The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Mina Kimes

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

After facing off against each other in Celebrity Jeopardy! All-Stars 2026 (which she ultimately won), ESPN writer and analyst Mina Kimes and Andy Richter sit down to discuss what Celebrity Jeopardy! is actually like, why they don’t want to do the Jennifer Hudson dance tunnel, her unconventional path to sports journalism, and more. Do you want to talk to Andy and his comedian friends live on SiriusXM’s Conan O’Brien Radio? Tell us your favorite dinner party story (about anything!) or ask a question - leave a voicemail at 855-266-2604 or fill out our Google Form at BIT.LY/CALLANDYRICHTER. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the three questions. I'm your host, Andy Richter, and today I'm talking to Mina Kimes. Mina is a journalist and writer who recently defeated me in the Celebrity Jeopardyriepsy All-Stars quarterfinals. And then she went on to win the whole thing. So that's actually, you know, I feel good about that. I was beaten by the champ. She is an NFL analyst and senior writer at ESPN and covers both sports and pop culture. You can listen to the Mina Kimes show featuring Lenny, Lenny's her dog. and viewer discretion wherever you get your podcast. Here's my conversation with Mina Kimes. Well, hello, thank you for coming.

Hi. Hi. It's good to be here. Yeah. Last time I saw you, you kicked my ass. But I was so happy to see you. Well, you played so well, and I was so happy to see you win because that's always like, like what you want the person that beat you in the playoffs to be the champion.

Yeah, right? Then you can say I had the hardest. schedule of anyone. Yeah, exactly. I would have won if only, many people say the real championship was round one. Yeah. I was very daunted when I saw you were on my slate.

Oh. Because first thing when you Google Andy Richter Jeopardy, highest earnings ever is very. I don't think that's accurate anymore, but yeah, but for a moment it was. Yeah, yeah. Google AI. No, I did.

I did really well, but honestly, being older, the last time I was on, I was on the first episode. of the three, the triple Jeopardy one, you know, like where it's, like, the first celebrity Jeopardy where it went to Triple Jeopardy. And it's long. It was long. It's a cruelling taping.

And I didn't get any of the doubles. I mean, this is, this sounds petty. So I'm going to be petty. But I was up. Simul Liu was like had about, I had like, like, a little more than. 200% of what he had. So like if it had ended at regular Jeopardy, I would have bet zero and I would have, I would have been through it. But there was another round. There was another round. They got all the doubles. Yeah. And I then had about like a hundred and 90% of what he had.

So I had to bet. Oh, he won in Final Jeopardy. He won in Final Jeopardy because he got it right. I got the question wrong, which my wife was pissed at me in the audience. That's the thing about Celebrity Jeopardy is now that it's three rounds. The first round kind of doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah. Because the money escalates. Right. And since you're being petty, I'll disclose something that I thought when we went up against

each other. So I had Googled you. I was like, oh, no, or you went Jeopardy. And I was like, oh, no. And I knew you were a smart guy. I'm thinking, dang, this is a tough draw for me. Yeah. We show up at the studio and you look tired.

I was. And he immediately reveals to us, you had been up since 7 a.m. Doing dancing with the stars. Yes. And me being like nice, fake nice. we just met, I'm like, oh, man, that's awesome. I'm thinking, yeah. Yeah.

This man is cooked. Yeah, yeah. I was like, well, I just, I thought, I was like, I'd be tired. Good luck, Fred Astaire. What? It's exhausting. And then, like we said, it's a very, I don't know, celebrity jeoparding, so grueling.

But it really is. It's a long taping. And you got to be like on it, reflexes, locked in. And I was, when you revealed that to us, it was, we were talking about injuries, like when you find out your opponent, has like a slightly busted calf or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're thinking, I'm going to throw the go ball at him all day long. Well, in addition to that, I had been sick. And I, and the next day, I was like, I got to figure out what this is. And when I watch it, when I watched the show in my voice, I could, I have like just a touch of RFK Jr. Like I had just a little bit of like this in my voice. I went the next day to the ER to urgent care, and I had influenza B. Wow. So I was like, you would have won if you were playing company.

I'm not saying that because I lost the first one. And honestly, well, and you are formula dub. You're very smart and very good at the game. But honestly, too, the little aspect of it that is an athletic competition, the clicker. I am not the same person that I was when I played in 1999 and then 2009 or whatever it was. It's not the same. And for those who like Celebrity Jeopardy is obviously much easier. The ninth grade to Jeopardy's College is how I live, you know.

But because it's easier and because it's a self-selecting like, especially in all stars. Yeah. Most people know most of them. So the buzzer is like 90% of it, I would say. It's so much more important than if, you know, if the questions were really difficult. Yeah, yeah. My first time doing it, I was up against Esa Pathamurkerson, you know, her from Law and Order. But I knew her more as Reba the Mail Lady from Pee Wee's Playhouse.

And she actually gave me, she gave me, she sent me after the show. she sent me her Riba the male lady still in the package, Pee Wee's Playhouse action figure. And then I saw her years later being interviewed and someone asked her about Reba the male lady. And does she have the figure? And she said, no, I sent it to a friend. I gave it to a friend of mine. And I was like, that's like one of the sweetest things that's ever happened to me. But the other contestant was Brian Dennehy.

Oh, okay. Who I thought he was going to walk away with it. Really? Yes. Absolutely. and was kind of a dick to everybody backstage beforehand, like real, like, total swagger, like, whatever. And then I played very well. And I think that that one, like, I was, I got, I made a lot of money, you know, in that first one.

And that was before they made the dollar amounts bigger. So, but I did, I think I was for a long time, I was, like, third behind the English guy from the nanny. and Jerry Orbach. But there was only like 10 or 20 bucks that separated us. Brian Denny was pissed. And like at one of the commercial breaks, because I had said, and I was doing a bit for, I did a remote for Conan while I was doing it. And I had been practicing with, I don't know if it was PlayStation or whatever the video game was at that time.

and in the commercial break, which is what her friends call her S, and I were talking, we're like, yeah, this buzzer's hard to get a hang up. And from over his thing, I hear like, you don't seem to me having any fucking problem with it. It's like, but you got to practice. I was like, it's not the same.

