Speaker 1: This is Wins and Losses with Clay Travis. Clay talks
Speaker 1: with the most entertaining people in sports, entertainment and business.
Speaker 1: Now here's Clay Travis. Welcome in two Wins and Losses.
Speaker 1: I am your fearless host, Clay Travis. This is our
Speaker 1: sixth different episode of Wins and Losses. If you haven't
Speaker 1: heard it yet, I'd encourage you to go check out
Speaker 1: some of the earlier five episodes. Jason Whitlock, SEC commissioner,
Speaker 1: Greg Sanky, Shannon Terry, who sold Rivals to Yahoo and
Speaker 1: seven Sports to CBS. We talked to Mike Leach, Washington
Speaker 1: State head football coach, and Paul Findbaum of the SEC
Speaker 1: Network and ESPN. We are joined to this episode by
Speaker 1: the most read national columnist in all of the United States.
Speaker 1: I believe that is accurate. He is Dan Wetzel at
Speaker 1: Yahoo Sports. You can find him at dan Wetzel on Twitter.
Speaker 1: He is in the process of writing a series of books,
Speaker 1: sports biographies for middle schoolers. I've got him in my house.
Speaker 1: The kids are actually reading them. The two that we
Speaker 1: have in our house already. Alex Morgan, US women's soccer
Speaker 1: player Steph Curry, Tom Brady and Serena Williams will be
Speaker 1: out soon. Uh So the plug here he didn't ask for.
Speaker 1: But the truth is, if you're like me and you've
Speaker 1: got young kids and you're trying to get them to
Speaker 1: read something, uh, these are really books that ideally would
Speaker 1: appeal to them, and you can. It's a sort of
Speaker 1: sort of like giving a healthy food while at the
Speaker 1: same time you're getting a benefit because it's a sports biography.
Speaker 1: So if they like sports, they're getting that, but they're
Speaker 1: also actually reading, which is important. And as if that
Speaker 1: weren't enough, Dan Wetzel is joining us right now from France.
Speaker 1: He's traveled all over the world covering sports. Uh, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna get probably a little bit to what it's
Speaker 1: like to be in France. But Dan, first of all,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us. Uh. Second, when you were growing up,
Speaker 1: did you ever think that you might one day be
Speaker 1: the most read national sports columnists in the country. Uh? No, no,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think that concept ever Uh struck
Speaker 1: me as anything. I do think I recall as a
Speaker 1: kid being like intrigued that people were paid to fall
Speaker 1: around the Boston Bruins, yes, and uh and report on them.
Speaker 1: But I think I would have just gone and been
Speaker 1: a fan. I don't think I would have really grasped
Speaker 1: what the job was. But uh, yeah, no, I did
Speaker 1: not think people would Uh many people would read me
Speaker 1: let alone that I'd be like in France covering women
Speaker 1: soccerbout seeing that probably was conceptually not possible when I
Speaker 1: was young. Yeah. No, it's a good point, all right.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna get to all of that and work
Speaker 1: your way up to how you end up at Yahoo
Speaker 1: Sports again. Dan Wetzel on Twitter at Dan Wetzel. But
Speaker 1: I want to start here. You mentioned growing up in
Speaker 1: Massachusetts in the Boston area. What was your background, How
Speaker 1: did you kind of move your way into the educational system.
Speaker 1: Where did you grow up? What was your childhood like? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I grew up in the South Shore of Boston. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, just you know, I went to I
Speaker 1: went to public school eighth grade, went to all boys
Speaker 1: Genterit School in Boston, PC High and high school, and
Speaker 1: then once the University of Massachusetts for college. And UM
Speaker 1: really was not looking at all at um journalism really
Speaker 1: until I got to you math, and I kind of
Speaker 1: joined the student paper and like a club like almost
Speaker 1: something to do. So yeah, they had an ad in
Speaker 1: the paper, and I remember being like, I might be interested,
Speaker 1: and they're down there like just trying to meet people
Speaker 1: the first week of school. So it started. So when
Speaker 1: you're growing up in in the Boston area, were you
Speaker 1: a fan of all of the Boston area teams? The
Speaker 1: Red Sox, the Patriots. I mean that you mentioned the
Speaker 1: Boston Bruins. I mean a typical you know, depending on
Speaker 1: where you grew up, but regional, regional American childhood where
Speaker 1: you root for the teams that are local to your
Speaker 1: your home down. Yeah, absolutely, And we read My dad
Speaker 1: though was that you know, we got three or four
Speaker 1: newspapers a day in the house and so and you know,
Speaker 1: there wasn't like it wasn't that much to do back then.
Speaker 1: I mean, so it's like when the news, like the
Speaker 1: newspaper was there, you read it because it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, they do only have sports on. It was
Speaker 1: pre fpn um. But you know, like you just didn't
Speaker 1: have like endless opportunities to watch sports. So would be like, wow,
Speaker 1: I read the paper, paper, afternoon paper game. It was
Speaker 1: like something to do. So I definitely read a lot um,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't like I was sitting there going, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to I want to do this. So you
Speaker 1: go off the U Mass. What did you think you
Speaker 1: were going to major in when you end up at
Speaker 1: UMass a major A majored in political science. I think
Speaker 1: I thought I might be a lawyer. I don't know
Speaker 1: what I was really, I was just trying to get
Speaker 1: a degree. UM. That was kind of my main goal
Speaker 1: was just get the college and then get a degree.
Speaker 1: Uh So, I like I worked a lot and just
Speaker 1: and I didn't really have a set plan. And then
Speaker 1: I just started. I started covering sports really again just
Speaker 1: for something to do. It was pretty fun UM and
Speaker 1: it kind of took off. John Calipari was a U
Speaker 1: Mass at the time, and you know, not only did
Speaker 1: he get the basketball team UM to be good, he
Speaker 1: was and remains this like just a tremendous newsmaking figure.
Speaker 1: So he was always causing some kind of like story.
Speaker 1: It was always it was very very interesting and exciting,
Speaker 1: like you know, he'd be fighting with different coaches. You know,
Speaker 1: I was there the day John Chaney went after all UM.
Speaker 1: He just was. It was there was so much news
Speaker 1: off of this that it was like this was really
Speaker 1: fun to cover and I think that really was like
Speaker 1: when I was like, you know, this is this is great,
Speaker 1: Like if I could do this, um, this is a
Speaker 1: pretty enjoyable career. And so that's that's kind of how
Speaker 1: most of it really started. So do you remember the
Speaker 1: first story you of a road at UMS? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought my first beat was the women's across country team. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh brutal. Okay, so you go, have you ever been
Speaker 1: to across country meet? You would know and you probably
Speaker 1: never thought of writing a story about it. But they
Speaker 1: shoot a gun and and the women run into the
Speaker 1: woods and then they come back like twenty minutes later
Speaker 1: and they finished, and that's a cross country Okay, So
Speaker 1: you don't see any of the race at all. You're
Speaker 1: just standing there at the Yeah. But you so you go,
Speaker 1: well what happened? You know? And then it's like you
Speaker 1: get their times and you try to spell their names, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean stories were just trying to do whatever,
Speaker 1: but you know, and then the West I tried to
Speaker 1: run as fast as I could. I mean, what strategy.
Speaker 1: You're very strategy, but like you know, you've been a
Speaker 1: second ago. Here's my question, did you consider going faster?
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, what I no idea? What to
Speaker 1: ask you? This cross gunt people talk about like is
Speaker 1: it hard to write like a running game or at
Speaker 1: the super Bowl? Is it hard to cover the the Olympics? No,
Speaker 1: now cover a women's college cross country meet in the rain? Okay,
Speaker 1: that's hard, Okay, like cover I covered a um uh
Speaker 1: girls soccer game once in high school to think zero
Speaker 1: zero because I was freelancing toil like a local paper,
Speaker 1: like a zero zero game. Okay, what do we got here?
Speaker 1: Those those are hard to write. Something always happens with
Speaker 1: the super Bowl. Okay, don't worry about the super Bowl.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I do remember um and I just remember
Speaker 1: I was trying to spell the names right. That was good.
Speaker 1: Do you realize like they you know, like this thing
Speaker 1: actually gets pret it's a campus paper, but when you're
Speaker 1: at college, like that was everything, So get get the
Speaker 1: names right? Were you a good student? Three women were
Speaker 1: pretty good looking too, So yeah, as a college kid,
Speaker 1: that wasn't a bit you had. You had an excuse
Speaker 1: to talk to him, which isn't an which isn't an
Speaker 1: awful problem. Uh. Were you a good student? Were you
Speaker 1: a good student at all? When you were you know,
Speaker 1: like k through twelve and in the in the U
Speaker 1: Mass I mean, were you were you thinking like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm you know, like academics is my pathway? You said
Speaker 1: you mentioned law school. Is that a sign that you
Speaker 1: were pretty good or were you disinterested or how would
Speaker 1: you describe yourself as a student. I was determined. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I was necessarily there's a lot of
Speaker 1: law schools. They go to Vanderbilt. I was, I was.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I was pretty good. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know what I mean. I think i'd like at
Speaker 1: three five in college or something like that. Okay, I
Speaker 1: was good, but not not as Union's in any way
Speaker 1: share or form Alright, I would work really hard to
Speaker 1: get a good grade. That was what I would do,
Speaker 1: all right. So you were covering women's cross country or
Speaker 1: a cross country meets soccer matches. When do you get
Speaker 1: to go to a game that there's a crowd there
Speaker 1: and you actually feel, oh, wow, I've got a good seat.
Speaker 1: Like when's the first thing you covered and you thought, Wow,
Speaker 1: it's really cool that I get to sit here and
Speaker 1: watch this. It was probably like a men's basketball game,
Speaker 1: um uh that you know, like a good U mask
Speaker 1: men's basketball game. You know they were they play somebody good.
Speaker 1: This is for people who don't people who don't remember.
Speaker 1: This is during the Marcus can be Ish era, Carmelo
Speaker 1: Travis like first first year was before Marcus. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that group, that group and ran and Blue roll definitely,
Speaker 1: Um yeah, am I right about that? They had Edgar Padilla? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that, those Puerto Rican backcourt. Yeah, uh wad
Speaker 1: Edgar and Carmelo good guys. You have Marcus, So yeah,
Speaker 1: some of that. And then you're like, this is like
Speaker 1: an actual event, and not only that. You sit there
Speaker 1: and it's like the guy next to you show at
Speaker 1: the boss the globe, like you know, so you're like wow.
Speaker 1: And then you know like it was a big enough game,
Speaker 1: like Bob Ryan would come and you're like, wow, this
Speaker 1: is like serious stuff. Um so that was kind of
Speaker 1: that was kind of fun. So you're covering Calipari and
Speaker 1: you mentioned and that the John Cheney story. And for
Speaker 1: people who don't remember when John Chaney just went off
Speaker 1: on John Calipari and was like I'll choke you to death,
Speaker 1: I'll kill you. You were sitting in that room. What
Speaker 1: was I mean? That had to be like an out
Speaker 1: of body experience. It was awesome. Yeah, it was absolutely banana.
Speaker 1: So there's no social media. There's no like like you
Speaker 1: had to wait and see if it came on Sports
Speaker 1: Center like later like now they probably like break in
Speaker 1: on it or something or just be all over Twitter.
Speaker 1: And but at the time, it was like, did that
Speaker 1: seriously happen? And Um, what had happened was Chane had
Speaker 1: come in and Donna press conference and he had actually
Speaker 1: like praised the team and didn't this really good game.
Speaker 1: I think they're both like in the top ten really
Speaker 1: heated game. You m asked one Chaney. I always love
Speaker 1: Chaney still do um and he, you know, it comes
Speaker 1: in kind of praises them many leaves. But while he
Speaker 1: was in his press conference, he heard that Calipari had
Speaker 1: like gotten into it with the officials after the game.
Speaker 1: And there's still a lot of dispute on whether that
Speaker 1: actually happened or not or whatever Janey thought it did.
Speaker 1: And so then he just comes storming back in and
Speaker 1: it was like, all right, what's he doing back? And
Speaker 1: I was like and I thought he was just gonna
Speaker 1: be like, hey, good luck to restaurant or something like that,
Speaker 1: and he just started going crazy and you're like, is
Speaker 1: this like actually happening, Like he's gonna go track, It's like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kill you. And he went up there ready
Speaker 1: to fight him, and Um, to his day, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: fight John Cheney. I mean he's eighty something years old,
Speaker 1: Jeff John James is gonna win the fight, so nobody
Speaker 1: should ever try to fight John Janey. So he's literally
Speaker 1: like could have been worse, but um, two emass players
Speaker 1: kind of broke it up. Kept it took two guys
Speaker 1: the old Cheney back to like twenty year old college
Speaker 1: basketball players, and uh yeah, it was awesome that I
Speaker 1: was like, this is this is just a nom It's
Speaker 1: probably how I ended up telling of sports and sports
Speaker 1: are for So how many people were actually in the
Speaker 1: room when that happens, because people may or may not.
Speaker 1: If you haven't seen it, you can go YouTube and
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's out there because if it happened today everywhere. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I stand up in the middle of it. I'm watching,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, reporter on the scene. Um, it was
Speaker 1: probably like thirty people. There was as interview room after.
Speaker 1: So you can see yourself though in the video if
Speaker 1: you go back and watch it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't
Speaker 1: replay it like on ESPN every once in a while,
Speaker 1: like you know ten best coaching belt bounds or something
Speaker 1: and uh and I'll be on there. So did you
Speaker 1: so you're covering then as as a student reporter? Um,
Speaker 1: have you had any interaction like does John Calipari remember
Speaker 1: you from having covered him when you were writing for
Speaker 1: the U Mass student newspaper now that both of you
Speaker 1: have gone on to obviously uh different directions. I mean
Speaker 1: he's obviously had a lot of success at at Kentucky
Speaker 1: and you're a national columnist at Yahoo. Do you think
Speaker 1: he's aware that you covered him that far back? Yeah? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Yeah where never were I gotta touch? So yeah he knows. Okay,
Speaker 1: right A mout and talk to him very often now,
Speaker 1: but I could so you you cover, you mask you
Speaker 1: graduate from college? Yeah, you mask back then, Like this
Speaker 1: wasn't like Kentucky basketball there's only like five or six
Speaker 1: people cover the team, so it was fortunate for you.
Speaker 1: Do you think you would have been a sports report
Speaker 1: Do you think you would have been a sports writer
Speaker 1: if you Mass had been what U Mass has been
Speaker 1: for most of their career, you know, like a mid
Speaker 1: range at best a ten caliber basketball program. Do you
Speaker 1: think that them being good made you think, hey, this
Speaker 1: is something that I want to do in a way
Speaker 1: that you wouldn't have if they had been thoroughly mediocre
Speaker 1: very well. May not have very well, may not have.
Speaker 1: It's hard to say, but it wouldn't be a spun.
