into this one too, 'cause I kind of want this podcast to be this show to also be about our business and and how you can succeed in it or or decisions that are made. to lead down the To a different or better path, I always tell people sometimes. Try, do what you want to do. don't do something where you're too valuable. where you are doing something you don't want to do to be placed where you want to do something.
Don't ever be caught in that voice, which is what basically it sounds like. They wanted you to be in a spot where you might have wound up being particularly valuable to them, but you're not doing what you want to do.
Well, that's the interesting thing about having one employer for 38 years in this business, which is insane. If you thought about that, there's no chance. I was told you're going to have to change jobs five to 10 times over four decades. But the thing about it is there were a lot of different responsibilities. We'll get to Sports Center, but I had to sort of.
Be firm. And do what I wanted to do within the framework, what they could offer me, and say no to other things that they would prefer I do. Tennis, I had to leverage my way into tennis and out of college hoops eventually. And I had to leverage my way into college football because they wanted me to do something else. I bounced around doing sports and had a good time doing it.
And I'm sure we can cover all that stuff. But Yeah, it was a very unconventional path, even though I had I've had one employer for thirty eight years. What was your first well, thirty eight? I mean, you if you wound up in Scholastic Sports America in ninety six, isn't this your fortieth year? I guess it is 40 years.
To help you with your I should update it. Yeah.
This is now the 40th year. I was hired. God, that's right. I was hired 40 years ago this spring. Yeah.
Okay. Which means you're about to enter your fifth decade at the worldwide leader, as it used to be known. It definitely wasn't. The world was anything back then. That's what was funny about it.
Which is why it's amazing you got advice. Like, don't do it. I'm not taking full credit for the growth of the network.
Well, no, I'm not the. I'm giving it to you. I know you're not asking for it. I'll just give it to you. Who's Chris Berman?
But, you know, seriously, so yeah.
So what was your first sideline reporting? I just in the 1988 college football season. Like it was a BC, USC, BC game on the Saturday night primetime game in the ESPN, which is a pretty good thing. It wasn't like noon. Ivy League.
It was, not to disparage the Ivy League. Go for it. More people watch Saturday night. You know, in the buildup for this college football season, a lot has been said about Southern California, and rightfully so. But don't forget about Boston College.
Sure, they were five and six last year, but they have a very experienced team this year and a defense that their coaches think might be the best overall here. And it was sort of, wow, this is pretty cool. I'm like 20. Four? Yeah.
And I'm in a college town with almost no responsibility for carrying the broadcast. for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. Life was pretty good. That was fun. That was fun.
And then I would, you know, I didn't do the kind of prepping for sideline reporting that like the great Holly Rowe does or people I work with now. Sure.
Because it was more like read and react. Like, okay, I knew the teams, but I was about just seeing what I could find on the sidelines and bouncing around and interviewing fans and that kind of thing. And I had a great time doing it, but then the season ended and I had to figure out what the hell to do with me after the football season. And then it got interesting. Who were the, was it Ron Franklin?
Ron Franklin, Mike Gottfried, some other guys. Mike Patrick was in there. Of course. Kevin Kiley was an analyst. And I was just, you know, again, I looked 11 years old.
It's a good blessing to be. I mean, no, the high school show. I'm not kidding. I got mistaken for a high school student when I was a college graduate there to cover a high school student. Come on.
Really? I dressed like this, and I was in the hallway in between classes, waiting to shoot a video of a guy coming out of this class and walking down. That's amazing. I think we were at. Like I've been like uh Flint Hill Academy, or one of those basketball powerhouses, right?
So we're waiting to shoot B-roll in the hallway, and I get like shaken down for a hall pass by a teacher who didn't believe that I was an iSchool kid. Oh, the crew, yeah. You imagine they liked that. They got a lot of mileage out of that. Oh, man.
So, so when I, when I, um, When I did sidelines, that was a fun thing. And then after football season ended, that's when the sports center calls came. That's when I started to do. studio for college basketball.
Okay. John Saunders was the main guy. I was the apprentice, you know, doing sen sort of the the off games, the late night games, the midnight snack and the whack. I coined it because it was a Midnight Eastern tip-off, sure. Games former players love to tell stories about what a tough guy he was.
In the old days, when they practiced in this gym, if you missed a shot in practice, you had to come over here and climb to the top of the gym on these ropes. None of the Rams shed a tear when someone snuck in one night and cut them down. That kind of Fennis Dembo years could have been the Fenn. It could have been the Cowboys and the UC Santa Barbara, the Anteaters, and the people like that. That was Irvine, right?
You see the gauchos, the anteaters. UNLV was pretty good back then.
Okay. So who who would you do your first sports center with? Tom Mees. May he rest in peace. The late great Tom Mees.
And I've told this story because. Tom was incredibly talented, incredibly steady. I was in good hands on the desk. Bedgeside Manor You know, he was not going to hold my hand and say, I'm here for you, whatever you need. I'm your rock.
You know, he was like. Like a lot of those guys, I think it was interesting. You know, it wasn't sink or swim, but it was like, let's see what you got, kid. Hell, you know? And because I did look so young, and I had done this high school show, and I was not doing.
Live in studio anchoring. I had never done any of that in Denver, by the way. This was the very first time I ever did it. We sort of Unscripted, you know, college basketball studios and pregames and things like that, Thursday night football halftimes. And then when I did Sports Center, I had really.
Never read a teleprompter. I had not done some of the basic anchoring things. Get out of here, no? Hello there, I'm Chris Fowler. Glad you could join you once again for Sports Center.
In case you weren't around to see Babe Ruth reach the 700 home run plateau or Lou Gehrig play his 2000 straight game, This is your chance to witness a milestone no less amazing Tuesday night against the A's. Nolan Ryan speeding toward 5,000 career strikeouts and beyond.
So you're showing up like a novice, if you will. Teleprompter reader. Yes. And Tom Meese is sitting next to you. And this is the old prompter script, which was like not electronic.
You know, the script gets plus carbons, like taped together, put on a belt. operated by the least experienced person in the country. Or at least I don't mean to laugh, but Proctor, you know. Yeah, right.
So Tom Meese is there. Uh-huh. And, you know, I was, he was one of the guys along with Berman and Bob Lee. I was watching these guys when I was in college.
So it was pretty cool. But it was also like swallow and just do this and like show what you got because. Um Like I said, there was not a lot of... Handholding. Welcome to Sports Center along with Tom Mees.
I'm Chris Fowler. Corey Paving the Wave. The Prince of Pun, that's what they call me. Stop it. We got baseball, golf, tennis, all that later on.
