The Press Box - ESPN’s Kevin Negandhi on 'SportsCenter' in 2023, Making It at ESPN, Philly Fandom, and Watching Games With His Dad.

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

Bryan’s East Coast media tour stops off in Connecticut to sit down with ‘SportsCenter’ host Kevin Negandhi. They discuss show production and rundown (1:00), becoming a news anchor in an Indian American family (11:40), and his career path at ESPN (26:30). Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Kevin Negandhi Producer: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Right now on the Ringer game on feet and all throughout the entire month of August, the East Coast bias boys are getting you ready to bet the NFL this season. We're going through each and every single division and revealing our favorite futures, predicting division winners, and even giving you some award winners. Do we think the Kansas City Chiefs will repeat or will they be the throne? Tune in now to find out on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Press Box Final Edition.

Brian Curtis of the Ringer here, along with producer Devin Rinaldo. Our guest today sitting across from me in this well-appointed ESPN conference room is Kevin de Gandhi. You know him from his work hosting the 6 o'clock Sports Center from hosting ABC's College Football Studio on Saturdays during the fall, from hosting events ranging from the Rose Parade to the Spelling Bee. And on social media, you know him from having more Philly sports takes than any TV anchor who is not Jake Tapper. Kevin, this is true, Brian. Welcome to the press box. Pleasure to be here.

So let's talk about SportsCenter, first of all. We're talking at 1.30 on Thursday afternoon. Yeah. You're hosting the 6 o'clock Sports Center tonight. Where am I finding you in your prep? Just starting. We just had our noon show meeting. And Zach Mariners, our producer today.

And basically, it features between 15 and 19 people, production assistants, CAs, the director, multiple segment producers, the coordinating producer, the news editor, the anchors, and of course, the producer. Today I'm doing solo. My co-anchor, Elle Duncan, is off as I was yesterday, and she covered for me because I went to see my nine-year-old pitch and all-star game. So when we have that early prep, it's, hey, these are the topics that we think are relevant today, ideas, and then we open it up. And basically you jump in on the call. Actually, we're in the room where we used to have that before the pandemic.

For people listening, it's five tables and 20 chairs all lined up and everybody just jumps in and says, what about this? What about that? What about this? So some of the topics today, centering around Dak Prescott and the Cowboys, what's going to be different this year? Sean Payton's comments about the last year's debacle in Denver with Nathaniel Hackett. A handful of other things, LeBron tweeting out today for the first time about an update.

and how the family's responding after his son suffered cardiac arrest and what they're going through. So all that stuff is brought up. Colorado going to potentially the Big 12, that's going to be our Sports Center report story. And then you just jump in, hey, what about this? What about that? I brought up today how when you look at the National League, there's literally one game separating five teams to get three wildcard spots. Trade deadlines next Tuesday. When we bring on Buster Only, which team should make the move to get over the hump to secure things in August and September. The same thing on the other end. The Angels, what are they going to do with Show Hay?

That's going to be the biggest topic here, right? But then the Angels last night trade their second and third best prospects for a trade with the White Sox, and there's still four games out of the Wild Card Spotlight. What are they going to do here with Show Hey? So that becomes a discussion internally among us. And then Zach puts that all together in a rundown and I'll start writing a little bit later on. You were quoted once saying that it takes about nine hours between preparing for and then taping an episode of SportsCenter. Is that still the case now?

No, I don't think so now. I think, you know, obviously 12, 12 o'clock noon is our show meeting. I'm on the air at six. So it feels like, you know, six hours of prep. I mean, maybe I brought that nine hours up at a different time and a different place in my life and where I was as an anchor and how I got to, you know, bury myself and everything. and also continue to build the confidence in where I'm at and the relationships that I had established. Now, I would say generally it takes six hours. And, you know, we have so many smart people in the room.

You lean on them because it's not just you. And, you know, so I have three kids. I brought my nine and 11-year-old boys to campus a couple days ago. And every week in the summer, they've had camp. And I was like, today's ESPN camp. and all they wanted to do was go to the cap and if you're at the cap, they've got candy and they want to, they want to do that. I said, no, you're going to sit here. You're going to listen to some of the things we're going to discuss. And then I want you to be in studio when we do some tapings. You're going to be

quiet. We're going to watch what we do. I want you to sit in a chair and read a prompter for one story. So they understand. And then what we did was while I was on the air, I put them in the production control room for the hour that we were on. And I said, just listen and watch. And they walk. And they walked away and they're like, oh my gosh, there's so many people. I said, yes, it's not just your dad. It's not just Ms. L. There are multiple people. I describe this to anybody that watches our show. The quarterback gets all the love, but the quarterbacks relying on the offensive coordinator and the head coach on the sidelines. They're Andy Reed and they're calling the plays, right? You're also relying on the offensive alignment. The wide receivers that run their routes,

they're running back to run his route to take care of the quarterback. And I say that to my kids and anybody that does a tour here at ESPN. It's the same. mentality for an anchor. We get the headlines, whether we do well or not, but we are relying on so many people behind the scenes and it's okay to lean on them because they're extremely smart. There's a misunderstanding about that. I would think it would be, A, because your kids are young. Yeah. And B, because everything we do now is I'm going to pick up my phone and I'm going to look into it and I'm going to talk. Exactly. And the idea of this army of producers and technical people working behind me. Yeah. That didn't exist. We have handheld studios. Everywhere we go, right?

