ESPN Radio unveiled its new programming lineup on Tuesday morning, starting with Unsportsmanlike featuring Evan Cohen, Chris Canty and Michelle Smallmon. When everyone arrived at the studio to host the program at 4:30, everyone took notice of Smallmon having a black eye. Since the show is simulcast on ESPN2, the new trio decided to make light of the situation by neglecting a traditional on-air introduction and instead getting right into the story behind the calamitous occurrence that caused the injury.
After introducing themselves so listeners knew who they were on the air, Cohen started the discussion by expressing how the first day of the show was very important to everyone. He then proceeded to reveal how Smallmon came with a black eye, but did not know how it happened. In fact, the show decided to preserve the story to elicit a natural reaction from the co-hosts and listeners on the air rather than learning about it in advance.
“Well the show is Unsportsmanlike,” Smallmon said Tuesday morning on ESPN Radio. “I am a team player, and I think I took it a little too literally, guys. I came in thinking, ‘Alright, I’m going to establish myself as unsportsmanlike with a black eye.’”
Smallmon is familiar with hosting mornings, entering the new role after a successful stint on 101 ESPN in St. Louis, Mo. alongside co-host Randy Karraker. She also produced at ESPN Radio for many years, including from the studio she is broadcasting the new program with Cohen and Canty. Even so, she wanted to be prepared to wake up at 4 a.m. EST and decided to practice on Labor Day, but it came after an inauspicious chain of events. Smallmon decided to stay in her New York City apartment on Sunday to clean, catch up on football and watch parts of Hard Knocks ahead of the final episode premiering Tuesday night.
“I’m vacuuming and I see something underneath my couch – you can probably hear I have allergies – so I have an air purifier that runs in my apartment,” Smallmon said. “It’s a very small space, so as I was reaching underneath the couch – I was kind of crouched over – I tripped over the cord of the air purifier and a glass – a physical glass on the table – caught my fall.”
Before Smallmon revealed the specific details of the incident, she spoke about how she wishes it was a more interesting story portraying her in a better light. In reality, the incident accentuated her clumsiness, which she had forewarned her co-hosts about as they came to know each other over the last few weeks. As she was articulating her experience, she accidentally hit herself with a microphone, which came after Smallmon spilled her coffee earlier in the morning, further demonstrating her innate clumsiness.
“You probably can’t see, but there’s a cut that’s kind of a half-moon shape,” Smallmon said. “That’s from the glass; the glass caught my fall.”
Canty, who had been hosting in afternoon drive for parts of the last two years, informed Smallmon that while she may be able to get up early, no one can ever truly acclimate to it. After all, he had worked with Rick DiPietro and Dave Rothenberg on a morning program beginning at 5 a.m. EST, granting him experience in this regard.
“You never get used to it,” Canty said. “….These are first-world problems because we get to talk about sports for a living, but there is no way you get used to getting up that early in the morning.”