We start, though, with the NBA playoffs. The Celtics and Pacers, game five, the Celtics, the parquet floor, all those banners, all that history, the veteran team, the Pacers, an upstart bunch, symbolized by Chuck Purson. Did all the banners, all the history mean anything? That was a big question, Chris. This is different from what you've done.
Here's how it's different. Here's how this is going to go. Here's what we expect of you. None of those things. It's the communication business.
Almost none of that's ever communicated. Browning's sixth win in a row, the last five complete games, and the Cubs have dropped five straight now since sweeping the Reds in Cincinnati. By the way, Joe Kramer has five strikeouts, leaving him just 5,002 short of Nolan Ryan's total. Leads still a game and a half over New York. The Expos do close to within three, and the Cards also three back.
Nothing was communicated to me when I first got on Sports Center. I don't find that hard to believe at all. They made me observe. For three weeks when I got hired, and I had the same feeling as you did. Which is I'm like, okay.
I'm now walking around this newsroom. I came from Redding, California.
So I came from market who the hell knows what. I don't even know what number. Like you came from Denver and then did some anchoring. No, I understand that. But you know, you had some time in the television business.
I had basically a year and a half in Reading, California. And on the, you know, it was like winning the lottery. It was great. But I'm walking around saying, This is everybody I just watched in college. This is what my dream was.
This is what I wanted to do. When I'm like, I'm going to start figuring out how to be a sports broadcaster. this was the goal and I had achieved it at age twenty six and now I'm walking around. I had no earthly idea. None at all.
Like I didn't get I observed, that's it. They sat me in meetings and I watched three weeks of sports centers before they threw me out there. But they didn't tell me what's up. They didn't tell me what to do. But I had Larry Beale as my first guy, who was much more of a touchy-feely guy than from what you're describing about Tom Mees.
Not to say, I mean, it wasn't Tom Mies' job. Military guy. No, no, I know. I know. Of all people, though, he was pretty crusty.
And I had done.
Some stuff with being a cook too, and in football, he was his bedside manner. He made Tom look like sunshine and rainbows. It was like he was there to rattle your cage. Surprise. It's that time of year again.
Penn State is playing Alabama, and we always picked a winner in this game. Being your temperature, absolutely. There's a story I can tell about, please. When I filled in on Game Day in 89, Bob Carpenter's wife was giving birth, and he was the host of the show, and I was just a reporter on it. And emergency fill-in needed, Friday phone call.
Right. Come in. You're going to do game day. Good morning and welcome to ESPN College Game Day along with Bino Cook and Lee Corso. I'm Chris Fowler filling in for Bob Carpenter this week.
We're pleased to report that Bob and his wife Debbie have a new addition to their family.
Now I was familiar with the show. It wasn't a big deal.
Well, it was a big deal for me, but game day wasn't a big deal. Game day was not a coveted gig. Nobody really traveled yet, right? No, no, no. It was a few years from being on the road and it was also leading into games nobody watched and had no footprint at all in the sport or in the TV sports landscape.
Okay. Let's get down to business now. On our hot seat this week, fourth-ranked Alabama. A lot at stake tonight. The Crimson Tide can clinch a share of the SEC title and it'd be their first in the post-Bear Bryant era.
And of course, they're still in the running for the national championship at 8-0. Standing in their way, LSU and a frenzied crowd of 80,000 in Baton Rouge. Bill Curry knows you have to beware a wounded cat, and the 2-6 Tigers say they're treating this game as their bowl.
So. We're in the meeting, probably 25 people sitting in one of those conference rooms, probably the same place that the sports center meetings were.
Okay, Bino, I know you're interested in USC, Arizona. The Wildcats have been tough at home this year. They're definitely tough at home. They don't beat USC that much. They lost to California, and that took them out of the rose bowl.
They need a miracle. They have to beat USC today and then hope UCLA beats USC, which isn't out of the question. And. Been, you won't know if you don't know the voice, but I'm going to do it in please. Please go.
This is great. Four. Look, look at about there.
Okay. Yeah.
You'll be, you're shedding your pants. You're shedding your pants. You're not going to sleep tonight. I mean, unbelievable. that you're here.
And waha ha, I'm the joke. They're laughing. Everyone's laughing. And, you know, I wasn't shitting my pants as it turned out. It was okay.
You know, the Prince of Yale series, that series even predates you. Definitely. First, 55 years ago. Yale beat Princeton 7-0. Yale did not make one substitute.
FYI.
Okay, I got through it, and it was fine. This is a good series. Yeah, we should point out, though, that Mr. Longstreth's daughter did change the day of his wedding.
So dad went out there.
Well, fine. Her father had the right priorities. A football game takes preference over a wedding.
Okay, it's time to look at our game day, et cetera, file. And then next year, I was the host of the show.
So I sort of like passed the audition. Bob was not interested in doing it beyond that. He wanted to do Cardinals play-by-play. He was off to chase his dreams and other things. And Game Day definitely wasn't that for him.
And at that point, it wasn't what I wanted to do either, but it was an opportunity too good to pass up. And I was talking college football, and it was fun. College football's new number one, Michigan, welcomes their neighbors from the north to the big house today. Spartans are stumbling at one, two, and one, a major disappointment so far, but a chance for redemption today. Always remember, put on your mouthpiece, fashion the chin strap.
Every time these two battle for the Paul Bunyan trophies. Anyway, there were a lot of gruff customers. But it was weird. When you got there, did they have that little position in the newsroom? Not the studio, but like a little newsroom desk.
And there's the old newsroom. It was about as big as this platform, right? And somebody would be sitting there like Bob Lee or some, and they would be doing an update. And and It was positioned so that to get in and out of the studio or the office there, you had to walk behind the person. Yes.
So You could come in the door and like be right behind Bob Lee as he's doing this little update. It was crazy. I didn't have to know that. No, that was on by 96. Yeah, history.
Yeah, but good choice to get it rid of it. But it was just, my point was: what you even saw on the air from the studio. Yeah.
In no way correlated to how how Primitive, it was like where the office space was, and where you sort of worked on your scripts. And what big later they would have, like, a nice big newsroom, and this was this was tiny. Yeah.
No, I d i it it w when I first got there, it was set up like um Um like a NASA mission control. set up where there was one You know, one row of like five, six computers, and then another one behind it, and another one behind it, and another one behind it, all looking at this bank of televisions that we could all watch sports TV on while we were working on Sports Center. That was it. And I'll never forget sitting there. Again, I'm 26 years old.
