The Press Box - The Tim Scott Story and Musk-ageddon, Plus Mike Valenti on Lions Happiness and Detroit Sports

Episode Date: September 15, 2023

Bryan talks Weekend Headlines and starts with a Washington Post story about Senator Tim Scott’s love life. He also details his favorite call from Joe Buck during the Bills-Jets game on ‘Monday Night Football’ and talks about some negative reviews of Walter Isaacson’s Elon Musk biography (00:31). Then, Detroit sports radio host Mike Valenti joins the show to discuss the hopeful skepticism from Lions fans heading into the season and why local sports radio continues to resonate with listeners (06:41). Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Mike Valenti Producer: Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, this is Jason Gough from the full go podcast. Me and the crew, we like to entertain you. And we're going to do more of that this football season because the bears should be more intriguing. There should be more fascination. Justin Fields. Is this the make or break year? Is DJ Moore the piece that's going to put them over the top? You can catch us on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, or when we have an emergency podcast, when we have breaking news.

Make sure you follow the full go on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox Final Edition. Brian Curtis of the Ringer here, along with producer Eduardo Ocampo, who's sitting in for Erica. Coming up, we have Mike Valeni, the Sports Radio King of Detroit.

I have been wanting to have him on for almost a year now, but I was waiting for some good news in Detroit sports, and it took a while, so we're going to do it right now before the Lions play game two. No chances will be taken. That's coming up in five minutes, but first, let's do weekend headlines.

Headline one, the Tim Scott story. Ben Terrace is a really fantastic feature writer over at the Washington Post. He's a kind of guy who publishes something and I say, ugh, I wish I'd written that piece and moreover, I wish I had written it exactly that way. Terris has a new story out this week. It's called Tim Scott's girlfriend.

Tim Scott, the South Carolina Republican Senator who's running for president. Now, Terrace's story follows an earlier Axios report that Republican donors were beginning to, quote, fret, only in journalism word, because Tim Scott is single and hasn't said much about his love life other than that he has a girlfriend. Donors were asking, quote, for more detail about his bachelor status, Axios reports. Now, here's where I start with presidential campaign stories. It's better to know too much about the people.

running for the biggest job in the world than too little. So I tend to tolerate flood the zone coverage about Barack Obama's church, say, or Hunter Biden's international adventures, even if I don't always defend the pieces themselves. In this case, Terrace says he was encouraged to explore this topic by a Republican operative working for another candidate, who later sent him a dossier on Scott's private life. Terris writes, I wasn't interested in laundering innuendos for this Republican operative.

At the same time, the whole exchange left me intrigued about how voter interest, or lack thereof, in Scott's love life, or lack thereof, might illuminate the politics of marriage, family, and masculinity in today's GOP. Now, Tarras, in his piece,

talks to friends of Tim Scott. They don't know much about Scott's love life. He then talks to Tim Scott, himself, who reveals a few more details about a girlfriend his campaign had mentioned previously. He says, for example, that he met her through someone at church. They've played pickleball together. They went out to eat, et cetera, et cetera. But Scott won't name the girlfriend and he won't let her talk to Terrace. He says this, I can't imagine dragging her onto the campaign trail unless I have the intention of marrying her. I hope that happens, to be honest with him.

So what are we left with at the end of this piece? Can you find a public interest in knowing about the person Tim Scott might be dating or, as he says, might be marrying? If he is running for the White House? Sure you can. I think so. But what I mostly learn from this story is what a Republican operative is saying about Tim Scott. Now the Republican operatives just saying it in print. Headline two, the Buck actually stops here.

Joe Buck and Troy Eggman got a ton of praise for their call of Monday nights, Jets Bills game, especially for Buck's call the final game-winning punt return in overtime. But the Curtis Institute for Broadcasting Appreciation would like to contend that Buck's best call of the game came in the fourth quarter on Garrett Wilson's game-tying touchdown. I want you to listen to this. That play was much amazing That play was much harder for an announcer to see from the booth than the game winner And notice how quickly Buck saw it and how quickly he got his voice in the right place Which signifies to you, the viewer at home, the difficulty of the catch and the moment of the game

game in which the Jets had pretty much been left for dead the punt return will probably wind up on Joe Buck's Emmy reel. But that call, that was good television. Headline 3. Dear Sir, I hardly recognize my book. I would like to announce the first really mean review of Walter Isaacson's new book, Elon Musk. I always look forward to the first mean review, even if it's about a book or a movie or a show that I actually like. one, because such reviews are really fun to read.

