The Newy Factor

But after a while, when his guard goes down a bit and he becomes more contemplative, he will acknowledge that, if nothing else, a young black man seeing a black face in the TV anchor seat can only be a good thing.

"You know, my parents grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, at a time when that was the worst place for a black person to live in America," Scruggs says as he sips his drink, long after he's finished his pizza, after the tables full of college kids have left and the din has diminished. "Back then, you never saw black faces on TV. So when I told them I wanted to be a sportscaster, they weren't too happy. They didn't understand. So where I've gotten now is important to me that they saw that."

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Scruggs had the typical hopscotch upbringing of an Army kid; born in Wiesbaden, Germany, jumping to Fort Bragg in North Carolina to Fort Hood in Killeen, and finally growing up during his late elementary and middle school years in Savannah, Georgia. It was there where, in fifth grade, Scruggs found his calling.

For a class play, the teacher suggested they stage a newscast. Scruggs was selected as sports anchor. He says he knew right away he was good at it. He started paying more attention to Irv Cross and Bryant Gumbel. Even when he moved back to North Carolina, he checked out books about broadcasting and asked instructors for advice. When he was contemplating trying to get a scholarship to the University of North Carolina, he was told that he should consider a smaller school where he could get hands-on broadcast experience right away. NC-Pembroke was such a place.

It was here where his Omega Psi Phi fraternity buddies christened him Newdawg and where, by his senior year, he was a video photographer for a local affiliate. When the weekend sports anchor was fired, Scruggs got his job.

When he graduated in 1993, Scruggs got a gig as a sports reporter at an Austin station, KVUE, where he worked with current Channel 11 weather forecaster Kristine Kahanek. By December '94, it was off to Cleveland as a weekend sports anchor. A year later--"I loved Cleveland, I hated the cold," he says--he landed an awful job in a great market: lead sports anchor at the UPN affiliate in Los Angeles. He was 23.

Counting the Spanish-language stations, the UPN station was dead last, the ninth-rated broadcast in town. It was a no-lose situation for Scruggs, as long as he could handle the nightlife. ("I was in my early and mid-20s in Los Angeles, and I was on TV," he says, laughing. "I partied just a little.") The ratings climbed, and he launched a Sunday-night sports show in 1997. He won Associated Press awards for best sportscasts in 1998 and 1999. He began filling in as guest host for nationally syndicated radio talker Jim Rome, whose show was broadcast from L.A. (Some of his most potent memories are from his in-studio interviews with former L.A. Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda: "He had 70-year-old-man gas. He didn't care. He'd just let it rip. It was awful.") From that, he got his own afternoon drive-time sports-talk slot.

Then, as he puts it, "I played a game of chicken with my station. And I lost." When his contract expired and they couldn't agree on new terms, Scruggs found himself a radio host only. He'd overplayed his hand but was still making enough money from radio and side projects to stay in L.A. if he wanted. He says he realized the other jobs were fun, but sports anchoring is what he wanted to do full time. His agent called with an opening: Channel 5 in Dallas.

Scruggs missed Texas and good Mexican food, but he feared coming to Dallas, settling down, getting married, having a kid. (This is exactly what came to pass, of course: He and his wife, whom he met during a halftime contest at a Mavericks game, live on Lake Arlington with their newborn daughter.)

Despite what Scruggs says was "the worst interview I've ever had," Channel 5 hired him in April 2000. The station had been trying to figure out a way to move out Scott Murray, who'd been hammered by Hansen in the ratings for years on Sunday nights despite the station's recent ratings victories over longtime dominator Channel 8 at 10 p.m. weeknights. They had tried Hansen's former No. 2, Brian Jensen, who came off as Hansen-lite, and that hadn't worked. So they went with Hansen's opposite.

In seemingly every way. "Everyone likes Newy," says a Channel 5 on-air staffer whom I quizzed on background specifically because he would tell me the juicy, behind-the-scenes dirt. "I can't think of anyone who doesn't think he's a good guy. Hmm. You want something on Mike Snyder? I can talk all day."

Hansen, however, is a controversial figure even within his own station. He would tell you it's precisely this quality that made him No. 1 all these years, albeit precariously of late. He shrugs off the criticisms of himself as a bomb-thrower who doesn't go to games or comb the locker rooms by pointing out that this is exactly why he can be straightforward when it comes time to criticize a player, coach or owner. It is what makes him unique. And, although he doesn't say it, you know when he points out that Scruggs, Laufenberg and Channel 4's Mike Doocy (whose shows run at different times than his competitors, which makes comparisons tough) do things "I think are pretty weird sometimes," what he means is, they're soft, I'm tough. A point that's easy to concede.