The Kevin Sheehan Show - A New Congress Commanders Story

Episode Date: March 31, 2022

Kevin with thoughts on the news today that Congress is investigating the Commanders for alleged financial improprieties. Alex Smith wasn't very complimentary of the Commanders on Rich Eisen's podcast yesterday....Kevin's thoughts on that. Andy Pollin and Kevin together again for a conversation about sports radio, the Commanders, and more.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheon Show. Here's Kevin. Not that anybody cares, but we just ditched the first edition, if you will, of the podcast today. Because a story broke, just as we were about to put the podcast out there. The Washington Post just a little while ago, breaking this story titled Congress investigating allegations of financial.

impropriety by the commanders. So the head coach earlier in the week says we're an easy target, the noise. I'm tired of it. And it's just every day. I mean, we don't even exaggerate this shit anymore. It just seems like every day, if not every couple days, there's just something else. Yesterday was the Alex Smith stuff, which you'll hear if you haven't heard from the Rich Eisen podcast. I have some thoughts on that.

But let's start with this. Right after I ask you, once again, to rate us and review us on Apple. and Spotify, in particular, those two. Your reviews are great. Five stars, a couple of sentences. This from Drew via Apple podcast. Kevin is a joy to listen to. Thank you, Drew.

Love the guests and guest hosts, particularly Tom and Chris. Just talked to Cooley moments ago. He will be on the show soon. Not today, though. Being in Michigan and being able to keep up with the hometown teams as well as national sports and some other intriguing pop culture topics is quite enjoyable. And of course, don't forget about those smell test picks. Well, they weren't that good this year.

But thank you, Drew, from BAF, BFBA via Apple Podcasts. Kevin and Tom are the best. Get them back in the studio, Sheen. Thank you to all of you. From Ron on Apple, awesome podcast, living in North Carolina. Keep striving for greatness, guys. I do appreciate all of those reviews. They're really important for us.

They help drive revenue. They allow us to not only attract new advertisers, but charge more for the spots, which is important for us. So thank you very much. Now, to this breaking news, I guess. I'm going to read you some of the story here, written by Liz Clark, Paul Kane,

and Mark Maskey in the Washington Post. It starts off. The Congressional Committee that has been investigating the NFL's handling of widespread sexual harassment in the Washington Commander's workplace is now also looking into allegations of financial improprieties under Dan Snyder's ownership, multiple people familiar with the proceedings said. The allegations came to light in recent weeks as the House Committee on Oversight and Reform reviewed more than 80,000 pages of documents and interviewed witnesses in the court. its inquiry of the team's workplace and the NFL's handling of the matter, said those people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the proceedings are at a sensitive stage. Next paragraph. The financial investigation remains behind closed doors and among the highest levels of the 45-person committee at this point. Asked about the new phase,

several members of the panel indicated they have heard speculation about this but said it remains at such a sensitive phase, they do not know details. Other members were unaware. The team commented, quote, the team is not aware of any investigation by the House Oversight Committee regarding financial matters, despite vague and unsubstantiated claims today by anonymous sources. The team categorically denies any suggestion of financial impropriety of any kind at any time. We adhere to strict internal processes that are consistent with the industry and accounting standards are audited annually by a globally respected independent auditing firm and are also subject to regular audits by the NFL. We continue to cooperate fully with the committee's work, closed quote.

So what does this mean? I have no idea. In fact, in reading it now for like a third time, these first. first three paragraphs. I wonder how hard this was to actually put out as a story. You know, clearly the Post has something that the House Oversight Committee is now investigating financial matters, all right, financial improprieties by the team. I guess that is a story, but there's so little detail here that you're left wondering, well, what kind of financial impropriety? I mean, is there tax fraud? Is there,

What are the issues here? I'm going to read a little bit more from this story. The committee's examination of alleged financial irregularities in team operations comes amid the NFL's second investigation of the team or Snyder's behavior in the past 19 months. The NFL's current probe led by Mary Joe White, a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and former chair of the SEC was prompted by an allegation of sexual misconduct against Snyder

that was aired during a public roundtable hosted by the Oversight Committee on February 3rd. During the proceedings, Tiffany Johnston, a former cheerleader and team marketing manager, told members of Congress that Snyder harassed her at a team dinner putting his hand on her thigh and pressing

her toward his limo afterwards. In a statement, Snyder called Johnston's allegations outright lies. When asked whether the panel is looking into allegations of financial impropriety, a spokesperson for the committee said, the committee continues to investigate the hostile workplace and culture of impunity at the Washington commanders, as well as the National Football League's inadequate response and lack of transparency. The committee will follow the facts wherever they may lead.

You know, when Howard Gutman was on the show a month ago or whatever after the Tiffany Johnston stuff broke and the team, you know, put out the release that they were going to investigate the matter on their own and they would be totally transparent and they would release all of their findings after calling Tiffany Johnson a liar and then within an hour or two, the league said, no, you're not. You're not investigating yourself and basically emasculated the team pulling the investigation back and handing it over to Mary Joe White. Howard did, you know, kind of predict, he said, you know, depending on what Mary Joe White's, you know, directions are with respect to Tiffany Johnston. Like, you know, take her deposition, take the teams, and then, you know, come to a conclusion,

or take it wherever it leads it. And if it uncovers other things, you can pursue those things too. There was some risk in this. Now, if the team controlled it, maybe less risk. Who knows? this is my reaction to this because I don't know what these financial improprieties are I don't know what the irregularities are that are apparently being investigated now by Congress by the House Committee and Oversight and Reform on Oversight and Reform

This is my initial take and I could be completely off and by the time you listen to this, there may be more information on this. But my gut reaction in the first thought I had when I'm reading this and I'm like, okay, well, where is the substance to this? What are the financial improprieties? What did they do? Well, there's nothing in here about what they did.

And there's all this discussion about it, it's at a very sensitive, you know, phase. And the team immediately coming out and categorically denying, any suggestion. And by the way, also referring to the, you know, the vague and unsubstantiated claims by anonymous sources, excuse me. My initial reaction is the league's just messing with him. Like the league is trying to get whatever they can on him. They don't want him here. They want him out. He won't bail on his own. By the way, I think this is bad strategy because I think he's one of these dudes that will just dig his heels in further. You know, we already saw after the Beth Wilkinson, you know,

presentation to Goodell and the statement and the $10 million fine and the suggestion through, you know, the elevation of Tanya Snyder that somehow Dan Snyder had been suspended. We saw how he reacted to that, immediately pushed back, had his lawyers calling everybody to say, wasn't him who was suspended. He wasn't suspended at all, and it wasn't him who was fined. it was the team who was fined.

