The Most Popular ESPN SportsCenter Personalities: From Most Hated to Most Tolerable

"If you're a fan, what you will see in the next minutes, hours, and days to follow may convince you that you've gone to sports heaven…"

On September 7, 1979, those were the first words spoken by Lee Leonard during the debut of ESPN's new daily sports television show called SportsCenter. And Leonard—who was seated next to his co-anchor George Grande at the time—was right. SportsCenter was a dream come true for many sports fans. At the time, there were very few shows that were devoted solely to sports. So SportsCenter was a godsend for fans who wanted to park themselves in front of their TVs and hear about nothing but sports.

Since that day, SportsCenter—which has now aired more than 50,000 original episodes since 1979—has grown by leaps and bounds. It's now shown live up to 12 times every day on ESPN, ESPN2, and other ESPN-owned channels, meaning it's damn-near impossible to escape the iconic SportsCenter theme song ("dun-nuh-nuh, dun-nuh-nuh"). It broadcasts from studios in both Bristol, Conn.—where ESPN has its headquarters—and Los Angeles. And in addition to sports highlights, the show now features commentary, debate, and feature stories on athletes.

There's one other thing that has also changed over the course of the last 35 years, too—the anchors who host SportsCenter. Since it first started airing in 1979, there have been dozens and dozens of anchors who have come and gone, some lasting just a year or two and others lasting for a decade or more. So to help celebrate the 35th anniversary of the show, we thought we'd take a look back at some of the most memorable SportsCenter anchors of all time. These are The Most Popular ESPN SportsCenter Personalities: From Most Hated to Most Tolerable.

Chris Berman

Years: 1979-Present

He’s been a company man through and through, both with ESPN (who he’s been with since all but the first month of the network's inception) and the NFL (which should be a little more disconcerting for viewers). When ESPN took a bizarre foray into scripted television with the 2003 drama Playmakers, the NFL wanted it yanked because how dare somebody sully their brand. “Boomer” (the nickname of the man who loves nicknames) was all for this overreach of authority against his own employer of 24 years saying “I'm a simple guy. I don't watch TV. I don't go on the Internet. So I never watched Playmakers, but I knew if the league was pissed, I probably should be pissed.” And with that quote viewers knew exactly where ESPN stood on objectivity as it relates to the NFL.

Craig Kilborn

Years: 1993-1996

Kilborn—who left ESPN in '96 to host Comedy Central's The Daily Show before eventually becoming the host of the late-night talk show, The Late Late Show—was an acquired taste for many ESPN viewers. Some loved the fact that he sprinkled pop culture references into his highlights and relied on catch phrases like "Jumanji!" to punctuate big plays. But others, including some of his own bosses, complained that his highlights got a little bit too colorful. Either way, Kilborn was open and honest about the fact that he was always working towards a career in comedy, even when he was hosting SportsCenter regularly.

"I was always a comedic guy and I was hesitant to get into ESPN because I wanted to get into comedy," he said during an interview with AOL in 2010. "But it was such a great gig that I said yes."

Keith Olbermann

Years: 1992-1997

When ESPN really started to take-off they needed a marquee name to continue building momentum and eventually transform into the dynamo you know today. That name became Keith Olbermann, an anchor out of Los Angeles who’d won 11 Golden Mike Awards in a very short time. Over the course of five years, Olbermann teamed with Dan Patrick to form the ‘90s A-Team, while secretly clashing with management behind the scenes. Eventually he left the network and burned the bridge linking the two, seemingly making any return to ESPN impossible without the use of some sort of homemade hovercraft. But that’s the thing, eventually Olbermann did come back with his own show on ESPN2, which is a testament to how damn good he is. In an industry that’s extremely boring, he comes up with unique takes night after night, which is why the world (and his employer) continues to put up with his sanctimonious shtick.

Neil Everett

Years: 2000-Present

You may know him as the guy who says “Howzit?” Or as the guy who makes Big Lebowski references, or “Bartender, Jack!” or whatever other catchphrase he has. But our favorite Neil Everett moment came just a few weeks ago when the veteran host blatantly critiqued the network that’d been writing him checks for the past 14 years by pointing out its obsession with regurgitating the same plot lines night after night, week after week. This, of course, led to one of the more awkward segues in TV sports history.

Charley Steiner

Years: 1987-2002

Steiner's "This Is SportsCenter" commercials are legendary. That Y2K one where he tied his tie around his head and ran around? CLASSIC! But as a SportsCenter anchor, his biggest claim to fame was laughing at a clip of Carl Lewis singing the National Anthem in 1993 and not being able to stop. He was an entertaining guy and, if he were still working at ESPN today, YouTube would be filled with clips of him.

