Tagged: ‘Election Day’

posted by on November 8, 2012 4:45 PM

Pick-up basketball game with POTUS old hat for ESPN’s Andy Katz

ESPN.com senior college basketball writer Andy Katz (center), along with former Chicago Bulls Scottie Pippen (left) and Randy Brown (right), were among those participating in an Election Day basketball “pick-up” game with President Obama in Chicago (Photo courtesy of Andy Katz).

Editor’s note: For the second time in as many presidential elections, ESPN’s Andy Katz was invited to play in the President Barack Obama’s traditional Election Day pick-up basketball game. In 2008, Katz was invited to play in the game by then-Senator Obama, whom he had interviewed for ESPN prior to the election. This year, Katz was asked to participate in the game again. Katz, who is in Germany for Friday’s Sears Armed Forces Classic from Ramstein Air Base, discusses this year’s experience.

I was the first one in the gym to get up some shots, just like in 2008.

It wasn’t that I needed the work (well, it didn’t hurt), but I had no other place to go. And the anticipation of being in one of the most unique pickup games made it hard to stay away any longer.

It was 11:30 a.m. CT, and the president wasn’t due for another 90 minutes at the West Side Chicago gym. Over the course of the next hour, various players started to trickle in led by former Chicago Bulls Scottie Pippen and Randy Brown.

President Obama’s close friends from Chicago made their way into the gym. So, too, did former Illinois state treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. (There were 20 players all together.)

Three referees were in attendance, too. Four years ago, there were four teams, no officials and no sense that there was a set order to the games.

This time, there was one game of 48 minutes, with fouls, a clock/stat crew and two benches, draped with towels and stocked with Gatorade.

Oh, and like in 2008, there were reversible jerseys donated by Obama’s good friend Marty Nesbitt, who ultimately would be opposite the president as a player-coach. continue reading…

Filed in: Behind The Scenes

posted by on October 30, 2012 3:06 PM

‘Redskins Rule’: MNF’s Hirdt on intersection of football & politics

The “Redskins Rule” has become a lasting legacy for Monday Night Football’s Steve Hirdt.
(Photo by Allen Kee / ESPN Images)

It’s long been said that Washington, D.C., is a city with two passions: politics and the Redskins.

During the U.S. Presidential Election every four years, these passions remarkably intersect through a phenomenon known as the “Redskins Rule.”

Steve Hirdt, the executive vice-president of Elias Sports Bureau, who has worked on Monday Night Football longer than any other person — 31 seasons as the show’s Director of Information — discovered this unique statistical occurrence, which correlates the outcome of the most recent Washington Redskins home game to the U.S. Presidential Election.

Hirdt was in a D.C. hotel room on this very day, Oct. 30, in 2000 preparing for ABC’s MNF game between the host Redskins and Tennessee Titans, when he uncovered the rule. It was the last home game in the nation’s capital before that year’s election (on Nov. 7). Hirdt hoped to find an election-related note for commentator Dennis Miller to use during the broadcast.

“I started looking through the Redskins’ press guide where they list all the scores in the back,” Hirdt recalls. “I was making a list of the last home game before the election because that was the game we were covering. I tried to align it with the Democrats or the Republicans and then looked at the incumbents.

“I was shocked to see it lined up exactly right, that whenever the Redskins won their last home game prior to the presidential election, the incumbent party retained the White House, and whenever the Redskins lost their last home game prior to the election, the out-of-power party won the White House.” continue reading…

Filed in: Behind The Scenes