Kenny Mayne Sports Journalist And Comedian

Kenny Mayne was born on September 1, 1959. He is a sports journalist and a comedian by profession. He is a native of Kent, Washington. In 1978, Mayne was an honorable mention junior college All-American quarterback at Wenatchee Valley Community College in Wenatchee, WA. In 1982, Kenny graduated with a degree in Broadcasting from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He was the back up quarterback in this University and also ahead of future NFL star Randall Cunningham on the depth chart.

Kenny Mayne played football for approximately two years while he was at UNLV and later on he also signed as a free agent with the team Seattle Seahawks. In 1994, Mayne started at ESPN as a Sports Smash anchor on ESPN2, but very soon he moved over to the main network. His dry sense of humor is what he is best known for. He is also famous for his unique home run calls.

Routinely, he used to thank all his viewers for having electricity and the players who used to make mistakes in the outfield were asked to rent the Tom Emanski Defensive Drills video – its endorsed by Fred McGriff. For cheating, often basketball, football and hockey players were penalized. Kenny Mayne also served as a co-anchor of the 11 PM Sports Center, for a time with Dan Patrick after Keith Olberman left ESPN for Fox Sports Network.

Kenny Mayne won a huge following because of his sarcastic catch phrases and dry sense of humor. But some tragedy in his family life and his rocky relationship with the management contributed to him leaving the Sports Center desk two years later. He moved on to an assortment of late night shows on ESPN which were usually re-aired throughout the next morning.
For Mayne, though this move seemed to be like a demotion, due to the shows re-airing throughout the next day as well as for weeks in many cases, he received more airtime. He also opened himself to a larger amount of audience as compared to the late night Sports Center. The game show 2 Minute Drill was also included in his repertoire. Now most often Kenny Mayne can be seen as a commentator for select horse racing events.
Kenny Mayne also provides offbeat feature stories on Sunday NFL Countdown in The Mayne Event a weekly segment. Sports Center also aired a joke on April 7, 2007 in which Mayne tries out for the Los Angeles Galaxy but ESPN NEWS interrupts him, breaking news of him working for ESPN and also his retirement from soccer.

In 1994, ESPN hired him after Mayne had sent a note enquiring whether the network would hire him or not. A one year contract was signed between the channel and Kenny Mayne on January 17, 2007 to do features and cover horse racing and he would return to Sports Center in 2007 for about 50 shows. Wikipedia