You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast,
GAIL and Clavio joining you. It is the 16th of April Tuesday.
We are on the the short side of April now as we head into among
the busiest times on the sports calendar, NFL Draft coming up,
we got the NBA playoffs about to start, NHL playoffs about to
start, Kentucky. Derby's around the corner, any
500's around the corner, all kinds of things happening.
And we are going to chat about one of those big things with
today's guest Courtney Cronin of ESPN and an Indiana Hoosier
joining us here on the show. Not the first time that
Courtney's been on Crimson Cast, but it's been too long.
It's good to see you how you doing.
I You know what, my first, my first appearance on Crimson
Cast, now that I'm, like, racking my brain on this, was
the night that Bill Lynch was fired that Sunday night in 2010.
That's right. I remember that was my first
time I ever went on, and I don't even know where that episode is
today, if that's even if it even exists.
It was it was lost to the Egyptian hackers which which?
People. But we've told this story many
times. But for those who haven't heard
it, back in the old days when you had to run a podcast through
a WordPress account, you you had to install this like special
software that it's called Pod Press and that was how you
publish things. Unfortunately, WordPress back
then, unless you updated it every day, which if you know me,
you know I'm not hitting the update button every day, was
susceptible to security flaws. And so on two different
occasions we lost our entire library of podcasts because
these Egyptian hackers would get into your WordPress account and
they'd like throw like Egyptian flags up everywhere and it would
only like Arabic language, remember that.
So there's a few podcasts that have survived from that era and
I gotta say, both of us were not as good as we are now at being
on air. So I'm kind of glad that nobody
can go back and listen. If you really want to hear
Courtney and me, there's always there's stuff lurking on YouTube
and I won't tell you where it is, but there that stuff is out
there from a couple of years after that, so.
Yeah, that that we looked very different.
I'm I'm putting it nicely. We look very different.
I had bleached blonde hair cuz for some reason I thought that
was a good decision when I was a junior in college.
We live and we learn and I agree we have come a very long way
since then. But the roots of that in the
Egyptian hackers, God, I can remember that was I used
Sportcom, one of those fights that was affected by that.
Yeah, that was when we made the the ill-fated decision to try to
switch to Drupal as our our our programming setup or CNS setup
for a little bit. We're getting way in the
programming weeds for the folks out there, exactly what they
were tuning in for. But no, yeah, that was I used
for com, got hit by that. It was a weird time on the
Internet in a variety of ways and I'm just glad that that's
largely behind us at this point. So we're going to have Courtney
talk about her background. For those of you don't know,
Courtney, you know, went to IU, got her, got her start in sports
journalism, was at the college level at IU and has gone on to
tremendous things career wise. We're going to talk with her
about her getting started, what she's doing right now and I've
got some, I've got some questions that a couple of our
sports media alums wanted me to ask just in general.
So we'll we'll throw those in. So all that coming up in a
second. But first just a couple of quick
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I was in Vegas for a few days at the National Association of
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Probably not the video, but we'll see Anyway.
So again, crimsoncast.substack.com we'd
love to have you as part of the community.
Almost 900 people now subscribing to Crimson Cast on
sub stack which is really nice. So anyway, Courtney, let's let's
talk about you. So for those who don't know the
Courtney Cronin origin story, where are you from and what
brought you to campus in the first place?
So I'm from Glenview, IL for all of the North Shore people that
transcend down to Indiana, every year I had 26 from my high
school, Glenbrook S that went to IU.
And I always tell the story of how my mom and I were on
opposite sides of where we thought I should go to school.
So Indiana was the first college I had ever visited back in 2005.
I went during the fall time, like at some point, like in
October, you know, it's just they they set me up to fail,
more or less, because there I was never gonna like another
school. Once I went to Indiana in the
fall, my mom wanted me to go to Depaw.
My grandfather was an alumni at Depaw.
He started a scholarship foundation.
He came from nothing. It was the school holds a lot of
meaning to my family. But I had gone on a a visit at
DePaul and I knew the school was about 1200.
In terms of the overall enrollment, it just felt really
small to me. And when I knew people who had
gone to Indiana University before the sell was if you want
to do broadcast, if you want to do journalism, you don't have to
wait till your junior year like Syracuse, like Northwestern,
like Missouri, like all these other storied programs.
And at the time, what I always tell my students at Indiana
whenever I come and do a boot camp is you don't know how
spoiled you are because a none of this existed before Doctor
Clavio took over the program. And of course moving the the
journalism school and moving all of the entities involved into
the media school in 2014. And then on top of that, like
just the ability to have so many different routes to get on air
far sooner than your junior year.
But that started long, long, long time ago at Indiana, and
that's what sold me. I wanted to go, I wanted to
work. And that's all I did.
I didn't have a sorority. I didn't have many outside
activities other than student media.
That was my that's where I put all my effort into when as a
student, freshman year, all the way till the time I graduated in
May of 2012. And I loved every minute of it
there were. There were a lot of ups and
downs with it. And I look back at the work now
and I cringe because I'm like, man, the students today must
just be that much better than we were coming out.
But it's really cool for me to see how many alumni there are
from my my grade, my class, and around that time that have made
it in this industry and made Indiana into a destination
school for anyone wanting to go in any form of sports
journalism. And it's cool all these years
later that I I get giddy and goosebumps when I talk about it,
because it truly does mean that much to me.
It is why I talk. I was the reason I was in Las
Vegas at Nibi was doing a panel about engaging sports media
alumni in your program which I'm like, well gosh, I can just.
I just, I just rattle off the names and I'm like, well here's
what we do with all of them. But it is fascinating the the
the amount of talent that was there right when you were there,
right when a lot of the kind of the modern program here at IU
was getting started and it's it's names that people know.
I mean we've had, we've had, we had Trisha on last month, you
know we've had you on before. But it's also people like, I
mean Greg Murray was there when you were there, who of course
for those of you who were paying attention, he was IUS baseball
and women's basketball broadcaster for quite a while.
Scott Agnes, who's still covering things up in
Indianapolis, was there at that point.
And you know Sam Daywig who's working for Meadowlark Media And
there's like this whole list of people Cody Sherrod who's
working for the US Men's and Women's National teams And it's
just it's wild to me that all of those people were there at the
exact same time. I look back on it and it's you
know we have great clusters of students now and we've had great
clusters of alumni before but for that many people without
really a program that specifically was like devoted to
that that's really special. And and I I've always considered
myself lucky that I was there when all of you folks were there
because it was it was a two way St.
I mean, I needed people that would be willing to work on this
stuff. And you, you all did an amazing
job. That was a really unique time.
Without outside of outside of you there was no other like
faculty guidance. We technically at IUSTV had some
sort of faculty advisor. I couldn't tell you who that
person was. I really have no clue.
I know that we got something within the funding that they had
worked out where we got $0.25 for every student who enrolled
and at that time the enrollment was like 40 grand.
So that was our budget, but that group that you speak of when and
you can add in a couple other names, Logan Robertson, Tony
Adrania, Lucas, Lucas Mayer, AJ Shu.
I'm not sure this is the problem with naming.
Names. I know.
I always leave people. Out and I'm like, I'm sorry,
well, yeah. So no, but like I, I say all
that to say, like that was my, that was my little network and
we all had to stay close in order to make what we wanted out
of the program because if we didn't do it, nobody would.
And that's like I see what it is now in seeing that there's
IUSTV, there's the Hoosier network, there's all of these
things that didn't exist or they existed in a different fashion.
