Roberts A Fine Pick For ‘Wide World Of Sports’
TV sports
If some talent decisions in sportscasting are too baffling to comprehend, then credit ABC for having the sense to name Robin Roberts host of “Wide World of Sports.” Roberts’ ascent atones for ABC’s putting the underwhelming Julie Moran in the host’s chair in 1994 and 1995.
Roberts built her reputation for skill and intelligence on ESPN’s “SportsCenter.” But her resume also includes calling college basketball for ESPN and ABC and tennis for ABC and reporting for ABC’s “A Passion to Play” series about women’s sports. That she is a black woman should not be a factor in assessing her work. She’s flat-out talented. But she understands that she doesn’t fit the traditional white male sportscaster mold.
“I know I’m not here because I’m a woman,” she said at a recent lunch across West 67th Street from ABC. “When I hosted the NFL wild-card game studio because John Saunders’ child got sick, it was matter-of-fact, no headlines.”
What puts her achievements in perspective are those of her father, one of the Tuskegee Airmen, an all-black squadron of World War II fighter pilots. After official racism delayed their first missions, they compiled a perfect record in escorting bombers on their raids.
“What helped him was he didn’t care what people said and took pride in losing no one,” she said. “He didn’t talk much about his struggles until the HBO movie came out. He liked it. But he was disappointed. He wanted Denzel Washington to play him.”
Roberts made her first “Wide World” appearance last Saturday, interviewing a tetchy Nicole Bobek, last year’s national figure skating champion. Roberts will get an early ticket out of “Wide World’s” Manhattan studio Saturday as co-host of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships from San Jose, Calif., with Terry Gannon. Besides hosting, Roberts will also report pieces on Bobek and the 13-year-old Tara Lipinski.
The men’s program will be broadcast in “Wide World’s” 90-minute slot at 4:30 p.m.; the women’s competition will be broadcast in prime time at 9 p.m.
“I’ve been watching a lot of tapes,” said Roberts, a former basketball star at Southeastern Louisiana University. It’s good form to know one’s axels from one’s salchows at ABC: Figure skating is crucial to “Wide World,” with the U.S. championships, the World Figures, and other skating on its schedule.
At 35, “Wide World” is the oldest surviving sports TV franchise. It is not the powerhouse it was in the 1960s and 1970s, when Roone Arledge masterminded it and Jim McKay was its host. Dependable grabbers like the major boxing cards it once featured became too expensive, and the proliferation of sports on outlets like ESPN made “Wide World” less singular. But it endures.
Roberts is still committed to host 100 weeknight “SportsCenters,” but giving up “Sunday SportsDay” was difficult. “I was there every Sunday for six years,” she said. “It was very comfortable and a good format.”
, DataTimes