Two, because it challenges whatever I previously thought about the work. And three, because it's proof against all odds that journalism still has a functioning critical apparatus. Such things can still happen. The first mean review of Elon Musk comes in The Guardian. It's by novelist Gary Steingardt. He gets things rolling by calling Elon Musk a, quote, dull insight-free doorstop.

And it goes on from there. Isaacson comes from the his eyes lit up school of cliched writing, he notes. Steingard also says, in the kind of backhanded compliment that makes vicious reviews so fun, that, quote, to his credit, Isaacson is a master at chapter breaks,

pausing the narrative when one of Musk's rockets explodes or he gets someone pregnant. consider Elon Musk officially launched even if Elon's rockets weren't. That's weekend headlines. All right, Mike Valennie's here. He is the host of the number one sports radio show in Detroit, the Mike Valeni show with Rico, afternoons on 97 won the ticket.

Also hosts the Cash the Ticket podcast and the Kickoff podcast with Boomer Asiason. And this week he has something new and unfamiliar to talk about. The Lions might be pretty good, as Valeni declared this week, think of these words leaving my mouth. The Lions are my only joy in football now. Mike, welcome to the press box. That's good to be here. Yes, I actually said that.

I can state that for the record. So sports radio hosts have as good a sense of what fans are actually thinking as anybody. How would you describe the mood after the Lions beat the Chiefs? I mean, it's elation. I think it is, there's a level of relief. I think, you know, for a long time, obviously, the Lions have done nothing but disappoint. There have been rare moments where there's been some excitement or some hype and they always disappoint. So for them to open the year, go to KC, do what they did.

Brian, there were moments where they could have absolutely gone same old Lions, which is a phrase, I hate, I detest it. They didn't and they won the game. So fans are riding high and they've ever right to. I'm so happy for Lion fans. Why do you hate the phrase same old lions? Well, I dealt with it because of the college I went to. There was a phrase, same old Spartans, because I went to Michigan State. So anytime you'd lose a game, people would go up, well, same old. And you're like, well, no, it's not exactly that.

But at a certain point, you just have to break tendency. You have to find ways to have these wild, insane, like intergalactic ways to lose. It has to stop. And you have to find a way to overcome. So for the lions, yeah, they've had a lot of. a lot of weird stuff happened to them. So it was just great to see them get it done and deliver. No fan base deserves it more than these people, Brian. They've been through so much. I was thinking about this. Are Lions fans ready to be excited or are they suspicious about being

excited? Suspicious. I think it's probably a 50-50 split. That's the fun of doing daily radio as opposed to the pod world. As you get the engagement, it's in your face. Half the fans are ready to roll and ready to book tickets for Vegas for the Super Bowl. And the other half are sitting in the corner going, you just wait, they'll ruin it again. And you're like, all right, let's find a middle ground here. You know, they're going to be good. I do think they're going to win the NFC North. You know, I do think they'll win a playoff game. This team's built right. And let's have some fun with it. But, you know, extremism is what is what you do with sports fans. Fan is short for fanatic. So you just got a roll with it. Speaking of intergalactic ways to lose, I was thinking about

pro sports in Detroit recently. We mentioned the Lions. It's been nearly a decade of misery for the Tigers. Last time the Red Wings made it pass the first round of the playoffs was 2013. For the Pistons, it's 2008. So how do you do your show in a time of pro sports misery? This is uplifting. This is fantastic.

Yeah, no, this is why my beard went gray. No, you know the hard part is you don't, I always find it funny. people think you want to be negative or people think that that's what sports radio is for. And yes, that's a part of it. But that's not fun for me. And that's not good for business. Like at a certain point, the negativity and the angst turns to apathy. And you don't want that.

As a host, I want games to talk about. I want moments. You know, those moments of tension, drama, you know, the high leverage moments in sports. You want those because that's organic response for your audience. So when your town has been as bad as Detroit has been, yeah, creativity has to happen. Because if you just get on the air every day and say, this team is bad, well, yeah, water's wet, sky is blue. So look, I think for me, I can only speak for myself.

I think it's been great for my development as a radio host is you have to keep reinventing you and how you approach your show and then the elements you bring to it, the things you do, versus, you know, stay in the course. You can't get stale when your teams are bad. You must be creative. You must bring in new elements. Honestly, as bad as it's been, I think it's been the best thing for me in my own professional development. So what's an example of being creative?