But like the expansion of it to where there's multiple competing
networks just on the broadcast side that that's that's what we
wanted from this program. We wanted to have options
outside of just like one thing. And that's what I think so many
of us did well. And you know, Trisha and I go
back to our sophomore year when we first met Cody and I the same
what thing. And some of my, like closest
friends in this industry are people that I met early on in my
days at Indiana, like trying to do this for real when we were,
you know, kind of all starting out, everybody going to the call
out for IUSTV and it's, it's wild.
However many years ago that was. I'm not counting or anything,
but let's go back and look at that and say, wow, we we really
made something out of nothing. And to see how far like the
program has come is such a reflection on the amount of
effort that people put in to make it as good as it is now,
Yeah. It's well it's gratifying
because so many of you are out doing like covering things and
are becoming or are already household names in terms of
where where people are going to get their information and and
news on things and you know, but it doesn't happen overnight and
it's not just the college experience it's it's the route
that you take after you get out of college and you had a really
interesting one. I mean IIA lot of times I'll
talk with like high school seniors and and they'll you know
like who do you want to be. And they, you know, they always
rattle off kind of the same types of names.
And it's always for me like, well, let's talk about what a
similar person, like what somebody in our program has has
done to try to get to that point and how it's not really a
straight line. And your whole trajectory was
really fascinating in that you didn't start out in a journalism
role per SE. So like talk a little bit about
like like just kind of peg off like where you went and what you
were doing. Sure.
So my first, like coming out of college, and I call it it was in
post grad internship, but we were there every single day.
It was a job. My first job was at the NCAA in
a post grad capacity and I got to back up to March of 2012
because up until that point, second semester, senior year, I
came back to school and I was full steam ahead.
I'm going to get a job in local TV.
I'm going to go about this however I have to.
I'll print off 1,000,000 copies of my resume, package it
together with a literal DVD. Remember going to Mr. Copy and
packaging these things? Spending tons of money that I,
you know, probably not. I probably These things probably
didn't even make it to the desk of the people that I was sending
it to. I don't even know where the hell
these things are. I think of the number of CDR's I
burned and mail. I'm just like I just.
I just. I funded some middle manager at
UPS in the. Retirement claim with the amount
of reels I was sending out and I heard nothing from anybody.
Like I had interned at Fox 59 in Indianapolis and Jeremiah
Johnson, who's now he's now with the Pacers, he's been there I
think, over a decade. Remember there was an opening
probably like January or February, so I wasn't ready for
it yet. But there was an opening in 2012
for a weekend sports anchor in Fort Wayne.
And I remember it might have been the station he came from
and he wrote me this like the just the most gracious letter of
recommendation. And I was like, this is awesome.
Like I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I will at least hear something.
Never heard a word from the people that I sent that thing
off to her. If it even got to the desk of
whoever hiring manager, news director, whatever.
And so that kind of became my song and dance for a couple of
months. And my friend Casey Richards at
the time was a year older than me.
He's a product of IU of Indiana University, but he was in, he
was in sport communication through Hyper.
I know you had a bunch of classes where he was in your
classes and he. But he we became very close
friends. It's funny, I'm going to a Cubs
game with him. My brother and Cody share it on
Sunday. It's just like all these years
later, just like how close our little group still is.
But Casey was at the NCAA in working in digital
communications in an internship capacity.
I had heard about the internship through him, and as I'm applying
for all these TV jobs and not hearing anything, I'm like,
well, I better have a safety net.
So I applied for the NCAA job and I ended up getting it.
It was in digital communications, which again,
it's kind of like Journalism Adjacent.
And I figured, I'll take this, I'll take this opportunity, I'll
move to Indianapolis. Cool city.
I've always wanted to live there anyways and and we'll see where
it goes. And it was the best decision I
could have made because it taught me a side of what I ended
up doing for my first legitimate journalism job that I wouldn't
have had had I not taken that post grad internship experience
which was the video production element.
So I was in Indy for 10 months and it was a wild time in
college athletics. Like if you think the nil era is
like the Wild West in 2000, like everything post 2021 it is.
But let's go back to 2012, when they were talking about putting
the death penalty on Penn State for the Jerry Sandusky awful
scandal that have surrounded that program and the stuff that
was happening with Nevin Shapiro down at Miami.
It was a weird time, a very weird time to be there, And it
was cool for me to get to see the underbelly of college
athletics and how it was handled from the national office and
really how it was not handled. But no, I, like, I very much
appreciated my time at the NCAA 'cause it set me up for my
opportunity to get into journalism by picking up all my
stuff and moving down to Jackson, Ms. to work at the
State Paper of record, which was the Clarion Ledger.
And they hired me to build their sports video platform, which I
had done all the on camera stuff I had shot, all my stuff I had
edited when I was in college. But I really didn't know about
how to structure all of that into more or less a library and
a network. And how do you make these things
look good? How do you make, you know, what
are the XS and OS of audio, of lighting, of the production
element that I just wasn't sure of, 'cause I wasn't doing any of
that. It wasn't required of me to do
that in college. So I got to learn that at the
NCAA and then took those skills with me to my first job.
And from there it was like it was a blank slate, a completely,
you know, nothing. This position did not exist
before I got down there. So I had a chance at a very
young age to build something and be proud of it at like 22 years
old. And everyone asked me like, oh,
so you're you're a writer. Because you know the my, my main
job, which I know we'll get into, my main job at ESPN dot,
at ESPN and for ESPN.com, is covering the Chicago Bears.
That's multifaceted. But writing is a huge part of
that. I didn't have writing skills
coming out of college. I learned that when I was at the
Clarion Ledger, when I was a, quote UN quote, professional
journalist at like 20-3 At this time when I had kind of
transitioned roles into more of a writing role when I was
covering preps and recruiting. But that's always like I always
tell students, you better leave Indiana having taken a couple
writing classes through the media school.
Otherwise I'll be very upset. And it's it's important to keep
in mind, like the whole idea of converged media training didn't
exist yet in in 2011, 2012. I mean it.
It was. And this was when I went to
school. I've talked about this like I
got a little writing experience. I worked at the IDs for a couple
of semesters, but you know, I was studying to be a
broadcaster. And back then, like, that was a
legitimate, like that was a fork in the road.
You went One Direction or another.
It's why, like, when ESPN started putting print reporters
on television, it was a big deal, 'cause it's like, well,
wait, these people aren't supposed to be there and the
broadcasters aren't supposed to be writing.
And so the idea that they would all do the same thing, it's just
we're so used to it now, but it really didn't exist that much 15
years ago. No it didn't.
And watching how all of the different schools that are
within the journalism realm, whether it was in telecom,
whether it was in print journalism, whether it was in
hyper with sport communication, watching them all converge under
one roof, that's we we were just late on that.
So we had to kind of figure it out on our own.
And fortunately for me, I was able to figure that out as a
young journalist in the field, where I had gotten myself in
with my video skills and my broadcast skills and the ability
to do something that nobody else at that paper had had the
capability of doing. And then when I was around all
these writers and, you know, I'm, I'm tagging along to all
these different, you know, these football games, these, you know,
recruiting. Recruiting like the signings and
announcing, you know, guys announcing where they're going,
College football games, college baseball.
That was actually a huge part of what I did initially when
Mississippi State went out to the College World Series, we
were churning out like 40 videos from like short, you know, short
interview videos all the way out to like full on features within
a three-week stretch. Like I was like, all right,
well, I'm pretty good at this. I enjoy doing it.
