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Tony Kornheiser, who frequently makes references to his religion on Pardon the Interruption, had two yesterday.
In a story about NJ Devils Martin Broduer setting the record for wins by a goalie, TK and his partner, Michael Wilbon, tried to put him in perspective with other premier netminders. Kornheiser offered his considered opinion that the greatest of all-time was Ken Dryden of the Montreal Canadiens. “He’s Sandy Koufax and Otto Graham,” he said. High praise indeed.
The other Jewish segment was the “Five Good Minutes” segment with Bruce Pearl, coach of the Tennessee Volunteers. Tennessee is the ninth seed in the Eastern Regionals of the NCAA tournament and will face Oklahoma State in the first round tomorrow.
Bruce Pearl lighting a menora at an American Jewish Committee event in 2007. Photo by Saul Young
I ran the following piece in the print edition for Purim: In a rare appearance on ESPN’s panel show The Sports Reports, Kornheiser riffed on the Alex Rodriguez steroid situation:
Hot on the heels of the Alex Rodriguez steroids scandal came the disturbing news that Tony Kornheiser,my favorite sports personality, had a shocking confession of his own. No doubt chagrined by the hypocrisy of the sports media in dog-piling on the athletes whom they have covered for years with at least some knowledge of what was going on in the locker rooms, Kornheiser decided to come clean on a recent presentation of ESPN’s The Sports Reporters.
“When I was young, all I ever wanted to be was a sportswriter. I had a cousin who wanted to be an investigative reporter. So to get ahead of the people who had the same dreams, we began shooting up drugs. We were young and stupid, didn’t know what we were doing, strictly amateur hour. I can’t believe it worked; I didn’t even know what we were taking.
“But I got sportswriter jobs at Newsday, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Had my best year in 1997 — I was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. I still didn’t know what drugs I was using. I thought maybe it actually was Tic Tacs because people let me get so close to them during interviews. I wasn’t young and stupid anymore, now I was middle-aged and stupid. And naive.
“Then I got hired by ESPN. They put me on Monday Night Football. Well, I really felt the need to keep taking drugs to prove they were right in picking me. By now I was old and stupid. Old, naive, stupid, and very very rich; dating Madonna on the side. You wanna know why I secretly took drugs? Because they made me better than I was naturally. And by the way, I lied about my cousin. I don’t even have a cousin. Like almost everybody else, I was shooting up with Jose Canseco.
Bruce Pearl made an audio for the Holocaust Museum here in Washington, DC. He seems to be one of the few Jews in sports that really cares about it.