ESPN Founder, Former Enfield Resident Releases New Award-Winning Book

Sports ESPN Founder, Former Enfield Resident Releases New Award-Winning Book A new book by “The Father of Cable Sports” offers a fascinating look at changes in sports and American history from the 1930s through today. Reply
ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen accepted the Gold Key Award from the Connecticut Sports Media Alliance in 2019. (Gerry deSimas Jr./Collinsville Press/Connecticut Sports Media Alliance)
NEW PORT RICHEY, FL — Wednesday marked the 45th anniversary of the Hartford Civic Center roof collapse. In the early morning hours of Jan. 18, 1978, the top of the 3-year-old coliseum gave way under the weight of heavy snow and ice; faulty design was ultimately ruled as the culprit.
Just a few hours earlier, more than 4,700 spectators had been in the building to watch a UConn men’s basketball game. Had the collapse taken place at that time, one of the largest single-day losses of life would likely have occurred – more than the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and only trailing the 1900 Galveston hurricane in terms of human devastation.
Bill Rasmussen, a former Enfield resident whose son Glenn had played ice hockey at Enrico Fermi High School, was also involved with the sport at the time, serving as communications director and radio broadcaster for the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association. His son Scott, later known as founder of public opinion polling company Rasmussen Reports, was the team’s public address announcer, situated in a small booth between the two penalty boxes.
“When we were allowed back in after the collapse, a massive chunk of steel had obliterated the announcer’s station and penalty box area,” Rasmussen told Patch in a phone interview Thursday. “Upstairs in [team executive] Dave Andrews’ office, a huge steel girder rested where his desk and chair had been.” The team relocated to the Springfield Civic Center for the remainder of the 1977-78 season, and played there until the Hartford building re-opened in Feb. 1980. By then, the Rasmussens were long gone from the organization, having been let go by owner Howard Baldwin along with several other “non-essential” front office employees over Memorial Day weekend in 1978 after the Whalers were swept in four straight games by the Winnipeg Jets in the Avco Cup finals.
Left with needing to find work, and stuck in a traffic jam in Waterbury, the Rasmussens began brainstorming, eventually deciding to form a small cable television company, ostensibly to cover Connecticut-based teams such as the Whalers, Bristol Red Sox and UConn Huskies. Their company was called the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network: ESPN. The network launched on Sept. 7, 1979, and the rest is history. The story of the Civic Center roof collapse and the early days of the world’s first 24-hour sports cable network are among the fascinating memoirs Rasmussen has included in a new book. “ESPN: One Giant Leap For Fankind” is a 184-page trip through history – not just sports, but Americana.
“Interwoven themes of sports, history and technology take you through the changes in my life over 10 decades and counting,” Rasmussen, who turned 90 in October, wrote on a website devoted to the book. “Take a look inside to see who won the World Series the year you were born. Discover the Heisman Trophy winner when you were in high school. Super Bowl winners, NCAA women’s basketball champions and many more are here for every decade. From the World Series on radio to the very first television, on to satellite transmission and then to wireless everything, my life has been exciting – so far! This adventure through the evolution of sports, layered over the changes in culture and advances in technology, is the story of my life over 10 decades. Walk with me with Intentional Optimism as we explore the vast expanse of the world and make a positive difference.” Publisher Headline Books describes the work as a “truly amazing and breathtaking journey, delivered in a fantastic way. One of the best books of the year.” Despite only being released in early December, the book recently took top honors at the 2022 New England Book Festival.
“The book offers a walk through sports history with the man who changed it, combining his personal journey with what was happening at the time in our country,” according to the book festival’s website. “Rasmussen, called ‘The Father of Cable Sports’ by USA Today, tells of the struggles, triumphs and innovations that made ESPN a force in sports journalism.” The founding and evolution of ESPN did change sports history, leading Rasmussen to place 29th in a special Sports Illustrated publication in 1994 entitled “40 For the Ages.” In the listing of the 40 most influential sports figures since the magazine’s founding in 1954, he ranked ahead of legendary athletes such as Pele, Bobby Orr, Sugar Ray Leonard, Nolan Ryan, Peggy Fleming and Julius Erving. “I couldn’t beat a horse, though,” he laughed, referring to the No. 17 ranking of 1973 Triple Crown winner Secretariat. Co-authored with Donald T. Phillips, who has collaborated on works with Cal Ripken, Phil Mickelson and other legendary athletes, “OGLFF” garnered top accolades in the Compilations/Anthologies category earlier this month at the 2023 Southern California Book Festival. Rasmussen moved back to Florida last year after spending considerable time in Washington state, near his daughter and grandchildren. He is still much in demand as a public speaker, but has curtailed his activities in deference to his age and his 2019 diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.