How about I learn the other side?
How about I learn how to write? And so I was fortunate enough to
do that. I was there for three years, so
May of 2013 till right after signing day 2016.
And at this time I was very much in a predominant writing role.
I was the high school sports and recruiting editor.
I managed my own section for the newspaper, which had a newspaper
of that size, which still was. We had 500,000 people in the
entire Jackson metro area. I was still like the only full
time high school writer and writing and producing my section
and like working with my insane network of freelancers, which,
you know, you got to learn how to be able to manage people from
a young age. And that gave me that skill.
So I went out to California. It's a long story of how I got
out there, but like they, the San Jose Mercury News hired me
to do what I had initially done for the Clarion Ledger when I
first got there, which was to build their sports video
platform. They weren't a Gannett paper the
way that the Clarion Ledger was. Gannett really went all in on
video about 2015 on, but they they had the same priorities.
But it was doing it in a market that was number six in the
country and pro sports versus the colleges and high schools
where I had unlimited access, more or less, to covering the
Warriors, covering the Raiders, the 49ers, Major League Baseball
and just being in a completely different realm that I wasn't
used to. So my first year out there was
probably the hardest year I've had in my career.
The transition from a personal and professional standpoint,
living in a place that was 4 hours away from home covering
pro sports. My first crack at covering the
NBA when the team is in the middle of a championship run for
multiple years of me being. Kevin Durant had just arrived at
that point, right? He he got there the year.
So, like I got there in the midst of 73 and 9:00 so that
season that they finished that regular season in 2016.
Longest stretch of the playoffs from Houston in the first round
to Portland to who do they play in the Western to Oklahoma City.
Got it like you know more about Oklahoma City for my one stretch
of like, which felt like four months out there.
But we were there like a week and 1/2 to the Western
Conference finals, 'cause it went seven and then to to
Cleveland, which was when they built a the, the joke about, you
know, don't know, 3-1 lead is safe because of the Warriors
that year, they built A31 lead, they ended up losing it, the
Cavs came back, they won in seven and then the following
year or a month later, not even was when Kevin Durant joined in
free agency. So I had a chance to cover some
really cool things, which it's always wild when I'm on radio
and people will bring up the Warrior stuff 'cause I have to
like really go far back. I'm like, God, I did that like
that was a really long time ago, 20/16/17 'cause I was only out
in the Bay Area for 17 months before I was going to go with
several of my colleagues from the Mercury News to the
Athletic. I was we saw kind of the writing
on the wall with the structure of the newspaper and the
ownership of there was, AI believe, a hedge fund that owned
a bunch of these papers. That that always works out well
anytime there's any hedge fund and media are.
Put together just a. Tremendous comment.
Yeah, they're they're really well run entities and they care
about the people. But we saw the writing on the
wall, and we were all going to the athletic.
And literally, as I'm finishing up a shoot, I had my contract
signed. I paid a lawyer to look over it,
and I was in Sunnyvale, CA, working on a video shoot for
about Prague Merity, who is the #2 in the front office?
He's the cap guy for the San Francisco 49ers.
Long story. His family owned a pizza place
and I tragically and ironically, he lost his sister to an eating
disorder. So it was kind of this dichotomy
of a place that, you know, had so many happy times for him and
his family growing up, but then losing a sister to something
that effectively they were doing every day, which was selling
food, selling pizza, selling you know, food to people.
So it was a really like heavy shoot.
And I remember like putting a light away, like waiting for it
to kind of cool down and closing the folds.
I looked out at my phone. I saw, I had an e-mail and this
was like on the heels of training camp starting that
year. I it was an e-mail from my
former deputy editor at ESPN who said don't know what you're
doing right now, no camps right around the corner.
But we have an opening for a Minnesota Vikings reporter.
Would love for you to come out and at least like talk about it.
So whirlwind week. I get hired at ESPN on my 27th
birthday, which was really cool. It's like wake up in the morning
after flying back from the car wash out there, which is what
that's called, which is it truly is like you just go through
bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. All these people, you you
consume a lot of information. They consume a lot of you.
And I woke up to a call that I was hired and I'm like, oh, my
God, the training camp's like just starting.
And by the time I get there, it's gonna be the season.
And it was, And it was one of those moments that you just
can't say no to when an opportunity like that came
around. So I was in Minnesota for five
years, started out like very truly and heavily at a different
era than what we're doing, than what we have right now.
Like there were so many more sports centers during the day.
The our capabilitiesfor.com. We are writing so much more and
I feel like the quality now is up because we've paired a lot of
those things down. But I was on like the season
that I got there, the Vikings went to the NFC Championship
kind of miraculously, for lack of a better term, not to play on
the Minneapolis miracle. But you know, second I get
there, I didn't have true professional on air live TV
experience because the stuff I was doing in Mississippi was all
live to tape for the most part. We had a couple live streams
here and there, but I got to learn how to do that on the fly,
too, and it was awesome. And I spent five seasons doing
that before moving to Chicago. In March of 2022, my colleague
Jeff Dickerson, who was a mentor of mine, passed away from cancer
and they asked me to move down here, which is home, of course.
So kind of coming full circle with everything.
And it's been the best decision I I've ever made from a
professional and a personal standpoint.
And the opportunities I've had since I've been here, like my
job title on if you go on LinkedIn, if you go on anything,
it'll say like Chicago Bears reporter for ESPN.
But that's only a fraction of what I do.
I host, I have a show, my own show on Sunday morning on ESPN
Radio. I am constantly filling in on
other shows on ESPN Radio nationally.
I have a presence here locally on ESPN 1000 Around the Horn,
which has been on the network now for 22 years.
It's a huge part of my week every week.
I've been doing it since I got back.
I'm on twice a week and it's been really neat to get to do a
lot of different things and get to, you know, flex muscles that
aren't just my NFL world. Even though right now it's April
16th, I'm up to here in NFL Draft coverage right now and
Caleb Williams and everything that is about to impact the
Bears as early as next Thursday. And they just announced that
you're going to be part of the the wrap around coverage for the
NFL draft. So when you when that sort of
thing gets announced, obviously you know it's happening ahead of
time, but like what? What is expected of you for the
NFL Draft? Like what?
What are they? What are they saying?
Courtney, we have to have you doing XY and Z during this
coverage. So I actually was talking with
my producer about this today. Like we, you know it's it's an
all hands on deck sort of effort and there's five of us I want to
say that are at teams Like the common thread here is teams are
choosing quarterbacks and teams that have you know multiple
draft picks like the Vikings, like the Chicago Bears who are
drafting at 1:00 and 9:00. So a lot of it is strategizing.
How do we get on TV? What are going?
Because there's going to be a lot of a lot of content in the
Sports Center shows have to figure out what are the biggest
storylines, of course, with Caleb Williams coming to the
Bears more than likely, unless like barring something insane
in. This top ten video we're going
to. Happen, but you never know.
It's really like it's gonna be very heavy about the quarterback
next week. So my producer Melinda Adams and
I were having a talk today, just trying to figure out, all right,
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, next week, Wednesday's or
Tuesday's the pre draft press conference where we'll talk to
Ryan Pouls, the general manager. So it's gathering information
from that. Wednesday, it's gonna be from
like 12 to six, more or less, just like whatever Sports Center
or NFL live shows want you like you'll do a hit from there.
It'll the storylines will probably change.
You're gonna wanna alter everything, like from show to
show. So it's not the same
information, just at a different time.