Salty. And then when I won at the end, he came over and he did, he shook my hand, but he gave me that, bro squeeze. Like that intimidating you fucking grabs my hand

squeezes it really hard and he says congratulations you son of a bitch like without like a Yeah no he was just really Really pissed. Is that the because you've played so many times is that the angriest Celebrity? Oh yeah yeah yeah because everybody's really Well there was the second time

Dexie Ars they're sort of eventful because the second time I played Wolf Blitzer It was Wolf Blitzer. Famously. Wolf Blitzer and Dana Delaney. Okay. And she was great.

But Wolf going into, they had to give him the charity money going into Final Jeopardy because he was negative. It's a meme. It's a meme. It's a meme. Wolf Blitzer being stowed down. Yes. That's tough.

It was really tough. And people delighted in it. And I didn't delight. have any, I don't get any percentage out of humiliating Wolf Blitzer. But it is a little bit like, you don't have an earpiece during this, do you? Yeah. I've heard that, I might, I don't want to speak out of turn, but I've heard they get a lot of nose to do the show because people don't want to get dumb. Yeah. Absolutely. After I did dancing with the stars, I was, but I, I, there were a lot of friends of mine and I was like, do you want me to put in a word for you? And they're like,

fuck, no. For dancing. Yeah, yeah. They're like, no way. I would never. I would never. I would never. I was just talking to my friend Bill Simmons about the Jennifer Hudson Spirit Tunnel. Yes.

You know that everybody knows. Have you ever done it? No. Crush it now because you've learned how to dance. I would like, I would be, first of all, just disastrous potential. Yes. Reputation killing potential. Right, right, right.

I would hire a dance teacher just for that. Wow. That's why Bill and I was like, I would never do it. I would never do it. And I was like, I would hire a teacher and I would come up with a bit and then I would stick with the bit. Right, right. Because I can't dance.

Right, right. But I would never do dancing with the stars. A wheelchair would be a good bit. I'd be like, oh, yeah, no, I just had spinal surgery. And then once you get out there, be like, nah, fuck you. See, you could pull that off. You could also dance. You'd be great on it.

No, I can. The commenters would love you. This guy. Yeah. No, that whole thing, it just, it's embarrassing. just like, who wants a tunnel of people who not only, and the whole thing, it's like, one aspect of it too, is that it's mandatory. Yeah.

These people would much rather be at their desks. Oh, the people clapping. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Get over here and hype this person up. Okay. You know.

What if you're just not up for it that morning? Oh, yeah. That too. And the dog died or something. Yeah, yeah. And then you got to walk up there and a Jonas brother is like wiggling down. You got to pretend like. It's the coolest thing you've ever seen.

That's brutal. It's a brutal draw. It is. It is. It would make me think, maybe Kelly Clarkson has some openings over there. Yeah. Maybe I'll go get up to work over there. Let's start with the beginning.

You are an Air Force brat, right? It's true. Yeah. And you were born in Omaha. Offwood Air Force Base, Omaha, Nebraska. And were you there for long? No, I wasn't really anywhere for long. Oh, really?

Yeah, so Nebraska, California, Michigan, Virginia, Arizona. Those are like out of order and I'm leaving things out. I lived in a million different places growing up. Why do they do that? Like move people around. Yeah, why does it, like, is your dad like cutting a wide swat through the Air Force and they need to pass him around? He was, there's different, like, he was an electrical engineer and he was just stationed at different places.

But he was also stationed at specific places. He was getting an education. The Air Force paid for him to get a master's degree in electrical engineering when I was a kid, which is a very amazing, life-changing opportunity. So we lived in a bunch of different places because of that as well. And he met my mom in Korea, but that was pre-me.

Oh, was he in the service in Korea? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how would she about like, okay, yeah, I'll come with you? She was born in North Korea originally, actually. Yeah. escaped at a young age, obviously. I guess not obviously if you're going to have listeners who are not familiar with what North Korea is. So back in 1947.

Or she could have just gotten across the border and your dad found her hiding in a bush. I'm like, obviously. I love you. Yeah. Yeah. Or maybe he was just hanging out in North Korea. So she escaped to North Korea was living in Seoul, met my dad. They got married.

And then she immigrated to the United States in her late 30s, which is when I was born. So it was pretty crazy. Wow. Wow. And was your dad kind of? About the same. Yeah. Yeah.

And how old were you when you, when you, when, or how old were they when you were? I know how old you were and you were born. How old were they when you were born? I was zero and my mom was, I think 38. Oh, wow. Yeah, which is actually how old I was when I had my first kid. Wow. But yeah, so I was born in Nebraska, which is why I'm weirdly a lapsed Nebraska football fan. And then my dad is from Seattle.

So we, which is why I'm primarily a Seattle. sports fan. Right. But we would move around to different places, but then always go to Seattle during the summers. Oh, okay. So you did have at least like some, it wasn't, it wasn't just like a sort of idealistic attachment. You at least did have a sense of place. Yeah, with Seattle. I mean, you know, you inherit your parents' sports fandoms mostly. Yeah, yeah. Or not. Or you rebel. Yeah, yeah. I'm waiting for my son to do that to me. Or you just don't take to sports. Yes. I mean, because you have taken to sports in a big way that I would say is probably more

than your average cis-hete female. Would you not agree? Definitely. Although I think now you see probably more young girls who watch football or play fantasy and things like that. But yeah, it was like a family thing. Yeah. It was a thing we always did together.

Not just football, which is my job, but baseball. I always went to Mariners games in the summers, college football, things like that. It was all because of my time. dad and his family, the American side of family, lives in Seattle, so we would visit them a lot. That's great. And do you have siblings? I have one older brother. Older brother. Who is a lawyer who lives in Nashville. And is he sports nuts too? Super nuts. Yeah.

So does your mom feel left out of this or does she go along with the program? She is like a crazier sports fan than anyone in our family. Oh, really? She also is a huge soccer fan, which I grew up playing soccer, but I don't really watch it to the extent. She gets up at like 6 a.m. to watch the Premier League kind of thing. Oh, wow. But she's really, really into. Yeah, people always ask, they're like, oh, you're a Korean mom. Is she disappointed that you are an NFL analyst and not a doctor?

