College Gameday’s Lee Corso
By Carl Danbury

When you watch ESPN’s College Gameday this fall, keep in mind that analyst Lee Corso only has 30 seconds or so per sound bite to rail about a given subject. After spending 90 minutes with Corso and his son Dan recently, it was apparent Corso has the ability to entertain long past the half-minute mark.

The former head coach at the University of Louisville, Indiana University, Northern Illinois University and the Orlando Renegades of the USFL didn’t “X and O” me to death –that wasn’t necessary. His personal insights and experiences were compelling and sometimes difficult to believe.

While Corso’s comments might be often viewed as good-natured B.S., Corso was sharp on the variety of topics he discussed in an exclusive interview with SportsUnlimited.

Corso stated firmly that neither he, nor the show’s host Chris Fowler, nor Kirk Herbstreit contrives anything for the purpose of hype or good TV.

“Not once [have we done that]. Any time you try to contrive anything it comes across as being a phony and people don’t respect you,” the 71-year-old Corso said. “Our differences of opinion are genuine simply because we disagree. Not one time have we contrived anything to create controversy.”

When he puts on the mascot garb prior to picking the winner of an upcoming game from one of the many campuses College Gameday visits each year, he does so to entertain viewers and the throng of fans that surrounds the stage. While Corso and Herbstreit aren’t always right with their predictions, viewership numbers during the last 15 minutes of each show skyrocket. “The last 15 minutes doubles everything else. You know why: gamblers watch it because that is when we do our predicting,” Corso said.

Corso and Herbstreit can’t use exact point spreads but instead use terminology such as “it will be closer than the experts think, which means the favorite ain’t going to cover,” he said.

The Crew

Corso first appeared on the college football preview show with Tim Brando and Beano Cook. After Brando left the network, Bob Carpenter came in and eventually was replaced by Fowler. When Cook left, Corso and Fowler worked with Craig James, who was eventually replaced by Herbstreit. The current trio enters its 11th year on College Gameday together, one of the highest-rated programs on ESPN.

“My relationship with those guys is good because we’re from a different age group,” Corso said. “Those guys are young enough to be my sons, so we look at things differently, we feel differently about subjects, and we have differing appearances. But the basic principle is that we are in the entertainment business, and college football is our vehicle.” 

 “When you win, there is enough glory for everybody,” he continued. “I think we check our egos at the front door, and that’s hard to find in television because there are so many egotistical guys.”

Herbstreit is not one of them.

“One thing that makes him a good guy is he is a coach’s son,” Corso said winking at Dan. “Coach’s sons are special. They have a little more respect for people, and that is one of the reasons he and I get along so well. His dad was a former captain at Ohio State. In fact, he and his dad are the only two (father and son) in the history of Ohio State that were both captains. He has a great background and is a hard worker.”

The Coach

Corso is entering his 21st season on ESPN. He spent 11 years on the sidelines as an assistant and 17 years as a head coach with a lifetime record of 73-83-6. He said he never considered returning to coaching, not only because no one asked, but because of the advent of what he called “detriments to football coaches.”

“First of all, I thought of the reason why I wouldn’t coach now for any reason in the world, it’s the USA Today, talk shows and those sneaky SOB’s on the Internet. I wouldn’t coach a minute with those things and ESPN. All those are detriments to football coaches because they are all based on innuendos and trying to beat each other [to the story].”

Of the off-season situation at Arkansas, where several parents went to Arkansas athletic director Frank Broyles to voice their displeasure with Houston Nutt, Corso said, “When a guy has his cell phone looked into, because of the Freedom of Information Act, it’s time to get out of coaching.”

What would he have done if parents showed up at his offices at Indiana? “I’d say don’t let the door hit you in the butt when you leave,” he said.

Corso is the first to admit that he does miss the adrenaline rush coaching provides. “When you get out of coaching you never get the same rush. The rush of going into that stadium with the thousands of people there and having the game on the line,” Corso related, “there is nothing like it in any other profession. You can’t get that in television or anything else.”

He also misses coaching because “you never see age. You see guys from ages 17 to 21, and they leave and the cycle starts again. That’s why coaches can stay young because you’re never around age,” Corso related.

Corso got his coaching start at his alma mater, FSU, under the tutelage of Tom Nugent, who was the innovator of the I-formation. As a 22-year-old assistant and coach of the Seminoles freshman team, Corso beat Bobby Bowden’s South Georgia College team, giving Corso a 2-1 record against the legend. Corso and Bowden split meetings when they were at Indiana and West Virginia, respectively.

Corso and his wife Betsy lived in a condemned building not far from the FSU campus while he worked on his Masters degree in academic supervision. He wanted to become a college president. The rent was $47.50 per month, which is why Corso got into coaching. The young couple needed the money.

Corso then followed Nugent to Maryland and in 1961 was asked to perform an overlooked, yet very meaningful task: recruit the first black player in the history of ACC football. He did so successfully.

Darryl Hill, who had played first at Xavier University in Cincinnati and on the freshman team with Roger Staubach at the U.S. Naval Academy, became the first black to play for the University of Maryland in 1963. He caught 11 passes against Clemson in Death Valley, shortly after finding out his mother had been denied entrance to the stadium. Eventually, Mrs. Hill was offered a seat by then Clemson president Robert C. Edwards in his box.

Hill was Corso’s first choice because Corso remembered Hill scoring three times against FSU as a Navy freshman two years earlier. FSU won the game 29-27.

From 1966 to 1968 Corso was an assistant for Bill Elias at Navy. It was there he met a 10-year-old who later became the head coach for the two-time Super Bowl champion New England Patriots.

