Requiem for a Heavyweight

     This is not about boxing. Although boxing was heavily covered along with other sports and issues of the day. I am talking about ESPN's The Sports Reporters.

     After 30 glorious years, ESPN has pulled the plug on this most venerable show. Slotted at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time on Sundays (and replayed at 10:30 a.m. on ESPN2), it loomed large in its scope and breadth. The weekly sessions were topical and discussed in the down-to-earth intellectual style which attracted both the educated as well as the everyday fan. The opinions provided rarely made headlines; they were, after all, the legitimate comments of a stable of well-respected journalists who made far more noise for their respective newspapers.

     Now broadcast from the ESPN main studios in Bristol, Connecticut, up until 1999 the show originated from Manhattan, subsequently settling into the ESPN Sports Zone in Times Square until 2010. The format was simple--a roundtable-like discussion on a small range of topics--a current events of sports for the past week or into the near future. Four sports reporters from a stable of very respected columnists, reporters and media personalities comprised the panel with a moderator leading the activity. The show was formatted to a degree after a show from Chicago known as Sportswriters on TV.

     First hosted by Gary Thorne, attorney-turned-broadcaster and presently the play-by-play man for the Baltimore Orioles, it was Dick Schaap who gave the show its energy and credence.  Schaap, a Cornell University grad where he played lacrosse as a goalie and a prestigious Columbia University School of Journalism-trained author and reporter, both in print and on NBC and ABC, as well as a respected theater critic, had the uncanny ability to bring out the best from the panel on a weekly basis. For me, it was must see TV for the varying insights and opinions of the panelists were incredibly on point.

     What a cast of panelists presided over the half hour discussions. They covered every major sport and had plenty to say about the games and the participants. Regular contributors to the show included Mike Lupica, a gifted and brash columnist from the New York Daily News; Mitch Albom, the award-winning novelist and musician who wrote for the Detroit Free Press; Bob Ryan, the well-traveled and widely-quoted essayist from the Boston Globe; and William C. Rhoden, the Mississippi-born lead sports columnist for the august New York Times.

     Other contributors to the show included large presence of Jason Whitlock from the Kansas City Star; the highly-opinionated Stephen A. Smith of the Philadelphia Inquirer and now of ESPN;  the erudite Bryan Burwell who wrote for the St.Louis Post-Dispatch; and Michael Wilbon, the Northwestern-educated writer from the Washington Post. Along with Bill Rhoden, the black journalist was well-represented on The Sports Reporters.

     Women were not involved very much at the outset, for there were not many female sports reporters when the show began back in the late 1980's. Christine Brennan of USA Today led the list of females who appeared on The Sports Reporters. Hannah Storm, Rachel Nichols, Jackie MacMullan,  formerly of the Boston Globe and now an ESPN columnist and personality; Jane McManus, who trained at Newsday and was one of the original writers at ESPNW;  and Jemele Hill, all of ESPN, later served as notable panelists.

     Noteworthy is the legacy of The Sports Reporters. The heralded opinion show Pardon The Interruption, starring the aforementioned Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser, also a fairly regular panelist on The Sports Reporters when he was with the Washington Post with Wilbon, was a direct descendant of the ESPN stalwart. Last week, when it was announced that The Sports Reporters would end in May, Kornheiser and Wibon each declared their undying thanks for their starts in broadcasting via Dick Schaap.

     So, too, just preceding PTI daily on ESPN is Around the Horn, filled with regular and fill-in participants who are either newsprint columnists or appear on-air for ESPN. And leading up to Around the Horn is Highly Questionable, originating from Miami led by Dan Le Batard, the fine writer for Miami Herald, along with his very funny father and Bomani Jones from ESPN. This is a lot like seeing the successful spinoffs from N.C.I.S.

     On September 16, 2001, the show expanded to one hour for a take on the sports perspectives following the September 11 attacks in both Washington and New York as well as the crash of the third plane in Pennsylvania. That show would be the last for Schaap, whose untimely death three months following a surgery he delayed until after that particular episode, cast a big hole in the program.

     John Saunders, the Canadian-born hockey player turned ESPN announcer took over as moderator until his death from a heart attack in 2016. Saunders was a witty and worthy successor to Schaap, permitting continuity that The Sports Reporters required. Lupica and Jeremy Schaap, Dick's son, a journalist in his own right, have hosted the show since then.

     Broken down into 4 segments, Blocks A, B and C focused on three current topics of significant interest. The program always ended with a segment called "Parting Shots," where the 3 newsmen would opine on a sports subject dear to them. The moderator, whether it be Schaap or Saunders, would offer his own reflection on something that happened in the sports world, thereby neatly wrapping up the program. The format was tested and true.

     Now it seems that ESPN is courting a young demographic and, sadly, The Sports Reporters does not offer the necessary vibes. The essence of The Sports Reporters is soon to be left to its heirs, the remaining assemblage of knowledgeable sports personalities on many other ESPN programs, who will convey opinions which dedicated sports fans would debate in countless places--arenas, bars or dens. The loss of a program like The Sports Reporters is another signal that print journalism is dying a not so slow death.  ESPN, by its visual recapping of all sporting events, usurped the newspaper coverage, thus setting the landscape for future generations as to how they receive their sporting news. Ironically, The Sports Reporters ultimate demise was the predestined success of ESPN itself.

     Let us not mourn the upcoming passing of a literary giant. Hopefully the sendoff for The Sports Reporters will be about its huge positive effect on the American sports journalistic landscape. 

     Perhaps that is what Dick Schaap and John Saunders would have said in their final commentaries.