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Well in the historical time coming up for ESPN that we would definitely want to spend some time talking about Linda Cone Joints, a sports center anchor for ESPN, retiring after thirty four years from ESPN. Linda, thank you so much for joining us. I guess I'd love to just get a sense, since you've seen everything in sports television, for better or worse, how.
Has it changed.
How has sports television changed because ESPN changed everything.
Yeah, first of all, thanks for having me. Paul and Scarlett really appreciate it. Yeah, it's been a fun time for me. The big shows, the final shows or this Friday, and so I.
Have seen everything, and most of it's been for the great. You know. I like telling this story. You know, I started in.
Nineteen ninety to July nineteen ninety two, for those who can do the math, thirty four years and when they first instituted the Institute of the bottom line that ticker at the bottom before that, you know, telling the scores
before we gave them the information. I share this story because many of us on camera A sports and our anchors were horrified about this because we really cared about our writing and telling a story, setting up the highlight of the game you're about to see, but you're giving away the score.
And this was I don't even know what year this was, might have been late nineties or whatever.
But it was it was like, you know, spidlight zone ish for us, you know what I mean. And it was like we thought there was a talent meeting and all of us like stood up and made our case how.
Awful this would be.
Of course we didn't get our way, and then it turned out to be again one of these things. If we don't see, you know, what's wrong with the TV, there's no bottom line that tells us a store before we talk about it. So that's always the first thing that jumps up. But then technically all the stuff we see when we watch live football get any kind of sporting event, making it easy to.
Watch and all this.
But for Sports Center, ESPN, yes, we were always ahead of it. And I'm really proud that I, you know, I played a you know, small part of it.
With my colleagues from the Golden era.
I feel like you played an instrumental part of it, not a small part of it. And the fact that Scarlet the fact that you started in radio. That's near and dear to our hearts. Of course, because we're talking to you on radio right now. Just give us a little bit of background about you, because I'm intrigued by the fact that you played hockey as a teenager with the boys and against the boys. How much did that factor into your wanting to go into sports broadcasting.
Yeah, and thanks Scarlett for saying that. Yeah. First, I don't want to forget to say this.
How you know young women like yourself, All these women have reached out to me that are in the business, and that is like, I'm really proud of that professional legacy of inspiring all these young women who are in kindergarten, first grade, second grade watching the sports in early years before they jumped on the boss, realizing that they too could do it if they saw a woman up there telling them about what happened in the game.
Right.
So, I'm really professionally a most proud of that the most. So, getting back to the hockey thing, I was a kid with very low self esteem. I wore very thick glasses. Now the glasses are not as thick, thank god.
But I love sports, watched it with my dad sports.
Gave me something to look forward to. That's how I always phrase it, because I didn't really have a lot of friends. I mean, I mean I listened to the Carpenters growing up. I love depressing stuff. It was awful, It wasn't you know, I don't worry no what you email before?
Yeah, exactly exactly, Scarlet.
So anyway, you know, then then I started playing street hockey with the boys, and I realized, you know, I'm really good at this goalie thing. And what I loved about that position is that I could determine here's this girl, low self esteem, shy as a wallflower, you know, just kind of melted into the wall and playing goalie, realizing that I was good at it, and I got contact lenses, by the way, that helped my vision, and you know, and then I was like, wow, people are noticing me.
And it wasn't like a you know, conceited kind of way, but I felt like I was, Wow, I'm helping people, I'm winning games, I'm making the safe at the right time.
I'm suddenly like somebody. And so I rode that.
Emotion and I added that to just my love of sports and my sports teams and watching the games with my dad.
But being a goalie.
I liked telling this story too, because I don't think I ever would of had this career in broadcasting and then onto ESPN, you know, because I start out in radio, like you said, in New York, working seven days a week.
Loved it.
Then I you know, hosting three hour solo sports talk shows. It's it's the best thing people don't get and that has made me a better sports center anchor.
Oh, by the.
Way, so about getting back to the goalie story quickly. You know, when I was playing with the boys when I first started, my mom found a league on Long Island.
That you know, I was fourteen. I wanted to play ice hockey.
I learned to skate with forty pounds of goalie equipment on me.
And I played.
They didn't let me play with fourteen year old boys. That I had to play with eight year old boys back.
