Adventure seekers, take note: one of America’s most iconic desert parks, Saguaro National Park, just got a major expansion. This month, nearly 50 acres of pristine desert landscape were officially added to the park, thanks to the Trust for Public Land (TPL)—a conservation group that’s been helping protect land in and around the park since the early ’90s, to a press release from the organization.
“This marks the fourth and fifth additions to the park completed by TPL in the past decade—with TPL helping to protect over 2,300 acres in and around Saguaro National Park since 1993—bringing the park’s footprint to more than 92,000 acres.
Saguaro cactus silhouetted at sunset in the Saguaro East – Rincon Mountain District, Saguaro National Park, Tucson, Arizona. (Photo by: Jon G. Fuller/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
If you’ve soaked in Saguaro’s signature desert magic, you might be wondering—what’s new this time? The newly added land sits in the foothills of the Tucson Mountains and connects Saguaro National Park to the beloved Sweetwater Preserve, a go-to spot for hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding. In short: more trails, better access, and plenty more room for adventure.
“This critical addition to Saguaro National Park enhances trail and habitat connectivity in one of America’s most visited parks and expands access to the stunning Southwestern landscape for all outdoor enthusiasts to enjoy,” Carrie Besnette Hauser, president and CEO of Trust for Public Land, said toNational Park Traveler.
But this expansion isn’t just about scoring more trail miles—though with over 190 miles of paths winding through desert peaks and cactus forests, it’s a solid win for outdoor lovers. It’s also a big deal for conservation: the new land helps protect vital Sonoran Desert habitat, where desert tortoises roam, mountain lions prowl, and towering saguaro cacti—some reaching 60 feet and living two centuries—stand tall as living icons of the Southwest.
The land was purchased with help from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which uses federal offshore oil and gas revenues to protect U.S. natural spaces, and supported by local partners like Pima County and the Southern Arizona Hiking Club.
Whether you’re a weekend warrior, a wildlife geek, a cactus lover or just craving a wild view with no Wi-Fi in sight, this latest expansion makes one of America’s most visited national parks even better. Desert road trip, anyone?
Nine-time Grammy Award winner Sheryl Crow had to deal with a frightening home invasion recently.
Back in February, Crow posted a video of herself waving goodbye to her Tesla as it was towed away from her home in Nashville. Crow, 63, ditched the electric car to protest Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s involvement in President Donald Trump’s administration. Musk is the head of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which pushed for major cuts to federal funding in the first few weeks of the president’s current term.
“My parents always said … you are who you hang out with,” Crow wrote on Instagram along with video. “There comes a time when you have to decide who you are willing to align with. So long Tesla.”
In a new interview with Variety released Wednesday, Crow addressed the backlash she received from conservatives following her Tesla protest.
At one point, Crow said an armed man entered her property.
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 11: Sheryl Crow performs on stage at Petco Park on September 11, 2024 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Daniel Knighton/Getty Images)
“This feels different, because when I came out against Walmart carrying guns [in a 1996 song], not everybody was armed — and certainly I didn’t live in Tennessee, where everybody is armed,” she told Variety. “So yeah, there was a moment where I actually really felt very afraid: A man got on my property, in my barn, who was armed. It doesn’t feel safe when you’re dealing with people who are so committed.”
Despite the scary security breach, Crow, who has drawn the ire of right-wingers before with her progressive viewpoints, said she would release the video again if given the opportunity.
“I feel like I’m fighting for my kids. Also, that’s the way I was raised,” she said. “There have been times when it hasn’t really been fun, but I follow my Atticus Finch dad; I’m very similar to him if I see something that seems unfair, you know?”
Crow has lived in Nashville since 2003 after moving to Tennessee from Los Angeles.
Technology continues to shape the airline industry, and United Airlines has made an announcement that they hope will help give passengers a “bigger, more comfortable cabin experience” in the coming years.
United Airlines, according to Aviation A to Z, is the second biggest airline in the world, only behind Delta Airlines. The airline has multiple hubs across the U.S. and connections to Asia, Europe and Latin America.
United Airlines in Chicago has announced an investment in JetZero, a startup creating blended wing body aircraft. The airline’s investment features a conditional agreement to purchase up to 100 aircraft, with the possibility of purchasing an additional 100, dependent on JetZero meeting select milestones.
