Tuesday,
March 18, 2008
Sal Paolantonio:
Professor, Renaissance Man, and Sportscaster Extraordinare
The
ANNOTICO Report
Sal
Paolantonio (born June 13, 1956 in
Sal
was a political reporter and Philadelphia Eagles beat reporter for The
Philadelphia Inquirer
from 1993-1995. During that time he also served as a reporter for
WPHL-TV nightly news show, Inquirer News Tonight and hosted Saturday Morning
Sports Page on WIP (AM) sports radio. In 1993, he published his first book, a biography of Frank L. Rizzo entitled The Last Big
Man in
Paolantonio now is a Philadelphia-based bureau reporter for
ESPN, primarily reporting on NFL stories. Since joining ESPN in 1995, Paolantonio has become a staple in their NFL coverage, as
he contributes to shows such as SportsCenter, NFL
Live, Sunday NFL Countdown (from a game site) and Monday Night Countdown (from
the Monday Night Football site). In 2004, he added studio work to his duties,
replacing Suzy Kolber as the host of NFL Matchup, an X's and O's football show, joining him are Merril Hoge and Ron Jaworski. His best known work for ESPN is covering the
Terrell Owens saga with the Philadelphia Eagles during the 2004 and 2005
seasons. Sal has also been an adjunct professor at
In
2007, he and fellow sports journalist Reuben Frank put out The Paolantonio Report: The Most Overrated and Underrated
Players, Teams, Coaches, and Moments in NFL History, ISBN 1600780253. As of
Thursday, Oct. 11, 2007, it was the best-selling NFL book in the country
according to Amazon.com.
Volume
4 Issue 21
March
18, 2008
With a
recently published book and another waiting in the wings,
Look for the
door.
That's what Sal Paolantonio tells his journalism
students. Look for the door no one is looking for. And when you find it? Walk
through the opening. The answers you seek are on the other side, the things no
one else sees, the information that sets you apart and makes the whole
enterprise matter.
The others look,
but they don't see. They don't peer behind the curtains. They don't bang down
the walls. They don't dig and dig until the bare bones of knowledge jut out
like preserved fossils. Sal Paolantonio is different.
He found the door
and it opened, beckoning him like the rabbit hole in
"Sal can
sift through the conventional wisdom and know what's really going on,"
says Congressman Rob Andrews, a friend. "He's willing to look for the
aspect of a story that isn't obvious but is very important."
Now, the
So, here's the
latest report: It's good to be Sal.
"There's
10,000 guys like you that want my job," the 51-year-old says, prodding me
with a knowing chuckle. "I know there are, 'cause I go to college campuses
all the time and talk to people, and they all want to be me. They don't get to
be me."
It sounds like
bragging" and maybe it is a little" but there are hard-won lessons
behind that admission, and he unabashedly emphasizes the privilege of working
for ESPN ("Print that," he insists). In Paolantonio's
world, journalism is a sacred mission, a bond of trust between reporter and
reader. To violate that agreement is to compromise yourself and, more
importantly, betray the people you're meant to serve. "You have to
practice responsible journalism in an aggressive environment," he explains
about working in the national media spotlight. "Every
day. Every day. Every day! The NFL doesn't
sleep."
Dream jobs, on
the other hand, apparently do. It's the door behind the door, and even the
clear-eyed don't always see it.
New Year's Eve,
1988, and Sal Paolantonio is in a fog. But not the
way you're probably thinking.
The Eagles are in
the playoffs, and Paolantonio"ace political
reporteris dispatched to
But football was
always there, coursing like strands of DNA that bind the center. Sal, the high school football player. Sal, the kid who
collected 50 cent sports bets in the lunchroom cafeteria. Sal, the fan who
worshipped at the altar of Lombardi, just like his father Vito and thousands
upon thousands of other Italian-Americans, the ones who became Packer fans
instantly after the famed coach left the Giants' ranks. Sal,
the
Paolantonio had the writing bug, for
sure. That much was apparent, even before he earned his own sports column at
the SUNY-Oneonta school newspaper. But a sports writer?
For a living? It wasn't enough. "I wanted to be a
journalist," Paolantonio remembers, and if the
distinctions are blurred now, they were never so clear
as they were then.
Yet, into the door he went.
Graduating after three years because there wasn't any money
for a fourth.
