Steiner Has Made It on ESPN, but It Was a Close Shave

Charley Steiner never gave television work much thought. He always figured he had a face more suited for radio.

For one thing, he has a beard. He has had it since his college days at Bradley University in the late 1960s, when he also had shoulder-length hair.

But despite not having the look for television, Steiner, after 18 years in radio, ended up at ESPN, where he is an anchorman on “SportsCenter,” and the host of the cable network’s Top Rank boxing shows and “Monday Night Matchup,” the one-hour show that previews “Monday Night Football.”

Steiner says he owes it all to a liquor store worker in Norwalk, Conn. “I’ve never met him, but maybe I should,” Steiner said. “I just call him Larry the liquor store guy.”

One day during the spring of 1988, Steve Bornstein, the president of ESPN who was then the executive vice president in charge of programming, went into a liquor store near his home in Norwalk and struck up a conversation with Larry, who was working behind the counter.

Larry, who knew that Bornstein worked in television, had a complaint to lodge. He had just read that his favorite sportscaster, Steiner, had been fired by New York radio station WABC.

Among Steiner’s duties at WABC was play-by-play for the New York Jets.

Larry offered such impassioned praise of Steiner that the next day Bornstein suggested to John Walsh, the managing editor of “SportsCenter,” that he contact Steiner and invite him for an audition.

Walsh, who was familiar with Steiner’s work, liked the idea.

The next problem was finding Steiner. Only about 10 people knew he had gone to Woodstock, N.Y., to relax and play tennis.

“When I was fired, I had nine months left on my contract,” Steiner said. “So I was getting paid for playing tennis. You might say I was a pro tennis player.

“I had decided to take some time off and enjoy myself. I was in no hurry to go back to work.”

It took ESPN about a week to locate Steiner, but the effort paid off. Besides possessing solid reporting skills, Steiner’s distinctive look and style make him one of the most recognizable people at ESPN.

He sticks out from the others. Most of them are named Patrick--Dan Patrick, Bill Patrick, Mike Patrick--and they all seem to look and sound alike.

“Yeah, I guess the beard has turned out to be an identity thing,” he said. “It sure wasn’t planned that way, but that’s the way it’s turned out.”

Steiner, 42, is probably most closely identified with boxing, because ESPN has dispatched him to all major fights.

Along the way, he has developed a close friendship with Mike Tyson. “He’s the most complex and fascinating character I’ve ever covered,” Steiner said. “There are so many facets to Mike Tyson. He seems to be just waiting to either implode or explode, one or the other.”

Steiner’s closeness to Tyson hasn’t kept him from criticizing him. Steiner, a guest on ABC’s “Good Morning America” shortly after Tyson was charged with rape, had this perspective: “It’s fascinating to me that Pee-wee Herman is charged with the ultimate victimless crime and was dropped from television, yet Tyson is charged with the ultimate victim-related crime and it’s business as usual.”

Steiner is in his second year as host of “Monday Night Matchup,” which is produced by NFL Films and carried by ESPN. Every Monday Steiner travels to Mt. Laurel, N.J., near Philadelphia, where NFL Films is located, to do the show with Allie Sherman and Ron Jaworski.

Next Monday’s show will focus on the Raiders vs. the New Orleans Saints.

Boxing beat: The monthly TVKO pay-per-view fight tonight at 7 is Michael McCallum vs. James Toney at Atlantic City, N.J. Marvelous Marvin Hagler joins the announcing team of Len Berman and Joe Goossen for this middleweight title fight. Riddick Bowe will fight Mike Evans on the undercard.

At 5 p.m. tonight, ESPN offers an attractive boxing show from Paris for no extra charge--Terry Norris taking on Jorge Castro in a junior- middleweight title fight.

Asked why he is fighting on ESPN rather than pay-per-view, Norris said he needs the exposure ESPN offers. The TVKO monthly fights have been reaching only about 100,000 homes.

Two other fights will also be televised from Paris--Victor Cordova vs. Vincenco Nardillo and Anaclet Wampa vs. Massimillio Duran.

Barry Tompkins and Al Bernstein will call the action, which will be delayed six hours, from an ESPN studio in Bristol, Conn.

Recommended viewing: ESPN, in “60 Minutes” fashion, takes a look at performance-enhancing drugs in sports on “Outside the Lines--Whatever It Takes” Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

The most powerful segment is a report by Bob Ley on former Baylor basketball player John Wheeler, who claims that coaches helped him obtain steroids even though a heart condition made them particularly dangerous for him.

Preceding this show, at 6:30, is a Dick Vitale special, “The Game of Life.” Even those who don’t like Vitale should be moved by his impassioned anti-drug speech, delivered at a high school basketball camp in Indianapolis last July.

TV-Radio Notes

It’s a big weekend of pro football--two games on Saturday plus, with the Rams on the road and the Raiders playing Monday night, a full schedule on Sunday. . . . NBC made a change Thursday. On Channel 4, it will show Seattle at Atlanta Sunday at 10 a.m., which means it will go up against the Rams at Minnesota on CBS. The second game on CBS Sunday is the New York Giants at Washington. . . . The Heisman Trophy winner will be announced on NBC at the end of a half-hour show that begins at 4 p.m. CBS, in an attempt to get a jump on NBC, will televise an interview with Desmond Howard during halftime of the Duke-Michigan basketball game, which begins at 12:45 p.m. Said NBC spokesman Vince Wladika: “That’s great. We thank CBS for promoting our Heisman show.”

Ratings game: College football on ABC this season averaged a 6.7 Nielsen rating, up from a 5.2 last season. Army-Navy last Saturday got a 6.4, and the Don Ohlmeyer-produced awards show that followed got an impressive 4.4. . . . Even though golf ratings generally are on the decline, Ohlmeyer’s Skins Game the weekend before did very well. It got a 6.3 Saturday and a 5.4 Sunday. It was a record for golf on a Saturday. The previous record was a 5.9 for the 1990 Masters. . . . The Lakers’ game at Sacramento on Channel 9 Tuesday night went up against the Clippers’ game at Oakland against Golden State on Channel 13. The Lakers got a 6.8 rating, the Clippers a 2.0.

UCLA assistant coach Brad Holland, a former Laker, will be the guest on Channel 9’s “Lakers Tonight” show Tuesday at 4:30 p.m., before the Lakers’ game against the Bulls in Chicago. . . . “This Is the NFL,” on Channel 2 Saturday at 4 p.m., offers three of its most-requested features--on Lance Alworth, the 1950 Baltimore Colts and Deacon Jones. . . . SportsChannel will show tonight’s Mater Dei-Eisenhower high school championship game Saturday at 10:30 a.m. and will show Saturday night’s Esperanza-Los Alamitos game Sunday at 8:30 p.m. . . . SportsChannel offers the first bowl game, Fresno State vs. Bowling Green in the California Bowl, Saturday at 1 p.m. . . . Credit HBO for not trying to make more of the George Foreman-Jimmy Ellis fight than it was. Commentator Larry Merchant, after explaining that Foreman is so popular he can hand-pick his opponents, said: “Can he lose to this hand-picked opponent? Well, Clint Eastwood doesn’t lose to his opponents in his movies.”