And then Thursday's the draft, and you know, that's gonna be a
busy day, 'cause we go from, I think, 11:00 AM all the way
through the evening. And I typically don't leave
there on night one until midnight and you're back at it
the next day when they bring in not one but two first round
draft picks. And it's gonna be a really
exciting time. And it's a it's my first year
getting to do the draft coverage for TV in addition to all of the
draft coverage I'll be providing over at ESPN.com.
And that's a really cool opportunity that I'm very
excited about because typically they send out national reporters
who don't have like a who are not team specific, but clearly I
did something right to where they're like you can just handle
the Bears. But it's I mean, it's been a
it's been a crazy offseason, but a very rewarding and good for
business offseason for me. Just given how in the news my
team has been and and how eager this fan base is and like the
people who are consuming the Bears are to see, can this team
get it right with the quarterback for once?
So this is, we have a lot of Bears fans and Chicago area
natives in the podcast audience. And you know this is an
interesting role for you to be in because you know you you have
to be a journalist your your objective in the way you cover
the team. But there's also, it feels like
from an outsider's perspective, a requirement, you have to not
just understand the team inside and out from a credibility
perspective, but you have to understand the culture of
Chicago sports and Bears fans in particular.
Yeah, which obviously you you've grown up with and in and around.
So like, how do you, how do you put that into practice?
Is it something that you're doing consciously, or do you not
even have to think about it, given that you are so kind of
familiar and ingrained in that culture to begin with?
Being from here, 'cause you know, I've been here two years
and I feel like I've gained a lot of traction here in two
years. Not just because of the work
that you put in. Not just because of, you know,
the stories you break. All of those things are super
important, and the quality of your work, first and foremost,
stands for itself. But I'm from here.
I know what this is like, 'cause I grew up in it.
And a prime example of that is, well, people always ask me,
like, oh you, this is so cool. You must have, you know how cool
it is to cover the hometown team and a team you were a fan of.
And I will tell them honestly, my first Bears game that I ever
went to as a quote UN quote fan spectator was the NFC
Championship in 2010 when it was an interdivision.
It was Packers. Bears as the Jay Cutler got hurt
in that game and they lost. It was a chance for them to go
back to the Super Bowl and they lost and the Packers ended up
winning the Super Bowl that year.
We didn't go to games as when I was a kid because they were not
a great team. They had won the Super Bowl 5
years before I was born. And if you just take a look at
the names of the quarterback position from like Jim McMahon
onwards, like Cade McMahon was the quarterback that I grew up
with. As somebody who was a conscious
like sponge of of, you know, just taking in sports at that
time figuring out what do I like?
Do I had the Bulls, do I like the the Bears?
Do I like the Cubs? Like, you know, bulls at my like
when I was starting to really, like come into being a sports
fan, Bulls weren't very good anymore.
Like I you know, the Jordan years were when.
The Tim Floyd era, right? Yeah, like the Jalen Rose era of
the Bulls. Cool.
Like, that's not, you know, there wasn't much to get behind
like the Cubs, obviously. Like, we're my team because I
remember 98 really well, like in the home run race that year and
everything else. But like the Bears were just not
a good football team. So my parents were like, we're a
college football family, we'll go to Northwestern games.
Not that that was much better, but like, they were familial
ties there and I just kind of tagged along.
But I I can use that experience of knowing, Oh yeah, like this
is how, how tough it was for Bears fans.
Even though I wasn't a Bears fan because I wasn't really allowed
to. Because like, my parents, like,
we're not paying for tickets to go watch this product.
And I can understand the ones now who are so, so, like,
worried, excited and worried. There's like, this anxiety
about, OK, finally everything's falling into place.
I hope they get it right and you can understand where they're
coming from, because there have been years before where it
looked like it was going in the right direction.
But there was something missing. Like in 2018, for example, the
year that they had this otherworldly defense that was in
a way spoiled by the quarterback play and obviously spoiled by a
double doink. But like it was, there was
always something holding this team back.
Now you can see all the pieces are in place from a trade of the
number one pick last year to then get the number one pick
this year, which was a lot of luck involved in making that
happen. But some strategic play by the
team to find Carolina as a trade partner.
And then on top of that you've got a team that went on an
upward trajectory at the end of last season after a really bad
start. You've got a visionary and Kevin
Warren who sees a big picture here for what this team can be,
and moving the team out of Soldier Field, but not that far
away from it and trying to build a stadium in the city.
There's a lot of momentum around this team and it's an exciting
time to cover not only the Bears, but I thought about this
last night. Like Caleb Williams is gonna
hear his name called to Chicago next Thursday.
Connor Bedard's gonna win Rookie of the year in the NHL, Just got
here in May of last year. Angel Reese and Camila Cardozo
are gonna come take the sky back to where they were for their
coach, quit and decided to be a bench coach in in Toronto for
the Raptors with a better job than have being the GM and the
head coach of the Sky. And after winning a championship
and how far that team has fallen, Like it's a really cool
time to be in the Chicago sports media landscape because of this
youth movement that is on the cusp of doing some really cool
things. Which that's something too.
Like, I can't remember a time growing up where I had that as a
sports fan, as somebody who wasn't covering teams but was
more consuming them and being able to put all those pieces
together, I think and like being able to kind of have the
institutional knowledge of this city really helps versus when I
went into Minnesota, I didn't know anything about the Vikings.
I mean, I grew up in the NFC North, but I had to learn.
I still have my books right over there.
I bought like 10 books from that time.
I got the job from at ESPN to time.
I moved out of Oakland like I was like, all right, Brandt
Arkington, let's go, let's learn.
Let's learn about this four Super Bowls A-Team went to and
you know, lost all of them. Like, you know, it's it's it's
much different when you grew up in it, even if you were just
kind of like through osmosis learning about a team that now I
know very well. I think it's easy to
underestimate how much knowledge you have to have not using most
of it, but never knowing when you're going to need to use the
the knowledge that you've got and especially with as much
content as you do. I mean because it's not just the
television hits, it's not just the stuff that you're writing
for the web, those the radio, sports, talk radio in big
markets. And really I think it's just New
York and Chicago. I I think LA is a different
animal largely, but New York and Chicago that is a savage
environment to have to operate in on a day by day basis.
So you know, to to be able to not just have the knowledge and
selectively utilize it and put it out there, but also to
understand how to deliver things.
I mean, we've seen people in the Chicago radio market not fare
particularly well because they are kind of sussed out as as
either not knowing what they're talking about or coming at
things from an angle that doesn't actually make a lot of
sense. And that's it's interesting when
someone does get it like you, you're going to have an
audience. It's like, OK, we want to listen
to this person over that person, but that's a hard thing to to
get your head wrapped around and like how to do that on a day by
day basis. It is.
And you're right about Chicago and New York being and I'd I'd
throw Philly in there. Maybe.
Maybe Boston as well, but yeah. Boston Yeah.
Like, I mean, there's really a four that are like true savagery
style within like the way that content is delivered and the way
that content is consumed and the callers make everything.
Like, I know we've moved into a completely different era of
audio where it's not just sports talk radio and where podcasts
rule. A lot of people's like, look at
us right now. Like, this is content that
people choose to like versus when you get in the car and you
turn on the radio, like you're at the beck and call of what's
on right now. Whereas in the podcast world,
which has changed the way that we consume audio things on an
audio platform in Chicago, still radio is king here.
I mean between our myself at at at ESPN 1000, which I do a ton
of stuff with them. I'm on the Chicago Bears podcast
twice a week. I have multiple hits throughout
the week, whether it's on Cap and J.
