The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Oral History of the Dan LeBatard Show: Episode 1

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

This is the oral history of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz podcast to celebrate our 20th anniversary. Throughout this series, Dan, Stugotz, Mike Ryan, and many other surprise guests will take our listeners through the show’s history and provide some incredible insight that even the most diehard DLS fans might not know about. In this, our inaugural episode, the guys reminisce on the show’s creation, formation, and early years of production. We touch on everything from Dan and Stu’s initial meeting inside a Starbucks to Dan’s 3am bike rides to help the show find it’s voice to a radio executive’s decision that nearly bankrupted the entire station, plus so much more. Trust us Le Batard Show fans, you’ll want to hear these stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. I'm going back to university for zero dollar delivery fee, up to five percent off orders and five percent Uber cash back on rides. Not whatever you think university is for. Get Uber One for students. With deals this good, everyone wants to be a student. Join for just $4.99 a month. Savings May 3. Eligibility and member terms apply. After decades of shaky hands caused by debilitating tremors, Sunnybrook was the only hospital in

Canada who could provide Andy with something special. Three neurosurgeons, two scientists, one movement disorders coordinator, 58 answered questions, two focused ultrasound procedures, one specially developed helmet, thousands of high intensity focused ultrasound waves, zero incisions, and that very same day, two steady hands. From innovation to action, Sunnybrook is special. Learn more at sunnybrook.ca slash special. Turn Lebertard. I'm hoping that what this show does is that shows people that I am not a jerk. I do not take myself seriously. Stoogots.

Chuck Norris was tracing the Tyrannosaurus Rex. The Rex was not chasing the Jeep. 20 mediocre years. He's calm, collected, has a will to win because his name of course is Wade Jones This is the oral history of the Dan Leba. Wait a second I haven't heard from you guys in over a decade You guys go to ESPN and all of a sudden you forget about the little people and big voices that helped you get there I was

replaced by a nepo daddy. This is ridiculous. Happy anniversary, you schmucks. We made it 20 years, man. We did. I know. Well, we haven't yet. We haven't as we tape this. We'll see if we get there, yeah? We'll see. We'll see. When this runs, We'll see if we have gotten there if the whole thing has fallen into a ditch. We're very excited to have reached 20 years as an anniversary and we're very excited with

this project that we're embarking on. Over the course of this year we're going to celebrate 20 years by going back in time, being super nostalgic, getting into the weeds on stuff that we imagine our most loyal listeners will want. I'm going to ask Dugats a bunch of questions about our beginnings that I don't remember and I just can't wait to see everything that unspools here as we remember nostalgically 20 years together. This will be like a photo album without the photos.

This is going to be like a celebration of a wedding anniversary, 20 years of merit. So you're banking on the fact that I remember? I mean... I am banking on the fact that you will remember because this was back when you were hungry and at your greediest. Like this was when you wanted it the most. You were aggressive about wanting. So yes, I believe you will remember where we start.

Essentially, I'm only here this first episode because I was tasked with remembering and I misremembered a bunch. Putting together our timeline was a major, major issue for me, but I know nothing really about the show prior to it being on the air, prior to the first words uttered into the microphone. You guys are really the only people on the planet that know the real story there, so I'm really curious how this whole thing came to be. I was just hanging on for dear life at the beginning. I mean, I really was.

I was so nervous working with Dan. I had wanted Dan to be a host on the station for so long and I was so nervous just sitting next to him. I'm surprised that I've made it this long with Dan. I'm surprised Dan hasn't kicked me out and just health wise, I'm surprised I've made it this long. Well, but I want to, I want to talk a little bit about the beginnings before the beginning, before that first show. Like you set this whole thing up.

I don't know how you got those investors. I don't know what your relationship was with them. I remember our first meeting. What I remember about it is your hair was super slick back. You were super New York and you were in sales mode and I didn't need to be sold. I wanted to do it. So as I recall, I took your first offer.

I didn't involve my agent. It was easy. I didn't involve my agent at all. I just sort of said, yes, it's something that I wanted to do. We met in a Starbucks and Dan is right. I did not know Dan. Boog introduced us.

We met a Starbucks in Pembroke Pines. I came in, my hair was so slick back I was wearing a suit I think because I wasn't starting this radio station without Joe Rose in the morning and Dan Leventhal in the afternoon and so I was nervous and even though I knew that Dan wanted to do this I felt like I needed to close I wanted to close I had to close him and man did I get him cheap. I was on my game man. This was funny because I'll tell you why because I had been doing radio what was it I believe it was a hundred grand a year if I'm not mistaken. Slightly more. Yeah.

I as I recall and this is gonna be hard for me because it was 20 years ago, but I'd been doing radio nationally for five or six years. I'd had offers to do Los Angeles and New York, but I wanted to be in Miami and there was no chance of me being in Miami because WQAM hated me. Joe Zygacki at one point, I think, was running that station.

I remember guest hosting one time on WQAM and telling him to fuck off in the hallway. Joe Z? Yeah, because he was mad because I was ripping his hosts on his station. Fuck you too. I was never gonna work there. And so I was excited that there was another possibility.

To answer your earlier question, I had some friends in Atlanta who had brokered a radio station, 790 The zone in Atlanta And you know I was at the stage where and I've told you the story before in the air where I'm right around 30 years old and I'm wondering if I'm gonna make it in radio and I'm doing mornings at 940 Fox Sports radio with Carl Foster and Anita Marx and then I'm going to sling munis afterwards Murray

Marks and then I'm going to sling munis afterwards. Murray! And I was really at a point where it had to be now or never. Like I was arriving at the point where, you know, my radio career was, that dream was gonna die. And so my friends in Atlanta planted the seed in my head to start a radio station, to lease a radio station down here in Miami. And so I got a group of guys together, Joel Feinberg, Kurt Murphy, Alan Brown, Scott Becker,

a really good group. Joel was the money guy and we settled on 790 the ticket, but I would not start. I told Joel there's no way I'm starting unless we have Joe Rose because he's a cash cow. And if we have Dan LeBittard in the afternoons and he asked me why are you so hell bent on Dan? I remember him asking me that.

And I said the last few years of being the executive producer and I had Goldberg show his only topic was Dan and so if he's that polarizing that is someone I would like to have and I read your columns believe it or not I did that's back when I was reading and I read your columns and they were great and Boog told me there's a great sense of humor inside of that serious person and I was glad because I would not have started the station without you. It was my third job, right? I had the Miami Harrah job I was writing.

I was doing a lot of stuff for ESPN the magazine and ESPN television, but it quickly became my favorite one of the jobs and the starting point on it was absolute revenge. Like I was hell-bent pissed at QAM, because for 10 years, it's not just that they ripped me. That would be one thing, but they were taking out the Miami Herald every day, when the Miami Herald was doing substantively better work than any of them were doing.

And that whole station was not very nice to Cubans either. So I just wanted an alternative. I wanted to do something that fought with them publicly, because I was tired of them having the airwaves to themselves. Yeah, you mentioned Cuban representation and I thought that as a young listener that desperately wanted other alternatives in the market, I would always listen to the new hot young station. I would listen to them all up until their final broadcast. I was introduced to Sugatsa that way and sampling 940 Fox Sports, but also I was introduced to George Sadano in 1700 back in the day. And what really drew me to George Sadano was finally a young Cuban that liked sports, QAM never affords people like this, people like me,

the opportunity. So to have finally Cuban representation in a Cuban market was a really big deal. Also, it was a marquee name. grew up reading Dan your national profile was ascending and to have you doing local radio I remember it as a big deal like I can't believe that they got lebatards to gots was fighting at the time. No lie Tony Kalata you dad Yeah was trying to get the same thing Stu gots was trying to do. Both of them saw that Miami could be a market for two stations. Both of them saw that some of the other big markets had two sports radio stations.

Well, 20 years ago, sports radio exploded in a way that in major markets, it was common to find not one, but two sports radio stations in the same market. I believe New York even had a third for a little bit. Maybe Chicago did as well. But I spent my time, when I was at QIM, I was thinking to myself, because it was Neil Rogers, it was Hank Goldberg, it was Joe Rose, I think of them, the first team in the morning, Jim Mandich, Jeff DeForest, it was old white dudes, a bunch of old white dudes.

And so I just remember thinking to myself, can Miami sustain and handle economically a second radio station? And is there a market for a younger, hipper radio station? And we were right, like there was. There was a market for it. There was a market for something younger because QAM, man, it was so old and every show sounded the same to me. I had some local stuff on smaller stations that seemed like they weren't going to succeed. What Stu Gotz was presenting to me seemed to have a be more viable it may have been because of the way he was presenting it i would or it may have been because those guys did have actual money died in

most of us at the time right so i don't know how much of this is bluster and bravado it did feel like sales but it also felt like more legitimate conversation that the others that i had with Tony's dad, for example. So Joel Feinberg was the guy who had the money and he had money, had, and he has money, I think. But Joel was the money guy. The rest of the team, Alan Brown, Scott Becker, Kurt Murphy, they didn't have any reaction to me saying I wanted to hire Dan.

They have heard of Dan, they knew of Dan. If you lived down here, it would be pretty hard not to know who Dan is. I was the only one who had any sort of experience, probably not enough, but enough where no one was questioning me. And so I just said, listen, Joe Rose, because he's Joe Rose, and Dan Leventhorpe, because he's Dan Leventhorpe. Oh, but you knew what good radio sounds like. Oh yeah. You had a good ear.

