58 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
¬ AFTER PLEADING GUILTY THAT
October to bank robbery by force and intimidation,
Crane was sentenced to 37 months—the recommended
minimum—at a federal correction facility in Talladega.
He was despondent about his plight until a cellmate
summoned him. “He says, ‘Michael, get in here. I want
to show you something. Bring your paperwork,’ ” Crane
recalls. “He goes, ‘See your release date?...Let me show
you mine.’ He pulls it out. It says: death. After that I
stopped moping.”
Sports also helped Crane get through what “seemed like
an eternity” in prison. He could hold his own on a softball
field and on a basketball court, but his line of work gave
him real currency among the inmates. He could rattle
off stories from the Super Bowls he’d worked and the
times he’d f lown on an NBA team’s charter. Eventually,
he could also joke about the felonious misadventure in
Augusta. His go-to setup line before launching into an
account of his saga: “One year at the Masters I upstaged
Tiger Woods. And I didn’t even pick up a club.”
After 29 months Crane was released. “You walk outand it’s ‘Aaah, freedom,’ ” he says. “Then it’s, ‘Oh s---,
what’s next?’ ” He knew that reentering sports broad-
casting—at least immediately—was unlikely. He wasn’t
prepared, though, for how many other careers would be
closed to him. “My first job out of prison was cleaning
Porta Potties for minimum wage. I would wear my cap
down so people couldn’t see my face. I’m still fresh off
being this high-rolling ESPN guy.”
Broke and estranged from much of his family, Crane
began, episodically, using again, a violation of his parole
that could have put him back in prison. And on June 6, 2013,
homeless and isolated, he says he attempted to hang him-
self in a hotel room. “But as soon as I kicked the chair out
[I fell to the f loor],” Crane recalls. “I sat there for 12 hours
and started writing down things I’d lost: family, career,
home....The sixth or seventh thing I wrote—and I kept
[that list] in my pocket for a long time—was purpose. I’ve
got to find something, a reason. If I’m still here, there’s a
reason. And I checked into rehab.”
Ideally, this is where the comeback story begins. But
Crane’s last half-decade hasn’t been nearly that tidyHOL
E
D- U
P“YOU WALK OUT OF PRISON AND IT’S, ‘AAAH,
FREEDOM.’ THEN IT’S, ‘OH S---, WHAT’S NEXT?’
MY FIRST JOB WAS CLEANING PORTA POTTIES.”
KE
VIN(^) D.
(^) LIL
ES