In the day. It was you know, I'm dating myself, but you can just google me.
I mean it was nineteen seventy, nineteen seventy, like mid seventies, five seventy six, this kind of time. And so I heard the moms like I read the moms whispering well, what is that a girl in it? I see a ponytail out of behind her mask, all this kind of and I had to block out the noise. I had to block out the critics. I had to block out the people who are like, what is she doing here?
Type of type of verbiage, type of words that I heard and overheard, and man, if that doesn't prepare you for, you know, breaking into the boys club like I did. And I wrote a book years ago called Conehead, and I kind of put that tagline on it.
I don't know what does. Because that I learned to block out the noise.
I had my moments, I had my days, I had my crying episodes.
In ladies rooms, in various workplaces. I'm only human.
But you know what, you just believe in yourself and you get enough validation to keep going right. You know, we always need a little extra validation like okay, this that, But you you know, it's just when I look back, it's been a great, great ride.
And now, Linda, I mean, your business, the business of sports cable TV now it's streaming, it's changing again. But yeah, what do you think the future is of ESPN and this new world we're in?
Yeah, I don't have that crystal ball.
I just know that, you know, full disclosure, I'm glad I'm not starting out on the business now. It would be very things have changed, would be very challenging. We know about AI, we know about all that. I'm not saying they're gonna take the I don't know. I'm not gonna take this, but not gonna see robots and sports that or chairs. But I'm not sure what we're gonna see. On one hand, streaming is exciting. On one hand, AI
is exciting. But you know, kudos to ESPN and with all these super in the last five six, seven years, as you guys have witnessed, it's really jumped leaps and bounds with all these technical changes and adjustments you have to make, and the competition what I love about when I broke in and then, you know, probably the first twenty five of the thirty four years, maybe the first twenty eight of the thirty four years, you know, there wasn't a lot of super competition to ESPN, right and
especially the early days. That was a big thrill for all of us that we were the only game in town, like meaning that's all you could turn to to see anything there was, you know, no internet, blah blah blah.
So how all of.
These changes going to affect ESPN? Honestly, guys, I don't. I don't know, but I will be watching.
They'll be watching as well.
We all be as will all be.
One question I do have for you, Linda, is that you have always said you approach your job as a fan first, because you are not a professional athlete who then transitioned into becoming an on air talent. Now that most of the commentators on live sports are former athletes themselves, what do normal people like a Linda Cohne offer that you know, a Charles Barkley doesn't. I mean, what can you say? What can you bring to the table to audio? Is that former athletes can't and don't.
Yeah, and you're right about your observation with a lot of former athletes have become analysts and that's great. And you know, being in a very lower level a college athlete, you know, I get that, and I always I always been athlete friendly, player friendly, that type of thing.
But you know, the young people.
The young men and women coming out of college still want to be in the business. There's so many great things that can hone their skills, whether it's YouTube, whether it's TikTok, all these things you know that I didn't have that many of us didn't have. So there are I would I would really concentrate, even though you know AI is there and all that and it's all about videos now.
But the writing, I mean, that is something. The journalistic skill.
The writing, you can you can be way ahead of the former athletes.
You can guide them.
And the way you speak, you know, the one thing I really had to learn, and thank God goodness for radio guys, because I learned to communicate naturally right, not feel like I was reading something, you know, because I start out doing updates and then I started hosting radio shows and then you have suddenly like, okay, be conversational and so that that was.
Great and that helped me in TV and that helped me for thirty four years on the Sports Center set.
So back to your original question, yes, I mean that's where you could bring it, being conversational. Connecting to the fans. Yes, I say I'm a fan first, because I am. I'm just as nuts about my teams than they are the people watching me, and I tried to show that. But you can also channel that into Okay, you be smart, you know what you're talking about. Be prepared. You have
to be prepared. When I'm prepared, man, my confidence boost when I'm not prepared, right, I mean when I'm not prepared, I'm doing something like I don't know about this assignment. I'm getting nervous about it, you know, right, Linda, exactly Swallow it.
Such a pleasure speaking with you. Congratulations to you thirty four years at ESPN, Lindacne SportsCenter anchor joining us. Really really appreciate it. Good luck to you and hope to talk to you again soon. Linda Cone there from Sports Center. Incredible career. Awesome