Trey Wingo thought his ‘career was over’ after John Daly ‘SportsCenter’ screw up

Even the great ones have on-air flubs, and Trey Wingo still remembers the John Daly mistake on SportsCenter that nearly ended his career.

Wingo recently joined Kenny Mayne on his Straight Facts Homie! podcast where they traded old war stories from their time at ESPN. And when discussing their biggest mistakes at ESPN, Wingo didn’t hesitate to share a story from one of his first chances at anchoring the overnight SportsCenter, which coincided with John Daly’s return to competitive golf.

Daly withdrew from the 1997 Players Championship after spending the night before drinking heavily and trashing his hotel room, leading to a stay at the Betty Ford Center for alcohol rehabilitation. And when Daly returned to golf six months sober, Wingo was ready to meet the moment on SportsCenter.

“I wrote this poignant lead-in,” Wingo recalled. “I was convinced I was gonna win some sort of Peabody Award for this.”

In the lead-in, Wingo said he wrote about Daly’s life falling apart one year ago before highlighting that he’s back on track and even received a coin right before teeing off to commemorate being six months sober.

“But instead of saying six months of being sober, I wrote it in the clumsiest way. I said, ‘He received a coin signifying six months of alcohol-free living. Which is the stupidest way you could say it. Just dumb. And for whatever reason, it came out of my mouth on camera, ‘Right before he teed off, he received this coin signifying six months of free alcohol.’ The blood just rushed out of my face. And in my ear, I hear the CP say, ‘We’re gonna need to fix that for the re-air.’ I thought my career was over. I thought my career was over in like my second show.”

Amazing. Lucky for Wingo, he endured the mistake to have a long and successful career at ESPN. And Daly has since gone on to do a lot more drinking.

Daly may not have received a coin signifying six months of free alcohol, but he probably has no issue finding places where he can drink for free. After staying sober for 26 months, Daly started drinking again in 1999. Daly has dabbled in sobriety since then, but not recently.