Thomas family on stage at the ESPYs. (image from espn.com)
Wednesday night’s ESPYs on ESPN were only worth tuning in for 2 things.
One to see the UNI Panther’s win the ESPY for Best Upset. The other was a TV network showing what is one of the best things about television, conveying emotion.
Seeing the feature on the Ed Thomas was powerful. It was narrated by Kiefer Sutherland.
Brett Favre introduced the set up piece and the presentation of the award to the Thomas family.
Todd, Jan and Aaron Thomas at the ESPYs. (image from espn.com)
The speech by Aaron Thomas was better than any Oscars acceptance speech. The Aplington-Parkersburg athletic director did his school, state and most importantly his father proud.
Here’s the link to the speech. It is well worth your time to view the speech.
You could see people in the crowd wiping away tears and a very somber tone was visible in the Nokia Theater.
I do have a copy of the feature piece done by ESPN, but until ESPN posts the story, there won’t be any copies online because you can’t upload copyrighted material. You will have to watch the replay of the broadcast. The first re-airing of the event is Thursday, June 15 at 8p Central on ESPN2. The next replay is Sunday at 2p Central on ESPN2.
UNI Men's basketball coach Ben Jacobson on stage at the ESPYs. (image from AP)
The Northern Iowa basketball category will be after the monologue and about the 3rd award given. The Thomas feature which includes a conversation with the Becker family will be shortly after that. Our IPTV interview with Joan Becker is here. We talked about forgiveness with her.
Here’s a link to the Des Moines Register story on the event.
Here’s a link to the Des Moines Register story.
Here’s the Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier story.
WOI-TV in Des Moines had sports director John Walters and Dave Zawilinski in Los Angeles for the event. ABC5 is doing an entire show this Saturday at 630p. It will be a look behind the scenes at the ESPYs from the Iowa perspective. Dave says they have an interview with Favre.
KWWL-TV was there and is planning some behind the scenes stuff as well. We will post that when it becomes available.
Also give Sean Keeler’s blog a look at his takes from what the World Wide Leader did with the Iowa stories from Ali Farokhmanesh and Adam Koch to Todd and Aaron Thomas.
Paul Yeager
Paul, great post … man, that was a nice feature piece. Wondering if Harves had anything to do with it. I was with a bunch of Pepsi co-workers the next day and it was a proud moment to talk about those A-P Iowans and how they are handling everything.