Speaker 1: Today's guest is one of the most recognizable voices in
Speaker 1: American soccer broadcasting. John Strong serves as the lead play
Speaker 1: by play announcer for Major League Soccer on Fox and
Speaker 1: It has called some of the biggest matches in the sport,
Speaker 1: including the twenty eighteen and twenty twenty two PIPA Men's
Speaker 1: World Cup Finals, alongside analyst Stuart Holden. Over the course
Speaker 1: of his career, John's work is a period across major
Speaker 1: networks including Fox, ESPN, and NBC. Before becoming a national
Speaker 1: broadcast here, he spent years covering the game at every level,
Speaker 1: including serving as the radio and television voice of the
Speaker 1: Portland Timbers and as a radio host in Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 1: Please welcome John Strong. And John my first question for you,
Speaker 1: given your voice, it is a beautiful voice. I have
Speaker 1: to ask, as a former theater kid, did you do
Speaker 1: musical theater? And if you didn't do musical theater, why
Speaker 1: did you not?
Speaker 2: Is One of the really important things that I did
Speaker 2: earlier in my career was I started taking singing lessons.
Speaker 2: There we go, because what had happened is in twenty
Speaker 2: fifteen we did so many games. It was such a
Speaker 2: busy year and I was losing my voice in games
Speaker 2: in the twenty fifteen playoffs. And so one of my
Speaker 2: sort of mentors in the business was Brian Wheeler, who
Speaker 2: passed away a few years ago, longtime NBA radio voice,
Speaker 2: was a radio host in Seattle called Games for the Sonics,
Speaker 2: and I knew him more in Portland, and he had
Speaker 2: said he had sung and choirs his whole life. So
Speaker 2: that was a big thing from that example, was like
Speaker 2: taking singing lessons, understanding how to use my voice, how
Speaker 2: to use this sort of the mechanics of this tool.
Speaker 2: And I can tell you now, Keeley. I mean, so
Speaker 2: as we talk, we're match day minus two. As we
Speaker 2: look at it, because we start with the US opener,
Speaker 2: I'm already fully in sort of my preparation of hydration.
Speaker 2: I've got my special tea, I'm drinking, I've got lozenges
Speaker 2: like it's I've learned over the years how to do
Speaker 2: stuff like that. And it's I tell young broadcast the
Speaker 2: same as being an athlete. You got to take care
Speaker 2: of the tools that you've been given to do your job.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was looking at your lineup, John, and we'll
Speaker 3: get into it, but I can see that I didn't
Speaker 3: know about the singing lessons.
Speaker 4: I'm really intrigued. But we'll we'll shelve out for a
Speaker 4: little bit.
Speaker 3: That's not what we're gonna have you do here today,
Speaker 3: but I wanted to take you back to Lake Oswego.
Speaker 3: I'm actually in Lake Oswego right now, so I'm in
Speaker 3: your hometown, so fittingly.
Speaker 4: How'd you get started?
Speaker 3: I know you were Lake Oswego grad, University of Oregon.
Speaker 3: How'd you get How'd you get into this?
Speaker 2: Only job I've ever wanted to have in my whole
Speaker 2: life was to be a sports play by play broadcaster,
Speaker 2: even before I was old enough to understand what that
Speaker 2: meant or how to get there or why exactly I
Speaker 2: wanted to do it. That was what I wanted to do,
Speaker 2: and so as a senior in high school, it was
Speaker 2: largely the looming threat of our varsity soccer coach trying
Speaker 2: to change the note cut policy for seniors on my
Speaker 2: behalf to get me off the team, and sort of
Speaker 2: that sense of I need to I had done a
Speaker 2: little bit at that point, but that was the motivation,
Speaker 2: like in August of like I need to start pushing
Speaker 2: on this because you know this is not going well
Speaker 2: as a player, I think that's the end for me.
Speaker 2: And so that was when I started. And just I've
Speaker 2: been the benefit of a lot of opportunities where you know,
Speaker 2: an opportunity has been created for me that didn't exist before.