Speaker 1: That wouldn't have been a big so probably wouldn't be
Speaker 1: excited me as much, and I wouldn't have seen that
Speaker 1: there was like an opportunity me there. I might have
Speaker 1: stopped into journalism anyway, but I absolutely when I first
Speaker 1: got out of We'll get to that, I guess. But
Speaker 1: I also liked covering like crime and news and stuff,
Speaker 1: so I might have ended up going more that route,
Speaker 1: but I probably not because my real, first real job
Speaker 1: was covering college basketball. So a lot of it was
Speaker 1: connections I made while I was a college student covering
Speaker 1: Mass because there are such a big story. All these
Speaker 1: people came through to write about them and TV people
Speaker 1: and everything. All Right, So you graduate from college, you've
Speaker 1: been able to cover John Calipari and U Mass as
Speaker 1: they made the most successful basketball run, and you know,
Speaker 1: the last what forty years of U mass athletics I
Speaker 1: would imagine, and then you graduate from college and what happens?
Speaker 1: How do you get a job in the world of sports? Well,
Speaker 1: I go and work actually covering uh news. I covered
Speaker 1: crime for a summer at the Indianapolis News Indiana. There
Speaker 1: was a recession and like the Northeast at that time,
Speaker 1: so there really wasn't ops. Um. I was out there
Speaker 1: for that. I was covering, you know, whatever house fired.
Speaker 1: I covered a murder trial like it was great, um
Speaker 1: And I really liked doing all that. And you would
Speaker 1: have been you would this would have been like what year,
Speaker 1: Like what year do you start your career in Indianapolis?
Speaker 1: I just maybe nine or something like that. Okay, so
Speaker 1: the internet the your summer intern The internet is just
Speaker 1: starting to kind of percolate. Right. Do you remember the
Speaker 1: first time you got on the internet. I don't really,
Speaker 1: but it was, Yeah, the internet was I actually wrote
Speaker 1: sports for the original American Online if the old dial up,
Speaker 1: and they had this a little they had these little taps,
Speaker 1: and I got to know the guy who was in
Speaker 1: charge of the sports tab on America Online. And I
Speaker 1: would write like once or twice a week, like a
Speaker 1: story or column about sports on there. I can only
Speaker 1: imagine when people read that thing, what did you get astronomical?
Speaker 1: What did you get paid for that? I couldn't like
Speaker 1: so that, But but you for people out there you
Speaker 1: don't remember, you used to have to get on the internet.
Speaker 1: America Online would send out all these yeah, all these discs.
Speaker 1: You'd plug them in and then your phone line and
Speaker 1: would get like a worrying sound, you know, like and
Speaker 1: for I'm taking people back in time who were old
Speaker 1: enough to remember this, and the younger people who are
Speaker 1: listening to are like, what in the hell are you
Speaker 1: guys talking about? And then it would pop up, like
Speaker 1: you know, you'd get that that connection, and there would
Speaker 1: be a mail Yeah, you got mailed. Yeah, And then
Speaker 1: there was like a news tab. There was like a
Speaker 1: sports tab and maybe like a weather for something. And
Speaker 1: I wrote on the sports tab America was a O
Speaker 1: L sports And it wasn't getting tad much. But I
Speaker 1: mean literally the entire world the only way to get
Speaker 1: on the Internet was through that page YEA at that time,
Speaker 1: And so I can only imagine that we're probably like
Speaker 1: you literally would write something like I don't even know
Speaker 1: twenty million people would read it have been I mean
Speaker 1: it might well, be true, because it's the best. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like the Netflix homepage now and we'll talk about
Speaker 1: the Yahoo homepage and it's impact, I mean, which is
Speaker 1: obviously still massive. So you're writing in Indianapolis. Uh, and
Speaker 1: how long does that gig go on? You're covering house fires,
Speaker 1: you're covering former trial for four months and then what happens?
Speaker 1: Then I went to Chicago Tribune for like four months,
Speaker 1: same thing, like just news, all sorts of just like
Speaker 1: shooting something. Whatever the hell going Chicago, great New city.
Speaker 1: So just total Bayham every day, every day. So did
Speaker 1: you did you send out like the clips from your
Speaker 1: U mass articles? How did you get those jobs? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to apply to get a clip pack You
Speaker 1: you have to send a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: you send a lot of them out there. That's just
Speaker 1: kind of a problem. So the process of getting a
Speaker 1: job is hard, Like you would have to work your
Speaker 1: ass off to get a gig in any way. You
Speaker 1: send a hundred packets, I mean you just had to
Speaker 1: because you didn't know who were at a job and
Speaker 1: if anyone would read them and you and you had
Speaker 1: to print them, you had to change the cover page,
Speaker 1: you had to fill out the address. You had to
Speaker 1: find the right person to send it to, like if
Speaker 1: you couldn't just email or go on like zip recruiter
Speaker 1: and like it just just fine job with a pain
Speaker 1: in the neck back then, so you get that, and
Speaker 1: then you moved to Chicago and then what happens all right,
Speaker 1: So then so I really liked covering news. But then
Speaker 1: this magazine's uh, this guy Larry Donald who who owned
Speaker 1: a magazine called Basketball Times Magazine, and I had met
Speaker 1: him from the mass he lived in Detroit, and it
Speaker 1: was like a man, you were just write about college
Speaker 1: basketball and correct these long stories. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: freedom of the writer. And my Schago tribute thing was
Speaker 1: ending and I got offered like a job covering news
Speaker 1: and like I'm not even from the Midwest, so like
Speaker 1: Chagro was great, Indianapolis is good, Chad was great. And
Speaker 1: then I got this job offer like covering this small
Speaker 1: town outside of four Wayne, Indians and I was just like,
Speaker 1: I was like I don't want to do this. I
Speaker 1: just I'm I'm just not a farmer like my thing.
Speaker 1: And then I had this Overgeny to go work for
Speaker 1: Basketball Time City. So it was a much smaller complication,
Speaker 1: but write and report pretty much do whatever you wanted.
Speaker 1: So I took that job and it was in Detroit,
Speaker 1: which is you know I wanted. I was just want
Speaker 1: to go. I always want to be in a big city.
Speaker 1: That's just me. Um. So I took that job, and
Speaker 1: at a basketball times, I just had this great uh
Speaker 1: freedom to let learn how to write. And that was
Speaker 1: probably the best thing that especially at that age. I
Speaker 1: didn't need a lot of money. I didn't really need
Speaker 1: the prestige like I would be a Scott a tribute
Speaker 1: and like could be a murder. Like you get out
Speaker 1: there early and they'd be like something on us, Like
Speaker 1: we had these police scanners other stuff that allright, homicide,
Speaker 1: you know, like south Side talking it down there, you
Speaker 1: interview all these people, this kid got killed. Whatever you go,
Speaker 1: and it's been like it's just a brief, Like you
Speaker 1: have all this stuff to write a story and be
Speaker 1: like four paragraphs and it's just like you so you're
Speaker 1: working at a big place, but you weren't really doing
Speaker 1: like impactful work, and so the opportunity to like just
Speaker 1: try this was what really appealed to me at basketball times.
Speaker 1: And then I was just able to kind of do whatever.
Speaker 1: That was my big break. What would they pay you?
Speaker 1: Because a lot of people wonder about getting your foot
Speaker 1: in the door. Do you remember what your early salaries
Speaker 1: were in those jobs? I think at basketball don let's
Speaker 1: take twenty two thousand. I'll tell you a funny story though, um,
Speaker 1: which was not much money van horn now, but it
Speaker 1: was enough that I could like live. That was it.
Speaker 1: I mean I was twenty three years old or something,
Speaker 1: so you don't really need much. And I really encourage
Speaker 1: people when they're younger, don't worry about money. Plenty of
Speaker 1: time to worry about money. The money will find you
Speaker 1: if you. If you, this is the time to not care. Right,
Speaker 1: You get a roommate, you drink sheep beer, you live
Speaker 1: in it, it doesn't matter. But I do remember I
Speaker 1: actually out to have this job interview. I went to
Speaker 1: the Valparaiso I think it's called like the Videt Messengers,
Speaker 1: this newspaper in Valparaiso, Indiana, you know val Paris University
Speaker 1: of So I go into this interview. I think I
Speaker 1: was in Indianapolis. Then there was a sports job and
Speaker 1: I'm in the thing and the guy goes on, we
Speaker 1: want to hire you. Um, we can offer you fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year. It was really awesomely fifteen thousand dollars, guys,
Speaker 1: that's like less than like like seven dollars an hour. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I used to work construction and make more.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I was just like and I must have
Speaker 1: been so stunned and quitted. This town was so cheap.
Speaker 1: I probably gonna live there for fifteen thousand dollars. So
Speaker 1: I was like, I gotta college. You m works. So
Speaker 1: I was like, I can't take that job. You gotta
Speaker 1: pay any more like that, and I think I just
Speaker 1: said it so boldly. He's like okay, So gets up
Speaker 1: and he walks all across the news room, like into
Speaker 1: the publisher's office, like let me go check. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh man, look at this negotiating like I am styling, right,
Speaker 1: I'm killing this right. So he comes back. I swear
Speaker 1: it swearing story is true. Right, we can give you
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand, one dollar two bucks a week, two bucks
Speaker 1: a week. I was like, what, uh, So I didn't
Speaker 1: go there, but um, I could have, but actually I
Speaker 1: would have been better off there than like even stayed
Speaker 1: in Chicago. Because you if you're a writer. You want
Speaker 1: to write, you have to learn how to write, and
Speaker 1: you have to learn how to report. You have to
Speaker 1: learn all of us. You have to you just the
Speaker 1: guys who never do all that stuff. Man, it's it's
Speaker 1: a tough it's tough. Like I just you can be
Speaker 1: really good without going through some of those grinds and
Speaker 1: cover trying to find out how to make a windy
Speaker 1: across country meet interesting. But man, that's a good skill
Speaker 1: to have, you know, like you just to just jump
Speaker 1: to where it's easy. I don't know. I'm glad I
Speaker 1: went that round. So be sure to catch live editions
Speaker 1: about Kicked the Coverage with Clay Travis week days at
Speaker 1: six am Eastern, three am Pacific. We're talking to Dan Wetzel.
Speaker 1: This is the Winds and Lost his podcast. I'm Clay Travis. Okay,
Speaker 1: so five, you're living in Detroit. Uh, what do you want?
Speaker 1: You're writing for the Basketball Times? What do you do? Like? What? What?
Speaker 1: What is your job there? And how long do you
Speaker 1: stay there? Um? Yes, I'm writing like feature articles, just
Speaker 1: all sorts of different stuff. But it was just opening
Speaker 1: up all sorts of like opportunities to do a lot
Speaker 1: of radio TV because you're just like a guest or
Speaker 1: you're meeting all these people. So like one of the
Speaker 1: story of the Nfasketball Times was on UM Don Haskins
Speaker 1: and and uh and you tap, he's a head coach
Speaker 1: at you Tap, which is the Texas Western, which in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six was the first UM all black starting
Speaker 1: lineup when they were Texas Western. So I did this
Speaker 1: long story on Don Haskins, got to know him as
Speaker 1: a friend and like not immediately, it takes time, but
Speaker 1: that eventually led to the book Glory Road, and it
Speaker 1: was a Disney movie Glory Road. Um. There was like
Speaker 1: opportunities I did. UM. I covered a ton of a basketball.
Speaker 1: I covered all these guys in the NBA when they
Speaker 1: were like in sixteen and seventeen years old. We would
Speaker 1: do all the recruiting. But instead of just doing recruiting
Speaker 1: like where you're going to school, what's your top five?
Speaker 1: You know where you're gonna visit. I I just got
Speaker 1: to know all the figures in it, and I ended
Speaker 1: up doing the book. I wrote a book with with
Speaker 1: Don Yeager, who was a sports illustrating than called UM
Speaker 1: Soul Influence, all about how shoot companies and we're dumping
Speaker 1: all this money into a basketball and it's like completely
Speaker 1: corrupt and bananas and um, so I was doing it
Speaker 1: was just leading to all these other things because you
Speaker 1: had the opportunity to do these stories. So that was
Speaker 1: kind of a real benefit of basketball times. I think
Speaker 1: I was there at about two thousand maybe something like that.
Speaker 1: But we just have so much freedom. Ary Donald was
Speaker 1: just a great editor, um and just was like, you know,
Speaker 1: go go fail, go fail and try things. And that's
Speaker 1: that's why that job was so good for So you're
Speaker 1: in Detroit at the time, living as your base. Are
Speaker 1: you traveling a lot to write these stories? Yeah, like
Speaker 1: once a month we go I go somewhere in college
Speaker 1: sports or like the AU circuit maybe maybe like once
Speaker 1: one weekend a month, or you know, a few days
Speaker 1: here and there. There was a shoe string budget, but
Speaker 1: we would make it work. So the internet is also
Speaker 1: starting to grow, like these are some of the early
Speaker 1: kind of you know, launch points of the Internet. Are
Speaker 1: you still writing for that A O L front page
Speaker 1: sports articles? I did that for a while. I don't
Speaker 1: know quite how that ended. I don't really remember anymore. Um.
Speaker 1: I also, yeah, I was freelancing for for all sorts
Speaker 1: of different places. Um, I mean any I would write
Speaker 1: from you know, like all those like f F on
Speaker 1: book ever anything and do it would do a lot
Speaker 1: of Internet. I was a huge believer in the Internet. Um,
Speaker 1: I was freelancing for um this website or even kind
Speaker 1: of work for him. But for a little whilcome hoops
Speaker 1: tv dot com, which is basically the N one mixtape.
Speaker 1: They created this basketball website where we basically could watch
Speaker 1: video of basketball on the Internet. It's a problem with
Speaker 1: everyone at dial up and see our videos. No, it's
Speaker 1: true because for people who don't remember, it was almost
Speaker 1: impossible to watch a video on the Internet. Even the
Speaker 1: load pictures would forever. So because everybody's working on the
Speaker 1: slow speeds of the dial up Internet. So you're aware
Speaker 1: of the rise of the Internet. At the same time,
Speaker 1: you're not making that much money. I think you also
Speaker 1: started the Moonlight in a in a casino, right, Well,
Speaker 1: I was gonna get married. So at this point, I'm
Speaker 1: you know, like kind of like twenty six or something.
Speaker 1: I'm not making much money. I've written written soul Influence,
Speaker 1: but I needed like something steady, and so they were
Speaker 1: opening casinos in Detroit. So I Uh. I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: if I get this, if I get a job at
Speaker 1: a casino, like, it's very I needed a job that
Speaker 1: I didn't have to take like the work home, and
Speaker 1: I didn't want to go back to work construction or
Speaker 1: something that's exhausting, like not the casino feeling. It can't
Speaker 1: be softening. But I just needed something like flexible hour,
Speaker 1: all this different stuff. So I went to the thing.
Speaker 1: I went to. UM as the part story, it was
Speaker 1: called Greek Town Casino College. They're trying to trying to
Speaker 1: train the dealers, and they literally called it the Greek
Speaker 1: Town Casino College. They converted like part of a parking
Speaker 1: garage in downtown Detroit where we would go and learn
Speaker 1: how to deal. It's the uh the you know how
Speaker 1: Pepper nine wins most scenic campugn Yes, yes, yes, this
Speaker 1: is the opposite of that, because exactly we should have
Speaker 1: been ranked laughs. Um yeah, And I majored in craps
Speaker 1: and blackjack double major. Um. Crabs is harder than we
Speaker 1: can laugh. But craps is harder than it looks. Um.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I was. I was. I was a certified dealer.