Hood, Carmen and Yurko, Waddle and Sylvia.
I'm actually filling in for a cap on Friday.
So it's me and and Jonathan Hood, which is one of my
favorite stories that like I grew up listening to him when he
was doing overnights on the score, my brother and I would be
like a white. Our Cubs game gets over and we'd
listen to hoodie for like hours and hours, like in the
summertime with like the literally the old boom box that
was in my room. And it's neat now that I get to
like be in the, you know, in the in the copilot seat with him
getting to do shows. I just, I adore him and I adore
everybody that works there because the style like to to
make it in this market. You better have your chops.
Like, you better have opinions, you better have facts to back up
your opinions and you and you have to be bold about it.
Like you don't have to be obnoxious about it.
Like some markets I think just like are trying to sell you
something based on how loud they can be.
Certain hosts but I really enjoy getting to find my voice on
local radio here because people listen and people make that a
big part of their day in in choosing that over other mediums
of where they're going to consume their bears.
News 'cause there's a ton of Bears podcasts out there,
there's obviously multiple radio stations in the city.
People talk about this team right now all the time, whether
it's on TV, whether it's in radio, podcasts, you know, on
social media, like anywhere, print, whatever it is.
But the following that I kind of inherited just being part of the
ESPN 1000 brand and the platform has given me a chance to really
flex my radio muscle, 'cause there's a big difference, as you
know, between doing national radio, which is what I do for
ESPNESPN Radio and then ESPN 1000 being a hyperlocal, but
like hyperlocal in the national scope, whereas this is.
The conversation on the Bears starts here and goes nationally,
and it's neat to kind of teeter the line of what topics matter
to what what audiences 'cause it changes.
Yeah, around the horn. I know a lot of people are
interested in this. This is a show that my
generation, you know, started watching right when we were
coming out of college. Your generation grew up
watching. It's it's still relevant,
obviously, you know, so how does that work on a week by week
basis? You're on twice a week, you've
kind of slid right in and you're just a regular on it now, you
know. So what's the experience like
being on Around the Horn and and working with the different
people and working with Tony Rialli?
It is been the greatest honor, like I've had as a professional,
getting to be part of that show. Just how well oiled a machine it
is for that happy hour time slot which is you know 5 to 5:30 is
around the horn and then 5:30 to 6:00 going into Sports Center is
PTI. That same time slot has been in
existence since 2000 and one 2002 with with around the horn
coming in in O2. That doesn't happen.
If it's not a good product, if it's not a sustainable product,
if it's not a product that can evolve with time and seeing how
it's evolved, is is been something I've been really proud
to be a part of. Because like when they gave me
the call to like, ask if I'd be interested in coming on as a
panelist, like I didn't know it was gonna become a regular
thing. And I I had obviously hoped it
would. But it's a really unique
opportunity for me to get to tap into so many different topics in
so many different sports and have opinions about things that
I don't get to write about every single day, where, yes, my main
focus every single day, it's going to be the Chicago Bears.
But I was on yesterday and we opened up talking about the
Masters and Scotty Scheffler and the dominance that we've seen
from him and Tiger Woods. Like, you know, do we need to
adjust our expectations? Do we even like watching him
play anymore when he's clearly struggling out there, even
though he made 24 straight cuts? Like when he's clearly
struggling on Saturday and then finishes with his worst score
ever? Is that something we're still
buying into? And then it was the game that
was on tonight, Nuggets. And excuse me, Lakers and
Pelicans. Like should the Lakers
strategically try to not be playing the Nuggets in the first
round? And then we went on to talk
about the Mark Popire, Kentucky and the Eastern Conference and
how that's shaking out it with the play in tournament coming
up. Like all of these things have
nothing to do with my day-to-day, but it allows me
like on radio, which radio is what really gave me my start.
And being a proficient panelist on Around the Horn, you got to
know a little bit about everything.
And you don't have to be the end all, be all expert on any
specific topic necessarily. But I've got to watch the games,
I've got to have a passion for it.
I've got to be able to sell what I think about something so
people either hate it or they love it or somewhat how they
fall somewhere they fall in between, which typically in this
society doesn't happen. There's usually like A1 or the
other black or white, but it's it's a lengthy process, but it's
a very rewarding process because of how I feel after I get off
every show where there's, you know, like six or seven
different things I got to hit on that I wouldn't be able to if I
wasn't on Around the Horn. This reminds me of conversations
we would have when you were in college though, where it would
be like 7 or 8 different topics that were only moderately
related to or sometimes not related at all other than being
sports. But I think you know, you have
to some to some degree be able to start from that basis.
Like, if you're already thinking about those things, and if you
grow up consuming media in sports and you're really
interested in all of the sports, I don't think it's hard for
people to realize, like, how unusual that tends to be.
Like normally people drill down on the things that they're
specifically interested in, as opposed to having opinions on
all of it. No.
And I when we were talking earlier about podcast, like why
do people go to the podcast route now?
Because they want to hear specialized content that is
specific to what they want to consume.
Same thing with sports. Like I grew up in an era where,
you know, in a market like this too, I think I was very blessed
to be able to have a place that had four major sports with with
five teams, White Sox, Cubs, Bulls, Blackhawks and Bears.
Like I didn't just, you know, I I don't, I don't know if it
would have been the same had I grown up in a place like
Bloomington and just had college basketball or I mean I think
about more relevant example of it now is watching that crowd,
that BBN crowd for Mark Pope's press conference, if you wanna
call it that. That's all.
They have. I was going.
It's either a coronation or it's some kind of religious ceremony.
But yes, go on. Yes.
But like, you know what I mean? Like that's I don't know if I
would have been as worldly in my sports ability to consume had I
not grown up in a place like this.
I don't know if I would have had the wherewithal to know to look
outside of what was right in front of me.
I just had a lot of options when I was here, from like college
sports all the way to the pro sports, and obviously it's a pro
sports market. But it's been, it's been really
unique for me getting to go to different places like in
Jackson, Ms. High school sports are king.
SEC football and SEC baseball are obviously a big deal, but
that was something I didn't grow up with.
I didn't understand the importance of high school sports
until I got down there. But I also think that like the
reason I can be proficient on a thing like on a platform, like
around the horns, because I've covered a lot of different
things throughout my career I didn't just specialize in.
I mean obviously now my world, my day-to-day is so heavily
rooted in football, in the NFL. But I covered college sports
when I was in college and I went to a place like another thing
about Indiana, like I got to cover like real college sports.
Not no disrespect to anything like AD 3 school or D2 or NAI
whatever. Like I covered a team that
people talked about through through a really tenuous rebuild
and I covered you know going down to Mississippi.
I covered two SEC schools. Might not have been that the
that the premium SEC schools even though they both were like
one and three for a stretch in 2014.
But you know, I covered programs that people cared about and then
obviously going out to the West Coast, everybody cared about the
Warriors for that stretch and and obviously still do.
And it's neat to get to say that I covered a lot of different
things. And even with baseball, like I
covered the, you know, the year the Giants were in last in the
NLDS before the recent stretch, like I got a chance to cover
that. And that was it's a way that
like, makes you, I think, a more well-rounded for obvious
reasons, 'cause you're doing so much like a more well-rounded
sportscaster and ability to tell stories, even if it might not be
your, you know, premier sport that you're like most, that you
know the most about. Yeah, it's, it's interesting on
a number of levels because really it does come down to
you're going to go through a natural expansion after a while
of what you're focusing on and what your interest levels are.