Matt Parris, by the way, from the Washington Times yesterday, reported that Snyder has been involved in the day-to-day operations per a source that he had. Remember, Ron Rivera told me on the radio show and we played it for you yesterday back in September that he saw Dan in the facility. Look, there's never been anything super clear from the league that said he's been suspended. He's not allowed in the facility. but the other day when Roger Goodell said, to my knowledge, he hasn't been in the facility and he's not part of the day to day right now, but we'll have a discussion about that. The implication is he's kind of been knocked down and quasi suspended. But Dan doesn't think he's been suspended, and it's been very vague.

And this story, you know, the part about the House Oversight and Reform Committee investigating financial improprieties, I guess is newsworthy. Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that that, you know, as a standalone, isn't newsworthy. But there's no information as to what they are being investigated for, which again, this is, you know, the Congress that's doing this. But it just seems like whether it's Congress or the NFL, they're messing with him. They just want him to get exhausted, throw up his arms and say, enough is enough, I'll sell the team. Or maybe they really do have something. I mean, that's my hope. I hope they really do have something. And I hope it's something that would lead to a vote among the other 31 owners to get them out. But I don't know. I mean, I just kind of get this sense that this is something they're not worried about, but they're annoyed by.

Time will tell. I have no idea because it's just that. gut feel that I have. In the meantime, I mean, poor Ron, right? I mean, Ron, you know, wanting everybody to just, you know, kind of back off and we're an easy target and he's tired of it and just wants the focus on football. It's impossible in this organization. As long as this person, Dan Snyder owns the team, there's going to be a lot of, as Alex Smith called it, noise. This was Alex Smith yesterday on the Rich Eisen podcast when asked, I guess, kind of a fairly benign question about the advice that he would give Carson Wentz as he arrives to play here

for this organization. This is what Alex Smith said. What words of advice, Alex Smith, would you have for Carson Wentz going to Washington now? Oh, man. It's tough. You know, I think you've got to try to eliminate the noise there. You know, there's a lot of noise. There's a lot of distractions. That entire organization, everything's surrounding it.

And obviously deservedly, it's been flawed the last 20 years. There's a lot of stuff going on there, a lot of distraction. And it makes it difficult to kind of focus in on the football. But I think Carson's kind of in, that's where he's at at this point in his career. This is really kind of make or break. He's getting one more chance to kind of be the guy. This is a team that, you know, has been, you know, almost desperate to try and get a franchise quarterback these last few years. And can he be that?

And so I think he's got to kind of go, he's got to lock in. He cannot, like I said, can't get distracted. I mean, this is an opportunity he's got to go make the most of it. And I think it's going to be telling can he do that, right? I mean, the Cowboys kind of ran away with that division. I think the Eagles are going to continue to be better. We'll see what happens up in New York. But, yeah, I mean, can he go make the most of this kind of last opportunity to be the guy here with all that going on?

And I think that kind of pressure and situation usually does one and two things, right? He really does usually kind of make these guys tow the line and nail it down. Or, again, it's too much. and they can't handle it. So we'll see. Again, they've had a ton of turmoil there. I know they're trying to settle it down. It still, I think, kind of remains to be seen if it's going to happen.

So I'm mandated a follow up on this, Alex. I mean, so you're saying whatever was going on the front office was affecting your ability to play football and focus on that? I mean, how could it not? How could it not? I mean, for me, like, yeah, I mean, all the stuff there with, you know, just the entire organization from ownership down, head coaching and GM

It's a lot of You know there's been historically a lot of drama there And you know it's a big market You know obviously the capital and a lot going on And that organization is a really storied franchise And I just yeah there's a lot of turmoil And a lot of distractions So to say that the stuff going on in the building

doesn't infiltrate the locker room or out on the field It would be crazy that happens everywhere I think that's what great organizations eliminate And the bad ones have a hard hard time with that all that all that noise creeps into the building um and it it yeah it does it does affect the product on the field so i think that you know the great organizations and coaches have a have a knack to keep that out of the building to quiet the noise to decrease uh distractions and focus on football but it's that's easier said than done so Alex Smith took a shot at the organization

uh yesterday nothing that's a big reveal obviously i think think all of us would agree with almost everything he said. But I've got a bit of a take on this that will probably surprise you. I didn't like what Alex Smith did like a year ago in GQ magazine when he talked about how he wasn't wanted and he wasn't welcomed, you know, coming back from the injury and they didn't want him there. And I thought that that was kind of bullshit because for a smart guy, he could have put themselves into the team shoes and understood that, A, they had to plan without him.

because, my God, he nearly had his leg amputated. He nearly lost his life. I mean, no one thought he was going to play again. So, of course, they were planning to move forward without him. And then when he did come back, you know, it was only natural, especially this organization, given all of the, you know, controversy over their, you know, medical staff and training staff with Trent Williams, etc., that they would have major reservations about putting him back out onto the field. But they did.

They did. Ron Rivera gave him a chance. And by the way, he delivered. He wasn't very good, but he was good enough to lead him to five wins and seven starts and a playoff birth in a weird year in 2020. You know, Rivera was the one that gave him the shot to sort of achieve that dream of playing football again when it looked like he might lose his leg. And I don't know, I thought that that was, you know, not a recognition of kind of the other side and a bit of a cheap shot. Now, with respect to what he told Eisen, none of what he said is inaccurate, but I would just make the point that while he was a part of this very toxic organization, he certainly didn't have a problem being the owner's best buddy there for about a year. You know, he essentially replaced Bruce Allen as Dan's running buddy. He was everywhere Dan was in his suite during games, in his suite after games, nodding him up over how great Dwayne Haskins was, I've been told. You know, I don't, like, I don't know what the answer was yesterday other than, you know, it's been an organization that has struggled for a lot of different reasons. Carson Wentz, you know, has perhaps one last chance to make it work. Maybe, you know, maybe they'll be good for each other, something like that.

You know, I think what he said, again, none of it's false. Of course, the noise has impacted, I believe. the product on the field. The noise is starting at the top. But I don't know. Alex Smith has come off after his post-Washington

career and made a lot of money here. Almost lost his life here too. I mean, it's an incredible story. No one will ever forget that. But the story in GQ and then kind of taking the shots on Eisen yesterday just rung a little bit

just a little bit low rent to me you know piling on to me you know I don't know what he's supposed to say if the owner asks him over for movie night or asks them into a suite you know I'm sure they felt the Snyders were being very generous

and being very supportive and they seemed like a super nice couple and you know it's hard to say no you know in that situation I don't know how I would handle it but I don't know It just seemed to be a second time in a year where Alex Smith seemed to be digging at an organization that gave him a chance back on the field, which was the goal after that horrific injury, and then became, you know, at least for a short period of time, the owner's kind of running buddy there briefly. Anyway, that's it on that stuff.

