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For me, ‘Around the Horn’ was more than a show
For 23 seasons the iconic ESPN show gave young Black journalists a voice
It’s the summer of 2022. Everything is falling apart. I need a break for my own sake before the strands I’m holding together snap. An alarmed friend FaceTimes me to suggest I take some time off work. I should. I need to. I want to. But I can’t, I explain. I think I’d lose my mind if I had to stop appearing on ESPN’s Around the Horn.
It’s 2002. I’m 16 years old. I know that I love sports. I know that I want to write. I know that I want to write and talk about sports. I’m just not totally sure what that career looks like. Then a new show debuts that shows me something new is possible. It’s called Around the Horn, hosted by Max Kellermen and featuring beat reporters from across the country who are translating their writing into on-screen magic. It’s captivating.
There’s a guy named Woody Paige who is like Jack Nicholson’s version of the Joker with incisiveness to match the insanity. Tim Cowlishaw’s dry humor and insight feel like hanging out with a friend at a bar, even though I am too young to know what that means exactly. J.A. Adande feels like the smart cousin at the spades table. Kevin Blackistone always has an angle I didn’t think about before. And Bill Plaschke knows everything happening with the Lakers at any given moment, so he feels like a celebrity in his own right.
The show is an invitation to imagine a new possibility for my future.
It’s 2009. I’m fresh out of graduate school, bouncing between my mom’s couch in Jackson, Mississippi and my dad’s futon in New Orleans. I’m broke. And I’m freelancing. A publication has this thing where you get $60 for each band you interview for SXSW, so I’m interviewing three bands daily, planted on the futon in my dad’s living room. He walks in with some friends. “I don’t know what he’s working on,” he tells his friends. “But he’s working his ass off for something.”
I look at him and shrug. I also notice that Around the Horn is on TV. I don’t pay attention to what they’re talking about. I really need the $60.
It’s 2022 again. I’m on the phone with Tony Reali. The Tony Reali. The guy who started as “Stat Boy” on ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption got thrust into the role of Horn host two decades ago and made the show his own. I’ve heard about how nice he is. And in the years to come, I’ll appreciate just how he’s a sentient version of the “he’ll give you the shirt off his back” trope. In a couple of years, he’ll take me around New York, spend a day with me, encourage me, ask me about my life, and make me feel at home. He’ll call me a good dad to my kids and give me a big hug as my train approaches. But today, I don’t know that any of that will happen. All I know is that the Tony Reali is on the phone, walking me through my first-ever appearance on Around the Horn. Tony runs down the show and what to expect. A blocks. B blocks. Don’t try to recite too many stats. Listen to everyone. I’m pacing around my backyard, listening to Tony talk. For some reason, I notice that the leaves are crunchier than usual when I step on them. I try to focus on that to calm my nerves.
The first show itself? It’s a blur, partly because I don’t speak for more than 20 seconds per answer. I just know that damn near every family member I have is gathered around a TV. I expect to win because it’s my first show.
I don’t.
Woody Paige wins in the showdown by using some prop of a baseball in a glass of water. It’s so ridiculous that you have to laugh. My family is all mad because Woody Paige beat me in the Around the Horn Showdown. I remind them that it’s been a dream of mine for someone to say to me, “Woody Paige beat you in the Around The Horn showdown.” We laugh.
I apologize for this next part because it’s vague. It’s not totally your business, friend. I’m sorry. But you get it. Or at least you will one day. Just know this: A few months after my first appearance on Around the Horn, I found myself spending more minutes of my day lying on the floor atop piles of dirty clothes than I spent functioning as a human being. I was depressed and stuck in an endless loop of dropping my kids off at school, forcing myself to eat a meal a day, and parenting when they got back home, waiting for them to go to sleep, and lying back on the floor, praying that I’d find a way to get up in the morning.
I’d wake up for my kids. And for Around the Horn.
For months, Around the Horn was the only thing that got me outside. There were days, I hesitate to admit, that I would sit in the parking lot of the remote studio in Atlanta, wiping away tears, calling friends just so they could tell me to get out of my car to go walk in said studio, unsure if I had the strength to move 10 feet. But when I’d walk in the studio, go upstairs to a tiny room with a small camera and return feed, sit in my seat and greet Tony and the other panelists, I’d suddenly become someone else. Someone unburdened by the outside world. I was my full self — a person that I forgot existed. As soon as the intro music started, I’d adjust my posture and turn into someone I thought I’d never see again. When I’d look at the return feed, I’d see the person I wanted to get back to staring back at me. I figured that if I stared at him long enough, I’d believe he was real.
One of the revolutionarily beautiful aspects of ATH is how it empowered journalists to speak their minds about topics they’re passionate about. The show allowed reporters to be themselves, expressing their passions on TV, but also allowing them to speak up about issues far more important than box scores and record books. The show didn’t really care about your background, demographic or barrier to entry. It only cared about whether you were good. I saw the show as a playground, but also a space to talk about topics that I felt could make a larger impact.
Horn gave a platform for some of the brightest minds in sports and people who thought beyond sports and cared deeply about the world around them. The show wasn’t afraid to veer from the sports of the day to do something more. I always saw the show as a chance to carry on through the doors that Izzy Gutierrez, Sarah Spain, Bomani Jones, Jemele Hill, Mina Kimes and so many others kicked open when they joined. On one of my first shows, for instance, we talked about the Uvalde School shooting, and we all made impassioned pleas to keep children alive. I remember looking at Mina, the sureness in her face, and the sincerity in her voice as she spoke about the incepted nature of these massacres and felt like I couldn’t disappoint any of those on the show who preceded me.
Around the Horn’s format also allowed us to be ourselves. I was able to introduce myself to the world while relearning who I was. It was a place where I was able to talk about my love for professional wrestling, impersonate comedian Katt Williams, talk about racial and gender inequalities in sports, use as many props as I can to make as many people laugh as possible, shouted out The Smoking Section with Justin Tinsley, and show the world my personality as I was rediscovering my own joy.
I’d also see people I grew up watching and peers I respect so much looking back at me. Every time I made them smile or nod, I’d feel capable and believe in myself a little bit more. Whenever producers Aaron or Josh got in my ear and said “good job,” I’d feel like I could accomplish anything. And there’s nothing in this world like making Tony Reali belly laugh — an infectious laugh that makes him double over so that his face disappears from the screen. It’s like what hitting a game-winning grand slam must feel like.
The room I film in is small with just me and a remote producer. Otherwise, I’m alone. I often think about what it’s like to be in that room staring at people from a Skype screen — how a room can simultaneously remind me of my loneliest pandemic moments while also being the place I gained a family. In that room, I’d find friendships and love from people who ask me about my kids’ birthdays, who say things like “college already?” People who celebrate life events, accomplishments, and offer condolences when I need them. I’ve watched WrestleMania with Harry Lyles, eaten Girl Scout cookies and watched reality TV with Mina, gone to Flavortown with Clinton Yates, ridden around Denver with Woody, and have a network of people around the country I can call whenever I’m in their city. These are all people who share a responsibility in my learning to gain my confidence and happiness; dragging me out of the darkest moments of my life.
Soon, I’ll be making my final appearance on Around the Horn. When the show ends on May 23, I’ll be three years older than when I started. I’ll be happier than I was when I started. I’ll be me again, the person I thought I’d lost some time ago. I don’t think I’d be that person without Around the Horn.