JetZero’s Z4 aircraft design reduces fuel consumption per passenger mile by as much as 50%, according to the company. The aircraft, which is made for 250 passengers, will use a conventional jet fuel and sustainable aviation fuel blends.
“JetZero’s innovative design reduces drag and produces lift across the entire wingspan, which could lead to as much as 50% reduction in fuel burn per passenger mile compared to a similar sized aircraft,” United said in a statement. “The technology could potentially help United lower its carbon emissions while reducing the cost of operations.”
Andrew Chang, head of United Airlines Ventures, said that if all goes well, JetZero could “evolve our core mainline business by developing aircraft with a bigger, more comfortable cabin experience for our customers while increasing fuel efficiency across our network.”
Chang added, “United Airlines Ventures was created to support our efforts to find innovative companies that can enhance the customer travel experience and help the airline lower its carbon footprint, and we believe JetZero reflects that philosophy.”
Tom O’Leary, CEO and co-founder of JetZero, added that United Airlines’ investment in JetZero shows the airline the industry’s “belief that new, innovative technology is needed in order to achieve the efficiency and cost savings that will be required to meet the continued growth in demand for air travel across the globe.”
Earlier this week news broke that the largest fast food chain in the United States, Subway, closed over 600 stores in the past year.
Subway “lost a net of 631 U.S. restaurants in 2024,” QSR reported as the company fell to under 20,000 stores for the first time in over a decade. As it turns out, though, Subway isn’t the only fast food chain going through a difficult time.
CKE Restaurants, which owns over 3,800 company-operated and franchised restaurants around the world, paired iconic American fast-food chain Carl’s Jr. with Hardee’s in a merger in 1997. While the merger helped expand the company’s footprint to nearly 2,500 stores at the time, it caused both to lose their individuality – with the same color schemes and menu offerings.
In 2023, Summit Restaurants Holdings, a major Hardee’s franchisee, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, according to The Street. The move quickly led the company to close nearly 40 Hardee’s locations at the time before closing more locations in seven cities in Illinois in 2024 and more closures in 2025.
Carl’s Jr., meanwhile, hasn’t fared much better, closing over 20 restaurants in Australia and another in Texas this year.
“Because CKE Restaurants is not publicly traded, the fast-food chains’ exact restaurant counts are not available. The company has also not confirmed the precise number of restaurant closures completed in 2025 or planned for the rest of the year,” The Street noted.
The classic burger chains still operate over 3,800 stores, but their footprint isn’t as expansive as it once was.
Ahead of the May 2 release of the Alec Baldwin movie Rust, director Joel Souza opened up about his regrets regarding the project. He also provided a truthful response regarding his current connection to Baldwin.
During filming, in October 2021, cinematographer Halyna Hutchins died after Baldwin accidentally discharged a firearm that contained live ammunition. Souza was hit by the same bullet that killed Hutchins.
While talking to The Guardian, Souza made it clear he and Baldwin do not have a positive relationship with one another after what happened. He admitted he did not watch Baldwin’s reality television show, The Baldwins, when it began airing on Max in February.
The Baldwins filmed during the aftermath of the Rust tragedy.
Souza shared that that he didn’t watch The Baldwins. Rather, he quipped, “I think I was busy hitting myself in the face with a frying pan that night [it aired].”
He explained, “We’re not friends. We’re not enemies. There’s no relationship” now.
The Rust director also admits, “I wish I never wrote the damn movie.” The day of the accident, he recalls, “Bad decision after bad decision was made.”
After the incident, and his recovery, Souza thought long and hard about whether to return to finish the movie. “I’d been repelled by the thought of going back,” he admitted.
However, Souza explained, Hutchins’ family wanted to see it finished. He “couldn’t live with the idea of someone else” stepping into the director role to continue it.
Souza credits the crew and his family for supporting him through that difficult time, admitting “Emotionally, I was all over the map.”
A woman with more than 400 skydiving jumps made “a deliberate act” to end her life when she jumped on Sunday in the UK.
According to reports, 32-year-old Jade Damarell apparently jumped to her death at Wrefords’ Farm in Shotton, some four hours northwest of London. It’s been reported that the company she booked to go skydiving, Sky-High Skydiving, says there were indications it was “a deliberate act taken to end her own life.”
