The Bill Simmons Podcast - Sports Announcers, Pain Killers, Goodell, and ESPN With Bryan Curtis and Sally Jenkins (Ep. 196)

Episode Date: April 3, 2017

HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Bryan Curtis discuss the art of sports broadcasting (2:00). Then, Sally Jenkins of The Washington Post joins them to talk about Roger Goodell and the NFL’s credibility problem (28:45), the painkillers epidemic in sports (35:00), Pat Summitt (43:45), and the current state of ESPN (58:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, friends. Feels like that time of year, doesn't it? You start talking like Jim Nance, right? It's Nance time. We're in the NCAA Tournament Masters corridor here. Hello, friends. It feels like that time of year, doesn't it? You start talking like Jim Nance, right? It's Nance time. We're in the NCAA Tournament Masters corridor here. Do you agree with Mark Titus' philosophy that Jim Nance did not like all the Gus Johnson attention so he had him liquidated?

Pushed him to Fox? You think so? Won't let him come back? Well, I like that. That's an amazing theory. It's a great one. I'll do credit to Mark Titus. I just think Jim Nance is probably just on a different plane. And I don't know that that gets back to him really. I kind of don't believe it.

You don't think that? I kind of don't believe it now. Because I was one of the people driving this in 08, 09, whatever that range was with Gus, March Madness. Once Twitter got going, Gus had a lot of momentum from that. It's like, oh my God, it's Gus Johnson time. And they're writing stories. And this guy, he's the most exciting. The other play-by-play guys kind of resent him. He's played this as a shtick. He's not one of us.

That's all going on. Then he goes to Fox and that's it. Yeah, it kind of shocked me more, I think, if Vern Lundquist was mad at Gus Johnson. Like, you're taking my number two slot, hoarding it on my territory. Did you see there was an interview with Gus in the New York Post the other day

and he sounded like he really missed March Madness. Why wouldn't he? Well, so yesterday, one of the things I want to talk to you about is in WrestleMania, Jim Ross comes back for the main event, the best wrestling announcer ever. It's never really been clear

why he's not involved in the WWE full time. I'm sure maybe they didn't want an announcer who is bigger than everyone else. Maybe there's money stuff, who knows? But he came back and he did the Undertaker's last match and it was like, he never left. He was great. It felt bigger.

And it got me thinking, I texted you. I was like, man, I wonder if this paves the way for Gus. Couldn't Gus just come back? Like Chris Webber's on these games. Right. Because of a weird CBS Turner agreement. Gus is on Fox technically, but isn't it good for Fox

to bring Gus Johnson back for two weeks? Just loan him out? Absolutely. Why wouldn't they do this? Bring him back to where he needs to be, right? Yeah. And we all remember and go, oh, that's great.

And then he leaves the next day. We go, okay, that was great. We had our little moment, right? Was Vern Lundquist out? Well, Vern's doing college basketball and golf, but let me tell you. So he's not out. But I think we should apply this to all sports. Like you said, we need the old timers game of announcing. So like a year or two ago, the Cowboys, their radio guy had to, it was a Sabbath. He's Jewish. So he couldn't do it as a Saturday game and he couldn't do it. They call Vern who did radio Cowboys in the seventies. Vern came back and did one game and it was magnificent. Now with a lot of these guys,

you don't want them coming back full time. That's like too much ice cream. You know, you get sick or, Oh, whoops. Yeah, no. Pat Summerall came back a couple of years and go and did a cotton bowl late in life. And it was rough. It was not good. It would have been better to have the, as you used to say, the video game, Pat just hitting a button and doing his catchphrase. Computer generated, Pat. It was so bad. But I like the idea of you bring them out once in a while. Here we go.

It feels special, right? I think we spend more time complaining about announcers than really anything else as sports fans other than ticket prices and salaries. And referees, right? And referees. We just assume referees are going to be terrible. Yeah. I guess coaches. You're right. Maybe announcers aren't in the top five, but we do spend way too much time. They're up there. We're never happy with anybody. Joe Buck, who I think, you know, I was not a big Joe Buck fan earlier. And I thought he stripped it down too much. He even admitted when he came on this podcast, like the summer influence actually affected him negatively.

He did a pat impression for like two years. Yeah. And I think he admits that now. Now he's able to kind of engage with the game. I think he's still really good. And I think people appreciate him when he's gone. But other than that, it's not, I don't look around and just see a slew of great play-by-play guys.

And what's weird is it's the same guys every year. Same guys. It never changes. And if you're, let's say you're some 26-year-old prodigy, like how do you even break in? I guess you go to a team first? Yeah. I mean, I think about this all the time.

It's the same guys from when we were young. Yeah. Marv is number one on the NBA, right? Dick Stockton is still around. Marv and Dick Stockton still. Dick Enberg just retired from the Padres last year, right? We just said goodbye to Brent. Brent Musburger.

We just said goodbye to Brent, who's now in Vegas doing something I don't quite understand, right? But it's really the same old guard. And Costas kind of just downsized himself a little bit. Al Michaels. But it's still Al. There was Costas was still around. All these guys. And it's kind of like you look around like, these are the guys who were calling games when I was a kid.

Yeah. And it's the same group. Here's what's I think going to change, though. The three network era slash four network era. Those guys were so big because they called everything. Yeah. And now we're sliding away from that. I just don't know.

Just specialty for every sport. If I'm the new Bob Costas, am I going to be ever be that big? Is it just not possible because Costas was coming up and those guys were coming up in that network era, you know, where it's like it was, there was cable, but it was still so big. And now it's just, you would not be that big anymore. I don't know. Like who would be, I don't even know who had as a chance to be the next Bob Costas. Well, like, let's just say Tariko, right. Since he came up from ESPN. He did come up in the air when ESPN was bigger.

In his 40s now, though. Yeah. But I'm saying, will he ever touch the Mount Olympus that Bob did? Just in terms... I don't even know. Just as big. I think it's going to be one sport per announcer. Yeah.

I think you'll see the... Basically, the Doc Emmerich. Kevin Harlan does football, but really, I think of him as a basketball guy. Love Kevin Harlan. You know, he's good. Back from the dead on Easter Sunday. Still my favorite NCAA tournament golf. Forget Gus, that was amazing.

I thought what TNT tried to do on these Player Monday things was an admirable attempt. But turns out, guess what? Turns out you need play-by-play guys for games. Yeah. I'm not convinced you need play-by-play guys for games. I'm not convinced you need studio hosts. I will still die on that hill forever for pregame shows and stuff like that. Unless it's somebody that clicks with the crew.

I think the hosts, you end up trying to gear the show around the hosts to give them something to do, basically. I'd rather just hear the people and the chemistry. But you need play by play guys. You just do. I was watching Derek Fisher and Brent Berry. I actually like Brent Berry, Derek Fisher. I'm a little dubious as a media person. Those were the two guys announcing a game in Utah. It was a tick coming back from commercial. They're doing bumps. They're setting up sideline reporters it's like all right this is cute but why are we doing this yeah i remember fox did a couple years ago they put

terry and jimmy in a booth yeah nobody and you know what always happens is one guy becomes the bad play-by-play man right and the other guy becomes the kind of color guy and you're just like oh but why don't we have just have the good play-by-play man by the way this was when i knew football for how long with frank gifford frank gifford never should have done play-by-play man. By the way, this was when I knew football for how long? With Frank Gifford. Frank Gifford never should have done play-by-play. He was the bad play-by-play man. Yeah, forever. And then they finally got Al Michaels in. He would just get so much stuff wrong.

Remember that? When he was kind of in the end. That was rough. I've had my column, the sports guy column now for almost 20 years. He was still there when it started. It was like just, Frank was a godsend. He was just, you know, he wouldn't,

he wasn't even really announcing anymore. He would just go into these little mini biographies of each player. Like, oh, there's Tony Romo. So many years, Tony Romo, trying so hard, get to a Superbowl. It's never happened. Great player. Great player. Yeah, I remember when he was in the Cowboys in their prime Super Bowl years and he would call Emmitt Smith Emmitt Thomas all the time, who was the assistant coach. I'm like, it's the NFL's leading rusher. This is the one guy should get right in this game. The guy just ran for 80

yards. Emmitt Smith. When they're mixing up names, that's a red flag. When they're getting the step out of bounds, oh no, he did, and I'm sorry. When they're getting like the stepped out of bounds. Oh no, we did. And I'm sorry when they're apologizing for wrong play by play. Right.