Speaker 2: I mean, I try to explain to students now, you know,
Speaker 2: in the fall of two thousand and two, like what
Speaker 2: the internet was then as compared to now, the ubiquity
Speaker 2: of the types of things, even just this sort of
Speaker 2: zoom conversation and putting games online didn't exist back then.
Speaker 2: I mean, the stuff that we were doing. The principle
Speaker 2: later told my mom that the only reason he said
Speaker 2: yes was to get us out of his office because
Speaker 2: he didn't understand what we were asking. But getting the
Speaker 2: opportunity as a high schooler and then as a college
Speaker 2: student to just start doing it and calling games and
Speaker 2: didn't matter the sport, didn't matter if anyone was listening
Speaker 2: or not. It was just getting that sort of ten
Speaker 2: thousand hours you need of practice to become proficient. And
Speaker 2: what's fun is that. Just yesterday I did an interview
Speaker 2: on Colin Coward's show, and you know, Colin lived in
Speaker 2: Portland for a long time, so In the break, he's
Speaker 2: asking me about high school and where I grew up,
Speaker 2: and I'm saying, yeah, I saw the jail Blazers documentary recently.
Speaker 2: Boy did my hometown not come off well in that one.
Speaker 2: But that's also what happened, and that I love that
Speaker 2: type of stuff because it roots me back in where
Speaker 2: I started and a kid just with insane dreams and
Speaker 2: hopes and a reminder to never take for granted what
Speaker 2: I get to do, what I get to see and
Speaker 2: witness and experience, and always maintain that sense of kind
Speaker 2: of gallie g whiz, this is amazing what I get
Speaker 2: to do, and not let it, not let it become normal,
Speaker 2: and also not allowed sort of the pressure of it
Speaker 2: to get to me and keep it fun and joyful.
Speaker 3: Now you mentioned Coward and then Wheels, and then of
Speaker 3: course you got to give a shout out to Shanley.
Speaker 4: I mean, you had some people in this area. There
Speaker 4: are some greats out of this area, including yourself.
Speaker 3: I mean, what role did those guys play in bringing you,
Speaker 3: know you into who you are today? And how did
Speaker 3: they play into that?
Speaker 2: Most part, it was just sort of being inspired from
Speaker 2: Afar and a lot of broadcasters a lot of the
Speaker 2: very famous American sports broadcasters like Keith Jackson and Dick
Speaker 2: Emberg and al Michaels. I grew up listening to announcers
Speaker 2: from the UK like John Motson and Martin Tyler, but
Speaker 2: also listening to games in Spanish, you know, Andre's Cantor
Speaker 2: and Pablo Ramirez and John Laguna and voices like that.
Speaker 2: It's sort of this giant mish mash of how I
Speaker 2: call games. And I've had some hands on mentors as well,
Speaker 2: which I've been very lucky to have. You know, Bill
Speaker 2: Shanley was an inspiration of mine growing up as the
Speaker 2: voice of the Trailblazers, and then I got to know
Speaker 2: him a little bit because he sang in the church
Speaker 2: choir with my and he actually did a reading at
Speaker 2: our wedding and like it announced us as a couple.
Speaker 2: My wife Nicole and I had the reception. So that
Speaker 2: type of stuff is very fun, and it's there's a
Speaker 2: surreality in moments when I speak to younger broadcasters who say, like,
Speaker 2: you know, I've grown up listening to you and now
Speaker 2: I want to do this, and I go, well, first
Speaker 2: of all, that makes me feel very old, and secondly,
Speaker 2: you know, Alexi Lawless's joke is like, you can take
Speaker 2: this from my cold dead hands, because I love what
Speaker 2: I get to do. I don't want to give it
Speaker 2: up just yet. But those are moments that, as I said,
Speaker 2: become very surreal to me of like, oh, I've actually
Speaker 2: been able to get to where I dreamed of being.
Speaker 2: Not everyone gets to experience that, and I'm very, very
Speaker 2: lucky that I have been able to.
Speaker 1: What was your first real pinch me moment as a broadcaster, like,
Speaker 1: how is this actually real?
Speaker 4: How is is real?