“All indications from the police and British Skydiving are that this was a deliberate act taken to end her own life,” a company spokesperson said. “This heartbreaking news has deeply affected all who knew her, and our thoughts are with her family and friends as they face this unimaginable loss.”
So far, there’s no autopsy report yet to indicate as much. According to the Daily Mail, Damarell was an avid skydiver. In fact, she had made 11 jumps just two days prior.
“She was mad for the sport,” a friend told the Daily Mail. “In just the two days before she died, she did 11 jumps. She must have done 80 this year.’
Reports say the woman died instantly after hitting the ground on Sunday morning. Police were called to the incident at around 10:30 a.m.
“Sadly, a woman in her 30s was pronounced dead at the scene,” a police spokesperson said. “Her death is not being treated as suspicious and a file will now be prepared for the coroner.”
“Everyone is devastated and deeply traumatized by what happened because she was very much part of the skydiving community,” the friend told the Daily Mail.
According to the outlet, at least one person witnessed the tragedy.
If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or considering suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
The Famistar Compact Folding Treadmill is on sale for just $250 at Walmart—a 75% discount on its full price of $1,000. This compact and portable treadmill is ideal for any living situation, including small apartments, and shoppers have been raving about how its minimalist design is “perfect for daily jogging” and that it “offers a smooth, natural running feel.” It has 700 five-star ratings, comes with a 3- or 4-year warranty (for an additional cost), and it even ships for free.
Famistar Compact Folding Treadmill, $250 (was $1,000) at Walmart
Even with its compact design, this minimalistic, yet mighty, treadmill can handle users who weigh up to 300 pounds. It offers ample running or walking surface area on its generous 16-by-43-inch belt, making it ideal even for taller runners. It has above-average speed settings, as it can operate from 0.6 to 7.5 mph thanks to its 2.5 horsepower motor that operates at a fairly quiet noise level. You can also adjust its incline to three levels for added resistance. And when you’re done using it, simply fold it up and wheel it away against a wall or in a closet.
“Perfect size,” said a shopper. “This treadmill has audio so that I can plug my tablet into it, or I can watch TV. There are 12 speeds, auto incline, too many features to mention. Love everything about it. And the price was great.”
“Sleek design, portable, and space-saving,” said another buyer. “Love the Famistar treadmill’s elegant form. It takes up little space and fits just right in my apartment. The folding ability is excellent—I can easily move it around and save a lot of space when I’m not using it.” Another shopper was more impressed with its heavy-duty design, saying, “I’m 235 pounds and this thing doesn’t bat an eye when I am walking or running on it.”
With a flash deal from Walmart and a discount this insane, the Famistar Compact Folding Treadmill is likely to sell out very fast. Make sure you hit “Add to Cart” now, before this phenomenal deal and treadmill slip away.
Kohl’s is back in the headlines, and this time, investors are cheering. On Thursday, the retailer abruptly fired CEO Ashley Buchanan “for cause,” citing policy violations tied to a personal relationship and questionable business dealings. The fallout? A nearly 9% spike in Kohl’s stock price, Investopedia reported.
In an SEC filing, the company said Buchanan allegedly orchestrated a multi-million-dollar agreement with a consulting firm linked to a personal contact. That contact, according to The Wall Street Journal, was a woman Buchanan had a romantic relationship with. He failed to disclose the connection, and an independent investigation found the terms of the deal “highly unusual” and “favorable” to the vendor.
Buchanan had only recently taken over from former CEO Tom Kingsbury, who left after less than two years at the helm. His ouster is the latest chapter in Kohl’s ongoing leadership shake-up as it struggles to recover from years of declining customer loyalty and strategic missteps.
Despite the abrupt leadership change, Kohl’s stressed that the termination wasn’t related to financial performance or reporting. Still, the board moved swiftly, naming former board chair Michael Bender as interim CEO while a national search begins for a permanent replacement.
Bender struck an optimistic tone in a press release, citing the company’s nationwide footprint and customer base of over 60 million. “We will continue to build on this foundation,” he said, “as we enhance the value we deliver and set the stage for meaningful operational and financial progress.”
Kohl’s shares had been down more than 50% year-to-date before Thursday’s jump. The board’s decisive action and renewed focus on value could be the start of a turnaround—or at least a pause in the retailer’s long slide.
