Patrick, Simpson headline NSSA awards

BY DAVID SHAW
FOR THE SALISBURY POST

The small-town Ohio native never encountered an “Exit Here” sign on the road to Bristol, Conn., where he informs and entertains sports diehards as the 11 p.m. anchor for ESPN’s SportsCenter.

“If somebody had told me to forget about it, that I had no chance, I wouldn’t be here,” says Patrick. “What’s important is that nobody did. It’s like they say, if you’ve got a dream, then dream.”

Patrick’s dream brought him to Salisbury Monday night, when he was named Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. It’s an honor he will cherish, even if it left him a bit bewildered.

“It’s not like a baseball player, when you have stats attached and you can say you had a good year,” he explains, lifting his head for a handful of inquiring photographers. “I don’t know if I did anything different this year or last year or the year before. Maybe they based it on attrition.”

Then again, maybe it was simply Patrick’s wit, knowledge and clear-headed perspective that made him the committee’s Y2K honoree.

“When you’re chosen by your peers, it means more than anything else,” he says. “So I’m humbled by it. I don’t know how to quantify or qualify it. I just don’t. I even asked (Sports Illustrated’s) Rick Reilly, ‘What’s it mean?’ He said, ‘You were good. Shut up.’”

Patrick is good. Among his best submissions were Sunday Conversation interviews with Michael Jordan, Mark McGwire, Larry Bird and Barry Sanders. He also hosts a no-nonsense daily radio show and writes a hard-hitting bi-weekly feature called Outtakes for ESPN The Magazine. In a recent entry he induced baseball slugger Mo Vaughn to reveal his hatred of pitchers. “They’re trying to take food off my plate,” Patrick quoted, painting a picture with words.

“I don’t want to put anyone on the defensive,” Patrick says. “But I do try to challenge them. Sometimes they’ll give you something that they won’t tell anyone else. At the end of those interviews I always ask them if there’s anything they don’t want included. Roger Clemens and Pete Sampras were two guys who took some things back. They weren’t things I was going to use anyway, but in their minds, they didn’t want it out there.”

Among the stories Patrick would like explored more thoroughly are baseball’s devalued home run and the increasing need for small market/large market revenue-sharing.

“The home run rage bothers me,” says Patrick, a long-time Cincinnati Reds fan. “The players are stronger, the strike zone is smaller. We’ve built parks with specifications the same as they were 30, 40, 50 years ago. And we’ve kept those specifications. Whereas we build golf courses that are longer now because we hit the ball further. Baseball hasn’t caught up with that yet.”

Revenue-sharing also piques Patrick’s interest. “I’d like to see Kansas City and the Yankees be on equal footing, or at least close to it,” he says. “Then let me see how good you are as a general manager or an owner. If I have more money than you, that doesn’t make me smarter than you.”

Sportscasting has changed since the days of pioneers Graham McNamee, Mel Allen and Red Barber. And Patrick doesn’t see it all as change for the better.

“The athletes have changed so much,” he says. “You don’t have that reciprocation that they had when my father was growing up. Back then ballplayers had second jobs, and might even work with you at some company.

“Today’s athletes don’t need the media,” he continues. “They all have agents and lawyers. They use the media when they want to. But there’s not this reciprocation of where ‘You’ve got a job to do, I’ve got a job to do and we’re all professionals here.’ They don’t respect that any more.”

Here are some other little-known nuggets about Patrick:

• He’s a big fan of actor John Cusack and recently saw the movie High Fidelity.
• He spun records as a DJ for the University of Dayton’s rock station.
• He believes ESPN co-worker Kenny Mayne could write his own sitcom. The guy’s not only off-the-wall, he’s smart and funny.
• He’s an easy crier. “I could cry at a good pep rally,” he confides.

While Patrick has achieved elevated standing as a globe-trotting journalist, he remains a loving husband and devoted father of four. Part of his family joined him at the NSSA Hall of Fame yesterday, and his 8-year-old son Jack introduced him at the awards banquet.

“The bottom line is I’m away from my children too much,” he says. “There’s never a trade-off for that. You can attain notoriety and prestige and a high salary, but there’s no trade-off for being away from home.”

So while Patrick may never return to Salisbury, a plaque honoring his contribution to sportscasting has found a home here.

“For that, I am very grateful,” he concludes.

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David Shaw covers sports for the Post.