Trey Wingo

Years: Unknown

A lot of us can look at Trey Wingo (proprietor of one of the goofiest fuckin' names in television history) and see him as a less charismatic Chris Berman. That's not necessarily a bad thing when you consider that Boomer is often overbearing. But Wingo centers on the same sport. He herds the NFL yahoos/analysts during the week on NFL Primetime, and also contributes to the network when they host the NFL Draft. If you feel like you see him on the air a lot don't blame Wingo blame a public who never stops hungering for the NFL, even during the doldrums of March.

John Buccigross

Years: 1996-Present

Although Buccigross has been with ESPN for nearly two decades now, he only just recently slipped onto our radar. Reason being, he started to call himself "Bucci Mane" (ha!) and making frequent references to A$AP Ferg and the A$AP Mob during SportsCenter highlights. Frankly, it's a little weird. But hey, any guy who's down with Gucci is down with us—even if he does love hockey more than any other sport out there.

Stan Verrett

Years: 2000-Present

When ESPN finally decided to tap into its inner-Manifest Destiny and expand westward in 2009, they chose both Stan Verrett and Neil Everett to step-up and host the 10 p.m. PST version (also known as the episode that airs while you're sleeping). Obviously, the network found the two likable enough to appeal to the massive market on the West Coast who've lived their entire lives with news companies packing it in for the night just when they begin to unwind and eat dinner. It was a great opportunity for two veteran anchors to build their legacies/rapport, even if they had to move to boring Los Angeles after being exposed to the excitement of Connecticut.

Hannah Storm

Years: 2008-Present

Anyone out there remember the show CNN Sports Tonight? No? Well, you're not alone. It actually existed on CNN for quite some time, but you were probably too busy watching SportsCenter to notice. That's where Storm got her start in the late 1980s, though, and after stops at NBC and CBS News—where she covered sports as well as major news events like presidential elections and the Iraq War—she arrived at ESPN. All of that experience did her well, too, as she's become a regular on SportsCenter and also handled a bunch of other duties for ESPN. And she gets extra points from us for surviving a propane gas grill accident in December 2012 that left her with second-degree burns on her chest and hands…and then returning to work less than three weeks later.

Steve Levy

Years: 1993-Present

Remember the time an ESPN employee in charge of running a SportsCenter teleprompter accidentally typed the words "bulging dik" into the machine instead of "bulging disk" and….HAHAHA. Yeah, that happened. But as they say, it happens to the best of 'em and, over the years, Levy has proven to be one of the best SportsCenter anchors in the business. It's why he's been doing his job—and doing his job well—for so long. And it's why we don't see ESPN getting rid of him anytime soon.

Sage Steele

Years: 2007-Present

It should become evident to anybody reading that this list is about SportsCenter (We mean, you did see the title right?). However, ESPN's signature program is but a stepping stone to hosting more specialized shows that are still part of the company's brand. After six years of hosting SportsCenter, anchor Sage Steele was promoted to the same position for NBA Countdown this past season, where her most memorable moment came from a very obvious (at least in GIF form) eye roll caused by analyst Bill Simmons. While it's generally agreed upon that TV Simmons doesn't hold a candle to Simmons-in-print, it doesn't matter anymore for Steele, as the long-time columnist will have his own show debuting in October where he'll control the tempo and the eye rolls.

John Anderson

Years: 1999-Present

While we just talked about how Sage Steele's perseverance eventually landed her as the host of NBA Countdown, we transition to a guy who saw his hard work pay off in the form of a co-hosting gig on Wipeout. That means his decade of ESPN loyalty rewarded him with the task of narrating the same joke over, and over, and over again.

Stuart Scott

Years: 1993-Present

When you think of the many catch phrases that have originated on SportsCenter, there are so many of Scott's phrases that come to mind. From "Booyah!" to "As cool as the other side of the pillow" to "Holla at a playa when you see him in the street!" (that one still gets us every time), Scott incorporated plenty of slang into his early work with ESPN. And even as he's gotten older, he hasn't changed so much as he has evolved. Some of his older catchphrases have gone out of style, but he's continued to work them into the mix when appropriate and stayed consistent with his SportsCenter work while simultaneously working on other shows at the same time.

Outside of his work for ESPN, he's also inspired quite a few people over the last few years by fighting off cancer time and time again. Earlier this summer, he was even honored at the 2014 ESPY Awards with the Jimmy V Award for serving as an inspiration for so many people. He's clearly come a long way since he first started at ESPN.

Linda Cohn

Years: 1992-Present

Prior to working at ESPN, Cohn made her mark on the world by becoming the first full-time female sports anchor on a U.S. radio network in 1987 when she was hired to anchor WABCTalkRadio. But she's done the best work of her career at ESPN, where she has consistently made viewers laugh during SportsCenter—and SportsCenter commercials—for the better part of the last two decades. And unlike some of the other anchors who have worked on SportsCenter, she doesn't seem to have any desire to leave.