Speaker 2: Life? Was actually a two thousand and nine Portland Timbers
Speaker 2: Seattle Sounders US Open Cup game that was the Sounders
Speaker 2: expansion year. The Timbers had been a bounce as a
Speaker 2: future expansion team, but we're still in USL and I
Speaker 2: got to call the game on the radio in Portland
Speaker 2: because our normal radio announcer, Andy McNamara was calling the
Speaker 2: game on TV that night, And that was the first
Speaker 2: time I got a taste of like actually calling a
Speaker 2: big professional game on the real radio, and that has
Speaker 2: always stuck with me. I mean, it was that the
Speaker 2: risk of this being an unfortunate metaphor, It was like
Speaker 2: having a shot of a drug and there was I
Speaker 2: became addicted to that feeling of that first taste of
Speaker 2: what I felt like was the big time. And well,
Speaker 2: I've had plenty of other moments and opportunities and special things,
Speaker 2: and I think Friday night, but also the following Friday,
Speaker 2: the second US game in Seattle. You know, it's funny
Speaker 2: we had the opportunity with FIFA in the fall to
Speaker 2: go stadium by stadium and kind of select, you know,
Speaker 2: of the available options. Where do you want to be?
Speaker 2: Do you want to be in a radio booth? Do
Speaker 2: you want to be in the tribunal which is up
Speaker 2: in the stands. The television booths are being used only
Speaker 2: for cameras, so you can't call the game from there.
Speaker 2: And when we went to Seattle Stadium, as we're calling it,
Speaker 2: liberate decision of I want to be for US versus
Speaker 2: Australia in the visiting team radio booth because I've called
Speaker 2: a dozen plus games there over the years, both as
Speaker 2: the Timbers radio announcer. But then we did an NBC
Speaker 2: game there once actually randomly, and like the idea of
Speaker 2: being able to walk into a booth that I have
Speaker 2: been in so many times in a stadium I've been
Speaker 2: in so many times, but calling this very unique, unusual game.
Speaker 2: Those sorts of things are really special and meaningful for me,
Speaker 2: And I think that's a big part of this whole
Speaker 2: month for me, is just taking mental snap shots because
Speaker 2: it's very possible for a number of reasons, I never
Speaker 2: get an experience quite like this again, so I don't
Speaker 2: want to let it just pass by.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I was looking at I was looking
Speaker 4: back at things.
Speaker 3: That I you know, listened to you do locally, and
Speaker 3: then you know, watching your career and then twenty eleven
Speaker 3: MLS Call of the Year, and then I was looking
Speaker 3: at how seemingly quickly you accelerated through pretty much every network,
Speaker 3: every echelon, every tournament. Did it feel like it was
Speaker 3: going at warp speed or did it feel natural as
Speaker 3: it was happening?
Speaker 2: My path was not normal. A lot of it was.
Speaker 2: I was in the right place at the right time,
Speaker 2: But I was also in situations where you know, NBC
Speaker 2: and Fox were looking for new young American soccer announcers,
Speaker 2: and that was a list of like two people basically,
Speaker 2: and I was. I was ahead of the curve in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways, and even still in the sports
Speaker 2: broadcast industry. I'm always surprised how few young hiring, very
Speaker 2: successful announcers are either interested in soccer or are really
Speaker 2: trying to pursue it because it's it's still sort of
Speaker 2: an and or it's either soccer or football, basketball, baseball,
Speaker 2: and there's a variety of reasons for that. I look
Speaker 2: back on it now, I was so professionally and emotionally unprepared.
Speaker 2: It was such a reckless decision for the Timbers to make,
Speaker 2: and for NBC and Fox to make to give me
Speaker 2: these opportunities when they did. I was so young, I
Speaker 2: was so naive, I was so inexperienced. It's insane to me.
Speaker 2: And I listened back to some of what I said
Speaker 2: on television in those early days, and I'm like, what
Speaker 2: are you doing? You know, you don't know what you
Speaker 2: don't know, and you don't know any better when you're young.
Speaker 2: And I'm very thankful that I've been in situations where
Speaker 2: I've had bosses that have and coworkers that have allowed
Speaker 2: me to sort of make mistakes as I go and
Speaker 2: learn on the job and play my way into the role.