“Every week, a little kid would come in, sit down with a notebook and we’d talk offensive football. It was Bill Bellichick. His dad Steve and I were close friends on the Navy staff. He, still to this day, says he uses the things he learned at 10 to 12 years old that we used at the Naval Academy,” Corso beamed.

“Before you die, if you’re a college football fan you have to go to an Army-Navy game. You go at 10 o’clock in the morning and watch the brigade of cadets walk in. Then the Midshipmen march in. Then the goat comes in, then the mule comes in, then the bands come in, then the president comes in, and it is the greatest spectacle in college football without question,” Corso related.

“At the end of the game, the single most impressive thing about college football happens. The entire corps from the loser of the game goes to the winner’s side and they sing the other team’s alma mater. Then, the corps of both sides go to the other side and sing arm-in-arm the other team’s alma mater. I still get goose bumps when I think of that.”

Many don’t think the game is as meaningful as it once was because the quality of football isn’t the equal of the SEC, Big Ten or Big 12.

“Well, hell, they all got 1,500 on their boards, they all are going to be military officers, they’re all signing up for five more years and maybe going to Iraq,” Corso said. “You can’t get many guys to do that. But, without a question, they represent the finest young men we have, not only are they great students and great leaders, but they’re football players. To me, there is nothing better.”

Corso fondly recalled the 1967 season, during which Navy beat Michigan, Penn State and Syracuse. While coaching at Navy, he secured an appointment to the academy for current N.C. State coach Tom O’Brien.

Following his college head coaching stints, Corso accepted the head coaching position with the Renegades bringing him and his wife back to Florida for the first time in 26 years. He knew his tenure there might be a bit uncertain given his office situation. “I called my wife and told her ‘don’t unpack because my office is on wheels,’” he chuckled.

Financial Prosperity

Repossessions aren’t commonplace in today’s saturated college football marketplace. ESPN, other networks and the sponsors who enable the deep list of games to be televised every weekend from late August to early January are footing the bill at college campuses from sea to shining sea.

“You cannot run an athletic department on gate receipts. You have to have your piece of the television contract to make money nowadays in college football. Plain and simple, without television, there’s no college football,” Corso related.

Asked if he ever saw a trend reversal with companies pulling the plug on sponsorship dollars, Corso said, “It ain’t going to happen, because somebody is waiting in line to get into it, their competition. If they don’t do it, there is somebody else waiting to do it…College football is the one thing out there that everybody can associate with that’s making money. There are all-time attendance records being set, television ratings are at an all-time high, the money for championships and bowls are at an all-time high.

“It’s based on a solid foundation of years and years of tradition. That’s what the colleges have over pros. There isn’t a sense of ownership over pro teams, but in college there is the mentality of ‘that’s my team.’ That’s the difference.”

It isn’t only college football that can have a positive effect. “There is a direct correlation on how many [football] games they win and how far they go in the [NCAA basketball] tournament and the enrollment,” Corso said.

To illustrate that point, within a year of going to the Final Four, George Mason University was still reaping benefits school-wide as a result of its on-court success. In the first year, freshmen applications increased 20 percent, the number of campus tours for prospective students and parents nearly tripled, alumni registering for the school’s online directory grew by more than 52 percent, donations to the athletic programs increased by 25 percent, and new gifts and pledge payments increased $3.6 million over the prior year.

Asked if he watches some of the less-appealing games on ESPN’s family of networks, Corso said “No. They don’t need anybody to watch it. They don’t care. You know why?” Corso asked rhetorically. “Ninety million people spend $2 a month for ESPN. That’s $180 million a month for just having the station. That’s why Disney/Capital Cities bought ESPN. They didn’t buy it for ABC; they bought it for ESPN. It is the greatest cash cow in business right now.”

Continuing to delve behind the scenes, Corso said, “They’d like to have ratings because then they make more money on advertisements. College Gameday is more than double of what it used to be. We started at 30 minutes and they sold so much (ad time) they went to an hour. They sold more, and went to an hour-and-a-half. Then, they put us on for two hours because they had people waiting in line to buy it.”

That’s good news for Herbstreit, Fowler and Corso. Not only are they part of a show that has been financially successful, but one that has become part of the fabric of college football.

Opportunity Awaits

“One year I picked Fresno State to beat Auburn in the opener,” he said. “Auburn beat them 62-0. So, it was the worst call in the history of television until Kirk Herbstreit lost the Texas-UCLA game. He picked UCLA and Texas won by 63. He now holds the record. But, they still put the signs up: ‘Remember Fresno State.’ That was something like 10 years ago.”

Criticism notwithstanding, Corso believes unpopular opinions are less of an affront to fans with the right approach, one that he has used for two decades.

“I will always be passionate and tell you how I really feel and I will give you a reason why. So, that’s why over the past 20 years I have pissed off everybody in America two or three times – every school. But, fans are less critical when I give them a reason,” he said.

Corso was born in Cicero, Ill. His father had a second-grade education and spent 50 years on his hands and knees as a terrazzo worker after coming to the U.S. at the age of 15 from Fonzaso, Italy. Corso’s mother had a fifth-grade education.

In 1952, after the family moved from the Chicago suburbs to Miami, Corso was offered a $5,000 signing bonus to play baseball.

“I was a pretty good baseball player. Leon Hamilton, a scout for the Dodgers came to see me play in high school, and then I played semi-pro baseball with a bunch of ex-pros and played in state tournaments,” Corso said. “They wanted to send me to Vero Beach and they offered me a $5,000 bonus, which was a helluva lot of money at that time, if I would give up going to college. My dad said forget about it. The No. 1 thing I learned from my dad was that education was the most important thing you could have and No. 2 is that we live in a great country, and what an opportunity we have here.”