And I'm like, no, this is, she's actually more excited about it than anyone I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She loves football. Well, you went to Yale already. You got all that, you know, all that sort of achievement. Yeah, all those sort of like all those boxes ticked before you went and became a sport. person, you know. I guess so, yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, but, you know, like she's, if anything, I feel like my dad was more of the, like, quote, quote, quote, tiger mom. Right, really. Yeah. More of this sort of achievement focused person. Study, do the test, all that. Yeah.

It was interesting, too, preparing for the Jeopardy stuff because between the R match and the finals, I did a lot of studying. And it was a lot of stuff I used to do with my dad, like looking at maps. Yeah, yeah. Reading timelines and things like that. Yeah, see, I never. I never did any of that because I always felt like where do you start, you know? But did you find it useful?

Like were there definite things like where you're like, oh, yeah, I remember. There were. I had, I told Ike Berenholds I went up with against in the finals. I had literally a few like Rosie Perez and White Man Can't Jump moments where like things I had explicitly studied were on our final board. Yeah, yeah. I was like, I can't believe I literally I know where Manitoba is. I literally looked at a map this morning. Yeah, it was a lot of, I did a, so I didn't study at all until they, I made it to the finals

because there was two-month break between the semis and the finals. And I did a few things, one of which was I bought a buzzer to practice getting my reflexes down. And I would practice playing fake jeopardy games with other former jeopardy winners who would just smoke me, by the way, just destroy me. How do you set that up? So I had a, okay. Hi, I mean a kind of.

Will you come to my house and play Jeopardy? So there's a former Jeopardy winner who's the soccer editor at ESPN named James Tyler. He reached out to me, he was like, if you want us to train you, we do this thing called Fight Club, where when we find out a friend of ours is going to be on, we'll play games with them.

And I was like, I would love that. I feel like I didn't prepare it all. I went into this blind. And so they play them over Zoom on old boards. And I would, for the two months between the semis and the finals. It's all connected to this platform that they use. It's like some kind of remote platform. But it's all, so the people I was competing with against were not celebrities.

They were smart people. Right, right. And they would kick my ass. Wait a minute. And so I'd play while my kid was napping every Saturday for like three hours. Wow. And just get my ass kicked, dude, over and over. And they told me, when you go to that stage against celebrities, it's going to be like taking off a weighted vest.

Yeah, yeah. I'm like, I don't know. This has been pretty bad. Go up there. We do the rehearsal around. I've got Ike, Steve Weber, and I'm smoking them. Yeah. And I was like, they were right.

Like, this is so easy now because I've been getting destroyed for weeks. Yeah, yeah. So that was the number one thing I did to prepare. And that's how you get better. Like, they always say like tennis. Like you got to play a level up. Right. Yeah.

And in order to get better. Totally. See that. Yeah. No, you deserve to win because I would never have done that much work. They were like, hey, you can win a million dollars for a charity. My charity is a really small charity in L.A. Yeah.

It's double their annual budget. Wow. So I was like, okay, all I have to do is just study for a few hours a week. Yeah. And I can win this. This is a... Did you have any... Was there any danger of burning out on it?

No, because I'm... Like three hours every Saturday, like enough jeopardy. I'm a freak. The more I played, the more I wanted to play. I see. And then I would also read, I read a bunch of books on like U.S. history and science and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is actually helpful.

Now, that's coming, you know, as you obviously were a good student growing up, you know. Pretty good. Yeah, pretty good. And I mean, but I mean like, was it the kind of household where a B was a big disappointment? Well, a B is a Korean F. I see. So I don't know. So then, yeah.

So then, yeah, the answer is yes. Yeah. But, yeah, I always love school. Yeah. It's crazy. I just hosted the National Spelling Bee. Yes. And people are like, wow, it's so random.

Like, you're hosting this. the National Spelling Bee NFL. And I was like, that's way more predictable for my life than being an NFL. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you travel back in time to me and junior high and told me I was hosting National Spelling Bee, I'd be like, that makes sense. Yeah, sure. He told me I was on TV, you know, with Marcus Spears talking about the Lions offense.

I'd be like, what? Yeah, yeah. The Cowboy. The Cowboy draft pick from 2005. Cowboys and Lions? Oh my. But so when, sports doesn't figure in in any way serious. Seriously. Like, you're not thinking in any way. Did you play sports?

I play soccer competitively. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I did not play football. And were you good? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I played travel soccer, varsity soccer, all of it through high school. And then I stopped when I went to college. And you didn't, why did you stop in college? Were you not? I just didn't want to do it anymore. And it wasn't like I wasn't. Not for like Yale. Yeah. Yeah. So it was kind of like, yeah. But I never thought I would. I always love football. It was always like a thing with our family. and a passion, but I never thought it would be a job. Was it odd? Like, were you odd among, like, your girl friends in terms of, like, your football knowledge?

But was it just something you didn't talk about? It was something I didn't talk. It was like a family thing. It was a dirty secret. Until, I would say after college was really the only time I, like, started having football friends. And I was, this is ultimately why I got hired at ESPN. I had this, like, I was a business.

journalist. I was doing all this serious journalism, but I was just shit posting about the NFL. Yeah. Like, like, you know, my, I hope no one ever finds half the stuff I used to ride in the internet about, uh, see on Twitter mainly. Just, uh, or Reddit? I was in the forums. Oh. No, you never want to go into the forums. But anyways, I, I made internet friends talking about, like, really nerdy football stuff as a young adult. And that was fun because, and that's one of like the beauty internet, I feel like it's lost is you could actually once upon a time, like meet people and make friends. IRL friends.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I was the same, like when Twitter was Twitter, that's, that was what happened for me, where I made a lot of people that are still my friends and, and also met a lot of people, just because in my line, like I would, I would call it joke gym. Like you go there and they're just people being funny with each other. and and then, you know, and then it was kind of like sometimes like an ongoing kind of improv scene,

but just in a very, you know, parisocial way. Yeah, I used to read my replies because there'd be fun, interesting people in the comments, like with interesting insights. And now it's like, go back to Thailand. And I'm like, I'm not even, why Thailand? That's such a weird racist pool. It really is. Yeah, I know.

