The Ballad Of Trey Wingo

I cry for you, Trey Wingo. "SportsCenter" is my favorite show, my touchstone in the morning and my bedtime story at night, and you, Trey Wingo, with your easy wit and your silly name, have always been one of my favorite anchors.

You are not an A-list diva--you are not Dan Patrick or Kenny Mayne or Stuart "Boo-yah!" Scott, thank heavens. And that's why you are here in Salt Lake City, isn't it? A town where ESPN, by virtue of NBC's deathgrip on these Winter Olympics, can do little more than turn on a camera and hold up a sign that says "Winter Olympics."

You are not even allowed inside the media center. It's warm in here, and they've got free massages. But NBC has locked you out--their right, part of their exclusive agreement--so you are forced to broadcast from--where are you, exactly? On TV, I see buildings, mountains, stars, but I can't tell. OK, so NBC has blocked you from the media center, but does that mean you must broadcast outside? Does the agreement bar you from any covered structure? A party tent? A sofa-cushion fort?

Did you lose a bet with Berman?

You look so cold out there, Trey Wingo. The new goatee was a smart move, even on your boyish, soap-scrubbed face. It's to keep away the chill, right? Or perhaps to give you a bit of the Western, wintry, rugged, you-call-this-cold? manly-man thing? My friend, it's working. But to look at you, wrapped up tight in that bulky blue jacket, puffs of frosty air wafting out of your mouth whenever you say "Apolo" or "Picabo" or "Pelletier," you look like you'd give anything to be covering bowling.

And who can blame you? I know the situation. Because of NBC's exclusive deal, your footage can only be used for 24 hours after NBC's West Coast coverage concludes. And even then you can only use six minutes of footage a day. You're also not permitted at the sporting venues. I hear security's got posters of you stuck to the metal detectors--Oooh! But without the goatee! Very crafty, Trey Wingo!--so if you want to do an interview with an athlete, you basically have to convince him to meet you at a bar downtown. So each night, you do your three-minute SportsCenter report from Salt Lake--taped, not live, and highlight-free. You and the teleprompter. That's all. "This is journalism?" you surely wonder.