I knew you'd be great at this. I knew Joe Rose and I knew he wasn't changing. I just knew he came with millions of dollars in billing. And that was important to a startup radio station at the time Well, I came with no billing right because I wasn't doing ads whatsoever You mentioned Joe Rose cash cow in the afternoon. You just put a cow There was no cash around but I put a talented cow there and not that Joe Rose is not talented He is but a different kind of talented. I put a talented cow in an afternoon drive because I thought that cow was gonna be good entertaining and different and that cow was Dan told me first meeting I can't do live commercials I'm a journalist it's funny how quickly all this stuff shifted how

some of it hasn't shifted no but Mike I'm thinking about two like 20 years ago two sports radio stations in every market now it's dying it's dying a slow death sports radios that add journalism is dead essentially But Dan told me right away. I can't do commercials the Herald Journalism and I knew that we had to put someone in there with him It wasn't gonna be me but someone I didn't know damn well enough I didn't know if damn wanted to do the show with me But I knew we needed someone to do the live spots because at that time

That was a very important part of the equation to getting money and we needed money. My initial choices were I wanted to do a show first and foremost with Boog Shambi. Correct. Boog Shambi was going to be the first choice. He was at QAM at the time. I think Greg Cody and I've said before that Greg Cody was my vision for the first choice as what the Stu gots character became, but the initial incarnation of the show, Boog and I thought we could do the best sports radio show in America. The people who loved us thought we would kill each other if we did that, but Stu gots needed both of us in different time slots.

He needed to fill out the entirety of the lineup. It would be easier for him to make money if we did two separate shows than pay people too much to do one show in the afternoon. So I think at the time when we started, the Marlins were at WQIM, he was doing games for the Marlins and Boog was interested in doing it with you, but he couldn't because, you know, he was working at the competing station. My issue was more, I was in the space of really trying to find myself play by play wise and that was really my focus.

The way my career trajectory went, you know, you hear Stu Gots talk about it a million times, but yeah, I wanted to be Mike and the Mad Dog too. And then I got a chance to do it very quickly and I kinda got bored with it. So when I had downtime, I would go over to Pro Player, Joe Robbie Stadium and just do games into a tape recorder. And that started to be more of my focus and what I was more compelled to do so doing it with Dan would be fun

and I think in hindsight we probably could have figured something out that would have worked in terms of too much of the same idea but at the time I was really way more focused on play-by-play. And then eventually when Boo became available I was already doing the show with you and then yes to spread talent really way more focused on play-by-play. And then eventually when Boo became available, I was already doing the show with you, and then yes, to spread talent like that across your lineup is not only smart, it's what you're supposed to do.

And so what I loved about that station so much, and Mike I'd be interested, because you were a consumer of that station, is every show, man, was good. It didn't matter what time you tuned in, I felt like all those shows were really, really good. And connected. They were good and all of them like fought with each other and it was like a day-long conversation. It took about a year and a half to get it to the ideal spot, but I think that was the main draw and that's why a lot of people like me who were sampling

the station actually thought this one had a chance because it was understood. Not only were you getting Joe Rose, but you were getting Lenny, Eric, Chippy, and Mike, Scotie. Like you'd get all of them around the clock. You'd get all those sponsors. That should have been the morning show, Lenny, Chippy, Eric, Scott. Yeah. And you got Dan Lebatard, and this was like a legitimate thing. But before the show got hummin', Dan had a vision. And I'm wondering, you find out the boo thing isn't working out. Dan acknowledges the need to space out talented hosts. What kind of pivot does Dan make and does the overall vision of what he wants to achieve with the show change? The reason that I wanted to do it with Boog and with Cody is just because having watched PTI and everything that happened behind the scenes at PTI

when I was doing PTI, I recognized the value of having chemistry that was already built in. I didn't know anything about Stugatz. Stugatz actually prepared me for all the dating I did on television on Highly Questionable when we were bringing in all of those people that I don't have relationships with and you got to figure out the chemistry with the reps. So I just wanted it built in to what it is that we were doing and Stugatz and I really struggled at the beginning because he was leading the show and he was doing the show that he had in his head

from New York having learned sports radio. And that's not what I wanted to do. Well, I want to hit pause here because we've gotten to a new scenario in which Stu Gotz is a part of the show and he's leading the show. I'm not exactly clear on how Stu Gotz, I have heard Cody, I've heard Boogshambee,

I've heard Stu Gotzots a couple minutes ago say, I knew that I didn't want to be a part of the show. How did Sugots become a part of this show? This is the way I remember it, okay? Now Dan might have a different version of this story, but I remember him calling me, so we ruled out, we checked off Boog, he couldn't do it. I don't know what happened with Greg Cody,

to be honest with you. Greg Cody had to do afternoon baseball games that he wanted to call for Chris. He wanted to call them on the dugout for a seven and nine plantation team. And did he miss out? And, uh, so Greg, by the way, not just, not just a family man, but to prioritize, like Greg, even back then was super self-indulgent and he just loved doing

that and he thought I'd love doing this more than speaking into a microphone and hanging out with Dan so much. I'm going to betray a trust, but I also remember Greg telling me that show will be off the air in a year. He said the same thing about Highly Questionable. He's the only one to publicly question whether or not Highly Questionable would succeed. So Mike, I believe Dan about a week before we launched the radio station called me and said I don't want to do the show by myself. I want someone in with me and I was already thinking I

need to get someone in there with you because he's not gonna do the live commercials. I believe it was booed. Now I think you're gonna disagree with me and I was already thinking I need to get someone in there with you because he's not gonna do the live Commercials I believe it was boo now. I think you're gonna disagree with me that suggested doing it with me I don't remember how it is exactly that it became I just showed up I I guess I've been around for 20 years and you don't know how you got together Oh, I don't know the way I remember you have to understand though This is why this becomes a midday show my a midday show, I had to hire Minervini. I mean, mini in the midday. This is why it becomes murky and muddy.

Because I again, did not know at the time that Stugatz was a profound liar and schemer. At the time, he was not the Stugatz that we know and love now. There was less buffoonery and if there was buffoonery, he was not quite as aware of it. Not that he's always aware of it now, but you know what I'm saying? Like I just thought he would be good foil. He was going to be standard sports talk foil. And I thought that he and Dan would kind of fit in a way that might deliver something unique. Ultimately, I trust in Dan and Dan's ideas. Dude, I think it was going to be this successful, maybe not.

So I'm teaming up with somebody and what he's explaining to me is that we have to sell ads and then what's presented to me by the group, not just Stugatz, is the idea of he'll be there with you and just kick him around. They had an idea for the pool boy. Treat him like he's the pool boy. And then about 10 days into doing that I get a call from Stugat saying they don't want to do pool boy anymore and I'm pretty sure it's he didn't want to do pool boy anymore but I didn't know that at the time. I only know that in retrospect. I remember where I was because I was by my pool and I'm listening I'm like this sounds suspicious. Like I think that was the

first time I ever thought to myself I'm not sure that this guy is telling the truth because he was putting it on Murph He was putting it on Joel They think I should be with you doing the live spots and you need to calm down you're hurting my credibility Well, allow me to clarify. I was totally lying So the team is assembling around you you realize that you're a week away from starting a show Yeah with su got, reluctantly maybe, and unsure of your chemistry. Who's the producer that's attached to the show? And have you guys talked beyond just the general, I'm the sports guy, I do the reads, you do you? Did you explore

what your personality dynamic on the air would be? I'm curious, before you do a show, you generally talk about what the show is going to be. I was very much following Stugatz's lead. Stugatz got us a producer, Andy King, who was very hungry, very eager, and just had a whole lot of notes, none of which we followed, none of which I remember as good ideas, but I was following them for the first several months

on how they wanted to do this show. In the spring of 2004, I had just graduated from the University of Miami and was looking for a job and applying everywhere. I thought I was going to get an opportunity to work at WQAM, but turns out Stu Gotz, who used to work there, blocked me from getting that position because he told the program director at the time,

don't hire Andy King. I'm bringing him to this new endeavor I'm working on. That endeavor ended up being the producer of the Dan LeBretard show and be a part of the initial team for 790 the ticket this was my first job out of college and I was a deer in headlights to say the least but excited for the opportunity all because of my relationship with Stu Gatz because I'd only done a radio show by myself I'd never had a partner and I was desperate to have something that felt like shared laughter i didn't want to do something by myself

i find the experience of what dave samson does now what collin cowherd did for many years i find it not only lonely i find it boring just listening to your own voice will make you a little bit crazy being in solitary confinement for three hours a day just talking to yourself so are you aligned with dan in that because i was driving the show i could only follow my vision and so my confinement for three hours a day just talking to yourself. So are you aligned with Dan in that? Because I was driving the show, I could only follow my vision. And so my vision for sports radio at that time was do what I grew up listening to, which is 12 minute opening monologue, the two guys talk, and

then we throw it to the phone calls. And we take calls for three hours. But I will tell you, I remember sitting there doing those first couple of shows going, this is not why I hired him him I'm not putting him in the right position I don't know him well enough I know the things that he writes about he does not write about whether someone should have bumped it in the third inning of a baseball game. We'll get to that in a moment we'll talk about some of the changes that the show made but I do want to talk now about that first show and at the end of

this episode we'll put together a super cut from that first show that I think everybody will enjoy outside of the talent that I'm in the room with. I will not enjoy that. But the first show, now I've heard you guys tell stories, I think there's a legend where Dan kicked you out of the studio and wanted to start the show. What do you remember about the doing of the very first show? I remember in the first segment it felt like I was hyperventilating because you were. There were a hundred people in the studio just staring at me I think I was standing up instead of sitting down you were well yeah I was just sort of scared

which caught me off guard at least in part because you have to understand when I'm starting that show with Stu gots what I'm doing is I am at present at the top of my profession right I have confidence in what it is I'm doing is I am at present at the top of my profession, right? I have confidence in what it is I'm doing. Everyone was excited, right? It's the first day on the air. Dan LeBattard is coming to the microphone. It's our big afternoon show.

He's Dan LeBattard and Joel is in the studio with a camera right in his face. Like he wanted to record the entire show, not just the segment, the entire show. He's the owner. he's the money guy. Dan kicked me out, he didn't kick him out. Kurt Murphy, Alan Brown, Scott Becker, all the partner, everyone was there. They're all young too, by the way. Yeah, but thinking back at it.

How old are you when you're doing this, you guys? I'm 32, so. That's really young. Really young, yes. That's really young. But the ownership was also young, correct? The ownership. Joel was younger than you.