It used to be really like a fun place to, like, Like I actually used to find like younger talent that I would sometimes put on my podcast and stuff. If people had interesting things, you could get discovered, right? That was, there's a lot of people, a lot, especially women, I've talked about this before, women working in comedy that that got known because of Twitter because there's no gate, there's no gatekeeper. Right. All you got to do is be funny and get somebody funny to retweet you and then get another funny person to retweet you. And all of a sudden, you know, you can make up a packet and submit it to a talk show and then get a job and be a writer, you know.

Craby how that's lost now because the internet's so dead. Something. Somebody said that I didn't come up with this idea. But somebody pointed out how, and especially like, I don't know if you remember during the Arab Spring. Yeah. How. And I think back to it where paying attention to what's going. going on and looking at news feeds or looking on TV, look at Twitter.

Yeah. Because you will find out about stuff two or three hours before it even hits like just a blurb on the AP or on New York Times or whatever. And somebody pointed out, we were getting the most like egalitarian gatekeeper-free access to information and news in a worldwide kind of way. So of course, some rich dude had to shut it down. And there's nothing really. There's nothing replacing it. And it almost feels like, and I mean, I'm not even a conspiracy guy, but it does kind of feel like if we found an analog that's, that re did that same kind of thing that was able to kind of really access what's happening without any

interference, I think they already had plans to shut it down. Like how to shut it down, how to buy it it out, how to squash it. Right. And it's a bummer. Yeah. I mean, he really figured out that if you control the pipes instead of the content, you're effectively controlling the content. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Elon speaking. It's yeah. No, that fucker. And I also, I also think there's no, it's no coincidence that Teslas have replaced BMWs as the car of assholes and asshole drivers. You think so? Absolutely. I don't see a lot of, so I live in East L.A. and I don't see a lot of cyber trucks.

And then when I, like, they're really, if you made like a cyber truck heat map in L.A., the further west you go, the more you see them. I live in Pasadena. I live in the San Gabriel Valley. I see a lot of them. Really? And guess who drives them? Lovely people. Cool dudes.

No, I'm going, and I'm just saying this as a social observer, the cyber trucks that I see, Asian men. Well, you live in Pasadena, though. I know, but I mean, but I'm saying it's SGV, but there's, there are other people that could be buying them in the SGV. And I know nothing. Yeah, yeah, any, it was San Gabriel Valley for those who don't know, but. I have a very specific challenge, which is I have a two and a half year old son. and I somehow have to convince him cyber trucks aren't cool. And it's so difficult because it literally is designed to capture the attention of a two-year-old.

Yeah, yeah. One will pass and he's like, I'm like, no, no, bad, bad, bad. And it's like, I don't know how to, I can't, I have to somehow trick him into thinking they suck. They don't, they do suck. I have a six-year-old and when, now it's kind of, we're over it now. But when she first started noticing them, Cybertruck! I mean, it's great.

It's like a, who would be, okay, so you're talking about who drives cyber trucks. Who would be the funniest celebrity to get out of a cyber truck? Like, you just would never see it come. Like, if one pulled up. Oprah. Oprah would be good. Gosh. Who else?

Susan Sarandon? Yeah. I don't know why that's where my brain went. Rain Wilson would be good. That I could see. No, no, no. I think it'd be because he's, you know. Yeah, it'd be like a little arm, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, no, they are. They're hilarious. What if I had just pulled up in a cyber truck? Do you drive a Tesla? I drive a BMW. Oh, no. You're an old school asshole. I am.

Why I wish when assholes could just be assholes. It was used. I love it. No, I, you know, no, they're great cars, but I was, it used to be where if somebody was driving like an asshole and a privilege kind of way, it was like 80% of the time. Yeah. It was a BMW. That's also very, I feel like Pasadena.

I see them constantly. Yes, yes. Yeah. Although Pasadena, Pasadena is not the, I've only lived there a couple of three years. And it is not the NPR tote bag. No. That you, that you, that you, that you might think. it is. Yeah. And that's, I kind of had that attitude. I was like, oh, it's all a bunch of,

you know, Volvo driving Karen's, which Volvo, that's not even relevant. That's an old man's reference anyway. But, um, but no, it's not. It's like a really cool, I love living there. It's beautiful. It's great for kids. I'm surprised I haven't seen you at Kid Space or Descanso or the, you got six-year-olds. Yeah, yeah, no. There's a million places. Very much so. Yeah, no, that's part of the regular thing and has been for a long time. Um, why did you get, why business journalism. I'm thinking on these. So I...

Oh, I don't know. The tangents? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I live for them. I live for them. I would do an all tangent show if I could. I was an English major in college. Yeah.

And I knew I wanted to write and I didn't know what that meant. I tried a few different things, book publishing, I wish I was awful, didn't intertip. In what sense? I would fall asleep a lot. The job. It's not a good thing. story like I had a mean boss or I like you know the content didn't speak to me it was like to mass market no I just no the industry was speaking to you and was speaking to you in a really boring way

candidly I was 17 and I was in New York for the first time and I was having fun part partying yeah and but that journalism was something I was really interested in I really wanted to be a writer and I got an internship time incorporated in New York City the year before my senior year college the summer, rather. And they placed me at Fortune Small Business Magazine. It's not my choice. I wanted to do something sexy like Sports Illustrated or people or instant, whatever time. Popular mechanics. Popular mechanics. And it was awesome. I learned so much about business doing that. I thought it was really interesting. And then after college, I got a job, Fortune covering the market. I graduated in 2007. So it was an insane...

I graduated literally into the financial crisis. Just for the world to fall apart. Wow. Yeah, and we were right across, a Fortune magazine, we were right across from what was then the Lehman Brothers. So it was a lot of my job was just like going outside and like talking to people. Right. Understanding what's going on.