Speaker 1: My casino didn't open. I never actually worked in the casino.
Speaker 1: I did deal some other games and some parties and stuff,
Speaker 1: but the casino had some kind of like ownership shice
Speaker 1: the owners, so they delayed our owners and and then
Speaker 1: by then I had gotten a full time job at
Speaker 1: CBS Sports Line. Well, I want to get to never
Speaker 1: actually worked. I want to get to that in a minute.
Speaker 1: But how long did you train to be a craps
Speaker 1: and uh and blackjack dealer? I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: might have been like you might take like six weeks,
Speaker 1: maybe eight weeks. I don't know. It's a quick quick college,
Speaker 1: not not not a not too long than you think. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean like I mean there's a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they come and trying to trick you, all the guys
Speaker 1: like you have to guard your money. You can't be wrong.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, blackjack not that tricky, but crafts is wild, man,
Speaker 1: Like you get enough people on there, and they would
Speaker 1: we were doing we would play and then while someone
Speaker 1: was trying to deal, and then like of course we're
Speaker 1: just constantly trying to screw with everybody because that was
Speaker 1: what we were supposed to do. So it's like throwing
Speaker 1: bets in late or throwing like the worst possible odds
Speaker 1: bets like just you know at three coins, you know,
Speaker 1: three bucks on something like the odds are all messed
Speaker 1: up for trying to steal money. So yeah, it's harder
Speaker 1: than it looks. You said you also work construction, but
Speaker 1: you know when you were younger, what kind of construction
Speaker 1: work did you do? Ah? We did like playing like
Speaker 1: sewage lines, and we weren't built a couple office parks
Speaker 1: things like that, like how like we put in the sidewalks. Um.
Speaker 1: I worked for the just a control the owner of it.
Speaker 1: So we would do just about eight but a lot
Speaker 1: of road work, a lot of a lot of jackhamhering,
Speaker 1: a lot of digging ditches. I mean nothing you know
Speaker 1: as a as a high school college kids, So I
Speaker 1: mean you can literally tell your kids now like you
Speaker 1: worked as a dig ditcher. I did. I did dig ditches.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Firewood. I had also had a bad jobs.
Speaker 1: I could run a backhouse, I mean have a license,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't do it. Yeah, I mean there's not
Speaker 1: very many probably sportswriters who can run a back oh
Speaker 1: and also working craps couldn't and I probably could not
Speaker 1: run the back home. Now I would probably screw it up,
Speaker 1: but at one point I could dig all with the backup.
Speaker 1: So you are preparing like for whatever you need to
Speaker 1: do to have a consistent job, and then you've been
Speaker 1: talking about how you have like kind of you're you're
Speaker 1: paying attention to the rise of the internet. How do
Speaker 1: you end up working at CBS sports Line which I
Speaker 1: think was CBS dot sports line dot com if I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken at the time it was yeah, or even
Speaker 1: just sports Line. Yeah, I think you might be. One
Speaker 1: of the problems was I was like, so, I was
Speaker 1: trying to get like a job in a newspaper, but
Speaker 1: newspapers are different than like the first off, you could
Speaker 1: never tell a newspaper editor you worked like working in
Speaker 1: a moonlighting at the crafts dealer, like that would have
Speaker 1: killed you, um, because they wanted like everyone to go
Speaker 1: to Northwestern and like Colombia and like you had. If
Speaker 1: you didn't have like all the right connections, it was
Speaker 1: hard to break in. And I by working at them
Speaker 1: like Basketball Times and Ivan when I worked at Shaba
Speaker 1: Tribute and I could get like everyone's interested and hired me.
Speaker 1: But once I left, they weren't interested and hired me anymore.
Speaker 1: And you had to like just you couldn't tell people
Speaker 1: like all that stuff with secret. I didn't tell people
Speaker 1: for years that. I was like I went to Casio College.
Speaker 1: Um now I just don't care. They can't do anything
Speaker 1: to me. Now it's no newspaper writers left. But at
Speaker 1: the time it was all like I mean there was.
Speaker 1: They were gatekeepers. They were gatekeepers to the access to Oh.
Speaker 1: I was on the wrong side of the gate man.
Speaker 1: I could not get through the gate. I couldn't get anything.
Speaker 1: So I was scrapping around for Internet and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But one thing is I was I knew how I
Speaker 1: knew how powerful the internet could be. And all I
Speaker 1: wanted was like a good Internet job. And I to
Speaker 1: the credit of uh Sky, Steve Miller, Mark Swanson and
Speaker 1: the late Craig Stanky was his name. Um down at
Speaker 1: sports Line. They did not care where I weren't. They
Speaker 1: just wanted me. They were like this guy hustles and
Speaker 1: he had tons of connections and like college and a
Speaker 1: basketball like I had every I knew every college stattt
Speaker 1: a system in the country and every head coach pretty much.
Speaker 1: I all the different people and that they saw the
Speaker 1: value in that, so they hired me to be uh
Speaker 1: national college basketball writer at sports Line, and they didn't
Speaker 1: really care about all the you know, I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't have the right this, that or the other thing,
Speaker 1: and that that was the big break or else I
Speaker 1: probably would not be doing this at all because I
Speaker 1: was like twenty years old, and it's like at some
Speaker 1: point you're like, all right, I mean it's a sports right,
Speaker 1: and it's actun s work by now, Like how long
Speaker 1: do you go like this is not I'm not like
Speaker 1: this is like I'm about to start my reson and
Speaker 1: see as a doctor, Like it's that's right, and I
Speaker 1: should be I should be able to make this work. Now.
Speaker 1: If I'm not, I gotta get something else. It's interesting
Speaker 1: you mentioned that because, to the credit of at least
Speaker 1: two of those three guys, they got me started writing
Speaker 1: when I had no pedigree whatsoever either. I was writing
Speaker 1: on my own site and I wasn't even getting paid.
Speaker 1: They were just running my articles back in like two
Speaker 1: thousand five ish. So we'll circle back around to that
Speaker 1: in a minute. But I do think it's an interesting
Speaker 1: point for people out there listening, because this podcast is
Speaker 1: called Wins and Losses. You kind of saw an advantage
Speaker 1: because one reason you had an opportunity on the internet,
Speaker 1: and why I had an opportunity to tuning on the
Speaker 1: internet is because we didn't have that pedigree. Because if
Speaker 1: we had had that pedigree, we probably would have gone
Speaker 1: to newspapers and they would have hired us. The newspaper
Speaker 1: guys didn't want to go to the Internet yet, right
Speaker 1: Like they were like, oh, this Internet is a fad.
Speaker 1: You don't get paid as much money. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how it's gonna work out. It's not as part prestigious
Speaker 1: to be writing on some random website. Like I even
Speaker 1: remember when I was writing at FanHouse, guys sitting around saying, like,
Speaker 1: what's our circulation, like asking the editors, and they're like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean the whole internet, you know,
Speaker 1: like is anybody can go everywhere. But you had these ideas,
Speaker 1: you had these different fiefdom so to speak, in newspapers
Speaker 1: back in the day. And this is gonna sound an
Speaker 1: equated to a lot of our listeners, but you know,
Speaker 1: we kind of are on the tail edge of this
Speaker 1: where you and I can remember waking up early enough,
Speaker 1: uh you know, you check a newspaper to see who
Speaker 1: won a game, right, Um, and now that's like crazy
Speaker 1: to my kids. Yeah. Yeah, for the weather, the movie times, yeah,
Speaker 1: movie times, playing at the movie theater, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It was your access to all information. Yeah, and see
Speaker 1: what's playing. You had all these different islands of dominance.
Speaker 1: So and the the size of the newspaper was in
Speaker 1: large large part a function of the marketplace itself of
Speaker 1: the city. So, like you mentioned the Chicago Tribune, but
Speaker 1: you also had these newspapers competing in the markets, and
Speaker 1: there was pretty good salaries to be made back in
Speaker 1: the day. Right, if you were working in the eighties,
Speaker 1: you can make a good living in the newspaper business. Well,
Speaker 1: I think you always good. I mean, and even if
Speaker 1: you still have a job in newspaper industry put unfortunately,
Speaker 1: but all the way through, all the way up through
Speaker 1: the nineties, things are going well, especially if you're a
Speaker 1: good columnist everywhere else. So you get the job at
Speaker 1: CBS Sports or sports line dot com or whatever it's called,
Speaker 1: and you're in your late twenties. And I remember reading
Speaker 1: this when I was in college. I remember reading your
Speaker 1: column because there still wasn't that many people out there
Speaker 1: writing regular, regular pieces on the internet, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it just wasn't that competitive, remember you, Andy Kats, Like
Speaker 1: who did you compete with that was writing about college
Speaker 1: basketball back in that day? Because I was at George
Speaker 1: Washington University and we were pretty decent in college basketball
Speaker 1: and I always wanted to see the top twenty five
Speaker 1: every week. And like, I think they hired Dennis Dodd
Speaker 1: pretty early at sports Line. I mean he's obviously been
Speaker 1: there forever, but like, who did you consider your competitors
Speaker 1: on the internet at that point in time? Do you
Speaker 1: remember Denna Dennis was at that, uh sports Line? And
Speaker 1: who didn't mainly college football? And it was basically Andy
Speaker 1: Chats and I, yeah, was about it, and and then
Speaker 1: there were all these newspaper guys. But the thing that
Speaker 1: Andy and I and Andy event the friend Noe biby,
Speaker 1: But what was we talked about it? We still do
Speaker 1: like we were like, okay, distinction, here's the thing. Every
Speaker 1: coach in the country can read this, yeah, right, like
Speaker 1: someone that they may have had to print it out, Okay,
Speaker 1: Like I don't think that Dean Smith is somebody who
Speaker 1: levels you know, these guys or on the internet. And
Speaker 1: he shutting. But it went to every went everywhere it
Speaker 1: is amazing, right, you could read it anywhere. They had
Speaker 1: to even have mobile then, but the and and you
Speaker 1: could write as long as you wanted, and you could
Speaker 1: write as much as you wanted. So there was none
Speaker 1: of this like, well you can't fit it in, like
Speaker 1: if you weren't working for you know, the Scholarks Tribune
Speaker 1: and some incident happened that U C l A or
Speaker 1: whatever you may be, it halfly really big to make it.
Speaker 1: We're just quite about everything. She is right right, right,
Speaker 1: right right, which, of course how the internet works. Put
Speaker 1: back then it was like, gosh, i'll re stores you write,
Speaker 1: and what do you like? But I didn't care because
Speaker 1: I was just like, this is an unbelievable opportunity to
Speaker 1: get known. And and then really quickly you could call
Speaker 1: anybody and they call you back. And when you have
Speaker 1: the access to it, to the coaches and then the
Speaker 1: players and everybody, you know, it just it just blew
Speaker 1: up really quick. And and so I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't think I knew my traffic numbers back then, but
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're very good. But inside college basketball where
Speaker 1: I was writing, and and college administrators, they all knew.
Speaker 1: Everybody knew who you were and so, but you would
Speaker 1: still go to like the n s A basketball TOURNT
Speaker 1: and they do like, well, we don't have a sheet
Speaker 1: for you because your circulation is like they were so
Speaker 1: hung up on the old school, like you couldn't get
Speaker 1: into some places, and you feel like this is absurd.
Speaker 1: Like I remember there was a conference that I think
Speaker 1: it's called like the Midwest Collegiate Conference. It's now it
Speaker 1: kind of became the Horizon League. Like there was like
Speaker 1: a lot of those like like Butler back in the
Speaker 1: day might have been in it or something like that.
Speaker 1: I remember trying to go to the conference basketball team.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't give me a sheet because I didn't have
Speaker 1: a print publication along with the internet site. And I
Speaker 1: was like, are you great? And so it was like
Speaker 1: it was so you were fighting like that. But then
Speaker 1: I could call any coach in the league and they
Speaker 1: called back and can men. So it's just there was
Speaker 1: just this huge disconnect. So the internet was just static
Speaker 1: aneral's reading it, and obviously they still do, but it
Speaker 1: was just like this whole wide open thing. And and
Speaker 1: like you said, like if this had gone to a
Speaker 1: full competition on who the best person was at the time,
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't have gotten a job. So my advantage
Speaker 1: was I was like a hundred stories a week. Fox
Speaker 1: Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation.
Speaker 1: Catch all of our shows at Fox Sports Radio dot
Speaker 1: com and within the I Heart Radio app search f
Speaker 1: s R to listen live. You would grind. But also,
Speaker 1: and we're talking to Dan, what'sall on Clay Travis? This
Speaker 1: is the Wins and Losses podcast. You recognize something that
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people didn't, which is in
Speaker 1: the past, and it still occurs. Right Like the local
Speaker 1: newspaper people are obsessed with what somebody in that local
Speaker 1: newspaper market rites. But a lot of times, and you
Speaker 1: know this from from your experience, you can end up
Speaker 1: in a situation where there's not that much interesting to
Speaker 1: write about in the local news market. But if you're
Speaker 1: writing about college basketball, there's pretty much always something that's
Speaker 1: popping on a national level. And those guys also who
Speaker 1: are reading you, both the coaches and administrators never everybody else,
Speaker 1: are curious about things outside of their own world. And
Speaker 1: so you had almost you and Andy Katz a monopoly
Speaker 1: on the entirety of national college basketball coverage from a
Speaker 1: writing perspective, which theoretically a lot of other people could
Speaker 1: have seen, but they didn't because they were may be
Speaker 1: worried about trying to protect what they already had. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's probably some of that, and then some of it
Speaker 1: would have been like, you know, you were gonna I
Speaker 1: don't remember what I got paid. I was certainly getting
Speaker 1: paid much better at that point, but it wasn't like
Speaker 1: huge money. So it was like, those are good jobs,
Speaker 1: but yeah, people didn't want to take a pay cut
Speaker 1: or I don't know, it's very comfortable work. Those have
Speaker 1: been around like a hundred years, right, you know, those
Speaker 1: are like good comfortable jobs. But yeah, the ability to
Speaker 1: have an impact was much much greater on the Internet,
Speaker 1: just not much much greater. Now. I want to go
Speaker 1: to the credentialing thing because I think it also establishes
Speaker 1: the paradigm shift. And and I remember dealing with this
Speaker 1: a lot writing online. Is they all of these schools
Speaker 1: panicked when the Internet started, and they're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have everybody who has a wet email address
Speaker 1: is going to be arguing they're a member of the media,
Speaker 1: and so uh, they will credential all these tiny newspapers,
Speaker 1: these little tiny community newspapers with no issues whatsoever because
Speaker 1: quote unquote they are a print publication. But if you
Speaker 1: were on the Internet, you weren't allowed to be uh,
Speaker 1: to be credential. And I remember like all sorts of craziness, like,
Speaker 1: for instance, and I'll get to Yahoo, how you ended
Speaker 1: up there in a sec. But Yahoo is a big deal, right,
Speaker 1: like a massive, massive website. And the way they would
Speaker 1: credential Yahoo was or like CBS sports Line. I remember,
Speaker 1: like CBS sports Line did a print publication one year
Speaker 1: for like uh, college basketball or college football magazine, right,
Speaker 1: And it's kind of a funny thing to think about anyway,
Speaker 1: but I guess it was an advertising point for them,
Speaker 1: and they would credential the CB sports Line sometimes because
Speaker 1: of that print magazine because they were already letting in
Speaker 1: Athlon and Lindy's and all the other people who do
Speaker 1: the you know, yearly print publication. But that was crazy, right.