Joel was younger than me, and everyone else was right around the same age as me. So they're all there. It's totally unfair to Dan because I don't care what he says. It's his first radio show in the market that he cares about most, Miami. And he was a bit nervous. So to have the entire ownership group there with Joel Feinberg, the owner, holding a camera in his face while he's trying to get our show off the ground. I remember feeling bad for him. There's nothing I could do. So Dan just decided to kick me out of the studio.

And I watched that segment along with everyone else. It was great. I won't make you guys- Breathy, but great. I won't make you guys endure that first show super cut. We'll leave that to the very end of this episode. But me and my production staff, we've isolated a couple of clips from that first show before we move on to the pivots that were made. So it's now become lore. What were the first words ever spoken on the show? Here is a snippet of the very first words ever uttered into microphones on the Dan LeBattard show with Stu Gotts. Cheaty, a-hana-too. That's how we're fixing everything. The running back leaves in a haze of marijuana smoke.

The re-retirement of Dan Marino. The offensive coordinator doesn't want to be the offensive coordinator. Any number of offensive linemen don't want to be here. Chidi Ahanitu is coming to fix everything, people. Chidi Ahanitu were the first words uttered on the Dan LeBattard show with Stu Gotts. Had I been sitting in the studio with him, I would have been like, that's my guy. Let's take some phone calls. You're doing Stu Gatze's show. So many things that I love about that clip. You can tell that Dan is hyperventilating.

Dan, your voice sounds super different, but also AM radio static from the logger in there. It sounds old. It sounds like time has passed. The show in its early days was really starting to build. You want to know it from this first show but one of the pivots that you guys later on made was embracing callers and having a different type of caller. You would think that the first caller in show history

would be a momentous occasion so let's revisit the first caller we have ever taken on the Day on Levitard show with Stu Gotz. Let's find out what Dan on a cell phone has to say to Dan Levitard who is in studio today. What's going on, Dan? Not much. Long time listener, first time caller. Thank you, Dan. Levitard, I'm a big fan, man, and I hope the show actually does well, but I think the big

problem is that you're going to make it too high-brow, man, and people don't want that for their sports. They want sleeves and because I think what happens is when you make it high brow, which is I think what your concept is, it exposes sports for what it is, which is just a bunch of games and people spend a lot of money and all these resources going to it. I sure do hope you can pull it off man, but I think this concept has been like you were just saying. you can pull it off man but uh... uh... well the thing is though when and why might sound that way

i'm surrounded by lesbians doing crack cocaine through the shows though it comes out that way is it presented you're not getting a peek behind the curtain so we're gonna we're gonna please it off behind the scenes well the early two thousand four different i don't think they're rebuttal to that call would be what it was, but When he said sleaze it up, I knew I had found my show. I mean I had a place I'm sure he was about to toss to a promotion with the ticket chicks

That was me. That caller actually bang on. We'd heard that like from every management type We had ever run into in the days that followed so Dan on a mobile Really good call in that first show even though Greg Cody wasn't a part of the Dan LeB. So Dan on a mobile, really good call. In that first show, even though Greg Cody wasn't a part of the Dan LeBattard show as a host, he did make an appearance on the very first show and it actually went kind of true to form. I'm sorry, Greg Cody. Greg, what's going on, buddy? Do you know anything about this? You're coming on blind as with most things, right? coming on blind as with most things right? Turn off that music! Enough with the- what is that? The raping music? It was very loud. Rejoice music. It's so staticky.

How do you feel about the energy on the program so far Cody? Now we've misplaced Greg Cody? Of course. Are we completely off the air? Of course. Oh my lord. This is the best! Can you hear me? Yes I can hear you. Hello? We turn on the music and all of a sudden the guest co-op, the heir of Audvillian Kane, comes in here and pulls Weiner out of the room.

Alright, let's start. Greg Cody, you ready? Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. So tech issues actually dates back to day one. Nothing's changed. Nothing has changed.

We learned to sink into the mistakes because we made so many of them. It wasn't an architectural choice. It was something that happened because we were bad at this. We should bring in some paper towels because Dan, he started the show sweating, but the sweating is only gonna happen.

Oh, but this is so uncomfortable for me. I really don't like listening to myself. I really don't. And so listening to this form of myself has me crawling around in my skin. You sound very young, your thoughts. I do, I sound young, I sound fitter, I sound vibrant. The last 20 years of sitting next to Stu Gatz

has had a soul sucking quality. You can't blame that on me. You can't blame that. He is a contributing factor though, but you can't blame it entirely on him. It's just sitting next to him. Sitting next to sports radio for 20 years will do that to a man. Sucking the life force out of Dan Lebatard. One last clip that I want to play and then we'll move on to like how this show evolved

in a second. But we lost Chris Mortenson this year and Chris Mortenson was big for this show and its history and lending his credibility and it did a lot for Sugatzen making sure that our show had mainstream appeal. So, this is a bit of a time capsule. I want to play just a snippet of your first conversation with Chris Mortenson because it will give you some insight into our relationship and to some of the headlines going on in South Florida at the time. Who do you think is going to be the Dolphins quarterback? Well, I thought it was going to be Jay Feebler, but I guess I'm starting to

hesitate on that call because they haven't named Feebler. And I thought last week they wanted to see AJ Peebler do something extraordinary to change their mind. I don't know that he was extraordinary. So I still think it's going to be Feely. And it was for a half. For one half of football before they replaced him with AJ. How old do you guys feel that you guys did Feely or Feeler calls? We just heard the voice of someone who's no longer with us. Mike, we're feeling old.

To answer your question. Rest in peace, Chris Morin. I want to say there are going to be touchstones along the way where we honor some of those friends of the show. And I know what you were aspiring to do with Chris Mortenson. He was a day one, or your thoughts on getting Chris on the show with us. And Dan, typically, I know like you would always complain openly about doing the Chris Mortenson segments, but even you saw the value in it. We were an ESPN affiliate.

I wanted ESPN to feel like they were a part of what we were doing in Miami. They were great. They were great partners to us as a radio affiliate. But I remember Dan's first breathy segment with Joel Feinberg having the camera in his face and he's recording him where Dan said, me and Stugats, we're not going to be able to tell you all the football stuff. We don't know enough, but I'm going to bring on guests who will be able to tell you what's going on in the NFL. And so for a show ours Mike were early on we're being called sissy boy radio And these guys aren't talking sports to be able to have at the time in like news breaking. It was skyrocketing It was such a big business and this man was a pioneer of sports reporting of NFL reporting

He was the most credible guy going at the time to have him on our show, this ridiculous show where we're not talking sports that much every single week. I think more it's as important a figure in our show's history as anyone. A couple of things that you've reminded me here of when you played this stuff, I didn't realize that one of the reasons that I was so breathy

in that first segment is because that Ricky Williams stuff was quite the swirl for me and this was the first time that I was sort of getting out in front of everybody right in the middle of it when Ricky Williams was this hugely polarizing figure and I was at the center of his retirement and all of that was wildly uncomfortable. The other thing that you reminded me of with that first caller is how instrumental the callers were in teaching us very early on that we could create a competitive community of listeners who would be smarter than us and our producers because they were competing to be smarter than us and our producers and make the show funnier.

So when you have the range of all of those things that you're talking about here, you've got Mort's credibility, you've got me in the middle of the Ricky Williams stuff, and you've got us finding our way with a community that wants to be around, like what's this thing in Miami that I kind of wanna root for because it's new and different and young and I'd like something that sounds a little bit different

than the last 20 years of the incumbent at QAM. All of it came together at the right time. I appreciate you moving the story along because that's the next thing I want to talk about. First shows come and gone. I remember, I listened to that first show, I listened to the shows I followed. It wasn't a funny show. Our show is really more of a comedic show, a personality driven show and sports is kind of a tether, but it wasn't really funny. And it took you guys some time to become funny. And a large part of that was the collars. And a large part of that was a producer that you brought in.

So at what point do you realize we need to change some things? Was it a happy change? Were there ever combative conversations about I don't like how this is going? What point do you realize that some changes need to be made? When Dan called me and said, we need to make some changes. Like Dan was telling me stories

that he's riding around his neighborhood on a bicycle, which is weird, at night figuring out how do we do this thing better? How do we make it better? Is it a new producer? I think Boog had the best advice for us. It was the Dan LeBouittard show with Stygots. And I remember Boog telling both of us, the first voice I need to hear every segment is Dan's. Like stop expecting Stu to guess where it is you want to go and just take the show where it is you want to go. And once we did that, we were off. Dan controlled the topics. He controlled everything. Expecting Stu to guess where it is you want to go and just take the show where it is you want to go and once We did that we were off Dan controlled the topics he controlled everything but because Boog was my initial choice I didn't think I was gonna have to do that

I thought Boog was going to lead a show that I could be a part of but I do remember Boog would have led you to The same place as I was gonna lead you to I think well Boog knows me or knew me at the time better than you There was this school of thought that you and Boog were too similar for the show to actually be successful Do you think that you and Boog would have made a successful show? I don't think so I think there's the possibility that it would have harmed our friendship I know Stu gots knows the story that when I got to ESPN one of the first conversations I ever had with skipper is skipper was telling me will you do this show with Balmany instead of Stugat? And having learned what I learned from

everything that happened with Boog, I was like, no, I might get into fights with that person and it might be too combustible. I like the dynamic that it is that we have. I think fundamentally the one component was we spent so much time around one another. Our ideas were so similar and we probably helped each other shape our ideas. Our cadence is similar. Our thought processes are similar. I think we just felt like there wouldn't be enough of a rub that the takes would be really kind of repetitive. But I remember the moment that he's citing when he says I was riding around my bicycle at three o'clock in the morning

and I was around the neighborhood. It's because he and I had done a four hour show where all he was doing was asking me questions about Allen Iverson. Yep. Four hours. Yeah. We did four hours on just Allen Iverson.

