It is fitting that ESPN SportsCenter anchor Scott Van Pelt is based in Washington DC, because he’s a national treasure, standing as tall as the Washington Monument, noble as the Capitol, and reliable and honest as Abraham Lincoln chilling in his memorial.
Van Pelt represents one of the last vestiges of the old ESPN. He, Dick Vitale, and Chris Berman are stalwarts, legends, and parts of the foundation that helped build the network from a fly-by-night possibility to a world-altering conglomerate.
Van Pelt is truly the last icon that we see regularly and amply, especially now that the network has shamefully cut Berman’s Monday Night Football segment from the Fastest 3 Minutes to the Fastest 1 Minute. The fastest one minute? Seriously, how can one minute be anything else but fast?
Van Pelt is more than just excellent at his job. He’s become the Walter Cronkite of ESPN – a trusted figure, reliable, rock solid, and still vital as hell. Van Pelt can do anything. He is still the best SportsCenter anchor, straight up doling out highlights like a hibachi chef dishes up flank steak. His inflection is perfect. His excitement, anger, happiness, and disgust are impeccably seasoned like paprika on deviled eggs.
The man they call SVP rides the anchor desk like Stevie Cauthen rode Affirmed. If an adjustable chair and script were a horse and reins, he’d win the Triple Crown every year. But Van Pelt is not just a talking head reeling off words. He is a master raconteur, instigator, and interviewer.
Van Pelt is nowhere better than on ESPN’s Monday Night Football showcase. His postgame chats with players and/or coaches should be sent to every communications or sports media class as Interview 101. For as long as he’s been on the air, Van Pelt has never wasted one minute of your viewing time. To him, fluff is something that goes between two pieces of Wonder Bread with peanut butter. He is all about the content.
When Boston College scored a football upset beating Florida State to open the season, Van Pelt’s postgame interview with first-year BC head coach Bill O’Brien was epic. Listen, this was not the National Championship game. It was Week 1 of the college football season, but SVP delved into the emotions of O’Brien. He asked him about team building and how his players are buying into the plan.
With those questions, he elicited wonderfully frank and emotional answers from the normally staid and sometimes surly head coach. More recently, in the wake of this past Monday night’s game between the Bengals and Commanders, Van Pelt‘s postgame interview with Washington wide receiver Terry McLaurin was wonderful.
Van Pelt recognizes that an interview with a player right after the game is different than a scheduled studio exchange. Nobody knows how to bring out the best in an interview subject better than Van Pelt. He asked McLaurin about the new regime in Washington and how fans in the DC area are longing for a winning team. McLaurin gave Van Pelt some truly enthusiastic and heartfelt answers.
Van Pelt does not kiss up to interview subjects. On the contrary, he’s thinking audience first. What would Jack and Jill fan ask McLaurin after a big win? What do people want to know about this guy who just spent the last three hours running routes and evading tackles? How does he feel about the big win with a new owner, new head coach, and new quarterback? This is what Scott Van Pelt is all about.
Sports is filled with defining moments, but Scott Van Pelt is one of those rare sportscasters who can actually define a moment. He knows the tenor of the games, the players’ blood, guts, and dedication to their respective sports, and how to get the most out of a special moment.
In addition to his meat and potatoes broadcasting expertise, Van Pelt has been someone omniscient. He was incorporating sports betting, odds making, and wagering repartee into his broadcasts long before it became a staple of mainstream sports television. His back and forth, Bad Beats, and lively exchanges with his resident betting guru Stanford Steve have become the stuff of legend.
Before any of these current shows jumped on the betting bandwagon, Van Pelt was unafraid to accept and promote the fact that people bet on sports, and he did this at a time when sports and betting were still a somewhat unspeakable and taboo mix.
I use the word presence quite a bit when talking about on-air talents. Filling up the screen, possessing on air magnetism, and keeping an audience transfixed is part of the game. Van Pelt is not blessed with the classic looks of George Clooney or Brad Pitt, but I compare him to both of these chaps. Stay with me here.
Clooney and Pitt have a natural charm about them. They are both slick and sophisticated, but in many of their roles, they lose, are flawed, and makes mistakes. Similarly, Van Pelt is perfectly imperfect. We love to see him talk about Bad Beats because there’s a good chance he put a few bucks on those games and lost.
Van Pelt is all about presence with his high fashion glasses and suits that remind me of the oversized garb that David Byrne wore in the Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense video. He’s got that stone cold broadcasting voice, raised eyebrow approach, and a rap that makes people want to stay tuned and wonder what he is going to say next.
Sports TV is home to some truly cerebral talents, but it is also largely littered with hackneyed hot takes and horrid hyperbole. Van Pelt has been around for a long time – a part of our living rooms like that comfy recliner and the end table that you’ve had since college. When you’re around this long, sometimes people forget just how freaking good you are. Scott Van Pelt is really freaking good.
It took me some time to come up with one word that describes Van Pelt, but it finally hit me. That word is authority. Van Pelt doesn’t break the rules, he makes them. He is in charge, running the show, an absolute maestro. This dude can move from hard edge commentary to touchy feely prose to tapping into the angst of sports fans whose team lost or whose wagers went bad.
Scott Van Pelt is equal parts Superman and every man, guru and goof, awesome and awkward. Yes, he’s that clichéd dude we’d like to sit at a bar and have a beer with, but he’s also different. Van Pelt’s popularity is not just based on what he’s done in the past. On the contrary, he is a personality for the ages and shows no signs of slowing down or lightening up for sure.
He may be part of ESPN’s iconic past, but he is also part of its vibrant future. This was no more evident than in the postgame following this week’s MNF doubleheader. In a match made in heaven, Van Pelt was joined by ESPN football analyst Ryan Clark, and the pair made some TV magic dissecting the night’s action.
Once again, Van Pelt showed his strength, navigating Clark en route to great answers. He is a master at the controls. If Scott Van Pelt were Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, not only would he have landed that plane safely in the Hudson River, but everyone would’ve gotten peanut packets and ginger ale while alighting.
Name the sport, pick the athlete, choose the moment. It doesn’t really matter. Scott Van Pelt is a man for all seasons – a sportscaster for our time, any time, and all time.
John Molori is a weekly columnist for Barrett Sports Media. He has previously contributed to ESPNW, Patriots Football Weekly, Golf Content Network, Methuen Life Magazine, and wrote a syndicated Media Blitz column in the New England region, which was published by numerous outlets including The Boston Metro, Providence Journal, Lowell Sun, and the Eagle-Tribune. His career also includes fourteen years in television as a News and Sports Reporter, Host, Producer working for Continental Cablevision, MediaOne, and AT&T. He can be reached on Twitter @MoloriMedia.
