He know when that hotline bling…it’s OJ Simpson? On the eve of the Simpson-centric series American Crime Story: The People vs. OJ Simpson, Bob Costas told an incredible story about how OJ called him during the infamous White Bronco police chase. The chase, which officially kicked off the country’s obsession with the murder case and trial surrounding OJ, was watched by many live on air as it unfolded. But until now, not many people knew that Costas almost received a personal phone call from the man on the run.
Costas has covered the most high profile sporting events in the world. Everything from the Olympic Games to elite championship match-ups to NBA Finals have been graced by Costas’ presence and analysis. Yet OJ attempting to reach him in the midst of one of the most famous car chases of all time might top them all. According to Bro Bible, Costas told the full story on an upcoming episode of Campus Insiders. As he tells it:
The Friday night of the Bronco chase, I learned subsequently, he tried to call me from the Bronco. He had my home number in St. Louis but nobody was home and the phone just rang and rang. And he also had the number of the studio and we did the NBA show out of the same studio as the NFL show but since it was the Finals I was at Madison Square Garden for Game Five between the Rockets and the Knicks.
So he actually then called the studio and a tech answered the phone ‘studio 3b?’
‘I need to speak to Bob Costas.’
‘He’s not here.’
‘I have to speak to him right now.’
‘Well he’s not here, he’s at Madison Square Garden.’
‘I gotta speak to him.’
‘Who’s calling?’
‘O.J. Simpson.’
That is definitely one of those situations where having cell phones would have come in handy. “Just one moment, let me shoot Bob a text and let him know that OJ Simpson wants to speak with him right now”. Can you imagine his face when he found out the next day that he missed that call of all missed calls? It’s hard to top the coolness of anchoring the NBA Finals from Madison Square Garden as far as major career moments but this pretty easily takes the cake. And now that Ryan Murphy is bringing the OJ story back into the pop culture spotlight again (as if it ever really left) Costas has another opportunity to break out the anecdote at all the industry parties.
(via BroBible / For The Win)