Did you think that that was a bad show? Yep. I was interviewing Dan, of course it was a bad show. I think the first week I was thinking to myself, man, I did not hire this guy to do what it is I'm doing right now. Dan, on that first show you were joined by Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser. Tony Kornheiser had a show in a community around his show that I think you mentioned influenced you and you aspired to.

What kind of advice from your peers were you getting about the show that you were doing? You're generally pretty confident in what you were doing and this seems like a time that you were struggling with your confidence. I was not getting any advice from anyone or anywhere other than Bhug Shambhi. There was no other advice that I was getting from anyone in the industry. All of those people who were brought in on that first show

is because I wanted to lend the weight of what was at ESPN and in my friendships to what it is that we were doing. But when Stugatz, to this day, he doesn't do anything more self-aware or flattering with me than in interviews, he's still running his questions by me, still, because he's not confident

in his interviewing skills as I am. And so to have a four hour show where he's interviewing me obviously it just didn't feel right to me I don't know what was going on with Sugata you didn't know me well enough to know how unhappy I might have been with what it is that we were producing I just knew it wasn't good enough I felt it and I knew sports radio enough I knew you enough to know that this is not what I envisioned for you to do in afternoon drive. This was every other show and you didn't want to be every other show and

us as a station, we didn't want to seem and sound like every other radio station. So I knew early on the best word I could use to describe what I was feeling was frustration because there is no way this brilliant journalist wants to do what it is that I would do on the radio yet. I didn't know any other way and I couldn't take him to the places he wanted to go to because I didn't know where he wanted to go to. My soul found the show to be good.

Andy was a very good guest booker. Dan had so many great relationships he would hear. I remember there was a Grant Hill interview and this was when Grant Hill was really huge and there were still Jordan comparisons for him. And he was doing a local radio hit and I just couldn't believe it. It was someone that was guessing on a show that wasn't be no cook

This was a sea change for South Florida radio There were some aspects of the show that could have really worked if you guys didn't shift the paradigm a little bit for me You guys brought on Mark Hockman and you guys leaned more into humor and that could have been because of Hawks own sports Deficiencies and hawk is still doing a good job doing local radio in this market. How did I become executive producer? So Dan started the show on 790 the Ticket. I was a longtime friend of his. We were very friendly in college and since college and I was a radio guy. I worked in radio. I worked in radio since I graduated and he started this new show and he wanted me to listen to it and critique it and tell him how it could get better and I would listen to it from show one to you know show ten after like two weeks but we would talk after every show that he did and he would say I don't think this sounds right and I don't think this sounds good and I had some ideas and I said well why don't you incorporate you incorporate this? Why don't you get a better imaging voice?

Why don't you do this? And then finally, after a couple of weeks, he said, I need you as part of this show. I want you to come work on this show. And I said, I don't do sports radio. I was a music DJ. And he said, I'm not doing sports radio. I'm doing radio.

People can pigeonhole it all they want. I just want it to be entertaining. So you gotta come on board. And he's like, and I wanna introduce you to Stu Gotz. He's the part, my partner, and he's also the general manager of the station. You guys can create a deal. I need you on board.

I need you there every day in the studio as the executive producer. First, Stu Gotz wanted me to be a one month consultant. Remember, he was the general manager of the station too, so he was trying to save money. He wanted me to come on board as a one month consultant. Remember he was the general manager of the station too so he was trying to save money. He wanted me to come on board as a one-month consultant and I said no I'll do like a one-year contract or a two-year contract but I don't want to just do a one-month consultancy and Stugats really had no choice in the matter because Dan was miserable and if Dan's miserable he was going to

make Stugats miserable so he had to come to a deal with me. It was probably barely a week into the show when Dan and Stugats told me that Hock would be joining the team because he was one of Dan's closest friends, someone who knew how to make him laugh, and also had over a decade of experience in radio. I think initially my reaction was one of frustration and relief. I remember being frustrated that my legs were getting chopped out from underneath me. I didn't really get a chance to prove myself as a leader and as the top producer on the show, but also relief because, man, in those early days of the ticket,

I was so overwhelmed between producing and reporting and update anchoring and everything else in between that I needed that leadership experience and mentorship that I got from Hawk. But then there became more of a community aspect to the show. I was listening along from my job at the time and when Hawk came along games like this person looks like they smell like cigarettes. These were games that were being played on the show. So the decision to bring specifically Hawk aboard and what he brought to the show were what guys?

Dan called me and said, I have a friend who I think would be a great producer for us. He knows the music that I like. He knows my sense of humor and the games we started playing on the air Where games Dan was playing with Hawk and their other friends at UM growing up in their entire lives Like they would just get on the phone and start playing games like that. I did not question I wanted Dan to be comfortable. He wanted this guy to be his executive producer He asked me to trust him on this. I called Hawk. We had one conversation I said you're hired Hawk came in and changed everything for us. He really did

Yes, two gods has told me when I got there Dan became a different person like Stu gots didn't have to worry too much about just making sure that Dan was happy and and that Dan wasn't going to explode or Walk out of the studio and just quit the show right at the beginning when I got there Dan had someone he could trust that was was me, and Dan had someone who understood what he wanted to do with the radio show, which was me as well. And so then Stugatz was really able to focus more on becoming his own radio character,

which he's brilliant at. He didn't have to worry too much about trying to make sure Dan was comfortable in this new, you know, surrounding of being in a radio studio with people every day. Dan had me there to be that buffer between everybody and then everybody was able to do what they needed to do. You know, an associate producer could actually work on stuff for the show and not just worry about Dan losing his mind. And Stu Gotz could worry about being Stu Gotz and being a sports guy, a sportscaster,

and not have to worry so much about Dan. I was there to do that. I remember my one-year contract was coming up on the show in a few months. I went on vacation for a week, and I got back from vacation, and Stu Gotz said, don't ever go on vacation again he's miserable when you're not here and again this was still

at the beginning of the show was in the first year but Stugat said to me he goes listen I watched Dan last week when you weren't here that's all the negotiating leverage you need for your next contract here because I'm not doing the show unless you're here in the studio he's like Dan needs you here and so yeah I got a kick out of that and that was that was when I was starting to negotiate my second year contract I was like just don't forget what it's gonna be like if I'm not here. He knew me yes and so I just needed someone in there who could execute whatever it was that was knowing me.

It wasn't to hide his deficiencies in sports, it was to soften everything that was way too sportsy. You know, we've gone too far in the eighth time this segment trying to annoy Dan, but the first seven times were really funny. He just knew that, but when Stugatz is mentioning this, the birthplace of that radio show was absolutely conference calls in college between fake Howard, me, and a Premier League president. And it was just us making an assortment of jokes that then became, on one of these ancillary stations, fake Howard making calls to the host that no one was hearing from Coral Gables

critiquing the University of Miami's performance. Like all of that stuff was born of collegiate phone calls where we would just giggle snort laughing about the silliest thing. And Hawk was also a radio veteran and when Hawk came aboard you guys introduced what seems like dated equipment now but you guys have an evolved version of that. An instant replay machine, the three 60s sounds. If something funny happened on the show, you guys had an ear for it and you started leaning into the self-deprecation and leaning into replaying things and eventually it became something known as a suey montage because Dan always hated pleasantries. First time, long time, you hear it with that first caller. He hated

the way that radio was done. Hock knew that about Dan, and he found creative devices that you guys were missing before, and then a community around the show starts growing, and it feels like a club that you wanna be a part of. I loved radio ever since I was growing up. I was always a radio nerd, and my experience in radio was really that

of like a wacky morning show, you know, and I didn't I didn't understand Sports radio, but that was a good thing because Dan was super clear. I don't want to do sports radio I just want to do entertaining radio and so it was kind of a an interesting way to incorporate sports radio and traditional radio and then non traditional radio and traditional radio and then non-traditional radio and try to formulate it in this you know package that worked for three or four hours every day. Somehow it did. The one real quick change I wanted to make to Dan's show was make it sound larger than life. So I wanted to incorporate big sound

like the big voice. It's why we brought in quickly the big voice to do the imaging. And it wasn't just your typical radio imaging voice. Like it was the deepest, biggest, ballsy-est voice that you could find. Like I wanted Dan's show to jump out at anyone stumbling across it on the radio dial and go, whoa, this sounds different than anything that I've heard in a while. I remember back in the beginning when I was approached by Hock to be the imaging voice of Dan's show. Hock seemed like a very upstanding young man. Then I would get all these crude and rude voiceover scripts.

At the time, I had no idea who Dan Libertretard was. But in due time, I did find out a fact even my father called and said, is that you and the Dan LeBretard show? As a matter of fact, I just the other day saw somebody on the X talking about how Dan had forgotten about Big Voice and Faye Howard. Well, it looks like Dan is putting an end to that. So God bless you, man.

I think Hawk hated how sports radio was done, which is why I think he was such a great hire. Like, he shared Dan's sensibilities as to what's entertaining and what's funny. And he was such a great user of sound and bringing back sound for us to be able to, you know, kind of bounce it off of us and create more content moving forward.

He's a great radio host and he was a great producer. The biggest thing for Hawk, two things for me. One, Dan was relaxed. I noticed the first second Hawk was there, it was a much more relaxed Dan Leventhaler. But Hawk really gave me the confidence through communication, through talking to me, for better or for worse, just let it come out.

And I'm gonna draw it out of you slowly, but just get to a place where you're comfortable with being who you are or an extended version of who you are. And he really got me to that place because I was terrified. I was also the GM. It was only until that you guys had that third voice that the second voice became truly the second voice. And the second voice found its voice.

Yes. Hock helped me with that. Mike, you know this because you have carried it forward here so well. In fact, I would say probably even better. Hawk was such a stickler for sound and how it sounded, meaning all the breaths out, the editing, perfect. It was flawless. Yeah, well it really shaped how I approach all that stuff. Beyond that though, I would say that before you arrive at the safety of real confidence, you're going to do some copycatting

of what it is that you've seen. And so Neil Rogers in this market and Howard Stern nationally were playing around with the form there creatively. And it's one of the things that actually drew me to the medium. I also knew that the bar was so incredibly low. The idea that for 10 years,

the hosts had been outsourcing their work to Hector on a mobile. And I'm like, I can climb over that bar, surely creatively entertainment wise, we can do better than that, right? This is what the height of the medium was. It's just, we're gonna show off now. We can take a call from someone's car.

