Crypt Keeper 1/Salisbury 0
Sean Salisbury says his life has become “a walking train wreck”
Posted by Michael David Smith on March 11, 2012
Getty Images
Sean Salisbury, the former NFL quarterback who went from an ESPN analyst to a punchline when it was revealed that he took a picture of his penis and showed it to co-workers, says the fallout over that incident nearly ruined his life, and now he wants to get back on TV.
Salisbury told the
New York Daily News that he has battled depression, and he has also had physical problems including low testosterone production, which his doctor believes could have been caused by blows to the brain suffered on the football field.
“
I’m a walking train wreck,” Salisbury said. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get better.”
When Salisbury left ESPN four years ago,
he claimed it was a mutual decision to part, that ESPN had held him back on what he was capable of doing as a broadcaster, and that he had bigger and better things ahead in his career.
“Don’t get me wrong, I appreciated the opportunity ESPN gave me, but they had capped my ceiling. There was only so far I could go there,” Salisbury said at the time.
Now, however, Salisbury seems to think that excessive coverage of the penis picture incident led to him not only losing his ESPN job but also being unfairly blacklisted since then.
“It was a sophomoric thing to do that got me in trouble,” Salisbury said. “I deserved to be kicked a little for it. But I didn’t deserve to be bludgeoned. The past few years have been a rough, rough time. I hit rock bottom physically, mentally, emotionally and financially all at the same time.”
Salisbury also told Jeff Pearlman that he thinks he has shown more than enough contrition about it.
“
I’m not apologizing for it anymore. I’m apologized out,” he said.
And Salisbury hinted to Pearlman that he has damaging information about ESPN that he could reveal but chooses not to.
“I kept a journal for 12 years while I was there,” Salisbury said. “I’ve got a best-selling book in my lap if I ever wanted to do it. You know? I’ve got it sitting right in my back pocket if I ever wanted to. [But] I’m not into taking guys’ wives and families away. I’m not into getting guys suspended and taking their careers away.”
When it comes to getting a career taken away, Salisbury knows how it feels.
--------------------------------------------------
From Deadspin
Former ESPNer Sean Salisbury was fired from a Dallas radio station two weeks ago and he finally responded to us about the allegations— in the most colossally unhinged way possible. Brace yourselves for the mother of all media meltdowns.
For those unfamiliar
with the long history this site has had with Sean Salisbury, it's time to get familiar. A former NFL quarterback, Salisbury is a man who, for most of his post-football career, lived comfortably in mid-level popularity working for ESPN as an NFL chatterbox and jock-bully foil to John Clayton's football egghead. Then
the story of the (alleged) cell phone incident hit the internet and his reputation — so he claims — became permanently tarnished.
If Sean Salisbury Asks You To Look At His Phone...Don't Do It
Sean Salisbury briefly disappeared from the ESPN airwaves earlier this year. Pro Football Talk…
Read more
He's tried to bounce back, going as far to begrudgingly agree
to an interview with us to set the record straight and tell the world he's not the penis-showing menace many people suggest. That chapter of Deadspin history seemed closed, until one former employee came forward and told her version of
how Sean showed a cell phone pic of "his baby" to many ESPN employees at an off-campus bar.
Sean Salisbury Isn't Angry Anymore
And here we have the second portion of our interview. It's more of the same, but Sean does…
Read more
Brave Woman Gives Eyewitness Testimony Of The Salisbury Cell Phone
The Sean Salisbury cell phone saga has always seemed to me to be a lot like the legend of Bigfoot;…
Read more
He eventually latched on to Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan until he was fired last week. One person claims that there was another incident with a woman, the station manager had "no comment" on that rumor initially, but then claimed that Salisbury's dismissal was not
because of inappropriate conduct and was amicable.
Then, yesterday, out of nowhere, he responded to me via email from his iPhone. Many, many times. [Sic]'d.
From Sean Salisbury:
This is salisbury and I just want u to know ur guys lies and
carelessness about CBS and espn stories has not only ruined my
reputation but has cost me jobs so prepare urself for a lawsuit so big
I will own deadspin u will be asked to give up ur sources so since u
guys have cost me more than alot of money my only goal in my career is
to ruin u like u have me. Sadly I tried to be honest with you and you
have continually written lies. So you and a few major media networks
arebeing sued. And put this on ur careless website. I kept a journal
for 13 years at espn and a tell all book will be released in months to
come. Book title: espn exposed. The truth inside the r rated
company. So ur lies about a cell phone incident that is a lie and
the reason I left CBS radio that u guys lied about. The time has come
and I won't stop until the truth is told and deadspin is exposed.
