The Bobby Bones Show - 25W: Bobby's Geek Out Interviews of the Year (Part 2: Dan Patrick, Paul Finebaum, Ian Rapoport, Rich Eisen)

Episode Date: December 30, 2022

In part 2 of Bobby's favorite interviews of the year, Bobby talks to Dan Patrick about the life-changing decision he made because of an ex-girlfriend, some of his favorite people to interview and his ESPN days. Bobby also talks with Paul Finebaum on what keeps him motivated, his friendliest SEC coaches, and much more! NFL Insider Ian Rapoport joined Bobby to discuss the life of an insider, and Rich Eisen talks about his path to being the legendary radio and tv personality he is today.  Download the DraftKings Sportsbook App today: https://dkng.co/bobbysports   If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL/IN/MI/NJ/PA/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO/NH), 888-789-7777/visit http://ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), 1-877-770-STOP (7867) (LA), 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), visit OPGR.org (OR), call/text TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA).   21+ (18+ WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/LA/MI/NJ/ NY/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. N/A in NH/OR/ON. New customers only. Valid 1 per new customer. Min. $5 deposit. Min $5 wager. $200 issued as eight (8) $25 free bets. Ends 9/19/22. See http://draftkings.com/sportsbook for details.       Follow the Show: @25Whistles   Follow the Crew: @MrBobbyBones @AdamHambrick @KickoffKevin @ProducerEddie @MikeDeestro @reidyarberrySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to 25 whistles presented by Draft King's Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NFL. Download the draft king's app and use the code Bobby Sports to get in on the action. My favorite interviews of the year, welcome to another episode. If you miss last week, go check that one out because it was Colin Cowher, Marcellus Wiley, Jay Glazer, all amazing. The show's only been up since August, but maybe you're new to it. You didn't catch some of that. You know, this week's list, man, it's just my favorites. Dan Patrick, Rich Eisen, both from ESPN, back in the day.

Not to mention Paul Feinbaum, who I love, my friend. You'll also hear me talk with one of the best NFL insiders, Ian Rappaport. It's awesome. Now, first up, Dan Patrick, I mean, he's the legend, he's the goat. Whether you watch SportsCenter back in the 90s or 2000s, which I did, or listen to the Dan Patrick show on the radio, which I do, or watched, which I do, everything. I'm all Dan Patrick all the time.

But here was this interview where Dan talks about his journey, from ESPN, hosting one of the biggest talk shows in the country. Also, his last second trip to Atlanta was a catalyst for getting him where he is now professionally. So I hope you enjoyed this interview because I did with Dan. Dan, good to talk to you. I'm just a massive, massive fan. So, you know, when they said you would actually spend a few minutes with me, I was shocked, first of all, and elated. So just a humble thank you before we start. Great. Great. Glad to help. You know, whenever I'm doing an interview in one capacity or the other, I do them all the day all the time, either on the radio show or on a TV show.

But it starts to just be a wheel and you're just doing them as they come. And you rarely get excited. Sometimes you're a little more up for one because you know the value of it. But at this point in your career, do you still get pumped about interviews and with who especially? I think if you have somebody who's going to be honest with you, because you want to make sure you're not wasting the time of your audience. And I always want to make sure if I have somebody on, maybe you don't know who they are, but I'm going to bring out something in them that you would be interested in.

I like the challenge of doing that. But it's the person who's going to be honest or most honest that I find interesting. It's the person who tries to dodge what you're asking, doesn't give you much, wants to be very vanilla. Then that's where it gets really tedious. Give me an example of somebody who's great, that you know, all right, we're going to do it. and they're going to be awesome. Charles Barkley's always great. Reggie Miller is always great. I find that if, you know, my guests know if they come on the show that this is what we're asking

them to do. Don't come on the show unless you're ready to really give something, reveal something. But it's up to me sometimes to kind of extract that from these guys. They get interviewed more than anybody. When you think about it, athletes are interviewed more than anybody. You know where they are, you know, every day at practice, you know, before a game after a game with the NBA. You have to have an approach that is refreshing to them. And they're competitors, and I find I got to compete with you to get an answer out of you. John McEnroe said, you've got to work harder to get a better answer out of me. And he was right.

This was early in my career. And I never forgot that. Sometimes you've got to work harder to get a better answer out of somebody. Do you feel like you're a better interviewee? because you interview so many people? No, no. Because you know what I'll do is I'll critique your questions while you're asking them. And it's not fair to you, but I've given so much thought to interviewing. When I was at ESPN, I did a seminar that was five days, eight hours each day on interviewing. It was the best thing that ever happened to me in my career. But it's the worst thing when you start to listen to radio or you listen

to somebody on TV doing interviews because you're listening for the things that they're not doing what you were told to do to bring out a good interview. Open-ended questions, short question. That first question, what are you setting up for the next question for your last question? What are you trying to get at? Like there's a strategy to it. And I wouldn't have known this until I took this class. It was a guy named John Swatsky out of Canada. He was the master of the interview and I was fascinated by it. I don't know who else. If anybody else was at ESPN, they were mad at me because I wanted to bring this guy in to teach us how to interview, because I saw an article. And people were like kicking and screaming going to this seminar.

And they didn't realize that I'm the reason why they were going there because I wanted this guy to come in and help us. You know, when you talk about the ESPN stuff, and I didn't have a lot of questions about that. And I still don't. But it makes me think about, you know, my whole lifetime of watching you on ESPN and even rock and roll jeopardy, which I was a big Jeopardy guys and a music guy, obviously, and then, you know, watching on Sunday nights and I would come home from the radio show and watch your radio show, you and all the Danettes, like just a massive fan. But, you know, I've started to realize that I, as a public figure, people think they know me at times more than they actually do, and they'll come up. And so, you know, one of the things that I'm most curious

about is, like, if you go to your house, and I feel like I know you, but I obviously don't on a personal level, like in your house, what is your favorite? What is your favorite picture in your house. If I just ask that question, what is it? Who's in it? I'm a big fan of the artist Wolfcon. He passed away. I think he was just over the age of 90.