So, for instance, you know, the way I do my show, I mean, I grew up listening to Howard Stern. I mean, I was a kid from New York and Howard's the King and like production elements, cast of characters. using your people. I think it's so important in this game. Don't have this huge ego about it. Yeah, who cares? Your name's on the show. That doesn't mean other people can't help you.

So finding people who can play a role, you know, and this very specific thing do their job. You know, one of the other things we do is the NFL in the last decade, I think, has taken this quantum leap to where the off season is covered the same way as the regular season. it's turned into a 365 league. So every day, we'll do football today. We'll do two blitzes where I guarantee my audience, you're going to get football every hour. And it could be something highly produced, rapid fire, eight to ten issues.

Think of it like PTI's rundown, right? PTI is another one of those shows that you grow up on. I was in college when that show debuted and I was amazed. I'm like, this is so much better than SportsCenter. So putting in elements. We even do something, and it takes some work, and I've got a great crew that produces it. But during the year, we do this thing called Who Said It, where I have my guys mine for quotes from the rest of the station. You have to guess who said it.

And look, yes, a lot of it is busting chops and sarcasm. But my point is you're giving the audience this escape from how bad the teams are. And you have to entertain. And there has to be ways to do it that don't involve making fun of the teams. Best way I can put it. I got you. So that if the lions suck, if the tigers suck, we're going to go to the station where they're acknowledging that, talking about that, but sort of having this kind of fun and this,

you know, doomed way. I think one of the ways that I've built my show and built my career, my brand, if you will, I hate using that phrase. But like, I'm unencumbered. I don't trade integrity for access. I say exactly what I want to say, how I want to say it. It doesn't matter that we're the flagship. I think our show is definitely unique in that regard.

So people understand that even if we're having fun, we're not trying to avoid the news of the day. I mean, I crush these teams, and I'll continue to do it. It's one of those things where, look, win games. winning is the best disinfectant for any professional franchise. If you don't like what's being said about you, win games. Just win. And if you lose, we're just going to do our job and we're going to hammer on you.

So I think that in a lot of ways, Brian, that allows me to do what I do is we can make the escape. We're not trying to fool you. We're not trying to pretend this isn't happening. And we'll get right back to crushing these teams. But let's have a little fun in the meantime. In five minutes, we'll return to crushing these teams. In five minutes, we'll take the sledgehammer back out. You started at WXYT in 2004.

Why'd you want to get into sports radio? It was kind of one of those love affairs with the medium. You know, I go back to like the early 90s, and, you know, you'd get out of school and you're driving around with your dad all summer. And I would get the staticky signal of WFAN upstate where I grew up. and it was Mike and the Mad Dog, and it was, you know, the summer of Barry Bond's free agency and could the Yankees sign him?

And you just, it was this voice in the box. And it was this idea of, wait, the average person like me can call and talk to these people. That seems so incredible to me as a kid. And it's something I always wanted to do. It was funny as like,

I always loved the argumentative side of it. I always loved talking sports with friends or my dad or just the idea of you can engage in the conversations. And I never liked writing. It was never my, A, I wasn't very good at it and B, I just didn't enjoy it. But man, when you would talk it and go through these debates and then the idea that, wait, this is a job. So known in my family had ever gone to college, I didn't have a lot of guidance.

I thought I needed a journalism degree, which was kind of an oopsie on my part. But it was the only job I ever wanted, Brian. I never had any desire to write for a magazine or news. I never had any desire to do TV. It was always, this is what I want. And I was just hell-bent on getting it. Did being from New York and being an outsider when it came to Detroit's pro-sports teams help you do your job?

It was a blessing and a curse, I think. Detroit is like a lot of towns, a lot of proud towns. They're very provincial. It was hard. I mean, I can't tell you it wasn't. And then you come into town and you make no illusions like, no, I don't like your teams. these are the teams I like. And wait, who is this guy who's, you know, I came to, I came to town at 24 years old.

That's incredibly young for sports radio. And it was one of those things where, yeah, it was met with, shall we say, resistance. But I think putting in the work, putting in the research, winning those, people knowing that you know what you're talking about is the ultimate elixir to this. I think if they know there's integrity and there's an actual belief in what you're saying, it can work. But yeah, it took years. It took years for me to earn the full trust of people and to be accepted here and to look, that was part of the bit, right? I learned from Chris Russo. I learned from a guy who went to New York and openly rooted against the Yankees and delighted when they would lose. And I don't think it's any surprise that, yeah, those formative years of listening and learning

the craft and that naturally, I took pieces of that. And that, that's me. It's still me to this day. And the key is, I'm harder on my own teams than I'll ever be on yours. And I think people who like the show and listen or love to hate to listen, they know what they're getting. They know I'll always crush my teams way beyond what I do to yours. Russo could become the number one radio host in New York City despite rooting for these San

Francisco Giants. It's amazing, isn't it? related questions as being an alum of Michigan State as opposed to the flagship university of Michigan. Yeah. affect the way you do your job. No. It gives me more ammunition because, again, I come to town.

