#TBT: A time when the ESPNet To.Go pager promised sports updates every five minutes!!!

Editor’s Note: Welcome to another edition of Front Row’s #TBT: Throwback Thursday.

Earlier today, ESPN Digital Media unveiled an exciting new SportsCenter app. Filled with personalization options, the next-generation app delivers live scores, breaking news, video highlights, feature stories, native social integration, in-line alert settings, GameCast access and more. Basically, it’s a real-time companion to keep you abreast of ALL the sports news, anywhere in the world.

Let’s rewind to a day when updates were delivered at a little slower pace.

The ESPNet To.Go pager once was the ideal thing for the sports fan, at least according to a 1997 ESPN Holiday Gift Guide. The pagers were updated with scores and news every five minutes. (As Adam Schefter and Chris Mortensen illustrate in the video below, technology – and fashion – sure have come a long way.)

One of those hip 16-year-old pagers now hangs with a group of artifacts on a wall here on ESPN’s Bristol, Conn. campus, preserved for future generations to see (see gallery above).

Another holiday gift suggestion from 1997 is still available on cassette or CD via online shopping outlets. Jock Jams 3 was the latest release from ESPN and Tommy Boy. It featured an introduction by college basketball analyst Dick Vitale and more high-energy dance songs played at sports arenas throughout the country.