Love’s Still in the Air for Pair

Suzy Shuster and Rich Eisen celebrated their one-year wedding anniversary Monday with wine sent over from the regions of Italy where they had honeymooned.

The wine was Shuster’s idea, and a surprise to her husband. How chic is that?

They could be called the mod couple of sports television. They could also be called the odd couple, because they work for competing networks.

Shuster is a Los Angeles feature reporter for NBA TV, and Eisen is the anchor of “NFL Total Access,” a nightly NFL Network show done at a studio in Culver City.

A conversation at home in Beverly Hills might go something like this:

“So, how was your day, dear?” Eisen asks.

“Fine. I interviewed Kobe and Shaq,” Shuster says. “And how was your day?”

“It was OK,” Eisen says. “I interviewed Brett Favre and Michael Vick.”

Working for competing networks is nothing new to Eisen and Shuster. Eisen was one of the main “SportsCenter” anchors at ESPN from 1996 to 2003.

Shuster, who was an associate producer at ESPN for a year, was a reporter for Fox Sports Net from 2000 to 2003.

Shuster and Eisen met on Feb. 3, 1997. Shuster remembers the day well.

“It was my first day at ESPN,” she said. “He came by my desk to say hello. Of course, I knew who he was. He was so sweet, so nice.”

But it wasn’t love at first sight, at least not for Shuster.

“We were best friends for three years,” she said. “It took me that long to smarten up and quit dating jerks.”

Shuster left ESPN for New York in 1998 to become a segment producer for HBO’s “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel.”

In February 2000, the relationship between Shuster and Eisen changed.

“He asked me to accompany him to the ESPY Awards in Las Vegas, not as a friend but as his date,” Shuster said.

Eisen had taken a gamble, and it paid off in Las Vegas. They were now a couple.

Eisen, a 1990 Michigan graduate who has a master’s degree from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, was living near ESPN’s headquarters in Bristol, Conn.

Shuster, a 1994 Columbia graduate, was still working for HBO in New York. But they were only two hours apart.

Then Shuster got a chance to be an on-air reporter for Fox Sports Net in Los Angeles, and soon they were a five-hour plane ride apart.

The romance endured. They were engaged on Valentine’s Day in 2002 and married at the Boat House in Central Park on June 7, 2003.

Now, things couldn’t be going much better, thanks in part to the Lakers and Detroit Pistons. If they hadn’t advanced to the NBA Finals, Shuster would have been covering the NBA Finals in some other city and couldn’t have been home Monday night, drinking Italian wine and celebrating an anniversary with her husband.

So do Shuster and Eisen talk shop at home?

“Sure,” Eisen said. “You can’t help it. In broadcasting, you’re pretty much married to your job.”

Remembering Reagan

Roy Englebrecht, who 20 years ago started the Sportscaster Camps of America for aspiring sports announcers, can easily name the biggest highlight in the camp’s history:

It was when former President Reagan came to speak at the 1990 camp at a hotel near Los Angeles International Airport.

Englebrecht got him for the price of a 28-cent stamp -- Reagan came because it gave him a chance to talk about his days as a sportscaster in Iowa.

Reagan talked to the campers about how he first got a job in 1932 at radio station WOC in Davenport. He later could also be heard on 50,000-watt sister station WHO in Des Moines.

Reagan related that in the audition broadcast that landed him the job, he re-created a play in which his football team at Eureka College near Peoria, Ill., won a game on a 65-yard run by Bud Kohl.

Reagan said he described the play just as he remembered it, except for one thing.

“In the broadcast, I would have you know that I delivered a tremendous block,” Reagan said, drawing laughter from the campers.

Reagan also talked about his first on-air assignment, an Iowa-Minnesota football game.

“There I was, 22 years old, and I had achieved my dream,” he said. “I was a sports announcer, and if I would have stopped there, I believe I would have been happy for the rest of my life.”

The 20th edition of the camp is scheduled July 14-18 at the Holiday Inn near the Long Beach Airport. And Englebrecht is still trying to find a way to top that 1990 camp.

More on Reagan

For the first two innings of a game between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs on Tuesday night at Wrigley Field, there was no television picture because of a power outage. There was audio, but only via a phone line.

According to Mike Downey of the Chicago Tribune, announcers Chip Caray and Steve Stone passed the phone back and forth and, thinking on their feet, called it a tribute to Reagan, because he used to re-create games by using a Western Union ticker.

Fabulous Deal

Good news for alumni and fans of the University of California.

Because of the resurgence of the football program under Coach Jeff Tedford, the Bears’ games will be carried by Laker flagship station KLAC, which bills itself as the “Fabulous 570.”

Bob Steiner, former California sports information director and Jerry Buss’ longtime public relations guru, and Keith Harris, the Lakers’ head of broadcasting, played key roles in getting the deal done.

California, which handed USC its only loss last season, is ranked in the top 20 in most preseason polls.

Short Waves

Might want to check out the TVG coverage of Saturday’s California Stakes at Hollywood Park, which can also be seen on Fox Sports Net 2 at 5 p.m. TVG will use a special camera mounted on a truck that moves along with the race.

“It’s the same technology used to shoot several scenes in the movie ‘Seabiscuit,’ ” TVG executive producer Tony Allevato said. “The idea is to make viewers feel like they’re part of the race.”

Terry Jastrow and Andy Batkin of Innovative Media Solutions are bringing back “People vs. the Pros,” which took place at Lake Las Vegas and was televised by the Golf Channel last year. This year, it will be at Pinehurst, N.C., on Aug. 6-9, with 240 amateur golfers vying for a chance to play either John Daly or Gary McCord in the finals, which will be taped and shown on ESPN Oct. 18. Slots are being auctioned on EBay.

“SpeedFreaks,” the nationally syndicated radio show that focuses on motor sports and is heard in Southern California on KSPN (710) Sunday nights, is also headed for television. The TV version makes its debut on Speed Channel on July 12.

Keith Forman and Brian Bergen, the Loyola Marymount radio announcers when Hank Gathers collapsed and died on March 4, 1990, are still a team. Now both 35, they’re doing a radio show on Portland station KXL devoted strictly to the business side of sports. Rick Ramage, also a member of that Loyola broadcast crew, is now a sports broadcast agent in Los Angeles.

In Closing

As evidence that the NBA is truly a worldwide sport, the Finals are being televised in 205 countries through 102 international networks, and 38 of the 102 have on-air personnel on site.