Lampley is preemptively apologizing while being informed that this writer had a chance encounter with him nearly a decade ago in the bowels of Madison Square Garden in New York City. Lampley, 76, can’t recall if he was friendly (he most certainly was), but if he was unfriendly (he wasn’t) it was because of his own near chance encounter with his now-former pal, President Donald J. Trump.
The exact details of that evening are fuzzy, but rest assure his mind remains exquisitely sharp outside of that night. He’s agile and eloquently descriptive as ever. That much is evident while discussing his storied broadcasting career and, of course, the Sweet Science.
Jim Lampley’s new memoir, ‘It Happened! A Uniquely Lucky Life in Sports Television..’
Simon & Schuster
Now, boxing fans can rejoice after the April 15 release of a memoir recounting his “uniquely lucky life” in sports; from experiencing his first core boxing memory in 1955 when his mom, Peggy, sat him down in front of a dinner tray and turned on the Sugar Ray Robinson-Bobo Olson fight for the middleweight championship; to calling the age-defying, 45-year-old George Foreman’s improbable win over unbeaten 26-year-old Michael Moorer in 1994 to capture yet another heavyweight title.
Lampley also holds the distinction of having covered 14 Olympic Games, a record for an American broadcaster. He was there for the “Miracle on Ice” in Lake Placid, and he had a front-row seat to “The Dream Team” in Barcelona.
But the highest of highs also gave way to the lowest of lows on several occasions. Like when he got demoted two weeks after helming coverage of the 1996 Summer Olympics for “damaging quotes” he made to USA Today after the Olympic Park bombing, in which he suggested that his co-host, Hannah Storm, deferred to him as NBC’s “lead dog” for its news coverage of the bombing. The misstep proved painful. Like a shot to the liver, the demotion landed him in Daytona Beach, Fla., to call — of all things — the U.S. Cheerleading Championships.
He thought his career was over.
He thought there was no way to recover.
He fell into an abyss so deep only one dear friend was capable of pulling him out unscathed thanks to his sage advice: Jack Nicholson.
Lampley is the first one to tell you that luck, as much as preparation, is the driving force behind his broadcasting career. By sheer luck, Lampley found himself calling boxing on ABC Sports when then-president Dennis Swanson sought to drive him away from his lucrative deal and make him quit by assigning him to a sport that would make him look like a fish out of water.
Unbeknownst to Swanson, Lampley had been a lifelong boxing fan. He would eventually replace his good friend and blow-by-blow legend, Barry Tompkins as the face and voice of HBO Championship Boxing for 30 years, from 1988 to 2018, a byproduct of an unparalleled work ethic Lampley exuded in his early days of calling boxing at ABC Sports. That relentless drive to excel caught the eye of one Ross Greenburg, a production assistant at ABC Sports who would later rise to become executive producer of countless boxing telecasts and president of HBO Sports.
The best blow-by-blow announcers are succinct, yet descriptive. They’re studious and knowledgable, but not condescending. They’re prolific storytellers, never attention seekers. And Lampley personifies each of those qualities.
Jim Lampley recalling that famous night when he made that iconic call “It Happened” when the impossible happened!
George Foreman famously became the oldest ever Heavyweight World Champion at age 45, by dethroning Michael Moorer in November 1994.
“Every fight is like a mini-movie with subplots surfacing round by round. Jim Lampley had a keen sense of each fighter’s history, understood their individual stories, could put each fight into instant historic reference, had a photographic memory that recorded each fight of every fighter into his brilliant mind,” Greenburg tells Men’s Journal.
“And then, he could magically meet the moment of a big fight, whether uttering the phrase ‘Mike Tyson has been knocked out‘ when Buster [Douglas] finished him off in the 10th round, or ‘It happened … It happened‘ when George Foreman shocked the world and at 46 knocked out Michael Moorer. The great, iconic, legendary announcers, in any sport, put the entire story of a fight or a game in penetrating focus for the viewer, and then when the moment comes they communicate the high drama in a scintillating fashion.”
Thanks to Turki Al-Sheikh, boxing’s most powerful figure and the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, Lampley will make his ringside comeback on Friday for Ring Magazine‘s outdoor triple-header card, featuring Ryan Garcia, Teofimo Lopez, and Devin Haney, in separate bouts, live from Times Square on DAZN PPV.