Speaker 2: I'm still really quite young for this profession, honestly, and
Speaker 2: I'm still learning and growing significantly. The fact, honestly that
Speaker 2: I lost my hair as young as I did. That
Speaker 2: worked in my favor because I think I tricked some
Speaker 2: people into thinking I was older than I was. That's
Speaker 2: not as I'm dead serious about that. So yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: things came really quickly from me, and I'm very thankful.
Speaker 2: And that's what's nice, is I do. It's something that
Speaker 2: gives me comfort and confidence going into this unique opportunity
Speaker 2: this month is I do have a lot of experience
Speaker 2: under my belt and that helps. If I was if
Speaker 2: this was my first World Cup, I don't think I'd
Speaker 2: be able to handle that pressure in that anxiety. I
Speaker 2: still struggle with the pressure in the anxiety, but I
Speaker 2: at least have the benefit of Okay, I've done this before,
Speaker 2: I know how to do it, have confidence and faith
Speaker 2: in what I'm doing and what we're doing as a team.
Speaker 4: Well, well, Kelley, will you share what we were talking
Speaker 4: about before we jumped on here, just about like how
Speaker 4: how you because I could go on and on about
Speaker 4: how I've listened to John really from the beginning, and
Speaker 4: from the beginning for me, I was like, wow, even
Speaker 4: when you know you're talking about oh, I'd.
Speaker 3: Said that, and oh my gosh, you know I've said
Speaker 3: things that I never would say now and what was
Speaker 3: I thinking?
Speaker 4: Even listening to you?
Speaker 3: Then it was like, oh, he knows what he's doing,
Speaker 3: and Keila, you shared an interesting perspective on it.
Speaker 1: Just of research that you do. I mean the when
Speaker 1: I listen as a fan to all of your work, John,
Speaker 1: I'm always so impressed with just all of the factoids
Speaker 1: that you pull out about not just the stars and
Speaker 1: not just the starters, but like anyone and everyone on
Speaker 1: that field, which is such an important part of storytelling,
Speaker 1: and there's so much preparation that is involved in that.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about your process and you know how
Speaker 1: you're able to just pull out factoids at the drop.
Speaker 4: Of a hat.
Speaker 2: Process for this has really been going on for multiple
Speaker 2: months because I wanted to get ahead of it. I've
Speaker 2: made the mistake of getting to crunch time for tournaments
Speaker 2: and like I'm not sleeping in the week's leading up
Speaker 2: and that I'm kind of a physical wreck. So I'll
Speaker 2: show you what I've been working on before I started
Speaker 2: this is this is what I have for Croatia right now,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, twenty six players on the roster.
Speaker 2: Each one of them has a sticker, and on each
Speaker 2: sticker there's the biographical stuff, but then there's also a
Speaker 2: what would be their twenty second life story I want
Speaker 2: to say about them, you know, trying to give context
Speaker 2: to every possible eventuality for every possible player. I love
Speaker 2: that part. It's it's it's overwhelming. We're preparing to see
Speaker 2: eighteen different teams in the group stage, twenty six per squad.
Speaker 2: That's over four hundred and fifty players, and you kind
Speaker 2: of have to have it done before the tournament starts.
Speaker 2: You don't have time between games to do anything else. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I actually get more joy talking about the players you
Speaker 2: don't know than talking about the stars. I have to
Speaker 2: I have to correct myself a little bit sometimes of Okay, yes,
Speaker 2: I would love to talk endlessly about Christian roll don,
Speaker 2: but also I need to make sure I'm talking about
Speaker 2: Christian politic too, like that's you do have to play
Speaker 2: the hits like that's why they're there. And also I
Speaker 2: have to hold myself back from overdoing it. Sometimes I've
Speaker 2: made the mistake at times of too much storytelling, too
Speaker 2: many Because I love it, I fascinating, I want to
Speaker 2: celebrate the journeys that every single player has gone on
Speaker 2: to get to this moment. They're playing in a World Cup.