And you can't be in a bad mood when you look at a painting of Wolfcon. Now, pictures, there's a picture of my daughter in the library where she's in Galway and she's in a mud puddle. And she's probably 11 years of age. and she's got mud all over her. She's throwing mud in the air. She's got the biggest smile. And it's one of those moments that you just go,

that person is having a great day. So I tend to gravitate towards you feel better after you see that picture and you see a painting from Wolfconn. What about if I ask about sports? What personal sports picture do you have? Either you're somewhere or with someone that you look at and it's not, it doesn't mean as much because obviously that's your daughter. But it's like, man, that was a good.

great moment either in sports life or my life. I was in a boxing ring. It was a fight night in Arizona and I was the host and we were honoring Muhammad Ali and we were going to give him this ring and Muhammad Ali is standing next to me waiting for me to give him this ring and I'm describing to the audience what this ring signifies and I'm going to hand this to Muhammad Ali. And, you know, this was probably 20 years ago. But, you know, Parkinson's, the onset of Parkinson had started there. And I just remember in the moment, I'm thinking, I'm going to give a ring to Muhammad Ali. And I sort of fanboid that. I was like, I got to get this out of my head. Because I, sometimes that's the problem. I have too many things I'm thinking of when I'm doing something that I

shouldn't be thinking about. But that moment where I look and I go, who would have thought that a kid came from a small town in Ohio is there with Muhammad Ali honoring Muhammad Ali? And it's never lost on me where I came from. And growing up in a big family that I came a long way, but that you can come from a small town where you never would have thought you've gotten there. So it brings out a lot of different thoughts, memories there of you're still this kid who's from Mason, Ohio, but you got here. Don't forget where you came from. Yeah, I'm from Mountain Pine, Arkansas, population 700. So similar instances, you know, growing up. And there wasn't a lot of resource where I came from. So how, what showed you and who showed you that there was actually

a path to greater, even though you couldn't quite define greater? I think I was too, It's too naive or stupid to let reality sink in that you can't do this. I didn't have a plan B. So when people said, oh, if you weren't going to be a sportscaster, what would you be? And I'd be like, I don't know. I'm guessing bartender, but I didn't know. And I had been rejected in quite a few places. I lost a job, local job in Dayton, Ohio.

And I was distraught. So I'm 26, 27. I don't have a full-time job in sports. And that's old in this business to get started. And I thought, I'm never going to get in. I was doing morning drive radio, rock and roll station. And I thought this is what I'm going to be doing. And an ex-girlfriend said, just come down to Atlanta.

I said, I don't want to go to Atlanta. She goes, no, just come down here. CNN's hiring. I go, I just lost out on a job in Dayton, Ohio. I'm not going to get a job at CNN. So I go down there. And lo and behold, I go in there, last day I'm in Atlanta, give them my resume tape. Guy says, when can you start?

So if I don't go to Atlanta, I'm not here. I mean, I'm somewhere, but I'm not here. Because CNN, I was there for five years. And after that, I went to ESPN for 18. So I always tell people, right place, right time, but you better be right about what you have to know. Like you have to know it if you get that opportunity. And I'm sure that at some point, somebody wanted to see if you knew exactly what you needed to know.

And you did or you wouldn't be seated there. Like we get those moments, but be ready for the moment. And that was something that stayed with me, stays with me. I tell that to my kids all the time. Be prepared. Be over prepared. Even if you don't get it, you'll still show that that person, you show them respect by being prepared.

You mentioned 18 years at ESPN. And I worked on American Idol for four seasons, and I would talk to some of the old contestants from back when Idol was so big. But they said they didn't know it. They couldn't feel it because they were in it. Now, ESPN was a culture, especially for me. Was that situation similar because you guys were changing culture? Did you know it? And could you feel it then?

Or was it its own bubble? We were cordoned off. Absolutely. And I think that's by design, by management. they didn't want us to be bigger than those four letters. Not that we could be, but they didn't want us coloring outside the lines. Management even told me on one occasion,

we don't want another Chris Berman, because Berman is the most important person in the history of ESPN, but he was sort of a hot air balloon that was higher than everybody else but still tethered, and they didn't want that. They didn't want that to happen to me or, Keith Oberman or Stuart Scott or whoever you want to throw in there. So they didn't want you to be a personality.

So I think that that was kind of eye-opening that we were getting honored, mentioned. People came up to us when we saw them when we were out at events. But we weren't in New York or L.A. We're in Bristol, Connecticut. We didn't run into anybody. But when we did, then you heard the impact that we were. we were having. And you kind of juxtapose that to management. We never knew our ratings. They never told us. They didn't want to empower you and say, you guys are really kicking ass here.

It was like, yeah, you guys solid and improving, you know, kind of doing a good job there. You're like, damn, I thought we were good. But that was eye opening there that management wanted to kind to keep us under their thumb. Final question about the ESPN days. And as far as when, who is, would you say as your BFF now from those days if you had to pick one? Oh. I would say that I correspond with Rich Eisen more than anybody else. The people I really enjoyed were producers, associate producers, the makeup people,

camera people. Those are the people I always enjoyed being around. Nobody wants to be around talent because all we do is talk about ourselves. I wanted to be around the people who were just normal or as normal as possible in our business. And those are the people I'm still in touch with more the producers than the talent there. But probably Rich Eisen. How hard is it to have a source that's telling you something, but you can't say it? You almost have to act like you don't know it.