Speaker 1: You fought those battles for years. It was unbelievable and
Speaker 1: trying to explain what you are arguing, um, And I
Speaker 1: can tell you a million stories. The hardest one was
Speaker 1: baseball MLB. But I got to Yahoo and I'm jumping
Speaker 1: a little bit ahead, but holy cow, because they were
Speaker 1: so old school and they'd always say, well, are you
Speaker 1: in the Baseball Writers Association? Okay, so he've been this
Speaker 1: baseball right Association? Like no, well, I go, how do
Speaker 1: you get in that? Like where you have to cover
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty games? I'll be like, well, I'm
Speaker 1: the only guy at the website, Like I didn't want
Speaker 1: to cover the World Series, right, like the NFL the NBA.
Speaker 1: Don't sit there and go, well were you at the
Speaker 1: Sacramento Kings Timberwolves game? Yeah, be a final car that
Speaker 1: we want attention MLB. So one time I was a
Speaker 1: spring training I'm gonna spare this guy that's the name
Speaker 1: because he really isn't a bad guy. But this one
Speaker 1: guy at the at the Mets says to me, you know, you, guys,
Speaker 1: here's what needs to happen at this time. Joah, who
Speaker 1: has probably had a had a it was worth about
Speaker 1: fifty billion dollars okay, because you know ya who used
Speaker 1: to say and he goes, you guys need like the
Speaker 1: Sporting News to buy you so you have a print publication,
Speaker 1: And I go, how about we buy the Mets? What
Speaker 1: are you talking about I mean a fifty billion dollar
Speaker 1: market cap. Sporting News is worth like fifteen million dollars.
Speaker 1: And he's thinking to I mean, it does kind of
Speaker 1: speak to the difficulty that people had understanding the Internet
Speaker 1: that he's like, oh, Sporting News should buy Yahoo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: who could buy every major League Baseball team. That's where
Speaker 1: we could have done. Could have bought them all if
Speaker 1: they was for sale. You know, we're worth more than
Speaker 1: the league. Yeah. I was like, okay, I don't even know.
Speaker 1: I was I'm not talking to a rational human being
Speaker 1: at this point, like they're just we're not speaking the
Speaker 1: same language. He's back, I guess I'm not going to
Speaker 1: spring train and of the Mets baseball would be absolute worst.
Speaker 1: And I hated covering baseball, and once I didn't have to,
Speaker 1: I never covered it again. So you hated everyone in baseball.
Speaker 1: You're at CBS. How many years do you write covering
Speaker 1: college basketball? I think it was like three? And then uh,
Speaker 1: and then what happens? Yeah, and then what happens? So
Speaker 1: then so a guy knew from college, Sam Silverstein calls me.
Speaker 1: He just became a sports editor of Yahoo Sports, which
Speaker 1: at the time was like they had a fantasy game,
Speaker 1: but like they would just beinglike when need to get
Speaker 1: into original content, and he's like, you should come work here.
Speaker 1: And I was like, now, at this point, at Yahoo
Speaker 1: was a I didn't even know if the ad mayde
Speaker 1: had a fantasy game. Probably a fantasy game. But it
Speaker 1: was a search engine. It was a search engine. That's all.
Speaker 1: It was email and search. But they would put five
Speaker 1: headlines on the old Yahoo drunk page and he's like, dude,
Speaker 1: like these stories are incredible, We're gonna do this thing.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I don't know. I was just
Speaker 1: like you know what this is, Like this could be
Speaker 1: really big, right, like this this is like a startup,
Speaker 1: but it's got fifty billion. It's a fifty billion dollar
Speaker 1: startup that makes tons of parting. And we're like, no
Speaker 1: one's even gonna know whether we're not doing a good job,
Speaker 1: Like we had time to try to like build this
Speaker 1: thing out. And so I switched from CBS Sports too
Speaker 1: Yahoo and everyone was like you're crazy. I mean, people
Speaker 1: are like I like, that's a search engine, and that's
Speaker 1: why could never people understood like the CBS Sports thing. Eventually,
Speaker 1: but the idea of the search engine wanted a media
Speaker 1: path forget it, um, but I did that and then
Speaker 1: we had we had to like restart all the fights,
Speaker 1: but the the traffic and a bout of people and
Speaker 1: all the all the assets we have, We're just incredible
Speaker 1: and the opportunity to like, let's create a website. So
Speaker 1: were you the first Yeah, whoo's I mean they might
Speaker 1: have had Fantasy sports and Luis, but were you the
Speaker 1: first first sports writer? And probably I was the first
Speaker 1: like journalist writer at all the whole place, like, no,
Speaker 1: they didn't have moves, was just like an ATC dead nothing.
Speaker 1: So what ye what year would this have been? Like
Speaker 1: two thousand three? Do you ask anybody to talk because
Speaker 1: two thousand three it's still really early days of the
Speaker 1: internet right there? Aren't you said people thought you were crazy?
Speaker 1: Did you almost inherently just trust your instinct on that move?
Speaker 1: Or was there somebody you talked to other than the
Speaker 1: guy who called you and said, hey, you know, we
Speaker 1: got huge sight traffic here, we want to make a
Speaker 1: go of it. What made you you think willing to
Speaker 1: take that risk that other people weren't. I remember talking
Speaker 1: to uh Adrian ward Strowski, who was working band at
Speaker 1: like the Bergen record in New Jersey and is a
Speaker 1: longtime friend of mine. Um long before the worlds bombs, Yes,
Speaker 1: um um. And I remember he thought he's a very
Speaker 1: smart guy. And I remember he thought it was a
Speaker 1: pretty good idea and that that really helped. There's another
Speaker 1: guy gave Scott, a longtime friend of mine, works at
Speaker 1: the US and he thought it was a good idea,
Speaker 1: and I knew. I just felt like, you know what,
Speaker 1: what the heck, let's try this. Um. I kind of
Speaker 1: felt like, what's the worst thing that could happen? UM,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just to me, it was like,
Speaker 1: there's so much potential here, and I was kind of
Speaker 1: the other thing in two thousand three was like I
Speaker 1: was covering college basketball at that point before the one
Speaker 1: and done, like the last year there was Lebron's senior
Speaker 1: year in high school. I was like spent more time
Speaker 1: covering high Lebron like nobody was going to college, none
Speaker 1: of the players, and so college bess was like Lane.
Speaker 1: I still a lot of fans, but it was like
Speaker 1: this wasn't as interesting, Like I believe me, when they
Speaker 1: get rid of the one and done college that was
Speaker 1: not gonna be remotely as big of a dealing now,
Speaker 1: it's really not that big of a deal now, so
Speaker 1: I wanted to Like I thought like, well, if I
Speaker 1: can cover the NFL and I can cover baseball and
Speaker 1: n b A and we was in the Olympics, we
Speaker 1: had all these plans. I was like, that would be
Speaker 1: a good opportunity for me to get out of just
Speaker 1: being a college fastival writer. So that was part of
Speaker 1: it too, because I kind of thought college basketball in
Speaker 1: trouble and like like back in the day they used
Speaker 1: to be like at least be great. Like tennis writers, Well,
Speaker 1: there's no job to be a tennis writer. So if
Speaker 1: you want to be a sportswriter in America, you better
Speaker 1: cover football or or the or the NBA. Like it
Speaker 1: this a couple of baseball guys, but like Garris is
Speaker 1: in So that was a big part of it too,
Speaker 1: was like I'm gonna be able to spread out and
Speaker 1: do different things if if this doesn't work at Yashop.
Speaker 1: But I really felt like if we did it right,
Speaker 1: it would work. And Sam Um was super really smart
Speaker 1: guy and a really good guys at the Path twelve
Speaker 1: now and Um we just kind of were like, I
Speaker 1: think we can make this work and so I was like,
Speaker 1: what the heck? Right, So sixteen years you've been at Yah.
Speaker 1: Who sports now? And the people out there who think
Speaker 1: back at what Yahoo was like back in the day.
Speaker 1: I mean the amount of site traffic that Yahoo dot
Speaker 1: com would do, and that MSN dot com and a
Speaker 1: O L dot com and they still do, even though
Speaker 1: those three sites are not as popular now as they
Speaker 1: wore back then. I mean they were insanely popular. But
Speaker 1: you're talking about Yahoo in a pre Google universe, right,
Speaker 1: Like I mean, I don't even think Google had been
Speaker 1: founded yet hardly or is only a couple of years old. Um,
Speaker 1: So you go to Yahoo, what is your first Like
Speaker 1: how do you even get started? You just start pitching
Speaker 1: ideas on stories? Like what is that process? Like, well, Bertally, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're like we'd start writing store like we had to
Speaker 1: set up everything, and we had to set up a
Speaker 1: news desk like comanitor Like it was just a lot
Speaker 1: of planning and then we're trying to find people to
Speaker 1: let you go cover things because that would give credibility.
Speaker 1: But then you could just you know, like anything like
Speaker 1: you know, NBA Free Agency or whatever, like whatever's going down.
Speaker 1: I remember the US Open tennis I covered that. It
Speaker 1: was like one of the first things. It was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: well you can come cover cover tennis tournament in New York. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of like meeting and like we just
Speaker 1: we had to plot out what we're gonna do. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was it was it was a total startup we had,
Speaker 1: but we had the opportunity to do or anything. So
Speaker 1: it was like what kind of sight do we want
Speaker 1: to be? How much journalism do we want to do? Um?
Speaker 1: You know, eventually it was like what positions would we add?
Speaker 1: The Mexical while Sam was really really smart guy and
Speaker 1: he was like, we're going to cover the Olympics, okay,
Speaker 1: and I seemed radical with one guy. And so he's
Speaker 1: like we're going You're going to the two thousand for Olympics.
Speaker 1: And he's like, the thing is it would spark all
Speaker 1: like all the people at Sonny Island in California would
Speaker 1: be excited about the Olympics. And if we're covering the Olympics,
Speaker 1: it would like make an impact in turn renally, and
Speaker 1: then if we do a good job, that will create
Speaker 1: like internal investment because like, yeah, who had all the
Speaker 1: money so we could do anything you want. It. We
Speaker 1: just needed more, so we're gonna be better, like putting
Speaker 1: our eggs in that. So that was a big one
Speaker 1: internally because when we did a good job at the
Speaker 1: at the Athens Olympics UM and we would get selling
Speaker 1: our stories on the front page and we're kind of
Speaker 1: building up the sports page that that that was kind
Speaker 1: of a cap for the first year and then there
Speaker 1: and then, like I think internally they're like, yeah, you
Speaker 1: can hire like a couple more people or want don't
Speaker 1: you try that? It grew a lot of things and
Speaker 1: it was very smart because I had never thought conceptually.
Speaker 1: I think it just wasn't in my wheelhouse to think
Speaker 1: like internal pr right, like how how are you being
Speaker 1: seeing inside your company? Because a big company can can
Speaker 1: put their resources wherever. So that was kind of an
Speaker 1: interesting lesson that we still try to do. So you're
Speaker 1: at the Athens Olympics, it's two thousand four, you're representing
Speaker 1: Yahoo Sports. You're basically the only employee. How in the
Speaker 1: world you decide what to cover? Right? But I mean
Speaker 1: for people out there who are listening, I think they
Speaker 1: have this idea and I want to get into this
Speaker 1: you a little bit more. But when when the story
Speaker 1: is packaged for you, and you go and you read it,
Speaker 1: you think to yourself, oh, of course they went to
Speaker 1: go cover this. But effectively, when you arrive at the Olympics,
Speaker 1: it's like you're given a huge menu, your one random
Speaker 1: dude in Greece, and you've got to figure out, oh
Speaker 1: my god, what are the stories here? What am I
Speaker 1: gonna do on a day to day basis. It's not
Speaker 1: like there's some you're not NBC, right, who's putting on
Speaker 1: the Olympics that has a thousand people there and they
Speaker 1: all sit around a table and they're like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we know we're gonna cover gymnastics, and then we're gonna
Speaker 1: do this, and then we're gonna Mean like they have
Speaker 1: everything mapped out, you know, a year in advance. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know, Fox, for instance, has the Super Bowl this
Speaker 1: year coming up, and they're already you know, they've already
Speaker 1: hired hundreds of people, they got their cameras and their
Speaker 1: sets already scheduled. I mean, you're a random dude just
Speaker 1: going over to Greece and you're like, yeah, I'm writing
Speaker 1: for this website that nobody knows. How do you decide
Speaker 1: how to cover the Olympics. Well, yeah, he's just trying
Speaker 1: to pick your spots, you know. And then if even
Speaker 1: if you're not, like if something big happen and you're
Speaker 1: not actually in the arena, you just right about it anyway.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it would be like there's a track need
Speaker 1: that dymastics need to swim me, there's basketball game, there's this.
Speaker 1: You know, you're just you're just trying to guess on
Speaker 1: what the best story is gonna be. Also, like what
Speaker 1: can you do that you're going to differentiate? Like that
Speaker 1: was kind of a big thing, Like it's like value
Speaker 1: over replacement player, you know, like in in in uh
Speaker 1: in baseball, Like what what can you do that will
Speaker 1: stand out and make it work you being there? So
Speaker 1: sometimes it's not just being at the at the big event,
Speaker 1: it's it's being at the right place or where the
Speaker 1: best story is or something like that. That was something
Speaker 1: I learned in the magazine. So it's like it's just
Speaker 1: going to the biggest games doesn't always mean you're in
Speaker 1: the right spot. It's it's a lot easier to make
Speaker 1: an impact when no other not many reporters are around,
Speaker 1: and like being at the super Bowl, Like I love
Speaker 1: being at the super BOWLK like the challenge of competing
Speaker 1: as all the other writers, but like there's two thousand
Speaker 1: people there, you know, So it's it's to to differentiate
Speaker 1: yourself as a real challenge. So sometimes you're better off
Speaker 1: at something else. Um, but I don't know, man, I
Speaker 1: didn't know what I was doing. I didn't I was
Speaker 1: not a very good column to stare back back then,
Speaker 1: I would try to read all the other guys that
Speaker 1: basically get my brains beating men every day. But you know,
Speaker 1: whatever we're trying. So I definitely like I never went
Speaker 1: to like the all the touristy spots. Everyone's like, did
Speaker 1: you go there? I don't even know what all this
Speaker 1: stuff is in Grease, But I would now go to anything.
Speaker 1: I literally went in nothing today eight I would once
Speaker 1: it has worked. I was just like, so we were panicked.
Speaker 1: We're like, we gotta make we gotta make this work.