You see Doc Emmerich, like he's just batting a hundred out of a hundred for everything he does. So if, so if you say we're going to single sport, which I think is right, then this is the end. So these are the, this'll, this'll be the last guard of the, of the multi Joe Buck, who just had the craziest world series, super Bowl combo in terms of quality of game ever. World Series Game 7 Super Bowl overtime. Greatest Super Bowl comeback ever in the Cubs and in the World Series. How do you top that?

Just unbelievable, right? We got Jim Nance doing golf in college basketball and football. Jim Nance should just do golf. I like him on golf. He works all the time. He's very good at that. He's just like, when you hear that voice, you go, oh, yeah, here we go. I'm ready.

It's the voice for golf. I's like, he's just like, when you hear that voice, you go, yeah, here we go. I'm ready. It's the voice for golf. And I think, I thought the college basketball calls have been good. Am I, am I? Yeah, no, he's, he's been okay. I almost, I almost didn't write that. I'm just mad at him for Gus. I know you're mad at him. Thanks for him.

We all, we've all got this, like, you know, you got stuff built up for the years, right? Plus you do have him do every Patriots, every huge Patriots game. So you have it much different. I know you're right. He's, he's very solid on college hoops. He certainly doesn't hurt it. Gave a great call last year, that fantastic final. And then Grand Hill decides to step on the, on the, on the buzzer beater. Yeah. By the way, if you start talking, whatever I talked to play by play guys, the one thing they hate, not, I didn't get this from dance cause he, I'm sure

he would never admit it, but when the color guy talks during the final play, the color guys, and they never forget, they never forget because right, that's their highlight reel forever. And when the color guy goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, it's like, no, no, no, no, dude. This is me. This is my time. When Ken Dryden and Al Michaels

was doing the Do You Believe in Miracles, he probably started to say something and Al just probably punched him right in the throat. Incapacitated and pretentious. Boom! This is my moment, Ken Dryden. There was a one in the NCAA tournament this year. Vern called a buzzer beater, called it perfectly.

Vern, you're like, awesome. Big, big moment. And then I think it was Jim Spinarkel. Apologies to Jim Spinarkel if I'm slandering him here, but he was like, whoa! It was like a high school game or whatever, you know? Like, no, no, no. We're good.

Just take a minute. Then you can do the replay. Tell us what happened. There was a good moment in the Friday night UConn game when they showed the replay of the game winning shot and the announcers, or maybe I saw it online. They have these little cameras now where they can catch the announcers in whatever moment they're in. So he calls the game winner and Kara Lawson and Doris Burke just had this look of complete astonishment.

And then the players started piling over to where they were. So they're all leaning back, kind of scared and amused and happy. It was good. That was a good broadcast. It's cool for basketball, right? I feel we don't appreciate this. It's like the other sports are so far away. And basketball, those guys are really close.

Yeah. I sat down with an announcer not long ago and it was like, whoa, like you're not, it's like where you are. And it's like the old Michael Jordan thing with chalk, right? You know, in the face of Marv Albert, right? It's too close. We did, when Jalen and I did a game with Tirico, I think in March 2014, so three years ago, it was really hard to, you almost have to watch the monitors, whereas that sounds,

I don't know why they put them that close. I guess because you can hear the refs and, but to say that that's a good view watch the monitors, whereas that sounds, I don't know why they put them that close, I guess, cause you can hear the refs and, but to say that that's a good view of the game, you can't really get, you don't get depth. You can't tell the spacing, you get blocked a lot. So you,

you, you watch the monitor way more than I thought you were going to. And it's not a big monitor either. It's a little one. That was the, I think that might've been the most, other than doing the draft, I think that was the most fun I've had doing TV, doing the game, doing the game. Cause it's so fast. And if you do it right, you want it to be the guy,

the play by plays doing it, but you're kind of hanging out, watching it and jumping in and stuff, which is what Van Gundy and Jackson, I think, have gotten to. Right. Almost to their detriment in some ways, because it's almost too comfortable sometimes. Basketball is played by playing men's sport. Yes. Right, it's his call. Well, and I think that was the thing with Tirico. I really liked Tirico.

I think there was a point where he kind of felt like he had to take back the reins. So the fourth quarter, he just kind of bulldozed us for a little bit because he felt like these guys are kind of bastardizing. He was nice about it, but we could feel him kind of pulling it back a little bit. He was like, yeah, I got it. And also fourth quarter, right? He's like, I got to call the game. The catch was that it was the Lakers and they were terrible when we did this.

So it wasn't like we were doing a playoff game. But yeah. But yeah, I mean, it's so close. I mean, I don't understand how basketball and i don't know so play-by-play is most mysterious we talk about sports media all the time right yeah sports writers i can't do what a lot of those guys do but i understand it i think um color guys are color guys you know they're x jocks when you look at these broadcasts or play-by-play guys studio hosts okay you're like i don't understand how you do that i don't understand how you get

the words out like it's hear the energy the same way. The memory of all the names. And you can't screw up. Right. Like you screw up and everybody knows it, you know? I think you need to have a level of like OCD slash like a fanatical attention to detail. Yes. All the time.

Be somewhere on that. Just even remember like, all right, first down, right hash mark on the 39 yard line. But you have to do that every time. And these guys, they become almost robots. Absolutely. Where they know how to do that stuff. So I think it's hard for them to, that's why I marvel at Michaels, especially after having been somewhat in that situation.

But his ability to do the play by play, to get all the detail, but then also engage with Collinsworth, like they're buddies. It's like to do all three isby-play, to get all the detail, but then also engage with Collinsworth, like they're buddies. It's like to do all three is, I think, the hardest. When he did the Malcolm Butler interception, like first of all, I think I was, I can't remember what I was talking to, if it was Fred Gidelli or whatever. And I was like, I'm always interested in,

is it the spotter or is it the guy? And it was like, that was all Al. And here's Malcolm Butler who nobody in the stands or even on press row even knows yeah and he's on it like the ball is intercepted by malcolm butler and he has the kind of like oh he gets the tone right totally incredulity like one they threw the ball two this random dude just intercepted it and won the super bowl for the patriots right right now look at that call and i'm like whoa whoa. I mean, it just drilled it.

By the way, when we do our old-timers announcers league, you have to do your catchphrase. It's like when the old wrestlers come out, it's like when it was the shoemaker earlier. Old-timer announcers league? You have to do, well, our old-timer announcer league. When you come, we bring them out of mothballs. Oh, I got you.

I thought this was a fantasy league. I didn't know that. I got excited. I was like, oh, I can be in another fantasy league. What's Curtis doing? Just like when you bring the old wrestlers back and they have to do their special move, the announcer has to do the catchphrase. So, you know, when we need, I can be another fitness league. What's Curtis doing? Just like when you bring the old wrestlers back and they have to do their special move, the announcer has to do the catchphrase.

So, you know, when Dick Enberg comes back- Does everyone have a catchphrase? Like what's Joe Buck's catchphrase? He's not an old man though. But he needs one now before he becomes old. What does he have? Yeah, I don't think Al would be willing to do Do You Believe in Miracles in 15 years.

He'll have way too much pride to bring that one up. Who did Mercy? Mercy. I don't know. Wasn't that Verne Lundquistnon lundquist yeah i guess vernon lundquist had two sounds like verne verne's had like a whole bunch so yes sir is like his major one yeah i don't even think i think he stumbled into yes sir because of matt of nicholas and the masters right because that became one of the best ways it's funny though like like less is almost always more. Like the Barcelona comeback against PSG, which was like the greatest soccer comeback probably in recent history. And the announcer just killed it.

Like he talked for 28 seconds straight. I can't believe what I just saw. That was the greatest. It's like, shut up, dude. I wouldn't hear the crowd. And people like Lundqvist and Michaels, all these guys, you lay out a little bit.