Watching people jump out of windows. Fortunately, none of that, but a lot of people walking out with big boxes and things like that. Yeah. And would they talk to you? Sometimes, yeah. Oh, wow. And a lot of my job was helping other senior writers do like investigative stories about like made off. That happened.

that first year or the crash of like various AIG and things like that. So it was actually a really exciting, if kind of fucked up time to be a business journalist. Do you still enjoy business stuff? I read about it. Yeah. Like still, I'm still interested in it. But it was, I mean, I did it for about seven years before ESPN hired me, maybe a little bit longer. And I quickly changed to being an investigative reporter.

So I missed that. Yeah. I miss that kind of the rush I got. Right, right. Sometimes. You could have gotten, you could have been like, you know, Armando Diaz. Do you know who that is? Like it's like the five on your side. Like you go and like, this roofing contractor is ripping people off. I mean a Kimes. I did a lot of healthcare companies doing bad things. A lot of stuff like that. A lot of it was just like getting yelled out by lawyers a lot. Right, right. So I got really. good at that. Yeah. Is it, is that a, like, is that a depressing line of work, though, especially, like the health care stuff? Like, you just hear the stories of, like, healthcare companies fucking people over is a bummer. Yeah, it was depressing, but, like, validating. Yeah. It's funny, though. Like, I felt like you're doing something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was, you know, revealing stuff. But it's funny now, like, to look back at some of the stuff we covered at Fortune and, like,

the corruption and business is doing bad things feels like, so bushyly compared to what we see. I see now when I read about it, it's so naked. You can't compare anything to now. Now we live in like tune town. A thing that would have been a massive scandal for months

in just anything, the markets, government, whatever. Then I feel like would last for a day now. Absolutely. It's crazy. Every day here you hear at least two career destroyers. You know, like things.

that happened that would be career destroyers. Like, you know, Howard Dean got booted out of politics because he went, woo! Right. Crazy. Yeah. It's unbelievable. But yeah, sometimes I'm just kind of like, dang, I used to do that and now I'm asking whether the Panthers are going to run more man coverage this year.

You know, it's like a little bit of a different impact. But I mean, how do you feel about that? Do you feel like one's more or less important? Is that what you kind of mean? I try to figure how to answer this question without sounding self-aggrandizing. Okay, so I do think just being a source of entertainment and talking about football and sports provides like an important function for people. I would 100% agree with you.

And not just in terms of like escapism, which I think is how, but I genuinely believe it brings people together. You know, you were asking earlier, my family. It's what kept my family so close for so long. It brings strangers together in bar. It's like friendships are formed based on sports fandom. It's all men have to talk about. It's, yeah.

And like, right, like all you have to do if you see a random man and just say, hey, do you remember that one Julio Jones season? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's that aspect of it. But then I think the other thing I could like sometimes try to remember is just me being me and doing it is kind of has it maybe being me, which is to say not a six-foot-five former nose tackle. Right, right. Kind of impacts people in other ways, right?

And not just women or Asian people. You are representation enacted. And the crazy thing is, like, people always ask about young women and Asian people who turn on to ESPN and see me. And that's really cool when I hear from them. But I kind of love the fact that all of my friends' sons just think it's normal that I'm on. an NFL analyst. And a lot of, most of my podcast listeners are men, like probably like 90%. Yeah. And I think that's pretty cool. That is great. No, there's nothing wrong. I mean,

I just asked, because you kind of, I could kind of sense that's what you were saying, going from investigative journalist to talking about football. But there's, I mean, I've been an idiot my whole career. Like, that's like, I'm a professional idiot. So it's like, there's nothing wrong. Well, number one, there's nothing wrong with making yourself happy. either. Yeah. You know, there's nothing wrong with like, if I always feel like nobody set up the system that like you got to do something that you don't really want to do that. Like that you'd rather be doing something else in order to make the money that keeps everyone alive and keeps everything afloat. Like you didn't make that system. So if you can figure out a way to do something

that you like and that's fun while you're making that money, like that's a victory, you know. So, I like you say, if you're making people happy, there's nothing better than that, you know. I mean, maybe curing cancer. Yeah. But that makes people happy. Yeah, right. But I'm never going to cure cancer, you know. I don't think also, if I, people are saying, oh, what do you do if you weren't on sports?

And it wouldn't be curing cancer, certainly. Yeah. I feel like maybe I still would have been a journalist, a business journalist. Yeah. Did you meet your husband during this time during those seven years? I met him when I was a business journalist in New York in my early 20s. And how did you guys meet? He was actually at the time working not as for the website for the Colbert Report.

Oh, wow. In New York. Yeah. And we had some mutual friends. And then he became, we both had big career pivots. He became a music producer, which is why we moved to L.A. in the first place. Oh, wow. How did that happen?

He was in a band and then he started producing their own music and then he started producing other people's music and got really good at it. Oh, wow. Yeah, so both of us kind of like our hobbies became, our passions, I suppose, became jobs in our late 20s. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Wow. How nice. You must be, it must be such a happy household full of fulfilled people.

Must be nice. Well, now, when you, was it daunting? Because I know you're the first place that, like the reason that I guess you got hired kind of, because, well, first of all, I should confess, I'm not a big sports guy. Yeah. And like my entire life, I sort of have had late onset baseball fandom. And baseball is the only one I care about. And like in my 40s, because I was, my stepfather had Seasons Cubs tickets.

So that was like to go in, you know, it's like once you had the hot dog. and then the Cracker Jack and then the malted milk cup. It's the fourth inning and it's like, oh, still we got to be here. It felt like such drudgery. They're shorter now. The game's shorter. They are shorter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but I, and I just, and I mean, I played football and I played tennis. I played baseball. But I never like really followed it. I didn't have, you know, I didn't, you know, my father is a homosexual Russian professor who has 5,000 opera albums. There wasn't like a lot of, you know, there wasn't like a lot of like sports stuff. What position did you play?

In football. In football, I was alignment. I was big enough that I was the, I was center for, you were a center. Yeah, I was a center for a while, but I was, I was a tackle to. And I went in sophomore year, I quit after sophomore year and got a job at the grocery store because the, The coach wanted us to come in five days a week during the summertime and work for two hours a day voluntarily. Did you like blocking? No.