Detroit, you know, we have a phrase up here. It's called the blue wall. You know, I always make jokes that the Kremlin has more honesty in reporting than Detroit media. You know, if it's Michigan, they just get the free pass on everything. And if it's Michigan State, they're going to get power. power bombed. So I lean into it where, yeah, I double down on it. I go after UFM. I'm open about it. I don't like their fans. I don't like the school. I don't like your teams. Now, I'll respect you.

In the same breath, I'll tell you the big 10 runs to Rann Harbor. I'll tell you they got one of the best football programs in America, but I don't have to like you. So it really is just furthered to brand, Brian. It allows me to just be neat. And I think people understand that they get a fair shake that even though I may not like you, I'll respect you. But when, man, when you don't win or when my teams do, oh, yeah, no, I'll rub their faces in. The funniest part to me growing up is, you know, when I was in my early 20s, it was life or death. And as you get older and I'm 42 now, like you do, like, it's amazing to look back and go, guys, it's sports. We're not curing cancer here. I'm not solving world hunger. It's a game. And I love sports. But mother,

a mercy the way people behave sometimes. You're like, what are we doing here? God, I'll see NFL fan fighting each other in the stands. And you're like, fellas, you got to go to work Monday and clock in. What are we doing? But sports radio relies on that, right? The irrationality. It wouldn't work. The medium would die if people were just like, oh, well, another loss, you know. I love the passion. But man, you'll get some people when you go, wow, I hope you don't behave this way at home. I'm always interested in the different approaches to sports radio. I saw Mike Felger from Boston at the Super Bowl and he said, I'm Mr. Here's the Bad News. Patriots play the Eagles close. I'm going to tell you two or three reasons why that won't carry over to week two.

How do you approach the medium? For me, well, okay. So a lot of my approach has always stemmed from I have a constant discontent with the state of meat. and the state of the business. I think we're in dangerous territory as a medium. And I think unfortunately, sports is now going the way of cable news, where instead of calling games, you're just getting agenda and narrative. I think it's very dangerous what we're doing. I think in radio, you're seeing a lot of stations that end up compromised

because of the business relationship. It's not the flagship anymore. You're doing these corporate partnership deals. Oh, we're partners now. Oh, are we? You're seeing, you know, TV networks that broadcast games that are openly ignoring the real story and just their cheerleaders for the team. I think that's dangerous. So it's something I've always done is I'm going to fly counter to that and I'll shoot you straight. And when it's good, it's great and when it's bad, it's terrible. And day to day, I just kind of take it one by one. I mean, like with the lions, I leaned into this all offseason. You know, I've had this mantra. We're winning the North. We're winning a playoff game. And you guys have to begin to wrap your mind around this.

You have to accept what being a winner is. You have to accept what comes with that. It's going to be pressure and it's going to be a tight rope. And it's going to be something that should scare you a little bit, but lean into it. And then when we got three weeks outside of the game, I said, no, I don't hope to win in Kansas City. I expect to win. And what I do is juxtapose. I go, guys, I've seen my team go to five Super Bowls and win four of them.

I expect to win, not a loser. Losers hope to win. Winners expect to win. I expect to go to Kansas City and win. And until you get your mind wrapped around that, you'll never be ready to go on the journey with the team. So my approach there was very different but very positive. Versus when a team, for instance,

like the Detroit Pistons have been a clown card, I don't give them benefit of the doubt on anything because I think top down from ownership to GM to coaches to players, it's been a complete shipwreck. it's been laughable. So you're going to prove it to me. And if and when you do it, I'll be the first one to tip my cap and say,

I was wrong, let's roll. But I think you have to approach it day to day, game to game, franchise to franchise and situation to situation. And I just try to take honesty above all. There's no agenda. Let's get after it.

You still take calls, which some sports radio shows have either minimized or gotten rid of entirely. Why do you take calls? I think the engagement is the lasting impact. I mean, obviously, we're all playing a ratings and revenue game, but I'm a big believer.