Joe Buck's really good at it too. And it's not the words, right? It's the tone. It's the tone. If you and I have been sitting in the press box on Deadline and Miracle on Ice, and we submitted our column, and the first line was, do you believe in miracles? The editor was sent back and said, try again, Bill. Great. Yeah. Good one. That's hacky. Yeah. But what his was the tone of voice and it worked and it was perfect. So why can't we fix baseball announcing? How is it so awful every year?

I just don't understand. What are we, the awful? Especially the local baseball announcers. It's just the tone of it, everything's wrong. All of it. I would change all of it. Everything about just having people that, you know, they see a batter and it's like, oh, remember his grandfather?

What a third baseman he was. Story time. I remember in 1978, I was there. This is why people, a lot of people like Hubie Brown way more than I do. I've never, I've never been, I've never been a, I didn't, I never understood the cult of Hubie. I've never understood it either. And I think now that he's so old, it's like almost like a Marvel that he's still doing it, but you know, no sense of humor.

So now I feel like I'm killing Hubie Brown, but it's just very technical, right? He cares about the nuts and bolts. He's bringing in stuff from like, you know, it reminds me in the seventies, Bob McAdoo and Bob Kaufman used to run that. But it's like, who are you saying this to? Like nobody under 35.

Those are those people are. And I don't know. It just seems like people, people get entrenched and then they just, that's it. They get to stay forever. Yeah. Oh, you never get rid of it. I'm pretty sure I'd rather hear a player than an 80 year old ex coach at this point. Oh yeah.

I mean that in the least hot take away possible like to me the guys like c-web and uh the guys that this class of people that are coming out now right that are going to retire so vince carter paul pierce um t-max already on tv with mixed results but that whole class of guys those i would i want to hear those guys doing nba games because when they do it they could be be like, you know, I tried to stop that man who drive. And I remember like this one time he did this. You know, you're giving me experience from recently because you went against the guy. That's kind of what I want from my color guys. It makes sense?

Yeah, absolutely. I like the knowledge of, oh, I, you know, I used to race Ferraris and I used to pick up the hood. And I used to, like, that's what we want. Absolutely. Yeah. You didn't feel like you got that from Matty Gukas in the nineties during the NBA finals? No, he was bad.

He was one of the worst ones. The irony of Marv's career is that he never really had the right partner for his entire career until Steve Kerr. And then it was Steve Kerr who fell into place. But like Mike Fratello, we thought Mike Fratello was great. Right. And he was like a total straight man. He's fine. But that's like with Hubie, I think he, people was like, oh, he's nuts and bolts.

I'm going to get, you know, I'm going to get all the, and it's like, all right. So yes. It's a point about that too. And I feel this is the way history is moving right now. People, especially our very serious sports media critics yeah want nuts and bolts they want a really good nerdy call technocratic call and i don't know if i want that i don't that's that's what i'm saying i want showbiz i want a little showbiz right it doesn't have to be ridiculous uh all these guys do it too much occasionally but i like al and those guys come from the big i think it who come from the big, I think it's come from the networks that you have to be showbiz,

right? You're competing with sitcoms and late night TV and stuff like that. And I just feel that there's like a, there's a kind of nerd class that's come up and they're very competent. Like they get everything right. They're very confident. They know more about basketball and football than our guys did. Right.

They just know. So they read pro football ref, you know, they're just reading all the websites and all this stuff. I just feel like they didn't, they lack a little showbiz. And I like, I want that in my life. You know, Collins is great. I mean, I'm biased on that one. Cause he's my friend, but when I hear the game, like it's the right mix of old guy, but crossed with he, he coached five years ago. So he's called, he coached against a lot of the people that are in the league crossed with gets a little bit about the flair. You know, you don't want to put him at the three

man booth because he's, he's loquacious. Yeah. But when it's just him and one other person, I feel like, all right, this is good. I'm going to learn stuff from Doug and Hubie, I guess, same thing, but Hubie's very trapped in like, all right, you're down three, you know, you have to foul. You got to get the ball back. You want to foul before the three. And it's like, can I just watch? They're down three. I know Paul George is going to shoot a three.

Like, I'm good. Can we also share our nerdy announcing point from text messages the other night, which it's been your cause for years. Three-man booze in basketball. It's rough. Make it stop. Make it stop. We just need one guy. We're good.

Just one color guy. You know who's good? Bill Raftery. I never said, I wish there was a third guy in there with Bill Raftery. Bill Raftery is not funny and charming enough. Now I've never said that in my life. He's trying to rush his lines in because he doesn't know if like

Grant Hill's going to start talking. Yeah. He's going to go real fast. With the kiss. Real good. Real good. Yeah. It's all right. All right. Yeah. I know. Just the kiss. Real good. Real good. Yeah, it's all right.

I know. Just two guys. Two guys is great. There's been so many messes made of three-man boots. The magic with, speaking of Marv, Magic Johnson being stuck in as the third guy. Steve Jones and Bill Walton, which was just a glorious mess during the NBA finals. They were. Yeah, I was going to say they were in the finals.

People think Bill Walton's weird now. Remember those days when he was actually calling the huge games? Love Bill Walton, but man. I did some of this in my book. The legacy of NBA announcers is just over and over again, people saying, well, that guy was a great player. We'll put him in the booth. And Oscar Robertson did it. Oscar Robertson got kicked out during the playoffs. It was how bad he was. That's what I discovered in my research, but Isaiah, they can never, they put Isaiah with Doug Collins and Bob Costas, which during the last two Jordan, at least the last Jordan year, but that was bad. God, I forgot. I was so bad. I forgot it.

Bill Walton and the snapper together. Like these guys are feisty. They'll go at each other. Grumpy old man. Yeah. But Bill Walton didn't need a sidekick, but yeah, it's, it's a common mistake. I think with baseball, baseball is so fucking boring that you need three. I'm okay with three in baseball. It's okay with three. Yeah. Yeah. But one of them has to lay back. One just has to talk once in a while. Yeah. Which is basically everybody loves Van Gundy and Mark Jackson. Mark Jackson lays back.

I was going to say. He's just like, he's barely there. Like it's really Van Gundy show and Breen. And then they kind of go to Mark Jackson and he does shtick. Yeah. And I'm not sure I'm in the everybody camp with that booth. Those three. Oh, I'm not either. Yeah.

My issue with that booth is that Mark Jackson clearly wants to coach again. And I think when, especially in basketball, when you're doing that job and you want to coach again, you're just not crossing certain lines. You're not going to say like, Paul George has got to get over himself. Like he's, you got to be a better teammate. He's not working hard enough. Like that was a big thing when Danny Inge took over the Celtics job as GM and he had lit into Antoine Walker the year before in the playoffs. And it was like, Antoine wanted to get traded. They had to trade him. He was like, this guy crushed me in the

playoffs. Yeah. And that was a big thing. So I think those guys are really mindful of it. I wouldn't, I wouldn't have anybody unless they weren't coming back. Yeah. But that's such a short list, right? Like Madden was that guy. Madden. He was done. Gruden's like that too. Gruden has, you said one bad thing

about a quarterback ever. Brock Osweiler could take a shit on the field and Gruden would be like, well, you know, I mean, he had to go. But he's not coming back, right? I mean, he's had how many chances

since he's back? I don't think he's coming back at this point. He's never going to come back. He makes too much money. He loves it. Why would you leave that life? I mean, he's had how many chances? I don't think he's coming back at this point. He never makes too much money. He loves it. Why would you leave that life? I think it's six million a year to do games. To go coach the Rams.

Come on. That's the end. You get fired in three years. You love that. I think the most satisfying start to finish TV broadcast for me is the Masters. Which is coming up this week. It's of a piece. You know, as weird as it is, right?

You know, with the azaleas and the music and I, you know, those aren't, that's not our aesthetic. I'm pretty sure I can say safely, right? Tinkling piano music and shots of flowers. It just feels like it's a thing. The tone is the same. It's a schtick that is proven and it works. And I go into this world for a weekend and Jim Nance's soothing voice.

And let's go over to 16. And we still got Vern, right? Vern Lundquist. Yeah, yeah. All these guys. Oh, Vern had a great one. Was it, was it, Spieth blew it last year, right?

