BOB LEY
Bob Ley is a sports broadcasting icon, a legend.
His word choice and delivery are impeccable and incomparable, his knowledge of the subject matter vast.
Ley’s style is certainly his own but his ability and form — his substance — transcend(s) style.
He is direct and able to sharpen perspective immediately.
Very simply he is the best.
The magna cum laude (B.A. in Communications) 1976 Seton Hall University graduate is an eleven-time Sports Emmy Award-winner; a 3-time CableACE Award recipient (in recognition of cable’s top Sports Informational Series host) for his work on both “Outside the Lines” and “SportsCenter”; and the longest tenured on-air employee of ESPN having joined the network just three days after its September 6, 1979 launch.
(What, a handful of people behind the camera were there so much sooner than he? Chris Berman wasn’t; he came aboard a month later).
Ley and “OTL” have received the most prestigious accolades in TV journalism including DuPont and Peabody Awards as well as multiple Edward R. Murrow Awards.
Northeastern University recognized Ley with their 1995 Excellence in Sports Journalism Award and a Lifetime Achievement Honor in 2009 from both their Center for the Study of Sport in Society, and the University’s School of Journalism.
A partial list of Ley’s resume ‘line-items’ reveals his affinity for and comfort with leaving the studio to provide gold standard on-site coverage.
An unabashed and passionate soccer fan, he has hosted the 2014 FIFA World Cup from Brazil, the 2011 Women’s World Cup from Germany and served as lead commentator for World Cup ’98. And ESPN’s on-site studio coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup from South Africa prudently featured Ley as host.
In the wake of the indictments of several senior FIFA officials in 2015 and the subsequent presidential election for soccer’s global governing body, Ley spearheaded ESPN’s coverage and was widely lauded for his incisive reporting and commentary contributing to his superb overall effort.
In nearly 40 years at the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” he has cemented his reputation as a broadcast journalist nonpareil with the uncanny knack for breaking sports news which wields front-page news impact.
To wit:
Magic Johnson’s AIDS announcement; Bart Giamatti’s lifetime suspension of Pete Rose; the 1989 World Series earthquake (providing the first live national reports from San Francisco, courtesy of ESPN’s independent production facilities which were not reliant on local electrical power); in-studio anchoring of ESPN’s first post-attack programming on 9/11 after simulcasting ABC News’ coverage throughout the day; and orchestrating and conducting ESPN interviews with four U.S. Presidents (Ford, Clinton, G.H.W. Bush aboard Air Force One and G.W. Bush).
Not too shabby for a sports guy, Bloomfield (N.J.) High School’s 1972 class valedictorian.
Because he’s human, there must be a skeleton or two swinging in Ley’s closet.
He’s not perfect.
The King of Informed Opinion — ‘The General’ — must have a blemish somewhere.
Well, there was his weak attempt to burn LeBron James on Twitter which cast him in a defensive and unflattering light (2014); “OTL” awkwardly mishandled the reporting of text message exchanges between Ray Rice and Ravens team owner Steve Bisciotti (2014); there was a rare but glaring ESPN gaffe during an “OTL” segment exploring the scarcity of African-American jockeys in horse-racing which caught Ley making some facial expressions clearly intended to be confined to the aegis of off-camera cutting room floor material (2013); and a staged incident which showcased Bob ripping up a FIFA press release on a live “SportsCenter” piece in 2015 while discussing the agenda and presidential election of the aforementioned soccer’s international governing body which Sepp Blatter won in a landslide.
(Likening FIFA’s raison d’etre to Chicago’s history of political corruption won Ley both kudos and criticism).
He keeps his own personal scoresheet when it comes to on-air errors.
“Well, there was that night about 23 years ago when I’m doing the 11 pm SportsCenter with Dan Patrick, it’s the middle of the summer, Claritin has not yet been invented, my hay fever is at Defcon 3, and I am medicated to the max.
Opening theme, dissolve to the two shot, my turn to open the show… ‘Good evening and welcome again to SportsCenter, along with Bob Ley, I’m Dan Patrick……wait…..that’s not right.’ That lives forever on a blooper reel.”
Ley goes on to describe a more egregious faux pas in which he played a role, regarding University of Kentucky basketball in 1985.
He sheepishly and apologetically recounts “…I remember filing a story during the 1985 Final Four in Lexington, Kentucky, when the University of Kentucky was about to replace Joe B. Hall as basketball coach. Dick Vitale and I had a source telling us emphatically (I forgot if he said he was in the room or not) that Arizona coach Lute Olsen [sic] had a contract in front of him from UK, and he would be the new Kentucky coach. We ordered up a satellite (not something rashly or easily done in the days of Fred and Barney technology), and reported that Olsen (sic) would be the next Kentucky coach.
Well, he may have had that contract in front of him, and, every intention of signing it…but he never did. Basic error, and huge lesson learned.”
His mistakes?
Innocuous. Inconsequential. Of no real moment.
Exponentially outweighed by his 38 years of on-air and journalistic brilliance.
The kid from Bloomfield whose buttons still burst when he proudly divulges that the final scene of The Sopranos was shot in an ice cream shop three blocks from his boyhood home (and one of his haunts as a kid) and who thinks that Pretzel M&M’s and Cheez-Its represent two essential food groups and — oh yes — that Sushi is poison, remains a regular guy.
His work?
Intergalactically great, as it should be for a man clearly peerless in his field.
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in March 2017.]
ADDENDUM: Bob Ley retired from ESPN effective at the end of June 2019. “To be clear, this is entirely my decision,” he said at the time.
