Step Off!

13Bo Knows, But Bo Doesn't Know Dan

On the heels of living and breathing BASE jumping insanity at Bridge Day, we then had to finish up the pilot of MTV Sports by filming some wrap-around segments. They were basically going to be threaded throughout the show to tie all the other bits and pieces together. The initial concept for the series was to do the wrap-arounds with an athlete or celebrity in a more controlled interview environment, so basically a more traditional sit-down interview in a studio with them.

Luckily, the very first guest we got was probably the greatest athlete on the planet at the time of our shoot, Bo Jackson. I could not have been more excited, especially since Bo was at the peak of his career, playing both professional football and baseball, but thanks to Nike's “Bo Knows” campaign, he was at the height of the American pop culture ladder as well.

Bo actually wasn't even slated to be our first guest, but thanks to some brilliant casting maneuvering by Patrick Byrnes, we were able to get him for thirty minutes after he was done filming a video countdown show on another stage. Our set was simple. We had a couch and, well, it was just the couch. A couch randomly perched alone in the middle of a huge stage like Gilligan's Island, just patiently waiting for Bo and I to sit down and talk. We were also shooting the segment on 16 mm black and white film, which to me felt extremely professional, or as my friends in Pittsburgh would say, “artsie fartsie.” I wouldn't ...