So he blew it. He's never been the same. And he was coming back. He was coming back. It looked like he was gonna come back and win the tournament, right? Greatest story of all tournament. He hits it to like six feet at,

and at 16, Vern goes, oh yes. I yes i mean it was just that's all he said and it was so it was such perfect burn that's so much that's the mood's nice it looks great on hd yeah everybody's very and it's a great sunday to sit there and you kind of so good you kind of fall asleep and wake up again and you feel good and it's so good like the u.s open is the other one I like because it's Father's Day. I used to watch with my dad before I moved. And now I watch it with my son. Oh no, he would never watch golf in a million years. He'd rather jam a nail into his head.

But yeah, I mean, that's like the Father's Day tournament. The Masters is the spring is here. The azaleas are blooming. Somebody won, put the jacket. We azaleas are blooming. Somebody won. Put the jacket. We go into the Butler cabin. It's super fucking weird in there. There's paintings

and everybody's acting like it's the Blair Witch House. Oh my God. And the Spieth last year having to give the jacket. Oh, that was so... First, I feel CBS has really cleaned up

the Butler cabin. One of my favorite sports I was in Dallas used to point out, Craig Miller, that Jim Nance would throw it to himself. Do you remember that?

He'd be like this. Yeah. And it was a great tournament and speed the one at, and, and now to Butler cabin. And then you go to Butler cabin. There's Jim Nance. Yeah. Just,

just do through it to yourself. So who throws it to him now? I don't know, but I felt like last year I was waiting for it. It didn't happen. Something else happened. All right. We're going to call Sally Jenkins.

One of our favorite writers from the Washington Post. Fair to call her a legend at this point? I think Sally's in legend status. Yeah. We're going to call her right now. We're going to talk about Geno and the Masters and all this stuff. Let's do it. But before we call Sally, baseball started.

In fact, as we're taping this podcast, the Red Sox are playing the Pirates, and I'm trying not to look at the TV. The Ringer Podcast Network has baseball fans covered with the Ringer MLB show, playing exclusively on the TuneIn app for the month of April. Plus, we're giving listeners a free 30-day trial of TuneIn Premium, where you can hear every live home call from every MLB game. Go to tunein.com slash Ringer and subscribe to TuneIn Premium today. Download the TuneIn app and start listening today. TuneIn, your everything audio app. All right, as promised, Sally Jenkins from the Washington Post.

And she was on a tweet storm today about women's college basketball that reminded me that, you know what? She hasn't been on the podcast yet. So it is a pleasure to have you on. Thanks for coming on. Thank you for finally having me. I know. We were going to do this forever because I felt like when Goodell basically lost his mind with the deflate gate thing, you were one of the few national non-Patriot fan media

members that I felt like was really writing about it in the way that it should have been written about. Why wasn't there more people on that corner? Oh, you know, I think it's because of the initial sort of blitz from the NFL of stuff about air in the footballs, and it looked like an open and shut case, and it turns out all that information was erroneous. But, you know, I think there's some people in our profession who might be a little stubborn about walking things back. It's not fun to look wrong.

And you trust the league to be, about that sort of investigation. I mean, this is the first administration of an NFL commissioner where you actually couldn't trust what was coming out of the league office. It seems like some people still trust it. Brian, you're an innocent bystander. Do you feel like everybody is in on the camp of, wow, Goodell has been pretty incompetent here? Oh, yeah. You think everyone's in?

Okay, because I can't tell anymore. What's the pro-Goodell camp at this point? I can't even imagine who it is. Is there a pro-Goodell camp? I mean, Jerry Jones. Yeah. Right? I mean, but that's a manipulation, I think.

So, you know. I would say some factions of ESPN seem pretty, pretty at least reasonable with Goodell, but then occasionally they'll have like the concussions lawsuit outside the line scene. It's like, Oh man, surprised they're in this one. You know, I still feel that way a little bit. Well, you have to try to remain fair minded, you know, and give him the benefit of the doubt with every new situation. But,

but he does and you say, okay. Oh, and Adrian Peterson. It just gets to a point where it's a critical mass, and as much as you want to give the commissioner's office and the league office the benefit of the doubt, you know, the more the false statements and the alternate facts pile up, the less inclined you are to do that. Did you ever take heat from the NFL? You know, I haven't. Well, I mean, maybe a little remark here and there.

But actually, you know, the PR office over there is very professional, and they don't do that, which I respect them for very much. You surprised to hear that, Brian? Greg Aiello and Paul Hicks are the two guys that I've dealt with mostly over there, and they couldn't be, and Brian McCarthy, they couldn't be more professional, those guys. They actually have a really, a pretty great operation. Weren't they threatening or talking about legal action, though, against the New York Times not that long ago? So they still snarl from that press office once in a while.

Maybe they're just afraid of Sally. Well, I mean, they've certainly never threatened me with anything like that. But, you know, I think the bottom line is I don't blame the messengers for the message that they're being given by a Jeff Pash or a Roger Goodell. I think you have to separate those staffs. I mean, there are some people that are just sort of executing what they're being told to execute. If Goodell came to you and said, I finally figured out that I should fix this. I need to do better. I need to win back the public trust. Give me two tips. What should I do? What would you tell him?

Oh, I would tell him to get real on concussions and the prescription drug abuses in the league and basically say, you know what? I think he could win the public trust with one simple statement. We do not advise parents to let their children play tackle football before 14 years of age. That'd be amazing. Well, it's the right thing to do, and if he did it, I think people would understand that he was acting incredibly responsibly and in sincere conviction that kids shouldn't be bashing their melons against each other before the age of 14. There's not a doctor in the country that thinks that's advisable anymore. My kids are 11 and 9. Brian's are a little bit younger.

My 9-year-old son, who in any other generation would have been playing football and banging heads from Pop Warner on. And this generation now, it's like, not only do we not want him to play, but in school, it's kind of known like, oh, you'd have to be crazy to play football. Yeah, you could really hurt your head.

And that's amazing. But Brian's from Texas. I don't think it's trickled down there yet. Not back in Texas, but now that I'm a Californian and my wife is a Californian, we don't even have the discussion. I mean, it's not even, should we let, let him play football? It's it's no, it's not even on the radar. Yeah. All the, the, whether, however you want to take the concussion studies, the one constant in all of them is that the, the weather, however you want to take the concussion studies, the one constant in all of them is that the younger you are when you get your first concussion,

the worse it is. Yeah. Everybody at least seems to agree on that, which makes me think, whoa, you know, and it's not just football.

It's like, what about hockey? Somebody gets checked in the boards. It's more than just football. Well, right. And the other thing and soccer and headers,

you know, but the thing they all agree on also is not just the impact when you're a kid with a thin neck and you're whipping your head around in those sorts of instances, but also the other thing they know is that the repetitive blows over time, the small subconcussive blows over time are just as important. So the younger you start playing football and the more of those little blows you take over time, you know, by the time you're a 25-year-old NFL player or even just a collegiate player, a guy getting out of college, you know, you've taken enough blows by then, potentially, depending on whether you started

at six or seven, that you're at risk. Brian, I'm going to ask Sally this after I ask you. What do you think is the most undercovered story right now? Because I actually think it might be football and painkillers, which I've been, in my column, I've been writing about it the last few years, just that I'm amazed that the players are allowed to take Toradol. And now it's starting

to become a big ass story. And the Washington Post had this awesome breakdown, I think two weeks ago about just how deep and embedded the painkiller culture is in the NFL. And yet I still don't feel like it's a story yet. Would you pick that or another one? Yeah. I think that, I mean, just because that's bubbled up, it's on the top of my mind. But I felt we had that 15 years ago, right? With Shaq and those guys. Remember Alonzo Mourning? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, there was a big kind of painkiller.

It was in the NBA at that time. There was a big painkiller moment. And these things, as Sally would, I'm sure, say they're all cyclical, right? You know, and then we forget and we start thinking about concussions and other stuff. And then we go, oh, wait a second. People are still gobbling painkillers like that? That's crazy. Right.

We thought that story was a 1970s story. It's different drugs in different eras, right? I mean, it's amphetamines for a while. You know, it's opiates now and Toradol, anti-inflammatories. You know, the drugs change by era, but the basic abuses don't. Yeah, if you ever seen North Dallas 40 on cable, which is a good 40 years ago now with Nick Nolte, like the opening scene is him.