For the most part, I don't want to know if I can't use it. I say that to, and I'm fortunate, having been in this business for almost 40 years, you meet people that you trust because you can go back to them. Or they'll let you know if you're right or wrong on something. But I don't want to know something that I can't even hint at because then I'm not being, then it's gossipy. And I don't want to do that. But it is a tough situation to be in sometimes if somebody goes, hey, you can't use it.

And don't tell me because I don't want to know. but when they're like, you didn't get it from me, which is different, but sources can be tricky. Last question, and this has really been a treat for me, way more so for you, because I'm sure you've rated this and given it a low grade. This is what you do. As soon as you said that, I was like, God, dang, and now I'm going to actually feel like I'm being critiqued during the interview. I didn't feel like that going in. But final question is, you know, I'm about to go through a big contract negotiation here with the right. So, you know, and it's it's quite the monster. I'm not going to lie to you. What's the, what am I, what am I not knowing to ask for? What is it you don't have? I don't know. I'm doing pretty good, Dan. Yes. I always look at it this way. I love for 15 years being at ESPN. And I could have gotten jobs outside of it, but I loved what I was doing. But you can't tell them that you love it so much that you don't factor in what you're worth outside of what you're doing, if that makes sense.

that, hey, on the open market, what would I be worth? Take care of me here. And I always took less, but I didn't have any, I didn't want to do anything else. So do what you love. And it's really hard to find that. Because if you let money be the carrot that's in front of you, you'll always chase it. And you'll never be satisfied. But if you have people you like, you got, you know, they make sure that the people who are

surrounding you are good people, fun people. I love seeing my guys every single day. We just laugh. I mean, you're serious when you need to be, but we have fun. I enjoy them. And it's 20 years for some of these guys. But I think that's the moment, you know, that you got to kind of go. And if you say to your wife, what do you think? Because sometimes my wife is the smartest person. And, you know, you get somebody on the outside kind of looking at all this because we get too. close to the sun and you don't want to be icarus here and you know go down in flames so do what you love as long as you can do it or you can just take a boat of money and then run with it yeah i was hoping for that like airplane or money or that's oh that's hey listen yeah i'm just massive fan just

massive and thank you for your time and um you know that's all and i know you got a busy day ahead so thank you very much and one day hopefully i hope i can touch you soon what you know i mean i would uh yeah And I hope we cross past congratulations on all your success. Thank you. I think that it's not by accident, you know, but I think that that's important as you move forward. Don't forget the kid from a small town in Arkansas. Because staying humble because this business will bite you in the ass quickly.

Thank you, Dan. Have a good day. Thank you, Bobby. Hope you're enjoying the interviews. A reminder that 25 whistles brought to you by Draft King Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NFL. Download the draft king's app. Use the code Bobby Sports.

Get in on the app. action now. Okay, so a lot of people say what exactly is a parlay? So a parlay is just combining multiple bets because if they all hit, then you actually win more if you do that. So let's say you have three games and you want to bet team A, team L and team J. Well, if you make it a parlay, all three of them have to win, but if all three do win, it's even a better, it's even more smiles. I say that. If you want to take the 25 whistles parlay each week, you can check out Drag King's Sportsbook. new users use the code Bobby Sports when you download the app. Please put in Bobby Sports.

21 and up in most eligible states. But age varies by jurisdiction, eligibility restrictions apply. See draft kings.com slash sportsbook for terms and resources. Gambling problem, call 100, call or text the Tennessee red line 800, 800, 889, 9789. In New York, call 8778. 8-8, hope and why, or text hope and why, 467369. All right, back to the interviews. Paul Feinbaum, love them, watch them on TV, listen to them on the radio.

So I guess I even watch him on the SEC network more than just the Paul Feinbaum show. So I've been on Paul's show a few times. He's had me on. It's been amazing. And so finally he's able to put him on my show. And Paul tells me his top three SEC coaches that he's actually friends with. And what inspires him to still go in every single day, even though he's had so much success. Paul's one of the best in the business.

Here's my interview with Paul Feinbaum. Paul, I am very honored that you would come and do these shows. And this show with me, you are one of my heroes. and you know that. So thank you very much for being here today. It is my pleasure. And I'm in awe of this opportunity, so there'll be not waste any more time, stumbling and stuttering. In your closet, do you have your own closet of TV clothes? It's just suits and ties and shirts, and then your own closet and normal clothes, or are you all shirts and ties and suits all the time? No, I am, I have a, if I could break some news here with you guys today, everybody has their piccadillos and fetishes.

mine I have a tie finish uh yeah i i i wherever i am in the in the world which is more like fanville or knoxville or starkville uh i'm always looking for for new ties that's my my my deal because i i you know you're you're you're you're cool you don't have to but i mean you can you can wear the same blue jacket every day your life on television and nobody has any idea but they may remember your tie. So that's my, that's, that's my go-to. Okay. I would say my shoes are similar. You have tie. I have, look, this is my shoes today, right? I, those are cool. Yeah, so I have a million pair of shoes and hopefully people notice my shoes and I can wear the same. I have a standard white sweatshirt on a pants, but shoes. Okay, so you have a lot of ties. Do they give you a clothing allowance

that you get to buy these fancy suits? No, I once asked, uh, uh, uh, my, my first big television agent, who ended up leaving a couple of years ago to become the president of the world wrestling entertainment with Vince McMahon. Not that that's been in the news lately. And I asked him about that because I was naive. I was coming from Birmingham, Alabama. I said, do I get a clothing allowance? He said, at this level, you don't ask for clothing allowance.