Andy Poland will join me next. We'll talk about a lot of different things right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Yesterday it was Richard Doc Walker on the podcast. Today it is another 980 friend and alum, and really the starter of 980. Andy Poland is with me on the show today. At Andy Poland, one, of course, on Twitter and 10 to 11 on ESPN 630 in the D.C. area. You wrote something the other day. which you had to get your son to actually tweet out because you're so incapable from a technology standpoint.

But you got Jeremy to tweet out this discussion of the 30-year mark of when you began your first day as the sports director at then W-T-E-M-A-M-570 before it moved to 980, where it still resides today. Andy was really, Andy wasn't the owner. The Rails Brothers were the ones that launched Sports Talk Station, the first all 24-7 sports talk station in the market. But you were the first hire 30 years ago yesterday, March 30th. So tell everybody about that day and those early days of Sports Talk Radio in D.C. That wasn't actually the first hire, but I was among the first.

Who was the first hired? Who was salespeople? Yeah, probably. Bob Snyder was the sales manager. Probably there were a couple of other people hired before me. But I was actually hired. Well, maybe he was the first. It was the guy that fired me at WFAN in New York, Scott Meyer.

And he had been fired by, in MS Broadcasting, because they were the, and maybe the only guys ever, Smolean, who was later in the mix to buy the Washington Nationals, he lost money on the Seattle Mariners and had to fire a bunch of people in his radio group. So he fired Scott Meyer. Meyer is hired by the Rails Brothers. He hires me, and I start to help him to hire people to be on the radio station. So the studios are being built on Rockville Pike, beautiful, brand-new studios, and we weren't able to work out of there, and I'm working out of their offices. which is downtown or close to georgetown and they show me to an empty office and there's a bag of

300 cassette tapes of audition tapes and uh fact one of them was attached to a size 12 sneakers so he would stand out unfortunately his tape wasn't very good okay hire him but but we hired a bunch of people and uh and the phone was constantly ringing during the month i was there hey did you get my audition tape what did you think of it blah blah blah and there was also a folder with clippings that had been stories that had been written about the launch of the station. And one of them was from Tom

Knott, who was a columnist with the Washington Times. And his column had the headline on it that said, Redskins won't save all sports radio. And that was, you know, this prediction that even though we had

gotten the rights to the Redskins who had been on WMAL for like 40 years, that this station just wasn't going to work for, you know, all the same reasons that people have said for a long time. Washington's not a good sports town. You didn't have a baseball team, you know, et cetera, et cetera. Not only people care about the Redskins, but, you know, what else are you going to talk about? And he made some snarky remarks about people calling at 3 o'clock in the morning and asking about the San Jose Scharch,

where he clearly didn't have a handle on what the format was all about. Right. So, you know, he made all these gloom and doom predictions. So I just tied it into this long Facebook post, which, yeah, fortunately, my son was able to tweet out because I, now, to be fair to me, there is a button that you push at the bottom of Facebook, which is supposed to link you to Twitter, but then it was. Anyway, whatever. The point being is that I made this post, and it was all about this prediction 30 years ago that it was going to fail. And now 30 years later, there's not one sports radio station in town. There's three of them. and Tom Not is nowhere to be seen. So I want to go, so you know, I mean, I didn't come to the station until 10 years, you know, into it.

It was 2002, 2003, somewhere around there when I came in to sort of volunteer initially. Somehow I ended up on updates on the second day there. But I remember, you know, as a fan of Sports Talk Radio, because I've told you the story, many times, but to make a long story short, I had been traveling a lot, spending a lot of time up in New York, and I was addicted to WFAN and Mike and the Mad Dog in particular, which, as you've said, and I've said many times, that's the gold standard of sports talk radio. And I, so I was really excited about sports talk radio coming to Washington, but I was not excited about the games leaving WMAL. I do remember that feeling.

But that was instrumental in launching the station was to get the rights to the games, too. How hard was that? I mean, how much, because we just went through this last week with, you know, the controversy over, you know, everybody thinking that we said we dumped, you know, the team, which was not true. But beyond that, the Rails brothers, by the way, Walt Whitman graduates, I believe, I think they're Whitman guys. They're much older than I am. But so how, were they going to launch the station? with or without the games? Well, that's, you know, they were big businessmen,

so they spent a lot of money on research. And they found, shockingly, that the Redskins were the most popular team in town. And that year of doing research was perhaps the greatest season in his, well, it was the greatest season in history of the franchise, 1991 when they went on to win the Super Bowl. So you're buying at the highest price there, right? I mean, they're a hot commodity,

because they're Super Bowl champions. It's the third one they won in nine years. I mean, you can't be buying at a higher price than that, but they were very savvy businessmen, and they got the games away from MAL. But MAL was smart. Andy Ockershausen, the general manager, passed away about a year ago, wonderful guy.

He was smart enough to sign Sonny Jurgensen to an extension beyond what the contract was to carry the games. and he thought that would safeguard anybody from poaching it in that, oh, you want Sonny? Well, sorry, you're still under contract to us. And that was a sticking point and went back and forth. And finally, the way it was worked out was because Sonny wanted to do the games, obviously, that Sonny would be allowed to do the games. But as soon as it was over, he would have to go on WMAL with Ken Beatrice, which, you know,

he looked at like Novakane. But he did it, and that's how he got year one. Yeah, I mean, look, Ken Beatrice was the pioneer in this town of Sports Talk Radio, and I, you know, you and I both listened to him. You worked with him when he came and worked for the station for a period of time. But I do remember, like, even talking to Sunny in later years about Beatrice or bringing up any, he would eye roll about, you know. I mean, Ken was the master, right, of illusion of creating. Yeah. And it was pre-internet.

could look things up. So you're getting all these tapes in from everywhere. Sports Talk Radio has already made a huge, huge impact in New York. WFAN launched it, you would know, 87, 88, something like that. 87, yeah. And Mike and the Mad Dog became, you know, the number one station, number one show in town on WFAN in New York. And then you started to see it.

And, you know, this was when I was in a totally. different career and I was spending a lot of time traveling. I mean, it was a 15-year stretch of being on the road in different cities throughout the country and I would always look for sports talk radio. And Washington, correct to me if I'm wrong, Andy, I think Washington was probably one of the last major cities to launch a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week sports talk station. Is that true? I know Philadelphia had one. I seem to believe, Maybe I'm wrong about this, but the score in Chicago launched about the same time. Okay.

