Since moving to Los Angeles to co-host the 1.a.m ET SportsCenter, Neil Everett has slowly grown on me. After watching him consistently for the past two years, I recently became convinced that he should join John Anderson, Steve Levy and Rece Davis on my list of SportsCenter anchors that don’t make me want to blow my brains out.  Who’s on your SCATDMMWTBMBO list?

Unlike Chris Berman, Stuart Scott, Steve Berthiaume and Scott Van Pelt, Everett is a nice balance of personality and professionalism.  He rarely goes over the top with his catch phrases and typically keeps his composure.  He’s at his best when he’s doing highlights; I like his delivery, energy, improvisation and timing. The guy just always seems comfortable, regardless of what sport he’s doing highlights for. Not every anchor is capable of being at ease in every situation. You ever hear Linda Cohn do a soccer highlight? She’s like a camel trying to swim across the Atlantic.

For the most part, Everett does a good job, but every anchor has their issues.  To me, Everett’s biggest problem is that he sometimes gets too carried away with his writing. His scripts are a tad too wordy and his lead-ins are a smidge too cute. I also can’t stand those lame skits that he often takes part in, but something tells me those are his producer's ideas instead of his.

Anyway, last night, as Baseball Tonight was wrapping up, Everett popped on the tube with a tease for the upcoming SportsCenter.  I almost choked on my midnight snack after I saw Everett turn in a performance that the late  ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage would be proud of...

I understand that his adrenaline was probably pumping before the show and that he was trying to peak the interest of the audience, but there was no reason for Everett to scream and gyrate the way he did at the tail end of that tease.  Hopefully, someone in the control room got in his ear and told him how ridiculous his epileptic episode actually was.  The “X-GAMES ARE TAKING OVER!”  What the hell does that even mean?

Don’t let anything like this happen again Neil.  If you keep pulling the sort of garbage that I saw from you last night, you’ll be eliminated from my SCATDMMWTBMBO list.  There is no place on my list for an anchor that behaves like some roided out wrestler. Why do you think Berman never made the cut?

*Update: Today is the final day to vote in our Joe Morgan Memorial Tournament Final!!! Voting ends tonight at midnight, and as of right now, it looks like Cinderella Craig James has an insurmountable lead.  But, as we know, anything can happen!  So, stuff those ballot boxes between now and midnight and tell us who should join the three faces of awfulness currently on AA's Mt. Rushmore to replace Joe Morgan...Joe Buck or Craig James. And make sure you come back on Monday for the unveiling of our new and improved Awful Announcing banner!

 

Our month long Joe Morgan Memorial Tournament has reached the final.  Thanks to all of you who have taken part in the tournament so far, especially for the amazing 24,669 votes for the semifinals.  It's been an awesome month of awfulness here at AA, but it is now time to turn 32 into 1 and decide who will replace Joe Morgan on Awful Announcing's Mount Rushmore.  When we started this tournament July 5th, few people would have predicted ESPN college football analyst Craig James for one final slot.  However, a month of horrible PR came from nowhere for the Senator thanks to stunning revelations in the new Mike Leach book combined with the #FreeBruce saga.  Those stories lifted James to unprecedented heights of unlikability.  In the final he meets Fox play by play man Joe Buck, who in spite of winning some sympathy through battling a vocal cord virus, has rode a wave of years of discontent from sports fans through to the final.  Let's hope the final will be just as dramatic as the Colin Cowherd-Joe Buck semifinal, where Buck passed Cowherd in the final two minutes before the clock struck midnight and won by 33 votes out of 12,635.  Voting ends Friday night at Midnight on the East Coast.

The future of Awful Announcing's Mount Rushmore lies in your hands.  Who will join Pam Ward, Dick Vitale, and Tim McCarver in AA immortality?  Will it be Craig James or Joe Buck?


