“I bet management is listening to me today.”
That’s how Colin Cowherd began his show.
If you were hoping for a bombastic, unhinged, demonstrative rant from Cowherd, well, stop reading. Last week, it was announced that Cowherd would be joining Fox. Cowherd was absent from his show Monday and Tuesday of this week but came back Wednesday. He went on to remark about how great his time with ESPN had been, how he was leaving on good terms, and how he was grateful for the opportunity. Really, it was how everyone should hope to leave their job for a new job.
“Yes, I’m leaving ESPN. It’s been unbelievable. I don’t want to get melancholy here. It’s amicable, I’m on the air today talking about it. That tells you the relationship I have with this company and with my bosses, who are friends for life. A little over 10 years ago, I was a local radio guy, and Tony Kornheiser was amazing, he’s a brilliant man, brilliant writer, media icon, and he was leaving. And they could have picked a million guys out of New York, or L.A. Chicago, Dallas, many applied, it was a good job. I was told at the time it was the best syndicated radio job opening in sports in the history of the business.
And they chose me. From a small market, nobody had heard of me. ESPN had guts, they had courage, they rolled the dice. A guy flew into Portland, we got a rare snowstorm, he was stuck there four days, John McConnell listened to me, and he recommended me. It’s been the best 10 years of my life.”
(Thanks to SportsGrid for video)