Men’s Journal recently caught up with him to discuss his legendary career.
You probably won’t remember but we met nearly a decade ago at Madison Square Garden.
I hope I was friendly and not unfriendly. If I was unfriendly that was because that was the last time I came face to face with Donald Trump. That night, my one-time friend and acquaintance Donald Trump, with whom I socialized, drank, ate, etcetera, for years, strolled onto the floor of the Garden and walked around kind of casing the joint to see the response. And I was watching him.
At one point he turned around he caught my eye. And he smiled. He kind of raised his eyebrows. And he started walking right toward me. This is 2016. We’re in the middle of the presidential campaign, and he’s walking toward me with this look that says, ‘OK, now I’m going to have a positive conversation with my old friend here. Talk about my candidacy, whatever, etcetera.’ And I proceed to dive into my paperwork in front of me and do everything possible to avert my look. And to his credit he gets the message and turns around and goes walking in some other direction to do something else. And that was the last time I was ever face to face with Donald Trump.
And it was interesting because, just with body language and my look and the way I treated it, I offloaded the whole friendship, which had preceded. And I made clear to him my political predilection with regard to his candidacy for the presidency. I probably showed him how lunatic I thought that whole enterprise was, and I’ve never been in that position again. Now, who knows. It could happen again in the future. It was, in a way, a trying moment for me, ‘How exactly am I going to handle this?’ So, I don’t know that I honored or dishonored myself. It was probably somewhere in the middle.
ATLANTIC CITY, NJ – MARCH 18: HBO Sports boxing commentator Jim Lampley provides commentary as he previews the upcoming WBC Heavyweight Championship fight for television viewers between James Toney and Hasim Rahman at Boardwalk Hall on March 18, 2006 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. (Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)
One thing I mentioned to you when we met is that the Mexican community in Los Angeles admires you. I wanted to underscore that notion when we met because of all that you’ve done for the boxing community, our community, their fighters, and my generation.
I really appreciate that comment. And thank you very much. At the risk of taking too much of your time, it has been an ongoing through line in my boxing-based career that I had that particular positive relationship with the Hispanic community. And I owe it all to an eighth-grade Spanish teacher at South Miami Junior High School, whose name was Mrs. Summer. And I don’t know what Mrs. Summer’s Hispanic derivation was, but from her appearance I know that she was of Hispanic decent in some way, shape or form.
Mrs. Summer, in her introductory eighth-grade Spanish course, which I had to take, was fanatical about pronunciation. So, the result of her teaching in that fanaticism about pronunciation was that when Oscar first became a major public figure and everybody else was saying “Oscar De La Ho-LLA,” I was the one who said, “Oscar De La Oh-yuh” and lightened up the H and pronounced it the right way as I understood it from Mrs. Summer.
And there was a moment after a few fights when Oscar pulled me aside after a fight or meeting and said, “You know, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that you properly pronounce my name.” He said, “No other Anglo reporter gets it right. They all hammer the H and you’re the one who understands that it’s supposed to be silent. And oh, by the way, my father appreciates that, too.” So, I’ve always tried to be true to Mrs. Summer’s teachings and to pronounce all the Hispanic names in the classically correct way. And I’ve had tremendous relationships with Hispanic fighters.
Do you view Friday’s call on DAZN as a comeback or are you viewing it as if you’re stepping back into it as if you’ve never left given your work on PPV.com?
I think it’s a comeback and I think I have to prepare as though it’s a comeback. I can’t go in with the complacent, self-satisfied attitude that just because I’m stepping back into the chair I’m sure as good as I always was. No, that’s not the case. I can’t possibly be sure that I’m as good as I always was. Maybe six or seven rounds in I can give you a temperature reading or feedback report on that kind of thing, but to me it’s a meaningful test of how much of my understanding of boxing and my instincts for understanding boxing I’ve managed to hold on to, and how rapidly I can regain my bearings in calling a fight.
It’s a unique kind of television sports commentary. And I am confident. I wouldn’t say that I wasn’t confident. I wouldn’t have agreed to this particular threshold and new arrangement if I weren’t confident. But the last thing in the world I should want to be is over confident. I need to go in extremely respectful of the fact this is a unique kind of television sports commentary. Yes, there was a long period of time when I was seen by a lot of the audience as being very, very good at it, and now I need to go at it second-by-second, minute-by-minute, piece-by-piece, word-by-word and make sure I can still do exactly what I did.
