ESPN's Kevin Negandhi chats about his new contract, Temple's impact on his career

Kevin Neghandi is just one of many famous alumni of Temple University's School of Media and Communication, but these days he's one of the best-known. The Phoenixville native hosts ESPN's 7 a.m. weekday edition of SportsCenter, and recently signed a multi-year contract extension with the network.

I chatted with Negandhi about his new deal at ESPN, the impact Temple has had on his broadcasting career, and passing his love of the Phillie Phanatic on to his kids.

Coincidentally, the Phanatic was in Bristol on the same day that ESPN announced your extension. Did the Phanatic deliver the new contract to you?

Ha. No, not at all. The backstory on the Phanatic is actually pretty funny. I took my two-year-old boy and my four-year-old boy to their first baseball game this summer. Living in Connecticut, we don't get the chance to routinely go to Citizens Bank Park, so this was their first game.

For the last, I'd say, three to four months before we went down, I had shown then on YouTube a video of the Phanatic and his shenanigans. And they would just lose it. It was kind of a cool connection for me with my boys, from one generation to another, because I'm laughing as loud as they are, and they just fell in love with the Phanatic's antics. With [former Dodgers manager Tommy] Lasorda, the stuffed Lasorda, and he's throwing it around.

So we go to the game. It's my four-year-old's first game, so he wants to go get something to eat, of course, because he's at the ballpark and he sees everybody has something. We go early in the game to get something, and the Phanatic shows up in our row and we're not there.

My two-year-old gets to see him, but my two-year-old is still scared of mascots and Santa Claus. So he was like, okay, you stay over there and I'm staying over here. My four-year-old got wind of it, because my wife texted me and said, "The Phanatic's here," and I couldn't make it in time, because obviously he had a job to do.My four-year-old had a meltdown. He was so upset.

The rest of the game, the next seven innings, every time the Phanatic was on the field, he asked me, "Why isn't he coming over here? Why is he over there?" Trying to explain that to a four-year-old, they don't understand.

So coincidentally, Tom [Burgoyne], who's the Phanatic, we got in touch, and I explained the story to him. I know we've had people up here in the studio before, and I said, "Hey, listen - you want to come up?" He was telling me about his book, and I was like, "Do you think this is even possible?" and he said, "Yeah, that would be great."

We put something together, and it worked out, and coincidentally all this happened on the same day. It was very cool, and then I had the chance to go to day-care after the show to get my two-year-old and four-year-old, and they got the chance to meet him. My two-year-old lost his mind screaming because he was so terrified, and my four-year-old lost his mind because he was so happy. It worked out great.

What does it mean to you to be able to stay at ESPN? You've been there for 10 years already and it seems clear that you really want to stay there.

I've wanted to work at ESPN since I was 14. This crazy dream of a kid who is just getting into high school and thinks, "Wow, I want to do that," unaware of how tough the journey is to get there. Then once you're there, being able to stay there.It's extremely tough.

I tell a lot of college kids: "Dream big and don't be afraid to dream, but also have a backup plan, because there are less than 40 anchors at ESPN, and there are a lot more out there trying to grind and cut their teeth and survive in the local business - which can be very tough when you're working long hours and you're in a department of maybe two or three people."

When I first got here, for me it was a dream come true. But you get to a point where once you reach that dream, it's like, "Okay, how do I stay here?" I can only compare it to somebody trying to make it professionally in the NFL or the NBA, where the numbers shrink drastically on every level. And once you're there, you can have an average of a three-year shelf life, and then you're gone. So you had better figure it out.

And that could be the same instance here, you know? You're going on contracts that range from three to five years, and you're judged on every show. So maintaining that, and to be able to have 10 years under my belt this month, and to be able to say, "Okay, there's more things in front of me, there's more challenges ahead," I'm really happy about having that opportunity.

And also growing with this company, because I think ESPN and SportsCenter, we continue to evolve. To be a part of the future plans, that means the world.

You talked about how tough it can be to sustain a career at ESPN through multiple contracts and all these other things. There's also more competition out there than there has ever been, from Fox and NBC and others.

I know you might not be able to say too much about that - especially the friction between ESPN and Fox - but it's nothing new that people move from one TV network to another during their careers. Does that make it even more meaningful to stay in one place for a long time?

Yes, it does. Because we as anchors have our own dreams and visions of the future. But this message from ESPN is that they have dreams for more opportunities for me. It's a mutual thing. They believe in what I've been doing, especially the last six years on the morning show.