Your callers are kind of like your ingredients. I mean, the idea that I'm just going to sit there and talk to you for four hours, I don't think that flies. Now, obviously, I will, I'm not a prisoner to the calls. Callers will wait because I'm not done doing what I'm doing. But I think the great radio hosts, You have the ability to use your callers as tools. Use them to further the conversation.

You have a caller, at least our station, we have a bank of 11 lines. Now, while I do try to be loyal to who has held the longest, if I get a quick description of what angle they want to take. If I see that someone is going to further this conversation, oh, I'm going to go to that call and I'll bump them right to the front. You have to have, I don't want to say an art form, we're not painting the Sistine Chapel here, But there's a skill to it where you have the ability to identify these triggers to the conversation and play the notes in order to get the right song, if that makes sense.

So I think callers are vital to what you do. I think it's important. And yeah, of course you want, of course, if someone's a complete nutcase and they want to come on the air and yell at you, that's great. Yeah, let me find that one. Because here's the thing, the thing I've always learned in my 20-plus years doing this, 95% of your audience will never call you, ever. You have to remember as a radio host, you're catering to the 95%.

You're not catering to the five, but those 5% can be used to entertain the 95% based on how you do it. So we take a ton of phone calls. We advocate for it. We throw the number out multiple times a segment. We want people to participate in this. And that probably goes back to me as a kid, that participation is. is what made me want to do the job. You were doing a segment yesterday,

getting people to call in and suggest a new coach from Michigan State after Mel Tucker inevitably gets fired. I had a vision of you, Mike, like picking the absolute worst suggestions from the list. People were calling and going, what about Butch Jones? You know, he was crying on the sidelines the other day. I lost my mind.

I mean, it was, you know, and again, part of it is, like, I started that topic. So you want an example of, like, how you can get creative with stuff. I handled the Mel Tucker stuff Monday. I went nuts, launched him into space. It's a total embarrassment. You're not fit to lead.

Get out. So, all right, now that the story's done, how do we add layers to it? Well, part of being a good radio host is you have to listen to your own station. And I didn't like what mornings did. And I didn't like what middays did. And I thought it was disingenuous. So I made that the lead. It's not personal.

It's business. And I said, here's the deal. If I hear another one of these ridiculous suggestions from a bunch of guys who you know, work for Michigan or our huge Michigan fanboys, I'm going to lose my mind. I mean, they were basically like here, MSU should hire a homeless person. And you're like, we're done here. Let's try to do this better. And it proved my point that when I said, look, your inherent bias is coming out of you. You don't want a real coach at Michigan State. You want MSU to be your hillbilly cousin who you only see on Thanksgiving. And this is what happens is you get people calling up and offering

you absolute utter nonsense. So of course I grabbed a couple of those calls because it just proves the point. And you try to have some fun with it. Now, no, was I having fun in that moment when the man came on the air and said Butch Jones? No, I was actually quite angry. I mean, it was so absurd. But that's okay. That's what the job is. You're not on Twitter. Why aren't you on Twitter? How long you got? We got time. Let's do it. Perfect. Yeah. Okay, so I'll land the plane, but let me give you the overview. I don't think history is going to be very kind to social media. And I think we're starting to see that now.

And I'm just a big believer, social media is kind of the downfall of society, that it brings out the absolute worst in us as people. And I think you're starting to see it now with a generation of kids that have been raised by social media, the levels of depression, the levels of self-harm, suicide. general behavioral issues, inability to hold a conversation. It's really bad. I made a decision back in what, 2013 or 2012. It was starting to really bug me. And I remember I was home in New York. I had gone home to visit my parents and it was, I think it was Christmas morning or Christmas Eve. And again, I had dealt with a lot of nonsense, but somebody had sent a message something like,

you know, I, you know, bleep you, bleep this, hope your house burns down with your family and I'm going, all right, it's Christmas day, pretty sure that's not how we're going to start the day. I'm out. And my company was upset and they go, well, you have a huge following. And I go, what does it matter? Content is king. What does any of this matter? My work is my work. The fans, the numbers, the ratings, the revenue. That's what I care about. Like, that's, I don't care about this thing. And I left. And yeah, I'm very proud of the fact that I'm one and only radio hosts in the country that I don't need that validation. Like I know who I am. I know how I live my life. I'm a big believer. Your reputation's a myth. The only people who ever write to your reputation are the

people you know closest, the people who care about you. Everything else is just noise. It's nonsense. If teams are, like Brian, I'll give me an example. If teams are encouraged to not be on social media, why would host be? If the average fans vitriol after a game is unhelpful, then why would a listeners? You know, none of it's constructive. It's not a conversation. You and I are having a conversation. Twitter's not a conversation. Instagram's not a conversation. I don't even know what a TikTok is. I don't care. And as I've said to people, if you want to monetize my business, my name, you want to run a social media account, put out content, you're free to do that. but actually me engaging in it, no, there's no benefit. There's just not.

