IggyPride00;552692 wrote:I thought the one about Vlade Divac and the Yugoslavian wars was really good. I was just flipping through and ended up watching the entire thing.

I think the thing that ESPN did the best job with on the series as a whole was not just picking the 30 biggest sports stories of the past 30 years, but instead focusing on ones that were really interesting/powerful that people maybe didn't know the back story on.

thedynasty1998;552906 wrote:Absolutely! ESPN gets a lot of crap, and deserving so. But they hit a home run with this series.

On a side note, I think Bill Simmons is the main guy behind them and I remember reading not long ago that his contract with ESPN was going to expire soon and it would be interesting to see how much he commanded. I've always respected him because he doesn't seen to be a "yes sir" as he's really the only ESPN employee who openly criticizes Lebron and has no problem expressing his passion for his favorite teams.

SnotBubbles;552399 wrote:Mo had nothing on Marcus Dupree. I get what you're saying, but as far as talent goes...

I'll be honest, I almost cried at the end. This is the first 30 for 30 I've seen. Well produced and a great story. Funny how in the end you couldn't help but feel sorry for this guy. He had life at the tip of his fingers and threw it all away because of his decisions. He grew up a lot from 1984-1988.

jordo212000;552583 wrote:Great episode last night. Definitely one of the best I've watched. He was before my time, but the story was amazing. I felt so bad for the guy.

The most amazing thing to me isn't what he did on the high school field, or the fact that he ran 100 yds in less than 10 seconds while weighing 230 lbs... it was that after getting injured (plus a 5 yr layoff), he just up and decided he would play in the NFL, and he did.

The white assistant at Oklahoma was a joke though. You have a guy dominating people in games and you are worried about his practice behavior? I laughed when they said "he was so good, we didn't how to use him" Uhh you could start by playing him the minute he walked on campus. The fact that he was buried on the bench for the 1st two games was such a joke. They rattled off wins when they finally stopped acting so petty and stupid

Mooney44Cards;553019 wrote:ESPN didn't really have to do anything except finance them promote them and air them. All of them were produced by independent filmmakers so creatively I don't think ESPN's evil hands touched any of the projects.

30 for 30 is the umbrella title for a series of documentaries airing on ESPN and its sister networks. The series, which premiered in October 2009 and is scheduled to conclude in December 2010, chronicles 30 stories from the "ESPN era," each of which detail the issues, trends, people, teams, or events that transformed the sports landscape since the sports network was founded in 1979.

The idea for the series began with ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons, who wanted feature filmmakers to recount the sports stories, people, and events from the past 3 decades which they (1) took a personal interest or involvement in, however great or small, and (2) felt hadn't been fully explored. Simmons and his team took special interest to "stories that resonated at the time but were eventually forgotten for whatever reason."[3] Each director(s) has creative control over their 30 for 30 episode, and appears in interstitial comments during the broadcast to discuss the film and its subject matter, usually appearing before the beginning of the film and before the last commercial break. Simmons serves as 30 for 30's executive producer; Mike Tollin, who directed the series' 3rd entry, Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL?, also serves as consulting producer to the series.

gorocks99;552515 wrote:30 for 30 needs to come out with a boxed set. I would buy it.