immediately you have a camera and boom, everybody wants to be, you know, the Andy Warhol, 15 minutes of fame. Let's, let's do this. I always get a kick out of Brian. When you're seeing a fight go down and somebody needs help, but that person's still taking video. And it's just so disturbing, but that's how it is. That's how we process and consume things now. Oh, where's my camera? Forget what's actually happening. Where's my camera? I've got to record it. Do you do more or less writing for an episode of Sports Center than you did 15 years ago? It's a very good question. I probably do less writing now because I'm trusting myself a lot more.

You know, I've been here at ESPN, September will be 17 years. Back when I joined in 2006, there were not a lot of sports center shows. You basically earned your living on ESPN news, doing three-hour shows live nonstop. And you are writing and you're constantly doing interviews or reacting to live stuff. That helped me so much. If I actually jumped on to Sports Center in 2006, I would have flamed out within two years just because it's just a different beast. So by the time I got to Sports Center, you know, 18 months into my time here, I had done O'TL,

I had done NFL Live, college football live, baseball tonight, as well as ESPN news, hard shifts like late nights, closed shows, where you're staying, you're running the wheel, you're adding a highlight, you're coming back, you're doing breaking news, that when I went to Sports Center, it was much easier because it's like, oh, we have help. It's not just me and the other anchor and the research are handing us cards. We have multiple people around us here who are segment producers, who are behind the scenes making sure things are vetted out to take care of you. And Sports Center has done such a great job of making sure we can vet things out. And now when you're on the air, when I'm on the air on that 6 o'clock, a lot of that is relationships. And the trust I have with

somebody on the other side who's, I'm interviewing. Like, Ryan Clark can trust me with a question because he knows that I have him on the back end. And that is the most important thing, I think, for any established studio hosts. When you're bringing on a former athlete or an analyst, can they trust you where you're going to take them? Because if they can, they're going to give you their best stuff because they can talk to you. They feel comfortable. They relax.

Exactly. You and I were raised on 90s Sports Center? Yes. When we flipped on the show to tell us what happened in the day in sports. Now we have social media, we have sources telling us all day and sometimes showing us what happened. What's the purpose of SportsCenter now? Great question. I think the purpose of SportsCenter now is it depends on what show you watch.

For example, if you watch SVP, he's coming off a big event. You're not leaving because nine out of ten times he's going to have, whether Joe and Troy from the Monday Night Football game, he's going to have Ryan Clark, he's going to have Tim Legler, he's going to have Damien Woody. he's going to get instant analysis after what we just watched, right? I think there is a beneficial factor to that immediate, because people want to say, I just watch this, I want to continue, especially the first 10 minutes of that program, right? What exactly happened?

Help me understand what did you see as the athlete? I think SVP does an incredible job of making sure that that is the topic and we're carried on. But then coming back to it later on with a different perspective, right? if you're watching the 6 o'clock where L and I are doing it, we're leading into a big event. Seven o'clock, whatever's on. Now, today's big event is pickleball.

And for our audience, it's like, well, okay, this is something new, especially on E1, we're showing pickleball. I'm sure we're going to have something that has something leading into pickleball. I think when you watch a show for us, we lead into the NBA draft. We've led into the NBA finals.

We've led into other type of programming, like, for example, Thursday night football. We're not leading into NFL network has that, but we are getting you set. We are the pregame show for all of that. I think that that show has that certain value that is different and distinct from everybody else because highlights are already been consumed. Now it's what am I looking forward to watching tonight and why, right? If you're watching the 11 and you're watching, you know, Michael Eves, Zoom and Mahentie, John Anderson, Nicole Briscoe, I want to catch up on things.

There are certain things at my age now at 48. I'm running around at the end of the night. I'm like, what happened? I need to know what happened on these games. Why is this important tonight? I'm watching no matter what. When you're watching L.A., everything's done. You know, Stan and formerly Neil,

and now, you know, it's going to be an assortment of anchors right now in L.A. You're watching because they've processed everything, right? So I think in the morning Sports Center, this morning, I'm watching with my 11-year-old and my 9-year-old at, you know, 720 and my, literally my 11-year-old turns to me and goes, I love watching SportsCenter. And I looked at him and I was like, I didn't pay you for that. That's fantastic because he's a different type of consumer, right? He's on social. He's looking at Twitter. He's looking at Instagram and TikTok. Not a lot, but he's still looking and he's consuming that in conversations. So when he talks to his buddies, he has information. And half the time, I think he's

consuming that so he can have conversations with me. So when he said that to me this morning, I was like, okay, we're going to be okay. Because he's the next generation that's trying to process what's important, what's most important when they watch something with sports. Let me ask you a little bit about how you got here. Yeah. Born in West Philadelphia, raised in the Philly suburbs, I read, speaking of sons and dads, you watched games with your dad when you were eight or nine years old. What was that experience like? It opened the door to my relationship with my father. My father came from India, you know, in the late 60s, lived in a YMCA while my mom was still in India with my older brother. And my brother was born, like, within a year