They assume you can pay for your own clothes. And I knew that was an invitation to quit talking about it. But by the way, I have one other, one other fetish of Bobby. Oh, boy. And it's a, it's a frame, a glass frame fetish. And, and there's a place in Nashville that I found a couple of years ago. And I've been, unfortunately, we don't get back to Nashville that often. Thanks to Vanderbilt. But I always go to it. And it's probably one of my favorite frame places in the world. So when it comes to people who are extremely interesting, guys that love ties and frames, that's number one, right? That's skydiving, who cares, guys that are risking their life. If you have a tie fetish and a frame fetish, like, I can imagine the chicks you'd be having to beat off with a stick if you were 22 right now.

Yeah, the funniest thing was when I was in there first time, and the lady who I think is the owner, I think it's image optical down near Nashville. And she was telling me, she said, oh, yeah, by the way, Taylor Swift was in here just last week. and I'm thinking to myself, Taylor Swift at the time was like 19 years old. What is she doing behind classes? I'm never sure if I confirmed that or not. But it was a great line. I saw I'll take that one, that one, that one, and that one. But yeah, those are the thing. I mean, other than that, Bobby, I'm just a pretty boring guy who compares himself to Taylor Swift. No, no, no, we heard it. A boring guy who thinks he's like Taylor Swift and compares his daily activities in life to her. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, and you're probably the only person I know that.

ever done anything or accomplished anything. So, and I won't embarrass you. I was in Nashville a couple years ago for something. And it was a big deal. They were having like an entertainer of the year or something. It was just like only invited audience. And this guy dragged me over there. And everybody was there.

I mean, I mean, everybody. And I've spotted you. And I kind of nervously walked over because I think Brad Paisley was sitting with here, Keith Urban. And all of a sudden, you just jumped up and hug me. and I was just like thinking, I wonder if anybody is noticing this or recording this. Maybe this will end up on whatever the network is in Nashville, CM something. But it was really cool.

And that was the first time I'd ever met you. And since then, I've had your people have sent a restraining order. So I wouldn't ever do that again. Okay, look, I'm a massive you fan. And for you to put me on your show, which I listen to and watch. And sometimes I go from the car to the TV. But it reminds me of back in the day when I'd be 12 and we'd come in from ball practice and you'd have to run in during a commercial so you could catch the show. But I do that with your show now.

Like I'm listening. I got a freaking haul butt to get in so I don't miss anything. And it's rare. And I'm going to say this is a sincere compliment. It's rare in today's media world that you care about something so much that you want to catch it live or you want to not miss anything. And what you do on your show now, like I feel that with how you do your show. So as a sincere compliment, I'd like to say like you're a real reason that. I look at sports and even media in general and go, man, it can still be done at such a high level.

Do you still feel, when you go in, are you still so inspired and fired up? Or are you going, I've got a job to make sure people know and I'm going to just take it seriously and focus on what they expect to me? No, I mean, I truly, I'll spare you all the cliches. But my favorite time of the day is when I'm sitting behind a microphone in this studio. It really, and I think as you get older, Bobby, you really do appreciate it because you don't know where it ends and mostly most of the time it ends badly. But COVID changed me.

You know, those, that year and a half doing a show from home, hearing the stories, you know, watching and experiencing with so many other people were going through. Really, I quit a little bit of the cynicism faded away. Now, I must admit, it's coming back pretty fast. But it really was to hear stories. And now that's probably my favorite part of not only interacting and hearing the crazy people, because, you know, that's the trademark of the show, but hearing the real life stories of people that have been laid up or are, you know, just lost a parent or a loved one. And they talk about what this program or your program or what any program means to them.

And I think that's really what we all should strive to do. And I think too many people in our industry are only there to hear themselves talk and not the phone. that they are supposed to be serving. Who top three SEC coaches that you would be friends with in real life or that you are friends with in real life? Like as people, because we see them all and we hear them all. We think they're cool.

But who are the top, I'm not going to ask if you don't like, but the top three that you're like, those are my boys. I'm not saying this to patronize you. I mean, if I'm doing a show in Georgia, you would think I'm not just saying Sam Pittman because I genuinely like him.

but I genuinely like this guy. And don't quote me on this, but I normally don't like that many of coaches because I find them often to be disingenuous and hypocritical. And Pittman, he introduced me to his wife this year at the SEC Spring meetings. And I just fell in love with these two. I mean, because, you know, we're, we're, I'm a couple of years older,

but we're in the same age group where we're both married and we don't have children. And I just saw a lot of myself in him and how some fame, got to him late in life and nobody expected it. So he would be at the top of my list. I mean, Kiffin is intriguing. He's a master manipulator.

You have to accept that. I do like Kirby Smart just to kind of round out my top three. And I know somebody is probably saying, well, you didn't mention this one or that one. And you know what? You're right. I didn't. You're a pretty recognizable guy.

And can you even go to dinner now? And without people coming up and being like, hey, Paul Feinbaum, can I get a pick? Can I, that's got to happen everywhere. Well, the farther south I go, the more difficult it is. So it's not like, you know, I mean, I could go to dinner in Minneapolis and I don't think anybody would notice, but Birmingham or Atlanta. But, hey, I mean, I'm at the point in life where I'm where I'm looking at the people that

come up to me and go like, where were you when it matters? I mean, you know, I'm in my mid-60s. I've been married 33 years. I mean, I laugh at all this stuff when, you know, when the homecoming queen at Ole Miss comes over and says, can I get a picture for Instagram. I just say, okay, can I, if I could have, if that could have happened 35, 40 years ago, and I could have sent it to all my buddies back in high school, but what good does it do me now? Yeah, you say, what's Instagram?

That's what you say. That's what you say. Yeah, exactly. Okay, we're going to end on this. Nick Saban. Obviously, you spent time with him. I see you spend time with them. I see you with them.