He's beaten up. He crawls out of bed. He can barely walk and he's just popping pills. Right. Just to get through the next couple hours. But we ran a piece on The Ringer about Kurt Angle, the famous wrestler who left WWE. One of the reasons he left was because he had a really bad painkiller addiction.

It's like, oh, yeah, I knew he had a painkiller addiction. Then we write the story, and he's like, he was taking like 60 Toradals a day. Whoa. And when you hear that, you're like, most people are supposed to take, I think four. Well, you're supposed to, yeah, about five doses post-surgery. Right. And they certainly don't recommend mixing it with other stuff. And the bottom line is any sustained usage of Toradol at all is, is it violates the black box warning. Yes, I would agree with that. So what do you think the biggest story is right now

that hasn't gotten the full slate of coverage? I would agree with that. I would agree that the painkiller issue in the NFL, because it dovetails with the opioid crisis nationally and the DEA's attempt to try to get a grip on it. You've got the White House with a campaign now against opioid abuse. So it's a huge national issue that, you know, the NFL is really just sort of fractional in that story, the national story of the fact that we're a nation of drug addicts right

now. But the NFL, you know, is the maker of manners, in some respects, for a lot of Americans, you know? It's the most popular sport in America. And when you're the maker of manners, and you've been very quietly, tacitly approving chronic drug abuse in your league, you know, yeah, that's an incredibly important story, and one that really, I think, is a sleeping giant. The political part of that is fascinating because Trump was talking about opioids all last year. Yeah. And he would go to these, you know, go to during the primaries and during the general and a lot

of the political press at first was like, why are we talking about this? Of all these things, this is the issue. And it turned out to be this incredibly resonant national issue, you know, that he sort of figured out in a weird way that was very, it was undercover. It was undercover in the popular press. Don't you think so, Sally? I do. I do. And I think a good story that, that hasn't been written is a really good, hard look at just the culture of sports doctors in general, because they really tend to think that there's a special carve out for them, that the nature of sports medicine is somehow different from the rest of the Hippocratic Oath.

And, you know, I think they tend to be egotistical, and I think they tend to practice an inverted medicine that, you know, I think in any other instance, we would call it, you know, really malpractice or poor care or a violation of the Hippocratic Oath, you know, do no harm. They're actually putting people back in harm's way. They're masking their injuries and masking their pain level to put them back in harm's way. Right. They're performing surgeries, you know, they're performing, you know, meniscus surgeries that they know are going to

result in knee replacements later on. Yeah, that was, I think it was Chris, I'm going to say it was Chris Paul. Sometimes athletes get in this situation where they have the partially torn meniscus and it can either heal naturally or they can just take it out. And some of them are like, yeah, some of them are like, I'm just going to play, man. I got to get back out there. And if you're the team and you have this guy under a four year contract or five year contract and all the meniscus data is like, yeah, much later, much later, that's going to really affect him. It'll probably shorten his career, but for now it won't really affect them. But the meniscus is basically one of the cushions for your knee.

So if you're the team, you're like, great, we'll take it out. It's awesome. You're going to be back out there. Awesome. Great. And yeah, I've, I never really understood the conflict of interest stuff with team doctors and players and, and the player trusting somebody who's being paid by the team. And it doesn't

smell. We all trust our doctors, right? You know, like we all kind of defer to them no matter what the arrangement is. You, you kind of think, well,

they've got the medical degree. They wouldn't hurt me. You know, so it's difficult. It's a tricky situation and in their defense. So here they have this conflict of interest because, you know, they're all obliged to report to the GM and the coach. You know, they sort of answer to these non-medical people who are putting lots of pressure on them. They feel like part of the team,

so they don't want to hurt the team. And then you've got a 25, 26-year-old kid looking at you saying, you've got to help me. You've got to get me back in there because my contract says if I'm not on the field, I don't get paid. I've got to get paid. And not only that, but I could get cut. So, you know, there's about five competing pressures on particularly NFL doctors because of the way NFL contracts are structured that I think can make it very difficult for an NFL physician to make the right long-term medical decision. Well, maybe over the next couple of years, this will be a topic that people jump into. Let's talk about a woman's basketball and Gina Auriemma, who I was always just against for really no reason whatsoever. I just, it just bothered me that he got to cherry pick

the best players every year and he seemed arrogant. And I fully admit, I had no real opinion on it. Just like innocent bystander, just as a sports fan, like, oh, I don't like that guy. And then I was watching the HBO show, which is like a behind the scenes type thing, which the first one, they had like four or five months of material to work with

and you kind of got to know the girl. So of course I got attached because that's the rule of sports documentaries. If you go behind the scenes with anybody, you end up liking them. They end up losing as I'm watching this series every week, which it wasn't like it was that in depth. It was clear that it was like a transitional year and yet they were still crossing over a hundred wins and they were still undefeated, but they did seem a little bit vulnerable. And then all of a sudden, boom, the big, the big upset and all hell breaks loose.

Explain Gino to me from what you know, as somebody who's followed it for a while. Oh, he's just a superior coach. I mean, he's just a great, great teacher of the game. He's got a great feel for his kids. I mean, you watch, I didn't see that documentary, but you watch how his players are with him and how his former players are with him, and you know there's a very, very deep bond there. You know, they're crazy about him, clearly,

and he's crazy about them. So, I mean, I don't see anything wrong with the guy. You know, I mean, I think he's just a superb coach. You know, I think that Gino, you know, my great friend Pat Summitt once said, she said, I'm competitive, he's combative. I mean, I think he's got an edge to him, particularly if you're a rival, that can be unpleasant. You know, I think he can be edgy and sort of foul-mouthed, and sometimes I think he

does that intentionally for attention. And, you know, I think he's got an ego. I think he can shoot his mouth off, you know, but he's a personality. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. It's actually, you know, it's probably interesting for the game. You know, it's very hard to say there's anything wrong with what he's done. I mean, it's magnificent.

I happen to feel that if Pat Summitt, and I think Gino would agree with this, if Pat Summitt were still around, I don't know that they win 111 straight games. I think she'd have had something to say about that if she was healthy. It's kind of like not getting to see more matches between Borg and McEnroe for me.

You wish they could have played more, you know. You wish Pat, you know, Pat was only 64 when she died. I think Gino is 63. Tara Vanderveer is 63. You know, Pat was the same age as, you know, those coaches in the Final Four this weekend. So it's hard for me as a friend of Pat's to sort of not think about those 111 games. That said, it is the hardest thing in the world to coach a team through that many games in which they do not beat themselves.

UConn never once beat themselves in 111 games. That's almost impossible to do. They knock down every big shot. They bring their best in every big moment. They never show up and choke. They never show up and don't defend, don't run the floor. I mean, the habits that they coach in that program, you have to just sit back and admire. There's nothing else to do, but just sit back and compliment that and say, that's extraordinary. How are Pat and Gino similar? Because it does seem like, I remember there was a great, great, great documentary in the late nineties about, it was behind the scenes with Tennessee for a year. It was actually one of the models that we used when we were coming up with 30 for 30. It was,

it was just i i don't know why she did it but really let everyone behind the curtain and just players crying all the time and her really breaking people down and then building them back up and it was one of the most fascinating hours i've ever spent because i really i left it i was thinking like she's like kind of a genius yeah like she just, she picks whoever the player is and gets that player to where she needs them to get to. Even if it means like almost destroying them emotionally to get there and then they get there and then they they're with her for life.

It does seem like Gino does a little of that too. I don't know if they remind me of each other. Yeah. Yeah. Because you know what they both do, what they have in common. And, and the reason you like that documentary about Pat is, first of all, it was made by a documentarian who went on to win an Oscar later. They were great filmmakers. Number two, Pat did, in fact, give them complete unfettered access. I think because she was secure about what she was doing and about herself, which I always found really interesting about her. You know, she'd let anyone into her locker room or into her huddle. And I always found that fascinating. So many coaches are paranoid or worried that they'll

say the wrong thing or worry that they'll cuss in the wrong moment. And she was such a lady, she didn't use that language anyway, so she wasn't worried about it, you know. But back to your original point, you know, like I would get uncomfortable every now and then, and she'd say, what do you think? And I'd say, well, gosh, that was hard to watch. And I remember one time she was working with a kid in individual workouts, and she'd really been on the kid. And I said, you know, I was just kind of a little embarrassed for her. And Pat said, Sally, she said, what is more embarrassing? You know, what just happened with me in that gym alone or what she could do to embarrass herself in front of 40,000 people?