When I go home for today, I'm done. I've given my listeners several hours of my day, and they get all of me. But when it's over, it's over. I'm just Mike. I go home. I want to ask about a couple of moments from the show. An early version of the show with co-host Terry Foster was called The Sports Inferno, which might be the most perfect name ever for a sports radio show.

show. Where did that come from? That was from back in college. Believe it or not, it's insane how things change, right? That was the name of the show I hosted in college as a 19 or 20-year-old college radio student. So naturally, clearly I wasn't a fully developed, you know, human being by that point. I just thought it sounded cool as a kid. And that's what we did in college. And then that ended up because that was the name of the show at Michigan State, I began working at Fox Sports in Lansing, and I ended up getting a show there in my junior year. And naturally, they just took that name.

And then when I interviewed to go to Detroit, a gentleman who interviewed me, a guy named Kevin Graham, he's like, I kind of like that name. I'm like, really? Like, I've never heard of a show with a name like that. I'm like, well, look, you can do it. Basically, he could have said, Mike, I want to name the show, Cupcake Head.

And dumb, dumb, and I would have said great, because it was an opportunity as a 23-year-old kid to go to Detroit and do radio. But it just was that thing. And it stuck for a while. But believe me, there was no grand plan. There's no fun story other than, yeah, it's just one night after a few too many beers. I think in college, we just came up with the name. And I'm like, well, I guess that's what we're going to air with. We got scorching takes on the sports inferno.

Yeah, exactly. Talk about radio cliches, right? Hot takes. Oh, God. Awful. Awful. Sure or false, the Lions took their games off your radio station the ticket back in 2016 because of stuff you said on the air. True to a large extent. Look, and let me be very clear. I will say this. The people involved in that are all gone. Okay, this is a new day for the Lions. They're running like adults. But for years, the backstory, I mean, the Lions had real issues with me and our station. And, And you try to have a conversation like this with people.

You know, you do a dinner, you do a lunch, you try to figure it out. They were never going to get around me. And look, I think the dirty secret in all of this is when teams and stations do business, specifically the NFL, the old way of doing business was you paid a hell of a lot of money to broadcast the team. There wasn't a lot of meat on the bone on top of that. once you paid off the rights fee to make money, right? You spent a lot to make a little.

It's a legacy play. You want the NFL team. You want the logo. You want to be the flagship. But the reality is on a dollar for dollar basis, yeah, I'm way more important to what my station did than they are. Think about it. What's the revenue driver?

What's the actual, you know, profit margin? It's just a no-brainer. And reality is it made them look stupid. Call it what it is. But as I said, that that's the past. Now, much better regime, much better relationship. And I think they understand what the score is. Like, guys, come on.

Like live in reality with us. You've won one playoff game since 1957. What do you think is going to happen? And as I've said, when you're good, I'll be nice. I'm over here sitting saying they're going to be my salvation this fall. I mean, good Lord. 2006, your alma mater, Michigan State, and correct me, if any, I get any of these details right, wrong here. Blows a 16.4th quarter lead to lose to Notre Dame.

I believe it was raining that day. Oh, it was raining sideways. You get on the radio a couple days later and deliver a 15-minute, 18-minute long monologue that became very, very famous, known as the rant. How did that come together? So, and I'll go to my grave, I will tell you the same thing. I always laugh when people go, oh, that's staged. I could take a polygraph right now and tell you it wasn't.

At that point in my life, I was, you know, obviously my early 20s, mid-20s, I lived out here, I had no family out here, and my family doesn't come from money. So I would get to see my parents maybe twice a year. my dad would fly out for a game so we picked notre dame at night right it was the 40th anniversary of the game of the century in 66 the 10 10 tie sure and everything was perfect that day it really was uh weather was beautiful we had an unbelievable tailgate you know i had my dad and then there's this moment in the game where the weather turns on a dime and now all of a sudden it's pouring and everything that was going right was going wrong. And MSU just had this clown car of errors and nonsense and

ridiculousness. And I hated the coach. And it was a metaphor for it was beginning to ruin. And again, me and my 20s, way different than me in my 40s, it was spoiling this magical moment with my dad. And he was just bummed out. I mean, the car ride home was complete silence. We were both soaked to the bone. And we didn't talk about it on Sunday. I just told them I don't want to talk about it. I said, I don't even want to think about what went down yesterday. And I drove him to the airport on Monday morning.