Craig James vs Joe Buck



Craig James

Fact File: ESPN college football game and studio analyst

Why He's Here: James became an integral part of one of college football's biggest stories when his son Adam's allegations of being locked in a closet led to Mike Leach's firing at Texas Tech.  This led to an awkward series of revelations made by Leach about Craig's meddling in his program, lawsuits, and other developments.  ESPN was put in the position of having one of their analysts be an integral part of the controversy.  How did Craig James respond?  Well, rumor has it he wants to be a Senator of course.  And now that his coverup and controversy briefly resulted in the "suspension" of respected CFB writer Bruce Feldman, James is more despised than ever.

Links:

The Mike Leach Book Excerpts Make Craig James Look Like An Even Bigger Douche
Craig James Wants You To Help Texans Help Save America
Announcer working Alamo Bowl gets Alamo Bowl coach suspended
Craig James running to the Senate
Craig James loses it

Round 1 Result: Defeated Mike Patrick  75.17% - 24.83%
Round 2 Result: Defeated Rick Reilly 66.32% - 33.68%
Round 3 Result: Defeated Stephen A. Smith 60.76% - 39.24%
Final 4 Result: Defeated Chris Berman 77.16% - 22.84% 

Joe Buck

Fact File: Fox's #1 play by play man for NFL and MLB.  Has announced several World Series and Super Bowls.

Why He's Here: Joe Buck has quickly risen to the top of the most disliked sports announcers.  His dry, monotone style doesn't quite fit in with an age where Gus Johnson and Kevin Harlan are two of the more popular sports announcers in the business.  Beyond that though, Joe Buck has a certain air of smugness towards his announcing duties, even admitting in the past that he isn't that big of a sports fan.  His attempted and failed late night career told sports fans that he had bigger and better things to do than announce the biggest games in sports.

Links:

Joe Buck Doesn't Enjoy Baseball Anymore
Real Tweets From Real People - Joe Buck
It's Time For Fox To Sit Joe Buck
The Artie Lange Interview

Round 1 Result: Defeated Chris Rose 72.53% - 27.47% 
Round 2 Result: Defeated Deion Sanders 55.21% - 44.79% 
Round 3 Result: Defeated Jim Gray 56.34% - 45.66%
Final 4 Result: Defeated Colin Cowherd 50.13% - 49.87%

Vote!



 

ESPN NBA analyst Jalen Rose was originally arrested for a DUI all the way back in March.  That arrest and the subsequent response from ESPN created some questions in the initial fallout.  Rose's mess has been lost in the shuffle over the last few months with the great NBA playoffs, subsequent lockout, and everything else going on in sports, but he was back in the news this week.  Rose was sentenced to 20 days in jail on Wednesday.  From the Detroit Free Press...

Judge Kimberly Small, known for her tough stance on drunken driving, ordered the former NBA player and University of Michigan basketball star to serve 93 days in jail, but she suspended all but 20 of those days.

Small, during a 40-minute sentencing hearing in 48th District Court in Bloomfield Township, told Rose: “You’re not here because you drank. I have no problem with that. Have at it. I do mind when you get behind the wheel of a two-ton vehicle and use it as a weapon against the rest of us.”

Now common sense would tell you that any sort of jail time for Jalen Rose would wake him up and make him be extra cautious on the roadways.  Going through that amount of public scrutiny and punishment should be enough to reflect on how careful one should be when driving.  However, in the words of Lee Corso, not so fast my friend.  You see, after he was sentenced to go to jail, Rose was almost immediately pulled over for speeding.  Again, the Free Press has the details...

Former Michigan Fab Fiver Jalen Rose was given a speeding ticket in Clawson hours after he was sentenced to nearly three weeks in jail for drunken driving, authorities said today.

Rose was clocked going 46 m.p.h. in a 25-m.p.h. zone shortly before 9 p.m. Wednesday night, Clawson Police Chief Harry Anderson said. He was given a citation for going at least 10 m.p.h. over the limit.

If that wasn't stupid enough, Rose then traded in his car for a scooter, straight up.  Can he not just hire a driver??  Seems like that would be safer for the rest of us.  With the jail sentence and all of the negative publicity that Rose has faced in the past year, it would not surprise me in the least to see the leader quietly part ways with the former Fab Fiver.  With the NBA lockout proving ex-jock analysts fairly useless, Jalen may fade away like those Fab Five banners.

