ESPN Football Analyst Walks Away, Disturbed by Brain Trauma on Field
“You could put him on any game, and you knew he’d be rock solid
and prepared and opinionated and smart and thoughtful,” said Lee Fitting, an ESPN senior coordinating producer who oversees college football coverage for the network.
I love football — college football, pro football, any kind of football.
“I could hardly disagree with anything he said,” Patrick, who will have a new broadcast
partner this season in Cunningham’s absence, said in a phone interview.
“Announcers are part of the industrial complex of college football,
and I think we’ve turned a blind eye toward the violence — we have to protect these kids,” Cunningham said at the time.
“I don’t feel that my being part of covering the National Football League is perpetuating danger,” he said in a phone interview.
LONG BEACH, Calif. — If Ed Cunningham had not already seen enough, he would be back in a broadcast booth on Saturday
afternoon, serving as the color analyst for another top college football game televised on ABC or ESPN.
“I’ve been in the business 20 years and it’s the first time I’ve ever heard of anything like that,” Fitting said.
“I was being paid a really nice six-figure salary for not a lot of days of work,
and a live television gig that, except for nonsports fans, people would beat me up to take,” Cunningham said.