And I went into work and the guys kind of tap danced around me a little bit. And they attempted to bring it up and go, well, what are we going to do for the show? And I just go, just turn the mics on. I'll handle it. And the way I do my show, Brian, and I don't, again, I'm not saying it's good, bad, or otherwise. I don't do notes. I don't do talking points, three by fives,

binder, none of it. Never have, never will. My show sheet is like a living document on Google, or it used to just be a piece of paper with a pen. And I put bullet points of here to four topics I got today. That's it.

I don't think prepackaging your radio is any good. So I didn't have notes. I didn't have a plan. My plan was just to basically unleash and just, let it all out. And as you began describing the game and describing what was happening, it was not only tapping into the relationship I have with my dad, but it was also this cathartic thing of like being a Spartan fan my whole life, it was just torture. It was awful. MSU, just my entire adult life, had found ways to lose ridiculous games and never get it right.

and it was in a lot of ways like what a Cubs fan probably felt or what a Red Sox fan felt pre-04. And I just let loose. And I just, there was no stopping me. I mean, we blew through a commercial break. Who does that? That's ridiculous. It's unheard of. And I just, I'd add it.

And I let it out. That's really the long and short of it. You know what the bummer is, Brian? I never, I'm never bothered when people bring it up. Like, I respect the fact that something I did. 17 years ago still resonates. But I always laugh is you have these moments in your career where you do these nuanced points or you make a great prediction or you have this great presentation and it's not that that you're going to get remembered for. It's going to be losing your

voice as a 25 year old idiot and screaming about HR puffing stuff and, you know, nonsense. But it's a part of my story and I've learned to be okay with it. It's on YouTube if people want to listen. And not only HR Puffin stuff, but you have a reference to the beloved 1980s doll Teddy Ruxpin. That's correct. Becoming a Spartan's assistant coach. And I just love that.

So that was not right now. The name was Chris Smeeland. And he was the worst defensive coordinator to ever be born into this world, I believe is the line I use. He was pretty terrible. So you're assuring us. Teddy Ruxman's name was not written on a three by five card when you walked in the studio that day. That just came straight out of your head.

Polygraph, name the day and time. No, man. I just go. That's just always been kind of my way. And it is true that you blew out your voice so much in that rant that you could not host radio for a couple of days after that? Truth. I'll be honest with you. I've never been able to yell that way ever since. My ear, nose and throat doctor would tell you that. No, I did some damage. There's no doubt. I swear to you, I've never been able to, like, I wouldn't be able to do that now.

Not like that, no way. A couple more for you. A couple years ago, the Detroit News, described a flirtation with the aforementioned WFAN and New York in which you would have replaced Mike Frances in the afternoons. You even did a couple of shows over there. I did a week. Yep. What happened? So it was more in a flirtation. I mean, look, I've always been transparent about it, both with the company and with listeners. There's only one job I would have left for. I mean, I've turned down a bunch of jobs. I've never panned Detroit as anything like, lesser than other than one place. It was always about born and bred, that's the dream.

Not mornings, not middays, the afternoon's at fan. That's like the holy grail. The amount of respect I had for what Mike and Chris did on that show, the way it went, it was magical. I loved it. It's why I got into the business. So it was something within the company. They'd known for 15 years and the people I would speak to and the higher ups at that point, CBS radio, before it became Entercom and Odyssey. Yeah, those conversations were had all the time. And it was, you can approach me with whatever you want, but you know what job I'm waiting on. Otherwise, my life's really good right here. We're good.

You know, I don't, I don't want to live in L.A. I have no desire to do Miami radio. We're good. Detroit's a top five sports town. Plus, I get the two college teams. And I love my life out here. So I went. And, you know, it was the toughest thing I had to do in my career, to be quite honest with you.