and then my dad left to come here. So my dad was old school. And we didn't have a lot of, you know, it was my brother who told me about sports. It was my brother that had the catch with me that, you know, we're playing wiffleball and he's coming out. And he's coming out. And he's He's the one that taught me how to shoot a basketball, how to throw a football, how to tackle. He coached me when I was playing Pop Warner. He coached me when I was playing basketball. So my father and I didn't have a lot of one-on-one as a kid what I can relate to with him. My dad wanted to watch cricket, you know, or he'd, you know, get India abroad, which was, you know,

a newspaper that was delivered in a million Indian Americans around the country so he can get an update on what happened on a cricket match between Pakistan and India. So we didn't have a lot of common things. But when we watched the Eagles, he was so passionate about it. He would yell at the TV screen at Dick Vermeal and Ron Jaworski, and I would always defend those guys. And so I made it a way for me to have a conversation with him and sit down with it.

So Sunday mornings, I would grab the Inquirer while it was, you know, in our front yard, I would pour through the comics and then I'd just consume stats and information. So when my dad was yelling at Ron Jaworski for some mistake, I'd point out, well, he's completing 60% of his passes coming into this game. And it was literally my first time of informing somebody, a consumer of sports. So it helped me. It helped me where he could see me. He could come to me. It was like a common conversation that we could have during the week.

And my brother would sit down and watch with us. My mom knew it was very important that I had a relationship with my father. in that sense because I had no, again, I mentioned it a couple times. I had no common ground with him except that's my dad. And so I've got to make sure my grades are right because that's the only time he's going to recognize me if I'm not doing it right, you know, it really helped me. And I was super passionate. I remember them going to a Raiders game in the regular season in 1980 when that team

eventually played the Raiders in 81 and that Super Bowl 15 in Louisiana. I remember them leaving and sneaking out without telling me they were going to like 7-11 to get milk. My brother took my, my dad took my brother to that game. And they came back and I was so upset at five that I couldn't see the Eagles. And then my dad later took me to Eagles games, multiple ones, and then Phillies games and Sixers games because he knew how upset I was. That's stuck with me. And it came full circle when I could take, I took him to the 2008 World Series. you know, to watch Ryan Howard go deep against the race.

Taking my brother to events, that that's stuck with me, being able to take my mom to the White House. Those are the things that it's like my thank you to my parents for all the things they've done. There's an article at a Pennsylvania newspaper that said your parents decided to expose their sons equally to the culture of their new home as well as their traditional culture, leaving it to their sons to choose what they would adopt. How did that manifest itself in your childhood? Well, so, Brian, I was really lucky in my household that I had a very strong independent mom. So my mother came here eventually in 72. And then she, I was born in 75. She got her GED.

And then basically decided I wanted to go to junior college. I want to be a nurse. And then she would go to night school and she would take me when I was eight, nine years old. So when you're a young Indian boy who's coming from a family that's very, very old school, especially my father's family, and you're seeing your mom. And my mom's family was super old school as well, or women were not believed to be able to go out and do anything. They were there to take care of the home and take care of the kids, and that was it. When you see your mother do that and have a dream, and then she's taking you to the library and you're sitting in class

with her, it allowed me to say, wait, my mom can do this. At this age, I can do whatever I want. I have the freedom to do whatever I want. And I was really lucky that my mom let me manifest those type of dreams and aspirations of one day I want to do this. One day I want to do that. You know? And it stuck with me during my like, you know, these ups and downs I went through or my mom was always like, I just want you to be happy and I want you to do what you want to do.

It took me a while to convince them because they had never seen anybody that looks like me on American television. So convincing Indian parents is that struggle. They need to see it from somebody else, no matter how many times as a kid I could explain it to them. So for that to manifest, it was, hey, I'm using your example. You became a nurse.

You eventually got your master's. You got another degree. I'm using your example. My mom could never argue with that because she was like, I'm living the dream and he's now doing something. So I'm not going to get in the way. And I actually, you know, my mother passed away last May. and, you know, I've said this repeatedly to my wife, Monica, multiple times,

that I am the example if my mom was born in America, I would be the person that she would be, the one that's just that I could do whatever I want. And if I put my mind to it, it also helps Brian that I would go to bed reading Sports Illustrated every single night read a big article and say, they always had the features of somebody making it big, saying, if that person can do it, I'm going to go to, to bed. I think that stays with you subconsciously. The idea of you can dream and you can believe

into it. Now, there are a lot of other things that's reality, but it allowed me to kind of manifest that in my teenage years to say, I can do that if I just bust my butt. You said in a speech at Temple that a mentor when you were in college actually suggested you change your last name. Yeah. To help you get a job. Yes. That's true. That is 100% accurate. It was my junior year in college. I was putting together my first tape and he just said, this was again, mid-90s, right? 96. And he said, hey, listen, you may need to consider changing your last name because the way you look. Like Kevin, first off, can go anywhere. But like Nagandhi, these small markets and these small towns, they've never seen anybody like you. And you could come across somebody who's Hispanic,

dark Italian, Puerto Rican, like a handful of other things or mixed. and I was like, yeah, if this is going to get me in, I should consider doing this. Now, Brian, like, I come home and I remember, like, I sat on that for a week saying, how am I going to go to my parents and tell them that I need to change my last name to establish myself in this business, an unconventional business for Indian Americans, take the last name away the one that established us here in America. How am I going to say anything to them about this? What am I going to do?