We're completing our eighth month of doing it as a completely new concept at 7 a.m. The previous five years, with Hannah Storm at 9 a.m. on the first live show every single day for SportsCenter, I took great pride in doing that and making sure that I was getting better and that the product was at a high level.

So yeah, the competition is out there. But I think anybody will tell you here that we enjoy competition. Competition is a good thing. It's the only way you get better. It's the only way you measure yourself on how you can get better - to be pushed. And when you look at the games we're talking about, the only way people get better is when they're pushed. So having that competition outside, that's reality.

And I think anybody that walks through this door and says they don't want competition, they're not going to last long. Because that's where you're going to get tested. There are so many more challenges, there are so many ways to have access to sports.

We see the evolution of digital, and how you can have access to the phone so easily, to the tablet so easily. Here's the thing, though - one cool thing about the evolution here, of ESPN catching up to everything, is we have WatchESPN. So you can take us on the road. We talk about that all the time on the air, that those numbers are increasing exponentially when you're watching games in environments where you can't find a standard TV and sit down. You can take it with you.

I know I've done that on many occasions, where I'm at an event and I need to take a look at my phone. I can just pop on to the ESPN app. And that's not me trying to sell anything, it's just me trying to say that there's a way to adapt to the competition. There's a way to have continued access. And we're exploring that. We're doing it, I think, quite well.

A common refrain that I have heard from people I know who've been at ESPN for a long time is that while there are plenty of big egos in the media, the people who really want to be at ESPN for a long time don't think that they're bigger than the company. Which is not just true of ESPN, of course, but of lots of places. You seem to be among that group too.

First off, when I came here - and I'm being very honest here, as I've been - you meet guys like Bob Ley, and you talk to him every day, and you are looking at a legend and an icon, and he doesn't think he's bigger than the company because he's been here from the start, when he has every right to.

I have never admired or looked up to somebody more professionally than Bob, because he is the gold standard in every possible way when it comes to what you do on air, and also how to act behind the scenes. He loves the crew that he's with, but listen - Bob gets it, Bob's aware, but Bob also knows that he's part of a team. It's not me and the team, it's me with the team.

When Chris Berman comes up to you and says, "Hey, I've been watching a lot of what you've been doing, and you've been doing an excellent job"; or he comes up and he's bringing up what's been going on with the Eagles lately and how they've been playing; you get a feeling [that] if the guys on top are completely aware of who they are and aware of their place, then how can anybody else think differently?

And I'm not saying that I would be different, because I'm not - that's just not in my DNA. But we've got some guys around that set the example that I've always looked up to. Like the [Mike] Tiricos, the Bob Leys, and mentioning [Chris] Berman. The late John Saunders was so good to me. [Scott] Van Pelt, who's great. Steve Levy, John Anderson, [John] Buccigross, Linda Cohn. I'm talking about people that have been here and seen everything. Jeremy Schaap.

I could just talk to those guys and we don't miss a beat. If they don't bring an ego to the table, when all the people I've just mentioned can bring an ego to the table, I think that sets an example for everybody below.

Again, I go back to sports comparisons: if you have your biggest star come inside a locker room, and you see the way Tom Brady acts, and he sets the tone inside the locker room, everybody inside that Patriots locker room is going to follow the leader. Because they see the leader set the tone by how he acts, how he knows that he's part of the team - he's not the team, or he's not bigger than the team. That goes such a long way when it goes to presence.

I'm lucky enough to interact with all those guys. I'm lucky to work with Jay Harris and Jaymee [Sire] and Sarina [Morales], where anybody, literally anybody, that walks through that door could come in with an ego. And you'd better have an ego, in a sense that's healthy and confident. But not an ego that's saying "This is my space." You don't get that often here.

Everybody knows that you're a very proud Temple alum. There are lots of people in the local and national media who are products of the school's journalism program, but you're in a particularly big spotlight because of your role at ESPN. What's it like for you to know how many current students and recent alumni look up to you?

I take it pretty seriously. Originally, my story was that Temple was not in the plans. When I applied to schools, my goal was to go to Syracuse. I wanted to be the next Bob Costas. I just thought Costas, Tirico, those were the guys I wanted to follow. The Marv Alberts of the world. And what did they do? They went to Syracuse. Everybody goes to Syracuse, so I had to go to Syracuse.

My mom insisted, "Hey, look local." And like any 18-year-old, I was like, "I'm not looking local, I'm going far away." So I went to Syracuse. I chose Syracuse over Southern California. I was there for a semester, and I looked around and I saw a lot of people wanting to do what I wanted to do, and I saw that my opportunity wasn't going to be there, probably, until my sophomore or junior year.