If you timed out pleasantries from callers it would eat in like five minutes per segment so the idea of cutting out pleasantries entirely and having a suey montage do you guys have any memories of that? The suey montage kind of had a life of its own it was it was uncle Luke came on and he explained to us you know that hot garbage is called suey and Dan you know through his his brilliance realized that if we put out some hot garbage on the radio we should acknowledge that it is indeed suey and and we would do that if an interview was bad we would drop a suey in that then it expanded to anyone when we would take calls back then, anyone who would say hello

or how are you or how you doing or we love the show, anything positive, any kind of greeting would immediately be met with a suey and the caller would get hung up on. And the reason was Dan didn't want to waste time. Every moment on the air was precious. Didn't want to waste time. So you had to have a punishment if you were going to waste time. Every moment on the air was precious. Didn't want to waste time, so you had to have a punishment if you were going to waste time. You waited all that time on hold and you called in and he said, how you doing? Bang! Hang up on you and you hear the Sui montage. And then we had all

these sound clips, you know, throughout the weeks, months, years of the show that we enjoyed. And so it was like, hey, put it into the Sui montage. And so the Sui montage just became this growing organism on its own. It was just a way for us to hear some of the sounds that we liked hearing over and over and over again. It was probably more to entertain us than it was the listeners. Well, the pleasantries, that was like

Dan's big pet peeves early on. He was like, listen, if I tell you I have cancer, you're not gonna care, you going to ask me a dolphin question. Hey, how you doing? My spleen, my spleen is falling apart. I can feel it. Tell me about the golfing backup center. I'm depressed riding around. But Mike, you understand now the early issues with the show. All I wanted to do was Hector on a mobile phone and Dan didn't want to do it at all.

We're going to move the timeline over a little bit because we got a lot to fit in just this episode. But when Hock gets there, you guys lean into the sonic stickiness of replaying soundbites and then you guys start learning. There were big moments in this era, really huge moments for the show. This is around the time that I start coming aboard. It's when you build up the Chuck Norris interview. You swing and miss with the first ever March Sadness with 80s songs and Pat Riley, but you build up things

like Ed Hockley. Where did you guys learn that? I know Hock was a big Phil Hendry guy, and we leaned into that stuff actually later in our timeline when we had Adam McKay and all that stuff. But where'd you guys learn how to build up interviews and have big payoffs? Because those were great moments in show history. Trial and error, the benefits of practicing every day and failing and seeing what works and what doesn't work. We were afforded time, man. We were to figure it out. But it's daily, it's daily four hours of reps

and if you get your 10,000 hours and you're gonna find some sort of expertise on what sounds right to you. And the place that we did have the commonality is we may not have known what we wanted exactly it to sound like but we Knew that the way we were doing it isn't what we wanted it to sound like both of us knew that Even though we knew something different. We're very different, but we knew that part together Yeah, if you're asking where we learned to do that the interview buildup and all that stuff Mike

I'll be honest. I had one way of doing sports radio I learned all of this from Dan and Hawk all of it because the show they wanted to do was not the show I grew Up listening to and it wasn't the show that I wanted to do But I realized to Dan's point and he would say this to me all the time all these shows sound exactly the same if we're just A little different just a little which is not hard in this industry We'll stand out a lot. Yes, but a little different and wasting 10 minutes of Pat Riley's time asking him to rank whether Come On Eileen is better than Flock of Seagulls

is a little too different. We'll get to the pushback that you guys received a little bit more in episode two, but there was a lot of pushback. The reaction to it wasn't great, and I think Dan listened to some of it because he himself wasn't fully confident, but the show starts September 1st, 2004 around 2006,

you guys really start finding your voice and what is known as the Dan LeBattard show with Sue gots really take shape and you guys get to celebrate your first ever local championship. You weren't on the air for the 2003 Marlins. This was an interesting time in sports locally. The dolphins still mattered. The hell the university of Miami is still mattered. The university of Miami still mattered. You had a pro championship in baseball, but the Miami Heat finally win. And I remember both being a listener throughout the start of that run and then being an intern cutting up sound.

The stuff that you guys seized on, you guys found ways to celebrate a title that was way different than other stations were doing it. Finding what was sticky and what was funny. What do you remember from 2006, that key championship? You were also covering the heat and traveling and having to do shows remote. What do you remember from 06? One of the things that I remember most and I guess it would be symbolic I'd put it in a time capsule to represent our show for 50 years from now is inundating the NBA Finals with David Hasselhoff masks to distract Dirk Nowitzki

when he was taking free throws. Dirk Nowitzki had said he liked Hasselhoff's music so much, and that was just an easy place for everyone in our audience to mock him. I snuck in a Hasselhoff mask into those playoffs, into those finals. It became a national controversy. And by the way, he missed a free throw, which was a big deal. Yeah, it worked. He shot about 90%. But way, he missed a free throw, which was a big deal. Yeah, it worked. Yeah, he shot about 90%, but also the Heat were confiscating that stuff because they were not sponsoring or endorsing or cosigning what it is that we were doing. But how great

is that, right? Like how great is the idea that you're able to infiltrate the local thing? And then once the championship is won, we find a wonderful echoing place where the owner of the team who's not used to speaking wonderful echoing place where the owner of the team who's not used to speaking in front of people is in front of a parade crowd. So unfair. And instead of saying the slogan, stay white hot, he gets nervous and tells a whole lot of black people to stay white. Stay white.

And it echoes like an Aryan gymnasium sound from the 1950s. It's all I remember from that. Yeah, well, Wade Jones also. Wade Jones is calm, cool, collected. That's still a sound that lives on. He's calm, collected, has a will to win because his name, of course, is Wade Jones. Also around this time, you guys started leaning into fakes. Fakes became a huge part of the show and it became a competition amongst callers. Top that. And that's how you guys, for my money,

it was you and Jim Rome, had the best callers in the nation at this point in time. I don't remember how the fakes came to be, but it was radio brilliance. I love organic radio brilliance, and the fakes were that because someone did it once and Dan was just tickled by it. And so another caller would call in, and I'm fake Juanstatt. And then the next caller is fake Pavarotti,

and he would have a song about the dolphins. I don't know when the fakes really became a thing but I knew that it was something special because we would go out and do an event and people would come up to me they'd introduce themselves. Hey I'm fake Pavarotti. Hey I'm fake Al Michaels. All the fakes wanted to be recognized as fakes and we looked at the fakes as they were celebrities. I remember you know someone would come and introduce themselves to me you know I'm trying to think of one of the fakes from way back when you know I'm fake Dan Deardorff and and the guy would come up to us and invent and he'd go I'm fake Dan Deardorff and I would go

Dan, Stu Gotts, this is fake Dan Deardorff you got to come meet this guy like they were celebrities to us so I knew it was I knew it was working I knew it was something special on radio because again it had a life of its own and it was super organic um but it became part of the culture of the show people wanted to get on the air with their fakes and then they wanted Dan's seal of approval that the fake was really good. Some were just unbelievably good. content the idea that they could be good and funnier and I'm not kidding you when I tell you it felt like illumination and Epiphany like oh, wait a minute. We've got a smart audience This is not just Hector on a mobile who's bored and wants to give me his dolphin stick No

this is a person who facelessly wants to be funny and make people laugh and It may be frustrated in other parts of their life because they don't get this public display of performance. They get to hide without the fear of like being on a stage or speaking in front of people. And I just remember it being like a real portal to a different path on what it is that we can do where it's like, oh, it's not just us here. It's these people out there that are faceless to us that are gonna help us make this

because they're interested in being more clever than we are. I would always tell Dan like early on, there are people and I still subscribe to this theory, there are people driving around, they're listening, they know more sports than we do, they just don't have the platform, they don't have the microphones. I think one of the things that helped us was we were okay admitting that, acknowledging that. Like hey you might know more sports than we do. What I didn't know is that some of the callers, not all, were actually funnier than we were and more entertaining than we were and they I didn't know is that some of the callers, not all, were actually funnier than we were and more entertaining than we were

and they really helped propel the show and kept it moving. And then it became a competition. They wanted to outdo one another and that was hugely flattering, I think, to both of us. I miss all of that. That community of live, it shifted over to textures. God, was that helpful. It did kill the callers.

As technology improved, the show had to evolve. Yes, but I would say the textures were just as funny. We have neither of those now. We don't have callers or Texters. We have YouTube comments and Reddit. Which I'm not watching. Not super helpful. If the Texters knew how many lines I stole from them and used on the air, I mean. We know. It made you guys much better talents. But another thing in terms of the top that community that you guys had, not only were they doing fake Sean Connery's and you were so great and going back to this happened that was funny earlier in the show, Hawk would make a montage and people would call and ask for that. I was screening calls at the time. People wanted essentially, yeah, you guys are great right

now, but you were also doing greatest hits from previous, but Greg Cody in his weekly hits, he would appear as a singing sports writer. And the top that attitude of the callers also started branching out into trying to top Greg Cody's songs. And the caller's songs became better than Greg Cody's, which he wasn't like super thrilled about. Pete Slauson Greg Cody singing sports writer was something that began nationally on ESPN radio. That Sunday morning show I was doing only because it had so much clearance. Nobody was on 7am to 11am.. and so he would come on as the singing sports writer

and about, you know, six months in ran out of songs and went back again and again to row, row, row your boat. So it wasn't hard to be better than he was because he came to a wheezing stop pretty quickly. But you get to do things. We're not remembering any of the bad callers who were singing songs. We're remembering- There were plenty of people that got sued. That was another device that Hawk introduced that if this is bad, you had funny devices that tell the listeners,

we know this is bad. Hawk was great with sound. Hawk never let anything go. Mike, you're the same way. You learn from more company. I learned that as me, yeah. So when he hears something good, he knows it's good. And I remember he would tell you or another producer,

mark it, save it for later, never let it go. You know, I just wrote his name down and I remember he would tell you or another producer mark it save it for later Never let it go You know I just wrote his name down and I circled it because the show got better the second Dan and I had the ability to stop Thinking about doing the show because we trusted that guy in the other room So we knew if Greg was coming on the song was gonna be funny Or at least we thought it was gonna be fun And if it was bad that would work too. We knew if a caller got through it's because it got through Hawk Right, like it got through Hock, right?

