Cutbacks

1097852 So I got to thinking about Gil Parmele. Gil had been around forever. He mostly worked around the assignment desk at ESPN, sending out updates and doing some of the seemingly small things that made this big place run efficiently. He just left the company, and I don't know if I ever thanked Gil for something he did for me. So let me do it here. Way back when I had quit a television job in Seattle for some reason. I had zero money and less of a plan. I tried to do a documentary or two but received no funding. I needed to pay the Honda bill. I took a job assembling garbage cans. I ran out of cans. I took a job selling pre-paid legal insurance. For some reason, ESPN called me at this point. (I'd already had one interview a year before). So ESPN began using me on an as-needed basis. I covered what was going on in Seattle for ESPN, which at the time was about 1/10th its size. There simply wasn't another person available. I ended up doing quite a lot of work. I'd get calls just about every month and sometimes several times a month to go cover the Seahawks, Mariners or Sonics (damn that, also). I was holding out hope for a full time position and Gil Parmele helped keep that hope alive. It was a small thing to him but it was huge in my life. Periodically, he would send me an envelope with labels for the video tapes I would be sending back. Labels in an envelope. That was enough to keep me inspired. Four and a half years of freelance work finally led to a permanent position. There were a bunch of times when I figured there was little hope but then Gil would send an envelope with labels in it. If Gil Parmele, whoever he was, he must have been powerful, was sending me labels in an envelope I figured there just might be more things to cover, more work to be done, more chances to prove I should be there full time. I'd lost touch with that period in my life, when opening the mailbox to an envelope with labels in it would offer a dead broke 33 year old some hope. Gil Parmele provided it. So thanks, Gil. I think I should send him something more than labels, profound as they were to me.  <a href="<object width="440" height="361"><param name="movie" value="http://espn.go.com/broadband/player.swf?mediaId=4246197"/><param name="wmode" value="transparent"/><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"/><embed src="http://espn.go.com/broadband/player.swf?mediaId=4246197" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="440" height="361" allowScriptAccess="always"></embed></object></a> true

2009-06-30T18:47:30Z

88356 4 Cutbacks

2009-08-18T16:16:21Z