And I really struggle with it. Like really struggled. Now, when my mentor said that, one of my mentors said that, he said, hey, look, the guy you're seeing at this station, his last name is Papadakis, it's now Papa. Like, this guy you're seeing his last name is Roberts,

it's not Roberts on the air. So it's not just because you're Indian. Just understand that people change their last names. Not unknown in broadcasting. Yeah, exactly. So I was like, that will help me in this conversation with my parents. I kid you not, Brian. I was upstairs in my bedroom.

My mom calls me downstairs, and my parents are never the type of people to say, hey, let's have a family meeting. They were never the type, let's have dinner together and let's talk about your day. They were never like that. Well, my mom's like, could you sit down, your father and I want to talk to you?

And I'm like, what am I going to talk about? Like, this is serious now. They're going to do this. My father is quiet, just sitting there. My mom goes, your dad and I have been thinking that if you want to get in the TV, you might have to change your last name. And I said, what? And she pulled out a list and she's like, here's the list of names.

And I said, are you kidding me? And she's like, yes, we think these lists of names. And at the top, she's like, I love this name at the top. And it was Kevin O'Connell. And I said, mom, that can't work. First of, I understand Kevin's Irish, but we're, no one's going to be convinced that our last name starts with an O, an apostrophe. She didn't even understand that.

And she's like, what do you think? I was like, no, it just doesn't work that way. So we went down the list of names and I walked away like defending the idea of sticking with my name. Eventually, I changed my name for a semester and it was awful. Like everybody at Temple Update, which was the TV station, They made fun of me. It was like, that's not you.

And it didn't work. And then I bagged it. Would you pick? We picked because of alliteration, Kevin Kersey. Kevin Kersey. Yes. Just because it was just also ambivalent. Like, it just sat well and it was like, oh, okay, Kevin Kersey.

Literally after a semester of just all the ribbing, thank God, my colleagues and my classmates were like, this is the dumbest thing in the world. And it just never felt normal. and we came back before I actually sent my reels out to Nagandhi. And my parents and I were forever grateful that we went through it and then we just moved on. At TV stations in Missouri and in Sarasota, Florida, you caught the end of the golden age of the local sports anchor, which is a character I feel millennials may not fully appreciate.

What did being a local sports anchor entail? Everything. You're doing everything, right? You're shooting the video, you're conducting the interview, You're editing the video back at the station. You're also the assignment director. You have Friday night football high school and you have 15 games and I need this guy to shoot this, this person to shoot that. Where's the edit? You know, editing tape.

I got to put this all together. You're literally wearing multiple hats. I loved being a local anchor, especially in the markets where I was in because local news meant something in those markets. The feedback, you know, it's been 17. years since I was in Sarasota, Florida. I still get people hitting me up on what I did on Friday night football and how we made this show and it was incredible. We travel with teams.

I went to the state championship and how we told these stories. I still get tweets or whenever I go back to Sarasota, I run into somebody and somebody's like, yeah, my son's this now and my son's doing that or, yeah, I meet a player and he's introduced me to their kid and they're like, yeah, you were the one that highlighted me. It shows you the local impact you can have as an anchor, a sports anchor, when you have a news department or a TV station that believes in you. Now, it's completely different in major markets. I think regional networks, you know, over the last 20 years,

really, really hurt the local markets. But I think it's still prevalent in college football towns, towns that, like, if you're, let's just say Omaha, Nebraska, you're still carrying weight because you're covering Nebraska football, right? You can cover Creight and basketball. You're in Gainesville. You're still carrying some weight. I think if you're in Tallahassee, you're carrying weight.

You're outside of Happy Valley. You're carrying weight. Birmingham. Those markets still are relevant because, you know, Knoxville, because people still care about what's happening in their backyard. Yeah. In the heyday, the local anchor was almost. like a local politician.

You were pressing flesh, you were emcing dinners. You sort of belong to people in a very personal way. Absolutely. That's different from a national sports guest. Completely different. When I was interning at the ABC affiliate in Philadelphia, one of my mentors, Gary Papa, right after a show, we'd go get dinner. And, you know, I'd walk in the room.