She said, I'm trying to keep her from embarrassing herself. And I was like, all of a sudden the light bulb went on. I said, oh, right, you know. And then everything after that, everything I ever started to do with a player, you really just appreciated so much because you understood she was trying to give them these moments like Morgan William had against UConn, these moments where you can hit the big shot under pressure. That's just an incredible gift. Teachers like Pat and Gino are actually very very

very unselfish um very very generous they they want kids to have that experience pat had that experience as an olympian in 1976 she had that experience cutting down nets eight different times she wanted kids to feel that and she wanted to give it to them and and once you understood that about her and you understand that about gino's work with his players, you stop looking at it as harsh and it becomes very, very generous. Brian, how would you compare that to John Calipari's eight-month relationship with his players before they leave? He doesn't even have a chance to break them down, right? He only has a chance to do anything. He's trying to keep them. Keep them eligible, right? He's trying to put his arm around him and be their buddy. Yeah. It is interesting though, like with, you saw like,

especially Becky Hammond and it's become a story in the last year, like could Becky Hammond coach an NBA team? And Adam Silver's come out and said, I want this, I want this to happen. And yet when Pat Summitt peaked, which I would say the nineties and the first part of the last decade. Um, I don't really, was, was there a, could Pat summit coach an NBA team storyline? That was a sports radio argument for sure. Sally would know how close it actually got, but that was talked about all the time. Yeah. It was talked about all the time. Uh, you know, as a theoretical and also she was twice invited to apply for the men's job at Tennessee. Oh yeah, men's college. Yeah, I was talking NBA. I thought men's college, I remember as a story,

but not NBA. NBA, you know, again, that was more of a theoretical, that was always the theoretical discussion. But Pat always had a great answer, you know, when someone would say, Pat, don't you want to coach men? And she would say, why is that a step up? You know, that was kind of her take. I remember Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon. One time we were, we were all, I think, having a drink together and they were on her about that. Pat, you need to coach men. You know, you need to try it. It would be the greatest thing in the world. And she just said, she said, you guys, you know, women need me more. Well, I would say, I would say a coach could have a bigger impact on a woman's team than a men's team because, um, because they,

you know you're going to have the player for four years and the men's it's like they can say what they want about, you know, Oh no, no. Studies have really matters. Uh, Mark few is really the only one who might even have a chance to have his team intact for three straight years and actually build winning habits and stuff i did like coach k to me is i think it's hilarious that he you know tries to pretend academics is that important to him and he's recruiting one and done guys left and right unc i guess is a little closer to the middle but they had 20 years of academic fraud, so it's hard to take them that seriously.

Yeah, it really chips away at the gravitas of the coach, right? This leader of young men, quote unquote, young women, right? But with the young men, you don't have them. So you're not their drill sergeant for very long anymore. Sally, you know— Oh, go ahead. Well, I was just going to say, you know what's kind of too bad about the whole thing on the men's side is I never saw anybody enjoy college more than Kevin Durant did one year at Texas. I mean, he really had a blast.

I mean, I went down there and did a story on him while he was there. I mean, he loved it. Yeah. Tiger Woods will tell you that, you know, if he made one, the biggest mistake of his life was not staying at Stanford for another year. Yeah. You know, they come out because they're anxious to start their greatness. And I get that. I understand that. But, you know, I mean, just to tell one more Pat Summitt story, when Peyton Manning was trying to decide whether to come out of Tennessee after three years, he actually went to Pat and said, what do you think? And she said, well, you know, I think you really have to ask yourself, are you ready to be a Sunday guy? Are you ready to go to work on, you know, seven days a week and be a Sunday guy? Or do you still want to be a Saturday guy?

Is the way she put it. And she said, I think you're still a Saturday guy. And he said, I think I am too. So he came back to Tennessee, you know. I'm going to start stealing that. Yeah. That's a nice way to put it. We're all Sunday guys at the ringer though.

We don't have Saturday guys. We're not allowed to have Saturday guys. Hey, quickly, the Masters are coming up. Do you remember, your dad is obviously the most famous golf writer of all time. Do you remember going to Augusta when you were like, I don't know, seven years old? So here's the funny thing about Augusta. I went to U.S. Opens at seven years old. I went to the British Open at 11 years old.

I wasn't allowed to go to the Masters until I was an adult. Allowed byens at seven years old. I went to the British Open at 11 years old. I wasn't allowed to go to the Masters until I was an adult. Allowed by who? By my father. He didn't take, first of all, I was in school. So, you know, those other tournaments were in the summertime, so I was still in school. But he just wasn't going to pluck me out of school and take me to the Masters. It was such a small place. It was a small press room. He basically said, and then when I was old enough and I wanted to go, he said, no, you have to earn your way there. You have to earn your way as a journalist. You have to get a credential and earn your way there. So it kind of wasn't, it was weird. The Masters was the one tournament I didn't go to.

That's wow. And I think partly it's because of the time of year, but I also think partly it was an atmosphere thing. What's your favorite thing to cover? I'm sure you've covered everything at this point. What was number one? You know, it varies depending on the great athletes that are enlivening the sport. There was a moment when figure skating was my favorite thing to cover because Brian Boitano was the greatest skater anyone ever saw. There are years when tennis is the great, you know, I think tennis writers are having a great year right now with Roger Federer.

Yeah. So, you know, I think it very much is personality driven. I loved covering, you know, I was very lucky. I got to catch the last of Chris Ever and Martina Navicolova in tennis, and I got to catch, you know, the Agassi-Sampras epics, you know. So those were good years. A couple of Ryder Cups were, you know, upset wins by Europe at the Ryder Cup standout. So it really, it could be any sport depending on, you know, upset wins by Europe at the Ryder Cup standout. So it really, it could be any sport depending on,

I mean, one of the great experiences I ever had was following around the University of Tennessee when they were winning three straight national championships. And, you know, getting to lift the lid on Pat Summitt in those years when she was at her very best was really instructive for me as a sports writer. I really like that answer. I didn't think you were going to answer it that way,

but that makes so much sense because I was thinking about men's soccer right now in the U.S. and this kid Pulisic, who I think is going to be really special. He has a chance to be... We always joked about, or not joked about, it was always like, well, what if soccer had its Tiger Woods? During the heyday of Tiger Woods, it was always like, well, what if this sport had Tiger Woods? During the heyday of Tiger Woods, it was always like, well, what if this sport had Tiger Woods?

What if boxing had Tiger Woods? And I think he has a chance. I don't want to jinx it, but he's special. And he's playing for one of the top eight teams overseas already. And he's 18. And he comes into these two World Cup qualifiers we had and is doing things that no American player has ever done before. And it kind of raises the possibility of like, well, all right, let's say the LA has the Olympics in 2024.

And we're trying to win the Olympics. And this kid is now 23. Like that might be the most special event in that Olympics. It's at least on the radar now, you know? Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. And you wait for those, you know? Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. And you wait for those, you know? Yeah, I wish we had more. I think the people in the 70s had a whole bunch of them all at the same time.

We're lucky right now in basketball, I think, and definitely in football quarterbacks. Yeah, we're having a genius cluster. Yeah. We really are. And the greatest, like, one-year run starting at last year's NCAA tournament final. Yep, of just are. And the greatest one-year run starting at last year's NCAA tournament final.