And I'm seeing everybody that I just spent all this time in college wanting to be. You know, colleagues with, and just seeing them all there. And I was totally. jarred by the experience, And I just remembered thinking to myself, I've got to work my ass off here. That in the same way that you realize you were like, this is big league time now.
Like, I realized that there were some serious lead pipe professionals here. that I better show that I belong. This was SportsCenter is presented by Gusto. Right now, everyone is trying to run leaner, tighter budgets, smaller teams, higher expectations. The last thing you have time to waste on is manual payroll or chasing down an HR form.
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And you were not around. Like, I don't think I met you until like an Espies two years after I arrived because you were in a totally different, you were already gone from Sports Center's rotation. Like, so how long were you on? In the sports center rotation, just like a year or two years ago. Terrico would be so disappointed that I couldn't, right that I don't recall this, the years and all that kind of stuff.
He knows that he did, I think one of my last sports centers was with him, and he remembers that. I don't remember that. Or one of his last ones was because we did overlap in that.
Well, he is by far the strongest MVP candidate in the National League. The MVP candidates from both leagues right now relaxed, mingling in Pittsburgh for some of the pomp and circumstance of the All-Star Fest. That's right, tonight, the big All-Star Gala, or is it Gala? Whatever. I want to get Chris Meyer's opinion on that.
We'll send you right now to a preview. Pittsburgh. No, it would have been around. 89, 90, 91, into the early 90s, and I sort of moved out of the nutmeg state, as I like to call it, prefer Constitution State. I like the nutmeg state, Connecticut.
About 94.
So, but I did, Rich, I did every sports center imaginable. I was the utility guy on the schedule. Chris Fowler, along with Chris Myers, we hope you're in the mood for scores and highlights and information. We are.
Some interesting comments from Mike Tyson and also from fighters, not behind bars, Holyfield, Holmes, and Foreman. But first, the fight to break par at Pebble Beach day one. You know, you would wait for that monthly email schedule from a woman called Julie, no last name. Julie. It's Julie Paradise.
It's okay. It's all right. That she was in charge of it. She was in charge. I'm not blaming her for my assignments, but you would wait for that email to come out and then it'd be like your grades are posted on the wall.
I remember that. When you go up, did I pass? What do I got this month? Yeah, who am I on sports center with? What hour sports centers do I?
I have where they respond to my suggestions of slash bitching and moaning. And there was any alteration made since last month. Right. And it would come out sometimes the day the month started.
So you're like, I want to plan out March, and it's like February 28th. And you're like, when's that schedule? I don't even know how, if you had like a family, how you could coordinate schedules. The thing would hit, and it would be, and I would do, and I'm proud of this actually, because it shows that. that you can work Sleep deprived and were crazy schedules.
I did within a week one of the six o'clock sports centers. I think it was 11.30 before they went to 11, it was 11.30. I did a 2.30 a.m., the overnight show. And I did a weekend morning sports center, because I eventually did Sunday Sports Day. When Robin Roberts sort of moved out of that, and I worked with Dick Schapp and Frank DeFord and Lou Picca, they were in New York, I was in Bristol.
It was a kind of like a two-headed monster show where I had sports reporters, right? And we kind of blended with them, but I would do two ways with Shapp, which was a thrill. I mean, to be able to overlap some of these true. Like OG TV Giants was a cool thing. I mean, not at Sports Center, but like Jim McKay, Jack Whitaker, covering Theravada Racing, I get to work with them and guys like Shapp was just so cool to be able to think that I worked with Dick Shapp.
And so I did that in one week, which is pretty cool. I mean, not ideal. Different producers, different co-anchors, different types of shows.
So You just adapt to it. But I did that for a few years where, outside of football season and basketball season, kind of to fill in the other dates that I was required to work, I would do all these various shows and. Yeah, and and it it was a good learning experience, but but it was also Um, I was sort of like Biding my time. Yeah, like what are you doing here, right? Like, what is your goal?
Like, what is what how do how does management view me in in terms of a role here? And in that schedule that would come out At any time, it would sometimes be a week in advance of the month, which was glorious, or the last possible second. And I would scour it to know when am I working, what hours am I working, what shows am I working, and with whom am I working. That schedule is how Stuart. And I learned we were a team.
Hi again, Sports Center about to flow your official team, Rich Eisen in the house with Stuart Stack. Because we would just open the schedule and I'd be like, okay, 2 a.m. show, 2 a.m. show, 2 a.m. show, 2 a.m.
show. Then straight Line, like not like a day off in between, just flat out. I'm a 2 a.m. sports center anchor. And then I'd be like, Who am I doing?
11 o'clock Pacific time. 11 o'clock Pacific, that's correct. 2 a.m. Eastern. And I would I would then scroll down to see who am I doing the show with, and it would be Stewart having the same 2 a.m.
line across. And at some point, we just turn to each other and we're like, are we a team? We've got very high standards. Stone. Because no one I didn't know.
Sat us down. But no one puts you together because, you know, this Eisen guy and this Scott guy, this would be a great. Miami Vice, like, let's put them together. It was just, you, you were, you had no other like home earlier in the evening, right?
So you guys began to be in the middle of the day. If I, you know. The unintended consequence of doing this show, if it's at any point in time, I could learn. Who decided Stewart and I are together? I would love to know.
Yeah.
I to this day do not know. Who was the executive to go, this is fun? This is like two guys. You know, with different sensibilities and different upbringings and different ideas being mashed together, and it's working. We begin with two steps up.
And two good teams. I feel like this is the opening of the Addams family instead of Sports Center. Either the Adams family or in Living Color, men on Sports Center.
Now he got that straight away. To this day, I have no idea who did it. All I know is that it was on the schedule. Or did they do it? Was it intentional?
It had to have been at some point that there had to be like, it's a good idea. But once you started doing it, these two guys are really good together. I guess. But I don't know if they would have known that ahead of time. We would look at one time, I don't know when it was, it's just as a memory of mine that Stuart looked at me in a commercial break, goes, hey man, are we your team?
Because we keep doing this show together. That actually happened. And the schedule is the one that would inform us. Nobody would call us into an office and say, you and Stewart are a team. You are.
Congratulations. I know TV. I envy that. They say part of the Sports Center thing, which made it challenging, was I was. not teamed with anybody.
As a utility guy, you're gonna come and you do.
So, but I did get to work with Berman. I did get to work with Keith. I got to work with Lee. Dan? Dan, or not really.