Like, what kind of like human being is Nick Sabin? because again, all I get is him being hilarious when not trying to be hilarious at press conferences. Believe it or not, I'm working out a book. And he's a big part of the book. And I'm going to try to explain the psychology of Nick Saban. He is not someone, Bobby, that you want to grab and probably be entertained by. But he can be fun. And one thing that you'll appreciate, the best conversations I've ever had with Nick Saban were not about football.

but about music. He's a classic rock fan. He has, he told me once that, and I can't remember, it was the Eagles, like, it was an Eagles live album in Japan.

He told me, he said, yeah, I played that over and over again, like, for six months. I mean, a little bit obsessive, okay? I mean,

I think the Eagles are a good band, but I'm not sure I could only listen to Hotel California. But that's him. He likes them. He's gone to Rolling Stone, concerts. He and Bill Belichick got into, I think they had Bon Jovi come hang out with them one weekend. So he's not into country, but he is a huge classic rock guy.

So when you come to town one evening, it would be awesome if you and I just went to dinner one night, without all the cameras and supporters you have to follow you, all the fame and glitz, like you and I for like an hour and a half, talking life. Like, that's a dream of mine. I would love at some point to make that happen. You walked into there because I am going to be in Nashville pretty soon. Let's go. Let's go. If you're in town, we will be there for the Vanderbilt Wake Forest game.

Okay. That would be amazing. I'm a massive fan of you. Let me know. I'm always. And here's the comparison I'm making you and I, then I'll let you go. You have a massive show to do. You're a hero to all the world.

The comparison is, when I finish anything we're doing, if we do like a 12 or 13 minute break and we're off the air, Eddie, you can tell them. What do I do as soon as I'm off the air from being Mr. Gagarius, Mr. Mr. Blime for the party? What do I do? You walk out and go home? Or I shut down. I don't have a lot of energy. You want it any time to have energy. Like I go down and I'm like, all right, I got to figure out what's up next. I'm not the life of the party when there ain't a mic in front of me.

And I've done your show even in person, even here when you set up the stage. And very similar. You go, all right, I'm off. It's like you're a robot that shuts down and I can appreciate that. And I can admire that. and because you're a weirdo like me, and I think that's why I love you so much, Paul Feinbaum. Well, I appreciate you saying that.

And when I see you, I'm going to try to sell you on getting me a job in Nashville as a songwriter. Because I did write a country song about 10 years ago. No, you did it. No, you didn't. I did it. I'll bring it to you, and I'm going to go to music row or whatever it's called and try to sell it. Yeah, it's not called Music Row. But tell your friends, you're going to go down to Music Lane and sell your song.

Yeah, music lane. Yeah, yeah. All right, Paul, hey, thank you. Hopefully I'll see you soon. You're my hero and I'll talk to you. I'm going to tell your guy and give him my cell phone number. If you never text me, I understand. You just, you hate me. But if you do and you're like, let's go to dinner, let's go and I will let you pay it because I'm that kind of nice guy. I would be delighted. And this has been like of all the things I've ever done in my career. Okay, stop. Okay, stop it. This is certainly the most recent.

Okay, thank you. That's more like it. There is. Paul Feinbaum, everybody. All right, Paul, see you, buddy. Draft King's Sportsbook and official sports betting partner of the NFL. It's my go-to. when I'm betting with the NFL, it's the holiday season. You're going to be watching. Maybe a lot of games you never thought you would bowl games. You're like, I don't even know who these teams are. But do a little research, you know, put a couple smiles on them. Make a couple smiles, right?

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Gambler. In Tennessee, call or text the Tennessee Red Line at 1-800-9-9-7-89. In New York, call 8778-8-8-8-Wire. text, hope, and why, 467, 369. The third interview this week was with Ian Rappaport, as inside as it gets with NFL insiders. Ian's one of the best in the business. I imagine he has like nine phones.

So I wanted to know for a business that runs 24-7, does he ever put those phones on silent? You know, Ian's also had the privilege of covering Nick Sabin and Bill Belichick, very close and personally during his and their careers. So I wanted to talk about that. That and much more right now with Ian Rappaport. Ian, how are you? I'm great. How are you?

Hey, pretty good. I'm pumped to have you on. Is your phone ever on silent? I mean, being a guy that gets all this information and, you know, you're one of the best, if not the best at your job. Is it ever on silent or you just go, I can't turn my phone on? It's a lot of times on silent, but it's always on vibrate. It's never off. And people always ask me like, oh, man, like, when can you turn your phone off? And I'm like, it's actually more stressful to turn my phone off. It really is, because let's say I'm on vacation and I'm in Hawaii, which. I haven't been to in like 10 years, but let's just say I'm in Hawaii and I'm on the beach and my phone buzzes. Like, I can tweet something real fast and be done with it. But what's way more stressful is turning my phone off than being like, I don't know what came. Like there could be anything. Like if I or if I'm on vacation and I get some news, I can call one of my colleagues and like, hey, chase this down.

But turn the phone off, like, that's just stress, man. And I'm trying this job is stressful enough. I'm trying everything I can to sort of alleviate some of the stress. You go from being a guy in New York, guy in the East Coast, to living in Starkville, Mississippi. Is that a culture shock for you? It was. I loved it. I really liked the South.