That's the other thing. That's the other thing. It's the most thankless kind of, at least with the center. When I was center, I felt like you're touching the ball. Responsible for the operation. Yeah, you're like a catalyst in some way. But otherwise, especially offensive tackle, such a thankless job. Yeah.

Such a just pushing. Center just got paid $30 million a year, though. Really? About that. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. Wow.

It's really good. Could have been you. Yeah. No, no, no. It couldn't have. I couldn't. I just also just the cultures too, way too manly for me. Yeah, it's pretty manly.

And I, and throughout, throughout my life, that thing that you kind of mentioned about men, like my whole life I've lived in fear of someone, you know, behind a deli counter going, You see the game last night? Because I'm like, well, what game? Like, I don't know. So my husband doesn't watch sports at all. Oh, really? Not a sports guy.

Wow. Not into it. But he picks up on, through osmosis, like, really when I used to be more of a writer and I would profile NFL players, he would, I would learn a lot about Aaron Rogers or whatever because I was profiling these guys and spending a lot of time with him. So he also has that same dread. And he would say one of the benefits. one of the very few benefits of being my husband is if he's in like an Uber,

he'll just say something he heard me say. And he can kind of like lean on my knowledge. Lean back and like, who, dodged a bullet. No bullying now, you know, no wedgies. But anyway, I was just so distracted by the image of you being a center. Hutt, snap of the football. Yeah, yeah. That is another thing too, why I don't think I would have lasted,

is that I got at least three concussions while I was playing. And this is high school football. Yeah. And I, you know, like the most, the most sort of the one that I remember the clearest was got hit, could literally feel my brain slosh around when I hit the ground. And then I was sitting on the bench. Yeah. You know.

Interior offensive linemen take a lot of like minor hits. Car wreck every day. Yeah, it's pretty. Yeah, yeah. And then you see, like, you know what the tush pushes? Uh-uh. So, uh... I mean, I can guess.

You know what a quarterback sneak is, right? So the Eagles famously, other teams do it too, would just line up, they still do it, behind their quarterback and just shove him, right? And it's became kind of controversial because other teams don't like it because it's so hard to stop and, like, for one or whatnot. To get a yard. But you always think about this center, just at the bottom of the scroll. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's landing on top of him. I've got to talk to Jason Kelsey, who is their former center. He's like a legendary player who works at ESPN now about it. It's pretty thankless. Yeah, no, I, it's, yeah. And you know what goes on in that pile. I know. Poking.

Right, right, right. Not as bad as rugby. Yeah. Rugby is the one where you get a finger in the butt. We just talked. I was on, yeah, I think they do that in football, too. Do they? Yeah.

Well, maybe I'm thinking differently about my chances. On PTI, I was feeling it on part in The Eruption, which one of our shows the other day, and we were talking about an old rugby story because it was like the anniversary of it, where I guess it was in New Zealand or Australia I wanted to, there was a scrum and a collision and a rugby player got another man's tooth lodged into his forehead and didn't know for three months. I've heard, because I heard the story. You're aware of this and not the touchbrush.

Like a freaking nudge. narwhal. And he was just walking around being like, wow, my head really hurts. And then a doctor was like, let me take a look. There's a tooth in your head. That is crazy. It's disgusting. Wow. I'm thinking about that ever since. Rugby is brutal. Rugby is brutal. I remember what I was, the point I was making. You got, you got noticed because you wrote something about the bond of, you know, win your family what the Mariners represented. And I guess you, that, then you kind of got hired as like, you know, that's sort of the rotating pundit. Yeah.

So I actually was hired as a writer at first. Oh, you were? Yeah. So I was, yeah, I was a business journalist doing, you know, my serious investigations at Bloomberg. And I wrote a personal essay, actually about the Seahawks and my dad. Yeah. And so many. Oh, did I see Mariners?

Yeah. Somebody ESPN saw it and reached out to me. And they're like, well, you seem to be this kind of serious business journalist. But you post a lot of really dumb stuff about football. Yeah. And you wrote this about football. Maybe you'd rather do that. So I joined ESPN as a writer.

And left Bloomberg. Yeah, which was scary. Yeah. But really actually wasn't that big of a change being a writer, I was just writing about something different. Yeah, yeah. Bigger change was a couple years into that when I started doing more TV and then just became a full-time NFL analyst.

That was much bigger change. Yeah, yeah. Do you study it more than you would, you know, like if you were just in, you know, if you were still working for Bloomberg, Oh, yeah. I mean, I spend almost all my time studying football. Really? Like this morning, I was watching week 14 through 17 of the Saints season because I'm preparing for next year. Wow.

Yeah. What does that mean? Do you sit and watch the full game? I watch for different things. So I have access to all these crazy resources where I can watch tape. Oh, where they pull clips. Kind of, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I can filter and organize things. And it's like the same stuff teams have where if I want to watch just, you know, one quarterback on third down, I can do that. Yeah, yeah. So I know I'm watching on tape. So you see the whole field instead of what you see on TV. Yeah. So I do a lot of that taking notes.

And then I do a lot of work with stats. And like so we have, I have access to a lot of sort of databases that I use as well. When you go on vacation, are you still looking like, are you sitting on the beach? The only time I get to read fiction is during the summer. So I do a lot of that. But I've also, like I said, I have a two-year-old now, so I like don't, vacation is not like a thing really anymore. I don't even remember what it's like to like. Football's crazy, man.

Like there's not really an off-season. And it is June and July. Yeah. And May, I guess. But the draft is so huge now. We really work until the end of April. Wow. It's like a teacher schedule.

Right, right. But less honorable. Yeah, you're really not contributing, you know, not the way teachers are. Were you worried about having a child that it would impact your career? Or does it fit in pretty easily, more, more easily than other jobs would? The schedule really does work out. Yeah, yeah. It is like the busiest during the school year.

