"As a kid, I was always interested in words, always interested in good writing," says Kenny Mayne, a familiar face to fans of ESPN SportsCenter, as he leans back in his office chair. Mayne is in the midst of writing his stories for the 11 p.m. edition of the popular sports wrap-up program. He is in his early forties, with short wispy hair and long legs, which he stretches leisurely onto the desk in front of him.
Mayne doesn't have a large office, few on-air personalities at ESPN do, but it is his small cubicle that fits his easygoing personality so well. He is a unique man, who actually started off on a different track than many of his peers. In his own words, "I've always been interested in current events, I definitely watch more news than sports. I started off in news, but when I got the chance to do sports, that was more fun for me." Mayne has faced many obstacles in his road from news reporter for his fifth grade paper to garbage collector in college to sports anchor now, thus can offer advice about working hard and becoming a well-rounded person. "People could do this straight out of high school, but they would never be really as well rounded as they could be," Mayne says.
Mayne did many things to get into his current position. After graduating from UNLV (where he was on football scholarship and backed up Randall Cunningham), "I took a job [that got me] into the news program on KSTW in Seattle. [During this time,] I wanted to do news more than sports. That decision didn't change until 1986, when I started doing weekend sports." He knew then that he wanted to make a career out of sports broadcasting and he feels that his extensive news background helped him immensely in the first few years of his sportscasting career.
Mayne says that getting hired at ESPN was very unexpected, but welcome. He sent a tape to them in 1989, and was hired a few months later, but didn't end up coming to Bristol until the mid-nineties and by then, he had prepared himself for it. Even when he was the new guy at ESPN, "I didn't think I [was] anybody special that I'm on TV. There was a lot of anxiety in the first year, but now, it's just what I do." He sets down his nightly lineup of stories, and sighs.
Mayne picks up the baseball that is sitting on his desk, and describes the task at hand. "By and large, we're reading what we write," he says. This fact may come as a surprise to many fans around the country, because most sportscasters are regarded as faces in front of a camera, reading from a teleprompter. But, in the words of Mayne, "80-90 percent of the time, it's our writing." He adds, "My mother always stressed the value of the written word, [so growing up,] I was always interested in words, always interested in good writing." Every day, Mayne applies the writing skills he has learned over the years of being a journalist.
One of those skills, Mayne says, forms the backbone of his job. He believes that reading a diverse selection of literature and news is very important to good writing. His advice to potential colleagues is to "widen your base by reading stuff you don't have an interest in. Don't just look at the sports page every day and you think it's the end-all." He says that it never hurts to "try things out" that you think might interest you, and read every section of the paper to get a flavor of other aspects of journalism, or news.
Mayne also emphasizes practice and flexibility in order to be really good at what you do, pertaining to anything, not just sports. "You have to be willing to [do anything] or try some other things in order to be a well-rounded person." He adds, "Practice whatever you do. Just do it…You gotta start someplace to get to another place."