We're thankful to @bubbaprog for letting us know AA got this mention below on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night (no big deal)...

 

Olbermann reunited with his old partner in crime, Dan Patrick, to talk about what they expected in the movie version of the book, "Those Guys Have All The Fun."

While a lot of folks have had fun trying to cast the movie, I think the more interesting question is what portion of ESPN's history will the movie cover. Ryan took a stab at some possibilities which led to the Olbermann shout out. Dan Patrick commented that he's hearing the movie will focus on the mid 90's so it looks like the movie will be more focused on characters and individuals and not the uphill battle ESPN had to fight in its infancy to survive. 

How that book transitions into a movie is the million dollar question. If you've read the book, you can see the challenge at hand. Being a Hollywood expert having watched lots of movies and every episode of Entourage, here is how I'd do it (call my people so I can get EP credit).

The movie starts in 1987 and ends sometimes in 1994. 1987 is a good starting place because 2 of the 9 major steps in ESPN's rise happened that year. You can mention the buzz around the America's Cup coverage while management preps for the intense NFL bidding process. A narrator (Dan Patrick? Bob Ley?) can then guide you back to how other meetings could have caused ESPN to stumble early on. You can do quick flashbacks to the first 3 steps of ESPN's history which were all business orientated. In fact, with quick setups and cutaways you can even add some important steps like getting NCAA tournament games and Budweiser signing on as the first sponsor. Really, all of those stories just need a quick setup from a narrator and maybe 20 seconds in the flashback. You could cover a lot more ground going this route and add a lot of context.

I think the logical end point is 1994 with the start of the This Is SportsCenter commercials. The real meat of the movie outlines 2 main stories. 1) The business side where there were some very shrewd decisions but a revolving door of ownership and management. 2) John Walsh's impact on the company and the rising star of many of the ESPN personalities as well as the development of a frat house like culture.  Of course, Olbermann, Patrick, and the Big Show would play a central role.

The infamous launch party of ESPN2 would serve as the beginning of the end as the company culture has drifted a bit off course from it's scrappy and humble roots. From there you close out the movie with the various tensions between on air personalities and their managers and end the film with the "This Is Sportscenter commercials." For each commercial shoot you could add an epilogue for that individual and how their future with the company played out.

What are your thoughts on this approach? How would you go about not sacrificing cinematic ambition in favor of commercial appeal?

There may be no better follows on Twitter as a sports fan right now than the major NFL reporters.  Adam Schefter and Chris Mortensen of ESPN, Jay Glazer of Fox, Jason La Canfora of NFL Network, and even Pro Football Talk are always dishing out stories, news, and rumors, trying to beat the competition, especially during the mad rush of this past week.  The race for these reporters to get the story first is almost as interesting as the actual stories themselves, with Glazer tweeting a shot at his ESPN rivals yesterday.  

Well, in the midst of the craziest and shortest offseason in NFL history, ESPN's John Clayton finally got in the Twitter act yesterday.  One day and 71 Tweets later and Clayton has already amassed 134,000 followers faster than you can say Darren Roveil.  Something tells me that John still hasn't quite grasped the nuances of Twitter completely yet though.  Take a look at Clayton's Twitter page.  This is an actual picture as of 7:30 ET.


Wow.   At least it is an original background.  Clayton's Twitter account is just as newsworthy as the other top NFL reporters, but my word.  Is there not one intern in Bristol that can dress up his Twitter page just a little bit?  It gets better when you look at Clayton's profile on Tweetdeck.  Again, an actual screengrab...

Phenomenal.  This is probably way more funny to me than it really is, but I absolutely love this Twitter anomaly.  Then again, maybe the Professor is all outsmarting us and the small picture and graininess could just all be a reason to obscure us from seeing that famed pony tail...

Thanks to Chuck Anderson for the tip.
 