This is late, you know, mid-90s. And he's a god in these restaurants. right like and you're just like oh my goodness this is what i want to do this is like the greatest thing in the world i was just on the air 20 minutes ago and now i'm having italian food and i'm having a blast and then i'm just going to stop by the stadium and and watch the Phillies for two innings and then go back and being on the air again this is the greatest gig ever and that's what i think anybody that intern and that time at that abc affiliate w pv i which is like the number one market number one tv station for like 30 plus years because of jim gardner what they've established

you look at those guys and they were the icons that set the standard. I wanted to do two internships, one at PVI and then one at ESPN. And when I went to PBI, Gary's like, you don't need to do any intern at ESPN. This is where it's at, you know? And you find out that, yeah, back then it was a completely different approach. Your wife, Monica, now your wife, Monica, said the first time she met you were striding through the newsroom in Sarasota wearing sunglasses. And she said, yeah, that's definitely the sport. guy. And my wife, by the way, she still loves to share that story. She was a phenomenal anchor,

a reporter at the time. And yeah, she's trying to humble me and bring me down. You always like to make that first impression, right? On your future life partner, absolutely. And Brian, the best part of her being in that newsroom with me was she loved sports. So she's a gator. She would look at my rundown. And her desk was right at her. across from my office and she'd be like, why are you leading with this story? I'm like, what do you mean? And clearly she was flirting with me, but she actually was trying to correct me and call me out on stuff. And I knew that I had a special woman. Like, I knew that if somebody's calling me out on my actual rundown as I took great pride as a producer before performing as the

anchor, that she knew her stuff from the beginning and that she was going to be somebody long term that could put up with me. So you're in Sarasota. Yeah? Not a huge city in terms of TV viewers. No. How'd you get noticed by ESPN in 2006? Crazy journey. There was an agent in New York named Mari Goss Fran. He was friends with Alex Wilson, and Alex Wilson is married to Gary Thorne, the great NHL

broadcaster, also Mets, Orioles, the best pipes in the business. Gary live in Sarasota. Lightning, when the Stanley Cup, then they go in 2004, then the NBA. The NHL goes on strike. So I call up Gary. Hey, come in studio. Let's do, you know, a conversation. You know, in studio 5 o'clock, what do you think about the NHL?

And this lockout or strike. And Alex is there. And Alex was a stage manager, a broadcast coach. And she's like, what are you doing in this market? I said, what do you mean? What am I doing this market? She's like, you should not be here. You should be somewhere potentially big or network.

And I was 30 at the time. And I was like, yeah, that was my dream, but I'm happy where I'm at. She's like, you need to talk to this agent. And I was like, I'm good. I had an agent in my early 20s. And I was like, I'm good right now. I don't need an agent. About eight months had passed.

And Alex and I had formed a great relationship. She was in Sarasota. And she was coaching me a little bit. I called her up and I said, what's that agent's name again? Give it to me. I call him at the beginning of 2006. and again on the phone with him, he's in New York, and I said, Mori, hey, appreciate you reaching out.

I was like, he's like, I saw your tape. Just give me literally six months. I said, what would you see about my tape? He goes, Kevin, took me 10 seconds to watch your tape. I think I can get you a job at a regional or potentially at a network, national network. He's like, give me time. I said, I don't know about this. He's like, handshake agreement, give me six months.

If I don't get you an interview at a regional or national network, then we walk away. And I said, great, I've got nothing to lose. So I had never met him. And then within three months, he gave me a call. And he said, I got you an interview at this new upstart called Massin. And he's like, they haven't started yet. They are going to do Oriole games and Nationals games. And, you know, they're starting Mid-Atlantic Sports Network.

They're starting at the end of the year. So they want to call you up and do an interview and all that. And I was like, okay. Monica is my girlfriend at the time. And I was like, this is pretty cool. Like, okay, he's working. Calls me a month later, he goes, hey, Masson has postponed production.

So they're not doing interviews right now. It's going to be probably a process of another six to eight months before they do anything. Great. All right, thanks for trying. He calls me literally two months later and goes, this is now June.

It's been six months. It calls me two months later. He goes, hey, listen, I got you a potential tryout ESPN news. I said, okay, here's the deal. You're going to compete with seven people. They're going to fly you up there.

Fred Brown, late great Fred Brown. He was part of talent here at ESPN. He's going to call you. He's going to set everything up. You're going to do a tryout. You do all of that. And you get a shot. And I said, all right, you did your job, Bari.

I told my wife, I said, she's my girlfriend at the time. What do I got to lose? And my whole dream was to be at ESPN. They're flying me on their dime. I get to walk around and be in these studios. And if I don't get it, I don't get it. But I'm going to make sure I'm going to make it hard for them to say no. And she's like, yes, the perfect attitude.

I fly up. I remember everything about that day. I sleep at the comfort in down the street, which is now the double tree. And I wake up the next morning. Come here at 8 o'clock. I meet Eppy, Mike Epstein, who's a producer, a coordinating producer now. He puts together a rundown. I have two hours to get and make up right at 10 minute show, get on set, do the rehearsal or audition.

and then the next three hours are 30 minutes sit-down conversations with six CPs. And I got the list of their names. I did all this research on who they were. You walk into every one of these rooms and they're like Emmys galore and you're, I mean, you're just completely blown away. The David Brovsky's, the Barry Sachs, the Stephanie Drullies, the Mark Grosses, and you're blown away by who these people are. I nailed the rehearsal in my mind.