I mean, they were a little slow on the update. See, in a lot of towns, you had multiple stations doing sports talk shows. Right. So there wasn't as much demand, and some of those stations were doing well. So, you know, a lot of different things had to fall into place. And, you know, also there's the pain of the beginning. The owners of WFAN, MS Broadcasting, which at one time included David Letterman as a partner.

They lost a lot of money. They lost something like $4 million in the first 10 months, which in those days was a lot of money. So, you know, if you wanted to go in on this, you had to be willing to take the initial pain, and not everybody was willing to do that. All right. So you're getting all these tapes in.

Tell me, I mean, you were tasked with picking the lineup, right? Not all of it. like Tony Cornheiser was already on his way to being hired. In fact, when I got the job, that's the first thing I said is you got to hire Tony Cornizer. And if it don't worry, we've already talked to him. So that was in place. But my specific job was to hire the update people. But I also was involved in the discussions about who to hire as a host.

You know, we got James Brown into the mix somehow. And this was before J.B. was really as big as, you know, he became with the pre and the post game shows and all that stuff. with Fox, but he was doing games for CBS, and he may have done some studio work for the NCAA, but he, you know, he had things going. So we worked out sort of a Johnny Carson contract. Like, you know, it's okay if you only work two days and he was basically paid per show. So we had another big name besides Tony to help launch the station, which was big. Um, Imus was not in syndication yet.

So they hired Paul Harris, who was working at WCXR, which is a classic rock station. But he talked a lot about sports. So they put him on in the morning. And in the afternoon, and this is, this is where you really have to, and I've always done this when I've done a hire, is to give the person a sports quiz. And so they hired Kevin Kiley, who knew sports and had done TV sports at Washington. and it also bit a national name on Turner working for them. So he was a good hire. But they needed that mad dog guy.

And I love him. He's a great guy. He's a wonderful person. But as a sports expert, he was lacking. And that's Rich Gilgallon. He's gone on and done very well in California. But he was hired off a tape where he was on a country music station, in a three or four minute block, you know, basically being fanboy.

Well, he was a bartender at Chadwick's. I mean, that's how all of us, when my first job was working at Channel 5, as you know, briefly for Steve Buck Hanson and Sue and Buck and Yasharoff and Farnsworth and Larry Duvall and all of us would end up at Chadwick's Ernie Bauer late at night where we're coach, Rich Gilgallon, was a bartender with Soup Campbell and the whole gang. And then he ends up on radio. Yeah, well, part of that was that the first. depth was, I forget the name of the station, but it was a country music station with Jim London

and Mary Ball, and it was number one in town. And the general manager of that station drank at Chadwick and would talk about the Redskins with Rich. So in that role, he was perfect, you know, two or three minutes to talk to the DJs about how great the team was. You know, how can you go wrong? But when it came to depth of knowledge necessary to do this, as you and I know, you've got to have some depth to do it. He was somewhat lacking there. But a good guy and really tried hard. It's just, I think, two or three years or something like that.

Radd's course, yeah. I remember as a consumer, as a listener, early on, thinking, well, this certainly is not WFAN. They don't have their mic and the mad dog quite yet. So what did you do on the air originally? I did everything. I was in charge of the update people. I did updates myself. I filled in on shows.

And then, you know, our big thing, we put the station on the air Memorial Day weekend. And then we had to get a Redskins season off the ground. So I hosted the pre and the postgame show. And, you know, not to do a humble brag here, but I got some. really good press from Len Shapiro about it in the paper. That helped this as well. So we were off and running with that. And, you know, I just was whatever was needed. I did. And then Tony came in and he said, I cannot sit here alone. I need to have somebody with me. And he said, you need to go out and hire Johnny Holiday. And he said, well, you know, Johnny's under contract to

WVL and he does Maryland games. And I don't think that's going to be doable. So I had done some of that in New York with Richard Neer on the weekend, you know, the sidekick role. So I went into that and that was very big for me. Right. That really helped my career. And then how did you, you know, I'm asking you, I know the answers to some of these questions, but I want everybody to hear you describe it. How did you end up, you know, in the afternoons with Zabe? Yeah, there was a lot of different things that went on there. In 1998, ESPN hired Tony to do a show, and he took me with him. And prior to that, the best show on the station was Tony's show, which was on from 10 to noon, I think, 10 to noon. And he always took Thursday off because he said he had to write the style column, which was due Friday afternoon.

and he needed to have a full day of that. So if you want me, I'm off every Thursday. Okay, so he's off every Thursday. Living with that, they still thought it was the best show. So what they did was we ran the show live from 10 to 1, and then they would tape it and run it in an afternoon drive from 4 to 7. Right. Okay, and then you just substitute the updates,

so if anything happened, and if anything huge happened during the day, we just dumped the show and do it live. Well, when he went to ESPN, they decided, well, we really can't rerun the national show there. So we need to have an afternoon show. And they tried Kevin Kiley again in his second go round with a stand-up comic name Chuck Booms. Awesome. Now, I'm coming up on 45 years in this business. There have been really, really few people who I couldn't stand working with.

And he was a horrible, horrible person. just an awful person. And that's what really ended it for him, because actually the ratings were okay, but he was a cancerous, poisonous person. And they got rid of them. So I had the idea of doing the sports reporters on radio. And I looked at, you know, the television show, which at that time, prior to PTI and round the horn and shows like that, that was the gold standard. What Tony and Lupica, you know, those guys did on the show. Sunday morning. I thought, let's do that on the radio, and I would have two radio or two TV

slash newspaper people, you know, with me, like a roundtable of three people. And we'd rotate the various people in the first show was really good because I had Buck Hanson-Wilbon on. And the problem was, you know, keeping the consistency of that. And what do you know, here walks through the door, Steve Zavon. And first they try them out on updates. and he's, you know, good at that and everything. And Todd Castleberry, who was the program director, said, look, I like the show, let's make Zave the second seat and we'll get a rotating third person in there. And I thought, okay, let's give it a shot.

And it worked. So that's how we got off the ground in 1999. Yeah, it was 99 right when that really started. And that, you know, other than the junkies, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but that is still the, you know, in sports talk radio, the junkies would be 25 years or whatever it is, and you and Zabe lasted 13 or 14, something like that. Yeah, yeah, it was, when we even had a second.

