Thread: Patrick to leave ESPN; next career move unknown

Ladies and gentlemen....if The Price is Right......

By Reid Cherner, USA TODAY
Dan Patrick, who said he wanted to breathe "different air" is leaving ESPN after 18 years with the network.
His final radio broadcast will be Aug. 17.
"I think it has been there the last couple of years," Patrick said about his decision to leave. "I was sort of fighting that urge. I didn't want to take what I was doing for granted, and I actually thought I was. I wasn't getting better doing SportsCenter and radio, and I wanted to be true to the product."
Patrick, 51, became a household name and face as a SportsCenter anchor from 1989-2006. Since 1999 he also has done The Dan Patrick Show on radio for the network that has 700 radio affiliates and has been a host on the NBA show on ABC.

BLOG: More on Patrick's departure
"I needed to exhale, to be able to breathe for once," he said. "Sometimes you suffocate yourself with a job and don't really realize it. I think that maybe is what I did."
Patrick who said "I've never been a free agent," gave no indication of what he would do after ESPN.
"I didn't leave with something in mind, and that is probably not the best business decision you make," he said. "But I still want to do radio, I love the format and I don't want to do TV like I once did. I said goodbye without exactly knowing where I'm going to say hello to."
In 2000, Patrick was given the National Sportscaster of the Year award by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. He won a Sports Emmy Award as a studio host in 1998.
Now he looks forward to being clueless about his future.
"If its three months, six months, a year, I'm OK with that," Patrick said about his next career move. "I don't have any magic potion here that says I know what I'm doing. It's kind of refreshing that I don't know because for the last 18 years I knew where I was and what I had to do."
Expected to make an announcement last week, Patrick said ESPN asked him to reconsider.
"Dan has accomplished so much over the past two decades at ESPN and fans and newsmakers have turned to him for his steady and trusted approach," ESPN executive vice president Norby Williamson said in a statement.
Patrick has already told friends there will be no second guessing.
"(Keith) Olbermann said he would be my Dr. Phil if I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and need to call him and say 'what exactly have I done?' "
But Patrick told the MSNBC host, and a daily contributor to his radio show there will be no panic calls.
"I said I won't look back," Patrick said. "I'm doing it for the right reasons."

Yeah, I was getting pretty pissed off listening to those clowns talk during someone's round. As for Patrick, I haven't enjoyed watching him for years now, and just like Shiz, I'm getting tired of ESPN as a whole also. The only show I enjoy is PTI just because I think that Kornheiser and Wilbon are so brilliant together. Then the network to had to go and do what it always does and make twelve versions of the same thing.