And when I say opportunity, that is getting experience at the paper or the radio station. There's just so many people there that want to be the next Costas or the next superstar journalist or broadcaster.

I thought, about two months into my experience at Syracuse, that I ought to look into Temple. I did a little research and found out that they were one of the better schools on the east coast when it comes to communications. And then I went even further. This was market four [the fourth-largest TV ratings market in the U.S.], and I started doing some research about who was working where in the Philadelphia market.I kept on coming up with people that went to Temple.

Somebody told me that contacts play a huge role, and if you're going to go to an area, make sure you know that there's a good system built in where you can develop contacts. Philadelphia was perfect for me.

So I came back at 19 and I got involved heavily. I was with Harry Kalas in the Phillies' broadcast booth when I was 20 years old. Then, bringing up what you brought up - I'm doing internships at Channel 6, Channel 10, WIP [and] I'm running into so many Temple grads. At 19, 20, 21 [years old], that gave me so much confidence and pride that the degree had value, that it had weight in this industry.

For me to be able to add that extra weight as well, to represent the school, to represent a lot of what Temple is, the good of Temple, on TV every day, I'm not shy about it. I'm proud of that school. I've said this before: the best decision I've ever made in my career was transferring to Temple, because it gave me opportunity.I've told this many times to kids when I've been down there. Temple will give you opportunity. It's up to you to take advantage of it. I'm the perfect example of taking advantage of that opportunity.

In [this] market I was at the Iverson crossover game, I was there the night Iverson got drafted. I was covering many John Chaney big events in the mid-90's where they were playing teams that were No. 1 in the country, like Duke coming into town. You're put in environments where you can see what professionals are doing on a daily basis, and that's what the Temple experience gave me.

It gave me real-life application at a college level, so when I came out of school I felt like I was more prepared than if I went into an environment that was just college-only. I don't think I would have had some of the advantages I felt like I did at 23, 24 years old when I'm inside a Chiefs locker room or I'm interviewing somebody from the Rams in my first job.

So for me to be able to be somebody that Temple students can look up to, I'm proud of that and I'm going to try to continue that because I think the next generation that's going to come out of Temple is going to produce some high-quality talent.

The system that they have there, the school that they have there with David Boardman and Betsy Leebron [her last name is now Tuttleman] - who's somebody that has mentored me - there's some great professors and programs there. And it starts with my experience there, with the late Rick Beardsley [who worked at Temple for over a quarter-century] as well as Betsy Leebron.

And that was before the football team got good.

Oh, gosh, yeah. I think they won a total of seven games when I was there. You know, the one thing that helped me with, though: it helped me to find ways to ask different questions [and] find ways to find stories. When you're covering a team that's just down on their luck and a program that's just - at the time, we had Henry Burris and a couple of other guys that made it to the pros, like Lance Johnstone and Alshermond Singleton.

It also gave me the idea that, wait a second, these guys are on teams that are not producing, but they still have the opportunity to go to the NFL. And I think it allows a kid to see people facing adversity but still finding ways to reach their dreams.

You've worked the Women's Final Four, the Spelling Bee, you've hosted NFL Live and Baseball Tonight, and you're on SportsCenter now. What do you want to do in the future at ESPN?

I love college football and I love the NFL. The idea of being in studio, hosting college football, to me, is fantastic. I look at Rece Davis as a guy that I take a lot from. His style, how he handles things, the environment. The idea of [hosting] GameDay, for me, would be a phenomenal challenge. I love the NBA as well.

So to me, if it comes to being able to be a studio host or a game host for the weekend, when it comes to College GameDay, or it comes to the NFL, on one of the networks - who know how this is evolving here when it comes to who's got broadcasting rights down the road. But if you're hosting pregame or halftime for the NFL or college football or the NBA, those are the things that I look at. Because to me, those sports are challenging when it comes to environments and covering games.

I love the idea that somebody is welcoming us to their living room - or their iPad or little phone - and we get the chance to set up what they're about to see. And then we get the chance to react to what they just saw by speaking to analysts and bringing out the best of them in conversation. To me, facilitating those conversations is something that I have the most fun with. And you see that when you watch SportsCenter, when we do game reactions and stuff like that.

To be able to continue to be challenged, that's all I want. I'm very lucky to have that opportunity and to get a taste of it and continue to do it. I also think that at 41, there are more challenges in front of me in the next 10 years.