Yeah, and then the second stint. But seven months, seven, eight months, but yeah. Yeah, yeah. And one of these days, I mean, Andy and I've talked about it a lot, and I know that there have been various references I've made to the situation at the station for many years. And Andy's done the same thing, and Zave and every, Doc, everybody.

One of these days, I think Andy should probably write the book. I can help you certainly with a couple of chapters in the book. But I've said this to you many times, and Zabe and I have talked about it, and Scott and C.J. and Galdi and Doc and everybody. It really was such a fun place to where, work. I mean, you guys obviously had been there, you from day one, and, you know, Scott Lynn, you know, from way back and Doc from way back, and Zabe for a long time, and Galdi for a long time.

And then, you know, before I knew it, I had been there 12, 13 years. It was amazing. You know, and I had so much of, it was such a great time, obviously, the stuff that you and I always did together, you know, doing the Monday morning quarterback for the several years we did. It was such a phenomenal Monday morning show. People loved it. I loved working with Tom, as you know, and I still do. And Tom and I had seven and a half years together. It's amazing, but we did in that midday slot. And then I love doing the show with Cooley, too. But it just, it's, you know, well, we've talked about it a lot. It just hasn't been the same. And, you know, I think sometimes we sort of took it for granted as to what a great group we had, you know, all working together at the

same time. Yeah, the station was doing well enough to keep everything going. But, you know, various management changes, really, really stupid decisions that were made caused that. But, you know, if you look at, if you look at the successful radio station, you just mentioned the junkies. They were kept together. Four guys kept together for 25 years. That, economically, that shouldn't happen. But people stayed behind it, and it stayed that way. Hardin and Weaver, we're on the air for like 30 years together. And if management is good and they understand they got a good product and they know how to sell it, it lasts.

But if you keep shuffling ownership and you bring in management people who don't know what they're doing, then, you know, you wind up with everybody scattered across town like it is. And Dave working in Milwaukee, which is tragic. I mean, good for him to be in Milwaukee, but him not being on a regular basis on the air here is ridiculous. I was just talking to Al. Galdy and I were talking earlier this morning about something completely off the subject. And he just said, have you talked to Zaybe recently? And I said, no, I think I had him on, I don't know, a month, a month and a half ago.

And he said, you know, he's with a really good station. You know, this state, I go, I know. I said, but good God. I mean, if you just tuned in to Zabe, you'd think that he grew up in Green Bay. because he has become a total Packers, Rogers, Bucks, you know, brewers. It's like he's forgotten this market. But, you know, any of us probably would have adapted, you know. But I've always felt, I've always felt, and I know we've had this conversation before,

that the most, the people that typically, it's not always the case, but typically your best chance of having success doing this, beyond, you know, being able to do it, is being from the market in which you're doing it and being a fan of all those teams? Well, look, that was the early downfall of the fan. And it was a good guy, John Shannon, who was putting it together, said, hey, this is New York. We have to get the best national people. So they hired Greg Gumble, who's great on TV, but dull on radio, and not from New York. he's from Chicago.

They put Jim Lampley on in the midday. He was good, but then he wound up taking a job in California, and they tried a satellite. That didn't work. And in the afternoon, their original hire was Pete Franklin, who's grown up in Brooklyn, but he'd become a legend in Cleveland. Yeah, Cleveland.

And so when everything shook out, you took, you know, Mike Francesa, who had this, you know, Long Island truck driver's accent, which initially, program directors, oh, we can't have a guy like that on the air. and Chris Rousseau, who maybe has some would say a speech impediment and talks a mile a minute, but they were New York guys. They understood the market, and Francesa could talk about going to Yankee Stadium to see Mickey Mantle play. And Rousseau, growing up on the island, understood the market.

That's how that works. And if you took those two guys and you dropped them into Chicago or Los Angeles, they wouldn't have had near the success to have New York. Not been near it. Yeah, ironically, now the Giants were in New York. but Rousseau was a San Francisco Giants fan. But yes, they were from... Yes, but that was also part of it because Francesca was a major Yankee thing. Yeah, right.

And I remember this moment. It's like chocolate and peanut butter coming together to make a Reese's peanut butter cup. And in the early days of IMS, before they started doing Best of, they would have Rousseau fill in. So Rousseau is doing IMS's show. and this is the last good year that Don Mattingly had before he heard his back. And Rousseau's going on and on about how Will Clark is a better first baseman than Don Mattingly. Francesa is driving in because he's part of a midday show with Ed Coleman,

the thing is started at 10 o'clock. And he hears this, and he walks in the studio, and they go nose-to-nose about Mattingly and Clark for about 20 minutes. I heard this live. The program director goes, ding, ding, ding, and all they go. So that's how that works. I'm looking for something right now. So a guy that's a fan of the station and a fan of the show and was a Maryland guy.

His name's Hayden in Virginia is one of Mad Dog's, you know, regular callers on Mad Dog's show, which I listen to a lot on XM serious. And Hayden and Virginia has been calling, you know, the shows I've been involved in for years. and somehow we met several years ago and we become friends. And I actually had him as a guest on the show, I don't know, a month ago or something, and everybody loved it. But he's one of these, you know, he's a New Yorker, but he went to Maryland and he lives here. And so he calls a mad dog all the time, and he's become one of Mad Dog's favorite callers.

So a couple of weeks ago during the baseball, you know, negotiations, I guess he was down in Florida and he was with Russo. and he texted me, and I'm looking for the text, because we text back and forth, so I've got to go back a while. He texted me, he said, Dog wants to know how much baseball you're doing on your show today. And I just texted him back and I said, do you have any idea what's going on in our city? Carson Wentz just got traded for. If I spent 30 seconds on the baseball players union in the league negotiations, you could, you you would be able to hear out loud the radio is turning to another station.

And so he told Rousseau that, and Rousseau just said, unbelievable. The only market in the country that's not talking about baseball negotiations. Right. I used to see Rousseau at the Super Bowl. And he's a terrific guy. The best. The best. Yeah.

Mike's arrogant. But Rousseau is a people's guy. And I used to actually drive him home into the city when he was doing Philadelphia. in the overnight before he got started. So he's been very nice to be over the years and has gone on shows that I've done for Super Bowl and so forth. And he would say

to me, how do you do sports talk without a baseball? Right. I remember you telling me that. And I said, well, we just talk about the Redskins. You talk about the Redskins in June? Yeah, we talk about it in June. We talk about it in December. We talk about it in May. That's all we talk about it. We don't seem to have

any problem doing that. But he said, I can never do sports about a baseball team. Never. Yeah. Yeah, and here it is. He said, well, he might want to have you on on the Wentz trade. I said, great. Tell him, I'd love to come on with him.