And and I mean, I'll say as someone who grew up not in
Bloomington but like a Bloomington equivalent I grew up
in, in West Lafayette of all places.
I think the people that are really interested in sports, you
start to branch out relatively early.
And even if you don't necessarily have a local rooting
interest, you'll often times there'll be something about the
sport that's compelling. I was, I was trying to explain
my NFL fan and it's like I was a Broncos fan for about the 1st 15
years that I consciously watched the NFLI also rooted for the
Colts but the Colts were the games were always blacked out
because they they moved to Indy in 84 and really weren't a team
that people paid attention to until the mid 90s.
So but the Broncos had John Elway and they were always on in
the 4:00 hour. And it's like, you know, that I
was I I found that team compelling in a number of ways.
And then that opens up everything else.
And it's in, you know, sports media coverage is fascinating
because when you're reporting on teams or when you're
commentating or when you're, you know, you're on a show like
Around the Horn, you know, it's easy I think for people to
assume that you're either talking down to them or you
don't know what you're talking about.
When in reality it's like, no, I've just, I've learned so much
of these things that it's like, how do I take that knowledge and
apply it in a way that that sounds relevant, like the fact
that national commentators are able to talk relevantly about
sports all across the country. I've always found like a really
unique talent that's hard to do and there's not a whole lot of
places where you can where you have to do it that way.
Otherwise, like a a Miami Dolphins fan, if you if you
don't see really understand the roster of what's going on with
them, you're going to come across very quickly as someone
who does not know what they're talking about.
And there and it's not to say like, you know, there's a lot of
prep work that goes into that. You know the trying to think
like what's a good example of this.
Like hockey is not something that and the Blackhawks are in
this rebuild period right now. So like my fandom of trying to
latch onto I I said this when I came back I was like you know
what I'm back in my hometown like market.
I'm gonna find a team to be a fan of.
And like you know goals are goals are not even trying.
Like, they're, you know, they're the ninth seed.
And I get it. Like, they're gonna be out
tomorrow anyways when they lose in the playing tournament or if
they win a game, then they're going to, you're gonna get
probably get swept in the first round.
Like, that's cool. But like, I didn't have that,
the Blackhawks, kind of like what you were saying with the
Colts. They were blacked out for most
of my childhood because that was just the way that they did
things here as an old way of thinking.
But I didn't really become a Blackhawks fan until after
college and when I was in college, when they won the first
Cup in 2010. But like, now it's like, all
right, team's rebuilding. So what am I gonna latch on to?
What am I going to expand my bandwidth to like be a fan of?
And I and I and I still kind of not hesitant, but I'm still kind
of in that spot where it's like, all right, I'm not really sure
if I'm like a true fan of any certain team.
I mean, like, I love going to Cubs games.
The team's really good, you know, it's gonna be really good
this year. But that allows me then to tap
in like I can parachute in and watch 76ers heat and have a
vested interest in what the outcome's going to be.
Because I know the storylines, 'cause I have it.
I've invested myself in learning the storylines.
And you know when you can, when like as a national voice or
somebody who's like tasked with talking about national topics,
like you have to have that, you have to have the ability to
stretch and it's not something that comes overnight.
And even even sometimes now and around the horn, there'll be
like a topic like on on something that I'm trying to
think, what's a good example of this?
It's something I may not be like all that all that up to speed
on, but you have to, you have to get yourself up to speed out.
Like tennis. Yeah, I mean, tennis is a good
example because, you know, pretty soon we're gonna be
coming up on. Sorry, sorry.
Jeremy Gray, apologies, but yes. But I mean, like, you know, I
like, will I watch what happens at Roland Garros absolutely.
Every year? I do.
And you know, it's really, last year was awesome when Wimbledon
was going on when we were out in New York, 'cause I was doing
first take and get up and we watch the I'll never forget like
watching the Sunday 5 hour match between Carlos Alvarez and and
and Novak Djokovic and watching how that ended.
But like, am I watching every single tennis match like the
Miami Open and everything else leading into that?
No, I'm not. But when when the time comes to
be able to talk about the big events, you gotta have a
knowledge base to go off of. And that's just how I consume
things every single day. Little bit by little, bit by
little bit. And then you'd be surprised.
I mean there's a lot of things floating up in here that I don't
know where it gets stored. But when you have this recall,
like pulling out this random ass fact from like, you know, like I
just gave you like, you know, I could tell you exactly where we
were in the Financial district the day we watched Carlos
Alvarez fall to the ground. And you know just what a cool
match that was like beating, you know, beating the goat, by many
people's estimation in in Novak Djokovic.
And then, you know, I can't remember what I ate for dinner.
Right. I know it's.
I have. I have the same affliction.
I wish mine was just limited to sports but it it it extends into
every area. Well, let's let's let's
transition a little bit here. We had some questions that
people had had set in. So Jay asks what is this
insanity about JJ McCarthy being a top six or so pick?
I. Mean.
There's a lot of smoke around it right now, but I get it from the
sense of, you know, scouts are very conflicted on him, at least
people that I've talked with. And I think that's kind of been
the common theme about if he was, if he was this, if he was
worth this high of a draft pick, how come we didn't see him throw
more in college? How come we didn't see more of
the offense built around him? And there's a multiple number of
reasons for that happening. But I I I've heard he can go as
high as two. He can fall as as low as 12.
And when you have a gap like that, it's kind of like just be
careful if you're if you're one of these people who wants to bet
on where guys are going when the discrepancy is that large.
And we heard Washington had him, Jaden Daniels and Drake May in
the building this week. He went out to the Patriots
recently. Like, I don't.
I'm always skeptical when I see quarterbacks in the order going
1234, which would mean that the Cardinals trade out of four and
somebody like Minnesota maybe comes up and gets JJ McCarthy.
Last year we heard it was the order was gonna be 1234.
Very rarely does the order pan out the way that we see it.
And I think the wild card in all of this is gonna be what the
Patriots do at three. Do they trade out of that pick?
Do they take a receiver there and just roll with Jacoby
Brissette and think that, you know, they can get more of it?
And maybe even trading out of that pick, getting more draft
capital to use later? Could they get a quarterback
later? Like, whatever?
The draft order is never usually what we expect it to be, which
is what makes this thing even more wild with JJ McCarthy being
considered by some, at least in the conversation right now.
Is the #2 quarterback taken? The quarterback stuff is always
so fascinating because it's the the draft is so divorced in
order from the reality, you know the the number, the number of
times the Patrick Mahomes like pick number gets brought up in
relation to like Mitch Trubisky for instance.
And and there's so many instances of that.
It's such a crapshoot. OK.
We had, we had a couple of other questions here.
This was mostly from our our IU Media Group, Matt.
Matt asked if you liked the Bear.
Not not the team, but the TV series, if you had a chance to
watch that yet. So in August of 2022, I started
it, but I fell asleep on the couch, right?
Behind. The first episode, there's a lot
going on. There's like a lot of ASMR, a
lot of like noise and like chopping of things.
But I do live right near Mr. Beef.
Like that is a fun fact about me.
That's over at the corner of Huron, more or less and Orleans,
and I'm not far from there. So I pass it literally every
single day. And they were filming in my
neighborhood. I don't know what is it?
Season three. I guess they were filming
recently. So I don't know if I'd be like,
if if you'll see me in the background with some shot
driving down the street, but I will give it another go, 'cause
I've heard really good things about it.
