Kenny Mayne Tells Us How His Iconic Dave & Buster’s Segment With Marshawn Lynch Came Together
On today's Pardon My Take... Kenny Mayne! The longtime ESPN broadcaster joined Mr. Cat and Mr. Commenter to discuss the end of his time at ESPN, what some of his favorite moments were, and more. If you are a sports fan, you know Kenny Mayne, and you probably remember his segment with running back Marshawn Lynch at both Applebees and Dave & Busters while he was a rookie with the Buffalo Bills. During today's show, Mayne gave us the backstory of how this segment went down:
Kenny Mayne: So, Tom McCollum was my producer. And I'd say, more often than not, I would, with somebody or on my own, "Let's do this this week, here's a dumb idea of the week," right? Usually make up something or take a real story and go off the cliff with it, right? In this case, Willis McGahee had left Buffalo and on the way out, he kind of trashed the place, right? He said, "Buffalo sucks, man. What do they got, a Dave & Buster's and Applebee's? And don't even start on the women," I think that was his quote. Marshawn's a rookie now, so Tom wrote a really funny script, like, I changed a word or two, and we freelanced a word or two, but it was really Tom.
Kenny Mayne: And Marshawn and I, I'm reading him the Willis McGahee quote, and Marshawn is reacting to it. And then to prove that Buffalo is kind of cool, and Willis McGahee was wrong, Marshawn goes out on the town, to Applebees and Dave & Buster's, and we just had a time. We went out on the town. We didn't really script as much of that, that was just "give Marshawn the keys and tell him to drive the cart." He's a friend, I love Marshawn, and he was so misrepresented, all that stupid stuff about not wanting to talk to the media. Like, who cares?
Kenny Mayne: Usually, you just want to hear the quarterback and the coach, anyway. And there's 53 guys, pick another guy. He just wanted to play football, watch Netflix, and hang out with his boys, and come back and do it again. He wasn't into that thing. However, if you get him going on a topic he wants to talk about, he'll talk and talk. I hosted his charity event in Seattle once, and I had to like wrestle the mic back. He was very sincere, he's very passionate about what he does. He's done so many good things that he didn't care. He's not waving his arms, "Look what I did." He passes out cellphones to homeless people to get them connected. Right? This is modern technology we're living in, helps kids in Oakland, he came up for a Seattle event for Special Olympics after he left in Seattle and they didn't expect him to show, he's no longer... "Hey, Marshawn's here," he showed up.
Mr. Cat: Legend, absolute legend.
You can catch the majority of this interview in Big Cat's tweet at the top of this blog, but the YouTube version in its entirety is below. Very, very funny piece.