Rich Eisen Reacts to the Death of O.J. Simpson at the Age of 76 | The Rich Eisen Show

shortly before we went on air it was revealed that OJ Simpson had died at the age of 76 and clearly you can't talk about OJ Simpson without mentioning that he was acquitted of a double murder in the 1990s that changed absolutely everything in the decade 1990. world of media in our world in the United States of America the way we view celebrities the way we view criminal cases the way we view justice the way we view everything and I will never forget where I was on the The day OJ Simpson was running from the police here in Southern California and I will never forget that day as long as I live and I was graduating from the Medill School of Journalism in June 1994 on this day when my parents.

We were there for graduation and so was my brother and sister-in-law, and we all went out to lunch, a late lunch with some classmates of mine who had just graduated from Medill and we were at a bar and, um, and having lunch and the pictures came up and it was in the middle of an NBA Finals game between the Knicks and the Spurs, yes, and the Rockets, forgive me, the Knicks and the Rockets, and yes, Nicks and Spurs, it's when I turned 30, so I'll never do it. Forget about that series because it was interesting in Chicago, to be honest, where was I because everyone thought if Michael hadn't retired they would have been in that series and the Knicks finally got over Jordan's bull list and there was a split screen and no you could believe the guy you knew as one of the all-time great running backs in NFL history and you couldn't believe the guy you now knew as a sideline reporter for NBC Sports and uh, a movie actor, the guy from the commercial Herz, who was trying to get his flight right, one of the most famous jumpers, was jumping on some chairs at the airport to go catch his flight.

Airport that guy was fleeing from. the police and why would he run from the police if he was innocent and we were all dealing with the fact that this guy looked like he had just killed his wife and a waiter at a nearby restaurant who was friendly with his wife . and he was returning, I guess a pair of glasses, as we found out later, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, Ron Goldman, may he also rest in peace. Sir, it seems like he's fine with Nicole Brown Simpson and, uh, I'll never forget where he was that day.

I think everyone, if you're old enough, remembers, yeah, I was in a bar in Pittsburgh, I walked in and I wondered why the game isn't based on who what and then we all huddled around this thing like in disbelief, right? and he was and and he was on the phone All the calls were on his friend he was in the car with him and he was driving and and and he was saying suicidal things it was crazy it was crazy and all the news organizations had broken in He lived and it went on and then the police He didn't want to stop him, they just followed him, they followed him, they just followed him, they saw where he was going and people were on the highway cheering him on too.

It was strange the fact that people had time. to make signs and get to certain places, that was especially now that I live here back then, California was like anything. I didn't think it was a real place, but to think that in this kind of traffic people could reach these. The dots make signs and maintain that they are going to Mexico and they turned around because he wanted to go home first, there was money and a costume there, right, CL gun, yes it was, he was only in 8th grade and a friend mine came to watch the NBA Finals and I remember they went to a small box in the Finals and then the biggest sight was the Chase and then Bob Cus was doing the game and going back and forth.

I was Marv doing the game. and Bob was doing Bob was doing the study study, yeah, but they gave it back, brother, they gave it back to Marvin. Marv is like we'll update you when conditions warrant a pause, we're here in the third quarter at Madison Square Garden and It was just weird and wild that and everyone started calling everyone else or talking to everyone else saying, Did you see what OJ was doing? OJ killed his wife, someone else because, again, why else would he be running from the law? And the crazy thing is when The success of the trial, they barely mentioned the chase was one of my memories because I watched the preliminary hearing every minute in Lance Eo's courtroom and you remember SNL would be doing skits and Jay Leno didn't like dancing EOS. on The Tonight Show and um and that's when the results ticker was born because CNN kept giving updates on other news because they didn't want to separate themselves from the non-stop coverage of 247 and that's when um, you know, um, Roger Kasac. and gret aan susten became famous because they were legal experts who told us everything that was going on and people found out what DNA was, it was our first experience with that law and therefore the preliminary trial once I graduated from the Medill School of Journalism I interned at CBS Evening News in New York City.

I lived at the 92nd Street Y over the summer and took two trains to Black Rock every day to work and answer phones on the CBS Evening News set. with Dan Rather and Connie Chong wow and basically my summer was filled with watching the pretrial with Lano and answering phones from angry people all over the country to give me three things: one OJ is guilty two OJ is innocent three where Are the prices right or my soap opera? They were complaining about why we are covering this from deck to deck. And where are the prices? Where is my soap opera?

And I said, "I'd just transfer them to another line for that." Because the phones were ringing off the hook, it was crazy, the country will never ever forget it, so bringing this kind of full circle here is because you can't talk about OJ Simpson without mentioning the double murder in Brentwood. California from his wife and bartender Ron Goldman, you can't do that unless, of course, you're the Heisman Trust that tweeted today. You know they mourn the passing of OJ Simpson. We extend our condolences to his family and again you know this man. He passed away from cancer and obviously someone dying is not something to celebrate, but how can we not mention it?

And if you're Reggie Bush and you see yourself saying, "Oh, he's got his Heisman, but you know where mine is because O.J did it." serving 12 years for something completely unrelated to this, that's one thing to say, but we have to remember the families affected and in that sense, an NBC News reporter, Daniel Arin, reached out to Ron Goldman's father, Fred, who by the way was the Goldman family. face of, um, normally in the middle of the madness crisis, this family had lost their son, well, then followed the civil trial that followed the file and Ron Goldman's Father Fred quote about OJ's passing, the only thing What I have to say is that it's just one more reminder of Ron's absence all these years, it's not a great loss to the world, it's one more reminder of Ron's absence and I just wanted to mention that, to end our conversation about this topic, grab the attention of the

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