Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 25, 2002
Through the years
SEPT. 7, 1979: ESPN airs SportsCenter as its first program with George Grande and Lee Leonard as anchors.
FEB. 6, 1981: Rhonda Glenn joins SportsCenter as the first full-time female sportscaster for a national TV network.
JULY 17, 1988: The "Sunday Conversation" debuts with an interview with Jack Nicklaus from the British Open.
OCT. 10, 1995: "This is SportsCenter" promo campaign begins.
MAY 17, 1998: The 20,000th SportsCenter episode airs, featuring coverage of David Wells' perfect game for the Yankees.
JAN. 21, 1999: "SportsCenter of the Decade" debuts, focusing on sports news of the 1940s. The series recaps sports history decade by decade.
3: Babies named after ESPN.
7: Sets used during 22 years of SportsCenter.
15.1: Percentage of males ages 12-19 who listed ESPN or ESPN2 in a survey as their favorite network, the highest for any network.
60: Countries that receive SportsCenter.
184: "This is SportsCenter" promo spots produced.
1,110-plus: Hours of original SportsCenter that airs each year.
11,000: Approximate number of highlights shown during the year.
"Rumblin', stumblin', bumblin' . . ." "He ... could ... go ... all ... the ... waaaaaaaaay."
-- Chris Berman
"You can't stop him. You can only hope to contain him."
-- Dan Patrick
"Boo-yah!"
-- Stuart Scott
"Gat it."
-- Rich Eisen
"Yahtzee!"
-- Kenny Mayne
"He's not my vydas, he's not your vydas, he's Arvydas."
-- Craig Kilborn
"He hit the ball real hard."
-- Keith Olbermann
"We kid because we care."
-- Chris Myers
-- For more catch phrases from the toasts of SportsCenter, visit www.sportscenteraltar.com/phrases
What was the first baseball nickname coined by Chris Berman on SportsCenter (around 1980):
John Mayberry "R.F.D."
"If you're a fan, if you're a fan, what you see in the next minutes, hours and days to follow may convince you you've gone to sports heaven."
-- LEE LEONARD
-- with first words spoken on ESPN
-- ESPN: The Uncensored History by Michael Freeman
-- The Big Show: A Tribute to ESPN's SportsCenter by Keith Olbermann, Dan Patrick
-- Sports' Junkies Rejoice: The Birth of ESPN by Bill Rasmussen
-- The Quotable ESPN by Shelley Youngblut (editor), Jenny Ford (editor), Monica Schroer (editor)
-- Outtakes by Dan Patrick, et al