A little bit less so. I think maybe he was kind of, he had, he had, I did shows with him, but it was never like a regular thing. I might have filled in one night.
So was there, like, who did you do it? Who did you do Sports Center with the most? There had to be somebody. I know, like Bill Patrick.
Okay. Carolyn Burns. I remember.
Well, good evening, everybody, and welcome to this edition of Sports Center. I'm Carolyn Burns, along with Chris Fowler. And you know what, Chris? It's the first time in 33 years that it has been a cosmopolitan World Series. Finally, it gets underway.
Yeah, the longest layout between the playoffs and the World Series ever. And afterwards, the Giants said that might have affected him. A little bit flat. You had to wonder. Of course, it had to do something with the way David Stewart was pitching, too.
There was sort of. different folks that would kind of get gravitated in the overnight. And that, but it was interesting because you didn't really have a chance to develop real chemistry or a sense of rhythm or what this person is like. You're just together. I mean, there was a.
I'll tell one story. Please. I don't know if I should name. Oh, come on. This is year 40 for you, Chris.
Everyone knows what I have a great career. Although, is Jennifer your wife screaming at home right now? No, don't say it. No, but it was Carolyn Burns. I'll just say it.
And she, by the way. After this episode went on, and had a really nice career and did other things. But no, I didn't know her well. And so we're sitting there and Caroline, I'm sorry to tell you if this is a bit embarrassing, but She had kind of a panic attack. Which happens, you know, and wasn't the only person that that at all.
Many, it happened to many people. I'm sure I felt those emotions, but it didn't manifest. She really couldn't. She took her stack of scripts and shoved them. Yes.
My way.
So now I had my stack and her stack right before we went on it, literally counting down. And I just kind of went. You're gonna be good. You're gonna be fine. Push the stack back over.
And She started, and once she got some air in the lungs and we got through the show, but those kinds of things had you just don't know the vibe of who you're working with or how it's going to go. Maybe she was nervous because she was working with me, who's this kid, right? Sure.
And that could have been the reason why she was hyperventilating. But no, so that was, but then you were with Berman. The next night you could be with Berman and had some very memorable sports centers where it's sitting next to him. And you said you watched. Oberman work.
And that was eye-opening and humbling in a way to watch Berman work, completely different MO, obviously. Two of them met on the famed Pacquiao Florida Bast and Gadden. Michael Jordan and the red-hot Chicago Bulls winners of seven in a row strode into Boston to beat the Celtics. And a man called Bird, Larry Bird. This just in.
Both put on a big-time show. Why are we not surprised? What do you got for me on that? Chaos just whirls into the sea, comes in there. And it was always like just in the nick of time.
By the way, that's all I've heard for in this series for years. That you can count down 30 seconds to go, and he's still talking to people behind the camera. What's up? How's he doing? He sits right down.
Which, by the way, being late was. What I had Dreams about that, like recurring nightmares. I don't remember my dreams. I just don't, but I remember. This dream, what kept happening where I was late for sports center.
I still have them, by the way. God bless you. I haven't got them. You still have that dream? I swear to God, I am trying to get from one building to the next, and I'm late for that sports center.
I have those dreams. I swear to you. I'm told that's just a metaphor for anything you don't feel you're ready for or prepared for.
So I'm like losing track of time. I'm in that bathroom that gets featured in some of the sports center commercials. We put our makeup on, that upstairs bathroom that was like, One staircase away from the actual studio.
So that was the last-minute kind of thing. I didn't know what I'm doing. Because you were doing your own makeup. Yes, we did our own makeup back in that day. Yes, yes.
And I didn't know what I was doing. Kept it simple. But, you know, yes.
So my recurring dream was I was stumbling around trying to get, and then, and the show's already on there, and I turn up and I'm late. Right. Well, Bourbon. Knew how to walk that line and that tightrope. And he got there at the last minute, but then scripts.
More or less a pile, but kind of not. Yeah.
Shot sheets, wire copy, AP wire stories about like the Mariners Red Sox games over here.
So he could, like, when it came time to talk over the score panel, but like pull up a thing and like get something out of that. Yeah.
It was chaos on the desk. And I remember thinking, how can he do? The kind of Brilliant sports center. He's doing a lot of that chaos. Michael Chang defeats Stefan Edberg, 6-1-364-66462.
And oh, by the way, he's the first American to win in 34 years. The men's title, Tony Trabton, of course, did that back in 1955. Michael Chang, $291,000 plus Richard. We all have our own. methods, I guess is my point.
But but I was just like mesmerized by by his ability to to bring like order from that chaos. I've been in advance of recording a version of this show live at the Super Bowl with him, in San Francisco. I I had the ESPN people look up When I did sports centers with him, because he would frequently just. parachute back in for one week's worth of sports centers. When I was there from 96 to 03.
And I just remember doing a couple of sports centers with him, and it was in 2001, and they cut a couple of the clips. and watching it back. I could just I it it refreshed my memory. of how I was just out of body when the show started. even though it's five years into my Sports Center tenure, had to have been close to four figures of shows under my belt.
At that point in time, right, and just out of body, that he's the one. I'm now doing this show with the guy who I had spent in college watching the most, doing everything. And now it's me in that chair and him just starting the hi, hello, as we would always script it, you know, like, hi, welcome to Sports Center. And I just, He was just riffing, and I didn't know. When to get in, how to react.
I was just watching it back.
Now, as a grown-ass 56-year-old man, did you take it back? I did. I did. Ring G, are you okay? And I was, it just, it hit me.
I'm like, I'm like, I am, I am watching, you know, somebody in their early 30s, early on in a career, just. Blown away. Like I was out of it, you know, and here I am watching it back, and I'm like, I don't blame me for. Like you could see, I didn't know how to get in. I was trying to follow up on it.
You know, I made a Burman nickname joke that I didn't know if it landed or not. The lone goal scored by Vladimir, this is Orsag. This is your desert share. I don't know. John Vladimir is a big fan of him.
I'm trying to do something here. That's risky. Ooh, you had the nomination to get there. My most memorable sports center was with Chris. And easily, not just because I was with him, but because.
Um It was a very unusual sports center where We had to report on Hank Gather's collapse in a basketball court for Loyal Merriman. Way, it was on the day that happened. Yeah, the day it happened. Tonight in Los Angeles, a story that transcends all merriment that is usually the world of sports. Hank Athers, Sr.
from Loyola Merrymount, the 11th leading all-time scorer in NCAA history, led the NCA in scoring last year, led the NCA in rebounding last year. Collapsed during the first half of his LMU's WCC quarterfinal game in Los Angeles against Portland. At 6.55 West Coast Time. He was pronounced dead at Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital about an hour and 20 minutes after his collapse. And it was, you know, he's obviously out here in LA playing the conference tournament.
