Dick Ebersol suffered a heart attack in 1996 and was hospitalized while in San Antonio for the NBA All-Star Game. These are his memories of that weekend:
“We got to San Antonio for the All-Star Game on Thursday night. The night before in New York, I had dinner with Dick Schultz, who was then the head of the USOC. Leaving the dinner, I walked two blocks back to our apartment and felt something in my chest. It was a tightness — enough to think about. But I went home and went to bed.
“The next day I went to work and I felt it again midway through the morning. So I went to see the NBC doctor, who gave me an EKG. He told me that I should not go to the All-Star Game. I told him, ‘The plane — the GE jet — is sitting at Teterboro [N.J.], and in a few minutes David Stern and Bob Wright are going to be waiting for me. I’m going.’
“I was OK on the plane. We got to San Antonio in the early evening. Wright and I went out for a walk around the River Walk. We were almost directly in front of the Alamo when I felt this enormous weight on my chest. I did not say a word about it, and about 30 seconds later Bob Wright said, ‘There’s a place over there, let’s go there and have a drink.’
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Ebersol reflects on his heart attack in 1996 and how it changed his view on life.
Photo by: PATRICK E. MCCARTHY
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“I’m not a big drinker. In fact, in my world today, I drink non-alcoholic beer about 80 percent of the time. I drink no hard liquor at all. I ordered something that I have never ordered before. I ordered two double scotches without water. I was self-medicating, but it took the pain away.
“I walked back to the hotel about an hour and a half later with him. We had suites across the hall from one another. I called my longtime assistant, Aimee Leone, who’s now the head of the speakers bureau at IMG. It’s midnight, and I call her up in her room and say, ‘Hey, I may need to see you up here.’ It was the first time she was traveling with me. As years went on, she would say to me later, ‘I was wondering what the hell was going on with you asking me to come to your room at midnight.’
“She came to the room, and I said, ‘Stay by the door, but I need you to do me a favor. Call the GE health line.’ I describe to her what had happened to me. I said, ‘Ask them if there is some great facility in San Antonio, and we’ll go there first thing in the morning.’ She argued with me and said we’ll go tonight. I said, no, we won’t.
“I was doing everything you shouldn’t do.
“She called me about a half-hour later. She said the University Hospital in San Antonio is one of the best facilities in the world. They’re one of the three or four hospitals that did all the experimental work on the stent.
“We go down through the lobby the next morning. There’s Ken Schanzer and a whole bunch of other people who work for me who were getting ready to go play golf. They were there to entertain clients and business associates. I was there to supervise the production — which was my favorite part of the job anyway.
“People feel not just admiration and respect for him. They feel affection. There’s a warmth in his personality. He’s extremely perceptive about the strengths and weaknesses of other people. He knows the things that matter to people. He remembers anniversaries, birthdays, names of kids.
“We had a relationship that went beyond sports. We have a very close friendship that encompasses both the professional and the personal.”
— Bob Costas,
broadcaster
“Aimee and I walked through the lobby, said hello to everybody, got in the car and drove out to the hospital. I get out and walk into the hospital and said that I wanted to see a specific doctor. They told me it would be two hours.
“I got back in the car and said, ‘Aimee, this is bullshit. We’re going back to the hotel.’ She said, ‘You sit here. Enough of your nonsense.’ She went in and within two minutes I was in a room in an emergency room being hooked up. Within 10 minutes I was on my way to an operating room.
“That was a Friday. I was in the hospital until Tuesday. I stayed two extra days in San Antonio, flew home and took three weeks off, went back to work and never thought about it again. It worked pretty well for a long time. Now, over the last 3 1/2 or four years — since I stopped working — it is not even a consideration.
“After lying in bed a couple of days, I called Schanzer back in New York. I said that we have a wonderful organization, but we have a couple of assholes. I don’t ever want to have any again when I come back. I don’t want to waste any time on anybody in our employ who isn’t excited and happy to have a job in this business. I don’t want anyone looking for some excuse to explode because of some personal quirk they have and mistreat other people and scream at television trucks.
“I said, ‘I want you to get rid of two people.’ He did within two days. I was amazed at the number of people who wrote in appreciation.”
— Compiled by John Ourand
