James Brown: Is He The Hardest-Working Man In Sports?

Ebony, Dec, 1998 by Kevin Chappell

He had a degree from Harvard University and a draft letter from the NBA. But a few months after pocketing these priceless papers, James Brown found himself back at home, alone in his old room, crying his eyes out. He was only 22, but believed his life had already ended.

Buried deep inside his parents' Washington, D.C., home, he tried to figure out a way to face his buddies in the neighborhood, to tell them to stop pumping him up, patting him on the back, touting his basketball talents. He wasn't going to be the next Julius Erving. He wasn't going to be rich and famous. He wasn't going to be in the NBA.

The worst thing that could happen to a draft prospect had happened to him. He had been cut by the Atlanta Hawks during tryouts before ever playing a game, and now the only place he was headed was out looking for a job. "I cried so hard," he recalls. "I hid in the house away from all of my friends. I must have cried for about two weeks."

When the crying stopped, Brown made himself two promises: 1) He would never limit himself to one goal in life, and 2) no one would ever outwork him again. His promises turned into a plan. His plan turned into a way of thinking, a way of carrying himself, a way of life. For the next 25 years, a colossal fear of failure would drive him from his bedroom to corporate America to the top of the broadcasting field, ultimately achieving success much greater than the long shot he had of ever building a prosperous NBA career.

"I looked at the reasons why I didn't make [the NBA]," he says. "Pointing the finger at me first, I realized that I didn't work as hard on my skills to stay on top as I did to get to the top. I knew I didn't pay the price to make it. I vowed from that point forward that I would never ever miss out on another opportunity because I was ill-prepared. And while I get teased a lot now, people ask me why am I doing so much; a lot of that is an outgrowth of that attitude in 1973. That experience has defined my work ethic now."

Brown's work ethic now is nothing short of amazing. In an arena in which only a handful of African-Americans have excelled, his hard work and dedication have propelled him to the top. As the signature voice of Fox Sports, Brown is in his fifth year as co-host of the Fox NFL Sunday football show. He hosted the network's professional hockey coverage last year, and also hosts the Fox prime-time show, World's Funniest, which features blunders and bloopers caught on tape.

Outside of Fox, the 47-year-old broadcaster rotates as host of the syndicated TV talk show America's Black Forum, and serves as host of Coast to Coast, a nationally syndicated sports radio show formally hosted by NBC-TV sportscaster Bob Costas. Then there's his pay-per-view boxing gig, his position as contributor to the television sports magazine program Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, and his responsibilities as host of a monthly corporate-learning series that provides leadership and management training to executives.

He has tackled everything from the NCAA basketball championships to Olympic figure skating, even playing middle-man when Tonya Harding apologized to Nancy Kerrigan on national TV for the attack aimed at knocking her out of Olympic competition in 1994.

Brown rose to national prominence as a broadcaster at CBS, spending 10 years working his way up the ladder in the network's sports department. But when CBS lost its NFL contract to Fox, he thought he was out of a job. "I thought about going back to local TV," says Brown, who gained his broadcasting experience from years of covering Washington, D.C., sports. "Then the word came that they wanted me at Fox."

Ed Goren, executive producer of Fox Sports, had worked with Brown at CBS and, after conducting a national search for a studio host for Fox NFL Sunday, decided to tap Brown for the position. "We didn't necessarily want Fox to look like CBS, but he was clearly the best," says Goren, a veteran producer with more than 30 years of television experience. "I don't know anyone quite like him. He's constantly studying. He's constantly reading."

Goren calls Brown "very genuine. What you see is what you get," he adds. "He's a caring, sensitive individual. The camera doesn't lie. You can be a faker and sometimes get away with it, but not for long. The public sees that he's like a big teddy bear. There's a likability factor in the people who are on camera and who you invite into your home."

Each week during football season, millions of viewers invite Brown, along with his co-host, Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw, and studio analysts Howie Long and Cris Collinsworth into their homes. In fact, under Brown's command, the Fox pre-game show has become the top-rated studio sports pre-game show on air. And while Fox intends for the show to look like a spontaneous gathering of guys sitting around on game day delivering football one-liners, spend a Sunday on the show's Los Angeles set, and it becomes obvious that there's more to it than that.

Brown's day starts at about 6 a.m. with pre-production work. By this time, he has already put in hours studying the football trends, the standings and the match-ups. At 9 a.m., Brown hits the air, and for nearly 8 hours, heads Fox's NFL coverage, beginning with the Fox NFL Sunday show--an hour-long program filled with game previews, interviews and highlights--and continuing throughout the day with highlights and halftime shows.