Randy Scott: You’re Allowed to Be Fans at ESPN

Randy Scott recently started hosting SC+ at ESPN alongside Gary Striewski, bringing their proficiency and expertise exclusively to Disney+ on weekdays. Scott, who started working at ESPN in 2012 as a SportsCenter anchor, continues to host the morning edition of the show with Striewski recapping events from the previous day and previewing what is to come. On a recent edition of the Rise and Schein podcast, host Adam Schein revealed that he watches the morning show as he prepares to take the airwaves on SiriusXM Mad Dog Sports Radio, and he has found that Scott makes him laugh more than anyone else.

Scott explained that some of his favorite episodes of SportsCenter turn out taking place when the program does not have an obvious lede. Outlining an example of such a scenario as being a midweek show with college basketball the night before and a light slate of NBA games, he articulated how sports does not fail and always brings something to the forefront.

“If we wanted to be serious all the time, we’d go work in news,” Scott said. “There’s never a shortage of sadness and bad news and that sort of thing whereas sports, man, like for me, they’re so important to how I grew up and they’re so important to, I don’t know, like learning how to lose, learning how to make friends.”

During his hiring process to join ESPN, Scott remembers meeting with vice president of talent Al Jaffe and being asked why he wanted to do this work. Jaffe also prefaced the question by imploring Scott not to say that it is because he has a love for sports and that it is part of his lifestyle. In response to his query, Scott explained that he wanted to be a part of someone’s memory and talked about the perdurable effect seminal moments can have, such as a then-hypothetical of when his beloved Washington Capitals win the Stanley Cup championship.

“There was a time since I’ve been at ESPN, early on, where it was like, ‘Hey, no one at home should know who you root for,’” Scott recalled. “‘We are professionals, there should be no bias, any of that stuff,’ and that’s softened as, I think, maybe audience research or just as regimes have kind of changed at ESPN where it’s like, ‘Hey, we wouldn’t be here if we weren’t fans.’ Maybe it’s a little disingenuous to try to convince people otherwise,’ so you’re allowed to be fans, we’re all fans.”

Scott explained that this ostensible change in philosophy happened at the right time while he was at the network as the Capitals were on a run to win the Stanley Cup. The 2017-18 NHL season was the first full campaign after Scott lost his mother to cancer, and he has memories of rooting for the Capitals with her over the years. When the team hoisted the trophy victorious as champions, he remembered how much it meant to him and that he tracked a piece for ESPN from home despite not being scheduled to work the next day.

“I wrote this piece, and to be able to include her in the piece at this job that she always knew that I wanted and was so proud of me when I got it, it was everything, man,” Scott said. “It was still probably my best memory of working at this best place honestly.”

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