He's about to start preschool. like I work I travel a lot because my show is on site for Monday night football yeah so I travel Monday September through the Super Bowl and then the draft is pretty intense yeah and then it mellows out during the summer so that's nice um but it's it I was I was a little worried he was born during the football season which was not well planned yeah yeah um I worked until the day before he was born Wow. Induced. Induced so he wasn't born

during Monday Night Football. I had induced. I was just thinking. Not really kidding that. He did that actually do that. Get this kid out of me. Before? Well, he was huge.

That's why he was inducing. Oh, really? How big was he? He was trending towards nine and a half. Wow. That is a big baby. So they said, let's get him out. You're kind of small.

And I was a giant baby. And that's apparently the biggest predictor. I might be doing like fake science right now. But someone told me the biggest indicator of whether you're going to have big babies is whether the mom is a big baby, even if she's not a big person. Right, right. Because I was over nine pounds as a baby. Yeah, yeah. So anyways, I don't even know how I got.

Oh, yeah. So, yeah, I was out during the football season for like two months. And was that hard? Yeah, it was so hard. Was it really? I don't know if you were kidding. No, I'm not. No, I mean, it was hard because he was a baby and their babies are hard.

But also, like, I was at home watching football not being able to give my opinions on it. Your outlet. Yeah, yeah. And you can't shit post anymore either. I was still shit posting. Oh, you can? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I try to keep it. Not to the same level. Profesh. Yeah, yeah. But I was like, you're, I'm watching anyone who watching this Chargers game, you know, and at home not being able to be on TV and get my thoughts. Not that the world needs them. What does your husband do while you're watching all this football? In the studio. Oh, really? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Very different. Not so different.

He's also with young people in their 20s. Right, right. But all the musicians are very interested in football, and then all football players are very interested in music. So I was like, he can use my knowledge. I'm able to lean on, you know, like I know who Lil Yaddy is. Right, right. 24-year-old man.

Because of him. That's, yeah. On the, you know what I will say, like, where do you see your life going? Like, where do you think you're headed? too? I, so covering football is incredible because it's like the only thing in the world that's still popular. Yeah, yeah. That's not true. But it is, you know, in our industry, things are so crazy and football is just like, burr number go up, you know. Oh, really? That's, that's true. Yeah, yeah. It's like the only thing on TV are other sports, like are other sports falling off? It's still way better than it's most things, right? Like live

sports. Actually, baseball's kind of sneakily doing pretty good. It's just a little over a regional. But like, if you look at 49 of the top 50 TV broadcast from last year, they're football games. And the 50th is like a presidential debate or something. Wow. It's crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like I'm blessed to be, it's like being Taylor Swift's backup dancer or something. Yeah, yeah. Hey, I just hang on. Just hang on. Yeah. Which is a very long way of, I feel like still doing football. And I'm lucky that. that people love it so much and like to hear people talk about it. But I'd like to just, like for me, it's always I just want to be better at talking about it. It's why I study so much so that the next year I understand things.

I can diagnose them quicker. I have better insights. I can have more stats, knowledge, and whatnot. I just like the feeling of, because football is so crazily complicated. Like a game is so, there's just so many moving pieces. It's so, you can spend your whole life. And I talk to, like, coaches all the time,

and you still learn something new or see something differently. And when you do understand it, you feel like Neo and the Matrix. You're like, wait, I know why they did that because three plays earlier, they set it up or something. And that's the best feeling. Yeah. So I just am chasing that high of like understanding it better. Yeah. Do you think like relative to other people that do what you do that you study more than average?

No. I don't think. I think some, sure. But like I, one of the things I really like about the show I've been on is everyone does an insane amount of prep and we all push each other to be good at it. Yeah. But I do know that sometimes I have, there are different standards for me a little bit. Like if I can't, like if I mess up, it's like a national emergency. Oh, really?

Just because of sexism? I just, yeah, I don't, I mean. I'll say it because of sexism. People are, it's a little, I can be a little more polarizing. Yeah, yeah. some. People are great. The NFL theme podcast, the

Me to Kime show featuring Lenny. That's right. Lennie is your dog. And also, as far as I know, you're the only sports person with a pavement album in the background of your everyday shot. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I backdoor that to

becoming friends with them. Oh, did you really? It's like the old, I know. Because they've just been playing too. They've been around playing. Yeah, yeah. They have. And I wanted to go to Philadelphia because they're just playing. Yes, I put that up. So I'm like a lifelong super fan. Yeah. And I put that up during COVID when we were just like scrambling to put up our TV backdrops.

And Bob Nassanovich, who's in the band, got in touch with me because they're huge sports fans randomly. Yeah, yeah. And they just get such a kick out of it. Does she still live across the street from Churchill Downs and just does horse gambling? How did you know that? Because I just, I interviewed the entire band years ago. I didn't know that you were into it. I guess you said it's a little bit.

No, I like that. I don't, I don't have anything hanging behind me on my, on my Zoom background. I didn't know you're a fan. I know them. And I had, Malcolmus was on this show.

Oh, it's, ages ago. Yeah, yeah. What's your favorite song? Huh? What's your favorite song? I don't, I don't have a favorite song,

but Crooked Rain. I mean, I'm not like a deep, deep. No, it's a fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a great album. But, but no, it's just, it's just, it's funny to me because I just, I imagine there's like, I don't see a lot of overlap between serious pavement fans and complete football heads. You know, and people always say like, oh, Minuton Times, like Asian representation or, you know, female representation.

How about white guys in their 30s and 40s who love indie music representation? I'm holding it down for fucking those guys. Yeah, yeah, exactly. They have not been represented. They've been a minority in sports television for years. And how validating it must feel. to them to see me on screen. That's what it's really all about.

Absolutely. But yeah, no, I totally backdoored it. I like make a wish to myself. They reached out to me and I was like, I never geek out with like athletes. Yeah, yeah. I was just like shaking the first time I heard from them. Because they're my heroes.

I love them so much. Well, good. You really figured it out. And Lenny is your dog, is your co-host on that. And then you co-host the entertainment podcast viewer discretion with sports reporter David Dennis Jr. All your episodes are about Love Island right now. It's been a lot about Love Island.

Why don't you stay in your lane? This is entertainment bullshit. You and sports guys talking about entertainment. That's not fair. It's a very niche podcast where we talk about Love Island, Love is Blind, and then like sci-fi shows. It's a really got a big audience. What is it about Love Island? because I have attempted and I can't take it.

