By Rick Porter--Zap2it.com
August 8, 2004
The show that launched a thousand catchphrases is still, despite frequent hand-wringing about its sponsor tie-ins, pun-loving anchors and creation of a highlight culture that values style over substance, a prime destination for sports fans who want to know how their teams fared and still, at heart, a news show.
As ESPN continues celebrating its 25th anniversary, some of the people who helped make "SportsCenter" into the monster it is--"a good monster," as former anchor Gayle Gardner puts it--are returning to the network this week to host editions of the show. "Old School Week," as ESPN calls it, kicks off Sunday night (Aug 8), when Craig Kilborn returns to "SportsCenter" to anchor with Dan Patrick.
Gardner, who was at ESPN from 1983-87, Greg Gumbel (1981-86), Charley Steiner (1988-2002) and George Grande, who anchored the first "SportsCenter" on Sept. 7, 1979, will also take turns behind the anchor desk during the week.
Kilborn, who primarily anchored at 2 a.m. ET edition of the show--the "feel-good" edition, as he used to call it--during the early and mid-1990s, says he'll try to right a few wrongs with his appearance.
"I was interviewed by Bob Costas a couple of years ago for his radio show, and he said, 'Are you responsible for these young, obnoxious ESPN sportscasters being flip and being funny?,'" recalls Kilborn, now the host of "The Late Late Show" on CBS. "'If that's true,' I said, 'I apologize.' So I'm going to try to correct things this Sunday: no catchphrases this Sunday--I'm hosting with Dan Patrick, and I'm giving just the scores and highlights."
What's come to be recognized as the ESPN style--quick, pop culture-savvy and yes, laden with catchphrases--wasn't the result of a concerted effort. Rather, Steiner says, it grew out of the fact that "SportsCenter" anchors wrote (and still write) their own material and were given the freedom to say what they wanted.
"As this thing kind of evolved, we were the last ones to realize that this was 'ESPN.' [To us] it was just this little studio up there in the middle of Connecticut," says Steiner, who now calls New York Yankee games for the cable network YES. "But we had the ability to write, and they let us write and let us say essentially what we wanted to say. ...
"We were who we were, and then that ESPN attitude or style, I guess, is a product of what we did. But we were too naive and too new and too out on the frontier to know we were making any kind of impact."
Mark Shapiro, head of programming and production for ESPN, says the returning anchors' current employers were all accomodating in releasing them for their one-night-only "SportsCenter" duties. Gumbel hosts "The NFL Today" and NCAA tournament coverage for CBS sports, while Grande is the play-by-play man for the Cincinnati Reds on Fox Sports Ohio. (Gardner, who worked at NBC Sports after leaving ESPN, has been out of the business for the past couple years while dealing with some medical issues.)
"Across the board... the messages we got were, 'If our people want to do it, we understand this in meaningful, and we understand this is just the one night, and we'd be happy to do it.'" Shapiro says. "And as soon as got yeses from the five people, it was end of chapter."
Gumbel, who'll team with Chris Berman for his Old School Week appearance, says he's curious to see how much ESPN's facilities in Bristol, Conn., have changed, and he's looking forward to seeing some of his former colleagues.
"For all of us, and certainly for me, [the most exciting thing] is to be able to see old friends, people I worked with there...and have never forgotten," Gumbel says. "And in combination with that, I feel very flattered and very honored that the place thinks enough of me to invite me back."
