The Impossible Dream

The Impossible Dream

Taking a Shot at the King of All Jobs

By Matt Stroup

9/26/03

At 2:00 in the afternoon last Tuesday, I found myself doing something I normally would never admit to anyone -- I was waiting in line to get into ESPNZone in Times Square when I should have been at work.

Taken by itself, I suppose this is a rather embarrassing fact. Fortunately, for my pride's sake, there was a purpose. I was on my way to try out for ESPN's new reality show, "The Dream Job." The object of this show is to select one person (and undoubtedly humiliate countless others) out of thousands who gets the ultimate prize: a one-year contract to be on the air as a SportsCenter anchor.

Would it be my time to shine? Was this my big break? (Of course not, but humor me and come along for the ride anyway).

The Line

With a decree from my boss to not come back to work until I had tried out, I strolled over to ESPNZone expecting to find a line about four blocks long. After all, people were supposedly able to start lining up at 5 a.m. to get into this open tryout, one of many being held all across the nation. Much to my delight, upon arriving, I saw that the line was very reasonable. Someone in the front told me I was looking at about an hour and a half wait. I grabbed a pen and an application and got into line.

The application itself was pretty standard. It was littered with questions such as "What 5 qualities would make you a great Sportscenter anchor?" and "What's one interesting thing about you that someone wouldn't be able to tell when they first met you?" The one question that stood out was the last one, which read, "What's the most outrageous thing you've ever done?"

This one made me pause. Surely this is a trap, I thought. They're definitely trying to get people to admit to illegal activities here or something. I was struggling to think of anything outrageous I'd done that I could possibly reveal to these people when suddenly, inspiration hit me: the school bus incident.

The school bus incident happened when I was in eighth grade. Each day, when the bus would drop people off at their houses after school, the bus driver, a cackling loon and pathological liar by the name of Shirley, would slow up the bus to somewhere between 10 and 15 miles per hour as she made her approach to the house. For whatever reason, during this time, whatever rider was being dropped off was allowed to stand on the steps next to the door with said door wide open, the street only a few feet away.

Ever seen that Saturday Night Live skit "Bad Idea Jeans?" Well, back in eighth grade, I had one (a bad idea, that is). You see, for the few days leading up to this one fateful day, I had found myself standing on the steps of the bus as it approached my house wondering what would happen if I jumped off while the bus was moving. It was really nothing more than a passing fancy for those first few days, but on the day in question, I found myself on the steps of the bus truly thinking about jumping, and the next thing I knew, I was in the air.

The moment my feet hit the pavement, they were taken out from under me as though a ninja had just given me a ferocious sweep kick to the legs. I was tossed to the ground by the merciless and unforgiving road, my left shoulder hitting the pavement first. Before I knew it, I was lying face down on the concrete, my backpack draped over my face but my damaged pride on display for all to see. As I lay there on the ground, a kid by the name of Marc Bates, a rather intimidating sophomore in high school, stuck his head out of the window and yelled out, "Dumbass."

The next morning, the moment I got on the bus, Shirley was ready. "Now Matthew," she said, "I used to do a lot of parachuting and skydiving, and jumping off a bus is no different. The key is, you need to get your feet parallel to the ground. See, yours were perpendicular yesterday, and that's why you fell. Next time you jump, you've got to get those feet parallel to the ground." Great, Shirley. Thanks.

Stu

But I digress. About one hour after getting in line, I had witnessed an astounding number of conversations among my fellow applicants that made me want to ring my own neck (one conversation about Edgar Martinez's candidacy for the Hall of Fame included a quote from a girl who, while putting on makeup, said, "The DH is such an important position, y'all"). I was wondering to myself if this was how ridiculous I sounded when I talked about sports when, suddenly, a wave of frantic whispers swept through the crowd, the type that only can be heard when a celebrity is near. As I looked up, I saw that none other than SportsCenter anchor Stuart Scott was walking past the crowd. A spasmodic rash of "Boo-Yah!"s rose out of the crowd, as Stuart Scott's presence had apparently made people unable to control themselves. ("I've always wanted to say 'Boo-Yah' to Stuart Scott. This is so exciting. The DH is such an important position though y'all, seriously").

As Stu walked past the line of people, one overly excited man said awkwardly, "Can I have your autograph?" to which Stu responded, right on cue, "My man, you're trying to steal my job and now you want my autograph? Nah."