It was just in the middle of training camp two years ago that
I started it and just knocked out in the middle of the second
episode. And I by the time I woke up like
two or three episodes of play, I was like, God, I I can't deal
with this. And then I then I have it turned
it back on. It's hard for me to to sink my
teeth into any TV series at this point.
Because I struggle with it. It's just a it's a time suck.
And and this actually brings up another question that was
brought up which is a similar question to to one that that our
friend answered when she was on the show.
But like, what kind of work life ballots are you able to
establish given the amount of things that you do and the
number of places that you're expected to be in, the amount of
time that those things take to do?
It's something that I struggle with.
And I mean, Trisha did her podcast from the kitchen, so I
did mine from the kitchen to, you know, in solid area.
Sorry, I have like awful lighting in here.
But it's one of many things that Trish and I work, life balance
and the imbalance. One of the many things that she
and I have in common. And it's like you go through
different seasons during the year where the work is at its
heaviest and when you're able to push back a little bit.
And right now I'm kind of, I got my calendar right here and I
have been like this my my April right now, which is kind of just
like a chicken scratch everywhere.
But I've been having the panic attack moments when I'm like, Oh
my God, training camp starts in July 20th.
That is so much closer than we think it's going to be by the
time you get through the draft, you get through rookie mini
camp, you get through mandatory mini camp and then the NFL takes
a break, more or less from like middle of June till for the
Bears early July. That doesn't mean I have a
break. I mean, my last couple years
have been Bears ending straight out to New York right after the
NBA Finals for First take for Get Up and I I've been filling
in summer as a huge radio opportunity for me, 'cause I'll
do sometimes four to five shows a week, including my own.
And Around the Horn doesn't go on break until the middle of
August, which is kind of nice at balance as well with training
camp. But it's it's difficult when
it's a it's a privilege, but it's difficult when you have,
like I don't just have one job at ESPN.
And I think that's a good thing for someone like me who wants to
be in a have my hand in a lot of different pots.
But allocating time to do all of those things that require you to
use different parts of your overall toolbox, it's sometimes
it it can be overwhelming to where you're like physically and
mentally tapped out after certain days.
Like you know the days that I have to do around the horn and
write and or add radio or a podcast in there.
That's three different mediums all in one.
And you know they all require an immense amount of preparation.
Like can I riff, can I go, can I, You know can I wing it on
radio? Yeah, sure.
But is it gonna sound good? No.
Like you have to prep. Like even for the podcast that I
do and my Co host and I have been doing it now for more than
a year. We know each other's body
language. We know how to, you know, have a
conversation. We still do prep for all of
those things And it's it's difficult when you try to fit
all of those things into one day.
And then by the time the day is over, you look up and you're
like, what did I do today? And then you could like, holy
crap I did so much. And the prep element like for
Around the Horn I I remember showing my students my calendar
the first boot camp I taught at Indiana last April in 2023.
I I kind of did this exercise for myself as much as I did it
for them to show when you have. I work for one entity and
technically it's two because Good Karma Brands owns ESPN 1000
but I work for Big ESPN and then under that umbrella ESPN 1000
like to allocate my time between more or less four or five rolls.
Within all of that and what it looks like on a daily basis,
like there are a lot of different colors on the calendar
because it's all different things that are eating up time.
And the prep element is, is a huge part of it.
Like for around the horn, my day more or less starts with like
prepping around 7:30 in the morning.
I get out of the chair around 2:15, 2/30 by the time we're
done filming. And that's not straight through,
like you're not like in front of a computer for like 9 hours or
however long that is. But it's the prep time for me.
And that's consuming, that's reading the stat packet that
they give us, that's, you know, going my place, is that I
typically go to consume information on whatever it is
that's having the conference call, that's, you know, calling
my producer. If I want to sort through
something else that's going doing hair and makeup, that's
getting in the chair, that's the actual filming process, and then
you're done. It's like, whoa, that was more
than half a day. Sometimes that might be.
All somebody would do in a day, but then I've got to go write
something about the bears, or I've got to start working on a
different story. I've got to make a call for an
interview. Like, it's very hard when you're
trying to do it at a high level to have much of A work life
balance. And the rare times I do have
time, that's like more downtime. I've I feel like, I can't even
say, like, time off, 'cause there's always something that's
gonna fill the void. It's difficult for me to know
how to act like. Even today.
I got some edits back on a story my editor sent me.
I had made all these calls and sent out emails for another
story I'm working on. I'm like, I've got like two or
three hours here that I could just go for a walk or like, you
know, like go go go to the grocery store or like, or even
like just clean my house. Like, it's hard when you're in
the grind. And the grind becomes so second
nature to know what happens when you have a moment of respite.
And I don't do what with that. And maybe it's because I've kind
of got the high achiever thing going where I want to achieve, I
want to win, I want to do things at a very high level, but it can
be very difficult to turn that off.
I I wouldn't know anything about that, but it's no.
Like you made me. You made all of us like.
My fault. I'm sorry.
I should have been a better parent No.
But it's it is it's tough and and it is the IT is the big and
look it's funny in in sports related jobs I everything you
just said it's it sounds a lot like how coaching operates where
it's like you the talented people end up getting asked to
do more and more and it you know you don't really feel like you
have a choice especially if you're in your your late 20s
early 30s that's like when you're blossoming you're going
to get taxed in like 9 different directions and it's easy for
people who don't or aren't aren't you know they're out in
the business or they're like they think you just pop up on
television and you just talk and that's it.
It's you know it's hard for people who don't really grasp
how much time all of that takes to really get your head wrapped
around it and it's a tough balance.
I I that's probably the one thing I've done a terrible job
of teaching is like what are you supposed to do to to get that
balance in place And honestly I think it's different for
everybody that's it's kind of like the it's like we were
talking about earlier with who gets excited about multiple
sports. I think you're either born going
into OverDrive whenever these things happen, or you're not and
there's not really a good in between.
No, you're right. And it's like you have to love
the grind, which sounds so cliche.
But it is like coaching in that sense, where the hours are
chaotic and they're not normal and you can't really get into a
a morning routine a lot of days where, you know, I've I've
gotten into routines where I know where I'm at my best, like
I'm not a night. If I've got to transcribe, I
can't be the person like, oh, let me just like mindlessly do
this while I've got, like, Netflix on.
I'm a 4:00 AM wake up when the world is sleeping and grind it
out for a couple of hours and get my writing done with my.
That's when I'm most focused and where I have a clear head where
I wish I could be a night owl, 'cause then I can actually,
like, sleep like a normal person.
Hopefully after time you're done working.
But you have to be able to adjust to it too And it's it's
hard. Like what You know, Trisha for
example. Like I don't know how she, like
people always ask me about the NFL like oh like must be nice
like you know season goes September to January.
What do you do the rest of the year like not realizing or being
too ignorant to understand that this is a year round league, but
my travel for the NFL, like I've got eight or nine Rd. games.
Like what Trisha does and what other people do who have the NBA
or Major League Baseball. When you're on like 3 game Rd.
trips and then you've got like another city you're flying to,
then you're back for like that is.
I don't know if I'd survive doing that.
That is a grind. That is, every grind is
difficult. But that's one that like, is
just so difficult. I couldn't do all that I'm doing
and and do and have a travel schedule like that.