Joining the Navy to honor his family's storied tradition of
service and to satisfy the wanderlust of a kid insulated by the comfortable
confines of
A masters of journalism at NYU, latching onto the
Marrying an incredible girl, Lynn, and raising three daughters all along the
way.
Destination
paper, destination career, destination life. A journalist had finally
found a home. Then, eventually, the fog lifted. It was 1993 and the Inky was
looking for a new Eagles beat writer. And Paolantonio
was looking for a change.
"I
absolutely loved it," he says about the move to the Eagles beat, and given
the plaudits he quickly earned, so did much of the city. Clearly, this was a different
breed of sports scribe, his talent honed for years under the big top of high
politics. "He would always tell me," says friend Vai
Sikahema, a local NBC sportscaster whose final season
on the Eagles coincided with Paolantonio's first,
"'You know, covering sports is no different than covering politics. The
games are just different. The people are the same.'"
Those were
tumultuous years for the Eagles franchise. Free agency descended on the league
and defensive stalwart Reggie White bolted for
ESPN came
knocking quickly. The network's blueprint called for targeting top newspaper
reporters and allowing their instincts to flourish in the televised medium.
Exciting as it was, Paolantonio had just a one-year
contract, very little TV experience, and mouths to feed at home. "It
scared the life out of me," he says about making the switch. "I
didn't really think A) I could do it, or B) I was qualified."
Over a decade
later, he's clearly dispelled both trepidations. In his time there, ESPN
transformed from a growing television sports destination into a multimedia
colossus, and Paolantonio went along for the ride,
branching out into Web site and magazine writing, radio appearances and
television hosting duties (since 2004 he's been the host of "NFL Matchup," the heaviest Xs-and-Os strategy show in the
business). Turn on the TV during football season and it's hard not to catch a
glimpse of Paolantonio, reporting ruddy-faced and
smiling on a crisp fall day from the sideline of any number of Northeast
gridiron epicenters.
"You have
all these places where you can exercise all of the reporting muscles you
want," he remarks. "And not every network correspondent can do that.
Take a look at CNN. You don't see Wolf Blitzer writing too much stuff on
CNN.com."
It's a
high-profile existence, and it comes with its own unlikely celebrity. "You
walk around at stadiums," he says, "and people are shouting your name
like you're an athlete. And you have to sort of think, 'Okay, you're just a
reporter. Let's not let this go to your head.' It's pretty powerful. With that
comes a tremendous responsibility. You can't get stuff wrong."
So says the man
whose work never felt so right; the journalist who found a home in the very
place he never expected to be.
Vai Sikahema
has a secret about Sal Paolantonio.
"He is one
of the most well-read people I've ever met in my life, and on all kinds of
subjects," he says.
I'm not a
sportscaster; I just play one on TV. That could be Paolantonio,
for his friendswithout exceptionswear by his versatility. The college history
major is now the professor who strides into class and scrawls five book titles
on the black board, a sampler cutting across all eras, genres and domainsnot
just sports.
Renaissance
Man.
That's what Congressman Andrews calls him. The kind of guy who's as apt to talk
about Russian czars as he is about rushing yards: "He's one of the few
people I know who can talk with interest and knowledge on a lot of subjects.
I've never had a dull conversation with Sal."
Uncompromised
Family
Man.
That's what Sikahema calls him. The sort of person
who eschews sports talk to ruminate on parenting. "There's one simple
reason why Sal and I became really, really good friends. Because we're both
good fathers, and we talk a lot about parenting."
Indeed. Paolantonio couldn't be more proud of his three grown
daughtersthe youngest now in collegeand he acknowledges the toll a career spent
on the road can sometimes take.
Nonetheless, he
recites a proverb Sikahema taught him: "No
amount of success in the world can compensate for failure in the home." Or, as he succinctly reconstructs it, "Shalom in the
home." The awards and accolades can line up to the length of a
football field, but there's one simple truth from the man who has spent his
whole life in pursuit of them: "My daughters have been everything to
me."
Super Bowl XLII
is over, the season finished, an unlikely champion crowned. Some
of the players and fans left while others stayed, basking in the glow of an
upset for the ages. The media, diligently working late into the night,
finished up their reports, the flicker of camera lights dwindling as they
switched off one by one. Some go home, others to
But finally he
returns, flying back to
Triumph Books was
so pleased that it signed up Paolantonio for a second
book: How Football Explains America. Previously unannounced, the book
will examine the cultural history of the game in the
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