Profound, The Horn.

Eight of us met at New York City’s famous Carnegie Deli in the summer of 2002 to share Rueben sandwiches and concepts of, and ideas for, a novel neophyte network program on ESPN.

The smart, sharp, snarky Max Kellerman, who would become the young host, finally acknowledged me and said: “I hear you are from Colorado. Do you live on a farm?’’ He didn’t know beyond Manhattan and the Hudson River, but he knew Yankees and boxing and droned on for a half hour before I interrupted him.

“Max, you apparently have me confused with someone who (cares) what you’re talking about. Shut up!”

Producer Bill Wolff leaned back in his seat and announced: “Gentlemen. that’s the show.”

“Around The Horn’’ was born.

After I had appeared regularly on ESPN Classic since 1999 and once hosted a three-hour “road” show in Denver about the last game at old Mile High Stadium, a network vice president told me at a Super Bowl that a complementary companion to ESPN’s “Pardon The Interruption’’ was being planned. It was, he said. It would be a daily sports version of the “Hollywood Squares’’ game show and he wanted to hire me first as the middle square. “What? I’m happy and comfortable in Denver as a sports columnist.” He said I could be on a national TV show and become famous. I said no thank you. He said think about it. I hadn’t when he called me a few weeks later. “Are you in?’’ “I’m out’’. Then he told me what it paid. And we negotiated the number a bit higher, and I said: “I’m in.

The show’s hypothesis was to showcase sports in four different time zones with sports journalists instead of former athletes and talking head types in New York and Los Angeles. Oddly enough. three of the original five panelists – TJ Simers (LA Times). Jay Mariotti (Chicago Tribune) and I (The Denver Post) – had been rival columnists for Denver newspapers. The other two were Bob Ryan from The Boston Globe and Tim Cowlishaw from the Dallas Morning News.

I was on the first show from the middle of a newsroom in downtown Denver on Nov 4. 2002. Surrounding reporters complained about the shouting. Sportswriters across the country criticized “ATH’’, and I was certain I stunk. I had created a personality combining comedian Soupy Sales (who had a long-time kids afternoon show I viewed) and southern-accented Broncos coach Dan Reeves who would say to the media: “Why do I always have to straighten you guys out?”

I called the VP two weeks later and resigned. He tried to talk me out of leaving, but no go. That Saturday I covered a Colorado football game in Boulder and was converged on by several dozen students at the stadium who claimed they loved the show and me. A young woman screamed, “You’re Bobby Paige,’’ and said her boyfriend watched me every afternoon at 3. She asked for an autograph for him. And I signed it, “Best wishes, Bobby Paige.’’ At home that night I slept soundly. I called the network VP and told him I was full go.

“Around The Horn’’ grew an audience in college dorms and at sports bars and among high school students and 40-50 somethings who genuinely felt they were more intelligent than we were about sports. And they may have been. ATH grew great cable ratings, was replayed four times a day on different ESPN networks, was even parodied on the CBS sitcom “30 Rock.” I was shocked to be overwhelmed by thousands of sports fans at Super Bowls and Final Fours. Pro athletes would approach to talk in locker rooms and clubhouses about host Tony Reali, the “Stat Boy’’ who replaced Kellerman two years in. We were broadcast in 178 countries and became a staple in the ESPN show stable.

I took a leave of absence from The Post to spend three years in New York by the Hudson River doing “Cold Pizza,” “Dream Job,’’ “First & Ten,” “Around The Horn,” (still), SportsCenter, the startup of “First Take’’ and the Disney Kids channel. At 10 I wanted to become a Mouseketeer on the Mickey Mouse Club. As an adult I became a Mouseketeer and worked for Disney (which owns ESPN) and did shows from Disney World one week a year.

I have lived my life in fantasyland.

I have done entertainment and sports on the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network for a quarter of a century. I have been labeled, ridiculously, G.O.A.T., Legend, Star, Idiot. I like best my daughter’s name for me – Dad.

Not long ago a network executive called and said he had an informal statement and a formal statement. I had been one of the great talents for ESPN and influenced generations of young people. Then he said my last official day with the network would be May 23. I thanked him.

The last “Around The Horn’’ aired Friday. I said good-bye and good luck and “See you around …” to many of those tens of millions who had been viewers throughout 23 years.

I will be 79 in a month. I write columns for the Sunday Denver and Colorado Springs Gazette newspapers.

I am a writer and a journalist and a Coloradan.