ESPN's X-Games

The year is 1995, I’m about to be married and the phone rings. Its ESPN – the sport channel calling me with an offer to host the then unknown franchise called The X-Games — I though it was a joke. I don’t know anything about sport, how did they find me and most importantly WHY??

The answer was exciting. The year before when I was hosting my live comedy game show at ski resorts (then in its 8 year!) called Jose Cuervo Games of Winter (and yes, there was alcohol involved), ESPN2 had come to make a 1/2 hour tv show about the antics of what we were up to. The program was hosted by the talented and generous former Football Star Patriot Russ Francis. I say generous because the network had NO intention of letting me, a complete unknown tv entity who did not work for ESPN touch the mike with their identifying flag on – Russ had other plans – he didn’t really know what the event was and he was smart and brave enough to share screen time with me the entire day. Apparently the ratings for our little show were through the roof and X-Games was a thank you and just the right fit for what they were looking for. They paired me with Broadcast superstar Stuart Scott and for 3 years we were a time – this video is how it ALL began

PS Stuart died of cancer in January of 2015 – he was too young but so brave and if you’d like to be inspired this video from the ESPY’s is one of the most moving I have ever seen…