Since Wednesday of this week, when the ESPN story first hit, the controversy - actually, the controversy such that there actually - it's amazing to me that this is a controversy at all. Had what I said been said by anybody else - Sean Hannity could have said it, and it would not have been, it wouldn't have even gotten noticed. It wouldn't have gotten scant attention. But it did. On Tuesday, the Philadelphia media, both print and broadcast, erupted with what had been said on Sunday on ESPN. It took two days for there to be any reaction. There wasn't any reaction to it even on the ESPN set. So Wednesday, things moved quite rapidly and had to go to Philadelphia after the program that day.

Late that night, in communication via e-mail with vice-presidents at ESPN, I resigned that position that I have. I'll tell you about that in detail in just a moment. And around the same time came a story involving drugs and me in Florida. Since both of these stories have erupted, I have received - it is unbelievable to me. I have received over - at ten o'clock this morning, it was over 25,000 e-mails. I'm sure it's a lot more than that. Well, there's been another 2,000 here just in the last 90 minutes and it's probably going to skyrocket here during the program. These e-mails have come without me being on the air, so over 30,000 e-mails.

There have been hundreds of telephone calls. All have been asking about e-mails and phone calls have been asking about me. All have been - the vast majority have been - just extremely supportive. It's very gratifying to see, and that's very humbling, too. And I hope you understand what I mean when I say humbling. When my first book came out and it rocketed to the top of the New York Times list, there was a book party that the publisher threw for me. There was some Time magazine executive who came up and asked me how I felt about it, and I said, "I'm very humbled by this," and he did not understand what I meant.

"Humbled? You were humbled?" I said, "Yeah. Maybe I'm using the wrong word, but I'm just very appreciative that this many people would go out and buy something I wrote." And I'm at the same time here very moved by the realization that there are so many thousands, millions of you who are likewise concerned for me and my family in this situation. Now, here's the nub of it at the moment. The story in Florida is - it really is an emerging situation. I watch what's being reported on television and it changes from morning to morning, hour to hour, day to day. I don't know yet what I'm dealing with there, folks.

I really don't know the full scope of what I am dealing with. And when I get all the facts, when I get all the details of this, rest assured that I will discuss this with you and tell you how it is, tell you everything there is, maybe more than you want to know about this. You can believe me and trust me on that. I don't want to answer any questions about it now, as I say, until I know exactly what I'm dealing with, and at that point I will fill you all in. As I say, I can't tell you how much I appreciate the notes and all of the expressions of support. It means everything to me, as has your support over these many years, and nothing has changed in that regard.