Sure, this has nothing to do with sports media, but who said we ever had to live within those rules all the time, right?  This version of Real Tweets From Real People was sparked by my 11,000th viewing of one of my all-time favorite movies, The Boondock Saints.  ("What were you gonna do, laugh the last three to death... FUNNY MAN?!")  The response last night on Twitter with your favorite rewatchable movie selections was awesome.  So why not dedicate Real Tweets to those favorite movies to start watching halfway through on cable or flip on Netflix when the sports options are running low.  And while you're at it, check out Ryan's movie doppelganger choices for the upcoming ESPN book movie project.  Don't worry, we're not turning into Grantland... yet.  After the jump and as always, these are Real Tweets From Real People...

The Pac 12 Networks announcement is absolutely huge. There are some obvious takeaways, but if you really dive deep into the implications this will have on the sports media world, the signifigance of the development begins to blow your mind. Many things will change in media and in college football because of this.

If you missed the announcement, the Pac 12 is launching a national network similar to the Big Ten Network. Here is where it gets interesting though. The Pac 12 will also launch 6 regional networks as well.  From College Football Talk:

"Will be broadcast through four cable operators: Comcast, Time Warner Cable, COX Communications and Bright House Networks.

The four cable operators will broadcast a total of 850 sporting events — 350 events nationally and 500 events regionally — including every football game and every men’s basketball game that isn’t carried by the Pac-12′s other media rights conglomerates, ESPN and FOX.

The six regional networks are Washington, Oregon, Northern California, Southern California, Arizona and Mountain. This means that fans from all 12 Pac-12 institutions will have an opportunity to watch every football and men’s basketball game of their school provided they have the network. The six regional networks will also broadcast other Olympic (i.e. non-revenue generating) sports and academic programming."

Some further details from the LA Times:

"There are no plans in place with distributors such as DirectTV or Dish Network, though Scott said he hoped to eventually add satellite and telephone companies to the deal.

The four distributors who are onboard with the conference can reach about 48 million viewers."
 

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This is about the strangest story I've seen in the 10 months I've been on board Awful Announcing.  The Florida International University football program is perhaps best known for this massive brawl against the crosstown Miami Hurricanes a few years ago.  FIU's athletic department is also notable for their recent ridiculous Isaiah Thomas coaching hire.  Well, the university is back in the news once again for a strange reason.  The (FI) U has made another publicity seeking, head scratching move.  I can't believe I'm typing these words, but the school has hired former CNN anchor Rick Sanchez as their football play by play man for the upcoming season.  You can't make this stuff up.  From NBC Miami...

The controversial former local news anchor with a flair for the overdramatic that landed him on CNN is reportedly lending his voice to Florida International University football games this fall.

FIU's athletic department confirmed Sanchez will be in the radio booth during games this season, but did not release how much he will be paid or for how long he will call games.

Sanchez was fired by CNN in October after some controversial comments he made about The Daily Show host Jon Stewart and his employer.

When I want a play by play man for my favorite university, the first group of people that come to mind are former cable TV news hosts.  Were Keith Olbermann, Eliot Spitzer, and Larry King not available?!?!  Did Glenn Beck demand too much money?

Seriously, is this a joke?  Rick Sanchez?!?  The same Rick Sanchez that was fired from CNN because of his belief in the vast Jewish media conspiracy theory?  I'm not saying he'll be terrible, but never, ever, ever have I thought to myself... "Wow, you know who would make a great football announcer... RICK SANCHEZ!"  Evidently, he's a big supporter of the university and has played some football before.  Best of luck to him, but I never even thought Sanchez was good in his job as a cable newsman, let alone his potential as a football announcer.  Just watch this hilarious Youtube montage of some of his more facepalm worthy moments from CNN...



At the very least, we should have plenty of great, new material for the Pammies this Fall.  Who wants to be our FIU correspondent...

[NBC Miami]
 

A couple of days back, the author of the ESPN book, Jim Miller, tweeted that Bruce Feldman would be back covering college football during the Pac 12 media days. He also hinted that there was still some things going on behind the scenes (do tell!). 