"I still tell people, when we talk about how long I've been [at ESPN], I haven't, like some of my colleagues, left to do other things," she said in 2009. "I'm a sports fan, first and foremost, and I enjoy it so much. So if I wasn't doing SportsCenter, I'd still be on the couch watching my favorite teams play."

Kenny Mayne

Years: 1994-Present

Someone who's never gotten stale (which is due in part to the fact that he disappears for months without explanation), Kenny Mayne is a throwback to our '90s nostalgia days. In an era before the screen was filled with athlete tweets that'd make a 2nd grade teacher blow her head off, Kenny Mayne was consistently throwing non-sequiturs towards our preteen brains at a rate we couldn't comprehend. Sure, at the time we had no idea what the fuck a non-sequitur was, but his dry shtick and deadpan delivery separated him from the rest of the anchors who were (and still are) largely interchangeable.

Robin Roberts

Years: 1990-2004

Even though it's only been about 10 years since Roberts last hosted SportsCenter, we don't really even associate her with the show anymore. Since leaving, she's gone on to do some really important work for ABC News, covering Hurricane Katrina extensively back in 2005 and inspiring, well, everyone by fighting a disease of the bone marrow called myelodysplastic syndrome in 2012 and 2013. But back in the 1990s and early 2000s, Roberts was a regular on SportsCenter and used catch phrases like "Go on with your bad self!" to stand out from the crowd.

Rich Eisen

Years: 1996-2003

Rich Eisen said that when he first came to anchor SportsCenter he tried too hard to be funny which led to a phone call from Keith Olbermann telling him that every highlight doesn't have to be a night at the fucking Improv (at least that was the gist of the message left on his answering machine). Eisen claims that it was the best advice he'd ever gotten and it allowed him to take off alongside partner Stuart Scott with the two becoming the best team on ESPN after Olbermann (coincidentally) peeled out of ESPN's lot one final time, and left their Bristol, Connecticut headquarters in his rearview.

Unfortunately, Eisen also (eventually) left when NFL Network went on the air in 2003 and poached Eisen as their first choice for on-air talent (this, of course was before ESPN unofficially became the NFL Network). The fact that pro football's apex league was trusting Eisen with their $100 million dollar brainchild should tell you all you need to know about how well he does his job.

Bob Ley

Years: 1979-Present

Consistency. For the last 35 years, that's what Ley has been all about. He won't wow you with catch phrases like some other SportsCenter anchors. He also won't knock your socks off with the way that he delivers his highlights. But you know exactly what you're going to get from Ley whenever he hosts SportsCenter—a very professional approach to sports that still manages to be every bit as entertaining and informative as any other episode of SportsCenter. Ley is the longest-tenured employee at ESPN, and there's a reason for that. The guy knows what he does well and he keeps on doing it.

Scott Van Pelt

Years: 2001-Present

From 1994-2000, Scott Van Pelt held down a studio hosting gig for The Golf Channel. Eventually he decided that he wanted to go to a network where people below the age of 65 could see him, and thus his ESPN career began. While he still hosts select ESPN golf programming (which, having never watched, we can't formulate an opinion on) he also branches out with college football hosting gigs and the very underrated SVP & Russillo which doesn't get the press that other ESPN programs (see: First Take, Around the Horn, etc.) get. But (and this is a big fat Oprah but[t]) SVP & Russillo also doesn't feature near the same amount of inane, senseless, and sometimes incomprehensible chatter that has become a staple on the ESPN family of networks.

Dan Patrick

Years: 1989-2006

If you want to know just how highly most people think of Dan Patrick, consider this: Back in 2007, less than a year after he left ESPN, Patrick was asked to audition to become the new host of The Price Is Right. He ultimately decided that he didn't want the job and turned the show's producers down. But the fact that he was even considered for the job that eventually went to Drew Carey says a lot about Patrick and his appeal to the general public.

During his time at ESPN, Patrick regularly co-anchored SportsCenter with Keith Olbermann and, together, they formed one of the most recognizable and beloved duos in SportsCenter history. They frequently started their shows by saying, "Welcome to the Big Show," coined the phrase, "This is SportsCenter," and made the live late-night SportsCenter show must-see TV for many years. And that was due in large part to the presence of Patrick, who eventually left ESPN in 2006. He's since gone on to bigger and better things—he's the host of the hit radio show, The Dan Patrick Show, and the co-host of NBC Sports' Football Night in America—but he'll forever be known as one of, if not the most popular SportsCenter anchor of all time.