Hyland Experiences the Ironman From Both Sides

Rob Hyland, a producer for NBC Sports since graduating from college in 1997, has been involved in coverage of the Olympics, the Super Bowl and the NBA Finals.

But nothing has intrigued him more than the Ironman triathlon held each year on Hawaii’s Big Island and televised a few weeks later on NBC.

Hyland produced NBC’s Ironman coverage in 2002, 2003 and 2004.

Since 1991, NBC has won 13 Sports Emmys for its Ironman coverage, and in the three years that Hyland was the producer, NBC won five, including the one for best-edited special the last two years.

This year’s coverage of the event – which took place Oct. 15 – will be shown Saturday at 1:30 p.m. after the Notre Dame-Navy football game.

However, this Ironman coverage was not produced by Hyland.

That’s because he was a participant.

“It’s just something I really wanted to do,” Hyland, 30, said Thursday.

Originally a Southern Californian, he is the son of former Channel 2 general manager Bob Hyland and was once a 250-pound football guard. He first played at what is now known as North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake and went on to Williams College in Massachusetts. Hyland now weighs 185.

“I see guys from Williams I played football with and they don’t recognize me,” he said.

Hyland set a goal at the Ironman of finishing under 11 hours. He came in at 10 hours 54 minutes 24 seconds – good for 875th place among nearly 2,000 participants.

The winning time, by Faris Al-Sultan of Germany, was 8:14:07.

The hardest part, Hyland said, was the training – six to seven hours on a bike once or twice a week, 1 1/2 -hour swims and 25 miles a week of running.

But, Hyland says, he plans to do it again.

More Ironman

Maybe the most inspiring story connected to this year’s Ironman involves Sarah Reinertsen of Portola Hills in southern Orange County.

Reinertsen, 30, finished in 15:05:12. Not all that impressive, unless you consider that her left leg was amputated when she was 7.

She became the first female amputee to finish the Ironman.

“The hardest parts for me are the transitions,” she said Thursday. “I do the swim without my [artificial] leg, so then I have to hop to the changing tent to put on my running leg. Then it’s about 300 meters and up a flight of stairs to the start of the bike portion, where I have to change into my bike leg. After the bike, I switch back to my running leg.”

The event consists of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile marathon.

Reinertsen said she was born with a tissue disorder that prevented her left leg from growing properly.

“We decided when I was 7 that I would be better off with a prosthesis,” she said.

Reinertsen, who was speaking on her cellphone from the airport in Des Moines, is a much-sought-after inspirational speaker.

“I left for Kona on Oct. 6 and have only been home three nights since then,” she said.

Short Waves

The Michigan-Ohio State game Nov. 19 will not be shown by ABC on the West Coast because of FCC regulations that limit the number of times Saturday morning children’s programming can be preempted. The game will be available on ESPN GamePlan, provided you are not a subscriber to Adelphia or another cable system that does not offer the pay package.

ABC will air World Cup golf at 12:30 p.m. that day, then California-Stanford at 4 p.m., followed by Washington-Washington State.

Fox is trying to get Terrell Owens to do a guest spot on one of its upcoming NFL pregame shows, but so far he has not responded.

Fox’s Terry Bradshaw is trying to put together a group of investors to buy the New Orleans Saints and keep the team in his native Louisiana

“The citizens of Louisiana don’t deserve to lose the Saints because of a hurricane,” Bradshaw said. “Especially after all that they have already been through. This is all about supporting these great people and making sure that they don’t lose the team they love.”

Bradshaw was in Shreveport, La., on Wednesday to be inducted into the city’s Walk of Stars and see the dedication of the “Terry Bradshaw Passway.”

Fred Hickman has not been seen on ESPN for a while. An ESPN spokesman said he is on leave for medical and family reasons.

The guest on “CMI: The Chris Myers Interview,” Sunday night at 10:30 on FSN West will be the Chargers’ LaDainian Tomlinson.

Signs of the times: The NBA has launched a broadband service that provides game highlights on NBA.com

During the Kings’ game at Detroit on Wednesday, Bob Miller, in congratulating The Times’ Helene Elliott on her induction into the NHL Hall of Fame, pointed out that OLN did not include her or New York Ranger commentator Sal Messina in its Hall of Fame coverage. “Come on, you are the [NHL’s] media outlet,” Miller said. “Let us know who in the media won.”

In Closing

Graham Bensinger, the Syracuse freshman whose interview with Terrell Owens set off the tumult surrounding the suspended Philadelphia Eagle receiver, began doing an Internet radio show as an eighth-grader in St. Louis. So how does one go about launching such a show at such a young age?

Bensinger said he wrote to 50 prominent former baseball players asking them to come on as his guest. Four wrote back. They were Ernie Banks, Tim McCarver, Will Clark and Bob Feller.

Bensinger’s show later moved to St. Louis’ Sporting News network affiliate and he has since, through persistence, interviewed many of the biggest names in sports. And it is that persistence that landed him the biggest interview of his young career.