Given Miller's bevvy of sources, we're inclined to think he's in the know about either Feldman's contract ending or possible severance discussions. There is no other real explanation for Feldman potentially leaving ESPN in the middle of the college football season. In fact, I doubt his contract would even expire mid season, so there is still some major questions about what's really going on behind the scenes.

Regardless, we did get our first look at Feldman as he did some video talking Pac 12. Still with no tweet or comment about the matter from Feldman nor anything to go on other than ESPN's side of the story, we're still very skeptical. It's interesting to see ESPN leaving comments enabled on the article page containing the video, most referencing Feldman's extended absence.

Feldman seemed to crack grin in the first few seconds of the video almost acknowledging this was kind of awkward to reappear with no formal comment on the matter. Here is our take on what was going on behind the scenes.

Click on image for better view

 

We're trying to dig further into what Miller was insinuating in his tweet about Feldman's future as it remains to be seen if he's truly free or just being supervised out in the yard. Either way, his last couple of weeks have been reminiscent of another great guy locked up for all the wrong reasons.

One of the biggest sports stories of the summer was the release of the best seller "Those Guys Have All the Fun," more commonly known as The ESPN Book.  Jim Miller's book was met with near-universal acclaim (read our review here and our podcast with Jim here), so it was no surprise that a deal was reached this week to turn the blockbuster book into a blockbuster movie. Of course, there's only one small problem with "Those Guys" translating to the silver screen... it's 745 pages long!  The book is so chalk full of stories and details it could fill an entire trilogy, let alone a single movie.

So, unless The ESPN Book: The Movie is going to be some Gone With The Wind style epic, the movie's plot is going to have to focus on one main character from the book.  After all, there's only so much you can fit into a two hour movie while maintaining your "dramatic license."  But, there are so many interesting and pivotal characters in the book that the potential movie could go in many different directions.  And while it's fun to think about the possible casting of the movie (like our friends at SportsGrid have done very well already), let's take a look at five very different movies that could actually be made from "Those Guys."

(1) ESPN: The Beginning 
Movie Doppelganger: The Social Network

The first potential movie is predictably the easiest, focusing on ESPN's beginnings.  The plot line would resemble The Social Network to examine how an empire was built from humble/dumpy Bristol, CT.  The main characters would obviously be ESPN's co-founders, Bill and Scott Rasmussen.  One, a failed employee of the then New England Whalers and another, the bumbling son who's along for the ride until he's forced out of the company he founded.

The other main character would be Stu Evey from Getty Oil, a larger-than-life figure in the book who represents the financial investment that got ESPN off the ground... not to mention the source of some of the wilder anecdotes from the book.  The movie could crescendo as ESPN slowly becomes legitimate throughout the 80's while taking plenty of time to detail the sex and drugs that weren't as big a part of the book as first thought.  I'd love to see this movie made just for the ability to dramatize the struggle of building the "leader" from scratch.

(2) The Big Show: The Movie
Movie Doppelganger: Wedding Crashers (or any other buddy comedy, really)

Undoubtedly one of the easier choices for a main storyline to the ESPN Movie would be following the rise and fall of The Big Show and its stars, Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick.  This movie would focus on ESPN's rise from legitimacy to national phenom while charting the growth of SportsCenter throughout the 90's.  And while all of our other ESPN favorites will be there in the background (Berman, Ley, Steiner, Scott, Vitale, etc.), the main focus would be on the Olbermann/Patrick duo, who took SportsCenter to new heights as a mainstream cultural hit.

Of course, the movie wouldn't be all fun and slapstick from the two buddies.  We could also see the troubled relationship between Olbermann and those around him and how ESPN struggled with its newfound power and influence.  This particular movie could end with the sad stories of first Olbermann's departure, followed by Patrick's a few years later.  A perfect blend of knee-slapping humor and tear-jerking sadness!  While Wedding Crashers isn't an exact parallel, any buddy comedy with a hint of real-life drama would suffice as a template.