Of just excitement. Of amazing big games. But that could also be a sign that the world's ending. If the world was going to end, wouldn't God be like, well, I'm going to have all these unbelievable sports things. I'm going to get it all out now. I'm going to have the Cubs win the World Series after a rain delay when they blow up in the ninth inning, and I'm going to have a 25-point comeback. All right, Sally, thanks so much for coming on. I'm going to have the Cubs win the World Series after a rain delay when they blow up in the ninth inning, and I'm going to have a 25

point comeback. All right, Sally, thanks so much for coming on. I'm glad we finally did this. You have a permanent invitation to come back whenever you want. Thank you. Bring me back. I really had fun. All right, great. Thank you. Okay. Bye-bye. Before we bring back Brian, one more time, mention the Ringer Podcast Network, but

WrestleMania 33 happened, uh the masked man broke it down right afterwards david shoemaker brian curtis's oldest friend david shoemaker my god it's shoemaker's music so that is a new podcast feed he did a bunch of them last week i was on one of them but you can subscribe to the masked man show or follow uh follow it on Twitter. You know. My God. You know what I like? The Sally Jenkins, the Pat Summitt stuff.

It really does seem like she was one of a kind. She does. I don't know. I just didn't like watching women's basketball that much. I never, you know, wasn't really till the last few years when, uh, as my daughter got older and I had to strip away all my stupid sexist habits with sports and just kind of look at things differently. And the Pat Summitt thing, I just feel like, I don't know if that happens again. She might've been a unicorn. Yeah.

Oh, I'm certain. Well, I mean, besides Gino, we got, I mean, Gino, Gino just lost his first game after a 111 game win streak. But she made a good point though. Yeah. If it's- If she has- If Summit's still there, there's no way Gino- If he had his greatest rival, what would that have been like?

That would have been amazing. Because it really does seem like there's maybe three just kick-ass female basketball recruits a year. Absolutely. And UConn just gets all three now. Or two of the three. But when Tennessee was there, like when Elena Deledon, I think she left one of those,

but she went back to Delaware. But that was one of the rare times you had this absolute stud that wasn't at UConn. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like there's been documentaries about Pet Summit, but nothing was as good as that HBO one. Which was very early behind the scenes sports documentary, but it was really good.

And as she pointed out, they went on to win an Oscar. We never talked about Dick Vitale. I'm in recovery. You posted a profile. You stayed at his house. I did. You stayed at Dick Vitale's house. I had an upstairs bedroom, yeah.

Unbelievable. I wanted to observe him in his natural habitat. Did you wake up by him just opening the door and go, hey, baby, we're going to do this. Get up. I'm making you scrambled eggs. It was literally true because I came down at seven in the morning. Right. And the living room's dark and bill.

And you don't want to just go opening doors in people's houses because, you know, this guy's been on ESPN for 38 years. Don't want to open the wrong door. Right. And lose every, Whoa, Whoa, wrong memory, you know, but I'm sitting there and all of a sudden I hear this, Hey everybody, Dick Vitale here. I'm coming up on Mike and Mike in the morning of seven 20. And I'm like,

Whoa. And it was down a hall and I kind of followed the, follow this, you know, incredibly ecstatic sound down the hall. And he was just sitting there in his office, you know, recording promos for Twitter so that to advertise his Mike and Mike appearance. So the takeaway of the story was this guy just loves being involved. He just wants attention. And he has, and he has. He goes out to dinner seven days a week.

I thought that was interesting. Nothing in the fridge apparently. No, he's not, he's not eating at home. His wife said in something like 14 years. Doesn't want to be alone. He doesn't want to be alone. He doesn't want to be. He needs love. He needs the love, right?

It's not, you know, he is, if you see him with people, he's unbelievably generous. He'll take selfies, sign pictures. He's like, give me your address. I'll send you something. Here's an autographed book that I wrote. People are like, great. Thanks, Dickie V. But he also has this need to be loved.

He really wants to be, you know, he wants that attention. So it's like a benevolent Trump. Yeah. We all want to be like, yeah. Benevolent Trump with an even more frenetic Twitter account, I think. Yeah. And also just think more unpredictable Twitter accounts. Thinking of him at this point, you know, he's one of the last links to 79, you know, it's Bob Lee, it's Chris Berman and his reduced role. Cliff Drysdale, the tennis guy, by the way, not often in this, we don't often mention him and he was there in 79 and Dickie V who is like going along and making seven figures from ESPN and, you know,

and just like doing his thing, you know, kept Howie Schwab, even though how Schwab got laid off, like just hired him. I was surprised to see that. I just walked in and there's where it's like, Oh,

how he's here. He's like his right hand guy. Yeah. Yeah. And he was just, how he was staying in the house too yeah so it was just like i was kind of like in in this kind of amazing espn of your land it was kind of fun i thought it was interesting how upset he was that they took him off carolina duke like that it was he's hurt you know he's wounded

he was it was you know now we all announcers got to get pissed about assignments. He was not pissed. He was wounded. He was really, really wounded. And he was just like, you know, it still hurts. And he really doesn't understand why they took him off the game. And you called a couple of ESPN.

Did you talk to John Skipper? I got a statement from John Skipper. And you talked to John Wildhack? Yes. Now the Syracuse AD? Now the Syracuse AD, yeah. Yeah. We never really got along.

I thought it was funny to see him in a ringer piece. There you go. Can't say we left on great terms. Gracious to answer questions. I talked to Brent Musburger too, which was very fun. Did you have to call him? Hello, my friend. Yeah, he gave me, I got nine picks

and then I did an interview about Dickie V. I don't know if Dickie V happens again. I think the internet would, in the early stages of it, the internet would shape it a different way. Cause he was so not self-aware for so many years that then it just became him. Berman was like this a little bit too, where you just, you're just going a certain way and you don't realize that there's this whole other demo being like, what the hell's going on here? Yeah. I mean, does that make sense? Yeah. Cause he was shaped in an era where he would do his thing and he would have to arrive at your thing. He would have to arrive at a basketball gym to hear people chanting his

name to know whether he was doing it right. You know? And he told me it took a couple of years. Like he starts at ESPN 79. It's kind of, he like 84 when jim valvano won the when nc state won the national championship all of a sudden people at arenas are like oh dicky v's here this is a thing but he really didn't know he was just kind of being you know this this strange loud dude on television uh esp and layoffs coming yeah we don't know what's happening yet but it sounds like there's going to be a big makeover in the company just sounds like a really interesting time for that place where sports center is basically going to go away during the day it'd be relegated to a completely different thing and they put all their chips

behind like a morning sports center it seems seems like with Mike Greenberg. Yeah. Or a morning, a morning, more of a morning talk show, morning talk show type thing. You have that Neil Everett sports center is going to run according to Jim Miller. You can run before it.

Really? You're going to run late night and they'll rerun it in the morning. Then first take first take, then a bunch of talking heads, people. It sounds like FS. It sounds like the FS one model. It really kind of does that they were

rejected i mean i know they'll have a lot of reporting you know in sports center and all that stuff but i don't know i think when we talk about 79 i just think like one thing of me it's like the old espn that we knew was just drifting away for various for different reasons but there is a moment you're just going to look at that network and go i just don't't have that 20 year, 15 year, 30 year, 40 year connection to any of these people anymore. These were all new people, you know, newish, you know, Scott Vempel, it's the veteran, right? Like that. That's crazy. You look at, yeah, but you look at that and it's kind of like that, right? It's getting to be like

that, you know, or Tony and Michael or the, you know, and that we remember when that was new. Yeah. You know, and so it's funny. It's really funny. What would you think, what would ESPN do if it could just start over in every, with all the things they know they have to do now, do you think they would still be in Bristol? No way. Do you think they'd be in New York, LA, Orlando? I mean, I just think it would be, you would just logically build it somewhere like that, especially so you could get talent to go there. Right. I guess. Nice place for people to move to. Cause for years and years, Bristol was the biggest advantage they had. Cause it was like,

they'd have these people that were trapped there. They bought a house, kids in the schools. And then it's like, if somebody tried to recruit them, they had to offer over a hundred, 150,000 more and make it worth their while to get out of there. Yeah. I mean, we could say, why didn't we build the ringer in needles, Arizona, you know,

or needles, California. We thought everybody out there would have gone Texas. Here we go. We'd have gone like, uh, some like San Antonio. Oh,

they would have loved us. I would have been in, you know, a lot of spurs coverage, a lot of barbecue. We'd have to put a gym in the ringer offices. Oh my God, it would have been great. Shay would have been excited. Oh, Shay would have loved it. I do think it was a competitive advantage to them for a while, but now I think now that they realize they have to kind of remodel

