Rich Eisen Tells an Awesome Story Regarding the One and Only Chris Berman
To send you into another football (and Masters) weekend, Pardon My Take welcomed on recurring guest and fellow Big J Rich Eisen to the show. The Michigan alum joined Mr. Cat and Mr. Commenter to talk NFL, Jeopardy, "diva moves," and much more. Eisen also dished out an awesome story on the one and only Chris Berman:
Rich Eisen: I will tell you my favorite Chris Berman story, if that's what you're interested in.
Mr. Commenter: Yeah, please.
Rich Eisen: I'm just starting at SportsCenter, literally 26 years old. Month 1, months 2 of my career in 1996. And ESPN had all of these banners that you would see that would be hung out at sporting events to let you know ESPN was covering it. Anyway, people would hang these banners in the hallway to have on-air people sign them, and auction them off for charity. And I would be seeing everybody signing these things, but I had only been there for a couple weeks, and I just didn't know when it would be right or appropriate for me to sign these things.
Rich Eisen: So, Berman's doing Baseball Tonight, which is on the air before my SportsCenter, that I'm doing on a Sunday night. And I just go to him and say, "Chris, you're the king of ESPN. How long do I have to wait until I sign these banners?" He goes, "How long you been here? You done a show?" I go, "Yeah." He goes, "Fuck it, sign em all!" And that was the end of that. I grabbed a Sharpie, and I signed every last one of them, because he was Berman, he gave me the go ahead, he gave me the green light.
Mr. Cat: If Chris Berman tells you you can do something, you do it. Definitely at ESPN.
Rich Eisen: That's what I figured.
WHOOOOP! Mr. Cat said it best, if Boomer says yes, then there is no turning back. You've got to love Berman dropping the F-bomb while speaking to an up-and-coming Rich Eisen early into his professional, Big J career, too.
