Rastall Ramblings: ‘Around the Horn’ Was More Than Just Another Debate Show

Like many other younger millennials, a formative sports fan experience for me as a kid was coming home from school and tuning into ESPN for the hourlong block featuring “Around the Horn” and “Pardon the Interruption” to get a daily dose of sports punditry.

While I loved both shows, it was always “Around the Horn” that was my favorite of the two and helped deepen my love of sports. Since the show aired its final episode on Memorial Day weekend, I thought it would be nice to pay tribute to a show that helped guide my eventual career path.

For those unfamiliar, “Around the Horn” was a roundtable show that doubled as a game where four sportswriters from around the United States discussed and debated the biggest sports stories of the day and had their arguments scored by the host, with a panelist being declared the winner at the end of each show. Oh, and the host had a mute button at his disposal to shut any panelist up at any time.

It was a unique format that brought a variety of perspectives to the table and helped turn many regional sportswriters into national names, serving as a launching pad for many of their careers in the process.

Back when I was a religious watcher, the rotating cast of characters on the show featured the likes of Woody Paige, Tim Cowlishaw, Bob Ryan, Bill Plaschke, Kevin Blackistone, Jackie MacMullan, J.A. Adande, Michael Smith and Bomani Jones, among others. The brilliance of the scoring format is that it gave a sports element to the sports debate show. If you were a regular viewer, you’d develop favorite panelists (I was always partial to Paige and Cowlishaw) and root for them to win that day’s show.

Woody Paige — the show’s all-time leader in wins and appearances — and his chalkboard with an endless list of quips and jokes in the background behind him were probably the biggest breakout stars among the lengthy list of panelists over the show’s 23 seasons, but it was host Tony Reali who was the straw that stirred the drink and really helped make “Around the Horn” more than just another sports show.

Reali had the perfect personality to make the show work: kindness, likability, a great sense of humor and a lack of pretentiousness. A show with the format of “Around the Horn” always had the potential to fall victim to too much bombast, but with Reali steering the ship it (usually) kept itself from taking itself too seriously.

The mute button and nonsensical scoring system helped curb too hot of takes, and outlandish predictions by a panelist that proved incorrect would often result in a comically large point deduction.

“Around the Horn” was another step on the path that eventually led us to the unfortunate “embrace debate” culture of overdramatic sports takes that was popularized in large part by the Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless era of ESPN’s “First Take” and thus that is part of the show’s legacy.

However, “Around the Horn” managed to be much tamer, lighthearted and typically more thoughtful than the shows it helped spawn. You could count on a much wider range of topics than the LeBron vs. Jordan debate for the millionth time or yet another segment on the Dallas Cowboys.

And on a personal note, it helped introduce me to a ton of sportswriters whose work I came to admire and helped plant the seed in my head that maybe sports journalism was a career path worth considering. For that, I’ll always be grateful.