Bill Rasmussen’s legacy: He made ESPN a part of your family

The essence of what ESPN has meant to so many viewers begins with the man who came up with the idea of the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network in 1979. It was a family affair.Bill Rasmussen founded ESPN with his son, Scott. They gave the network the DNA of a fan. Bill was a child of the end of the Depression but developed a positive attitude that sang, “There is always next year.”You have to own a die-hard’s optimism to get knocked down after being fired as the communications director of the New England Whalers and then choose to max out your credit cards to combine it with a $9,000 advance to acquire the emerging – but far from a sure thing – satellite technology.The faith in ESPN Rasmussen had may seem obvious today. Nearly a half century ago, though, there were a lot of cable o