The Sports Analyst, or Gibbering for a Living

I have a confession to make: I watch far too much sports television. It is my guiltiest of pleasures, if not my most toxic of vices. ESPN is on my television constantly and I can watch repeated airings of SportsCenter to the point that I can often predict an anchor's witty double-entendre as they segue into the next highlight.

I suppose I have a few favorites among the sports shows I choose to watch each day. Jim Rome is Burning; Around the Horn; and Pardon the Interruption are recorded each day to my DVR in case I'm not around from 4 - 6pm each afternoon to catch them live. I rarely if ever miss them. I watch a weekly sports magazine show every Sunday morning cleverly titled The Sports Reporters which assembles 3 or 4 well known newspaper sports columnists pontificating on all things athletic. I also frequently watch the 2-hour NFL pre-game show each Sunday leading up to my typical 6 hour narcotic fix of football games which follow.

But lately I've begun to notice a trend amongst the numerous talking heads which are assembled to bring a variety of opinions and perspectives to these shows. Most of these are professional, well-spoken and, whether I agree with their opinions or not, quite knowledgeable about their chosen subject matter. But either I'm just oversaturated with so much sports talk that I've lost my own perspective, or else there is an alarming trend among these denizens of the TV sports set and their ability to speak insightfully, clearly, or all too often even intelligibly.

Some of the worst offenders are the former athletes and coaches which dominate the show panels to provide their unique insights into the games, matches or events they are being paid to talk about. Many are decent enough in their own way, some even deserving of an Emmy or two for their successful transition from the playing field to the TV screen. But a few are so absolutely woefully miscast that watching / listening to them becomes an exercise in self-flagellation. There are a few in particular that are the worst offenders:

Hall of Famer Mike Ditka was a fearsome tight-end with the Chicago Bears of the 1950's and later coached them to a Super Bowl victory in 1985. He is an icon in the city of Chicago and is almost a caricature of the kind of cigar-smoking, blue-collar tough guy the city produces. But on the set of ESPN's pre-game show, his attempt at witty banter is painful to the ears. He certainly knows the subject matter but his effort to convey this to the audience is typically delivered so quickly and in such mumbled outbursts that he sounds as though a cigar is still clamped in his mouth. He has a terrible habit of leaving his sentences incomplete, moving suddenly to a new one before he has fully finished the last. It's as though his mouth can't continue to express an idea when a new one is beginning to form in his little mind.

FOX's Terry Bradshaw was a four-time Super Bowl winning quarterback with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1970's and has been a fixture on the network's NFL pre-game show for years. Bradshaw has a similar habit of failing to complete his sentences and frequently seems to lose his train of thought when bantering back and forth with his co-hosts. He rarely gets through a single show without referring to one player by another's name, adding to the confusion of his idiotic diatribes. He laughs frequently and maniacally, often when no attempt at humor has been made by anyone, and if one didn't know better, it would be reasonable to assume that he was a novice to the game of professional football.

Kordell Stewart is another former Steeler, though with a far less impressive on-field resume. Stewart's current role is as an occasional contributor to ESPN's First Take, his remarks typically limited to two or three weekly appearances to discuss the past week's games, or those that are upcoming. Kordell must have suffered more than the average number of concussions as most ex-players because he clearly has brain-damage. He is usually asked to comment for 45 - 60 seconds on two or perhaps three brief topics which should be right in his wheelhouse of knowledge. But each day without fail, he forgets a crucial player's name, appears to respond to a different question than the one asked by the segment's facilitator, or recites answers that often trail off in tangential, unfathomable directions, and wraps it all up by making pathetic apologies for his ineptitude. This man makes Rachael Ray sound like a Rhodes Scholar.

But the most perplexing example of the miscasting of TV sports personalities can be found on Sunday during The Sports Reporters. No one ever accused Ditka or Bradshaw of being classically trained to deliver Shakespeare. But The Sports Reporters is a panel of professional writers, many of them well-known award winners and bestselling authors as proof of their talents as wordsmiths and most put these talents to good use during each show. And then there is William C. Rhoden, columnist for the NY Times. Rhoden has been with this highly reputable newspaper for many years and has been cited for his work with the Baltimore Sun and Ebony magazine before that. He has a gift for the written word that is without question. But every time he attempts to use his gift of language in a spoken manner, he struggles like a first-time public-speaking student with a paralyzing fear of crowds.

After a 30 or 40 second effort to make a point relating to some topic or other, I often wonder if either Rhoden, or I, or perhaps both, are completely drunk. He can't begin to articulate a thought effectively, stammers through either a statement in support of, or in rebuttal to, one of the other panelists (though it's often difficult to tell which he is doing), and is frequently entirely unintelligible. Because much of the show's banter seems unscripted, it is understandable for the occasional thought to be awkwardly delivered, but Rhoden makes eloquence look like Greco-roman wrestling. Even the scripted closing piece which each panelist delivers, what they call their "parting shots" which are clearly read via teleprompter, Rhoden rarely stumbles through without a stutter, stammer or some other demonstration of incoherence.

Don't these people ever watch a videotape or two of themselves? Are their producers so preoccupied with camera angles and lighting that they are unaware of the way their shows' content is being delivered? Isn't anyone able to identify and at least make an effort to fix these problems?

Now this is in no way meant to be a mean-spirited column criticizing some unfortunate speech impediments as some have, say, Barbara Walters. Not everyone is born with the gift of gab and complete confidence in front of the camera. But when someone, even a retired sports celebrity, is so ill-suited and poorly cast for the role to the point that the viewer literally becomes uncomfortable for them, well they just need to find another gig.

Obviously there are far too many sports shows on television. But there are clearly far too few qualified on-air personalities available to populate them. Where are Jim McKay and Pat Summerall when we need them most??