And my wife's from Mississippi. I met her there when I was living in Starfield. She was a student in Mississippi State. And I, so when I took the job, I told the editor, I only took the job under the agreement that I would live in the college town, which seems normal, but at the time, they'd never had that before. It was a Jackson newspaper, Jackson Claring Ledger, so all the writers lived in Jackson, drove up two hours, reported and drove back. I'm like, no, I want to be immersed in this culture, this team. I want to live there. And I did. And it was a small town. They got like three bars and restaurants. And like when I'm waiting

online for things, my turn is up when it's up. You know? Like in New York, you're like, come on, I got this like bagel coming. You know, like I got things. I got like four. appointment's like, let's go. In Mississippi, your turn is up whenever they say it's up. It's almost like island time. Yeah. I mean, it's just, the clock is different, you know? And it's like people talk to you online and when they say like, you know, how you doing? They like actually want to know. Right. And they wave at you. Just driving through. What's going on? In New York, what's going on is like, what do you want? In South, it's like, what actually is happening? So I had to used to just like talking to random people that I didn't know. I loved it though. The food is great.

People are awesome. I lived in the South five years. I lived in Starkville. I lived in Tuscaloosa. And I would, you know, for the right situation, I would definitely move back. I want to talk about Tuscaloosa for a second, and we have just a couple of minutes left. But you covered Sabin and Belichick, separately. A lot's been made of their friendship or their professional friendship and some of both. But what, can you, what are the similarities between those two working with them separately independently and then how are they different? Similarities, both of them are crazy because they could stand on the field, stand on the sideline, a game goes by with 70 plays, and you could ask them, both of them, they both can do it,

about a specific player on a specific play, and just watching the game from the sidelines, they can tell you what that player did. It is bonkers. So you'd be like, Nick, on that touchdown, you know, the left tackle looked like he kind of I'm like, oh yeah, he got outside his guy. He pinned him in and that sprung the run and you're like, God, how did you see that? But they both can do it.

So football wise, and it's wild because they can tell you what everyone did on a certain play, what they're supposed to do, what the play was before and after and what happened. It's like beyond crazy to me. Both of them are really good at explaining football to idiots. And by that I mean reporters. So I like, like Belichick specifically, but Sabin would do it too, but Belichick specifically, if you ask him a football thing, he'll really tell you. Like, he will explain to you in a way that is like palatable, which I always thought was so cool.

They're different in that Bill is the most disciplined person, really person that I've ever met. He will go into a press conference. And if he doesn't want to say something, you're not getting it out of them. Like, he and I got along for a lot of reasons. I think one of the reasons was I knew I was never prying injury news from his lips. It wasn't going to happen. So if he didn't want to say it, I'd ask him once. I'd move on and we'd talk about other stuff because you can't force anyone to say anything.

With saving, you kind of can. You ask him over and over and he'll lose discipline and he'll just kind of say whatever. So I could go into a Belichick press conference and know what I'm getting. And I would go into a Sabin press conference and it could literally be anything. It could be, I told you I'm not going to talk about that. What do you want me to say? This guy got suspended and I'm disciplining him here, here and here. and here's who we're going to replace him with.

I'm not just going to do that. And it'll be like, you just did that. So different there. Both are just fascinating to cover and get to know. Which one do you think you'd be better friends with in real life if it was just friendship? Probably Belichick because he can turn it off a little better. Like, you know, I'll run into Bill, like say at the combine or something. And I'll want to talk about football, but instead of talking about horse.

racing for 45 minutes. Saban doesn't really do that when he's business. Bill kind of does. So that's a little different. You guys follow Ian at RapSheet on Twitter and Instagram and all over NFL network. Hey, big fan of your work. Just appreciate the hustle and the inside. And thank you for spending some time with us today, Ian.

No, thank you for having me. This is really cool. And if nothing else, I get to look at my own picture for about 22 minutes. So that was pretty cool. Yeah, it's four of them too, not just one, four with all a slightly different gesture. All right, Ian, talk to you later, buddy. All right. Great stuff, man. Thank you for having me. The holidays are here. I'm savoring every moment with the help of Hello Fresh.

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it's easy enough for them to help and cook with you. Plus, with over 35 weekly recipes to choose from, there's always something new to try and love. Sign up today at hellofresh.com slash Bobby Sports21. Use the code Bobby Sports 21 for 21 free meals plus free shipping. That's the code Bobby Sports 21 for 20. 21 free meals plus free shipping at hellofresh.com slash Bobby Sports21. So this Rich Eisen interview was, again, super cool, so much that I was like geeking out before and after.

Rich Eisenman's ESPN for, you know, ever when I was a kid, over 20 years doing sports. He has done it all. He tells me the story about when he got the call from ESPN that would change his life forever. Rich also talks about the run, rich run campaign, which he does for the NFL and for the combine and for charity. and it was just super cool to talk to Rich Eisen. I hope you enjoyed this final interview. One of my favorites from the year. Here is Rich Eisen.

Massive fan and have been for a whole long time and I watch you. I listen to your podcast, each hour is loaded separately. So I try to, I'm big fan. If you can't tell, I know all the nuances of the Rich Eisen show. But I have the Roku app that I can watch you guys on.

You've had to transition a bit with all the new technologies. You know, you have an 11-year-old son too. Does he help you stay on to what, to what's cool. I've got a 14 and 11 and a 9. And they are, it's amazing because back when I was a kid, you know, back when I was a kid,

it would be what's on channels 2, 4 and 7, right? Now they know what's on an app. And they get pissed at me when I go to try and search for anything on the old Roku device. They're like, dad, that's on Paramount Plus. dad that's on it's on Disney and they say with such scorn. I don't understand it.

But that's, you know, I take it, I absorb it and I try to get better every day. That's why I have this sign on my desk every day. I don't know if anybody's ever going to try to take this away from me, the best dad ever. But, you know, that's, I'm on my hopefully 14th consecutive year of that title run that I'm on. I want to talk about getting the call, like the big call.