4 Dec 1993: HBO Boxing announcer Jim Lampley during a bout at Ceasars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mandatory Credit: Al Bello/ALLSPORT
If there’s a villain in your memoir it’s former ABC Sports President Dennis Swanson, whom you say did everything in his power to drive you to quit. Unbeknownst to him, Swanson moved you to boxing in hopes of seeing you struggle, but that move led you down a career path that earned you fame and etched your name in boxing lore. So, in some respect, do you kind of thank him for that?
Irony upon irony. It’s almost Shakespearean. He arrives at ABC Sports having been the stations division executive. His big credential was that he had, as the chief executive of WLS-TV Chicago, given a talk show slot to a woman named Oprah Winfrey. Good credential. And so, he arrives at ABC Sports with a reputation for knowing talent, and his one predilection with regard to the talent lineup at ABC Sports is, “Why is Jim Lampley in these positions of prominence and prestige, and how do I get rid of him?”
He looks at me and my personal style and decides, “No way in the world will he ever fit in boxing. He’s going to be a fish out of water in boxing, and the audience will see him as the successor to [legendary broadcaster Howard] Cosell.” I had already suffered a few years before from having been Cosell’s successor on Monday Night Football halftime highlights. That was not exactly a great moment for me. Whether Swanson knew that or didn’t know that, he chose to assign me to boxing. He openly told my agent, “I’m doing this to get rid of him.” His reason to want to get rid of me — his biggest reason — was that I had guarantees in my contract regarding my Olympics arc that he didn’t believe he could tolerate. He just absolutely wasn’t going to allow me to climb the ladder at the Olympics toward the perch that was written into my deals. So, he couldn’t just fire me. He had to get me to voluntarily walk away.
And so he assigned me to boxing. And he did not realize or pay attention to the fact that Alex Wallau, who was running the boxing franchise as an executive for ABC Sports, had signed a get-acquainted, looksy contract with a 19-year-old heavyweight from upstate New York whose name was Mike Tyson. As I’m sure you know, Miguel, my first network television boxing appearance was blow-by-blow for Mike Tyson versus Jesse Ferguson, the famous, “I want to drive his nose-bone into his brain,” fight.
And when Mike said that in the post-fight interview I was standing at ringside saying to myself, silently, “Look at this. Look at what I have now happened into. This kid is not only gonna be the greatest quote machine in boxing, he’s gonna to be the greatest quote machine in sports.” … Later, ironically, Swanson gets attracted to NBC by Dick Ebersol, who had been Roone Arledge’s assistant at ABC, who had run the initial talent hunt for the college age reporter that produced my first network television exposure in 1974. And in constructing NBC’s approach to the Olympics, Dick reaches out and says, “We’re adding hundreds of hours of cable television coverage. It’ll be on both MSNBC and CNBC, and I want you to be the central host. I want you to be in the chair for all these hours of programming and launch our cable project.”
And I thought about it. I eventually said, “Yeah, Dick, I think that’s good. I think I want to do that.” And he said, “Oh, one more thing I should tell you, I have hired Dennis Swanson to be the chairman of the cable project.” I said, “You’ve hired Dennis Swanson to be the chairman of the cable project and you want me to be the central identifiable host?” And he said, “Yes. And I can tell you without equivocation that Dennis totally agrees you are exactly the right person for the job and he wants you just as badly as I do. And I know that you probably do not believe that, but I assure you that, ultimately, you will hear that from him.”
And I trusted Ebersol enough that I decided to take his word for it. And I took the gig. Then it led to several more Olympics that helped me to that totem pole marker of 14 Olympics that, I’m told, no other American broadcaster reached. But at the end of the day I wound up hosting in Sydney, Salt Lake City, Athens, Torino, and in Beijing, all of those Olympics with Dennis Swanson sitting in my control room, every minute of every hour.
And we began every day with, “Hello, Dennis. Hello, Jim.” And we ended every day with, “Good night, Dennis. Good night Jim.” And no other words passed between us. But it’s a tremendous lesson in corporate life and in the way network television sports used to be. The same fools that you meet on the way up you’re gonna see them on the way down, too. So, the simple fact that I could not get away from Dennis Swanson after he had tried to destroy my career was, at first, meddlesome and rankling, and then eventually amusing, and in some ways reassuring. It was everything all wrapped into one package.
