Charley Steiner - ESPN

ESPN

Steiner joined ESPN in 1988, primarily as an anchor on SportsCenter. In addition to those duties, he served as the network's lead boxing analyst.

Steiner was involved in many comical situations during his tenure on SportsCenter, including one broadcast when Carl Lewis "sang" The Star-Spangled Banner prior to a New Jersey Nets game. Amused by hearing Lewis' terrible rendition of the song, Steiner simply could not contain himself and began chortling during the SportsCenter show that night, unable to stop until the show ended. His famous comment on the event was that the song had apparently been written by "Francis Scott Off-Key," a pun on the author of the Star-Spangled Banner, Francis Scott Key.

Steiner was featured in a series of well-known television promos from ESPN's This is SportsCenter comical promo campaign. In 1999, amid fears of the Y2K situation, Steiner starred in a promo where the SportsCenter cast spoke about a "contingency plan" at ESPN's studios after Y2K, and Steiner was featured wearing a tie as a head band (along with Braveheart-style face paint) and screaming the phrase "Follow me to freedom!" He later screamed this phrase at Wrigley Field after singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame on August 31, 2005. A second promo featured Steiner being traded from ESPN to Melrose Place in exchange for actor Andrew Shue. While Shue delivers a straight-up report on a meeting with Paul Tagliabue, Steiner is then seen wearing shorts and introduces himself to Laura Leighton (in character as "Sidney Andrews") as the new "pool boy" in the show's apartment complex. Steiner starred in a third promo with boxer Evander Holyfield. In the opening shot, Evander questions Stuart Scott about Steiner's assessment that Holyfield is only the "50th best heavyweight of all-time"; Stuart then deadpans that he meant "the 50th best heavyweight — in Georgia". In the final scene, an angry Holyfield is seen roaming the halls of ESPN screaming, "Charley! Come on out and get your whoopin'! Charley, come on out! Steiner!". Steiner is seen cowering under a desk. And in probably his funniest promo for the This is SportsCenter campaign Steiner talks about how at ESPN the personalities can cover the sports that they enjoy and he says that his is boxing. During the promo several personalities try to pick a fight with him and he walks away from them all until the end when Steiner is getting into his car and Otto the Orange comes up to him and Steiner takes out all of his frustrations out on Otto by punching him square in the face. A clip of this promo was used on SportsCenter's coverage of a 2002 Indianapolis Colts-Philadelphia Eagles game in which the Eagles were defeated by numerous Colts players who'd gone to Syracuse University, the home of the Syracuse Orange and Otto.

On August 9, 2004, Steiner returned to ESPN to co-host an "old school" version of SportsCenter with Bob Ley.

Steiner also hosted a program on the NFL Network called Football America, which ran from 2003 to 2005. He has also been shown in frequent cuts of interviews for the network's NFL Top 10 series, discussing such subjects as former Jets defensive end Mark Gastineau. Cuts of his play-by-play of the Jets' September 1986 overtime victory (51-45) over the Dolphins are used in retrospectives on that game. Steiner was also interviewed on the 1986 New York Jets-Cleveland Browns playoff game in which he proclaimed the Jets would win following a fourth quarter touchdown only to see the Browns tie the game and win in double overtime.