Keeping Score
BILL Rasmussen came to Guam nearly 20 years ago. He had this wild idea for a 24-hour sports station he was pedaling to that island's lone cable station: the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network . After 20 years,
we all spell sports
E-S-P-NThose of us working at the Pacific Daily News wondered if it would work. Sure, there were a lot of sports junkies out there, but most were able to hide their addiction - despite being card-carrying members of Fanatics Anonymous.
Guam Cable bought into it before Hawaii did. Now so do over 76 million homes in America.
ESPN ... not the catchiest of acronyms. It's amazing how we quickly learned it spelled sports.
Twenty years after Rasmussen launched the flagship station in Bristol, Conn., the family continues to grow. There is ESPN2, ESPNEWS, ESPN International and - my personal favorite - ESPN Classic.
ESPN was the internet of its day. So, naturally, there was born ESPN.com, the most popular sports site on the Web.
Where would we be without Rasmussen's idea? Living in a world without the X Games and Dick Vitale and pro beach hockey.
Have we gone to sports heaven, as Lee Leonard promised us in that inaugural broadcast 20 years ago? We might be in a place that is less crazy but certainly not as much fun.
And, as Chris Berman says, "It may not have been the sports you wanted to see, necessarily. But there's an audience for all of those. And we believed there were people out there, just like us, who wanted to see sports 24 hours a day.''
So what if Berman had to once do play-by-play for a darts tournament.
ESPN made March Madness what it is today. It carried those first-round games that the established networks didn't give a damn about.
As someone who bought the only 1992 Olympic TripleCast package shown in Hawaii, I have but one word: Thanks.
Tomorrow is ESPN's 20th anniversary. As Vitale would say, "Happy Birthday, baby!''
That sure was one heck of a Diaper Dandy.
OK, OK. So my preseason favorite Top 25 pick Stanford went down to defeat at the hands of Texas on Friday night, 3-1, in Austin. Nobody's perfect.
It was the fourth time in five meetings that the Longhorns had topped the Cardinal.
More of a stunner would have been to see Brian Gimmillaro in The Pyramid coaching Southern Cal against Long Beach State on Saturday. His defending NCAA champion 49ers prevailed over the Women of Troy, 12-15, 15-13, 13-15, 15-10, 15-7.
But it nearly came to pass that Gimmillaro would be here later this week with USC for the Aston Imua Invitational rather than on Sept. 16 with The Beach.
Last spring, Gimmillaro was offered $150,000 by SC to take the job vacated by Lisa Love. That's about $50,000 more than he currently makes at Long Beach State.
"I turned it down right way,'' he told the Long Beach Press-Telegram last week. "As I've said so often in the past, I love Long Beach and the great community feeling you get here.
"Sure the money was good, but I'm comfortable with what we have going here.''
The 49ers have won three titles in the past 10 years, finishing second once and third twice.
Money isn't everything. Besides, Gimmillaro might be hard-pressed to find another campus hangout that has his favorite pregame meal on the menu.
Legend's serves the "Gimmillaro Veggie Burger.'' No surprise if it comes well done.
Cindy Luis is a Star-Bulletin sportswriter.
Her column appears weekly.