a lot of the programming to get people to come to Bristol for some of those shows. It's like, oh, you know, they blow the carwash out of proportion when it's, uh, you know, it's like, oh, Hank, his area is passing through today and it's, and he's on seven shows. I don't really understand that model. Yeah. And the other thing I always hear when I talk to people in the strange land of sports TV is that ESPN for so many years said, don't be bigger than the brand, right? Yeah. You're, you are a cog within this beautiful machine and easily shiftable and

replaceable. And now they've gone the other way and they say, here are the 10 people that are big stars and everything's branded around them. Right. Yeah. Mike Greenberg, Scott Van Pelt,

like the mute, suddenly the music stopped and it was just a totally the opposite strategy. Why do you think they did that? Well, I just think this is what their plan. I mean, they just changed the plan completely, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't Keith. It wasn't Dan Patrick. Like, okay, Dan, you're big. You know, you're, you're the legend. You're the, one of the greatest who's ever done sports highlights ever. And so it's your show. It's no, it's these other guys. Cause they were the, you know, now this is the group and gals that's left. It's funny. It's just a funny. I would argue that for years and years, including for the entire time I was there, they thought the brand was sports center and games in that order. And then it became games and sports center. And then it was game sports center and PTI

online is not part of this. And then it became game sports centerCenter, and PTI. Online is not part of this? And then it became Games, SportsCenter, PTI, and online. So you always had the big things that they cared about. And then over the last five years, it became clear that SportsCenter was the least important out of those four things because so many people were getting highlights and videos on the internet.

And unless it was the Sports sports center immediately following a game, there was just no real necessity to watch it. But they, it took, you know, when I was there, they're having all these how to save sports center meetings. But the people that were in the meetings were the same people that were the reason sports center was what it had to become, you know? So they're all defensive.

Like for instance, I was in a bunch of different ideas, meetings for different parts of the company. I was never invited to a How to Save SportsCenter meeting because it would have been almost too much of a red flag that there was something wrong probably. We brought Simmons in. Yeah, why is he here? He gets along with Skipper.

That must mean something. In addition to being the signature franchise, it just gave that network so much. I think I've already used the word gravitas in this podcast. So apologies, but it gave it so much gravitas because we're doing the news, right? We're doing the news, right? This is not silly sports bells and whistles going on. We're doing the news, even though it's a funny newscast most of the time, it's a newscast. And as soon as that kind of goes away, then it's like, oh, talk shows. Oh, it just feels different, right? It just feels like it's less serious, even though we know that, you know, SportsCenter is not, it wasn't like, you know, Walter Cronkite at the peak, but it's like, it was.

No, but there was a narrative, you know, in 1995, if it's two o'clock and I'm watching SportsCenter, I don't know who won the games. Absolutely. So it's Minnesota versus Golden State. I'm on the edge of my seat. Cause it's like, and then Pooh Richardson hit a three. I'm like, oh, did they win? And it's like, oh, did they win?

And now it's like, I know who won. So why am I watching it? Yeah. Oh, I agree. I mean, I agree completely. Like yesterday I'm watching because it's like LeBron and Tristan Thompson yelled at each other. And if I, if I happen to be watching SportsCenter and it's like, here, this comes up, here's

what happened. I'm like, oh, I wonder if they have a take on this. I'm just changing. Our, our, our, our thinking up. Here's what happened. I'm like, oh, I wonder if they have a take on this. I'm just changing. Our thinking psychologically of ESPN changes when there's no longer a newscast telling you things you don't know, right? All of a sudden it just feels different. It's like, oh, it's just people giving opinions.

I can give opinions. They don't have any special power. They may be funnier than me and better looking than me and all that stuff. Or ex-athlete. Yeah, but they may just not. Here's a linebacker played. What do you think?

When people know news in journalism, they have a special power, right? They know things I don't know, right? They know the score of the game or they know they're Adam Schefter and they know the trade or something like that. And as soon as you take that away, all of a sudden, just there's something less mystical about it. I don't know. It's funny. What'd you think of Clay Travis's theory that Bob Iger wants to run for president and making ESPN way left? If I were running, I don't think my plan to win the democratic primary would be who I followed on Twitter first. I just thought that was bonkers.

All right. Here's how, here's how I win the Iowa caucus, right? Jameel Hill following her on Twitter first message, message, message to Iowa. I thought that was, I thought that was, I thought it was a very, I thought the piece was distasteful, but I also thought the logic of it was, was not, was crackers. I just thought it was. And yet if Bob Iger runs for president, it'll be hilarious. Yeah.

Clay Travis. I'll come back on here and tell Clay, and tell Clay Travis, I'm sorry. You were, you were, you were right about that part. I do think it's possible he runs for president. Trump has shown that anything is possible in politics. I would not rule him out. Look, anybody could run at this point, I believe. I think he wanted to be the baseball commissioner very secretly,

and that was never going to be in the cards. And then I think he wanted to be involved in NFL ownership, and that wasn't in the cards, and that fell through. And now he's still in charge of an awesome multimedia company, but also knows that a CEO can't be in charge of an awesome multimedia company, but also knows that a CEO can't be charged of that company for 20 years, that that's never, that never ends well ever. Every sign ever says that's going to end badly. I don't know. I would have thought it would be more likely for him to be the Senator or something. Yeah. If you told me right now,

you're moving to Orange County and you're going to run against Daryl Issa next year, I'd say, great. Oh, that makes sense. Me personally? Yeah, because everything's happening right now. Trump won. Everything's in play. Representative Simmons. Maybe the- The Honorable Bill Simmons. Maybe the undertaker. That should be his next move. Governor undertaker. I'm going to bring this government back from the dead. The bumper sticker's right itself, right? 14 minute entrance. Here's what America's going to do.

I'm going to make this budget rest in peace. There you go. Yeah. Listen, after Schwarzenegger, I'll believe anything. There's nobody that can run for president that wouldn't surprise me. Brian Curtis, what's your next story? I don't know. Let's talk about it after we get off the air here. All right. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. Thanks to Sally Jenkins. Thanks to SeatGeek, our presenting sponsor. And thanks to T-Mobile because they are giving away a free year of MLB.TV Premium. That's a $112.99 value. It's absolutely free, only for T-Mobile customers. You get unlimited data.

You won't blow up your phone bill. All you have to do is download the T-Mobile's Tuesdays app from the app store. April 4th, you get your free year of MLB.tv premium, either in that app or you can go to T-Mobile.com backslash MLB. Blackouts and other restrictions apply. See terms of use for details. And also don't forget about the Ringer podcast network where we have really something for everybody at this point. Also, I got to say like, what is it? Month? We're in month 11 now for the Ringer. It's not even that. It's June.

I think this is our 11th month. Oh yeah, we're starting our 11th month. It feels like it's been like four years. I know. We're feeling like we're getting into it. There's so much content on this site today. It was really one of those days where you go and you're like, you got WrestleMania, Major League Baseball preview, March Madness, Curtis writes a Dick Vitale feature.

You have Big Little Lies. Oh, yeah. Couple Big Little Lies. I mean, it's just like pop culture, sports tech, all that stuff. So check it out. And especially when there's a lot of stuff, NBA playoffs, all that stuff. Is that going to be a big subject for us? Yeah, I think we're going to potentially NBA playoffs, Game of Thrones, all that stuff.

So anyway, two more podcasts coming later in the week. And if you missed it, Kevin Durant was on on Friday and we spent an hour and a half with him in Oakland. And that's a topic for another time with us. Kevin Durant and the era of candid athletes. I'm fascinated. I'm totally fascinated. He's the only one who would do something like that. Yeah. Like LeBron's,

I'm not going to LeBron's house and spending an hour and a half shooting the shit with him. It's like really just Durant would have the balls to do that. This is what we people who try to get these people to quote unquote, open up as they say, tell them all the time, just be yourself and you'll be so much more interesting. Yeah, and he's just like, I'm gonna be myself. People can tell the difference. Yeah, it's a strategy that should work more often, but you really have to trust, I guess,

who you are as a person. I don't know if a lot of guys would do that. Anyway, a topic for another time. Back later in the week with more on the BS Podcast. Until then. On the wayside On the first side of the road I don't have to ever