Unsung Heroes

Casey McCall (Peter Krause) and Dan Rydell (Josh Charles) in Sports Night. Image via Pinterest.

Before Aaron Sorkin created The West Wing, he created the Emmy Award-winning half-hour comedy series Sports Night, which ran for two seasons on ABC in the late ‘90s. The series takes viewers behind the scenes of a sports news broadcast (think ESPN’s SportsCenter) hosted by Casey McCall and Dan Rydell. In one episode—set a few days before Christmas, actually—McCall appears as a guest on The View. The hosts (Debbie Matenopoulos, Star Jones, Meredith Viera, and Joy Behar) gush over the neckties he wears on his show.

DEBBIE MATENOPOULOS: Now, Casey, we can't let you go without talking about the neckties.

CASEY: Ah, the neckties.

STAR JONES: The famous neckties.

MEREDITH VIEIRA: I tell my husband every night, "Look at his neckties, that's a man with good taste."

CASEY: And I'll bet your husband just loves me for that.

MEREDITH VIEIRA: He loves you for many reasons, as do I, but mostly I love you for the neckties.

...

STAR JONES: Well I think you should know that a man who knows how to dress himself is a very sexy thing.

Holiday directions at Lauren Fisher’s house.

Later, back at his own studio, Casey is upbraided by a young assistant wardrobe supervisor whose name Casey can’t remember. (It’s Monica Brazelton.) “I think you hurt the feelings of the woman I work for,” says Monica. “Her name is Maureen and she's been working here since the day you started.” Monica then holds up a necktie and asks “Do you know what color this is?”

CASEY: It's grey.

MONICA: It's called gun metal. Grey has more ivory in it, gun metal has more blue. Can you tell me which of these shirts you should wear it with?

CASEY: I don't know.

MONICA: No you don't. There's no reason why you should. You're not supposed to know what shirt goes with what suit or how a color in a necktie can pick up your eyes. You're not expected to know what's going to clash with what Dan's wearing or what pattern's gonna bleed when Dave changes the lighting. Mr. McCall, you get so much attention and so much praise for what you actually do, and all of it's deserved. When you go on a talk-show and get complimented on something you didn't, how hard would it be to say, "That's not me. That's a woman named Maureen who's been working for us since the first day. It's Maureen who dresses me every night, and without Maureen, I wouldn't know gun metal from a hole in the ground." Do you have an idea what it would've meant to her? Do you have any idea how many times she would've played that tape for her husband and her kids?

At the conclusion of the episode, Casey and Dan are on-air wrapping up their own broadcast. They use the time to thank some of the folks too often uncredited for the work they do.

CASEY: That's all for tonight, but before we sign off, we felt that with Christmas only a few days off and people making up lists and checking them twice, it was as good a time as any to mention some people who are important to us here at the show. It seems that quite a few of you, for instance, like the way Dan and I dress on the air, and you should know that we're dressed by Maureen Gates and Joseph Roveto. Maureen and Joseph are assisted by a young woman named Monica Brazelton, and Monica is not to be trifled with.

DAN: Our camera operators are Ray, Wayne, Bruce, John and Jerome, who wishes we'd do more features on hockey.

CASEY: Not gonna happen, Jerome. Every time I pick up a pencil or put down a coffee mug, that's Jode Mann, and her trusty aide John Frantz, and if you've ever wondered what a gaffer was, or a best boy, you should ask Keith and Mark.

Holiday directions at Christa Theilen’s house.

Casey and Dan go on to thank many others by name—production assistants, script people, makeup and hair people, editors, and more—while acknowledging that they’re just scratching the surface of the small army of people who make the show possible.

This episode of Sports Night came to mind during a recent conversation with my colleague Rachel Quednau, when Rachel brought up an excellent point about the “unsung heroes” behind the Strong Towns movement. Follow Strong Towns for a while and you get to know some of the outward-facing staff: founder and president Chuck Marohn, senior editor Daniel Herriges, and program director Rachel, all of whom write, podcast, host webcasts, create courses, and more. Or Lauren Fisher, our communications associate, the wordsmith behind our emails and many social posts. And I write stuff too.

Yet the five of us are just the visible part of the iceberg. Many of the people who make the movement work are largely behind-the-scenes. Inspired by Rachel (and a little by Sports Night), I wanted to take a moment a few days before Christmas to thank some of the unsung heroes of the Strong Towns movement.

I want to start by recognizing Christa Theilen, Linda Twillman, and the Strong Towns board of directors. Our office assistant Christa Theilen keeps everything running from the home office in Brainerd, Minnesota. Linda Twillman keeps a close eye on our finances and makes sure we’re accounting for them well. Our board of directors—John Reuter, Andrew Burleson, and Ian Rasmussen—provide strategic guidance, oversight, and encouragement.

Our development associate Alexa Mendieta coordinates member drives, communicates with our 2,732 members, helps us stay connected with donors and foundations, and much more. Several times I’ve heard Chuck say that he had an idea and went to do it...only to find that Alexa had the idea first and already executed on it.

Michelle Erfurt in front of her tree (and wearing one of our new Strong Towns t-shirts).

Michelle Erfurt is Strong Towns’ event pathfinder. In non-pandemic years, Michelle helps bring Strong Towns events to dozens of towns and cities around North America. This year, she helped us pivot deftly toward online events. She’s working on something very cool right now but I’m not allowed to talk about it until January.

As you probably know, we publish three podcasts per week. Running at full-strength, that’s more than 150 episodes a year. We’re fortunate to work with a talented podcast editor named Chris Lang who helps get all those episodes edited and ready to go. He’s often doing it under a tight deadline too, especially with Upzoned, which is the closest we come to a “breaking news” podcast.

We’re starting to create Spanish editions of key articles. The first two are here and here, with more coming in January. Our translator is Jessica Llanos, and she does exceptional work.

Back in April 2016, Chuck wrote a blog post called “I Love Ruby.” He was talking about the company Ruby, our virtual receptionist service. “I am not getting paid to write this,” he wrote, “and truly have no expectation of anything other than a continued great relationship with Ruby Receptionists for doing so, but of all the services we use, I've come to value Ruby Receptionists the most. They make us look really good for a very reasonable price.” Four-and-a-half-years later, we’re still using Ruby, and we still love it.

Holiday cheer is blooming in Linda Twillman’s office.

I know I speak for all the Strong Towns staff when I say how grateful we are for our families and closest community. 2020 has been a crazy year. The whole world has been living through history together. Like so many organizations and businesses, Strong Towns has had to be nimble in order to keep serving our constituents. (I wrote about how we adapted here.) We pivoted, learned, and pivoted again. Throughout it all, we’ve relied on the support and encouragement of our friends and family, especially as we juggled not only changes at work but, in some cases, new babies, kids moving to online education, new houses or apartments, helping families and friends during the pandemic, and more. Again, we’re very thankful.

And we’re thankful for you too. For reading, listening, and watching. For supporting the organization financially, if you are a member. For doing what you can to build a strong town where you live.

At the end of that episode of Sports Night, sitting at their anchor desk, Casey McCall and Dan Rydell sign off this way:

CASEY: We've just named a small fraction of the people who put this show on television, which means we've left out many more and we'll try and rectify that as we head toward December 25th. But for now, I'm Casey McCall alongside Dan Rydell, wishing everyone in your home, along with everyone here at my home a happy Chanukah and a very merry Christmas.

DAN: G'night everyone.

I couldn’t agree more. Happy holidays. We’ll see you next year.

FADE TO BLACK.

Cover image via Unsplash.

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