I Love Tony Kornheiser

I hate to admit. My snob credentials have been dashed ever since I stopped listening to NPR and started listening to sports radio. For non-sportsfans, sports radio has to be the most inane kind of radio in the world. Grown men have devoted their lives to talking about sports.

There's always some controversy of the day, and they talk about it. Lately, in the DC area, it's been about Sean Taylor, the University of Miami star safety who has missed voluntary practice, and has now found himself accused of brandishing a gun to gentleman who wished to acquire two of his ATVs.

The controversy revolves around Taylor's refusal to respond to Coach Gibbs, who has only won three Super Bowls in his 1980s stint with the Redskins, using Clinton Portis, another UM alum, as a go-between (and even he has become less reliable as a Taylor mouthpiece), and how everyone hates Drew Rosenhaus, his agent (early rumors was that Taylor was unhappy with his contract, which, surprise, is an affliction that nearly every Rosenhaus client has).

And if you don't follow sports, especially DC sports, this can only be highly soporific. I mean, who cares? And yet, I find it more compelling than listening to NPR (at times).

The problem with news is that it's serious. To be sure, many cruel things happen in the world, yet the average Samir goes on about his day blocking out those bad things (suicide bombings, high alerts, etc) and devotes attention to the trivial task of rooting for the local team. It's silly, and yet in sports, one can appreciate the talent and tenacity of elite athletes. It's the male equivalent of following the lives of Hollywood celebrities. Who wants to live in a world where you have to worry, worry, worry?

As camp as Battlestar Galactica is, one comment I recall involves Patrick McNee (of Avengers fame) who is being given a tour of the facilities, and shown a bizarre mutation of basketball. Athena explains how important sports are to the morale of the ships, as they wander in search of the planet Earth (oh did this series ever jump the shark when they reached it).

But the importance of sports can't be underestimated. I remember, post 9/11, that many sports columnists said sports were merely a game, and that sports were just a game, that it didn't matter. That is patently false. Although it was proper to show some respect to the situation, events were only cancelled barely a week. Baseball stopped for a week (or two), so did football, but once two weeks passed, it was back to sports.

Forget the insensitivity, there's way too much money being made. Even soldiers insisted that sports be played because they wanted to hear how their teams were doing, to take their minds off sports.

Columnists make their living following sports, and would have it no other way. They would be far less happy doing more "serious" journalism, and would argue (correctly) that their talents are not investigative journalism.

Anyway, this was supposed to be a blog about Tony Kornheiser, so I should get back to the topic.

I love listening to Tony Kornheiser. I've heard several sports shows, from Dan Patrick to Mike and Mike in the morning, to sports reporters, and so forth. The genius of Mr. Tony is that he assumes sports fans care about more things than sports. Certainly, Tony does. He's talked about his dog Maggie, or discusses movies with David Dupree who loves movies nearly as much as he loves sports. He talks about his colonoscopy. He has his banter with Wilbon and Junior and Bob Ryan.

I didn't even notice that Tony never invites athletes on his show. Apparently, the powers-that-be would ask him to have athletes on, and he would consistently and conveniently "forget". Instead, he invites other sports columnists to discuss sports with him, figuring the average athlete doesn't give great interviews or analysis. It's basically sucking up to the athlete.

Tony also has an incredible knowledge for pop music over the last 40 years. The producer (or someone) puts up song after song, usually appropriate to some upcoming topic, and he guesses them right more times than not.

And Andy Pollin is hilarious, making side comments as Tony does his monologue. Tony was once relating a story where he attended some event for people in the news. At this event, he spotted Condoleeza Rice, and said maybe the next year, he'd hit on her. Andy say something like "That would be like white on rice". That's a hilarious, off-the-cuff comment.

The peculiar thing? I've heard Andy host the show on rare occasion, and he's not half as funny as he is when he's trying to say something funny in response to what Tony says. One time Tony wanted to rename Sportscenter (the segment where Andy recaps sports highlights from yesterday and earlier that day) to "Andy Polley's Happy Fun Time Sports Stuff Extravaganza". Someone even had a kazoo calliope tune to go along. It's too bad that Pollin doesn't use that all the time (he seemed a bit miffed by it---lighten up!).

Now, I say I love Tony, I should qualify what I mean.

It seems, "love", like many words has multiple meanings. There is love of something abstract (love of country), then love of art or song or film, love that one has for a parent, love that one has for a sexual partner. I think people often think of love in the last context, although it sounds weird elsewhere (such as a teammate expressing love for another teammate---in that context, it usually means brotherly love. Athletes do tend to form closer bonds with one another than their non-athletic breathren).

When I say I love Tony, I'm sure I mean in the sense of "I love this sport". But what I mean is that he is so unlike other sports radio talk show hosts who fixate completely on sports, and rant, and then rant some more. OK, Tony rants too, and at times, he's ranted for weeks, before someone finally emails him and inquires why he's gone off the deep end, and then he's back to normal.

You have to understand that Tony behaves badly because that's his on-air persona. So, if he's asking Rachel Nichols (now Alexander?) about how many outfits she owns, and sounds completely piggish in asking her, it's partly because he wants to sound that way (and she's squirming, trying to take such comments lightly, given that that's what women sports reporters have to do--be funny, do the best they can, and realize there are some men going to give you grief), and partly because he's known Rachel since her intern days.

In fact, I find Tony much better on the air than in his columns, where he has a couple of standard things he likes to do in his columns (mixing sports figures with Hollywood figures based on the similarity of their names, or talking about ten things at once, or grouping NCAA team names together based on their similarities). The radio is much better suited to his personality.

And when Tony does have an opinion, which is often, it's not some knee-jerk, join-the-crowd opinion. He often stakes out some view that's not what everyone is saying, and he makes remarkably intelligent remarks in between being rude to those who want him to appear at some charity function that they know he'd be perfect for.

The one guy I've enjoyed listening to as much as this is Derek McGinty, the smart and affable host of the now-defunct Derek McGinty show. Some people have remarked how good Charlie Rose is, but give McGinty a show like that, and I think he'd shine. It's too bad he's lost a fair bit of visibility trying to get on network television. To be honest, I think he's a better radio personality than television.

To Tony and Derek, I love you guys!