Speaker 1: We run all the way to Grease. You mentioned that
Speaker 1: you didn't think you were very good, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: initially on the columnist business and and and I probably
Speaker 1: should ask this question earlier. I don't. I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people out there listening to us right
Speaker 1: now that don't even spend that much time on the
Speaker 1: distinction between news and opinion, right, and so much of
Speaker 1: it has gotten mixed up today that it's sometimes hard
Speaker 1: and you sometimes get confused. Even if you're just a
Speaker 1: regular person. You're reading, you're like, wait a minute, is
Speaker 1: this a news article or is this somebody's opinion about
Speaker 1: the news? And I feel like there used to be
Speaker 1: a more substantial difference. But you are hired to be
Speaker 1: in the opinion business right when you go to work Yahoo,
Speaker 1: but also when you're at the Olympics, you're also kind
Speaker 1: of in the news business because if a big news
Speaker 1: story breaks out, that's something that people want to read about. Two,
Speaker 1: how did you straddle that line and how complicated was it?
Speaker 1: And were you thinking in your mind is this a
Speaker 1: news part piece or is this an opinion piece? Because
Speaker 1: I would imagine early on when you're at Yahoo, you
Speaker 1: kind of have to fill every different aspect of the news, right,
Speaker 1: whether it's an opinion piece or just a straight you know,
Speaker 1: like something happened here and it's a news story. Well,
Speaker 1: I would try to write an opinion piece, but I
Speaker 1: would probably just not trust my opinion, so make it
Speaker 1: too loosy so how do you come Yeah, so how
Speaker 1: do you come to trust your opinion? How did you
Speaker 1: work through that to get more comfortable? Because I think
Speaker 1: you're the best national opinion writing writer in the business
Speaker 1: of sports now, But how did you find that voice
Speaker 1: and how did you work your way into it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well thank you, but yeah, doing it and then reading
Speaker 1: the other people, so like you know, you'd be there
Speaker 1: and like Bill Platsky's a phenomenal, phenomenal sports columnists from
Speaker 1: the l A Times, and you know, you'd be at
Speaker 1: the same thing and you just you'd read his the
Speaker 1: next thing and to be like I got my asking
Speaker 1: like why do I suck it right? This disaster right right?
Speaker 1: And I was like why I didn't even think of this,
Speaker 1: Like I didn't trust it or I can't even remember,
Speaker 1: but you O'Connor, who might for care? I mean, I
Speaker 1: just everybody. I mean, that was when korn Heiser and
Speaker 1: Will Bond were righting. I mean, Bob Ryan, like all
Speaker 1: these guys that are kind of all on TV now,
Speaker 1: older guys, those guys slaughter you, Dan Lebatar, Holy Cock
Speaker 1: and LeBatard right a column um just phenomenal and and
Speaker 1: they just bank like in an hour, they just kill you.
Speaker 1: And it's just like my column is not anywhere as
Speaker 1: good as this. So he just you know what, guy
Speaker 1: could tug anything. He's got to keep doing it. You know,
Speaker 1: what's that like ten thousand hour? You know, I'm glad, Well,
Speaker 1: you just I mean, there's just no he's gotta keep going. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a little rough some of them days. But but
Speaker 1: you know, there's so many swings that at the Olympics
Speaker 1: or anywhere anything you're trying to do, and you still
Speaker 1: always kind of I don't know, you just trust yourself
Speaker 1: a little bit and you you kind of just figure out,
Speaker 1: like what's truly interesting. I mean, I have some different
Speaker 1: tricks I'd come up with. I always I always try
Speaker 1: to say, um, you know, like if if if I'm
Speaker 1: driving home from the assignment wherever I'm at, and somebody
Speaker 1: calls me and my wife calls our friend go and
Speaker 1: they go, what happened at at at the game denying
Speaker 1: or the events or whatever, what you do today? And
Speaker 1: like it's the first thing I say, isn't the column
Speaker 1: that I didn't write the right column? Because sometimes you
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know, you just be like, wow,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't believe what you know, Kobe Bryant said after,
Speaker 1: but then you ended up writing about like some inbound players.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, like what what you do. But
Speaker 1: you see that a lot in sports writing or the
Speaker 1: other thing that really helped me. I had actually did
Speaker 1: a lot of talk radio. I had a talk radio
Speaker 1: show briefly in Detroit, and that helps a lot. Talker
Speaker 1: everyone makes on the talk radio, but you have to
Speaker 1: be on topic, and you have to figure out a
Speaker 1: topic that the listener wants to listen to or they
Speaker 1: aren't listening, like they are hitting that button in one second.
Speaker 1: And that's a big Talk radio was a big training
Speaker 1: ground too, because if you're on a bat, there's nothing
Speaker 1: worse than a segment on talk radio, a bad talpic.
Speaker 1: You just you can just feel all the people clicking away.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you mentioned that because I always tell people advice.
Speaker 1: You know, from a writing perspective, you do this too
Speaker 1: for writers. Go on radio every opportunity you get, because
Speaker 1: it will crystallize oftentimes your central thesis as you talk
Speaker 1: through it. Right. And also if you're if you're if
Speaker 1: you have a good ear, you can pick up on
Speaker 1: what people care about. And I hear sometimes writers and
Speaker 1: they'll say, oh, I don't like to do radio, or
Speaker 1: I don't want to I don't make the time to
Speaker 1: do radio. And my argument is radio is basically an
Speaker 1: opportunity for you to advertise your audience and and create
Speaker 1: people who care what you think, whether it's written or spoken.
Speaker 1: And you've always done radio quite a bit, and I
Speaker 1: think there is a certain element of writers who sometimes
Speaker 1: look down on radio. I've always argued you should use
Speaker 1: radio to lift your writing up even higher. Yeah, same
Speaker 1: with like you know, I mean people make fun of
Speaker 1: like around the Horn and stuff like that or some
Speaker 1: of those goos. But it's like they're they're almost always
Speaker 1: really good on topic. Like I watch I don't watch
Speaker 1: a lot of TVs. It's not the live events that
Speaker 1: it's don't but sometimes and I'll watch, um, whatever Stephen
Speaker 1: as at First Take or whatever Stephen A. Smith show
Speaker 1: is on, Like they get right into their topics, like
Speaker 1: and they get right to it, and it's a good
Speaker 1: the A Smith was a good called sports columnists to
Speaker 1: tell you that, Um, I don't think anyone like I
Speaker 1: don't know how many people even remember. I guess he
Speaker 1: reminds people every once a while, but he was a
Speaker 1: good sports column. Um my first metim was coming Temple basketball.
Speaker 1: Remember being like I'm gonna I'm gonna do this this
Speaker 1: and this is like he did at all Um, but
Speaker 1: that's a guy that worked hard. And but they get
Speaker 1: right on their voice really quick, and they get right
Speaker 1: they don't they don't do topics that you don't need
Speaker 1: to do, and so it's there's there's a trick to it,
Speaker 1: and and a lot of those shows are very good
Speaker 1: at it in big ways that maybe people don't. I don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how many journals and students
Speaker 1: listen to this thing, but there's a people will look
Speaker 1: down on that. Like Stephen A. Smith is loud and
Speaker 1: I'm highly entertaining. He's very very smart to get to
Speaker 1: right to the point and the point people listen to
Speaker 1: the point. So what are we arguing about? Like, I
Speaker 1: can't be Stephen A. Smith, but what he does is
Speaker 1: really good. Yeah, look, I think what you just hit
Speaker 1: on his key. I mean it's all about the story, right,
Speaker 1: Like you have to find the stories that people care about,
Speaker 1: and then you have to have an opinion that people
Speaker 1: care about. So I'll give an example, and I've known
Speaker 1: you for I don't know a long time now, and
Speaker 1: I think, honestly, you reached out to me for the
Speaker 1: first time when I was writing at CBS Sports. I
Speaker 1: think you'd already gone to Yahoo and you're like, hey,
Speaker 1: would you want to talk to Yahoo? And this has
Speaker 1: probably been calve thirteen years ago now. In fact, I
Speaker 1: remember because it was when tennis Tennessee was playing. It
Speaker 1: was when Dixie Land Delight was coming out, uh, And
Speaker 1: I went out and talk to Yahoo. And we'll get
Speaker 1: to that in a minute, but I remember we were
Speaker 1: talking at the Alabama Notre Dame game and Katherine Webb.
Speaker 1: Alabama just blows out Notre Dame, right, and Katherine Webb
Speaker 1: goes up on the screen and immediately becomes the story
Speaker 1: of the game. You know, good looking girlfriend of of
Speaker 1: the quarterback who was uh, who's an aim is escaping
Speaker 1: me now, which is ridiculous because a J. McCarry Yes,
Speaker 1: a J. Mccarroen, yeah. And so the game ends, everybody's swarming,
Speaker 1: Nick Sabe and everybody's swarming. Everybody's swarming, and you rush
Speaker 1: over to try to find Katherine Webb because you're like
Speaker 1: the thing that people are gonna want to read about
Speaker 1: in the column is what it was like for Katherine
Speaker 1: Webb to become an overnight sensation, right, like some people
Speaker 1: would have looked down on it and said, oh, you're
Speaker 1: there to cover the game. You were there to cover
Speaker 1: what you thought was the biggest story. And so you
Speaker 1: interviewed her, right, yeah, well Musburger remember Musburger was like
Speaker 1: kind of yes, so but you have to like I
Speaker 1: remember seeing you, like you were climbing up into the
Speaker 1: stands almost to try like everybody else. But I waved
Speaker 1: her down. She came down. Yeah. I waited for Karen
Speaker 1: and he went over because he's gonna go like Hucker
Speaker 1: or whatever. Yeah. Right, so yeah, so I was like
Speaker 1: I got the interviews Captaine Webb, and it was she said,
Speaker 1: like she she added eight Twitter followers like her phone
Speaker 1: blew up, right, yeah she could like Lebron James started
Speaker 1: following her, like I mean, it was it was a
Speaker 1: huge story. Yeah, And and she got an email every
Speaker 1: she had, like a notification she said to work. She
Speaker 1: got an email every time a Twitter follower because she
Speaker 1: had like whatever, she's not any Twitter followers were going on. So,
Speaker 1: like you know, Jenny from so theology classes now far okay, right, Well,
Speaker 1: she's got so many emails. Her battery just died, so
Speaker 1: then they're trying to get word. She didn't quite know
Speaker 1: what it happened. She knew she'd been on TV, and
Speaker 1: I mean, look, she's like the beauty queen. She was
Speaker 1: not and this is not naive. Um it was funny.
Speaker 1: It was like three weeks later she was covering the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl for like extras. She got to the Super
Speaker 1: Bowl quick, like you heard me the interviewed just three
Speaker 1: weeks ago. No one to hear you. Well, I just
Speaker 1: remember I just remember A. J. Mccarren's face when I said,
Speaker 1: like in the locker room matters. I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: Lebron James is following your girlfriend now, and he's like,
Speaker 1: he doesn't follow me, and yes, yeah, that's right, yes,
Speaker 1: And so I don't. So I get this tether webs nice,
Speaker 1: she's got these nice talents. So I go down. I
Speaker 1: talked to mccaren. Well, unfortunately the locker rooms open. It's
Speaker 1: the only game in college football you can actually talk
Speaker 1: to the players. College like college sports, tries to hide
Speaker 1: all their athletes. Terrible. These guys are great stories and
Speaker 1: there it's like good talk to the players. You know,
Speaker 1: uh that these three questions in front of the it's
Speaker 1: access of college football stinks. And then she has let
Speaker 1: these kids be kids because they're great and you and
Speaker 1: I are in there, but all the questions are always
Speaker 1: going to be the same at these things, like it's
Speaker 1: just gonna be about the game, and I'm like, I
Speaker 1: want to ask him about his girlfriend becoming like globally
Speaker 1: like famous. He has no idea. He just won the title.
Speaker 1: And you were there and it was great because we
Speaker 1: were both asking them about it, and then we could
Speaker 1: bounce back and forth and they couldn't break in with
Speaker 1: third and four. Did you think? Yeah? You know? You
Speaker 1: you you know. I was like, god, they do they
Speaker 1: want fifty to zero or something? The game? It is horrible,
Speaker 1: but again everyone's got a job to do. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we both and you you go. Lebron James following companies
Speaker 1: like what. He was very naive. He had no idea.
Speaker 1: And I remember his other funny line, well, I think
Speaker 1: we're gonna go. They were saying at the font with
Speaker 1: Blue Hotel and Miami goes um, I'm hungry. I hope
Speaker 1: they saw food or the place is still open back
Speaker 1: of the Yeah, yeah they never they never closed at
Speaker 1: the Fountain Blue. They haven't live nightclub is open to
Speaker 1: like six am. Yeah. Uh, the South to be Don
Speaker 1: worry about it. So yeah, yeah, that was a big
Speaker 1: story the interview with But that's what you learned, right.
Speaker 1: You get the trust of like screw and I'm not
Speaker 1: covering the game and game stinks, you go wherever the
Speaker 1: story is. I remember you saying something. A couple of
Speaker 1: other examples, Uh, Jay Cutler. One of the first times
Speaker 1: that social media really starts to influence a game. Cutler
Speaker 1: pulls himself out of the game because of his knee
Speaker 1: injury the NFC Championship game. I think where they're playing,
Speaker 1: like the Packers. I can't even remember who they were
Speaker 1: playing now. Uh, And he's injured on the sideline and
Speaker 1: all the NFL players start mouthing off about how he
Speaker 1: can't be that injured, and it turns into a story.
Speaker 1: And remember you saying afterwards what social media did was
Speaker 1: it turns what used to be the second or third
Speaker 1: day story into the first day. In other words, it
Speaker 1: accelerates the cycle. So you go and talk to Jay Cutler.
Speaker 1: I remember in the post game and you say, hey,
Speaker 1: did you see what guys are saying about you pulling
Speaker 1: yourself out of the game, And it was like Cutler
Speaker 1: had no idea because he'd been on the sideline and
Speaker 1: that's your story. It's not about what happened in the game.
Speaker 1: It's about Cutler coming out and the way people respond
Speaker 1: to it, right, And I remember that one, Like, like
Speaker 1: until social media, they'd be like, what would you have
Speaker 1: to rank? First of you have to be able to
Speaker 1: get their numbers or have their numbers, and you have
Speaker 1: to randomly call up these athletes and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: if you have an opinion on on Jay Cutler right now?
Speaker 1: Like yes, you know some random cornerbacks for the jab
Speaker 1: Jabards or something that. No. So plus, if you call
Speaker 1: up and go, hey, I want to interview about what
Speaker 1: you think, they won't say anything. But they're like drinking
Speaker 1: beers on their couch and they're firing off on social media.
Speaker 1: It's public. And now we cover social media all the
Speaker 1: time like it's it's this is it's a second world.
Speaker 1: Do you remember when that evolution happened from I'm in
Speaker 1: the game to write about what happens in the game too,
Speaker 1: I've got to already kind of take the conversation beyond
Speaker 1: where what happened in the game to the next conversation
Speaker 1: that people are gonna have because everybody's watching the game,
Speaker 1: and with social media, everybody's talking about the game. So
Speaker 1: your column has to be something different than what you
Speaker 1: just watched, or the takeaway has to be something larger.