Like it got through Hock or one of you guys or someone that he trained, yes. Andy was hugely influential in how I would screen calls and Hock was very clear in his directive. When I got brought on as an intern, I moved up through the Kevin Rogers Show and the Dolphin Hour. Hock recognized me because I was an emailer at the time

and I would often contribute. So I had that high standard and I knew what made me laugh, and we would really scrutinize these calls. The reason why every caller seemed to be gold is because for every caller that showed up on the air, we were saying no to 25. Do you agree with that, Dan? Because once we had Hawk, someone that you trusted,

and then I eventually trusted blindly, and then Mike, who took it to another level, I think, we became better. I didn't have to worry about you. I didn't have to worry about you, you didn't have to worry about me, and we knew everything getting through to us, there was a good chance it was going to be good. I don't remember the time frame, right?

So I don't know if this is six months into what we're doing, I don't know how many months of discomfort there are. But what I specifically remember is that late at night, Hock and I were doing things like those conference calls from college. We're well past when the show was and we're already working on the next show because we're enjoying with great gratitude that we've hit a stride of, okay now this is sounding more like

something creative that's gonna lure out a fake Pavarotti to come sing songs. And surprise us from places that we had no idea we could be surprised. So where we are on the timeline right about now, I'm an intern, 2007. Now we're going to end this episode. Hock is demeworthy? Yeah, I'm replacing Andy King. Andy King is leaving for the morning.

When Andy left to go work with Sid Rosenberg on a full-time basis, it was kind of a natural progression for Mike Ryan to step into that role. But Dan and I had talked about it. We weren't just going to hand him the role. There were a lot of people that wanted to work on this show. By that time, Levitard Show had a real buzz around it. Nationally, people in the know in radio. And there were people from all over the country who wanted their name to get involved in that

show. I remember people reaching out to us, you know, and Dan saying, hey, what about this person? What about that person? Mike had been there though, and we kind of knew that he got the show. You always run this risk when you bring someone in of are they going to get the show? And are they going to kill the vibe? Are they going to kill the way that everything works together in unison?

And Mike had been there and he had been part of the show And he got it me personally one of the things that I liked about Mike Ryan. He had a backbone It's really easy to get rolled over Dan's got a strong personality Stu got says a strong personality. I have a strong personality It's so easy to get rolled in a situation like that and Mike had a backbone and for me that was actually comforting even though we would butt heads sometimes. I like someone with a backbone who won't just cower in a corner and and not you know argue for what they believe in. So while

there were a lot of people who were really interested in becoming a producer on Dan's show. Mike, it was the natural progression but also he was really the best fit. Like he was the guy and obviously since then he's grown it to a level that I don't think anyone could have. And also Toast declined our offer so we were kind of stuck with Mike regardless. Ah yes, the elephant in the room for most of my career. What is it that drove me from the show is a bit of a loaded question. Ultimately, it was my ego, vanity, a misplaced thirst for power, and a need for airtime. But I was 25. I don't really think I had a lot of say at that matter.

I very much remember the program director at the time pulling me off to the side and saying, we're really proud and impressed with the job that you've done with Dan and Stugatsa show We want to move you over to mid days So you can do the same thing with that show and that was the end of that pretty sure there's some other factors as well But let's just chalk it off to my ego vanity and a program director taking the control out of my hands I don't get paid for six months. We'll get into that a little bit of that Sorry in episode two, but you have your hand in the business aspects of what's happening at 790 while the show is certainly starting to succeed,

making inroads when it comes to local ratings and whatnot. What is happening with the business at this point in time in 2007, prime time is still around. Are you starting to get concerned? Is business humming? Explain that to me as we wrap up this first episode. I'm starting to get concerned. I was concerned pretty early on, only for this reason.

And it's the big mistake that we made as a group and as a radio station. Joel Feinberg wanted the Dolphins and he wanted them so badly. And I did too. I mean, we're a startup radio station coming after a legendary station in WQAM who has a 30 year head start on us.

And like to be able to pry the dolphins away was such a big thing to do in our first year. But all the people around me, right, I didn't have the experience. So I had to ask and trust a lot of the people that were around me who had that experience. They were like, man, we're overpaying for this thing. Like we wanted to, but you're paying way too much. And so I went into Joel's office and I said we just got to let it go Like let's just rely on our talent and our shows and see what happens in a couple of years and maybe when it comes back Up we'll go after it because we're in a better position

Joel said no he wanted it and he would have paid any amount for it. It did legitimize 719. Mike it did it also bankrupted us Yes, it put us on a map I still think we would have made it anyway, but it certainly helped and it helped do it quickly But I was paying him a hundred grand This thing was worth millions upon millions of dollars and I wasn't confident that we had the sales team in place to monetize it I'll tell you a story Stu gots probably knows this. I don't know how many people know this but I knew when we were in trouble It's when I sat at lunch with Joel the owner at what was the Caddyshack Country Club and he asked me to work for free. Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. Well, we got that story

and more coming up in episode two. If you like what you sampled here, we essentially have a time capsule. That was way more efficient. That was pretty good and that's a great teaser for episode two. But for those that like this, we're gonna put together essentially a super cut from this era. Not just a super cut from that first show, but a little bit of the Versace mansion, which also helped bankrupt this company. That was a good party. That and the Indy car. That was a good week long party. My first ever assignment with the show as like what I was told as an employee, I didn't get paid for several months after that, was Shaq's birthday party and you were drunk interviewing Ludacris. So I have that in the supercut and we hope to do that at the end of every episode to help the

listener understand where we were at this point in time. So right now if you're following along at home in the timeline, we've gone from 04 to 07. Coming up in the next episode we'll cover from 2007 from 2010 Primetime Media Group dies. Does the show survive? How does it go about that? Sugatsa loses all power and becomes talent and interpersonal relationships get a little bit more complicated. We'll talk to you next episode.

When you're hiring for your small business you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role. That's why you have to check out LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs has the tools to help find the right professionals for your team, faster and for free. As Metal Art Media continues to grow as a content studio, we strive to hire only the best and most qualified candidates. Thankfully, with LinkedIn, they have made it easy for us to find them. LinkedIn isn't just a job board. LinkedIn helps you hire professionals you can't find anywhere else, even those who aren't

actively searching for a new job but might be open to the perfect role. In a given month, over 70% of LinkedIn users don't visit other leading job sites. So, if you're not looking on LinkedIn, you're looking in the wrong place. On LinkedIn, 86% of small businesses get a qualified candidate within 24 hours. Hire professionals like a professional. On LinkedIn, post your job for free at LinkedIn.com slash prep. That's LinkedIn.com slash prep. Post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply.

Hey y'all, it's Mike and as you know it is football season. The all-consuming football season, the all consuming football season. You live it, you breathe it, and you want to watch it as much as possible, both on your TV but also sometimes you want to be a part of that atmosphere. But guess what? You don't have tickets, it's a sold out event. What are you going to do?

Well I'll tell you exactly what you do. You download the Game Time app. For my money it's the best app on that secondary ticket marketplace for a ton of reasons. But one of the reasons I want you to check it out for is this awesome new feature called Game Time Picks. It makes getting your tickets to see your favorite teams play even easier. Game Time Picks filters out the fluff to show you only incredible deals on great seats, so you don't have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets. Do it yourself. Pick an upcoming game on the app, browse through the seats, I'm telling

you right now, you'll love Game Time Picks. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account, and use code DAN for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply, again create an account and redeem code DAN for $20 off. Download Game Time today. What time is it? Game Time! T.D.

Tutty. In for six. Touchdowns? They just matter more at DraftKings Sportsbook, an official Sportsbook partner of the NFL. I don't care how they score them, I want to bet on them touchdowns. DraftKings Sportsbook is delivering. Ready to do a touchdown dance of your own? New DraftKings customers bet $5 to get $200 in bonus bets instantly.

Score big with DraftKings Sportsbook, the number one place to bet touchdowns. Download the Sportsbook app and use code Dan. That's code D-A-N for new customers to get $200 in bonus bets when you bet just five bucks. Only at DraftKings Sportsbook. The crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.

In New York, call 877-8HOPENY or text HOPENY467369. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-7HOPENY or text HOPENY467369. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. Please play responsibly. On behalf of Boothill Casino and Resorting Kansas, 21 and over, age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario.

Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.co.ftball. My thing is that sometimes I come off in print as just this blowhard know-it-all and part of it is because as an opinion columnist you're sort of arguing your point and you're not giving a lot of room to the other side and I'm hoping that what this show does is that shows people that I am not a jerk.

I do not take myself seriously. All of this is fun and games. It's immensely amusing and entertaining. I've never seen a trade in baseball, not one where you had one group, the mainstream feeling that clearly the Marlins had done something that was inspired because they needed a catcher and they got an all star and they needed help in the bullpen and they got one of the best set of men in the game.

And there's no disputing that. They did those things and you would think that that would make them better. But the mathematicians on the other end were saying that Brad Penny, the Dodgers got themselves an ace to a staff, one of the top ten ERAs. Now we can't factor in whether or not Brad Penny gets hurt. Nobody knows what's going to happen there. And Hisap Choi, a guy who is going to, based on the way that the mathematicians do the numbers on this, be a very cheap bat that gives you 30 home runs a season from now on.

