Kenny Mayne
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Kenny Mayne (born September 1, 1959) is a comedian, and a sports journalist for ESPN.
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[edit] Sports career
A native of Kent, Washington, Mayne is a former honorable mention junior college All-American quarterback in 1978 at Wenatchee Valley Community College in Wenatchee, WA. Kenny graduated from University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 1982, with a degree in Broadcasting, where he was the back-up quarterback and ahead of future NFL star Randall Cunningham on the depth chart. While at UNLV, Mayne played football for two years and later signed as a free agent with the Seattle Seahawks.
He has been the manager for the American League team in the Legends and Celebrity All Star Softball Game since its inception in 2001.
[edit] ESPN
ESPN hired Mayne in 1994 after Mayne had sent ESPN a note inquiring whether or not the network would hire him. The note simply asked to check a box, including one option which read, "We'll hire you when there's an ESPN5."[1]
Mayne started at ESPN in 1994 as a SportSmash anchor on ESPN2, and soon moved over to the main network. He became well known for his dry sense of humor and his unique home run calls.
For a time, he served as co-anchor of the 11PM SportsCenter with Dan Patrick after Keith Olbermann left ESPN. He left SportsCenter two years later, moving to an assortment of late night ESPN shows which were usually re-aired throughout the next morning. Included in his repertoire was the game show 2 Minute Drill. Mayne is now most often seen as commentator for select horse racing events, as well as providing offbeat feature stories on Sunday NFL Countdown in a weekly segment called "The Mayne Event."*
On January 17, 2007, ESPN signed Mayne to a one year contract to do features and cover horse racing, as well as return to SportsCenter for about 50 shows in 2007.[1]
[edit] Other ventures
In January 2006, Mayne participated in the second season of ABC's Dancing with the Stars with partner Andrea Hale, but after a disastrous cha-cha, Mayne was the first contestant to be eliminated in the first round. In an interview with Brian Falvey in the Spring of 2007, Mayne joked that he left the 2006 Rose Bowl at halftime in order to get up early the next day to practice for "Dancing with the Stars." Subsequent seasons have seen Mayne return to the show infrequently during the Results nights for "DanceCenter", a parody of SportsCenter alongside former contestants and judge Len Goodman.
Before agreeing to the deal with ESPN, Mayne had talks with Comedy Central about doing a sports-themed The Daily Show-style program and was a finalist to be the host of the syndicated version of Deal or No Deal. He confirmed both discussions.[2]
Mayne has recently appeared in commercials for Progressive auto insurance, and Top Flite.
In November 2006, Mayne hosted the pilot episode of the CBS Primetime game show Power of 10 which is currently hosted by Drew Carey. Power of 10 producer Michael Davies was impressed with his performance on 2 Minute Drill, and wanted him to host one of his other game shows. After Mayne hosted the pilot, he decided to decline this hosting opportunity and was given to Drew Carey.
In May 2008, Mayne was the commentator for the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes horse races. His commentating has been called "annoying," "useless," and "uninformed" [3] by Maxim Magazine in their May 2008 issue. His comedy career stalled in the early 1990s when a Ken Pointer Wall Street Journal article appraised his routine as "totally not funny and rather pathetic."
[edit] References
- ^ Hiestand, Michael. "ESPN's trash talker Mayne works his way to top of heap", USA Today, 1999-09-14.
[edit] External links
- Kenny Mayne bio ESPN MediaZone
- Kenny Mayne
- Kenny Mayne at the Internet Movie Database
- Extensive audio interview with Mayne on public radio program The Sound of Young America
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