It was a bad weekend to be a college football-related personality on ESPN, ‘The Vick Network”.
Generally unpopular analyst, Trev Alberts, was fired on Sunday when he failed to show up for work. This article does a good job explaining the situation.
Alberts is/was a highly intelligent analyst whose delivery style generally rubbed the audience the wrong way. He came across as a smug know-it-all who had a hard time considering other points of view. The SI article described this as, “cantankerous, passionate and opinionated, Alberts often feuded with (Mark) May about issues relating to the sport, but the feud never turned (or even appeared to seem) personal.”
So, the question that I have had for years remains — “was what we saw of Alberts on ESPN his true personality? or was his personality just his ‘role’ on the network?”
I don’t know the answer to that. I do recall Trev’s early years and remember thinking that he was a breath of fresh air and of unique perspective. But, over the years that unique perspective was consistently delivered in a style that was increasingly unpleasant.
Additionally, former ESPN sideline reporter Adrian Karsten was found dead in his Wisconsin home over the weekend. Karsten was one of the best sideline reporters ever and, along with Dr. Jerry Punch, helped define the role of the sideline reporter. My friend “Planet Boulder” said it best, “VERY sorry to hear about this. Adrian was a GREAT reporter (best sideline guy ESPN ever had) and really knew his stuff. Dude prepared for broadcasts quite well and his presence was great.”
The New York Post is now calling this an “apparent suicide” in light of the fact that Karsten was to report to prison this week to serve an 11 month federal sentence for tax evasion.
I have to give ESPN a huge thumbs down here for their selective reporting on this story. My wife and I were watching ESPN (or ESPNnews) when this news first broke this weekend. The network reported that Karsten had been found dead in his home and that no cause of death had yet been determined. That is it. Nothing more. Although the report was accurate…did they really not think that the facts that Karsten was heading to prison for tax evasion were irrelevant to the story and the situation? I know that Karsten was a part of the “Vick Family”, but that was ridiculous. How many other stories to ESPN selectively decide that the public doesn’t need to know the whole truth about?
