Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Sal Paolantonio: Professor, Renaissance Man, and Sportscaster Extraordinare
Mille Grazie! and Auguri di Buon Pasqua!
Angela

On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 2:12 PM, annotico@earthlink.net <annotico@earthlink.net> wrote:

The ANNOTICO Report

 

Sal Paolantonio (born June 13, 1956 in Queens, New York) graduated from the State University of New York at Oneonta in 1977 with a bachelor of arts degree in history. He also attended New York University, where he received a master's degree in journalism in 1978. Paolantonio served in the U.S. Navy from 1979-1983 where he was awarded the United Nations Meritorious Service Medal in 1983. He is married with three children.

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 Big City America.

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 St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia since 2001.

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,. As of Thursday, Oct. 11, 2007, it was the best-selling NFL book in the country according to Amazon.com.

On Russian Czars and Rushing Yards: The Sublime Erudition of Sal Paolantonio

South Jersey Magazine

Volume 4 Issue 21

 March 18, 2008  

With a recently published book and another waiting in the wings, Moorestown resident, ESPN sportscaster, and Renaissance man Sal Paolantonio looks back on the smarter side of sports.

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 Alice in Wonderland. In he went, and success awaited, step by every hard-earned step. Decorated serviceman. Premier political reporter. Noted author. Passionate professor. National correspondent for the worldwide sports media giant. Beaming father.

"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 Moorestown resident resides comfortably at the pinnacle. Need someone to go to the Super Bowl and cover the perfect team? Call Sal Paolantonio. Looking for a personality to host the most respected football show in the business? Sal Pal. Can't find the right author to legitimize your football book? Check The Paolantonio Report, available at all book stores.

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 reporter—is dispatched to Chicago to do a rare sports piece on Bears coach Mike Ditka, who suffered a heart attack during the season. It is the same week Philadelphia Inquirer sports writer Jere Longman chooses to engage in a bitter feud with his editor. Harsh words are thrown around, the editor is called a "wire service hack," Longman is sent home, and the phone rings in Paolantonio's Chicago hotel room. It's sports editor Dave Tucker on the line: "We want you to stay out and cover the game." New Year's Day, 1989. The Fog Bowl splashes across the Inquirer's front page with Paolantonio's byline. A dream career is launched, except the writer doesn't know it. Football reporter? You got the wrong guy. There are still governors races to cover, presidential contests, a mayoral race so juicy that Paolantonio would eventually be compelled to write a book about it (Frank Rizzo: The Last Big Man In Big City America).

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 Long Island boy who pedaled his bike next to his brother down Hempstead Turnpike and stepped onto Hofstra's campus to watch Joe Namath toss passes under the blazing August sun.

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 New York for almost his entire life.
A masters of journalism at NYU, latching onto the Albany paper and bolting to the Inquirer two years later.
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 Green Bay pastures. Coach Rich Kotite was severely underwhelming the notoriously fickle fan base. And maligned owner Norman Braman was in the process of selling the team to movie mogul Jeffrey Lurie. But Paolantonio's nose for news shone through. "Nobody could reach Jeff Lurie and nobody had any idea what was going on," recalls Burlington County Times football writer and Paolantonio Report co-author Reuben Frank about one instance while the team was being sold. "And I remember sitting in this little press room at the Vet, this tiny little room, and Sal just getting on his phone, and we hear, 'Jeff, it's Sal.'"

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 friends—without exception—swear 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 domains—not 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 Man. That's what Frank calls him. Someone who won't betray his convictions, be it pushing his book publisher to use a higher-quality stock of paper, or railing against "The Sopranos" for its portrayal of Italians (something Paolantonio did vocally earlier this decade when one of his ESPN televised reports was used in the show). "He's very forceful in fighting for what he believes is right," states Frank.

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 daughters—the youngest now in college—and 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 Hawaii for the Pro Bowl. The work seems to never end.

But finally he returns, flying back to Philadelphia, driving his car across the Betsy Ross Bridge into South Jersey, into his neighborhood, onto his street, in front of his house. He reaches the door no one is looking for—not the fans, not the public, not the watchful eyes of television cameras—and he opens it and he steps inside. Sal Paolantonio is finally home....

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 United States and will be released in September.

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Annotico Email: annotico@earthlink.net