And then he said, just so you know, he said, nobody outside of D.C. gives a crap about who the Washington quarterback is. That's his response. And I said, tell him if I come on, I want to talk about tennis. Because he'll spend 30 minutes talking about tennis because he loves it. And I used to love it too. Nobody really cares. But, you know, there's always that thing, and we've talked about this so many times in the past,

that, you know, we've had so many of our program directors say, play the hits, play the hits. But the truth is, you should play the hits. And the hits in this town have always been the football team number one. And then whatever else, you know, comes a distant second. But if you yourself are really passionate about something, other people listening, if they like you, will listen to something. that you're passionate in and so passionate about. But anyway, nobody's done that better than him because he can do two hours on Roger Federer on any given day. Oh, here's the other thing I texted back. Tell him, tell him I can't do three hours on one John Olorud at bat in morning drive.

And he sent me back laughter. Because when I would listen to those guys in New York, literally, and it was great radio. But it would be like the MET game from the night before, and John Olerud had some 14 pitch at bat where he fouled off nine pitches, and they did that for three hours. Three hours. Right, but what radio is, is chemistry, and you have to like these guys.

Yeah, no doubt. And that's why it works. I mean, you know, Tony has succeeded in doing this for a long, long time, when there are others, you know, like Lupica and others who have not succeeded because he's likable. You relate to this guy, you know, all his craziness and all his phobias and everything else. You like the person. And what he's talking about is kind of secondary. You know, it's not, no, because he'll go on and on about, you know, he went into a safe way and couldn't find cottage cheese.

But you'll listen to that because you like this guy. Yeah. He called me the other night just to say when Willard got hired, he said, you don't go from a small Catholic school to a big state school. Terrible higher, terrible higher. And I said, what are you talking about? I think we've had a lie. I mean, it seems like almost every coach has started somewhere in New York

at some Catholic Jesuit, you know, small school in some small league or the Big East. But anyway, all right, what do you want to talk about? What do you, so I opened with just, you know, the Alex Smith stuff. And I'm sure you talked about it. your show today. So what was your reaction to it? Well, I mean, I played the tape from Eisen's show. And Alex Smith is media savvy. He's not only been a high-profile quarterback for a long time, he's worked in television for at least a year with the SBED. So when Eisen threw him, what was really a softball, what advice would you give to Carson Wentz, he could have gone,

you know, well, you know, I love the people in Washington. You know, if you're produce a winner there. People are going to love you. He gave it the old one of those. And then he launched into his whole thing about, you know, how there's dysfunction. Does it prevent you from focusing on your job? Yes, it does. He really didn't mention the owner, which is curious, because he became Dan's guy for a while, you know. And there was speculation that he, of course, he was never going to play again, and that he would move into the front of office with the team. And so, you know, he didn't really... Well, he did. He said it's been 20, it's been 20 years of, you know, that points to the owner. That does point to the owner, but he could

have gone off with, good luck with Dan Snyder. You know, he didn't, he didn't do that. He pulled up on that. But it's, you know, when Ron Rivera says we're an easy target, damn right you are. You have a big bull's eye on your back. And Matthew Parenthood. now has a source inside the organization that's telling him Dan is running the day-to-day operation. Stop being such a dysfunctional mess, and people won't have a target on you. You know, you are, and I think maybe Bram is the other one.

You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm mostly talking about kind of local, you know, local, you know, sports media people that aren't former players, you know, not Doc, not Brian. and, you know, et cetera. I think that you and Bram are the only two people who have ever had anything resembling, I won't even call it a relationship, but, you know, a back and forth with him over, you know, and I know it was a long time ago, don't get me wrong, I understand it was a long time ago,

but I can't think of anybody else in town that ever kind of got to know him a little bit in, you know, not that you hung out with him, but you interviewed him, you talked. you talk to him. Am I right about that? Probably, right? Well, I think the last extended interview that he did was with Chick Hernandez. And that was maybe five, six years ago. I thought it was with Cooley.

Yeah, I may have been with Cooley. Not with Cooley and me, but with Cooley solo, like, you know, and then they played it on Zabe when he was doing the show with Zabe. I thought that was the last one. Yeah, that maybe was one. But the one where he revealed that he was going to build a new stadium, and he wanted one that, you know, was going to shake up and down and things like that.

That may have been the one. You know, early on, he had done some interviews. He actually came in the studio with David at once. They arranged for him to remember the Redskins stores that were in the malls for a while in studio. So Dave was on vacation, and he said they intentionally ducked him. But who knows, Larry Weissman and I interviewed him. And I asked him some questions, which, you know, he may or may not have lied about.

I mean, Larry said he was told by them that the reason that they fired Marty is they weren't having any fun. I asked him about that, and he said, no, no, that wasn't the reason. I also asked him if Pepper Rogers was going to be hired when he fired North. He denied that. You know, so I... That's a long time ago now. That's 20 years ago. Yeah.

Right. And then he pretty much stopped. I mean, he would do, he felt comfortable with George Michael, but George was pretty soft on him. They were friends, and he would do maybe once a year an interview with him. But when George left Channel 4, you know, I think we're talking about two or three interviews, tops, one with Cooley, one with chick and maybe one other. Well, he did this stuff. Remember, there was a couple of years in training camp where he did the one-on-one with Doc.

Okay, yeah, all right. And that was it. But God, it has been forever. And, you know, but I guess I asked the question because, I mean, what was your impression of him? You know, Bram was out there covering the team as the first, you know, as the beat reporter for the station all of those years. And I know he had a couple of interviews with him. In fact, I can tell you, when we did the Red Zebra break off and Bram and I got hired and I. I got, you know, I did the show with Rigo and Bram had the show with Larry.

Bram and Larry did an interview early on, maybe once or twice, but that would have been 2006, 2007. But, you know, what do you tell people when people ask you what he was like? Because I don't really have an answer because I never, he never stepped foot into the station once on Rockville Pike. Yeah. 1801. Yeah. No, he did. He was at our station.

The original. one. Not the one on Rockville Pike, yes, he was at. I'm telling you he was there, and it was arranged because Bennett, Bennett Zier, who is the general manager, got chummy with him somehow.

And I remember Bennett coming into the studio during a break and they were comparing neckties. Like, you know, hey, that's a really nice, expensive tie. Oh, look at my really nice. You're talking about it, our studios at 1801. Yeah, 1801. But this is, again,

2000, 2001. Okay. That's before I was there. Okay. And before Red Zebra. Yeah. The last time I think I saw him in person was when Abe Poland died, which would have been I think November of 2009.