Like if they found somebody better, I'm like, that person's free. and great. And I was at peace, you know, with the whole thing. And I get home and they called me three weeks later. And my agent at the time says, you're ready to go to Bristol. And I was at a football practice at a local high school, sweating my tail off at 515 that afternoon. The next thing is, I talked to Fred Brown and Fred's like, we need you here in two weeks. I said, two weeks, I got three years left on my local contract. I was like, I got to figure out. how I'm going to get out of this. Next day, I meet up with the news director.

I tell her, listen, I got this contract offer from ESPN News, and they won me up there in two weeks. She, phenomenal news director, Kay Miller, was ecstatic. It was like, let me talk to the GM. Give me two minutes. Leaves the room, comes back, GM comes in. His name was Mani Cal though.

He comes in, shakes my hand. He goes, we'll figure it out. We've never had anybody make a jump like this. I'm not getting in the way. way and the rest is history. Whenever I've talked to anchors who've climbed the rungs here, there's almost always a moment when an established anchor here complimented them. Yeah. Basically told them you belong here. You're good. Did you have a moment like that?

I did. I actually had a couple of moments. I was very lucky. And I think first off, when I first got here, Jay Harris was incredible to me. I was overwhelmed. I think everybody's overwhelmed. And Jay was like, Kevin, it took me six months before I felt normal. And I was like, okay, good. Then I gave myself the six months. Neil Everett shot me a note immediately. And I was like, this is like the coolest thing in the world. Chris Berman, I ran into multiple times and he would compliment me. And Chris Bumer said one thing one night. Monica was next to me at the time. I was just like, speechless. Boomer was like, you know, you could have hung with us back in the day. And I say, excuse me? He was, you could have hung with us guys back in the day.

Wow. And I just looked at Monica. I was like, like, I don't even know how to process that because these were my idols and icons. So I'll always be indebted for Boomer to say that. Bob Lee pulled me to the side once and there was something I did on TV and Bob was like, that was unbelievable. You handled that incredible. You did the right thing and you asked the right questions. Great job.

And when you hear that from Bob, you're floating for a month because when you get his approval, you know you're legit. The one when it became a sports center moment for me was Van Pelt. I did a news show. Van Pelt did the Sports Center that night when Bristol was closing down the shop. And news, we were on late because we had an extra inning game. It's like three in the morning. And Van Pelt's done with SportsCenter.

I'm done. We're at our locker. It's here in building four. And we're just exhausted. and SVP says this to me, just me and him, does not have to say this. And I've heard that Scott has said this to a couple people. And it just means the world. Scotty looked at him and he goes, you know, you're ready to go up.

I said, what do you mean? He goes, you're ready to do the big show whenever you want. I said, what? And he goes, you're ready. He's like, I've watched you enough times on news to know you're one of us. And you could do SportsCenter any time. and I was like, Scotty, I can't begin to thank you enough. And driving home at 3.45 in the morning after a news show, when your thoughts are raging and everything's quiet,

it's one of those things that gives you life for the next year to say, all right, what else I got to do? I'm on the right track. This guy believes I belong in the big leagues. And I was grateful that I had those windows, especially in 2006 to come when ESPN, was different with news and two sports centers only on the air and one's a repeat for 12 hours. The Berman one is amazing because I feel guys like that never give that particular compliment. You don't hear Charles Barkley say, you know, you would have been a great player with us in the 90s. You're right.

He didn't say that. He says you would have been a great player now, but the University says you've been a great player with us in the 90s. That's a rare one. It meant a heck of a lot. And if I ever, I'll add one final story because it's a hilarious. story on this. And it just shows you my admiration for many of these guys because they have laid down the building blocks for all of us.

Levy, him and I are doing a show. And this is when, you know, before I got the morning show with Hannah, Hannah Storm, legendary anchor and her and I did five years. But before I got that show, I was like the guy that was in the morning when Josh Elliott's not there, Hannah's not there, at night when Stewart's not there. Pelt's not there in Boucher Gras and Levy and Anderson and those guys are running everything with Van Pelt and Everett and those guys. And Levy and I are doing a show. I think it's like 2009 and we're right like about to go on the air 30 seconds away.

Stage managers giving the count before and they play the music, right? The next on Sports Center or tonight on sport. You know, Levy's like, yeah, I was on a morning radio show in Miami. And I was like, looking after, you know, he's like, okay. And he's like, yeah, they were asking me about, you know, my time at ESPN, how I've worked with, you know, Dan Patrick and I've worked with, you know, Bob Lee and all these other guys and, you know, John Anderson. And they were just asking me, you know, you know the old school guys, you know the modern guys. Who's the next guy? Who's the next guy on Sports Center?

Now the stage matter is like 15. And I'm like, yeah, uh-huh. because I don't want to F this show up next to Steve Levy. I had done like less than six months of run with these guys on the 11. So I got to hold my own. And 10, that's the stage manner. He goes, Kevin, I said you. So don't F it up tonight.