I want to thank a few people before we go out to the phones and break down the mathematics, the dynamics of the Marlin trade a couple of weeks ago. I want to thank Joel Feinberg, President and CEO of Primetime Media Group for giving all of us the opportunity to be here doing what we're doing right now and of course three other partners of ours that were involved in making 790 ESPN Radio a reality. Of course, Alan Brown, Scottie Becker and Kurt Murphy. This is why you're here, to deal with the niceties. You would never do that, Ted.

No, you're sitting here, you're making all of a sudden a Grammy award speech that nobody cares about in the middle of my show. I just know that Wilbon and Kornheiser, I know that Diva Kornheiser there, he got put on hold for a couple of extra commercials and he threw a temper tantrum. Wilbon, am I right or am I not? You know you're right, by the way, I'm liking this music.

You got a little outcast going, I like this. He doesn he doesn't know what? And Kornheiser wouldn't know outcast if they came into the studio dressed up in costume. No, he would. He has no idea. Let me tell you something, pal. When you do your first show and you lean on your friends to be on and you tell them you're going on at 624, you don't put them on at 629. That's lesson number one being a talk show host. Five years from today if you and I were still doing this show, and for your sake I hope that

we're not, but if we were, we'd be doing it. We'd be doing it. We'd be doing it. We'd be doing it. We'd be doing it. We'd be doing it. We'd be doing it. We'd be doing it.

We'd be doing it. We'd be doing it. We'd be doing it. We'd be doing it. We'd be doing it. We'd be doing it. We'd be doing it. We'd be doing it. We'd be doing it. You don't put them on at 629. That's lesson number one being a talk show host. Five years from today, if you and I were still doing this show, and for your sake, I hope that we're not, but if we were, I'll take shots of myself too, Dan, by the way. But five years from today, if we're still doing the show, you still will get the Ricky Williams calls.

I ask you this, all right, who would you have wanted to be less today? The city council woman or Mickey Harrison, owner of the heat speaking to the single most diverse city in America and saying the following. Stay white. Stay white. That's it, period. Stay white.

So those are your two choices today. All right, Who said, who said the two most profoundly embarrassing syllables? Was it the city councilwoman? He's calm, collected, has a will to win because his name, of course, is Wayne Jones. Wayne Jones. Just the silence afterward is so perfect. Just every, you can hear everyone looking around like, what, huh?

And then of course, funny man. there is the owner of the team speaking to a whole lot of black folk and saying, stay white. Come on, just fire it off a couple of times. Just do it a couple more times. He's calm, collected, has a will to win because his name, of course, is Wayne Jones.

Wayne Jones. Oh my God. Stay white. Right, there's that too. Mickey Harrison surrounded by a whole lot of giant black people and then all sorts of Hispanics and African Americans and Nicaraguans and Caribbeans and Haitians Mickey Harrison says Stay White!

Oh God! Go enjoy the party. Take care. Good talking to you. I'm sorry I couldn't get you in trouble. I was trying so hard Mickey. Best from Tim huh? Stay White! Come on! I meant that in the most loving way possible. Did I just get him mad at me? I could spend the rest of my life and several other lives over the next hundred and 90 years searching, scouring, all over the earth with an army of helpers

for a single reason for you to listen to the Don Strock show Coming up and I would not return with a single one the Don Strock show up at seven o'clock from seven to eight Defoe that show I'd listen to the Defoe show eight to nine and after that we got UNC and Duke I'm just saying I for the next I could could spend the rest, I could spend, if you gave me several, if you gave me several lives, if you said, it opened up a genie bottle and said here are hundreds and hundreds of years, all you have to do is come back with a single reason to listen to the Don Strock show. I said, I'm sorry, you're going to have to kill me right now.

Way to promote, buddy. And we welcome you back to the Death Star here at Microsoft's Wrigley Field Boots shall be back for another great season of baseball Obviously the big question as we enter this year is can anyone break Frankenberry's record of 326 home runs last season as always I welcome back my partner in the booth r2d2 In r2, how about the robot from Lost in Space last season? 9,027 RBI. 9,027 robots batted in. So set to go on the mound for the Mets today, the

Koch machine. The big guy's been throwing the ball extremely well. A steady diet of Kochs, he'll mix in the occasional sprite to keep the batters off balance and then just when he feels like they're getting locked in on him, he'll mix in the occasional tab. Got an excellent, excellent defense behind him. Kit from Knight Rider out there patrolling center field. He can downshift, cover a lot of ground. Well up first for the Astros. It will be the six million dollar man as Austin digs in on the right side. Bigger, better, stronger, faster, but still a crappy on base percentage. Coke Machine looks in, has the sign, puts 75 cents in himself, pushes the button and the pitch.

And that ball's outside. It's one and nothing to the six million dollar man. A season ago, Steve Austin a tremendous year. He was second in the league to Frankenberry with 300 home runs, 26 behind the league leader. Coke Machine ready to work and here's the one-oh. The six million dollar man swings and hits a ground ball into the hole at short. C-3PO to his right, backhand stab, nice play. Throw on to first, the stretch by the Terminator, and they got him! Nice play by C-3PO. He's not only gold, he's a gold glover.

And we're expecting a lot out of C-3PO this season, R2. He spent half the year last year on the DL due to rust, and you know what that's like, don't you buddy Darth Vader doesn't like the call and he's coming out of the dugout he's gonna go over there and argue with cowboy Joe West R2 will tell you what it's a scary sight anytime you see Darth Vader with the lightsaber out and here he goes approaching Joe West oh Darth Vader has sliced first base umpire Joe West in half. Well that'll set the umpiring crew straight.

Nonetheless, the six million dollar man is out. And up next for the Astros it'll be Iona from Richie Rich. How much does the watch cost, Ludacris? How much? I don't know, I got it for free. That's a good question. That's an indelicate question, right? You don't ask a woman what she weighs,

you don't ask a hip-hop star what his jewelry's worth, do you? That's why he let me ask this question. You really don't. Eli, enjoy the party here. I will offer you a piece of South Beach advice because I'm assuming you're new to South Beach. You're here too early. Okay. Thank you for stopping by. Eli Manning joining us on 790 The Ticket. Are you a Hall of Famer? No, there's too many other guys that are more deserving than I. Levitard, you think he's going in? No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. Levitard, you think he's going in? No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Are you a Hall of Famer? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Are you a Hall of Famer? No, there's too many other guys that are more deserving than I. Levitard, you think he's going in? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Are you a Hall of Famer? No, there's too many other guys that are more deserving than I.

Levitard, you think he's going in? No. Levitard, you think he's going in? No. Levitard, you think he's going in? No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Levitard, you think he's going in? No. We're proud and disturbed by the number of fakes that we have on this show. We are joined now by a man who is dressed like Howard Cosell but doesn't look anything like Howard Cosell.

He may sound like Howard Cosell. February 25, 1964, this building, Charles Sonny Liston, the big black bear, Cassius Marcellus Clay. Wait a minute, you can't say a right black bear anymore you can't say that anymore cassius by salas clay was the man who stood in the ring right in this building young leviton he looked around the room and he said i am king of the world i'm king of the world there your fake our goes out but your real

and he says your mom or young man let me tell you something alright let's go back there alright i still forty seven eight well fifteen nineteen forty seven jackie roosevelt robinson the great jackie roosevelt robinson when he broke the color bear kyrgyz flood i stood up the cut blood and i stood up the mom and ali when his fifth and fourteenth amendment rights was so dedicated to this story i don't believe that i have any commission i'm sorry

we're done here thank you for a lot of getting fake howard on a cell phone you're on seven nine to the ticket uh... then of course i have to bevverly's in the car with me and barely a bit you would eat his bouncing balls. Beverly can go foul sometimes as you know. Beverly likes to work blue and of course I would say I'd ask him to eat my smoking pipe. She likes to work blue. What does that mean Howard Schnellen fraud? What does working blue mean? Well Beverly is not afraid to loosen up the tone I know that it touch you when I go out of character and it's unusual. I think I better just hang up.

See ya. What we're gonna try now, we cut, go ahead I'm sorry, who wants to speak up there, the fake Howard or the real Howard? Hello. Yes? Hello. Do we lose the real Howard or is the fake, are they still there? Hello? Yes? Hello? Did we lose the real hour or is the face... are they still there?

No, I'm still here. I have another call I have to take. And that's funny because I too have a call to make. It's true. I'm not quite sure why the phone would be ringing. Clearly people know to block out my time when I come on your program, Dan. In all my years of coaching mediocrity, the one common thread that was woven between those teams was we always kept our pipe lit. So tonight I'm asking each of you to make a promise one owl to another. I will keep my pipe lit. Can you guys promise that to each other? Can you go out here and when it's over can you keep your pipe lit? Because

if you can do that, you will have an opportunity to make history. And don't you let any man smoke your pipe. Boot. Boot. I wonder if that bathroom's safe now. The one in Shula's? Yeah, me or 24 hours later. I'm pretty sure Shula's melted yesterday. That Shula is, Shula himself is bankrupt now. He's got like, there are, there are arsonists around. Shula stumbled out like of all disheveled, melted. All disheveled.

I'm thinking Shula's, Don Shula himself is in the parking lot all disheveled. Like, you remember that? Do you remember that photo in the Herald of the guy after Hurricane Andrew like he's like They're firefighters all around it She's got like 20 more your brother didn't burn them all down Miami hair is just gonna be a picture shoe and the caption is gonna be and I thought whatstead did to my team stunk. He said let's take some calls. Levitard's brother melts Jules' stake too. You ever play Donkey Kong Dan?

Yes, sure. You gotta get up to the monkey so you can get the girl. But the monkey's throwing barrels at you Dan. The monkey is throwing barrels at you. Can you imagine climbing up an unbuilt building, scaffolding, with a monkey throwing barrels at you. Forget King Kong. Donkey Kong. He didn't swat at planes.