Speaker 1: I think I've always been like, especially like a Super
Speaker 1: Bowl or any of it's always been like, well, why
Speaker 1: am I here? Right? What access do I have? Um So,
Speaker 1: if I'm at the super Bowl, like a hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty million people watch the super Bowl and they have HDTV,
Speaker 1: They've got all the replays, I might not. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: I'm at the press box, which is great, but it's
Speaker 1: used to like the worst seats in the whole stadium
Speaker 1: you don't have, like you just don't they know better,
Speaker 1: and like they know their teams better, Like just so,
Speaker 1: what can I do? Well? I can do something behind
Speaker 1: the scenes, where was it, like this happened? Or you
Speaker 1: may be zoom in on one play and then ask
Speaker 1: all the people what happened on the play? Or like
Speaker 1: you have to use your access. So I think I've
Speaker 1: always kind of had that where It's like I have
Speaker 1: to give them something other than just hey, uh yoh
Speaker 1: wow man, Tom Brady is great. They want of those
Speaker 1: Super Bowl like you know of course they did, or
Speaker 1: just just like I'm here to find a story, not
Speaker 1: just necessarily just be at the game. I think that's
Speaker 1: the biggest thing. Like I don't like I never really
Speaker 1: care what happens in the game. Nobody ever, people don't
Speaker 1: believe that, But I don't care. I don't like something
Speaker 1: will happen. That's that's all it is. I don't care.
Speaker 1: Winds Uh, I don't really even care if it's close
Speaker 1: or not. Sometimes you do, but like, as long as
Speaker 1: there's something I can find on all right, be sure
Speaker 1: to catch live editions about Kicked the Coverage with Clay
Speaker 1: Travis week days at six am Eastern three am Pacific.
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example to you just mentioned Brady.
Speaker 1: I remember two of your columns that were so well
Speaker 1: done from the Super Bowl, and we're talking to Dan
Speaker 1: what's so Yahoo Sports National columnists. I'm Clay Travis. You're
Speaker 1: listening to the Winds and Lost his podcast. You wrote
Speaker 1: a column about Giselle's reaction. I think when Brady lost, right, Um,
Speaker 1: and about just the humanity of that's just a guy
Speaker 1: who happens to have a girlfriend and they happened to
Speaker 1: be world famous, but how upset she was about just
Speaker 1: by what you could see in the tunnels underneath the stadium.
Speaker 1: Uh over that loss. And another one was Brady after
Speaker 1: they win. I guess this is the a f C
Speaker 1: championship game. But after Brady, I think it was beats
Speaker 1: Patrick Mahomes, like he kind of snuck in the back
Speaker 1: do word to go talk to Ma Homes after the game,
Speaker 1: to kind of walk through after that overtime game. And
Speaker 1: I don't think I don't, at least I don't remember
Speaker 1: anybody else writing those. That's an example of taking advantage
Speaker 1: of being there, but also finding a way to find
Speaker 1: something that nobody else has, right, right, so I have
Speaker 1: the access, so use it. Right. So what happens on
Speaker 1: the field everybody saw, So that doesn't mean I don't
Speaker 1: sometimes write about what happened in the field, But like
Speaker 1: I can't add to that conversation really that well. And
Speaker 1: I don't pretend I don't ever say I'm like an
Speaker 1: expert on the sports. Um like football is a very
Speaker 1: complicated game, and so for me to be like, oh
Speaker 1: he overthrew that receiver. Maybe the receiver random rob. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many things happened football, particularly, but so like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I followed Tom Brady after a Super Bowl offs like
Speaker 1: he was devastated, devastated, Like every one of those losses
Speaker 1: just guts those guys. I don't care how much money
Speaker 1: you got, beautifully, I says all that stuff like if
Speaker 1: you're a competitor, you are gutted. And he was gutted
Speaker 1: in that one and the Woolen balls. I was just
Speaker 1: stand there and he he said something to the security guy,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, this goes in the back
Speaker 1: doors his cheeks, and I'm like, what's up at that?
Speaker 1: And he comes out and I go in the locker
Speaker 1: room and I'm just and I asked the security guard.
Speaker 1: He said he wanted to know where the Holmes was.
Speaker 1: Um security guys not allowed to talk, right, So then, uh,
Speaker 1: I just got the security guard in trouble, um random
Speaker 1: random person. And but anyway, I go up to us,
Speaker 1: did you go talk to my homes? And what you say?
Speaker 1: And he just gave me like one line where he
Speaker 1: was kind of surprised. I do but at least that
Speaker 1: you know, he's just like, guess I wanted to, you know,
Speaker 1: tell him I didn't see him on the field or whatever.
Speaker 1: So yeah, like what can you get that? And then
Speaker 1: that was I thought it was a good column because
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, this young kid had played
Speaker 1: so well and it was like the old guy held
Speaker 1: him back. But it was like, I'm gonna go acknowledge
Speaker 1: that I know how much pain you're in, that you're
Speaker 1: really a hell of a player. And so yeah, like
Speaker 1: if you have to pay nine and you have to
Speaker 1: try to use your access the best the best to
Speaker 1: possibly can. Now what part of the job too, Like
Speaker 1: that's the fun part to me, Like like finding stuff,
Speaker 1: finding a story that nobody else has told. Now, we
Speaker 1: think one thing that you I think have been on
Speaker 1: the vanguard of. I mean we've talked about the fact
Speaker 1: that you're on the vanguard of building Yahoo Sports and
Speaker 1: and making the decision to write online and all of
Speaker 1: those things. But you also will allow data and analytics
Speaker 1: to inform you an either confirming that you're on the
Speaker 1: right track in terms of writing about what people care about.
Speaker 1: Uh and and so I'm curious on that. Let me
Speaker 1: give it a little bit of a background for people
Speaker 1: out there. Story goes up on the front page of
Speaker 1: Yahoo Sports, it's read by millions and millions of people.
Speaker 1: Right um, you know, there's a little tab for sports
Speaker 1: for people who are not familiar haven't spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time there, and those stories they'll rotate them through
Speaker 1: based on algorithm. They're the things that they think people
Speaker 1: are going to click on the most, right. The goal
Speaker 1: with everything on those pages is to write things that
Speaker 1: are clickable. And sometimes it will be a basic news
Speaker 1: story and I know you guys sometime times have a
Speaker 1: pee wires and stuff, but I'm always stunned by the
Speaker 1: number of writers who don't pay attention to what is
Speaker 1: read that they write. I've always been an analytics guy,
Speaker 1: especially once I started out kicked. I'm gonna write about
Speaker 1: things that people care about. And sometimes I'll sit around
Speaker 1: and say, Okay, I could write that, but it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a tiny audience. And sometimes you make that decision
Speaker 1: because it's something that matters to you. But ultimately, if
Speaker 1: you are a sportswriter, to me, you're in the business
Speaker 1: of being read and you can use that data and
Speaker 1: that analytics to help either confirm you that people care
Speaker 1: about something or that they don't. And so I'm curious,
Speaker 1: when did you start paying attention to those numbers and
Speaker 1: start using them in some way to help guide you
Speaker 1: as to what the nation cared about? Really early, I
Speaker 1: mean because we had access to them. So I was like,
Speaker 1: I want to know. And my job is to bring
Speaker 1: people to Yahoo or keep them at Yahoo. That's my job.
Speaker 1: However I do that, so it's not I'm here to
Speaker 1: cover a game, it's not here to win an award,
Speaker 1: it's not here to be friends with this. My job
Speaker 1: is to find people to bring the boyagra or keep
Speaker 1: them on there. And so what are they most interested in? Now, look,
Speaker 1: there is a there's a tipping point on that where
Speaker 1: we just become just nonsense. Right, So there you don't
Speaker 1: you have to balance that, but very quickly you probably
Speaker 1: doesn't need analytics. But you realize a lot more people
Speaker 1: are interested in Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings. Right,
Speaker 1: So it better be a hell of a story with
Speaker 1: the Sacramental King, dreight. Now I'm not I'm not right
Speaker 1: now covering the NBA because soccer. But let's take women's soccer.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna write about the Netherlands team, like they got
Speaker 1: a star player on the Netherlands. What I'm right about
Speaker 1: Alex Morton a be crazy? Like so you know, those
Speaker 1: are the extremes. But if you really sense it and
Speaker 1: you see all the different stuff, you kind of figure out,
Speaker 1: uh some of it. So some of it is just
Speaker 1: like right, this are I mean, these are not in
Speaker 1: the general purposes, They're not not surprising, but there is
Speaker 1: times when people kind of seem to forget you, like,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting topic choice there, I'm gonna go with.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with the low hanging fruit. It's hard
Speaker 1: to get people to read. You get harder. Has there
Speaker 1: been a time where you've talk radio stuff too? Like
Speaker 1: you want to talk about talk radio or the ESPN
Speaker 1: the Fox sports shows like US one shows like they
Speaker 1: don't They're trying to keep people watching and that's why
Speaker 1: they go the same topic over and over, and I
Speaker 1: get why. I'm like listeners viewers get upset and like
Speaker 1: he's got always talking about Lebron James. But it's like, wow,
Speaker 1: not everyone watches for five hours a day, and so
Speaker 1: you know that's this is who they're interested in. It's
Speaker 1: it's interesting that you mentioned, you know, like your your job,
Speaker 1: your job. Can you say that again? Because I think
Speaker 1: it's interesting how many people have jobs and they don't
Speaker 1: ever really dissect what their job is. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: that you worked in construction where you know it's relatively easy,
Speaker 1: Like you have a screen job your day to your
Speaker 1: job today is to dig this ditch, right, like that's
Speaker 1: what you're supposed to do. Um and yeah, and and
Speaker 1: you know like even you know you said you you
Speaker 1: trained to be a card dealer, right, Your job at
Speaker 1: at blackjack is to deal the cards and not screw
Speaker 1: up and pay out things correctly. Same thing if you're
Speaker 1: playing craps. A lot of people I feel like they
Speaker 1: don't let anyone, don't let anybody steal the money, like
Speaker 1: they don't really know what their job is. It's amazing
Speaker 1: to me how many people have jobs and they have
Speaker 1: these amorphous jobs and like what do you do? Well,
Speaker 1: I kind of do this if you can't distill your
Speaker 1: job down and you just distilled that you said your
Speaker 1: job is to either get people to come to the
Speaker 1: site or get them to stay longer. That really, I mean,
Speaker 1: that kind of sums up the internet, right, That sums
Speaker 1: up the all media. It's all media. That's it. What
Speaker 1: what am I doing? And what is the differentiator? So
Speaker 1: think about like a really good broadcaster, okay and you
Speaker 1: go okay, So take um Bon Skull his bond Scully
Speaker 1: with the great who's the great Dodger guy? Then no something,
Speaker 1: who's the guy that's retiring? I don't know. Let's pickup
Speaker 1: Monday Night Football or something like that. John what did
Speaker 1: John Good? So, okay, I'm gonna watch great game, right,
Speaker 1: Packers Packers and the and the Bears are playing, and
Speaker 1: I want to watch the game. And then well the
Speaker 1: game's out of hand, but mad is entertaining me, so
Speaker 1: I stick through another quarter. That's John Madden, right, who's funny.
Speaker 1: That guy's funny. I'm gonna keep watching um or I
Speaker 1: don't know who's playing, but John maddens on Right. There
Speaker 1: was a time when Dick five cow was really that,
Speaker 1: Like it was a big basketball game, Dick five cows
Speaker 1: yelling he's got a college I watched this. What's going on?
Speaker 1: It's got go crazy? Right, I'm gonna watch that thing.
Speaker 1: So like if you just think what kets you to
Speaker 1: stay one more segment and or what draws you and
Speaker 1: now it's harder to draw him in. But when they're there,
Speaker 1: how do you keep them? So whatever that is, and
Speaker 1: that also that can be like don't be annoying or
Speaker 1: don't make someone. There's a lot goes into that, but
Speaker 1: that's that's media. But yeah, I would. I would always
Speaker 1: say to anyone who has a job and figure out
Speaker 1: what your job really is and even ask your boss
Speaker 1: like why am I here? Like what? And it's at
Speaker 1: risky now because if you don't know why you're here,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna fire you. But it is. It is remarkable
Speaker 1: to me how many people have jobs and don't understand
Speaker 1: the basic question that you have to answer is why
Speaker 1: am I here? How do I make my job boss
Speaker 1: more money? And you know, like how do I do that?
Speaker 1: Like just basic blocking and tackling, I would say, of
Speaker 1: the show element of the job, then you better figure
Speaker 1: out every day did I do that? But because if
Speaker 1: that seats in the back of your head and so
Speaker 1: whatever your job is, it's like you know, I think
Speaker 1: like some of them are obvious, right, like shales. Right.
Speaker 1: For my job, I'm a car deal. My job is
Speaker 1: to sell a car. Okay, so did you do that today?
Speaker 1: But there's also other parts, right, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know how to sell cars. So
Speaker 1: try it will help you do better at your job.
Speaker 1: If you know why you're here, and even your boss
Speaker 1: hasn't thought about it, you'll probably do the job really well.
Speaker 1: And so that's that's my job. So I don't always
Speaker 1: sit there and go almost My job is to write
Speaker 1: do this. It's not much. This is what I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to do. I don't know how how example that works.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but every day I gotta try to
Speaker 1: do that. Now, the concept of the podcast is wins
Speaker 1: and losses. And I mentioned earlier that you reached out.
Speaker 1: We met each other like eleven, twelve years ago, thirteen,
Speaker 1: whatever it was. I went out to interview at Yahoo.
Speaker 1: And so I'm trying to make a living as a
Speaker 1: writer online. I'm having some success at CBS UH, and
Speaker 1: you get me set up with an interview. I come
Speaker 1: out to Santa Monica to the Yahoo offices. I spend
Speaker 1: all day there. I think it goes pretty well. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'd love to get this gig. I
Speaker 1: think it would be pretty good. They give me some freedom,
Speaker 1: I'd get a you know, salary increase, the audience would
Speaker 1: be outstanding, and I don't get the job offer, right,
Speaker 1: I go out there and then they just kind of
Speaker 1: leave me hanging for a couple of months, and and
Speaker 1: I didn't get the job offer. And so I sometimes
Speaker 1: wonder what would have happened with my career where it
Speaker 1: would have gone, because at the time I wasn't I
Speaker 1: don't think doing radio yet, I hadn't certainly done television. Um,
Speaker 1: what would have happened if I had taken that Yahoo job?
Speaker 1: And sometimes, like you may know, the answer of why
Speaker 1: I didn't get the job, I haven't even asked. Its
Speaker 1: potentially good. I forgot you. I had forgot You've got
Speaker 1: out there. Yeah, I didn't know what to do with you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I went spent the entire spent the entire day
Speaker 1: talking to everybody at the Yahoo main offices in Santa Monica.
Speaker 1: I thought you had reached out, and you've been like, hey,
Speaker 1: we haven't really hired anybody who's kind of in the
Speaker 1: you know, zany irreverent. You know, at the time, I
Speaker 1: was writing hopefully humorous columns at CBS, like, I think
Speaker 1: we could find somebody in that. I think it makes
Speaker 1: sense because you you were instrumental and I don't think
Speaker 1: you've even mentioned this, but you were the first hire
Speaker 1: at yeah Who. You've talked about how you laid out
Speaker 1: the different uh, the different roles, but you also were
Speaker 1: incredibly instrumental in bringing in those early voices at Yahoo.