And I had been doing the hoop wraps and I had been out to do a feature. Paul Westead was a coach at the time. Bo Kimball, Hank Gathers, both, you know, Hank was a future NBA guy. And he had had this heart problem. and he was taking medication for it.
And the feature was about this whole thing and this team, which didn't play defense up and down the court, let the team score. Paul West had style. And it had come up that Hank was struggling to play at his regular level with the medication he was on. and wished he would be Less of that less Heavy dose.
So I had, and I had just, this is maybe a month before, I felt like maybe within a month of. is deaf. Mm-hmm. And so this happens. I was just.
They're doing Sports Center and I find myself, you know, Speaking, you know, Firsthand, about the interview I'd done and my impressions of. Of him and the team, and when there's Chris and I doing this work center. You had a chance to get to know him a little bit. You went out to Los Angeles recently. He's a different guy, wasn't he?
Tremendous guy, very likable guy, wanted to be a sportscaster, is very involved in internships and student television radio programs in Loyal Merrimack, extremely popular with his teammates. And I'll tell you, when I spoke with him last month, He was very concerned about his medication. Doctors had him on heavy doses of medication after that first collapse in December, and he was very sluggish. He couldn't play basketball, and that troubled him more than anything. Chris Myers was out here in LA doing reporting on it.
So we had a lot of Chris's, and it was an out-of-body experience. It was because it was, forget the prompt here, it wasn't like a regular sports center. We were covering this, and Chris was doing great reporting. Chris was talking to me about what I knew of the story. He was able to convince the doctors to slowly back away on the amount of medication he was taking.
And as the medication was taken off, he became more and more effective on the basketball court and became more and more the old Hank that his teammates remembered. All of them to a man said it wasn't the same Hank after his first collapse and after the amount of medication he was taking. But apparently, the medication. After being removed, it was not enough to stop the second collapse on the court. That ended up being the Sports Center episode that was submitted on the Emmy reel and it won an Emmy.
No. The Sports Center won an Emmy. Like, I think I was told this. I don't sure. That process I know nothing about, but I think, yes, that's what they told me.
And I got a statue.
So. But yeah, that was an incredibly memorable thing. And to be able to sit there with the great Chris Berman and be able to offer something. And be able to speak off the cuff about this story, which was suddenly. The only story that mattered that night was pretty cool.
Dude, I didn't know that. Tragic, tragic. No, of course I know that, but at least you're. For a fan sitting at home mourning immediately in the shock of it all, for you able to try and make some sort of sense. Knowing what you're talking about.
No, it's it's it's the outlier shows. I mean, maybe this isn't true for you, but it's the it's the outlier shows that you remember more, the the things that were dramatic. It it wasn't, hey, what a great Um You know, Celtics Laker game, the highlight was wonderful that night. It's the other things that happened. You know, I was a huge Formula One fan.
Uh and back in the day, the glory days, the early F1 days of uh the McLaren team, you know, Art and Senna, Lamp Prosta, and those guys. And and um, I was doing the the morning sports center on a weekend. Um you know, they the world the uh F one races are on on Sundays and he crashed in in in the race in Italy. And and to have to come on there and report that, um, because the race was going on basically when the show was going on. Right.
And we you know and and um To report that he had crashed into the wall, and then he was being taken to the hospital, and then the show was long enough. That I did have to go back and report that the worst news possible. The news from Italy this morning is indeed tragic. Three-time world driving champion Ariton Senna has now been confirmed dead by officials at the hospital following a violent collision during the San Marino Grand Prix this morning. Senna dying of massive head injuries.
He suffered multiple skull fractures, a full-speed collision with the wall. And he was one of the. More like I don't know if heroic is the word, but one of the most admired. Sports people, certainly, at the time. And so he the fact that he had Had died in a crash was that that I'll never forget that.
I still get chills about it. That's an unusual show. Those are the ones I tend to remember, the ones that were unusual. Sure, and obviously, you know, again, in this show, this pod series that we're, you know, appreciate you taking part in here. Obviously, the pop culture touchstones that Sports Center.
Created and also embodied as an entity, along with the yankers who did it and the producers behind the scenes and all that. Um is one thing, but the journalistic aspect of that show On top of it. I mean, it was basically sometimes a news magazine and at times serious breaking news that you had to take part in. You know? Yeah, no, that was the aberration.
But those are the ones I just kind of remember because Aaron Senna was something to me that meant a lot to me and to have to be the one that probably more than anyone else, because who else was on the air reporting live stuff on a Sunday morning that he had died? you know, I I I still think about that. This was SportsCenter is presented by Gusto. Look, the economy is a lot right now, and if you're a small business owner, you probably feel it. You can't control interest rates or tariffs, but you can control how efficiently your business operates.
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Try Gusto today at gusto.com slash TWSC and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com/slash TWSC. One more time, gusto.com slash TWSC. So you started doing um college game day around the country and that took you off Sports Center. When was the last time you did a Sports Center?
Torico knows the answer. I should text him. I don't remember actually. It would have been about 93, 94. I don't know what his first year was at the company, but he overlapped a little bit.
And uh Torico might answer, but he's probably calling a game right now. You know he's yeah, he's He's somewhere between the Santa Clara and Cortina. Exactly. I know. It's amazing what he has done with his career and what, obviously, what you've done with yours.
What you're doing now. what you're doing now. Is this what you envisioned? What you wanted to do? When you first started this, I mean, not specifically the sports I'm doing, but documenting live sports.
Yes. And if you're lucky enough, championship moments in those sports.
So my two favorite sports happen to be college football and tennis. Um unlikely combo. And it wasn't, it wasn't an accident. I mean, I sort of navigated that way, and as we got more and more tennis. bigger and bigger events I was able to convince them that that was worth Them putting me on, taking me off other things that were considered more higher profile, like college basketball, et cetera, in the spring.
But yeah, I always wanted to do, it was, it was. It was the sound of a crowd through a radio that my grandmother had in her backyard in Rockford, Illinois. listening to Cubs games on the radio and scoring every game in a in a book. That got me interested in this in the first place: of getting dropped off my grandparents' house, listening to games, watching the first Super Bowls. I have memories of some of the first things I watched were the first Super Bowls with a bowl of MMs on the table.