Speaker 2: That's incredible. And being able to rain myself in and
Speaker 2: pull myself back to not overdo it is the bigger challenge,
Speaker 2: but I love it. That's when you know, at whatever
Speaker 2: point I get to where I'm not enthusiastic to do
Speaker 2: all the preparation work, that will be the red flag
Speaker 2: that it's time for me to stop doing this. But
Speaker 2: I still love the blank sheet of paper and Okay,
Speaker 2: what's the story of this team, what's the story of
Speaker 2: this game? And then being able to try to give
Speaker 2: a little bit of that to viewers who, especially a
Speaker 2: World Cup. You know, they're not watching this spore week
Speaker 2: in week out. They don't know who these guys are.
Speaker 2: I love that part of it.
Speaker 3: We love that you love it because the stories that
Speaker 3: we get about it doesn't matter if it's the star
Speaker 3: of the roster or it's somebody that might get some
Speaker 3: minutes and then make a difference. I mean, I know
Speaker 3: if that twenty sixth player will just you know, they
Speaker 3: get in the game, you're going to have something on
Speaker 3: them and it's going to be interesting and it's going
Speaker 3: to draw me into the game and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: I'm going to be invested in that person and want to.
Speaker 4: See what they do. But I'm looking here at your schedule.
Speaker 4: That shout out. Shout out to Nicole Wilcox Strong. She
Speaker 4: still has that.
Speaker 2: My long suffering wife.
Speaker 4: Oh yes, your wonderful wife. She and I love this.
Speaker 4: I love that she does this.
Speaker 3: She posts your schedule so we all know what you're
Speaker 3: doing and how we can find you, and then we
Speaker 3: can turn the volume up because you're you're.
Speaker 4: Going to do an outstanding job something like this.
Speaker 3: I mean, I was just looking and you've mentioned it
Speaker 3: eighteen different teams, and I was trying to do the math.
Speaker 3: Keelee knows right before we got on. You start with
Speaker 3: you have all the US Games and Group Stage USA
Speaker 3: Paraguay in la at six pm, and then the next
Speaker 3: day you have Brazil Morocco at three pm in New York,
Speaker 3: and then the fifteenth.
Speaker 4: You got one day.
Speaker 3: I hesitate to call it a day off because I
Speaker 3: know that's not what it's going to be.
Speaker 2: And we call it yes, And.
Speaker 3: Then you have Spain Cape Verde in Atlanta. How do
Speaker 3: you manage a turn like that? You said that you
Speaker 3: have to do the homework before you start. But if
Speaker 3: you're in La calling a six pm game, and then
Speaker 3: I mean that's some kind of red eye. But then
Speaker 3: I mean, gosh, you're just like pulling up to game time.
Speaker 4: Do you even sleep?
Speaker 2: That's the biggest thing between games is can you get
Speaker 2: sleep and can you get to the hotel gym and
Speaker 2: just kind of sweat and allow your brain to reset
Speaker 2: for thirty minutes. That's a really big part of it
Speaker 2: is the self care aspect. Again, we have the benefit
Speaker 2: of experience. This is very much like the Russia World
Speaker 2: Cup of twenty eighteen where Calligain get to the airport
Speaker 2: flight to the next city. Calligaine get to the airport
Speaker 2: flight of the next city. Very unlike in Qatar, where
Speaker 2: we called a game every day, but it was the
Speaker 2: furthest drive from our hotel was forty five minutes. So
Speaker 2: that's where doing the prep ahead of time is big.
Speaker 2: That's where keeping it simple is big, because it does
Speaker 2: start to bleed together. You know. There's a couple of
Speaker 2: them where we have one where we do a Tuesday
Speaker 2: night of next week, eight pm Central time kickoff Argentina
Speaker 2: Algeria Kansas City, and the next day at three pm
Speaker 2: Central is England Croatia in Dallas, and then that night
Speaker 2: we are we get in late that night to Seattle,
Speaker 2: so you know, we'll see if we can still do this.
Speaker 2: That we were a lot younger when we pushed ourselves
Speaker 2: to this extent back in Russia. But I love it.
Speaker 2: That's what we say to our bosses, like push us,
Speaker 2: push us as hard as you possibly can. It's a
Speaker 2: World Cup. When are we ever going to get this opportunity?
Speaker 2: The bigger thing that would upset me is if we
Speaker 2: were sitting around like I wish we had a game
Speaker 2: to call today, you know, because we love this and
Speaker 2: the games we're not calling, we're going to be watching.