So we're going back quite a way. And it's at, uh, at its Israel synagogue, I believe. And we're in the lobby waiting for the, for the service to get underway. and I'm standing with my father, who is then 80-something, and I see Snyder and his wife. Now, he brought along Vinny, which was really weird. It was like bringing your pet poodle with you, and he fired Vinny like two weeks later anyway. But I see them, and I say, and I stick up my hand. I say, hi, Dan, Andy Poland.

He and Tanya come over, and they're talking with me and my father, and my father begins addressing Snyder as Mr. Snyder. I've never called him that. I was calling Dan. He's younger than I am. Yeah. And Snyder said, please call me Dan. So at that point, he was a bench. Now, you know, is that consistent with what you hear from other people who say he insists on being called Mr. Snyder? No, but my experience with him was that, that he acted fine. So take forward to it. We were going to talk about the ACC Tournament documentary, which we both watch. I have not, I actually have not watched the last few episodes. But actually, are you watching Winning Time? Yes, I am. I have a little bit of a different

opinion that you do. Okay. I read the book. I read the book that Jeff Perlman wrote that was the basis for the story. So there's a lot of the information that's in there. I'm not a big fan of the Ferris Bueller actor talking to the camera. You know what I mean? From Ferris Bueller's Day off, not a big fan of that. I think the guy who plays Busts, what's his name? John C. Riley. John C. Riley. Yeah, he's good at that. The guy who plays magic looks like magic. The way they play, portray Pat Riley as a schlabel. I don't really get that. That's kind of interesting. But it's true. It's true. That's how he got back into the organization. Was this Chick Hearns analyst on radio? Yeah, and they portrays Chick Hearn as a buffoon.

Oh, yeah. Well, how about Jack Kent Cook? that's the other thing I texted you about this that by the way is the kid that was in Caddyshack yeah Michael O'Keefe yeah and and

the one thing is they played him as a dour guy Cook may have been a bad guy but he was he didn't act like that he was you know he was Jack Ken Cook

my dear my boy all that stuff he was like he was like a sullen character that they played him at some yeah it's Hollywood

they can do what they want but that was my take So you don't love it You're like Tommy Tommy thinks it's just okay also I actually love the way it's shot I think it's really cool

The way they sort of interspersed You know these references back You know to historical things And then all of a sudden you're back in the moment And I think the girl that's playing Jeannie Bus And I know I know her from somewhere She's at she's really good I don't know what her name is

And what I've seen her from I don't know. And Sally Field in an odd turn is interesting in that. But, yeah, I mean, I am entertained by it. I'm watching it, but it's done in a way, and you know how big I am on historical accuracy. It just seems a little bit forced in some ways. But, you know, it's an entertainment show. I get it.

Well, nothing seems to be more forced than the Jerry West character, although... Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. That's ridiculous what they did to him. He ought to do the hell of it. I don't know. It's entertaining, and the only thing that sucks is you can't binge it. All right, what did you want to, you've enjoyed the ACC tournament documentary as well, right? Yeah, I just wanted to, you know, the one thing, and I think you saw this episode, and this is really the whole story of the ACC tournament, is that 74 championship games between NC State and Maryland.

And yeah, I mean, they really showed it, and this is something that, Gary has said over the years, you know, they always had it in Greensboro. And there were a couple of plays where, you know, Len Elmore previously in the season, like in College Park, would get the block on Burleson, who was quite a bit taller than he was. And in that game, they called it a foul. And, you know, just things like that. And I just remember the disappointments in my life in sports, and that's one of the biggest, because that was such a big game.

There was so much pressure. This was the big, you know, left. team. They were seniors, McMillan and Elmore, and the promise of UCLA of the East, this was maybe going to happen. They had lost to UCLA by only one point at the beginning of the season at Pauley Pavilion. So then

then we get back to the tournament, get the revenge, and all that stuff entered into it, and they lost such a disappointing game. And that's what changed the whole NCAA tournament. Is that because only NC State was able to go, and Maryland was no worse than the fifth worst team in the cut,

fifth best team in the country, they had to go to at large the following year and, you know, went from 32 to now 68. So, you know, that's how that worked. It's, uh, that episode, it was the fourth episode of it. You know, the first three, you know, it starts with, I thought it was very interesting. Don't get me wrong. But, you know, I wasn't familiar with the Everett case era and really not familiar at all with the Charlie Scott stuff. You probably remember a little bit more because you're much older than I am. Um, and, uh, but the, The fourth episode, those are my first memories of Maryland basketball. But really, Andy, I'll tell you, the first memory I have of Maryland basketball is Super Bowl Sunday, 1973, when they played NC State in the regular season.

And they talked about, you were at Cole for that game? Yeah, I let Eric Sody cheat off my science paper. And he said, okay, I'll take you to a game. And I said, oh, great, when is it? Sunday. Oh, good. Let's go. And I saw this plastic game. I mean, it was unbelievable.

It's a good thing you didn't have to host the pregame show for the Super Bowl that day on radio. Because shortly following that game at Cole was Super Bowl 7 and Washington and Miami. It's the worst day in history for a Washington sports fan. It has to be. That's the first. That is really, I mean, I remember the NFC championship game because I went with my two uncles because my father was in Vegas with my mother over the holidays. And then the Super Bowl came two weeks later, and NC State Maryland started this tradition

that lasted a few years of playing on national TV on Super Bowl Sunday. And that game that you went to was a David Thompson put back, I think, at the buzzer, basically, to beat Maryland by two. And then later on that afternoon, the skins lost to the dolphins 14 to 7. And that was a crushing, crushing day. But really, the 74 final that you referred to came the following season. You know, that was not that season. Maryland actually, NC State ended up on probation in 73.

Maryland lost the tournament final to NC State, but went on to the Elite 8 where they lost to Providence with Marvin Barnes and Ernie D. Gregorio in the Elite 8. That was Lefty's first Elite 8 at Maryland. He had gone to the Elite 8, I think twice at Davidson, something like that. And then the 74 final. That is, you know, it shaped the tournament that we now watch. And, you know, is still often, although I've seen so much because it was the 30-year anniversary of the Kentucky Duke, the Leitner shot game a couple of days ago. That's obviously one of the greatest games of all time.