My brother and I, my parents were not into sports, didn't have any, they were never on in our house, the Olympics, maybe. But Learning from her the joy of sports and the sound of A cheering crowd. out of a T V or a radio. That's what drew me to it. Like, this is, they're joyful.
They're really. Joyful. For the same reason, at the same time, in a group of people, that's how cool. And that was what it was.
So, you don't get that really in a studio environment. You get it from documenting live sports. And that's what I always kind of wanted to do. And it took a while to sort of get there. Um game day was a like a beautiful detour.
Well, also being live there. Yeah, no, that was in front of a live audience.
So it almost felt like you were, once the show went on the road, like you were documenting a live event. We were at the event, but it was capturing in front of a live crowd the energy of a game, kind of. When did you know that that show had hit? When did you know college game day was? Becoming as iconic as anything that ESPN has put together.
It's a slow burn. I mean, the first few years I did it, we were in the studio again. You know, not leading into big games. The numbers weren't very good. I think they were.
going to keep the show around, but I'm not sure they were super convinced that anything would come of it.
Well, we got in the road, Rich. I mean, 1993 in November, the Florida State Notre Dame one versus two game, we finally convinced them to do it. Take it on the road in the regular season. We are just across the street from Notre Dame Stadium at the Ed Joyce Center live for a special college game day and surrounded by all kinds of memorabilia, a reminder of the great tradition of this Notre Dame program and today's game, just the latest chapter in that great history. They said it was going to cost $50,000 to do it.
which was apparently a lot of money to them. It's laughable now in 1993. But yeah, so what that wasn't that was kind of like a huge lightning bolt moment. We knew that, hey, this is this is really What we need to do. We need to get this show on a campus, showcase what's great about college football.
That was a. a moment, an event that cut across The sports landscape, that one versus two games, South versus North, Holtz versus Bowden, all the ingredients. Sure.
Chris Fowler, along with the Coach League Corso, the pony, Craig James, got about 2,000 Irish and Seminole fans. They have been yelling. They are revved up. These guys are definitely revved up. Only in college football can you have a regular season event of this magnitude because other sports settle things with the playoffs and it's much more special, of course, to have it on a college campus.
We didn't know what we were doing. We've dropped the set in the Hall of Fame, indoors, and put like a rope around it. And wore livelier mics, which gave us little chance to be heard over the crowd if they made any noise. I like a block punt by Florida State. I'll take Florida State.
31! I take no dance.
So the fans were inside. Inside when was the first time that people just started showing up on their own because you were there and it's like, okay. Yeah, that way.
Okay, they kind of showed up. Let me see the trophies. Hell is going on over there. No one knew what we were doing. They just showed up because that was where the pep rally was in the same building the night before, which we covered.
And then the Saturday morning, people would wander around, and this was November, so they'd probably staying out of the cold and then before they went into the game. No, in 94, 95, we started to take it on the road more and more, and then it became.
something that, okay, now this is this is this now we're now in a different weight class.
Well, that's why I was wondering, like, was there a campus or a moment Where you and whoever else was doing the show with you with regularity at the time. Looked out during a commercial break over your shoulder, going, Holy shit, that's a lot of people that are here, and that you know. The next week, they now want to top it, that you now got in the zeitgeist of the campus where the fans were like, Oh, So they showed up like that? Wait till we show up like this. That was fun.
It was a fun era because they did want to top. They wanted to break the record. It was like nobody ever had a true head kill, but they wanted to break the record. It hit me in Lincoln, Nebraska. You can tell the alarm clock went off mighty early all over the state of Nebraska.
They say great teams have to rise to the occasion. Both of these teams have had to rise pretty early. They've been up since 6 o'clock in the morning for this early kickoff.
Some of them have been up most of the night. There was an October game near Halloween. Nebraska beat Colorado, which is my alma mater, and ripped the goalpost down.
Okay. And and took them out the stadium and and walked them through the crowd. This was like a post-game show we had done.
So we did the morning show, but then the post-game show, when the stadium would let out, we'd be in the same spot. And that would be. even more energy when the home team won. Yes. So I see.
A goalpost with like a jagged metal end, like being brought through this crowd of like Cornhusker fans. And I'm thinking like. We better get this thing away.
Somebody's going to get killed. Sure.
So we let them bring it and they laid it. On the desk. They put the goalpost across the desk like a trophy. It was like a true. It's like a tusk of a woolly mammoth that they had slain.
Right. And they dropped the bar on it and had a, they were going crazy. And so we realized, like, okay, this energy of this sport. which I think is the best suited sport for for an on-site pregame show. It's been tried obviously every every other sport now.
But We thought, this is pretty cool. And then it was Virginia Tech, Frank Beamer, figuring out this is an infomercial for our program. They may have broken our college game day attendance record set last year at Kansas State. Greg Beamer has one caution. Pace yourself.
Save it for tonight at 6 o'clock to kickoff. This is an opportunity that we're not going to let go. We're going to get every student. Out there for the pregame show, and we're going to fill up Lane Stadium and we're going to make it. obvious that Virginia Tech was the coolest place to be on a Saturday morning.
And the smart coaches sort of figured out how to use this and not be inconvenienced by the pain in the ass that it was to have a show you know taking up your Your parking lot or your quad. You know, at the time, it was so new and it was a nuisance. These colleges didn't really want to play ball. That's the way the combine was for NFL Network at the start. Yeah, it's just like, what a nuisance.
What are we doing here? Until they realize more and more players, more and more athletes are going to start running the 40 because they can be running on. Lo and behold, exposure is kind of good, as it turns out. Just as Berman was saying, this just did. Yes, correct.
And so, you know, so coaches began to utilize your platform and the cameras that your show was bringing as a way to say, look at what we've built here as a program. Win-win. I would think, right? Yeah, no, it got that way. And it was fun.
And I think that at that point, there was a real momentum. We were on this show, on the road every week with the show. Right. Beginning about 96. That's the year Herb Street came on the show.
Kirk was there. His first year was 96. And so it definitely mushroomed from there. And then, you know, I think the. challenge became How do you If not top it.
Make sure every week is unique and it's not just a bunch of screaming kids who are hungover or sleep deprived, but we try to capture like what's cool about LSU. Oregon. Ohio State. You know, we we we we wanted to uh make sure it looked and felt different depending on where we were.
Well, I mean, it's it's become as iconic a show as there is, including you know, the show that uh that this pod's all about with Sports Center. Would you want to do another Sports Center again? Yeah, it's an interesting question. I'm up for anything, but like, you know, do I have to read a teleprompter? Because I haven't read one since I left.
