On week one of Dream Job, Mike Hall was voted off by America, perhaps because of his reference to Kerri Strug's gold-medal clinching performance in the 1996 Olympics as the greatest sports moment of all time.
On Sunday night, the Missouri senior was voted by America to be the next SportsCenter anchor. He gets a job for one year -- with a salary of $95,000. Not bad for your first out-of-college gig.
ESPN's reality series, hosted by "Boo-yah!" SportsCenter anchor Stuart Scott, had a twist on the final night. One of the usual judges, Washington linebacker Lavar Arrington, couldn't attend due to a preseason minicamp, leaving only three judges.
This pretty much assured that the finalists were going to be Hall and Stanford senior Aaron Levine, who are both journalism majors in college and have a similar delivery and look like, well, every other SportsCenter anchor.
ESPN exec Al Jaffe and PTI co-host Tony Kornheiser both voted off seeming shoo-in winner, 26-year-old Zach Selwyn, in the semi-final voting. Brown senior Maggie Haskins was also cut. The lack of Arrington on the panel meant that Jaffe could essentially handpick the next anchor, or at least the next style of anchor, since he had been down on Zach from the first episode.
While Hall has a nice, new career, Selwyn, the fan favorite, is looking for a job. ESPN probably will find a use for Selwyn, possibly as the host of Around the Horn. Selwyn should be OK. After all, Dave Holmes ended up doing a little better than Jesse Camp, didn't he?
