Inaugural ESPY Awards: Spotlight on Excellence

On March fourth, nineteen ninety three, ESPN held its very first sp Awards, joining the likes of Oscars, Rammys, and Emmys. A's dive into the history of the SP's today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day today. ESPN is a major player in sports, but back in the day, they were throwing everything on the wall to see if it stuck. It was a small cable channel that started in nineteen seventy nine that couldn't afford major league sports to be played live on their channel, and did whatever they could to be part of the sports world, including playing frisbee games, lacrosse or bowling as their major sports programming, and of course Sports Center was big as well. But in the early nineteen eighties, an executive at ESPN named John Walsh had this idea of creating an awards for sports. The Oscars and the Grammys and the Emmys were major players and did really well on television when they aired, and he thought, why not do this with sports. It was an ingenious way to get top athletes on their channel that they normally only got by replaying old games or replaying highlights of the previous day's games. And then in nineteen ninety one, when Magic Johnson retired due to contracting the HIV virus that many thought was a death sentence, the idea even became connected to him, as they thought, maybe we'll name it the Magic and they floated around too many different names on what might be, and they eventually settled on eSPI, which stands for Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Award. I know it doesn't really fit. They're being very generous on how they get to eSPI, but it also goes with the brand of ESPN as well. So the first SP's starts to come together, and they want to have it at a location that is known for sports. So in nineteen ninety three, they select New York City at Madison Square Garden, the mecca of sports at the time, and they wanted to pull out all the stops to make it look like something everyone wanted. And they needed a host for their very first one, and they were looking at the other awards programs and they normally had a comedian or a funny actor do the hosting, as they can make jokes and have enjoyable commentary throughout the show, and at the time, Mnis Miller was actually in a unique position as he was actually also doing a football broadcast that they tested out to see how a comedian would work in the football broadcasting boot, and so they selected him to be the first host of the sb's Now they started out using fan voting because the point of this was to get the fans involved and want to have the fans watch the show and be knowing that they voted for this guy and they hope he would win. As for the type of awards they had, they had awards for each major sport. So NBA Player of the Year was Michael Jordan, Major League Baseball Player of the Year was Dennis Eckersley. Best female athlete was Monica Seles, Best NFL athlete was Emmitt Smith. A NHL athlete was Mario Lemieux. They had some fun ones too, which was Outstanding Performance in a Commercial, which was Larry Johnson for his Grandmama commercials for a Converse, and Outstanding Performance in show Business which was rewarded to Shaquille O'Neil for doing a rap on Our Senior Hall Show. But by far the most important and the biggest award was the award named after Arthur Ash, and it's called the Arthur Ash Courage and Humanitarian Award, as Arthur ashe showed strength and courage through his adversity he dealt with all his career due to the color of his skin does not mean this is just an award given out to athletes or people in sports that dealt with racism, but just as someone dealing with courage. And this moment here is probably the biggest most important moment ever in sp history. And without this award in this moment, that Espie's may have just been an afterthought. This got so much play and so much talk about that it was huge. The award was given out to Jimmy Valvano, who was a coach of the nineteen eighty three North Carolina State basketball team that won the championship off of last second play. You've probably seen the video of him running around crazy trying to find someone so excited. He dealt with controversy and eventually got out of coaching and went to broadcasting. But what was emotional and what made it more important was that he had been dealing with cancer and so he was given this award as he battled cancer and unfortunately at that moment he was many thought unable to talk or even walk. It surprised even his good friend Dicky Vee, another commentator that he was even there to accept the award, but he stood up and gave a speech that is still quoted to this day and has the great line at the end, never give up, Never ever give up. And those words in that moment shook a chord, especially two months later when he passed away. It was such a monumentous moment and I encourage you and I'll put a link in the show description of that speech because it's an amazing speech if you haven't seen it, and for me to read it out won't do it justice. But it was an amazing thing, and it's really It was the last award of the night, and it was the most talked about thing throughout the country, and two months later after he passed away, it was still the most talked about thing throughout the country. Now, the sps are still around to this day, still going around, having different hosts, having different categories. It's blown up into a huge Hollywood event and they usually hold it now on that one day year. There's no US professional sports games. After the Major League Baseball has our All Star Game, there is no baseball, no basketball, no football, no hockey played on that day and that's usually when it until now, the one day when there's no sports, they give you sports to consume, which is what ESPN wants to do. But without it, we wouldn't have that great moment from Jimmy V that's still inspiring people to this day, over thirty years after his passing and something we should always remember. Thank you for listening to today's Daily Sports History. I want to thank you from the bob of my heart from listening. It really means a lot to me, and I hope you could tell someone else about it and come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History