Two, one. And then the end, like literally like they start the open. And my jaw, Brian, hit the floor. And I was like, what the hell am I going to do with that? it was a great A block and we go to commercial break and I was like, dude, and he just laughed. And who knows? But for Levy to say that right before a show and you're dealing with that, it's such a high. And it was a great A block with him.

And Levy is one of those guys that he's just as real as it can get. And I always reach out to him and many of these old school guys to say, hey, where am I going? Where were you going at this age at this point? what does it look like for you? How does that help me? They're just great, great friends, and I'm really, really lucky. A couple of quick ones for you. True or false, the setting for the classic sports center commercial

where LeBron James was searching for his office chair was your cubicle. Was my cubicle, yes. And that's pretty heavy when you come in 2006 and they say, hey, so this is going to be your desk. And you're like, okay, great. And they're like, yeah, LeBron was here a month. ago and this is where he shot the King James commercial with Van Pelt. And you're like, holy shit.

That's like your moment where you're like, oh my God, I'm on Bristol's campus right now. And now I had nothing to do with that commercial. But let me tell you, I called all my family and friends. I said, I'm at the chair in the cubicle where LeBron was, you know, when you first get here. I encourage people to look that up. That's the only glamorous thing about those cubicles. You're 100% right. And that chair was taken out quickly.

It was not the same chair. True or Falsy once attended a Diwali party thrown by Joe Biden. Yes, that is true. And that was pretty incredible. It was surreal. The vice president at the time, Joe Biden, was wrapping up his final month. And Joe has been so good to Indian Americans. And he had a few Indian Americans on his staff.

And they decided they had been kicking this idea around a Diwali party. And so this was in November. And they decided to invite some Indian Americans. that have some influence in pop culture, but also Pepsi CEO, like the CEOs of every major corporation. And it was like an open, hey, let's celebrate. And when I got the invite, I was stunned. I thought it was a joke. I remember I was in Hawaii doing some sports center on the road with Pearl Harbor, the 75th anniversary. And I was like, this is surreal. I can't believe this is happening. And that night was pretty cool. I hung out with a bunch of the great.

great comedians, Harry Kandabalu, Calpan, just a lot of amazing people. And you just look around the room and you're just like, good gosh, this is where we have made it as Indian Americans over the last two decades to be invited the White House to celebrate in our garb a Diwali party. And I'm pretty lucky. I got invited to the White House last year as well because they had a Davali party at the White House. And that was pretty special.

I learned this from your college football co-host, Booger McFarland. True Falls, you always prefer wearing light-colored dress shirts on the air. Yes, absolutely. Is that an old sportscaster's trick? That is, hey, the jacket will do the work and the tie will pop. Oh, okay. And never, I do not understand anybody, anybody that's listening. Do not wear a black shirt and like a red tie or a white tie.

It just looks terrible. If you're wearing a dark shirt, do not wear a tie with. it. Like, only light blues are okay. I just, I think it's a faux pop, unless you're going monochromatic and all black. I just don't understand like the, I'm going to go red shirt, dark tie, and I'm going to knock everybody out. No, you're not going to do that. Wear the white shirt and the tie that actually pops with a jacket that does, that makes you look good. A few weeks ago, ESPN went through a round of layoffs. You've seen a bunch of those since you've been here over 17 years, including ones that have affected anchors you've worked with, like

Jamie Seier and some other people. What's working at ESPN like in a time of layoffs? It's tough. It's very tough. First off, the social media response over the last 10 years when we see something like this is disgusting. People cheering, people, oh yeah, finally, you know, I'll never understand it. I'll never understand that sometimes coming from media types as well, where I'm like, wait a second, it's the lay of the land everywhere. This happens at, you know, Fox Sports. This happens at NFL Network. This happens at the Times with their sports department.

It happens everywhere. And the celebration of something happening bad at ESPN, I will never, ever fully grasp that. That goes back to an era two decades ago with Deadspin. You know, deadspin's completely different than it was back then. And so it hurts me because when I see, people that you love and then people are celebrating and they have no relationships with those people. It just doesn't make any sense. Here it's tough. Moral is, you know, it takes a hit. But I also

understand as I have cousins that are doing a lot of different things in different fields, it has happening everywhere. Layoffs are happening everywhere. So I don't feel like it's mutually exclusive to us. It's just the way the workplace is and how things are shifting and are going to continue to shift. And the most important thing, I think when people are dealing with that is to reach out to them and just say, you're okay, and we're here. And not just doing that day one. It's following up, making sure you're all right, checking in every now and then.

because I think that there's this fear that once you're done here, you're done, and that's not reality. You can find life after a certain job that you only know of. And I think that people who come here to ESPN, it's been their dream job to come here to be the best of the best, right, and work with the best of the best. So when you're facing the reality of, okay, I don't have to come here anymore, what's next. You're not just losing that edge because we're all type A personalities in these buildings. You're also losing the relationships. And it's important to emphasize the people that leave you are not losing relationships no matter what. I think if you ask any anchor, any reporter, anybody that's front facing on TV, they'll probably say 99% of

the time the best part of their job are the people you work with day in and day. out. And I'm lucky to do that with a phenomenal pod that I'm with for the 6P, with college football, college basketball, all the things, get up, the multiple hats I wear here. It's the relationships in those rooms that I think carry us. Let's end here. What is the craziest thing you've ever done in the service of Philadelphia sports fandom? That's a really good question to Brian. It feels like you're leading me to this conversation. I'm really not. I did see a clip on YouTube of you arguing with a Philadelphia radio host about Ben Simmons. Oh, yeah.

