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By Nick Prueher
Special to MSN
Athletes have it rough. They batter their bodies to entertain fans, their sports careers are notoriously short-lived, and they never know what to do with themselves after retirement. Maybe that's why so many try to make the transition into television, thinking that their skills on the field will somehow translate into skills in front of the camera. With very few exceptions, they're wrong.
Sports on TV: What to Watch
Michael Strahan is the latest athlete to make the leap with his FOX sitcom "Brothers," but there's a long line of others who helped pave the way. Most of these jocks, who have tasted the thrill of victory in sports, truly experienced the agony of defeat in show business. For their dubious achievements in a wide variety of genres, we hereby induct the inaugural members of the Athlete TV Hall of Shame.
Video: Full episodes and clips of "Brothers"
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Game Show Inductee John McEnroe, "The
Chair"
The former tennis great, infamous for his fiery temper on
the court, has tried to parlay his larger-than-life personality into TV success
on more than one occasion, with mixed results. He held his own as a guest host
on the "Late Show" in 2003
while David Letterman was sidelined with
shingles, but he found himself in over his head while hosting his own CNBC talk
show, "McEnroe," in 2004. The
show, with the unlikable John Fugelsang as sidekick, reportedly received a 0.0
Nielsen rating and was canceled after five months.
But McEnroe really scraped the bottom of the barrel as the host of the gimmicky game show, "The Chair," in 2002. In it, players were outfitted with heart monitoring equipment and strapped into the titular chair, where Johnny Mac would grill them with trivia questions. The twist was that the contestants had to keep their heart rates below a certain level while correctly answering the questions and being subjected to McEnroe's "heart stoppers": loud sirens, pyrotechnics, and close-swinging pendulums designed to raise heart rates.
The problem was that people trying to remain calm for extended periods of time makes for really boring television. And "The Chair" also begged the question, why is John McEnroe hosting? He's a bad boy, yes, but a sadistic torturer? You cannot be serious! Luckily, McEnroe has recently had better TV success, guest starring on a couple episodes of "30 Rock" and spouting off his opinions about wooden rackets as a tennis commentator for the U.S. Open.
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Sitcom Inductee Bob Golic, "Saved by the Bell: The
College Years"
There's no shortage of athletes who've made guest
appearance on sitcoms (Joe Namath on "The Brady
Bunch," Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on "Diff'rent
Strokes," Larry "Grandmama" Johnson on "Family Matters") but it
takes a special breed of shameless ex-jock to become a regular cast member.
Former Milwaukee Brewer Bob Uecker did it on "Mr. Belvedere," George Foreman starred in his own family sitcom, "George," Reggie Theus (Sacramento Kings) and Dick Butkus (Chicago Bears) both played coaches on the teen sitcom, "Hang Time," and former Detroit Lion Alex Karras, who famously punched a horse as Mongo in "Blazing Saddles," played the dad on "Webster." But former NFL defensive lineman Bob Golic makes the Hall of Shame for his role on the insipid prime-time sitcom, "Saved by the Bell: The College Years."
When the guys and gals of Bayside High all end up at the same university, Golic shows up as the new Mr. Belding, a dorm R.A. charged with keeping Zack's crazy schemes in check. Why a beefy, mulleted, 37-year-old man is still living in the dorms is never explained.
Golic is given little to do as the sensitive tough guy, Mike Rogers, but it's probably for the best, as his limited range makes him look really out of place in front of the camera. Still, compared to Dustin Diamond's portrayal of Screech, Golic's performance is downright nuanced.
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