Larry Merchant, Lennox Lewis and Jim Lampley *Exclusive* ***Exclusive*** (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc)
As a journalist you’re taught to show no emotion, to not have a rooting interest, and remain objective. But watching you become emotional on TV, from eulogizing your friend Muhammad Ali or paying homage to Miguel Cotto and Juan Manuel Marquez’s long and honorable careers, is being overcome with emotion a constant struggle you deal with when you’re in front of the camera?
Well, there was supposed to be a wall there. And I had many experiences, both as a sports host and anchor and also as a news anchor in Los Angeles. When I learned how incapable I was of sustaining and maintaining that wall in certain situations. The very first day I ever went on the air at KCBS-TV as a news anchor, a lone gunman named Patrick Edward Purdy walked onto a school yard in Stockton, CA and shot 22 elementary school children. And I had to host a few hours of coverage of that situation live. And I was not able to fight off the tears. It was just too devastating to me. And the news director and the people at the assignment desk were very upset. You know, “You can’t do that. You’re not supposed to do that.” And the audience response was overwhelmingly positive. “Thank you for being a real human being.”
So, I learned that if you are convincing enough and if you were real, you could have it both ways. You could deliver the information. You could, in some ways, walk the middle line that made you seem like a purely objective observer. But you could also underline that with a subtitle that sort of said, “I’m a human being, too. I’m just like you at home.” And I got away with it. You’ve mentioned all those boxing-related moments when I broke the wall. And every single time I would finish the telecast I would rebuke myself. I would say to Ross Greenburg or one of the other producers, Dave Harmon, Rick Bernstein, I would say to them, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get that emotional.” By that point, everybody knew me. And most of the people on the telecast would say, “Jim, stop it. The audience knows who you are. The audience loves and appreciates who you are. Don’t stop being who you are. If other people can do this better than you, that’s OK. But at the end of the day, we hired you to be you. The audience wants you to be you, and they know that from time to time they’re going to see that.”
I don’t want this to sound sexist or gratuitist, but as you know from reading the book I was raised by women. I wasn’t raised by men. I was raised by women. And my mother was a deeply emotional Irish-American girl, who taught me that to muscle down and subvert your own feelings was not the right way to live.
If my heart said cry, my job was to cry. And to this day, I can’t stop it when it starts. And I no longer really try to stop it. You can see that I’m glistening right now because I can’t talk about my mother without getting that way. I can’t think about her sitting me down to watch Sugar Ray Robinson versus Bobo Olson in 1955. I can’t think about her dropping me off at the Miami Beach Convention Center for Cassius Clay versus Sonny Liston, Feb. 25, 1964 without feeling this way. It’s a part of the experience. So, sure, would I like never to have cried on the air. I would love that. Would that be me? No.
After the O.J. Simpson verdict was announced on Oct. 3, 1995, you write in the book that you raced to the Lakeside Country Club to look for none other than Jack Nicholson, a boxing fanatic who became a close personal friend. Later in the book you write that Jack “rescued me emotionally and saved my career.” How so?
He saved my career. That’s the bottom line on Jack and me. He saved my career. He saved my career at a moment when I was so down, so bereft. I thought that I had totally blown everything. And I went to him because I knew he had the most educated and thoughtful long-term perspective on what it is to be a public figure and to perform on camera for a living. And he told me two things that I kept with me that helped to save my career, and the first was there are no small parts, only small actors. If they’re going to send you to cover the United States Cheerleading Championships — and Dick Ebersol was in fact doing that after the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta — if that’s the assignment, your job is to be the greatest cheerleading championships commentator of all time, that’s all there is to it. And the second one, which was even more helpful, was longevity is lovability. And I’m living through that right now.
Longevity is lovability. The reason that people are excited and interested in my return to blow-by-blow on this new television venture right now, the reason that that causes a ripple among the boxing audience is because longevity is lovability. They heard me calling fights for 31 years, and on that basis they want to hear me again.