I mean, first of all, it's a grind. It's like five episodes a week for it is, people talk about the baseball season having too many things. How about Love Island? Yeah. That's, they got to scale that back. It's great. It's just, do you ever watch something where you can feel,

you know, like you were telling me earlier about the feeling of having your knee drained and how it was like borderline orgasmic? Yeah. When you turn on Love Island, it's like that with your brain. Or you can like feel it like, just like all the intelligence simmering down or just the stress it's just like it yeah no it's no it's

the former oh it's like yeah yeah oh there was a clip in the first episode of the season where a young women who went on to win spoiler uh justified having sex with her high school boyfriend in the car while her mom was driving because it was daylight savings time and when that clip came on it's like all my brain cells fused into a single brain cell. Wow. And I was like, this is peak entertainment. This is cinema for me. I just, sorry, I gave, that was a lot of.

I know, but I mean, I'm just like, how does that work? Like the daylight savings. Yeah, I've been thinking about it ever since. Did she have an explanation that you can sort of. It was daylight savings time. And then they moved on. And my brain was like, yes. That's how it feels to watch Love Island.

So we had an extra hour where having sex in front of your mom. Or maybe it was dark outside. Do you have anything like that where you watched and you're just like, I know my brain is just getting dumber and I'm okay with that? Yeah, I, yes. Although I, nothing at present, but like I really got into 90-day fiance for a while. And those, and especially 90-day UK. Oh. Just because there is just like, there's trashy and then there's, you.

UK trashy. And UK trashy is just so delicious. It is. So those for a while. But I have a, and I don't know for some reason, like the love shows and the relationship, like the Bachelor. Yeah. Like there's something. Not for you. Well, there's, I mean, not so much anymore.

But when it first started, I kind of felt like, you know, marriage isn't a joke. Like, it's kind of like very prude, prudish kind of thing. And then, like, I sometimes, like, Jamie Camill used to have people over to his house to watch the Bachelor premiere finale and he invited me a couple of times. And I just was like, holy fuck, how are you watching? These are the worst. These are like the people that I spent, I've engineered my life to avoid. Yeah. Like dumb dumbs like this and they're so phony and like, what the fuck are they talking about?

Like I can't handle that. But for some reason, 90 day I can handle. Yeah, 90 days Really I don't want to say the worst people I like the UK I like all UK reality shows Because it's like a good reminder

They're not smarter than us Just because they have accents And the accent And quite often the accent is awful Yeah Yeah right You get exposed Because I watch Love Island UK

To like the wide You start being able to tell the difference Between like a Manchester accent And like a Liverpool accent And some of them are just like Literally getting hit in the head with a hammer Yes yes yes And they have to literally subtitle people for us, you know.

But the other sort of brain draining one is that I will watch any stupid fucking 80s action movie. Like those, you know, just like any fucking Kurt Russell, you know. They live? Yeah, well, that's, see, some of them are good. But like there's like absolutely, if there's, if I flip by one, because I still do that as an old man, I go to live TV and flip around. Yeah. And if I flip by one, I'll be like, oh, look at this, Judge Dredd with Sylvester Stallone. You know, I think I can stay on this for a while.

And, yeah, and those I just know, like, I know I'm eating shit, but it's delicious, you know. Yeah. So, yeah. It's the same feeling of your brain, just kind of like taking a break. Yes, exactly. Well, thank you for bringing your big brain here today. It's great to see you. It's good to see you.

Yeah. Maybe we'll see each other on the jeopardy floor sometime. time in the future. Would you go back? Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah. No, they, you know what, honestly, not to, the reason I did it then is because they had at, and this sounds really, they were, they're very nice to me. And because I have a history there. Yeah. They had asked me to do it. And I said, and I was trying to figure out how to make it work with dance rehearsal, which is not anything I'd ever thought I'd ever say. And I said, no, I can't. And then they scheduled it especially so that I would be able to do it. Yeah. And then I was sick. You know,

I knew I was sick. And so I was like, I can't cancel again because they already, yeah, no, absolutely. No, I'm just kidding. Absolutely. But, but yeah, and they did say, like I saw somebody, I saw a producer from Jeopardy at some other ABC thing. And I was like, yeah, I didn't do it much. We were going to have you. We're going to have you back. Don't worry. We'll have you back for redemption.

But honestly, I don't know how redeeming it would be because. Because you've won. No, because I'm, again, I'm, I just, I'm not as good. Oh, you don't think you. I'm not as good as it used to be. Or you ran into a buzzsaw. I did. I hit, yeah, I hit a wall of kimes.

Yeah. You didn't know I was out there in these streets playing Zoom jeopardy. I had no idea. I was like, I knew you had been, you know, an investigative journalist. Did you Google, did you Google at any of us before? Did you know Tim? Simons? He was in the game.

Yes. Oh, no, Tim, I knew. Tim, I know. He's lovely. Yeah, I know. I've known him sort of personally to like just from around. Best. In comedy act.

Yeah. And, but yeah. And you I knew is like, oh, sports personality, you know. A jock. A jock. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You got to. When you get this Jeopardy draw, I know, sorry, it's always nerve-wracking you see comedians,

because comedians tend to do the best. They do. I've done some of the, you know, celebrity jeopardy analytics and, like, you don't want to go up against comedian. Next time, request actors. Oh, I know that. I'm aware of that. Yeah, actors are, yeah, they're not bright. Not saying anything.

Generally speaking. No, no, I, well, I just, I didn't know you could request. Are you requesting? No, yeah, yeah. I wouldn't have requested you. I was intimidated. Oh, that's true. All right. Well, Mina, thank you so much for coming in.

Thanks for having me. And thank all of you for listening, and I'll be back next week with more of the three questions. The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a team Coco production. It is produced by Sean Doherty and engineered by Rich Garcia. Additional engineering support by Eduardo Perez and Joanna Samuel, executive produced by Nick Leow, Adam Sacks, and Jeff Ross. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, with assistance from Maddie Docton, research by Alyssa Graal.

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