Chet Simmons

In his four-hour interview, Chet Simmons (1928-2010) speaks about his early interest in following sports, on radio and in print. He notes his work selling time to small radio stations in the Southwest, meeting Edgar Scherick at this job. He describes working in television mentored by Scherick (who taught him the business) and Jack Loubelle (who taught him television production), for their company Sports Programs, Inc.— working as a jack-of-all-trades production assistant, at first on Big Ten basketball. He talks about the expansion of the company under their exclusive deal with ABC and speaks frankly about Scherick's difficult personality (and abrupt departure from the company), yet compliments his successes. He relates a story of how the company, under Scherick, was able to get the rights for college football away from NBC in the 1960s. He also describes the working methods of Roone Arledge and his growing stature as a legendary figure in television. He outlines the concept of ABC's Wide World of Sports and describes how the show launched Jim McKay as a major sports announcer. He recounts how he came to work for NBC, speaks about his colleagues, and acknowledges how he became the first president of NBC Sports— the title created in 1977 for the first time. He speaks about his disappointment in losing college basketball to CBS due to disinterest internally and how this was the beginning of NBC's loss of dominance in sports.  He recalls hearing about a "sports-all-the-time" network that was being bandied about and the call he received to hire him to run this new Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN). He outlines the idea of the network by Bill Rasmussen (and his embracing of newly developed satellite technology) and speaks openly about how he was responsible for Rasmussen's leaving the network. He talks about the contribution of Getty Oil executive Stuart Evey to early ESPN as well as NBC veteran Scotty Connal's contribution to getting the network on the air. He describes getting the sports coverage necessary to fulfill the network's (eventual) mandate of 24-hour sports. He looks back on the first day's programming and the emotions he felt, comparing it to the birth of a child. He outlines the kinds of sports the network showed and notes their breakthrough in programming with college basketball. He comments on the network's location in Bristol, CT, describes his management style, speaks about the network's Sportscenter, and describes how he came to leave the network. Lastly, he talks about his appointment as the Commissioner of the United States Football League. Paul Leone conducted the interview on December 16, 2008 in Atlanta, GA.