The finale of ESPN’s “Around The Horn” is set for Friday, and panelists on Thursday’s show continued to share how the show has impacted their careers during their final “FaceTime” segment:
* Meadowlark Media’s Pablo Torre: “I love this family. I love that this doesn’t feel real yet, because I expect to do this for a very long time. Still, in my in my heart, in my bones. I love you guys.”
* ESPN’s Courtney Cronin: “One of my favorite things about ‘Around the Horn’ is that it took sports reporters all across the country and gave them an opportunity to talk about their teams from their city on the national stage. ... For the last three years, I’ve had a chance to put on for a place that means so much to me in the city of Chicago, and I’ve gotten to give a piece of my home to the viewers of ‘Around the Horn,’ and I’m so grateful for that.”
* ESPN’s Clinton Yates: “I never thought I’d be in the position of getting back to this program and introducing my little brother, my father and my son on the program. But now that we are here and we’ve come all this way, I just want to point out this show and the viewers have made me a better person overall, and making sure that I remembered I could believe in myself and represent something that everybody was going to enjoy.”
* ESPN’s Israel Gutierrez: “There’s two major things that I’ve learned over 17 years of being on the show, and it’s the importance of authenticity and the power of tears. ... Today, May 22 would have been my sister’s 44th birthday. She passed away last month, and one of the things that she was so constantly proud of me for is watching me on this show. ... It just made me think about community and how much this show has created for me, for all of us, and no matter what happens, that’s never going to go away.” (“Around the Horn,” ESPN, 5/22).
WHAT THE SHOW WAS: USA TODAY’s Chris Bumbaca wrote the show’s legacy is the “sheer number and variety of voices” it introduced sports fans to. What started as a “consistent lineup for the first several years turned into a more frequent rotation.” The different cast members and Tony Reali “created a familial aspect of the program.” Jackie MacMullan said, “It gave us exposure that really changed our lives in many ways” (USA TODAY, 5/22). WDRB.com’s Eric Crawford wrote the show was a “national platform for smart, diverse voices in sports media.” It introduced L.A. Times columnist Bill Plaschke to a larger stage, along with Denver Post columnist Woody Paige and plenty of other writers whose work was “suddenly in front of millions.” The “audience -- and the industry -- was better for it” (WDRB.com, 5/21).
PROUD TO CONTRIBUTE: In L.A., Plaschke wrote ESPN is “canceling more than a show, they’re shuttering a miracle.” The idea that “anybody would want to watch four full-of-it sportswriters from four different parts of the country spout their opinions in a chase for points was outlandish from the start.” Plaschke: “When I joined the show five months after its debut, it was surely the most criticized 30 minutes in the history of television. ... But I was proud that the show evolved, expanded and enlightened. Inspired by Reali, we became one of the only sports shows on television to tackle issues of racism, sexism, homophobia and mental health. We stopped shouting. We started listening. We embraced change. We grew up” (L.A. TIMES, 5/23). In Dallas, Tim Cowlishaw wrote the show’s finale will be his 2,114th appearance over a 22 1/2-year period. Cowlishaw: “I never desired a TV career and ended up averaging two national shows a week for 22 years. The idea that I would have the second-most appearances was the furthest thing from my mind when ESPN flew us to New York, put us up in the Essex House, then had us meet for a very loud four hours at Carnegie Deli.” He mentions how he had not thought he would “miss the show greatly until this week, when I started watching the sign-offs by some of the younger panelists” hearing how much “it meant to them to just be part of something I helped to build” (DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 5/23).