Speaker 1: I mean in many ways you helped to build it. Yeah, yeah, definitely,
Speaker 1: including a lot of people and and and the voice
Speaker 1: that exists for yeah Who Sports is in many ways, Uh,
Speaker 1: your ideas of whose good voices that could be, whether
Speaker 1: it's Woad, whether it's Pat forty. I mean you have
Speaker 1: been Pete Damil over the years, very instrumental in the
Speaker 1: guys who have invest want to investigations. You want to
Speaker 1: be unencumbered. We wanted to tell we want to right
Speaker 1: right tough to tough columns like you know, we weren't
Speaker 1: just we'ren't afraid all the different things we've tried. We
Speaker 1: could tons and tons of investigations for a long time.
Speaker 1: We still do. Um, yeah, like we're going to cover
Speaker 1: all the uncomfortable things. Yeah, And I don't have the
Speaker 1: you don't have the encumbrances of their relationships at the time.
Speaker 1: And so you talked about what your job is. You
Speaker 1: also sometimes look your Yahoo Sports. You talked about the
Speaker 1: difficulty that you guys had sometimes getting credentialed, and a
Speaker 1: lot of times I think in life people focus on
Speaker 1: the advantages they don't have, right, They focus on the disadvantages.
Speaker 1: They sit around and say, well, we can't do that
Speaker 1: because we don't have X, Y or Z. Do you
Speaker 1: remember like a moment where you thought, well, hey, we
Speaker 1: can be the independent voice the guys who are willing
Speaker 1: to write stories that others might not, and this gives
Speaker 1: us an advantage because there's a market out here for
Speaker 1: the style of writing that we would do, for investigative
Speaker 1: pieces or whatnot. Did you have that as a lightbulb moment?
Speaker 1: Was it something gradual that happened. Were you cognizant of
Speaker 1: thinking about it even back in two thousand three when
Speaker 1: you went to Yahoo. No, we always I always knew
Speaker 1: that we would. I wanted to be a part of
Speaker 1: something like that. I didn't want to. The other thing
Speaker 1: is that, I mean it was good branding. If you
Speaker 1: want to get into that, I mean, can't you can't
Speaker 1: make investigative journalism and anything other than investigated journalism and
Speaker 1: just get the stories wrong. Um, like you can never
Speaker 1: be a crusade. It can never be like act because
Speaker 1: you're it'll be wrong because you'll miss, you'll be blinded,
Speaker 1: you'll walk into blind spot. So you can't do that.
Speaker 1: But you know, in a in a broader thing, like
Speaker 1: we have to become impossible to ignore. So you have
Speaker 1: these huge stories that no one else has, and particularly
Speaker 1: early on, like you know, so Nevin Shapiro or um,
Speaker 1: I don't know some of the other things stories, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna cover Aaron Hernandez and no one else is.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do stuff that and all the leagues. I mean,
Speaker 1: like the pr guy I used to get along pretty
Speaker 1: much at all, but at the beginning, it's like when
Speaker 1: they were paying a knack and like, you know, they
Speaker 1: joke and like, you know, like you guys are like
Speaker 1: a prince of darkness. Nobody you never call for any
Speaker 1: good God, that's not what we're gonna be. But you
Speaker 1: they know who you are, you know, So it's just
Speaker 1: the way it is. Like I just like incredible, like
Speaker 1: fotball relationship with college sports, Like I love college sports,
Speaker 1: right and I actually love the scandals of college but
Speaker 1: I think the scandals of college sports are part of
Speaker 1: the fun of college sports. Like I do never think like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, everything's painted because it's a scandal. It's like,
Speaker 1: this is the funny part. I I used to always
Speaker 1: pay I have used an example sometimes, but when as
Speaker 1: a kid I watched I love the Boston Pars, love
Speaker 1: watching hockey, and they'd be a fight on at the
Speaker 1: game and and you know, to be awesome, and then
Speaker 1: I'd run to and then I get the next day
Speaker 1: like in the paper or the at the oh this
Speaker 1: game was marred by a bench clearing brown. And then
Speaker 1: I'd run the school and be like sixth grade and
Speaker 1: be like check see the parl at night right, Like,
Speaker 1: like dude, the Nevi and Saverio stories hysterical. The story
Speaker 1: was so entertaining, like it was nuts. It was completely nut,
Speaker 1: just like a billionaire ponte Steamer like funding the team,
Speaker 1: like totally crazy story, Like yeah, it stinks for Miami,
Speaker 1: but whatever they got back. None of these stuff ever sticks.
Speaker 1: But you know it's a bad story, like Larry Nasser,
Speaker 1: that's a bad story. There's nothing good at that. But
Speaker 1: you know, some of these scandal stories, they're just funny.
Speaker 1: And so it's like whatever. That's part of the part
Speaker 1: of the charm of the whole thing. So I'm curious
Speaker 1: when you have one of these big investigative pieces and
Speaker 1: you have worked I mean, for instance, Nevin Shapiro case,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no telling how many hours, like you
Speaker 1: guys put in I think it's you and Charles Robinson
Speaker 1: back in the Charles the most of it. Ton how
Speaker 1: much nervousness? Yeah, okay, So how much nervousness is there
Speaker 1: in the minute before you click publish and you know
Speaker 1: it's going to go out and everybody's about to see it.
Speaker 1: Because let me let me yeah, let me preference that again,
Speaker 1: because you know, the era that we're in and have
Speaker 1: been in for a long time is a lot of
Speaker 1: times now people don't try and go after the whole story.
Speaker 1: They try to find one little mistake and say, well,
Speaker 1: if this is not accurate, then maybe that means the
Speaker 1: whole thing is not accurate. Right, And it's almost impossible
Speaker 1: if you write five, six, seven thousand words about anything
Speaker 1: that every little detail is going to be ironed out perfectly,
Speaker 1: no matter how long you work on it. Right, So
Speaker 1: when I heard this cover? Yeah, when when when am
Speaker 1: I nervous, like for a week at least, leaping up
Speaker 1: to it like Samach is like terrified, have trouble sleep,
Speaker 1: terrified and what what are we missing? And we try
Speaker 1: to report backwards on the story report the other side.
Speaker 1: There's two things about what you want to do on
Speaker 1: any story. You want to be accurate and you want
Speaker 1: to be fair, because those are two different things. And
Speaker 1: you can be accurate and unfair. Um, and you can
Speaker 1: be I guess you can always be just inaccurate, so
Speaker 1: but you want to be fair awful. So it's like
Speaker 1: what am I missing? Like is it like you've got
Speaker 1: to write this story and be like you guys did
Speaker 1: this and then they go, yeah, we did this because
Speaker 1: of that, and you're like, oh, right, right, So you
Speaker 1: don't want to I don't know, you just you you
Speaker 1: just you just spend so much time on it. So
Speaker 1: it's a meat grinder's just a meeting people and the
Speaker 1: problem is you're you're right. Like I've heard a prosecutors
Speaker 1: say this one time and I thought it was very
Speaker 1: good in a trial. I was like, this case is
Speaker 1: like a rope if one threat of the rope phrase
Speaker 1: and you don't believe one threat if the rope is
Speaker 1: still strong. It is not changed. Okay, so one little
Speaker 1: part of the defense makes sense. Doesn't mean there are
Speaker 1: two dead bodies over here or something like that, right,
Speaker 1: So it's like and so yeah, they'll try to find
Speaker 1: one little thing. And then there's really in nowadays, like
Speaker 1: there's basically state run media. There's these organizations that just
Speaker 1: are like the websites are just and like there's always
Speaker 1: one there's always one guy who's either got a blog
Speaker 1: or a page or whatever. It's just like all he's
Speaker 1: there to do. His whole business is to defend the school.
Speaker 1: So like, no matter what the story is, they're just
Speaker 1: gonna be like it's not true, it's overblown. And where
Speaker 1: they're you know, defend. And then there's the attack. He
Speaker 1: who's kind of gotta that part you has got to
Speaker 1: deal with um. But like our track records phenomenal because
Speaker 1: we take it very, very seriously. But you have to
Speaker 1: be I've seen people do not know how to do
Speaker 1: investigative journalism. I've watched so many good reports blow up
Speaker 1: on dumb mistakes at a lot of the outlets, and
Speaker 1: it's really really hard to do and you have to
Speaker 1: be really really into it. Any good editors, you need
Speaker 1: cotent dedication. And half of them don't work because they
Speaker 1: aren't done right, even though they actually they actually are true.
Speaker 1: A lot of them are true. There's poorly done or
Speaker 1: they're not fair. Those are there's a lot, there's a
Speaker 1: lot there. So you've written a lot of stories over
Speaker 1: the years about quote unquote improper benefits or pay for
Speaker 1: play things like that. Do you have less of an
Speaker 1: appetite for writing those stories now than you might have
Speaker 1: a decade ago. Well, we nevern't really cared about I
Speaker 1: could write them. We could have done a million, like
Speaker 1: you know, point Guard somewhere gets the money. We were
Speaker 1: never into that. We decided at one point was the
Speaker 1: n p A was really pretending that there were white
Speaker 1: hats and black hats, and they were using it to
Speaker 1: justify not paying the players and amateurism and avoiding taxes
Speaker 1: and stuff. So in other words, that there's guys who
Speaker 1: cheat and there's eyes who don't cheat, and there's a
Speaker 1: strong difference between the two. Yeah, Park is terrible. The
Speaker 1: rest of the guys are good, right, And it's like,
Speaker 1: give me a break, right, and I covered a I mean,
Speaker 1: I just forget it. Like this is just ridiculous. So
Speaker 1: we didn't have a stretch when he said we're just
Speaker 1: gonna blow everybody up like we're and we're gonna go
Speaker 1: big schools. We're not doing small schools like we're going
Speaker 1: we're gonna find stuff about whatever come up. But Ohio
Speaker 1: State and Oregon and you know, we went after Yukon
Speaker 1: and whatever. We had link care. But it was done
Speaker 1: with a purpose. It wasn't done to like we really
Speaker 1: almost never tried to get a player in trouble. It
Speaker 1: was to get the coach or the system in trouble. Now,
Speaker 1: there was some um, obviously there's some you know, players
Speaker 1: would get get in trouble or something like that, but
Speaker 1: it was like we've shown how bad it was and
Speaker 1: they did get rattled. They ended up passing the stipend rule.
Speaker 1: After the whole chaos that we had enough stuff that
Speaker 1: they convened a big thing and they ended up that
Speaker 1: excite them. So all these players did, they didn't create something,
Speaker 1: but we don't. As we're getting criticized like, were you
Speaker 1: guys just trying to do the MCS work? But no,
Speaker 1: Anally hates us. We're blowing them apart because we're showing
Speaker 1: they're not doing anything, and they ended up changing and
Speaker 1: so there was there was like a grander motivation to
Speaker 1: it and just if I if we just want to
Speaker 1: go find out all Baskett player got something that doesn't.
Speaker 1: That's not that hard. You can do that, um, but
Speaker 1: we never wanted to be like but it's not about
Speaker 1: like we didn't want on Yukon basketball and like we didn't.
Speaker 1: It was not about like the poor kid that got
Speaker 1: some money, he deserves the money. It was like Jim
Speaker 1: Calhoun had his former manager student manager was now and
Speaker 1: he's used him to funnel the thing. Like like it
Speaker 1: was you know clear how they were doing it. And
Speaker 1: it's like this is how sophisticated the cheating in for
Speaker 1: like the whole college basketball scandal, which the said's bots,
Speaker 1: but it showed how sophisticated it was. It's not just
Speaker 1: now so let's all focus on the one kid that
Speaker 1: got a thousand bocks. It's like you gotta do this.
Speaker 1: The Nike likes funneling bads of cash tow players and
Speaker 1: the coach is going up to do it so surely
Speaker 1: exposed trying to expose what the whole system really is,
Speaker 1: which nobody wants to do. They want to just catch
Speaker 1: a bunch of speeders and ignore all the other things.
Speaker 1: What would you change if you if they came to
Speaker 1: you tomorrow and they said, Dan Wetzo, you're now in
Speaker 1: charge of the n C double A. How would you
Speaker 1: change it? I just would let the players you get
Speaker 1: their name, image and likeness. I just I like, I'm
Speaker 1: a free market person. I just let the market go.
Speaker 1: If you can, if you can make some extra money,
Speaker 1: you get sponsored. People will said, I don't, it's gonna
Speaker 1: screw up concruding. I don't think it really will. I
Speaker 1: don't actually don't actually did a level of playing field.
Speaker 1: This is actually yeah, but right right now it's all
Speaker 1: about the school keeping all the booster money. But I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's kind of complicated. But it was actually
Speaker 1: not complicated. This is what they did in the Olympics.
Speaker 1: They just if you can, if you can get a commercial,
Speaker 1: or if someone wants to pay you to go to
Speaker 1: a school, someone wants to let me sign autographs, uh
Speaker 1: for thousand bucks or fox or whatever they want to do,
Speaker 1: go ahead and get it. Um, just get out of
Speaker 1: the way, let the kids make their money, and then uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the school isn't paying, But you're just you're
Speaker 1: no longer getting in the way of them. They're amateurs.
Speaker 1: Got to be able to make their money some other way.
Speaker 1: So I was I do, and I think you saw
Speaker 1: them with all the problems. Fox Sports Radio has the
Speaker 1: best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of
Speaker 1: our shows at Fox Sports Radio dot com and within
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app search f s R to
Speaker 1: listen live. We're talking to Dan Whatso Yahoo Sports national columnists.
Speaker 1: Another thing you've done in addition to being a national columnist.
Speaker 1: We mentioned that you have the new books that are
Speaker 1: out the biographies for UH for middle school students, and
Speaker 1: that's called the Epic Athletes series. Al Morgan, Steph Curry,
Speaker 1: Tom Brady, Serena Williams U those that be the first four.
Speaker 1: But you also wrote a book called Death of the BCS. Um.
Speaker 1: What how would you compare the writing of a book
Speaker 1: process to the writing of a column and which do
Speaker 1: you prefer more? A column you get done quick? Yeah,
Speaker 1: a long time. Death with BCS is very reporting heavy,
Speaker 1: a lot of documents. Um, you know, we I think
Speaker 1: we just wanted to show how all of the excuses
Speaker 1: were such nonsense. What a what a ridiculous entity the
Speaker 1: Bowl system is and the fact that they allow this thing,
Speaker 1: like you talk about ridiculous, like the n c A,
Speaker 1: Like you know, if a player gets you know, five dollars, Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a threat to amateurism. But if the head of
Speaker 1: the Sugar Bowl makes seven grand, it's like gouts our buddy,
Speaker 1: It's great, right, Like it's so I mean, it's so ridiculous.