I couldn't do all these different mediums if I had, if I
was covering baseball. For those for those who didn't
listen to the podcast with Trisha Trisha's the sideline
reporter for the Tampa Bay Rays and also does sideline reporting
for Apple TV Plus and you're and we actually I was just talking
with her about this the other day where it's like you're on a
six game road trip you're it is. And I, for those who don't know,
I did play by play for about five years in minor league
sports which was like a different and both better and
worse version of that where you're on buses instead of
planes. But you're still, you're gone
for a week and a half and then you come back and you're not
really home. You're just waiting until you
leave again and then even and it's funny we're talking about
this we're we're doing this podcast on the 16th of of April
and I'm looking at the MLB scoreboard and Razer hosting the
Angels right now and then the bottom of the 13th inning.
So it's like even if you even if you've got a game like a night
planned out it's like I'm gonna go do something after the game.
Then you get 5 extra innings of baseball just randomly thrown at
you. It's it's it is a hard balance
and it's certainly something that's it's it's you don't
really grasp it unless you're in it.
So and you and you only get better at like I I've learned
little tips and tricks of working ahead to stay on
schedule. That's why I have like a
physical written out planner so I can keep like have you know,
benchmarks for myself. Because when you have a schedule
that's all over the place and a lot of things that are, you
know, eating away at your time and a lot of demands on your
time, it can be really hard to actually get the work done.
When there is the travel element and there is the meeting element
and there is the prep element, that's it, it that helps.
What I've been doing now has been kind of help keeping me
accountable on all of that 'cause it can just be so
overwhelming and you look up, you're like, wait, I had all
these extra things I had to do today and I wasn't able to get
them done because work got away from me.
And of course, what did I do to Courtney right before she's
getting ready to do all these draft things?
We kept her on a podcast for 65 minutes as opposed to letting
her. Go to stuff.
No, but this is, this is my way of kind of like unwinding, as
weird as that probably sounds to somebody, where it's like, well
it's technically it's not work to me, but it's like we're still
talking about work. But this is my way of unwinding
and I think you just have to find that whatever it is,
whether you know, cause a lot of people ask me, oh, are you, you
know, cover sports. You must be a huge sports fan in
In a way I am. But I don't have the.
I have to sit down and watch every single Cubs game every
single night the way that I would if I wasn't working and
entrenched in this all the time. Because sometimes you just need
like a mental break from it. Like I love football and you
know, I'm constantly consuming whatever games are on.
But there's not, you know, for me it's you just have to find
something sometimes that just like lets you put it down for a
couple minutes. And if that's me being able to
go to bed an hour earlier, then then that's what I'll do versus
let me stay up and you know, watch.
You know, whatever is gonna happen in this Warriors Kings
game, excuse me, Warriors Kings game, if I if the game's not
over and I'm tired, I'm going to bed, then I'm going to bed and
I'm going to catch up on it in the morning.
This is where the DVR era has really helped.
Oh God, or. Or whatever they're calling it
now. If it's not DVR, no I.
I I still have Xfinity. I think I'm the only one in
America who's not cut the cord and.
You're keeping the RSN's alive by yourself right now.
So no, I am, as I always tell students, and we'll we'll wrap
up after this. But it's, you know, if you're
going to go in this business. I didn't invent this.
This actually I think came from Keith Olbermann in that in that
book that he did with Dan Patrick, the big show where, you
know, it's like, do you like ice cream, you know, Yeah, everybody
likes ice cream. What if you had to eat ice cream
for your job three times a day, every day?
And not just the flavors that you enjoyed, but like the weird
flavors that you wouldn't normally touch.
That's essentially if you can still love it, but you have to
take breaks from it for a while, you know, just to just to kind
of refresh the palate and give your mind a break and get it on
to something other than that. Because after a while you reach
a point of saturation. And I think this is, it's a good
lesson for anybody going into anything that involves like
really deep study of, you know, I mean sports, you would think
it'd be a casual thing, but sports is so complicated and
it's such this weird combination of personal stories and
storylines and personality profiles and statistics and
analysis and all of this noise and it seems to get added to
every year. There comes a point where you
cannot digest anymore, like you're you're just going to hit
a point where your brain's like, sorry that didn't make it in.
Some of the hardest times for me in doing that, oddly enough, is
like is during the NBA playoffs. Because a lot of times I'm doing
radio or at least last couple years, like I was filling in a
bunch, the two to six stretch and I'd have around the horn
like, you know, the next day. So I've gotta stay up and watch
multiple NBA games. And sometimes it's like, God, I
just got done talking. Like one thing I've had an issue
with. Like an issue is probably like a
strong word. But one thing I have like coming
down and like my family's kind of, like gotten to like know,
like you know when to when to expect me to be present, when to
not expect me to be present. Because when I've been talking
for four hours and I know it's four hours out of your day, but
like, you have to be on that entire time because otherwise
you're not gonna be entertaining, you're not gonna
say anything worth a damn. And it's just bad radio.
If you're you can't be like somewhere else.
You have to be fully physically and mentally present.
It's not easy for me to shut that off.
And by the time I may turn that off at the end of the of the of
my shift or whatever it is, I'm exhausted.
And then I've got a I'm not just sitting down casually watching,
you know, watching Jimmy Butler rip apart teams last year like
it made it easy because he was so entertaining and that my Heat
team was so electric as they just ripped through the Eastern
Conference. But I'm consuming that in a way
where I'm consuming for knowledge of what I'm gonna use
for my arguments the next day. I'm not just oh, let me casually
watch this. I'll be on my phone.
Like, you know, that's when it's your job, you consume it
differently and you're taking notes and you're you're trying
to remember certain things. Oh man, like, look at this run,
they went on. I'm gonna reference this 'cause
I know it's gonna come up in this thing tomorrow.
Like, like when when the when what you used to do or what some
people do for enjoyment is part of your job.
Like you've got to massage that delicately so you can get what
you need to out of it, 'cause it's sometimes that's where I
get burned out. The most, and that's the
challenge I think is with people working in in any form of media,
but especially sports media. Can you can you not become
cynical about it? Can you retain the the optimism
and the enjoyment that the audience wants to hear?
And if you try to come across, you know, if you try to
manufacture the enthusiasm, people notice that immediately.
So you have to find a way to make it genuine, and that can be
a genuinely difficult thing to do so well, Courtney, this was,
this was awesome. This was kind of a therapy
session as much as I know. That's why I like doing them
because it does feel like a therapy session and I've anytime
I do a friend's podcast and we end up like talking about like
the business element around sports and what you do.
It's like we all have common threads in it and we all deal
with the same struggles and and that's, you know, it is therapy
to get to like talk through those things.
But it's also really cool to like see how far you've come.
Cause like when you're in the thick of it every day you don't
realize like oh wow, I've got all these really cool things
like you didn't just didn't just come out of thin air.
You earn them and it's it's neat to kind of stop for a second and
realize, wow, I am doing some really cool things I'm very
proud of. Yeah, and you should be.
You've done. You've done.
You've had an amazing career so far and it's it's nothing but a
source of pride watching you do what you do on a daily basis.
So, so we'll on that note go ahead and wrap up.
We really appreciate Courtney joining us here on the show and
I appreciate all you folks listening as well.
You can catch Courtney on NFL draft coverage coming up and
pretty much everywhere else in the ESPN constellation,
especially if you're living in Chicago.
So tune in for that. Thanks to all you folks.
We'll be back. Lot of Little 5 content this
week as the Little 500 is happening Friday and Saturday.
So stay tuned for that. For Courtney, I'm Galen, this is
Crimson Cast. We'll catch you folks.
On the flip side, bring back the Bison.
So everybody.