Moments after Stuart was out of sight, a giant black SUV pulled up to the corner and another ripple ran throughout the crowd. Lennox.

And there he was, Lennox Lewis, Heavyweight Champ of the World, climbing out of his car with no bodyguards or entourage in sight (I guess you don't need them if you're Lennox Lewis). He quickly walked past the crowd, greeting people and shaking hands, and I was immediately struck by how friendly he seemed. Every time I've seen him on TV, he comes across as surly and disinterested, but he seemed downright affable in person.

Just before he went into ESPNZone, the guy behind me in line, who had confessed to me earlier that he "Didn't know no trivia," called out, "Hey Lennox, are you gonna fight Klitchko?" Much to my surprise, Lennox heard him and turned to face us, calling out, "He can't handle it," before disappearing indoors.

The Audition

About 30 minutes after that, along with 19 other anxious and suddenly very quiet people, I was whisked into the ESPNZone restaurant. The audition was about to begin.

The first phase of the audition was a 7 minute written sports quiz. The questions ranged from the very easy: "Who is the head coach of Duke University's men's basketball program?" (luckily spelling didn't count -- my spelling of Coach K's last name was something along the lines of "Krykewskzkyi") to the not so easy: "Who was John McEnroe's doubles partner?"

Overall, I performed pretty admirably on the quiz. My biggest triumphs were remembering that it was Donald Brashears who had been slashed by Marty McSorley, knowing that it was Danny Ainge who had played for both the Blue Jays and the Celtics, and recollecting that Carl Yastremski was the last player to win the Triple Crown. My biggest disappointment was not being able to remember the NHL Commissioner's name for the life of me coupled with the realization that I know very little about the sport of hockey at large.

After the quiz, we were split up into two groups of 10 and taken to another part of the restaurant for a roundtable discussion. They lined us up in order of our quiz scores (yours truly had finished 5th out of the 10 people in my group -- apparently I have some learning to do about the sport of golf as well) and then marched us into the next room.

When we sat down at the table, the 10 of us were joined by none other than ESPN's own college football analyst Chris Fowler, along with some other guy who looked kind of like one of the rats from The Muppets Take Manhattan. Immediately, they launched into discussion questions, and once again, my lack of golf knowledge reared its ugly head, as the first question was, "Fact or Fiction: Annika Sorenstam has no business participating in a men's PGA Tour event."

The real problem with situations like this, and we've all been in them, is that, if you pause for a split second to think about your response, you're finished. Whoever can blurt out a response first is the person who will get heard, and it quickly became apparent that there was a true master of chaotic roundtable discussion one seat to my left. His nametag read "Sekou," which I believe is a word meaning "dominant roundtable discussion participant."

The discussion itself only lasted about 15 minutes, as Fowler and The Rat hurried us through different topics. Yours truly got in a few good jabs on such topics as "Wilt vs. Shaq in their prime, who would you take?" and "Should poker be shown on ESPN?" My response to the latter question, to which I said that it didn't matter if poker was a sport, look at the ratings, elicited a hearty chuckle from Chris Fowler, although I'm not quite sure why, because I didn't think it was a particularly funny comment. Either way, I scored some points there.

Unfortunately, though, those points were not enough -- it was Sekou's day to shine. Once he established himself early as a dominant force, people started to defer to him as the discussion progressed, allowing him to speak first on virtually every topic. To his credit, he wasn't bullying people. He was calm, well spoken and seemed prepared for every question. It honestly seemed as though he had studied and practiced for the audition, and I found myself wishing I had done the same. His knowledge was no better than anyone else's; he just seemed better prepared than everyone else.

At the end of the discussion, Fowler and Rat Man ushered us out with an "Okay guys, thanks for coming out," and showed us the exit. As I headed for the doors, I glanced back and saw that Sekou was staying behind talking to Chris and Ratty. Undoubtedly they had given him a slight tug on the sleeve or a gesture telling him to stay while the rest of us left. He was getting a call back for tomorrow, and the rest of us were going back to our lives, having only taken the briefest of sips of the sweet nectar of life as a SportsCenter anchor.

As I walked out the door and into the bright sunlight feeling slightly dejected, I thought back to the words of Shirley the bus driver: "The next time you jump, get your feet parallel to the ground..."

Of course, the part about getting your feet parallel to the ground is nonsense. Sometimes, you're going to fall no matter what. The important thing is getting up off the ground to jump again.

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