Speaker 2: And by the way, that's just the group stage, and
Speaker 2: then the knockouts are going to be even crazier because
Speaker 2: one of the things that's wild with the expansion of
Speaker 2: the tournament, when we reach the end of the group stage,
Speaker 2: we will have played as many games totally as the
Speaker 2: last World Cup in its entirety will already be past
Speaker 2: sixty five games and we haven't even started the round
Speaker 2: of thirty two. And that's something that one of our
Speaker 2: top executives. The other day was saying to Stu we
Speaker 2: had a kind of a group dinner, and he said,
Speaker 2: I know what it feels like the morning of the
Speaker 2: Super Bowl and then that night when it's done. I
Speaker 2: know what it feels like the morning of the World
Speaker 2: Series Game one, and what it feels like at the end.
Speaker 2: I don't know what it feels like day nineteen of
Speaker 2: this World Cup. No one has ever attempted something on
Speaker 2: this scale as an American sports broadcaster, so we've been
Speaker 2: given every resource possible, but there is an awareness that
Speaker 2: none of us know what this is going to be
Speaker 2: like until we're in the middle of it. And that's
Speaker 2: a very exciting challenge.
Speaker 3: So I got to ask you, because I feel like
Speaker 3: you might know better than anybody honestly, with all the
Speaker 3: knowledge you have on every single one of.
Speaker 4: These teams, who do you think is going to be
Speaker 4: in the final?
Speaker 2: I've learned not to bet against a mess just in general.
Speaker 2: Doesn't mean they're going to win, But I'm not going
Speaker 2: to put my money against him. That Argentina they know
Speaker 2: what they're doing. Do they have the legs? I don't know,
Speaker 2: but there's a savviness to what they do Spain has
Speaker 2: a scary amount of depth and they have a winning mentality.
Speaker 2: France have an even scarier amount of attacking talent and
Speaker 2: they've been to the last two finals. I think Portugal
Speaker 2: are really well placed because they they have the horses
Speaker 2: to do the running around Christiano Ronaldo and allow Cristiano
Speaker 2: to just stand in front of the gold score. And
Speaker 2: I think I'm such a big fan of Roberta Martinez,
Speaker 2: their manager. He is the ultimate it's fine, we got this,
Speaker 2: don't worry about it, guys, and he keeps everything cool,
Speaker 2: which I think is really important. I have much less
Speaker 2: faith and confidence in England, but also because I just
Speaker 2: think it's funnier if they don't do well. You know,
Speaker 2: I think those are the big ones that I would
Speaker 2: say any of those for I would be in no
Speaker 2: way be surprised to see them in the final.
Speaker 3: Then who's gonna make a run that we might not expect, that.
Speaker 2: You might not expect. You know, Morocco did it last time,
Speaker 2: so would it be unexpected if Morocco make another run.
Speaker 2: The difference is they were four years ago the hunters.
Speaker 2: Now they're the hunted, and that's a very different thing.
Speaker 2: You know. Brazil I'm never again. A bad World Cup
Speaker 2: for Brazil is a quarterfinal, So they live on a
Speaker 2: different planet from the rest of us, even though they've
Speaker 2: got some big questions. You know, I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people in Mexico are talking themselves into that they
Speaker 2: can make a run. There's a scenario where Mexico play
Speaker 2: England in the round of sixteen in Mexico City, which
Speaker 2: I would want nothing to do with that if I'm England.
Speaker 2: I think, at the risk of it sounding like I'm
Speaker 2: being evasive, part of it, honestly, Laura is like, I
Speaker 2: don't I intentionally go in with a blank slate in
Speaker 2: my mind. I intentionally go in with no expectations, and
Speaker 2: I intentionally allow myself to be surprised. Yes, we do
Speaker 2: our research, we have our context. You're trying, you know,
Speaker 2: is this expected? What's happening here is unexpected? That's an
Speaker 2: important part of framing it. But I have long since
Speaker 2: given up going in with any sense of here's what
Speaker 2: I think is gonna happen, because I think it's a
Speaker 2: lot more fun to allow myself to just kind of
Speaker 2: be on this joyful roller coaster. And by the way,
Speaker 2: look at two World Cups that we've done. No one
Speaker 2: in their right mind was looking at Croatia in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: no one in their right mind was looking at Morocco
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two, and no one in their right
Speaker 2: mind at to Neil Argentina seventy minutes seventy five minutes
Speaker 2: played in the final thought that would end up in
Speaker 2: a penalty shootout and only by an Emmy Martinez say
Speaker 2: that France doesn't win an extra time. So the international
Speaker 2: game has a allowed us to continually expect the unexpected,
Speaker 2: and that's what's really fun for me.
