If asked, sure, CNN Headline News Sports anchor Ray D’Alessio will talk about his days kicking for Eastern Illinois’s football team.

That was as 29-yard field goal with 1:19 left, he can tell off the top of his head of that game-winner when Eastern beat Northwestern Louisiana 23-22 in 1990.

"Oh yeah, I tell war stories," D’Alessio said. "C’mon. I wouldn’t even attempt to kick a field goal now. But I have to pull out the old game films sometimes. The wife is the one whose nerves I really get on and I tell the old war stories and I say yeah, I remember when we played Northern Illinois and Stacey Robinson. . ."

These days D’Alessio is usually telling stories of others whether it is results from the previous nights major-league baseball games from his anchor desk or standing in the pits of the Daytona 500.

You know how Eastern was a big story a year ago when Sean Payton became the school’s third graduate to be an NFL head coach?

Well, CNN has two sports anchors and both went to Eastern Illinois – D’Alessio of Decatur and Larry Smith of Mattoon.

Smith helped D’Alessio get into this deal of rising at 3 a.m. in order to be at work by 4 and be on the air for your 6 a.m. breakfast.

"Usually I’m in bed 8:30 or 9 o’clock," he said of his night life. "That’s my typical week. It’s not easy getting up at 3 o’clock. Being out of work for those 18 months I said I would never complain. I get paid to talk about sports. How many people would give their left arm about that? The hardest thing I do is get up."

Between this current CNN gig that began and July 2001 and covering the Indiana Firebirds for Fox Sports and anchoring an ESPN morning radio show after earlier working for Fox covering the Indianapolis Colts, D’Alessio learned how the less fortunate lived.

"My contract was not renewed at Indianapolis, which happens in this business," D’Alessio said. "I sold cars, I hung drywalls, I finished basements, anything to put food in the table."

Through that time, Smith did not forget about the place-kicker he met at Eastern. Changing his major from plans of being an athletics trainer to the media and working for WEIU, D’Alessio struck an impression with Smith, who quickly climbed through the business to CNN.

A position opened, Smith called and told D’Alessio to send a tape and CNN hired a second Eastern Illinois alum."I owe so much to Larry Smith," D’Alessio said. "He was a good friend before and now he’s a great friend."Larry said ‘let’s talk; we’re friends.’ He said ‘if you do this and do this and don’t do this you’ll have a long career at CNN.’ "

So far that has lasted six years with D’Alessio not talking about going anywhere else. "You know what, if CNN wants an overweight, receding hairline guy, if they can live with that, I’ll be here," he said. "A lot of people overlooked me when I was out of work. They didn’t want to touch me. I owe a lot to CNN Vice President) Bill Galvin, "It’s a great place to work. Coming from a local TV station you hear horror stories about the network. We don’t have that have that here. We all get along."

D’Alessio does not mind saying he plays second fiddle to the other Eastern Illinois product at the cable television network.

"Without a doubt Larry is the face of CNN sports," D’Alessio said. "He really is. He covers the major events like the Super Bowl and World Series. There’s no animosity that he gets to do this and why can’t I do that? I get to cover the Daytona 500 because Larry knows my background and my love for racing. I’ve got to go to the Major league all-star game. I’ve covered U.S. Open. I’ve been at Kentucky Derby."

Of course, neither D’Alessio nor Smith goes as Eastern’s biggest personality in the sports world these days.

"We’re overshadowed now by Tony Romo," D’Alessio said. "I lot of people don’t even know Larry and I went to school together. When Tony broke out on the scene I had to go break out all the EIU coffee cups and EIU banners."

The CNN anchormen may never reach the People Magazine popularity that Romo has as a Dallas Cowboy after winning the 2002 Walter Payton Award as the NCAA Division I-AA football player of the year as an EIU senior, but D’Alessio had his moments as a Panther as well.

Transferring from Illinois Valley Community College for his junior year as a walk-on, D’Alessio won EIU’s starting place-kicking job that preseason and helped the Panthers to their last I-AA playoff win in 1989. That was when the 15th-ranked Panthers, featuring defensive tackle John Jurkovic who went on to play in the NFL before getting his own radio job working for WMVP in Chicago, upset No. 4 Idaho which had future NFL quarterback John Friesz.

From that win at Idaho’s dome the Panthers the following week went to the frozen field at Montana where one of D’Alessio’s memorable moments came from just warming up on the sideline during an EIU possession, slipping and falling on his behind.

Local television cameras just happened to be showing the EIU kicker at the time as if the embarrassment was not enough just in front of Montana spectators.

"I just remember the fans laughing at me and throwing snowballs at me," D’Alessio said. "Those fans were absolutely ruthless." D’Alessio temporarily quieted the crowd by kicking a 31-yard field goal cutting Montana’s lead to six points with 1:16 remaining. But trying an onside kick on an icy field where the football could slide forever, he tried to put the touch on the football that would give teammates a chance to recover only for the ball to stop short of the required 10 yards. "It went 9 ½ yards," D’Alessio said. "We had three guys ready to pounce on the thing when it rolled out of bounds. I remember I was thinking of that the whole off-season if it just would have gone another half yard."

Instead, Montana managed the 25-19 win and D’Alessio’s senior season, even with that winning field goal at Northwestern Louisiana, wound up 5-6. "I would say I was an average kicker," he said. "Like every other kicker I had NFL aspirations but when I was out a year I was like no, I don’t have the leg."

He found he did have the skills to make it on national television, however. "I still look at those big CNN letters and just pinch myself," D’Alessio said. "I’ve been a very, very lucky individual. I got to play college football and for (Eastern Illinois) coach (Bob) Spoo and go to the playoffs and now I get to work at CNN."