Barry Horn

Archive | Blog | E-mail

Since Lee Corso worked ESPN's College Gameday from the Texas-Oklahoma game last year, he temporarily lost his speech and his ability to read as well as partial use of his right arm and leg.

Here's how Corso told the story Friday:

"It was exactly five months ago on May 16. I went out to get the newspaper. I picked it up at the end of the driveway and started to feel lightheaded. I walked back in the house, and I couldn't talk. I had a problem with my right hand. I had no symptoms at all, and then it hit me. Boom.

"I had a stroke," he said.

Corso spent the next three days in intensive care and a total of a week in the hospital. When he went home, all he had to do was learn to speak and read and write again.

"I'm not quite 100 percent," he said. "No, I am 100 percent, but getting the words from my mind to my mouth is another thing."

Corso, 74, still practices writing twice a day for 30 minutes and runs a gantlet of verbal exercises. His speech is not quite back at the loud, frenzied Corsonian pitch that made him a TV star.

He's more Lee-lite. But ESPN has helped every step of the way. It stuck by him and lessened his workload, allowing him to skip what had been regular Friday appearances on SportsCenter.

"They've been wonderful," Corso said.

Corso has been back on the GameDay set since its season opened Sept. 5. His enthusiasm and love for his job remains.

"Sept. 5th," Corso said. "That date motivated me throughout my therapy. I had to be back at work on the first Saturday of the season."

Corso, a GameDay fixture since 1989, opened the season in Atlanta for Alabama-Virginia Tech. Subsequent Saturdays have taken him to Ohio State, Texas, Penn State, Boston College and LSU. Today, at 9 a.m., he's back at Fair Park for Texas-Oklahoma.

"I think it's going terrific," he said. "I feel terrific."

Asked if he thought about retiring and cutting down travel, Corso gave a rare one-word answer. "Never," he said.

Why not?

"I have an enthusiasm for life," he said. "I think I still have something to offer on the show."

Corso then reminded that he missed picking the winner of the Texas-OU game each of the last three years.

"Last year I put a Sooner hat on and shot the shotgun, and Oklahoma still lost," he said. "That's not the way to go."

Corso didn't say which team he likes today. His pick, as always, will come near the end of the two-hour GameDay. Then he'll walk across an esplanade into the Cotton Bowl and watch to see if he breaks his losing streak.

He'll watch the game from the Oklahoma sideline because he thinks it will be less crowded.

"Standing," he said. "I stand and watch the game. I'm still standing."

• The Rangers once again rank near the TV ratings basement. Sports Business Journal this week offered cable ratings for baseball's 29 teams that call the United States home. The Rangers were 24th. The Rangers averaged a 2.54 rating for their games on Fox Sports Southwest. That translates into about 63,000 homes per game.

• The Rangers rank ahead of only the White Sox, Dodgers, Angels, A's and Nationals.

• The positive spin is that 2.54 represents an increase of 54 percent over the 2008 Rangers ratings. Only the Nationals, who jumped 66.7 percent, had a bigger increase. Washington's team can now boast an average rating of 0.6, which represents 14,000 homes.

• At the top of the heap are the Red Sox, who averaged a 9.46 rating, good for 228,000 homes. The Yankees, who play in the biggest TV market, averaged a 4.66 (remember ratings are a percentage of total homes in an area), which represents 346,000 homes.

• Dallas-Fort Worth finished last among major markets in ratings for TBS' coverage of baseball's four Division Series. D-FW tied Houston and Tulsa for 54th place in the 56 markets Nielsen considers big time. The number? 1.31. In D-FW that translates into 33,270 homes.

• Fox baseball analyst Tim McCarver celebrated his 68th birthday Friday working the Yankees-Angels American League Championship Series. Later this month and into November, McCarver will work a record 20th World Series for network television. As a reminder, the NLCS belongs to TBS.

• Maybe the Rangers should have hired former Rangers pregame and postgame host radio host Scott Franzke along the way. A SMU alum, Franzke joined the Philadelphia Phillies broadcast crew in 2006 and has emerged as the team's radio voice. With Franzke in the booth and Charlie Manuel managing in the dugout, the World Series champion Phillies are in their third consecutive postseason.

Dish and Fox Sports Southwest can't agree on carriage of 20 Stars games – about one-quarter of the season – that have been taken from Channel 27 and added to the FSSW schedule this season.

Wednesday night's Stars 6-0 victory over Nashville was the first casualty of the season. Friday's Bruins-Stars game was No. 2.

For now, those games will be carried by all the cable systems and DirecTV, but not Dish. So why won't Dish carry them? Money. The satellite company doesn't want to pay extra for the added games.

I would suggest Stars and NHL fans switch to DirecTV today – except DirecTV has dropped Versus, the cable network of the NHL. If the Stars make it to the postseason, DirecTV subscribers will be out of luck.

Like Dish with the Stars, DirecTV is the only major carrier ­ satellite or cable ­ not to have Versus.

Sorry satellite companies, if the cable companies can play with FSSW and Versus, why can't you?

Also, I'll point out here that the next four TCU football games are scheduled to be on Versus. DirecTV subscribers also won't have an opportunity to watch the undefeated, 12th-ranked Frogs.

ESPN has fiddled with its marquee Big 12 Big Monday basketball broadcast crew. Out are Ron Franklin and Fran Fraschilla, in are Brent Musburger and Bob Knight. Sadly, the network opted for Knight's big name over big talent. Dallas' Fraschilla will now work Saturday Big 12 games with Franklin and Wednesday Big East games with John Saunders. ... The NFL would like you to know that since the 2009 Super Bowl, the 11 most-watched sporting events have been NFL regular-season games. ... If you're up early enough today, ESPNU offers its Road Trip show from Fair Park at 8 a.m. Consider it a pregame show for College GameDay. Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit will call Texas-Oklahoma at 11 a.m. ... Next week's game times for Texas-Missouri and Oklahoma-Kansas should be decided by today's result. The winning team will play in prime time on ABC at 7 p.m., the runner-up will play in the 2:30 p.m. time slot.