Speaker 1: Okay, I want the tea on working with Laura in
Speaker 1: the past, and I know that you guys knew each.
Speaker 4: Other and have worked together before.
Speaker 1: I have had the honor of getting to be Laura's
Speaker 1: producer for the past, you know, season and season and
Speaker 1: chain for rain E FC.
Speaker 3: She's been wonderful on our crew.
Speaker 1: Of course, John, what sort of memories you have working.
Speaker 2: With Laura Embury? I have, honestly as being in the
Speaker 2: hotel in Atlanta, it's the hotel that's connected to the
Speaker 2: old C and N Center, and chatting with you on
Speaker 2: the phone because you were That was the first time
Speaker 2: I think the forwards. At that point, I'd asked you
Speaker 2: to do some broadcast work and we were talking about
Speaker 2: different things. That was back in twenty I think it
Speaker 2: would have been. It was a long time ago, and
Speaker 2: I think it's super cool. One of the things I
Speaker 2: always love when successful players and coaches come into broadcasting.
Speaker 2: I think is really fun now because there's this natural
Speaker 2: element of not liking a lot of broadcasters in media
Speaker 2: and thinking these these morons, what do they know? You know?
Speaker 2: And then they come in and it's like, oh, that okay.
Speaker 2: It's very I've loved that process of seeing the Clint
Speaker 2: Dempseys and the Carly Lloyd's and the Landon Donovan's and
Speaker 2: other people come in. Julie Art's last year was terrific.
Speaker 2: She was in for a couple of days with us
Speaker 2: in the studio on the women Juro's coverage and chatting
Speaker 2: with her beforehand, She's like, I'm really nervous. I'm like,
Speaker 2: what are you talking about? You've won multiple World Cups?
Speaker 2: How are you nervous by this? But because it's outside
Speaker 2: of your comfort zone and so the fact that Laura,
Speaker 2: you have embraced this so much, that you steered so
Speaker 2: hard into it, and you sort of made it a
Speaker 2: part of your regular thing. I think is really fun
Speaker 2: because it's a really neat job. It really is, and
Speaker 2: it's harder than people think. It requires dedication more than
Speaker 2: people realize. But it's also a great way to stay
Speaker 2: connected to the game. One of my favorite memories was
Speaker 2: with Stu walking into the final in Moscow in twenty
Speaker 2: eighteen and he said, this is the first time since
Speaker 2: I was forced to retire because of injuries, I felt
Speaker 2: anything close to that rush that you get as a player.
Speaker 2: And that was really cool because I, of course was
Speaker 2: just freaking out i'd have to call a World Cup final,
Speaker 2: but for him, who's played at a World Cup, who's
Speaker 2: played in the Premier League, to be like, wow, I
Speaker 2: kind of feel that too. That's that's neat to kind
Speaker 2: of bring people into our little nerdy world of broadcasting
Speaker 2: and get them to experience that same field.
Speaker 4: All right, John, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: This was I know you have the most busiest of
Speaker 1: busy schedules today, tomorrow and throughout the entire World Cup
Speaker 1: and beyond the World Cup, so thank you so.
Speaker 4: Much for joining us for this.
Speaker 1: You know, twenty minutes or so for our podcast. You
Speaker 1: guys can listen to this on ninety three point three KG.
Speaker 1: Herem's page on iHeart station website.
Speaker 4: Stick with us.
Speaker 3: We're talking to a bunch of broadcasters.
Speaker 1: And learning a ton as we go through this World Cup,
Speaker 1: so thanks for listening. M