When Bill Simmons, ESPN's "Sports Guy," launched a worldwide search for a new intern, Matt Bank '04 leapt at the chance to escape his humdrum corporate job and landed a spot among the 16 finalists.
Simmons, a popular writer for ESPN.com's Page 2 and ESPN: The Magazine, created the contest not only to replace his old intern, who left to work for ESPN talk show host Jim Rome, but also to give a young 20-something a shot at the big time.
"I know what it's like to be out of college -- with no freaking idea where your life is headed, with nobody giving you a chance, with your parents leaning on you to get a real job -- only you can't shake the feeling that you just need one lucky break," Simmons wrote on Page 2.
Bank, and the 4,500 others who applied during the four-day period when Simmons accepted applications, could relate to his experience.
Simmons asked contestants to write 400 words about why they should be his intern. While at work, Bank said he whipped together a funny and poignant piece about his sports obsession and life in Manhattan "more as something to do than a conscious career move."
The contest winner will get the chance to learn from Simmons while writing his own daily column. According to Simmons, his intern will be required to sift through sports sections of various newspapers and surf the web while working 30 hours a week for very little pay.
"This is a 'pay your dues' job -- a chance to get in the door at ESPN and everything else," Simmons wrote.
Bank, who said he loves sports and has always wanted to be a writer despite being rejected from a Dartmouth creative writing class, found out about the contest while online at work.
"I'd say I happen upon ESPN.com about 85 to 90 times a day," Bank said. "It's not that I hate my job. I just find it a little mind-numbing at times. So I do whatever it takes to keep myself awake, including reading sports articles, gambling online and taking pulls from the bottle of Jim Beam in my desk drawer."
Figuring there would be too many other applications for his to get noticed, Bank forgot about the contest. It was not until a vacation a few weeks later in Florida, while Bank said he was doing his best to "get a gruesome sunburn as quickly as possible," that friends from home alerted him to the situation.
"I think I may have fallen in the pool," Bank said. "I had e-mails from people I didn't even know. Girls were asking me to sign their chests. I couldn't even go get a haircut without being accosted by swarming fans. Pretty amazing."
In the second round, Simmons asked his 25 original finalists what shows they would come up with if handed the keys to ESPN6.
In his entry, Bank wrote that "ancillary sports networks should be guided by the same principles as late-night Cinemax -- plausibility is overrated, and entertainment value is maximized after a few beers."
He suggested seven shows, including "110 Percent," in which torpor-plauged Boston Celtics center Mark Blount would take a new job each week, and viewers could watch him flounder around avoiding work.
"Every episode would end with Blount getting chewed out for his apathy and summarily fired," Bank wrote. "Then he'd get a cream pie in the face."
As a result of his humorous second-round entry, Bank landed a place among the "Sweet 16" finalists and has already received his assignment for round three, in which six finalists will be eliminated.
He said that Simmons promised "a number of twists and turns" for the final rounds and plans to involve celebrity judges, possibly including Jimmy Kimmel. Simmons used to write for "Jimmy Kimmel Live," and the two are good friends.
Bank said that while, in round two, he was "playing not to lose rather than to win," he is going to take more chances with his next entry.
"I don't want my legacy to be that I was just another also-ran," he said. "I've realized very quickly at my corporate job that I'm going to need to take more risks to be happy."