That was kind of a merit badge, I think. That was fun. You know, I think the craziest thing I've ever done was leave a sports center. The day of the Super Bowl, Super Bowl 52 in Minneapolis, I hosted SportsCenter that morning with Hannah, Hannah Storm. We did a 7 to 10 show. And I was going to that game. I had found a way. I didn't want to go.

Tickets found me. And my wife was like, you're going no matter what. And I was like, I'm not going. She's like, you're going. You're going. So the game's kicking off local 515 to Minneapolis. I had found a flight out of LaGuardia that would connect me in Detroit to get to me to Minneapolis at 505. National Anthem.

Like all that stuff, I could figure this all out. Actually, no, I'm sorry, 445 local. So my whole thought process, I'll be walking. in right when kickoff is happening. I had talked to my boss, Norby Williamson, about it, and he was just like, I need you on that show. It's a big show. And I was like, oh, and he's like, I need you on that show, Kevin. And I was like, okay, I respect that. And it's Hannah and I doing a lead-in show on a sports center for the day of the Super Bowl, right? So I had talked to Artie Dolan, a producer of the show. I ran it by Hannah. I ran it by everybody that if I could leave

the show early at 915 to catch this, could we pull it off? And they were like, I don't know about 915. So we found a way where I could leave early before we sign off. And I wore an eagle shirt, opened it and said, I got to go. I got a flight to catch. And I left and then I had a car service, not cheap, to drive the LaGuardia to get from that flight to Detroit. and Brian, I'm literally in Detroit and our plane is there and it is basically not moving. 40 minutes on the tarmac. I'm balled up in the corner saying, I've done everything right. I'm going to miss this game.

And eventually I landed in Minneapolis. I'm running through the airport and every bar is playing the national anthem. I get this wonderful woman in a minivan picking him up in an Uber and I tell her I'll give her the greatest tip of her life. Just get me there. and she found a way to get me right in the front to pop out, go through security, through these streets. And I got there. My college buddy had a beer sitting waiting for me and a Jack and Coke. We sat down and the Eagles scored two plays later.

And I looked at him and I was like, this was meant to be. It's a fantastic story. But the true Eagles fan detail there is the beer and the Jacket and. Absolutely. Yeah, and it worked out really well. That's what puts it over the top. Kevin de Gandhi catch him on the 6 p.m. Sports Center, which starts about four hours from now. College football in a month.

Kevin, thanks for coming on the press box. Brian, thank you. A pleasure. That's the press box. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Devin Rinaldo. A couple of items before we get out of here. First is my favorite thing I read this week.

It is a piece by Paige Williams and a New Yorker that ran under the U.S. journal heading. That's Calvin Trillen's old banner. I always look forward to reading Paige Williams. and her new story is called a small-town paper lands a very big story. The paper in question is the Gazette of McCurtain County, Oklahoma, which does the usual small-town news and police blotter stuff, but lately has also been doing revelatory reporting about law enforcement, including, and I am not making this up,

finding a recording of law enforcement officials musing about what they'd like to do to one of the paper's employees. Williams reprints a McCurtain Gazette headline, which I just loved, Sheriff regularly breaking law now. This might be the first small-town newspaper to be inspired by old deadspin. I also love this quote from the newspaper's proprietor. To most people, it's Mickey Mouse stuff, he says, but the problem is, if you let them get away with it, it gets worse and worse and worse. that could be a rallying cry for investigative reporters and really all reporters. Check out Paige Williams' story in The New Yorker. Here's a new feature.

It's called The Thing I'd Like to Read This Week, because let's face it, we can't read everything, even if we pretend to on Twitter. And the thing I'd like to read this week is Jane Ferguson's book, No Ordinary Assignment. It's a memoir. Jane Ferguson is a foreign and war correspondent who was reported for CNN and PBS in The New Yorker. there was a line in the New York Times review of the book that got me hooked. When Jane Ferguson was young, she went with her family to listen to some female war correspondents who were reporting back on what they had seen and done around the world. She writes,

All the men watched and listened in a way I knew they never would have listened to me over dinner. I read that line and I thought, I want that book on my nightstand pronto. Check out Jane Ferguson's No Ordinary Assignment. Finally, we don't say it much around here, but David and I appreciate you spreading the word about our little media podcast on social media or otherwise. Let's face it, dear listener, if this podcast is going to be retweeted, it's going to be retweeted by you. So thank you in advance, no pressure, but if you have a chance, please do spread the word. Next week, a continuation of my East Coast media tour. This time we are entering the world of tabloid newspapers.

And then let's meet back here Monday, shall we, for more lukewarm takes. about the media. Have a fantastic weekend.