TWSC Preview: Linda Cohn on Hosting 'SportsCenter' This Night in 1994 During OJ's Slow Speed Chase

Rich previewed the next episode of his This Was SportsCenter series, a labor of love produced and edited by coordinating producer Mike Hoskins, by reaching back to one of the strangest nights in the show's history. The Friday episode features Linda Cohn, and it's mostly a laughfest between two people who did countless SportsCenters together. But the preview clip turned serious, because 32 years ago to the day, Cohn was at the desk when O.J. Simpson went on his slow-speed chase.

Cohn was hosting the 11 p.m. SportsCenter with Gary Miller when the Bronco ride began before the hour. They were simply told to show up on set just in case, and then, as Cohn recalled, all she and Miller did was sit there and watch their monitors as ABC News followed the chase. She remembered Miller leaning over next to her, the two of them staring at the screen in the back, doing nothing else.

The timing layered on the surreality. The chase ran during the Knicks-Rockets NBA Finals, heading into game five, and it landed on the day of the Rangers' championship parade, which Cohn had to miss because she was working. Rich, meanwhile, had his own vivid memory of that night: he'd graduated from Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism that very day and was in a Chicago sports bar watching the split screen, the Bronco in the big rectangle and the Knicks game below it, as Marv Albert somehow turned the page back to play-by-play.

The serendipity of the booking wasn't lost on Rich. He'd reached out to Albert during the Finals and again when the Knicks won, wanting the voice that made him fall in love with sportscasting, only to realize after booking it that the day Albert would join was the anniversary itself, with Henry Winkler on deck behind him.

Rich also pointed viewers to the 30 for 30 simply titled by that 1994 date, a narrator-free assembly of the day's coverage, recalling that Arnold Palmer was playing his final U.S. Open and a home run race was unfolding in a baseball season that would be cut short by the strike. The This Was SportsCenter run, presented by Gusto, continues with Chris Fowler the following Friday and closes its first season with Craig Kilborn, all shot in the Los Angeles studio. Rich called the series therapy as much as a project.