He threw barrels. And if you're lucky enough, you could get a hammer hanging in the middle of nowhere. And you could pound the barrels for 500 points. Now that, Dan Dan is a game I don't care about your first person shooters I don't care about your reality games what I want is Donkey Kong because I'm the king of Donkey Kong and I will win forever Good afternoon everybody forever. Good afternoon everybody.

Hey we need a thumb to go this direction. Hey I just want to thank all of you for being here. We really, give me one second, we really appreciate your support. It's going to be a tremendous day as you guys watch the rest of this draft unfold. We got two more picks coming up in the second round as you know and let me tell you about a young man we just drafted. There's a young man named Ted Ginn, Ted Ginn Jr. and we drafted the Ginn family. I've known this family for over 10 years. I've watched this young man for a long time. You're gonna be thrilled every time you watch him as a punt returner because he's gonna be a great returner for us. He's gonna be a young man who's gonna wind up being a great

Thank you. And let me put it to you this way. Frankie! Frankie! Frankie! Frankie! Frankie! Frankie! Frankie! Let me tell you this. Ted Ginn is a Miami Dolphin. Ted Ginn is someone that you're gonna be proud of. Ted Ginn is gonna be... Ted Ginn and his family will give us everything they have, I promise you that, and Ted Ginn is gonna be someone that you're gonna enjoy watching play for a long long time as a Miami Dolphin.

You're listening to the Chuck Norris Show. for a long long time as a Miami Dolphin. You're listening to the Chuck Norris Show. Here's Chuck Norris on Sports Talk 790, The Chuck Norris. Alright, so he's on the line with us or I should say Jesus, I started wrong already. We're on the line with Chuck Norris. We're his guests. Our bad. Chuck Norris is with us. Hello Chuck. Hello Dan, I've always wanted the Chuck Norris. Right, we're his guests. Our bed. Chuck Norris is with us. Hello Chuck.

Hello Dan, I've always wanted the Chuck Norris show. I've always wanted my own radio show and now I finally got it. I'm sorry that we didn't give it to you earlier. Well, I don't know what you had of. Sir. You can have the station, sir. Don't just, don't, don't roundhouse kick us. Alright, we've got your list.

How about off the balcony? No, not, no, don't roundhouse How about off the balcony? No, don't roundhouse kick me off the balcony. What is that? Okay, I'm sorry I spoke to you that way Chuck Norris. Alright, V, we've got your favorite 20 facts. Now you get a kick out of this thing. You've seen all these facts. Yeah, I do. Yeah, I really do. A lot of the college kids email me their little Chuck Norris facts, and a lot of them are hilarious. I tell you, my wife and I, we just get a kick out of them. We read them, and a lot of them are hilarious. I tell you, my wife and I, we just get a kick out of them. We read them and a lot of them are really, really funny. Some of them are a little out there, but a lot of them are very funny.

Alright, we've got your list of top 20 here. I'd like to get your favorite before we get started with our own nominees here, but contrary to popular belief, America is not a democracy, it's a Chuck-tatership. I like that one How does your wife feel about? Chuck Norris gave Mona Lisa that smile. She knows better than most doesn't she? She left with that one too, which is your favorite which so far is your favorite We're gonna see if we could produce something better than or something worthy of your top 20 list

I like that they were gonna put Chuck Norris on Mount Rushmore but the granite wasn't tough enough for his beard. Always good when there's a beard joke making an appearance. I like this one. There's no chin behind Chuck Norris's beard there's only another fist. All right we're gonna see whether, any of these here can crack Chuck Norris's top ten. Now your favorite involves the Tyrannosaurus Rex. You want to do yours?

Yeah, that Chuck Norris was tracing the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Rex was not chasing the Jeep. Okay, in Jurassic Park. Way to screw that up. I kind of blindsided him there. I didn't know you were throwing it to me there. That's my fault. What it was, way to deliver that one. Good to screw that up. I kind of blindsided him there. I didn't know you were throwing it to me there. That's my fault. Way to deliver that one. Good to start that way. What it was was in Jurassic Park, the Tyrannosaurus Rex was not chasing a Jeep. Chuck Norris was chasing

the Tyrannosaurus Rex. That does not make your top 20. That is a fake force laugh by Chuck Norris. We'll try and do better. This is legitimately funny. I'm actually nervous. Me too. Ed Gunshock-ule, NFL referee, I'm not even making it up. This is what happened to us with Chuck Norris. We had built up the interview for so long that by the time we did the interview,

you and I were both nervous. We have created a mythical aura around Ed Gunshock-ule. We've been talking about this since we were having the conversation for some reason about whether or not you're surprised sometimes when guys you didn't expect to be yoked up were yoked up. Carrot Top, Roy Firestone, Joe Piscopo, Peter Brady, and Ed Hockley came up in conversation. And Ed Hockley is the world's buffest ref

and he's gonna join us now and as I often do when I'm nervous I'm just gonna let Stu Gott ask the first question Ed Hockley was tracing the Tyrannosaurus Rex The Rex was not chasing the Jeep. What do you think of that, Ed? What alternative reality have I walked into? Ed Ocule, a respected NFL referee and an attorney by trade. How did you get the nickname guns?

As we've mentioned before, you're huge, you're buff, you're muscular, how'd you get the nickname guns? we've mentioned before you're huge you're buff you're muscular how'd you get the nickname guns I have no idea what you're talking about in all seriousness I I kind of dated back to what there was a game many years ago and I think that there was absolutely nothing of interest going on in the game and now Phil Sims was looking for something to talk about and in desperation he circled my arms and he started talking about my arms and I just seemed to catch on from there.

I've never understood it frankly. What percentage of NFL players does Ed think he can take in a fair fight? My guess is all the kickers and most of the DB's maybe 20% I frankly have thought about you know quite often the players will joke with me about when I'm coming out for the team and My honest response is that I'd get hurt in the hole. That's about as far as I'd make it So I I would I would avoid even the kickers. I'm smart enough for that Do you wear shirts that are a little smaller than they need to be just to show off those guns? Yeah, I've been asked if I shop at Kids Gap. So you do wear them a little tighter than they need to be. What are the smells? I steadfastly deny that. I wear shirts that are the right size. I'll stick with that one.

They're just normal sized, it's just that you're that huge. Do you do push-ups before you go out there to look a little more buff? During all TV timeouts, that's what I'm on the ground bumping up. Every time out? Every time out, he'm on the ground pumping up. Every time out? Every time out he's up there pumping up. So if you don't mind Ed let's go from the bottom up. Your third place favorite call to show off the guns, your second place favorite call and then with a dramatic flourish with that Hockley pizzazz you give us your first place

muscular pose of referee calls. We'll start with the drum roll. A number three would be unsportsmanlike conduct because that's just simply sticking my arms to the side with no ability to flex whatsoever. Okay, that's the third place. Second place? Number two would be a holding call because with a holding call,

at least I get to hold the arm at a 90 degree angle and flex that bicep, that little bicep a little bit. So that's number two. And number one, number one would be roughing the passer because then I get to actually get some violence into it as I chop one hand and throw the arm down and really get a mean look on my face. Well wait a minute, I can't believe I've been proven wrong. What about the safety? What about the illegal batting and touching of the ball? Well, you know, that's a very good one too.

Actually, illegal touching because then you get to flex, you do get to flex both arms, don't you? Yeah. In that one, but I'm sorry, you know, when you, when you referee, those can be your favorite calls, but I've given you mine. Stu Gotz, can you feel it? Can you feel the fear entering the room? I'm trembling. Nervous, Stu Gotz has gotten ready for this interview,

this man-style interview by putting a Hello Kitty band-aid on his hand. Kimbo joins us on 790, ticket a Miami legend does anyone ever challenge you does anyone think to themselves because this happens sometimes to athletes they're in the club and somebody wants to think that they're the batter guy in the room. It's all good if they want to think that they could think that you know I'm saying but you know a man you know when a man and a man steps you know meets eye to eye you know they pretty much know what's on there you know that's why

sometimes not even good there and I will never do to never know that meant that would do the potential I've seen video of you on my space where you're just sticking your face out let a man who can fight hit you well it's more toward in that you know I you know it's a little bit more personal than that how personal is it pretty personal toward and that you know i you know it's a little bit more personal than that how personal is it

pre-possibly also in a guy we kind of knew each other and it was being said you know fan and kind of like when the when the first part of the land and he took the first one in you know because of that was fair iconic you know by the way you know you're gonna bring it bring it i just want to see what he was coming with

knowledge saying in evidently income will work has anyone can go with us on seven ninety the ticket has anyone come with an impressive amount of but we've already known but we can show it was my you know you could know that you can

so we're really good where it comes out of the on-air manual that you're talking about the good as a game you know i'm not a sh-talker. Damn, I'm not, I'm not. I don't go around talking sh-talker on my way around. I'm not, because you never know. I know a guy that's 135 pounds,

and he can take you down and put a good banging on you. The guys I train with, Mark and Dave Avalon, I'm way bigger than those guys, and those guys are some serious monsters, like gentle giants, you know, like, like, like, like gentle giants, you know what I mean? It's a new day. How can you make the most of it with your membership rewards points?

Earn points on everyday purchases. Use them for that long-awaited vacation. You can earn points almost anywhere, and they never expire. Treat your friends or spoil your family. Earn them on your adventure and use them how you small business, you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role. That's why you have to check out LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs has the tools to help find the right professionals for your team, faster

and for free. As Metal Art Media continues to grow as a content studio, we strive to hire only the best and most qualified candidates. Thankfully, with LinkedIn, they have made it easy for us to find them. LinkedIn isn't just a job board. LinkedIn helps you hire professionals you can't find anywhere else, even those who aren't actively searching for a new job but might be open to the perfect role. In a given month, over 70% of LinkedIn users don't visit other leading job sites. So if you're not looking on LinkedIn,

you're looking in the wrong place. On LinkedIn, 86% of small businesses get a qualified candidate within 24 hours. Hire professionals like a professional. On LinkedIn, post your job for free at LinkedIn.com slash prep. That's LinkedIn.com slash prep. Post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply.