Anchorboy (22 page)

I
CAN
’
T BEGIN THE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
with anyone other than my beautiful wife. She allowed me to skip out on many a beautiful Saturday afternoon we would otherwise have spent together, so I could finish this book. She also read the manuscript in its early stages and not only offered great suggestions but also likely kept me from being sued. If my career itself wasn’t already evidence that I am a lucky man, then having her by my side is concrete proof. Every day I spend with her is a great day, especially if that day happens to take place at Disneyland.

Speaking of reading the manuscript in its early stages, I must also thank two of my best friends in the world, Peter Sayn-Wittgenstein and Piya Chattopadhyay, for also trudging through early versions of this book and giving me concrete advice about how to make it better. Look for Peter to write a book much better than this one when he is finished watching that Corbin Bernsen mini-series on his PVR. Piya, you are the best export Saskatchewan ever produced.

My brilliant and beautiful literary agent, Carly Watters, is most responsible for the book you have in your hands today. She was the one who suggested that getting off my ass and putting pen to paper might be a good idea. Carly, you have been amazing through this entire process, and I am forever grateful. I am also not weirded out
by the fact that you look pretty much exactly like my ex-wife.

My brilliant and beautiful editor at HarperCollins, Doug Richmond, is someone I hope I can maintain a working relationship with my entire life. If I had literally hand-picked an editor, I couldn’t have ended up with anyone so perfect. Thanks for your long and detailed e-mails, Doug. I am also not weirded out by the fact that you look a lot like Jonathan Franzen. Also thanks to the entire staff at HarperCollins, including Patricia MacDonald, Barbara Kamienski, Kelly Hope, Emma Ingram, Jason Pratt and Shannon Parsons, for making me feel so welcome and a part of the family.

Thanks to designer Greg Tabor, photographer Kathryn Hollin-rake and makeup artist Christine Cho for the fantastic cover photo.

Speaking of family, thanks once again to my parents, who were pretty much dealing with a weirdo the second I was born but continued to trudge on anyway. Also thanks to the rest of the Onrait clan: My sister Erin, who can whip up a mean apple juice and ham casserole at the drop of a hat. My brother-in-law, Trevor, who is better than me at every single sport we try and never gloats about it. My niece, Brooklyn, and my nephews, Noah and Keaton, always make me laugh and bring me joy. My grandfather, Rene, who gave me a 1970 Buick Skylark for my sixteenth birthday, thereby making him the coolest man alive.

Thanks to my good friend and longtime co-anchor, Dan O’Toole, for talking me off the ledge more times than I can remember and for contributing a brilliant foreword to this book. Well “brilliant” may be a stretch, but he got it done and the jury was out on that one. Thanks also to our longtime producer and good friend, Producer Tim, for very likely saving our jobs several times over the last ten years and joining us on this new adventure to California.

Thanks to all my wonderful employers past and present, especially Mark Milliere, Ken Volden, Phil King, Stewart Johnston, and Keith Pelley at TSN; Darcy Modin at A-Channel; Lisa Ford
at Global Saskatoon; Pat Kiernan at ITV Edmonton; and my dad, who was forced to employ me at his drugstore because my mom told him to. Thanks also to all my fellow employees at TSN over the years who provided me with great fodder for storytelling and many laughs along the way.

Thanks to the entire staff at Dark Horse Espresso Bar on Spadina Avenue between Queen Street and Dundas Street in Toronto, where I wrote almost every single word of this book like I was some wannabe screenwriter. This includes owners Ed Lynds and Deanna Zunde and hard-working employees Ryan Kukec, Maxine Gagnon, Rob Hasebe, Rob Piron, Phil Cox, Danny Flynn, Becky Weekes, Lisa D’Allessandro, Momi Kishi, Otillo Page, Batouli Baccar, Axel Steingrimigson, and Dave Metcalfe, who served me about 3,000 jasmine green teas and Americanos over the course of a year. They also played some great tunes while I tried to pound out my 2,000 words a day in accordance with Stephen King’s
On Writing
. If you’re ever wandering around Toronto’s Chinatown, this is
the
place to stop and rest and people-watch.

Finally a special thanks to all the viewers who have said such kind things to me on Twitter and in person over the course of the past few years. I hope you enjoy this book, and I hope Canadians don’t hold it against me that I left for the United States. I will always be a proud Canadian.

JAY ONRAIT
is an anchor on FOX Sports l’s flagship show,
FOX Sports Live
. He currently lives in Los Angeles, where he and his wife share a home with Dan O’Toole and Producer Tim.

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Anchorboy

Copyright © 2013 by Jay Onrait.

Foreword copyright © 2013 by Dan O’Toole.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition © OCTOBER 2013 ISBN: 9781443430425

Published by Collins, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

FIRST EDITION

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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M4W 1A8

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Onrait, Jay, author

Anchorboy : true tales from the world of sportscasting / Jay Onrait.

ISBN 978-144342-947-7

RRD 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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