ESPN loves to mark milestones and anniversaries. I imagine they go through a lot of birthday cakes in Bristol.

Some, though, mean more than others. Thursday at 6 p.m. ET, ESPN will mark the 50,000th airing of SportsCenter.

That’s fairly significant. In this video, George Grande, who hosted the first show in 1979, looks back.

ESPN actually is going low-key with this milestone. It will mark the event with Chris Berman doing a tribute to late SportCenter anchor Tom Mees, who died much too young. Here is the link to Berman’s piece on ESPN Front Row.

SportsCenter definitely has been the franchise for ESPN. I remember in the late 80s, my apartment building in Chicago was extremely slow in getting wired for cable. When I finally got connected, I recall being thrilled at being able watch SportsCenter.

Imagine 30 minutes of nothing but sports and highlights. I was in heaven.

Now ESPN is wall-to-wall SportsCenter on the main outlet, and a 24/7 edition on ESPNNews.

Charley Steiner, a SportsCenter anchor from 1988-2002, said it best during a conference call:

“You’re talking about 18 hours of SportsCenter a day.  We didn’t have 18 hours a week.  We had three 30-minute shows, no re-airs.  The only thing we didn’t have were rabbit ears.  We had a 7:00, an 11:00 and a 2:30 a.m. show, which is where they stuck me in the beginning.  We would go home and tee it up again the next day.”

SportsCenter truly has become an iconic symbol of the network. Much like Saturday Night Live and culture, the program introduced catch-phrases and created new lingo for sports. And it basically sets the agenda, for better or worse (Tebow!).

“When you get through everything else, the most important thing SportsCenter does is document the day and night in sports just like a game telecast would document a game,” said Mark Gross, ESPN’s senior vice-president and executive producer.

Added Scott Van Pelt: “I always think when I’m out there, regardless of the hour of the day, how long you’ve been there, whatever the case may be, I never say I have to do SportsCenter, I say I get to do SportsCenter.”

The ESPN conference call, which also included Sage Steele, lasted more than an hour. Thanks to Steiner’s participation, it was enlightening and extremely entertaining.

When it finally became my turn to ask a question (much further back in the line than from my Chicago Tribune days, Josh), I asked if SportsCenter has become less personality driven in its current form?

I definitely think that’s the case. Heck, the ABC show SportsNite was based off the Dan Patrick-Keith Olbermann pairing. And it wasn’t just those two guys. You had Steiner, Robin Roberts, Bob Ley, Mees, Rich Eisen, Stuart Scott, a young Mike Tirico, among others. Then there also was Berman, who was wildly popular back when the majority of people thought his catch-phrases and nicknames were cutting edge.

Now there are so many SportCenter shows and anchors, they all seem to blend together. To me, it seems to be more about the content, and less about the person delivering the content. Maybe, that’s inevitable given the bulk of the shows.

Anyway, here are the responses I got to my question:

Steiner: In those days, remember, technologically we were cavemen compared to where it is now, number one.

Number two, when we were doing our show, the 7:00 eastern with Bob, Robin and I, because there weren’t highlights, by nature, how else do you convey information?  It became more of a writers’ show, more of a repertorial show.  I think that’s why they put Bob, Robin and I together.  Whatever strengths we had, those were them.

Now again, with the ability to get highlights from anywhere and everywhere, from a cell phone to whatever, the dynamic I think of all of the shows is considerably different.

Again, when I started back in the paleolithic era, there were three and a half hour shows.  Morning SportsCenter was a business show.  So comparing us and them, then and now, is a difficult task.

Those were the rules by which we had to play in those days because of what we had at our disposal.

Gross: It’s simple really.  We expect the anchors to be themselves.  We’re not asking Scott, Sage or anybody else to go and invent nicknames, home run calls.  We expect them to be themselves.  If they’re themselves, we’re going to be just fine.

Van Pelt: To that end, I wouldn’t speak for Sage, anybody that ends up on the set has some level of passion for sports, anybody that ends up on that set is in some way, because you’ve seen other people do it, you have some sense of how the show has been done.

But I also think it becomes almost a lazy criticism to say everybody is out there trying out for the Chuckle Hut.  I don’t think everybody treats their Brewer/Red’s highlights to say seven funny things.  If you do, my personal opinion is you’re failing because that’s not the goal.

If you can be organically funny, if a moment presents itself, by all means.  If you have certain things in the way you deliver things, people don’t mind.  I’ll drop a useful shot which is a note to Sam Torrance.  It’s a word and never more than that.  The personality, I always look at it like this, it’s like sugar, and a teaspoon might be enough, but three would want to make you puke.

If you’re authentic, it comes across that way, I think people appreciate that.  I don’t feel like anchors go out there and say, Where are the seven times I can try to be cute, because if they do, again, my own personal opinion is you’d be making a mistake.

Steele: I was going to say when I got the job here five and a half years ago, I was leaving the D.C. area, everybody said, What is going to be your thing?  What are you going to say?  I thought, gosh, I’m not smart enough to come up with something that clever, it’s too hard, forget it.

I am me. They know what they’re hiring. They know who they’re hiring.

Have times changed? Absolutely. The way the shows are formatted, there’s a lot more sponsored elements. It’s a business, and the shows have definitely changed.

Sometimes I even forget I’m on TV, God forbid.  That means you’re out there having fun, owning your highlight.  I don’t think of a cute moment to potentially put in there.  I’m more concerned about this highlight is important, why.  Why do we feel this highlight is important enough to show all the people watching and what’s the story behind it.  Sometimes it’s what you say, not what you see as well.  Too much to worry about out there to be cute.

Check back for more upcoming posts from the teleconference and about SportsCenter at 50,000 shows and counting.