And, you know, just knowing your history, you know, just being, you know, a sports anchor and reporter back at a local station. But moving up to ESPN, when you got the call that we want you at ESPN, where were you and what was actually said on the call? So I was in Redding, California, at the ABC local affiliate, KRCR television. And I sent a tape to a head hunter, three of them across the United States. I was 25 years old. This was 1995. And I'm like, you know, I was there for a year. I'm like, what does it matter?

It's just first class postage. I'll send these tapes out. So they send the tapes out to a headhunter. And I get a phone call at home from a headhunter who says to me, I've got a very interesting, an interesting bite. A big time shop is interested in more of your work. Send the best written material. Another tape.

Send another tape. And then I go to work one day. and it's a phone where it would ring once, one loud ring if it was a local call, and a ring ring if it was outside of the area code. I mean, again, this is 1995. And whenever it would ring ring, it would be my parents or my brother

because I'm from New York City and they lived in New Jersey and my brother was in Southern California. So it never would ring, ring twice. And it would ring, ring. And I pick up the phone. and it was an agent named Henry Reisch from the William Morris Talent Agency saying he wanted my reel immediately because I was the hottest up-and-coming sportscaster in America, according to him, and what he had been hearing. And I'm like, all right, because I'm about to go drive 50 miles into the Shasta Mountain Range to try and cover a local high school volleyball game with my three-quarter-inch camera connected with a coaxial cable to the deck with a huge. you know, strap over my other shoulder, one man banding the whole thing.

And so I'm not feeling very hot. He goes, send me the tape. Great. Hang up the phone. Call my brother up. And I'm like, you'll never guess what just happened. And I tell him, he goes, get out of here. No kidding.

I'm like, yeah, this just happened. Hang the phone up, ring, ring. And another one. And this isn't five minutes of each other. And I'm like, watch, I am such hot. That's ESPN on the phone. And sure enough, it was a guy named Al Jack. from ESPN, their headhunter, who I had sent multiple unsolicited tapes and resumes to over the previous

five-year period. And it was him telling me that he had gotten my tape. They really like it, and they want to set up an interview and an audition. And I thought it was my brother telling all my friends back home, call Rich, say you're Al Jaffe, because you know, and I thought it was all my friends trying to mother me, you know, and it was not. It was the real deal guy. And I almost cursed him out, thinking it was a friend like, who are you? But it was really him. And I flew down to Los Angeles, a few weeks later, to interview. I did with a whole bunch of executives that were there for the Cable Ace Awards,

which no longer exist. And then a few weeks later, I auditioned for the gig on a Monday after, by the way, a snowstorm prevented me from getting halfway across the country in the initial time of auditioning. So it was a long wait, a lot of ups and downs, but I got the gig after auditioning with Al Jaffe. And that's my story. Did you ever have imposter syndrome or at any time did you have imposter syndrome while you were there, especially the early days? What do you mean? Like you're like, okay, I'm probably not at the level.

Do they think I am? I'm about to do this and I'm not really that good. Oh, my first sports center was with Larry Beale was the sports center anchor. He's now out in Northern California. and it was, this is before ESPN News. So I was the last guy that they hired that they threw directly on SportsCenter. And so ESPN News is what they would put guys and gals on to get their teeth cut and get up to speed. So I just remember it was a half hour sports center on the round of 32 day, I believe, or it was a Sweet 16.

It was the middle of March. So it was probably a round of 30. two day and I had 11 highlights I'd only seen one of them. So they were going to hand me 10 paperwork shot sheets where you could follow along what's written there to know what the highlights were.

And I would have to add lib the whole damn thing. And I remember walking downstairs and saying to myself, I have two choices. I can either pee down my leg or I could just suck it up and say I'm ready for this. And I think I did both. And it was wild. and I just looked around and the people that were in the newsroom were all the anchors who I had emulated or wanted to emulate or had watched for years and what made me want to be a sports center anchor and they were automatically my colleagues.

And it was overwhelming. No question about it. Keith Oberman, Dan Patrick and Kilbourne and, you know, Robin Roberts and Dave, you know, Charlie Steiner, Bob Lee. I mean, my God, these are all the people that I was now colleagues with. It was overwhelming, but I was age 26. But it was time of my life. Seven years met my wife there. My children are ESPN babies because of that technically.

And unbelievable. What a run. I watch a lot of your work with the draft. And I wonder with people being a big fan of you, people admiring what you do, do you sometimes get a lot of inside information that you can't share? Like there's a fine line of things you know. and things you can actually say? Yeah, I mean, yeah, but I mean, I don't think I'm, I do this thing to break news, you know,

and I say that having a journalism degree from Northwestern, I know that that, that's not something you want to say. I think I'm here to just kind of guide everyone through what I'm hearing and understand what I can say, what I don't say. You know, I'm not Schefter. I'm not Ian Rappaport, my colleague at the NFL network. That's not what I'm doing. If I hear something that can break something, I will do that.

But, you know, a great, for instance, is it prior to the 2018 draft, all I heard, this is the draft in Dallas that it went Baker, Mayfield, and Sam Darno, Josh Allen, Josh Rosen, and then Lamar Jackson was the last quarterback. That was the quarterback draft of 2018. We had heard quite a bit on this show from people who we spoke to off camera. And what I heard at the Combine leading up, we heard a lot that Russell Wilson was in play. We're like, you get out of here. Like, what the hell? Really? And, you know, we didn't say anything, which is good because Russell didn't get traded. But now we found out literally in the week

before his home opener in Seattle as a member of the Broncos, he let it be known that they did try to trade him prior to 2018. So what we heard was actually accurate. But had we said it, we would have created this huge stir, or I shouldn't say that what I say creates a huge stir. I shouldn't say that. I would just say that we would have definitely put something out there that might have gained attention potentially significantly that would have been inaccurate, even though it was accurate. And I don't like the traffic in those waters. I would just prefer to kind of make you smarter by talking about the things that I think are going to happen,

not what I'm hearing could happen. Like that is not what I like to traffic in. You've been running the 40 for a bunch of years now. Are you ever going to hit a time where you're like, all right, I got to stop. If you hit like a seven, seven seconds, are you going to go like, I need to pass this down, let my son do it now? No, Bobby, if I need a walker, that's when I'll stop. Okay.