Sent from my iPhone
From Me:
Uh, woah? Dude, I tried to contact you last week about the incident
and heard nothing from you. That was the rumor. If you want to go on
the record with something I'm more than happy to do that. If you want
me to run this email, then fine. Because I let you speak and have your
say and we ran all that. Remember? The two-part interview?
If you want to deny that rumor, that's fine and I'll put it in print.
But don't act like we're pulling this stuff out of thin air because
there's way too much consistency with a lot of these stories. Sure, it
could have all been innocent fun and all that but you've yet to
explain that situation because you are bound by a non-disclose
agreement with ESPN. Most of the stuff about you on Deadspin was done
well before I came here. If you want to talk this out, that's fine. If
you want us to do something, that's fine. If you want to talk to our
legal department, I'll give you their info.
ajd
From Sean Salisbury:
My email is the record u guys have lied and backstabbed me for the last time I owe u no answer nor will I dignify the lies with any response. For the record. U guys r being sued be a vicious attorney as is CBS and espn. And I will win with the proof. And yes for the record that book is being written and will rock the foundation of that company. Stuff that the sports world will not believe. I'm done being nice so prepare urself and u go ahead and put all of it on there because with the things I know folks are gonna be running for the hills. I will restore my reputation in a huge way. And by the way the girl u guys tracked down after two years who lied about the cell phone crap that u guys ran with a few months ago is the same woman who begged me on three different occasions to have sex with her and I said no. So she will be exposed as well. Damn I can't wait for all this
Sent from my iPhone
From Sean Salisbury:
U guys always have some bullcrap snide remark after anything u right. I don't give a crap what u put in there because everything I emailed u is true and I will make sure the world knows
That I promise
Sent from my iPhone
From Sean Salisbury:
Your dumbass rumor was from a caller with no truth. I don't need to deny lies but you will be accountable. So go ahead and write what you want and try and make a joke but u will be exposed dude. no more!
Sent from my iPhone
---------------------------
Sean Salisbury aims to move on after admission
By Michael Hiestand, USA TODAY
Other than its decidedly 21st-century angles, Sean Salisbury's story is timeless: Show spur-of-the-moment stupidity, deny it in hopes it will be forgotten — then find it follows you around instead.
"I was ashamed, and I didn't want to say anything," says Salisbury, who was an NFL quarterback for eight years and an ESPN NFL analyst for 12. "I thought it would go away and let my ego get in the way. Since then, I've beat myself up about it more than 10 baseball bats could. A stupid mistake can cost you, and this has
really cost me. I should have been having this conversation a long time ago."
But what Salisbury, 46, is admitting simply substantiates what's already an urban legend on the Internet: that he took cellphone photos of his private parts and showed them.
Yuck. Salisbury says it only happened once — "a sophomoric mistake" in a Connecticut bar in 2006 — for which ESPN suspended him for a week for then-unspecified reasons.
Salisbury's ESPN contract wasn't renewed in 2008; he says ESPN never specifically cited the incident in letting him go. In September, he was dropped by a Dallas sports-talk-radio station but strictly because of "disagreements over my contract and show content."
Speculation over the incident has popped up on various websites. Salisbury has filed suit against one — Deadspin.com — claiming he has been victimized by its "long-running smear campaign" and "malicious lies." (Deadspin declined comment.)
But by his own admission, Salisbury didn't add to the site's veracity when he had the chance.
He was asked in a Deadspin interview posted Aug. 14, 2008, if he "took a picture of your genitals on your cellphone and showed it around" and whether such "rumors" were "remotely true."
Salisbury's response: "I haven't addressed it because it's so absurd and such a bald-faced lie from what the speculation is out there from media outlets and Internet and bloggers that hop on and want to beat you up because they don't like my opinion in football. It
never happened."
That was then.
Now, Salisbury feels better from having had anger-management therapy — "I needed help. I had a lot of inner anger for years." He says he's trying to champion the cause of accuracy in online reporting in a lawsuit against Deadspin that he insists is anything but frivolous.
And the book he said he'd write about ESPN in an erratic e-mail exchange with Deadspin in September — saying "some major reputations" would be ruined — is now off.
"I'm not a tell-all guy and regret saying that," he says.
Salisbury says the online buzz about his pictures had a devastating effect on his kids and put on hold on any national broadcasting comeback.
"It was stupid —
dumb!— but not malicious," he says. "How can it ruin a good career? … I've gone from being on six days a week to disappearing. And it's not like I wanted to disappear. … But it feels good getting it off my chest."
Only the hardhearted wouldn't see a chance for his redemption.