I don't use a teleprompter for anything, so the hardest thing is like, is. I think you could pick it up. I think you'll be able to pick it up.
Okay, to the ballparks now. A June night with an October feel to it. Big hype. First place, Cincinnati, winners of six straight. Second place, Atlanta, riding a seven-game streak.
It could be the beginning of a beautiful pennant race. For your Casablanca fans. If you write it yourself, it's easier to use. I mean, just to go back one time. I don't know.
I know, just one more time. You know what I mean? They have a sports center version now where it's a casual show. They're like sitting on a couch. Sure.
I mean, it's different versions of it. Obviously, you know, what Scott's doing now is close to the old school as there is. Or any of the overnight shows or the 2 a.m. shows. It's still.
It's still, you know, similar. Just doing it the one time I did it last August was just, well, for me, it's different because it had been 20-something years, and I'd, you know, you've had 40 continuous years, glorious run, though. I'm like a Grover Cleveland here. I'm in my second administration. I felt like when you were doing it, right?
I mean, that was something amazing. It was nothing. That's what you wanted to do. And that's why I don't want to sound. At all, I'm grateful because I'm not.
But it wasn't the ultimate thing for me. It was sort of like a huge step up, a serious challenge. Yes. A lot of fun. Like I said, I worked with a lot of different people.
At night's end, we were down to just eight in the NCAA tournament. I'm going to start in the West region, the hardest region to figure out. You know, two months ago, Temple was about six light years away from being a team capable of making the final four. I never had the continuity that you would get from being a regular guy doing it, but I also knew that I wanted to be part of live shows, live sports projects. I'm with you.
Because, again, the show that I did the most. would never be done anymore, ever again. Think about it. The 2 a.m. show I would do with Stewart then became the 1 a.m.
show because they wanted to get it on earlier. And could you imagine in this day and age, where everything is now an alert on your phone or in the palm of your hand, and that's how you're learning about it? Could you imagine that ESPN would have a news and information show like SportsCenter? and run it back. Ancient.
Over and over and over again. Rich and I coming right back. If you take the Mavs' first quarter and the Raptors' fourth quarter, two different games. You have 20 combined points. Oh, it continues in the NBA.
And we learn how some Patriot fans need lessons in both manners and grammar. Stewart got more than nothing when we come right back. For nine straight hours the next morning, as news is breaking. Like that would never happen again. That would never happen again where they the ESPN would never run a show At 11 in the morning Eastern Time, that was recorded at 2 in the morning, and talk about what sports is going on right now.
Things break so much.
Now they just would never, it's just not the same way. The fact that it re-aired, I did those overnight shows where used to, once the show finished, it was already. really late, like wee hours. You'd have to stay and do the alternate close because the show would lead and would be used again and again and again.
Sometimes it would just lead into itself. Yeah, right.
The show would repeat. It would cycle in, but it would be also other things, including the body shaping show, which was co-hosted by my now wife. That's correct. Jennifer Dempster.
So we didn't even know each other then, but I had to stop and do. One of her many jobs was the longest-running fitness show in the history of ESPN. They ran it forever. And it made a lot of body shaping. Oh, yeah.
That was a lot of money with my black and honor name, Austin, right? What was her name?
Well, Denise Austin. Denise Austin. She was another, they had the fitness block. Yes, they did. But body shaping had its own cast, and there was kind of the core cast, which Jennifer was a part of.
And then a few other people kind of came and went. But yeah, so that's it for Sports Center. Stay tuned for body shaping. And then you'd have to do like three scores at the end of the show because it wasn't a long segment because then it would be ridiculous to continue to do it again and again. And then you would the next stay tuned for.
You know Gilad, whatever was coming up next. That was the swarthy-looking dude, right? He was doing it right. It was the Israeli, I believe, who did the show. Jake, body by Jake, Gilad's sister, I think, maybe did a fitness show.
Yeah.
Like a military theme, and they were like on the aircraft carrier or something. Then sometimes it's world's strongest man. Yes, there was a lot of stuff. There was a lot of stuff. I used to joke, like, you know, this high school show that I did.
W was like sandwiched in between. Yeah.
like monster truck maybe or celebrity skeet shooting. That was a real show. Celebrity skeet shooting? It was a real show. I mean, I don't know how long-lived it was, but I remember it being wedged in it because SSA Garner was taking some shots or something, like Bob Conrad.
I think they weren't Gabe Garnett. The celebrities were not of that caliber, I don't think. Here's Telly Savannah. It's not like Battle of the Network.
So Gabriel Captain. Look at that shot. He hits the bullseye. Bobby Benton. You know, I mean, this was not Howard doing Battle of the Network.
But yeah, no, and that show would run like after school or weekend mornings. It would just get slotted all over the place, but it would definitely fall in between shows like that. Yeah.
So. Didn't he um I've got to get you back. You should get just do one more sports center. I don't know if you do you have the ability to make it like a binding offer. I'm not making a binding commitment.
I no, it's an interesting idea. You know what I mean? I 'cause I I'm I want to get some of the old school back together. You know, I would love to, I'd love to figure that out. But do a new school.
Type show. Oh, no, just do it like again. When I did it back in August, same music, same graphics, just a lot of highlights. Yeah.
You know, it's not too far from what it is right now, just the different music, same different graphics. Yeah.
Just getting you all back on one more Sport Center. I just wanted, what if you did it with Torico? What if we get Torico to do it? If you get him back, I don't know. I mean, like the three-headed monster.
No, those kinds of things are funny. At this point, like, I. I Outside of the normal football tennis kind of thing, the only thing I'll say yes to is something that sounds interesting. I host the U.S. Open.
For polo. It's a home game down in Florida.
So I sure didn't know much about polo, but I, but, dude, I did. Like Next games, X games, Winnerex games. I did a lot of different things. And so I was never too proud to take on some kind of crazy ideas. We have a lot more still to come on down the stretch.
Right after this break, we'll show you a secretariat. Where is he now?
Well, the old guy can't really get it up anymore.
So those high-priced stud fees are all gone. He finds himself keeping company with a bunch of cows in New Jersey. Yeah, why not?
Well, you know, again, I'll share this just as we wrap up here that. You know, I used. I don't know if I've ever told you this, so screw it. I'll say it here. I used you, Terico, and Robin Roberts, when I was trying to stay on stay with the SPN, okay.