I'm going to add actual help, you know, doing that. But to be very straightforward with you again, yeah, there is. Like at some point, I don't think people want to watch some guy run, you know, with a limp and do something particularly bad. My wife wants me to train for it. And I don't know. I mean, I go back and forth. Like, should I really, really train for it? Like, it was sort of like an every man approach where just like it's just anybody coming off the couch and running it.

But now maybe, as again, I'm 53, perhaps me training for it could be. could be, I guess, an example to people who are advancing to stay in shape. And maybe that's another aspect of it that I need to focus on because the reason why I do it now and don't want to give it up is because of the fundraising aspect for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. But it has been, you know, amazing. It's the, as you could see here, the logo of my show and what so many people do associate me with. and it was born, like many things in television, out of complete boredom waiting to shoot a television show

as I was sitting next to Terrell Davis under the buzz of the old RCA dome, which got blown to smithereens for the news stadium in Indianapolis, where he said, I said, how fast do you think I can run? The 40, he laughed at me. I cursed at him and went down and ran it, had no idea that the NFL network crew on a break was actually recording it.

They played it back as a surprise to me on live TV, and it kind of got a life of its own that still lives today. Well, Rich, I appreciate the time. I'm a big fan. Again, and if you guys have Roku or Roku channel, which I have the Roku app, and I'm able to catch Rich on it. I listening on a podcast as well.

One of the interviews that I really enjoyed was when you talk to the guys that do the town halls, Chad Kroger, you know, when you went and you were like, hey, because they go into these town hall meetings on like propose water towers named after Britney Spears. I thought that was such a funny interview. And I'll end with this because you are interviewing celebrities and athletes. Have you had to change your style or research a bit more because your interviews are a bit different now?

Well, you know, I've got a great production team that's stuck with me and this show through the pandemic and through many different partners. Hopefully the Roku channel is the last switch that I make. And I appreciate that you got a Roku device just to keep watching. That's pretty cool. but we we dig in to see if there is a celebrity sports cross section because that's the idea of this show is, you know, that sports is a touchstone of pop culture just as much as movies and television. The greatest sporting event that the American sports scene puts on in exports, the Super Bowl is stopped in the middle for a rock concert and nobody bats an eyelash anymore. So it really is something that I love to put together.

And I'm thrilled that the folks at Roku and the Roku channel are into it too. So whenever a celebrity comes on, we see, you know, did they play sports? Or if they're a diehard fan of the team, happy to dive in and let them be a pundit and give opinions. Because I think when a celebrity who's into that comes in to promote his or her movie or television show or music or album, they, they prefer to talk about that rather than the funny story from their vacation. And then there are some celebrities who don't know sports very well and are deathly afraid that if they come on, it'll be like if you saw the movie Diner where, you know, one of

the characters won't get married to his fiancé unless she passes a quiz on the Baltimore cult successfully. They feel like that's what I'm going to do with them or to them, which is the worst thing for a host to do. So I try to make it comfortable and just talk about their movie or TV history. And so we've got, as I said, a terrific crew that we put together here and we all, you know, I think really like each other, that we come up with a segment called Celebrity True or False, where we just go through their history about, well, this story was on the Internet, this story was

on your IMDB page. Is it true or false about your TV show or about your movies? and it's just a great way. And fans eat it up, thank goodness. I mean, we had Henry Winkler on the other month, and we talked to him about Jump the Shark. We had, you know, Gerald McCraney here the other day from so many terrific shows.

We asked them about Major Dad, and that's what I love to do, just having people from across a pop culture landscape talk about their movies and TV. So, yes, my long-winded answer is, yes, there is a lot more research that goes into it, but you put up a production construct to place it in. And not only is it something enjoyable to watch and listen to live, it's very consumable on an on-demand podcast or YouTube or YouTube page,

YouTube.com slash Rich Eisen Show has 28,000 videos from our near eight-hear history on it. And so, yeah, I do love having celebrities on, and it does require a little bit more help. Certainly, if you mentioned Chad and T. they come on and drop the word perineum for the first time in my, uh, my show's history. Listen,

uh, big fan. You guys follow at Rich Eisen at Rich Eisen's show. Uh, Roku, uh, as, as you say now,

you'll be announcing a serious channel really soon, radio. Like, I'm a total fan boy. I, you know, I'll admit it now that it's over and I've admitted it six times during, but just,

uh, keep doing it. And I'll be listening every day and hopefully I'll meet you in real life sometime soon, rich. Thanks a lot of me. When you're back here in Los Angeles after waking up at one of the morning and you're done with your show, you've come in here.

and sit next to me. We'll have a chat. All right, buddy. Thank you. See you later. Thanks for listening to my favorites here from 25 whistles. I want to thank all the guests we've had throughout football season. And make sure you subscribe to 25 whistles to stay up to date on future guests on the show. As we head into the new year, just go follow 25 whistles wherever you podcast and at 25 whistles on Instagram and me at Mr. Bobby Bones. Thanks for listening.

Hope you had a great new year. And we'll see you or hope you have a great new year depending when this airs. Or when you hear it, because it could be both. And we'll see you in 2023. Unless you hear this in late 2023, for some weird reason when you're listening back, you'll see in 2024. All right, bye, everybody.