SPORTS NIGHT: Great Quotes
Episode 1-11: The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee

[Dan on the air]
Dan: We'll bring you the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat. And, because we've got soccer highlights, the sheer pointlessness of a zero-zero tie.
[Isaac comes into the control booth]
Isaac: What's going on in Chattanooga?
Dana: We don't know.
Isaac: We don't know?
Dana: We don't know.
Isaac: We don't know anything?
Dana: We don't know much.
Isaac: But fundamentally, we're still a newsgathering organization, right?
Dana: Sure.
Isaac: Then what's the problem?
Dana: We're not very good.
Isaac: That's what I thought.
[Dan chases Casey through the hall]
Dan: So what are you planning on cooking tomorrow morning?
Casey: I'm not cooking - it's not a cooking show.
Dan: Are you sure?
Casey: Yeah.
Dan: The View. The one with Barbara Walters and the 4 women who cook?
Casey: They don't cook. It's a news show.
Dan: Who are the other guests?
Casey: It's just me and another guy.
Dan: Who's the other guy?
Casey: It's Wolfgang Puck! You want a piece of me?!
Dan: No -- but thanks.
[Isaac calls Dan into his office]
Isaac: Danny, I need to talk to you.
Dan: Good, 'cause I need to talk to you, too. Who should go first?
Isaac: Since I don't really much care what you have to say, I think it should be me.
Dan [smiling]: Fair enough.
[Isaac asks Dan to do a rah-rah piece for Luther Sachs]
Dan: You really want to do this?
Isaac: No.
Dan: Then don't.
Isaac: There's days, Daniel, when I'm just too tired to fight that man.
Dan: You gotta let us know when it's one of those days, and we'll fight him for you.
Isaac [pointing]: You've got to stop thinking of me as the champion of all things black.
[a young woman, holding some shirts and ties, catches Casey in his office]
Woman: Excuse me, Mr. McCall?
Casey: Yeah.
Woman: Is this a bad time?
Casey: For what?
Woman: I'd like to ask you a question, but if you're preparing for the show - if this is a bad time, I can - I can come ba--
Casey: What's your question?
Woman: What - what's my name?
Casey: What's your name?
Woman: Yes.
Casey: uh . . . What are we doing right now?
Woman: If this is a bad time, I can just come--
Casey: I'm sorry - I'm not very good at remembering names.
Woman: Who was the #2 man on the Boston Red Sox staff in 1977?
Casey: It was Ferguson Jenkins.

Woman: My name is Monica. I'm the assistant wardrobe supervisor for Sports Night as well as 2 other shows here at CSC. I think you hurt the feelings of the woman I work for. Her name is Maureen and she's been working here since the day you started.
Casey: Well - I know - Maureen . . .
Monica: Can I ask you another question?
Casey: I'm - sorry I didn't know your name--
Monica [holding up a tie]: Do you know what color this is?
Casey: It's grey.
[Isaac in his office - it's dark, and he's been watching Roland Shepard's press conference over & over]
Roland Shepard [on TV]: It was very important to my parents and to their parents that I be the first in my family to attend college. But I can't imagine that any of them would feel anything but shame and humiliation at the sight of me playing under that flag. I wish no disrespect to my school, my fellow students, or my teammates. I'll answer any questions you have at this point.
[Isaac's on-air comment]
Casey: Here's Isaac Jaffe, Managing Editor of Sports Night, with an editorial comment. Isaac?
Isaac: Thank you, Casey.
"Exaudio, Comperio, Conloquor" - that's a Latin phrase that translates, "To Listen, to Learn, to Speak." These words are carved into the stone arches that form the undergraduate library at Tennessee Western University. This afternoon, an extraordinary young man named Roland Shepard made what had to have been a excruciating decision. He said he wasn't playing football under a Confederate flag. Six of his teammates then chose not to let Shepard stand alone. And I choose to join them at this moment. In the history of the South there's much to celebrate, and that flag is a desecration of all of it. It's a banner of hatred and separatism. It's a banner of ignorance and violence, and war that pitted brother against brother, and to ask young Black men and women, young Jewish men and women, Asians, Native Americans, to ask Americans to walk beneath its' shadow is a humiliation of irreducible proportions, and we all know it. Tennessee Western has produced some outstanding alumni in the last hundred years. People of wisdom and vision, strength and compassion. One of them is Luther Sachs. Luther Sachs owns Continental Corp which owns the Continental Sports Channel which you're watching right now. Luther Sachs is a generous alumni contributor to Tennessee Western with a considerable influence over its' chancellor Davis Blake, and its' board of trustees. Luther, you've got a phone call to make. You've got to call Chancellor Blake and tell him to take down that flag, or he can stop looking for your checks in the mail. You've got to put those young men back in the classroom, and I mean pronto. These boys are gonna make you proud one day, Luther - I challenge you to do the right thing. Not an unreasonable request to make of a man whose alma mater declares "Exaudio, Comperio, Conloquor" - "To Listen, to Learn, to Speak." In the meantime, G-d go with you Roland Shepard and you Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee - G-d's not done with any of you yet.
Casey: That was our Managing Editor, Isaac Jaffe. We'll be back.
[Dan and Casey, signing off]
(they call out the names of the CSC Sports Night staff - which happen to be the names of real people, on the ABC-TV Sports Night staff...)

mowing the linw
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