But for many years, ACC fans, you know, will point to the 74 ACC final in which I believe there was one turnover for the. entire 45 minutes of the game because it went to overtime, one turnover in what was, you know, arguably the greatest college basketball game of all time and devastating to Maryland. There's one thing they didn't mention. And in those days, I don't even know how you were possibly academically ineligible. But Maryland had a freshman named Steve Shepard, who went on to have a pretty good NBA career five or six years. Yeah, I played, yeah, it was on the Olympic team. he was academically ineligible. And in that game,

Len Elmore had to kind of double on Thompson a lot, and that's why Burlinson had 38 points. If you had Steve Shepard, he wouldn't have been able to stay with Thompson. He wasn't quick enough, but could have bodied him up a little bit. You know, maybe you slow him down. Maybe, you know,

Elmore spends a little bit more time on Burleson. He doesn't get 38, and Maryland wins the game. But, you know, it is what it is. It's just so frustrating. I still God, it was a year ago in fact one year ago because I had Billy Packer on this podcast

two days before the final four. It was one of, honestly it's one of my favorite interviews that I've ever done. And we were talking about that game and I remember saying to him, I said, for me in my lifetime, David Thompson's the greatest college

basketball player that I can remember. And he said, he's certainly in the conversation, but for him, it will always be Lu El Sinder. You know, you know, Kareem, he said he totally changed the game and the way it was played and

there was no greater college player of all time than Lou El Sinder. But I never saw him play. And I, you know, I just remember Walton at the very end of his career. And Walton was a great player. But Thompson was back then

truly unguardable. Like, he was one of the first players you couldn't guard him with one player. You had to double team him. He would foul out one to two players on your team. And they did get him the following year, though. You know, in 75, when McMillan and Elmore were gone, lefty brought back, Brad Davis is a freshman

along with Lucas and Howard, Steve Shepard, and they went with a three-guard offense, and they beat NC State twice in the regular season that year. That was Thompson's senior year, and then lost to them in the three-guard offense. the ACC tournament semifinals, but Maryland, who changed the rule, more than one team from each conference, was the first beneficiary of the rule. The following year, they won the regular season, lost in the ACC tournament semifinals, but got an at-large bid and ended up losing

in the Elite 8 to Louisville that year. Yeah, yeah, no, it was an unbelievable time in the ACC, and you mentioned Alcinder, when Thompson played, people will find this hard to believe, but when Thompson played, you weren't allowed to dump. And that was because they had changed the rule for Alcinder. UCLA in his sophomore year went 30 and O. And they said, oh, this is ridiculous, you know, they'll never lose a game the rest of the time he's there. So they outlawed dunking. Well, you know, Thompson would have to go up to the basket, up to the basket, elevate.

He had a 48-inch vertical, which nobody had ever heard of at that point. and you have to simply drop it in. And to think if he could, you know, take off from the foul line and dunk, he might have been even better, you know, unbelievable. It was incredible. You know, 48-inch vertical leap. And it was the story of, you know, the old story is like, if you put a dollar up on the top of a backboard,

Thompson would go up and exchange out, you know, two-quartered. orders and five dimes for it or whatever it was, whatever the financial equation was for that. But he was phenomenal. That game's been shown so many times, and that episode of that documentary was phenomenal. And then the next episode, when you get Lefty winning the tournament finally over Duke after, you know, being screwed by the Kenny Dunard undercut of Buck Williams in the 1980 final. That was great as well. Duke Carolina Saturday night

I mean that's as big as it's gotten in this sport in a long time How about this? If North Carolina wins, does it matter what happens against Kansas? For a Carolina fan? Yeah. I had this guy Brendan Marks, who covers Carolina and Duke for the Athletic on the podcast yesterday.

He was really good. So for those of you who missed it, you can go back and listen to yesterday's show. I had friends of mine who are Chapel Hill guys, Carolina guys, who said that the win at Cameron Indoor earlier this month was one of the all-time most satisfying wins in the history of being a North Carolina fan. And they're a six-time national championship winner,

but it was literally one of the thrilling moments of being a North Carolina fan when they went in on Kay's last night at Cameron Indoor and won. So this guy yesterday, Brendan Mark said 100% true. He said it might be topped by beating them in the final four. So if that's true, it's kind of like when the skins beat the Cowboys in the 83 championship game and the January 83 championship game, the Super Bowl was anticlimactic. Even though they won it, it might be the same for North Carolina fans if they get to the championship game, win or lose.

Doc, we've heard Doc say this. That's after they beat Dallas, it almost didn't matter what they did in the Super Bowl. They wanted to win it. But, you know, and I felt kind of, even as disappointing as it was to lose to Miami in 73, where they went undefeated, the fact that they had clobbered Dallas in the NFC championship game, oh, man, that was so satisfying. And really, the history hadn't been built up that much because, you know, Washington had only been good for like a year after George Allen got there.

They didn't really become competitive on a regular basis with the Cowboys until he got there. But to beat Dallas the way they did on New Year's Eve, oh, that was so sweet. Well, Andy, I really was. I'll tell you that for me in my sports fandom lifetime, number one is Washington over Dallas at RFK Stadium to go to Super Bowl 17. being in that stadium that day, it's still, you know, it's still, the hair on the back of my neck just thinking about it still stands up. Anybody that was there that day will say the same thing. It was the most electric environment I've ever been in for any sporting event. And it was the hungriest, I think the fan base has ever been for a win to have your arch rival, who by the way, that was their only loss during that strike shortened season, just a month earlier, month and a half earlier, at RFK, to have them in your best.

building for an NFC championship game. And then, you know, some of the plays in the game, obviously the Dexter Manly, you know, batted up into the air on the Gary Hoga Boone pass and Darrell Grant. That's my number one, more than any of the Super Bowls. That's my all-time favorite win for any of the teams that I root for. That was great. I wasn't there for that, but I was in the end zone, the opposite end zone of where Riggins scored the touchdown against Miami.

and that that was electric that was unbelievable and i had some jet fans behind me who were rooting for the dolphins because the jets had lost to the dolphin in the aFC championship game and as soon as riggins went in the end zone they shook my hands and left but they had been riding me hard the whole game so that was really sweet yeah um all right how's the family Jeremy Samantha family's good uh everybody's good yeah i guess i can uh reveal it on this podcast uh i'm going to be a grandfather at the end of July. Oh, my goodness. Awesome. Yeah, we don't know. She doesn't know the gender, but I'm sure we're all hoping for a very healthy child. Samantha obviously got the brains from the mother in the family. She's a lawyer.

But Andy with a great family and great kids. Hopefully Jeremy's doing well too. All right. Yeah, he's doing well. He's doing in New York, doing good. And he knows how to post my hit My Facebook files on Twitter. You've always needed help with some of the technological stuff. Absolutely. All right, I'll talk to you soon. Take care. All right, that's it for today.

Back tomorrow with Tommy.