Tom Friend Promotes 30 for 30

December 18, 2012, 3:49 pm

ESPN’s new show 30 for 30 that dives into multiple documentaries about many of the nation’s top athletes. Tom Friend co-creator of the show joins The Bald Faced Truth with John Canzano to promote the “Going Big” film and to talk about the making of the film with Sam Bowie.

Tom starts out the interview with how hard it was to get a hold of Bowie to get him to listen to the offer about the documentary. After about 3 months Tom was able to pitch Bowie the idea and he took hold. Tom was surprised with how humble Bowie was about having something so large done for him let alone it is based off his life in basketball.

“A lot of these guys you talk to them and they look down on you, but Sam is a genuine guy. He walks around Kentucky, best friends at a horse track with the loneliest guy there and the horse owner. So he’s every body’s guy and it was a pleasure to work with him”.

Tom went into some detail about a few things that didn’t make it into the documentary. For one Tom was amazed that Bowie interviewed for two 6 hour sections almost 12 hours total in the first couple days. They interviewed Bowie on every aspect of his life. When he brought up the statement he made to the Blazers organization about his leg, Tom says that he wanted people to understand why he decided to do what he did not what the final result was.

Tom sees Bowie in a whole different light now after this whole process and was surprised at a few of the facts that came out after they finished the initial interview. Tom during his interview with John defended Bowie on every level, including his motivation as a young teen to go into basketball in the first place.

“It was the almighty dollar for a lot of years. He was raised very poor, there’s a lot of NBA, NFL and MLB players that were raised poor, but when your seven feet tall at a young age and everybody assumes you’re going to make a million dollars, that’s a lot of pressure for a kid”.

Throughout the interview Tom praises Bowie for how much of an amazing player he was when he was younger. Many of the “what if’s” are big when it comes to Sam Bowie and what his career could have been if he hadn’t been hurt; Bowie has turned his life into something to be proud of as a parent and a husband.

To listen to the full interview click below