ESPN analyst Mel Kiper Jr. is the king of the NFL Draft now, but he wasn’t so popular in the early days.
As a young analyst with no experience in football at the upstart sports network from Bristol, Kiper was ridiculed by much of the national media when he first started. In a recent appearance on the SI Media with Jimmy Traina podcast, Kiper recalled that one of the most prominent voices ripping him on a regular basis was Tony Kornheiser.
Yes, the man who would go on to become one of ESPN’s most singular voices as host of Pardon the Interruption and a color commentator on Monday Night Football was not a big fan of Kiper back in the 1980s.
“Tony Kornheiser wrote some scathing articles about me,” Kiper told Traina. “When I got to know Tony, I’d say, ‘Tone, you were killing me.’ And he was like, ‘No, I was just told to write an article, and you were the guy.'”
Apparently, Kornheiser received the assignment from his Washington Post editors and was just doing his job. But Kornheiser was not alone.
Recalling the criticism he received, Kiper explained that much of it stemmed from sports media not seeing the NFL Draft as an important event.
“Basically, who is he to have a voice? Who is he to have an opinion?” Kiper explained. “He never did this, he never did that. Why are people watching? Why do people care? It’s a non-event. You name it, it was criticized.”
Of course, Kiper gets the last laugh. Not only is the draft now one of the most-watched sporting events in America each year, but Kiper owes his 40-plus-year career at ESPN to it. He is one of the most recognizable talents in sports media and the face of the event.
Now, he and Kornheiser joke about it all.
“He would laugh about it; we’re good friends now,” Kiper laughed. “I didn’t know Tony then; he didn’t know me.”