You're going in. And A, I couldn't. tell anybody, you know, you can't tell your clients that. You can't, you can't pre-roll your staff. And I did, even though I wasn't supposed to. I sat my guys down and I said, here's the deal. This is happening. And I have to tell you. Otherwise, I'm not going to be able to look myself in the mirror. So yeah, you know, whether it was, I don't know, if it was 10 days, 14 days before, I said, I'm getting on a plane. I'm not going on vacation. I'm going to do this. And I'm trusting you're going to shut your mouth and we got to go. So, you know, you're going.

you go. And, you know, the funny part in all of it, Brian, like, I don't know how deep into this you want to go, but I'm happy to talk about it because I don't really do interviews. I'm not interested in it. I said to you when you hit me up, like, yeah, I love the ringer and I know your work. And I'm like, yeah, I'm down. Let's do this. But I haven't really, I don't talk about it. I don't do interviews with the newspapers. I don't need it. It's just not my thing. You know, it was hard. It's like that was the year, you know, my parents were going to move out here and kind of retire and be done. But they knew. I told, they, they knew full well coming into it. If that's the call, I'm gone. Like, I'm going. And, you know, you go in, you're ice cold. You don't know anyone there.

I didn't know the guys I was going to be working with. You find out, like, you know, a week or two prior. And you just have to give the best version of yourself. When did it at dinner with IRA ups and the conversation starts to be, all right, well, this is what it would look like, et cetera. And at that point, that, That's where my agent and I were like, wait, that's not really going to work. So I was in the final one or two guys, and I'm just like, you know what? No. So the fun part is, like when things like this play out, people just build you up to tear you down.

Like everybody will be like, oh, you know, he didn't get it. It's like, well, you don't know what really happened. So it was just something where the offer wasn't acceptable or what the potential offer would be. And the best thing in my life that ever happened was not going because everybody knows what happened seven or eight months later. And Francesa came back. And unfortunately, what happened to Bart and Maggie and Chris Carlin like that, yeah, that probably would have happened to me.

So it's been a blessing in disguise. So, you know, I'm now at a point in my life. I don't need it the way I thought I needed it. You know, you trick yourself into thinking you need certain things. and New York was that dream for so long, but the reality is I had it even better here. And I've just, I've gotten very, I'm at peace with it.

And I'm very comfortable and now fly into New York, do the shows at FAN with Boomer. And I get to come home. This is home and I'm good. So, you know, maybe if it worked out a little different, maybe the dream happens and, you know,

I go on a 20 year run in New York. Do I still think I could have done it? Hell yes, I do. Of course I do. I'm good enough to do it. I'm a Giants fan, a Yankee fan, an Islander fan. like, hell yeah, I could have done it. But it doesn't matter. It's inconsequential to me now.

Last one for you, Mike. You've been hosting podcasts alongside radio for a long time. I even found a clipping where you were doing like internet radio dabbling in that way back in 2008. As the world has changed, what can a listener get from sports radio in 2023 that they cannot get from anywhere else? Sure. Yeah, it's a great question. Like, I've always had that opinion, too, about satellite. is like for so long, terrestrial people were afraid of satellite radio. It's like, why? They don't service the customer the way we do. They don't do what we do.

Every day, local, about your teams. Like, it's so hyper-focused. Now, here's the problem with a lot of podcasts. A lot of podcasts, they're not broadcasters. You know, whether it's the audio sounds like they're broadcasting in a bathroom or whether there are people who can't put sentences together. it's not a good listen. So then you get to the next level of it is, all right, in my view, I still think sports

radio is the last bastion of kind of that romantic relationship you have with the teams and the medium and sports radio is that thing. You know, I'm blessed enough. I work at one of those iconic stations and whether it's, you know, whatever town it is, you know your sports radio station. You know the one. You know, WFAN is like none other, the ticket here in Detroit. There will never be another one.

For years, it was EEI in Boston, you know, et cetera. I still think there's a habitual nature to it. I'm a podcast listener, and I'm not blind to the fact you need to have deliverables to your audience. And I do podcasts. And I love them. I love doing it. And it's different. But radio is still the peanut butter and jelly.

it's still that comfort. And when you hop in your car and you want to hear about your team, that moment, there's something about the call letters, there's something about the jingles, there's something about the callers. I just don't think it's replaceable. And I think that that's the best part of it, because you'll always come back home.

I love podcasts and I love sampling and checking out other things, but you always come home. And radio's home. I think for fans, radio's home. All right, Mike Valeney, you can hear him weekday afternoons on 971, the ticket in Detroit, also on the Cash the Ticket podcast and the kickoff podcast with Boomer Osison. Mike, thanks for coming on the press box. Absolutely. Pleasure, man. That's the press box. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Eduardo O'Compho.

Thank you, Eduardo, for sitting in this week. Shoemaker and I will return Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media. In the meantime, have a fantastic weekend.