I was having a dinner with the executive Mark Shapiro, whose name gets mentioned every now and then around here on this show. And because he he only wanted me to do sports centers, which is how I wound up getting handed a cardboard box at the end of the day. It was too late trying to figure other parts out, at least in his mind, or the rest of management. Uh I said basically like look at what You know, I used your example, Tarico's example, and Robin Roberts' example about what. Look at what they've done for the company writ large, for Disney, not just the SPN, for the whole Disney concept.
This is early aughts. And look at what they've done. Would you go back in time? And tell them they can't be the voice of college football now, or what Torico was doing at the time. Clearly, he was gone from Sports Center at that point.
And Robin Roberts was. Becoming, you know, the massive crossover. Exactly. I mean, the grand game of Robin is. You know, and so I said, Would you go back in time and tell them they have to do Sports Center for the rest of their careers?
And he looked at me and said, Yeah. And that's when I knew that it was I probably wasn't going to be sticking with the SPN anymore. That if I'm going to be made an example of, I still need to stand my ground. I need to figure out what I want to do. And play around with other toys in the Disney chest.
And, you know, interestingly enough, here I am in 26. you know doing doing that but we made a smart choice but i tried i tried i said what about you because you were doing what what what you should be doing which is you know taking in what ESPN could offer. Killing it, doing that, building your own brand, and doing some other things that you wanted to do. And become a voice in a sport or other things outside of Sports Center that are very valuable for the company, but also rewarding for you. Personally and professionally, you know, they really wanted you to live in Bristol, though.
That was a big thing. I mean, remember, right?
Well, one of the Tim Brando, who was the original host of College Game Day for the first year, and then he and I overlapped, and he obviously is still involved in college football and college sports. But I think he thinks of himself, he might have been the Kirk Flood. Old free agent baseball reference who got out, convinced them to sort of, he could still work for the company, but he didn't want to live. In Bristol, I wanted to live in Drayport, Louisiana. I just wanted to live to New York.
I couldn't stay there. Anymore. I couldn't.
Someone I was seeing at the time, she lived in Boston, so it was either or, but ended up wanting to live in New York. And I just, they find, they finally relented. I could continue to work at ESPN. but not live In metropolitan Bristol. Right.
And that was pretty controversial. It was hard to get that. Your wish, though. Trust me, I noticed that. And at the end of the day, you know, Mark did offer me a job in New York for the hosting the original Cold Pizza.
Yeah.
And I just was. It just didn't strike me as something that I wanted to do.
So I said No to that, and I got a cardboard box. Unlike you saying no to the Los Angeles job. you know, and and and being allowed to stay. It's just different times, different Different management priorities or whatever, but it's still the same story. But you were way more advanced in your career.
I mean, I think you knew. I mean, maybe you didn't know, but you had, you know, I was either naive or I had the hubris to say no to them a couple of times, by the way. After that, you get more confident, you realize, okay, I can do this. I think that. And I still feel that way.
If we couldn't see eye to eye, And it was I'll just tell you, I mean, it was close to not happening the deal I'm in right now. then I'm I'm at peace. Like I you know, I'm okay. Uh, now that would have been foolish as a kid to do something that would have gotten me let go from ESPN, right? But I didn't think, I didn't even occur to me, right.
I was risking that.
So you kind of knew, maybe you didn't know.
Well, I didn't think it was going to wind up with a cardboard box. No. I didn't. Certainly 10 days, just to bring this whole thing full circle, since we're talking about an hour, you know, was 10 days before Susie and I got married. I mean, it was a wild time, but thankfully, you know, and again, that's another reason why doing that sports center in August was kind of cathartic for me that I got to do it again when I thought I would never do it again.
Ever. And that's of my own choice, which is why you should do it again because it's your choice. I get a cardboard box. What if we did it? What if we did it?
I haven't got a cardboard boxes, by the way. They just sent me cardboard boxes from Bristol. Like, About four or five months ago. Of your stuff? Of shit that you left.
I left. I hadn't had a desk. I hadn't had a phone. I haven't had a company email in many, many, many years. And they I guess At some point.
When they were moving these boxes out of the basement or shutting this part down, they said, enough's enough. Like there's many helmets. Stuffed animals from colleges, jerseys with my name on them. The kicking shoe of Northwestern's kicker from the 1995 Rose Bowl team. Dude, who signed his kicking shoe and it was on my desk somewhere in a, now it gets sent me in a box for me SPN.
So I finally got my cardboard boxes. There are two of them. About 15 years after I was had an office that take your stuff out of here already, Fowler. Maybe, let's you and I do one. Sure.
Well, now you're just saying that.
Well, I don't want to. It's a great idea. Let's work on it. Let's think of it. Let's work on it.
We'll work on it. Sure.
Because you're, you know. You know what I think of you. But thank you for doing this. You know, um, and this is uh excellent memory lane stuff. I am I am not a reflective person.
I don't take this opportunity, but I had a great time and you're the only one I would sit down and do this. I appreciate that. That means a lot to me, man. But because, you know, um People should know about back in the day now and know what they're seeing now at people like yourself who are. We're there, you know, in the very early days of getting something like this done.
And I appreciate you sharing everything because I imagine you do look back, and just to wrap this whole thing up about what Sports Center I mean And how it it It all does sort of I know you had a show before it and did a bunch of other things, but I had a magazine, a high school show.
Okay. And I had some feelings. No, no, obviously, I mean, to be a part of that, I mean, the roster is. is staggering. The number of people who who who came through and and and did it and then and they they blew up Because of it, or they moved on and went on to other things.
No, I'm immensely proud of it. I mean, it's. Uh It was scary. It was... It was fulfilling in the best way.
I think all those things that you do because They're challenging and they're fulfilling, and they require something of you that you weren't sure you had. And then, and also, really, it's about the people, too. Honestly, you mentioned, um, Some of the anchors, some of the producers, some of the other people who became dear friends, people who ran prompter for me, people who were production assistants on the show, ended up knowing them for a long time. And I really think that the collaborative part of this business is really the priceless part of it.
So you think you're just sitting out there with one other person, but you know what goes into that. And yeah, that's. The fact that I got to sit there with Olberman, with Berman, with Dan, with you, you know, with Tarico, and on and on. It was pretty cool. Oh, man.
I appreciate you sharing. And I. Good luck in your 50th or your 5th decade. Yeah, I'm glad that at least doing this show established that your math was off. This is your 40th year, man.
Yeah, I guess I was saying 38th, and it was a habit. It was 40 years ago. In the spring of 2026. Yeah, man. Awesome.
Thanks for being here. My pleasure. Chris Fowler in the latest edition of This Was Sports Center.
