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12/29/2004: "Saving SportsCenter"
When I was a kid and we first got cable, my wake-up TV before school was simple. I'd watch the Today Show and get serious news for half an hour, then flip over to SportsChannel, which had no morning programming.
Instead, they had something called "Webb Sports Wire," which had a ticker of scores at the bottom of the screen and text panels filling the screen. The panels would have some recaps of the previous night's games or updated standings. Within a few minutes, you had all the sports information you needed. All to a soundtrack of Weather Channel-style music. I still remember how it goes.
Simple, to the point, everything I could possibly want except for highlights.
This was before the Internet and before technology allowed the newspaper to print all the late scores on a regular basis.
There were two simple reasons to watch Webb Sports Wire instead of SportsCenter. One was that there were no commercials. The other was that you'd get all the information you wanted in a fraction of the time. You just wouldn't see highlights.
The reason I wish Webb Sports Wire still existed is also simple, but takes a little longer to explain.
Webb Sports Wire didn't last exceptionally long, maybe a year or two, and after it disappeared, I became a SportsCenter addict. I loved the highlights, enjoyed the antics of Craig Kilborn, didn't mind not getting the standings anymore.
I didn't really watch the "classic" Keith Olbermann/Dan Patrick pairing because they were on at 11 PM. I was watching morning SportsCenters, usually Kilborn's domain. He was cool, making fun of the Clippers and guard Pooh Richardson, exclaiming "Jumanji!" for home runs. He was taping SportsCenter at 2 AM for countless morning repeats and didn't come off as the phony that he did on his eventual late night show, where I grew to loathe him.
In fact, Kilborn's departure from SportsCenter was the beginning of my loathing for both the man and the show he used to host. Once Kilborn got popular and moved on to The Daily Show, every nitwit on ESPN thought the ticket to the top could be purchased with schtick, gobs and gobs of schtick.
SportsCenter started to ooze catchphrases, and somewhere along the line Stuart Scott became king of Idiot Nation. I blame SportsCenter for a lot of what's wrong with sports now: chiefly the decline in fundamentals in almost every sport in pursuit of the Golden Booyah. That and tacking "Nation" onto everything. ESPN has even created something called "SportsNation," complete with a fake president. ESPN lost sight of the fact that they exist to show sports on TV, not be the show itself.
That's the center of the love-hate relationship that nearly every serious sports fan I know has with ESPN. Disney marketing gurus are running things instead of people who care about sports. To borrow their term, "SportsNation" does not have a government of the fans, by the fans and for the fans. The fans are forced to compromise their need for substance to make room for the "entertainment" that ESPN thinks will draw a larger audience.
So, SportsCenter became the amateur comedy hour. Fine. ESPNEWS came along at just the right time, until it became an audition stage for "The Big Show," as Olbermann and Patrick called it. I can barely even stomach that anymore.
Thankfully, there's the Internet and newspapers, but I still wish for something I could use to garner infomation on sports while holding a bowl of cereal in one hand and a spoon in the other. I long for Webb Sports Wire, which is never coming back. Not that I'm awake at 7 AM anymore anyway, except for today, when my sleep patterns are still completely messed up by having stayed up too late two nights ago and then sleeping until 4 PM.
But on my TV as I write this is SportsCenter. I can't remember the last time I watched a full episode, but there it is, and I'm not revulsed.
Why? Steve Levy and Fred Hickman. Levy's been around for a while, is a play-by-play man by trade, and a hockey guy at that. When you call a hockey game, there's no time for BS, and Levy brings that style to the highlights he reads. Hickman, who I think I first saw many moons ago on CNN, most recently handled postgame show duties on the YES Network. Anchors working alone don't do schtick because they don't have anyone to interact with except the viewer. Watch the 6:00 local news, then watch the national broadcast at 6:30. Guess which one is unbearable.
Even with a partner, catchphrases and goofiness aren't Hickman's style. He and Levy go well together since they're both there to do a job. Between 120-second promos for "TILT" and various segments of "Fact or Fiction" and the like, I'm finding SportsCenter watchable for the first time in a long time.
Right now, they're doing a Bucks-Rockets highlights package that focuses on Zaza Pachulia's gritty effort to get to rebounds and loose balls. OK, it ended with a dunk by Desmond Mason, but ESPN just highlighted hustle, without having it refer to their made-for-TV movie about Pete Rose.
I almost feel like I should stay up until noon and just keep watching, the way that I used to on days when I'd stay home sick from school. Who knows how long this revival will last?
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