As a boxing fan, I still can’t wrap my head around HBO abandoning boxing. For more than three decades they were synonymous entities. Not only did fans lose Boxing After Dark and Pay-Per-View bouts, but also brilliant productions like the docuseries 24/7 and your in-depth series, The Fight Game.
HBO was a culture and a group of people who worked with each other and influenced each other’s attitudes about artistry over a long period of time, and then eventually the company was bought by, as I like to say, a bunch of cell phone salesmen from Dallas. It was a far different ethos and a far different group of people.
I believe it’s in the book, how one night at [a post-Emmy party in Los Angeles], the chairman of HBO, Richard Plepler, suggested, “Why don’t you go walk over there and talk to that guy in the grey suit. He’s your new boss.” I took his advice, I went over there, spoke to John Stankey, who is [still] the chief executive of AT&T, which was buying the company at that time. And all due respect to Stankey, I’m sure he’s great at what he does, but I went over and had a 15-minute-get-acquainted introductory conversation with him and I went back to Richard’s table and Richard said, “How did that go?’ And I said, ‘Well, as far as I can tell boxing is dead.”
He said, “That was my impression, too. Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.” And sure enough, we were right. And boxing was dead. I wish I knew the reason why. I wish I knew what quantification or cultural observation prompted them to say, “We, as we reshape this into the new thing, Max, should get rid of boxing.” I didn’t get it then, and I don’t get it now. It’s their game now. They bought it. They have the right to do whatever they want to do.
And maybe they can point to balance sheet evidence or some other indicator that says, “Aha, we did exactly the right thing to get rid of boxing.” But I don’t believe that. I think that it was an important characteristic of HBO. I think it was an important touchstone for the viewer. It was drama. It was unpredictable live drama. It was exactly what a drama-based television network should have. It was different from all of the conventional team sports that we see so much of on all of the other networks.
It was something that both paid cable networks, Showtime and HBO, built around and promoted around because they recognized these are human dramas. They are cellular in nature. They are not like anything else in sports, where it’s far more organizational and institutional.
This is about two human beings who go into the ring and breathe on each other and taste each other’s sweat and blood and try to prove minute-by-minute “I’m more man than you are.” There’s nothing like that. And to have wiped it off the face of the television screen to the degree that they did, I don’t get it.
Anyone up for a little artificial intelligence companionship?
If Mark Zuckerberg gets his way, the Facebook honcho envisions a country, and probably a world, where your average person will have a horde of AI friends. He sees a world where Americans will use AI chatbots across the Meta universe to build these AI friendships.
“I think as the personalization loop kicks in, and the AI just starts to get to know you better and better, I think that will just be really compelling,” Zuckerberg said on Dwarkeh Patel’s podcast. “One thing, just from working in social media for a long time, is the average American has fewer than three friends, [people] they consider friends, and the average person has demand for meaningfully more. I think it’s like 15 friends.”
Zuckerberg insists that the average person wants “more connectivity,” a more meaningful connection than they have.
Enter AI companionship. Zuckerberg is adamant that the vision is not all that far-fetched, given people already use AI for a lot of social tasks.
“Already, one of the main things we see people using Meta AI for is talking through difficult conversations that they need to have with people in their lives; ‘I’m having this issue with my girlfriend. Help me have this conversation,’ or, ‘I need to have a hard conversation with my boss at work, how do I have that conversation?’” Zuckerberg says. “That’s pretty helpful. As the personalization loop kicks in and the AI starts to get to know you better and better, that will just be really compelling.”
Zuckerberg explaining how Meta is creating personalized AI friends to supplement your real ones: “The average American has 3 friends, but has demand for 15.” pic.twitter.com/Y9ClAqsbOA
That being said, Zuckerberg is cognizant of the fact that the idea of AI companionship is still super green in society.
“Is this going to replace in-person connections or real life connections, and my default is that the answer to that is probably no,” he says. “I think there are all these things that are better about physical connections when you can have them. But the reality is people don’t have the connection and they feel more alone a lot of the time than they would like.”.
Zuckerberg says there’s a stigma around AI companionship, and his hope is that, over time, people will “find the vocabulary as a society to articulate why it is valuable and why the people that are doing these things are rational about doing it and how it’s adding value to their lives.”
As Zuckerberg sees it, people already use virtual therapists and have virtual girlfriends. So, why not AI companionship? Time will tell.