Speaker 1: So that was the thought that was, like you we
Speaker 1: you know, everybody wanted the BCS gone or everyone nobody
Speaker 1: everyone hated the BCS. And I'm Josh Peter who worked
Speaker 1: in USA today now and I just will talking on
Speaker 1: the phone. I'm like, let's find out, like why this
Speaker 1: thing really exists? And like you know, no, no favors, no,
Speaker 1: like you know, the Bull directors all hated. Everybody hated
Speaker 1: me while it's writing that book, I mean everybody, we're
Speaker 1: in everyone's toys and everything and bonuses, and like why
Speaker 1: does this really exist? Because nobody quite knew. There was
Speaker 1: no much spoken god, and we want to do all
Speaker 1: They wrote a bunch of stories. Anybody's turned into a
Speaker 1: book because it's easier to read in one spot. And
Speaker 1: I remember the very end of the book process. I
Speaker 1: flew down to Birmingham and I saw it Mike Slive
Speaker 1: if the SEC office is and I had all my
Speaker 1: information and I'm like going through this stuff like well
Speaker 1: why do you allow this? And why that? And He's
Speaker 1: sitting there going, well, what is this? What's you find
Speaker 1: out about this? Like like different stuff. He was a
Speaker 1: stunned about and I'm like, holy cow, like we really
Speaker 1: have a good book here. I remember he was. It
Speaker 1: was like I found some clause and like the fiestable
Speaker 1: contract where you're like like you had to buy certain
Speaker 1: rooms at a hotel, and then we found the fiesta
Speaker 1: bo was kicking the money back to the hotel and
Speaker 1: somebody had like a free wedding at a hotel that
Speaker 1: was in the Like there's so much graph going on
Speaker 1: and people just be like, I can't I didn't even
Speaker 1: know all this stuff, and it's like yeah, no, like
Speaker 1: literally nobody knows what's going on. Just it's all happening.
Speaker 1: So that was just a long and a long reporting
Speaker 1: process of a few years, and unfortunately I'm in the BCS.
Speaker 1: I don't think the problem is that people designed this
Speaker 1: playoff didn't want a playoff, so it's not really a
Speaker 1: very good playoff. Eventually, they'll get it right. We're talking
Speaker 1: to Dann what So, YEAHO sports national columnist. You. We
Speaker 1: were talking about different stories and the way they came about.
Speaker 1: You were in the room when I asked Tim Tebow
Speaker 1: if he was saving himself for marriage, and I think
Speaker 1: you turned it into a question Yahoo call him? But
Speaker 1: what do you remember about that? And some people listening
Speaker 1: to this right now, it's been a it's been a
Speaker 1: decade now, they may not even know that I was
Speaker 1: the person who asked. I mean, they kind of have
Speaker 1: a vague recollection of the Tim Tebow is a virgin story.
Speaker 1: But the reason why that became a story was because
Speaker 1: I asked Tim Tebow if he was saving himself for marriage,
Speaker 1: and it blew up into a huge story that's probably
Speaker 1: been what a decade ago. And you know, you'd go
Speaker 1: to the SEC media days and Tim Tebow was as
Speaker 1: close to a rock star as you could find back
Speaker 1: in the day. They were coming off of a national championship,
Speaker 1: he was a rising senior, and so I asked that question,
Speaker 1: and it's like, I mean, a neutron bomb goes off
Speaker 1: right now. Partly it's because it's July and there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of stories. And you know this, you were
Speaker 1: talking about how you're at the Super Bowl and there's
Speaker 1: nothing to write. Well, there's a thousand media members or
Speaker 1: whatever it is at the SEC media days and most
Speaker 1: of them are doing notes columns, you know, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know Nick Saban said that he thinks his defensive
Speaker 1: tackle depth is gonna be better this year than it
Speaker 1: was last year. Are the l s U wide receiver
Speaker 1: is gonna be able to make play? Like really things
Speaker 1: that are very uh not very big stories, right, and
Speaker 1: then this thing goes and it goes off like a
Speaker 1: neutron bomb. And I remember it was right after I
Speaker 1: started Twitter, um, so that was one of the first
Speaker 1: times I saw social media really take off. So I
Speaker 1: think it was like, oh nine, like a decade ago.
Speaker 1: What do you remember about that all time great questions?
Speaker 1: All time whether the all time great questions? You wrote
Speaker 1: a column asking the questions. Apparently you said you were
Speaker 1: going to ask the questions. So then we were down
Speaker 1: there and You're like, I'm gonna ask the questions. So
Speaker 1: I'm about missing this right, this is gonna be great.
Speaker 1: So like it's a great question, it's a great question.
Speaker 1: And I always I'm literally on a different thing I'm
Speaker 1: dealing with, like right now, like I want to ask
Speaker 1: one question. I always I hate asking questions at press conferences.
Speaker 1: And that's the problem. You have to ask you that
Speaker 1: a press conference because it's uncomfortable for everybody. But this
Speaker 1: is probably trying to limit you. And there's so many
Speaker 1: times like I don't need an exclusive interview to sit down.
Speaker 1: The people who sit down for interviews, the interviews are terrible.
Speaker 1: They always twenty five minutes on crap. Like all I
Speaker 1: need is one question. I have one question, answer that
Speaker 1: we're done. Um. If I could do that on every
Speaker 1: assignment would be good. I got and I've done it
Speaker 1: with people. I remember doing one with Mick Saban once
Speaker 1: after SEC title game. I asked, um, I asked him.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I just always want to ask this one
Speaker 1: question to him. They're like, all right, go bring him over.
Speaker 1: It was great. Um, but on that one, I remember,
Speaker 1: so you're gonna do it. So it wasn't the main room,
Speaker 1: like I don't think they gave it a mike. It
Speaker 1: was like a side room and you asked. But here's
Speaker 1: the thing, everyone ripped you. I mean you got torched. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: for like the whole week. Whole week. Yeah, still I
Speaker 1: still get I still get rid of like a million.
Speaker 1: I remember like Dennis Dodd was like, are you gonna ask?
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I don't remember, And later we talked
Speaker 1: about it, so I like Dennis, but it was like,
Speaker 1: are you gonna ask? You know, like it was something
Speaker 1: like you canna ask Les Miles if he has an
Speaker 1: STD And I remember thinking, like, the really funny thing
Speaker 1: and I might be it might not have been that
Speaker 1: exact line, but that was in his column something like that,
Speaker 1: and I remember thinking like, hey, I'm thinking the net today.
Speaker 1: It would have been amazing to stand up and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: Les Miles, Clay Travis, Dennis Dodd wanted me to ask
Speaker 1: you if you have her pies, you know, like just
Speaker 1: to see the room, just like erupt him, like because
Speaker 1: you get if you've ever been in those rooms that, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you've ever been in those rooms. Most of the
Speaker 1: questions are not very interesting and most people don't care
Speaker 1: about the answer the answers right, so almost immediately right
Speaker 1: and by the way, everybody was so upset about me
Speaker 1: asking the question, what did everybody write their whole next
Speaker 1: day call ups about it was all about whether Tim
Speaker 1: Deebo is a virgin or not. Right, So here's the thing.
Speaker 1: People will put this on the record because there's got
Speaker 1: to be a video. But as I recall it, Tebow
Speaker 1: everyone laughed and people goes, it's nothing. I get that.
Speaker 1: I get asked that every time I talked to kids. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he said something like that, like every time I speak,
Speaker 1: I put up and they go, do you have any questions?
Speaker 1: And someone goes, are you like, what's up with this?
Speaker 1: Like are you really a virgin or something like that,
Speaker 1: and he had no. He's the most unflappable, like he's
Speaker 1: a fantastic guy, and you know it's like he yeah,
Speaker 1: he had no problem with it. He was like happy
Speaker 1: to answer it. Oh and looks like ten years later,
Speaker 1: people are still like, Jim is a virgin. I'm like
Speaker 1: that a question was a long time ago. I don't know,
Speaker 1: he's still yeah. You know what was interesting too, was, um,
Speaker 1: I maybe felt more comfortable with the question because growing
Speaker 1: up in the South, if you were saving yourself for marriage,
Speaker 1: it was something that you would brag about, right, like
Speaker 1: you would wear a promise ring if you were really serious.
Speaker 1: Like at that point in time, it was something that
Speaker 1: in the evangelical faith was a very common point of discussion,
Speaker 1: the promise keepers, like all this different stuff surrounding it.
Speaker 1: So I didn't think he would be bothered by the question,
Speaker 1: But I also thought it helped to define who he was, Right,
Speaker 1: this is this guy who's on an SEC campus that
Speaker 1: probably gets swarmed by girls, not probably, certainly gets swarmed
Speaker 1: by girls everywhere he goes, and he is so religious
Speaker 1: that he's still, you know, abstaining from having sex, which
Speaker 1: ninety nine point nine percent of men I would imagine
Speaker 1: in that situation probably do not make that decision, right,
Speaker 1: So I thought it defined him in a really interesting way.
Speaker 1: But I remember that feeling of like that story blowing up,
Speaker 1: and look, it's happened to me a two or three
Speaker 1: different times since then, but that was the first. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, like, this is the number one story in
Speaker 1: the of the day, and it wouldn't be, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't exist without me having been involved in some way.
Speaker 1: And the same thing happened obviously with CNN with you know,
Speaker 1: First Amendment and boobs, except on an even bigger scale,
Speaker 1: because that wasn't just a sport that wasn't just a
Speaker 1: sports story, right, But you kind of get comfortable. And
Speaker 1: then I had the DeMarcus Cousins like He'll get arrested
Speaker 1: in five years tweet that was like a decade or
Speaker 1: or five years old or whatever. And so at some point,
Speaker 1: like you kind of just get used to, Yeah, when
Speaker 1: the social media age, like are you know you just
Speaker 1: kind of get used to suddenly, Like I go into
Speaker 1: Twitter and I've got, you know, a billion messages and
Speaker 1: I'm like, what happened? You know? Like and I remember
Speaker 1: having this conversation with with Cow heard about like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, Debo Sweeney comes out and he's like calling
Speaker 1: Cow wouldn't know he didn't even know his name, Like
Speaker 1: I hope he learned something by the way our team performed.
Speaker 1: And people are like, oh, Devo, you know he really
Speaker 1: got on cow Herd. And I'm like, in our business,
Speaker 1: the coach of a postgame press conference who just won
Speaker 1: a national championship calling you out by name is the
Speaker 1: greatest thing that could ever happen to your career, right,
Speaker 1: Like people are like, oh my god, how are you
Speaker 1: ever going to recover from this? I'm like, are you
Speaker 1: kidding me? It? Reminds me remember back in the day
Speaker 1: with Michael Moore did the Fahrenheit nine eleven and they
Speaker 1: like showed him on the JumboTron at at the Republican
Speaker 1: National Convention and like he waves everybody and he turns
Speaker 1: to the guy next to him and he says, I
Speaker 1: just made another million dollars because they're all booing him,
Speaker 1: and it's like the greatest advertisement he could have ever
Speaker 1: had for his UH, for his UH, for his documentary.
Speaker 1: And that's in some ways what we do. But you
Speaker 1: you saw it. I mean it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: like pure bedlam in the in the in the aftermath.
Speaker 1: But it's the thing you you you deal list great information,
Speaker 1: which is your job. Stories. It's one of the most
Speaker 1: famous things known about Tim Tebow, and it may be
Speaker 1: the most famous question ever asked at SEC media days.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that there's a clause the fairer way,
Speaker 1: but you're encumbered because you're like, I want to ask
Speaker 1: him one question. Yeah, And this is my one of
Speaker 1: my problem medias. They won't let you talk to them directly,
Speaker 1: but then they have they do sit down for interviews
Speaker 1: that are almost all terrible. Like the interviews aren't any good.
Speaker 1: So it's like, but that's sometimes you see really good
Speaker 1: stuff like, um, one of my colleagues of Yahoo, Chris Haynes,
Speaker 1: does a podcast with NBA players, Like it's it's great.
Speaker 1: They really talked to him and he gets great information
Speaker 1: from them, um because he just he has a great
Speaker 1: rapport with him. It's a really good podcast. And sometimes
Speaker 1: you can just get like just you know, I just
Speaker 1: thought that was just a tremendous Uh. It was. It
Speaker 1: was a great question. Um, I'm trying to think of
Speaker 1: another one. I was just gonna say I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask or I asked once. Oh it was yeah, actually
Speaker 1: not that get a story. It was just like the
Speaker 1: old Michigan State bas football coach John L. Smith came
Speaker 1: on our radio show at Detroit. I asked him like, hey,
Speaker 1: this guy's got this wednsite fire John L. Smith dot
Speaker 1: com or something like don't like having a guy at
Speaker 1: a website saying like fucking He got so mad and
Speaker 1: everyone got mad at me for asking in the Michigan
Speaker 1: State and I'm like I was wondering, like I didn't
Speaker 1: say you should be fired, but like it's got to
Speaker 1: be kind of odd, right, But like they don't want
Speaker 1: real questions, and so it's just as weird. It's just weird.
Speaker 1: I've probably always have been weird the media. But like,
Speaker 1: we know lots about the athletes through filter of Instagram,
Speaker 1: but you can't actually ask him anything. And it's a
Speaker 1: tough thing. Was it's a tough question to asking a
Speaker 1: press office to tebow. The t Bow handled it perfectly.
Speaker 1: Most players would have struggled with that. T Bow is
Speaker 1: just amazing. Yeah, I mean, I think Tibo will eventually
Speaker 1: run for political office. I mean that's been my prediction.
Speaker 1: He'll go down to Florida and he'll get elected governor
Speaker 1: or senator if he decides he wants to do it,
Speaker 1: and it went, I mean, he'll win running away. I
Speaker 1: think I imagine he'll run as a Republican. I don't
Speaker 1: really know a lot about his politics, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think he's one of those guys that it doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter what party he runs for, Like he will
Speaker 1: have a ton of response. So one thing that you
Speaker 1: you have always done well and I think it gets
Speaker 1: underrated and I keep hit hammering on this, and I
Speaker 1: know you've got a couple of young daughters, but I've
Speaker 1: got you know, the Three Boys, and I focus a
Speaker 1: ton on trying to praise their effort more than their
Speaker 1: more than the results. And and that's sometimes for a
Speaker 1: lot of people out there listening. I think there's a
Speaker 1: big difference. Like, you can't control, uh, your talent. You
Speaker 1: can't control necessarily what skills you have in any particular universe.
Speaker 1: What you can control is your effort. And what I
Speaker 1: have admired about you for a long time is your
Speaker 1: effort is insanely high. You write more words and more
Speaker 1: columns than almost anybody out there. Do you attribute that
Speaker 1: to just a work ethic? Um? You know, I think
Speaker 1: there's two different kinds of people in in in in
Speaker 1: our industry at large, right, I think there's people who think, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I need a stroke of brilliance. I'll say writers. You know,
Speaker 1: there's the writer out there who's like, I need a
Speaker 1: stroke of brilliance. I need something to motivate me in
Speaker 1: order to write something. And then there's other people. And
Speaker 1: I would put myself in this category of what I
Speaker 1: do is produce words, right, That's my job. So if
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that, then I'm not doing my job.
Speaker 1: I don't feel good about it. You could easily write
Speaker 1: a lot less columns than you do. What do you
Speaker 1: attribute your work ethic to, not the work result, but
Speaker 1: your work ethic to being up there and grinding as
Speaker 1: much as you do? UM, well, thank you. This is
Speaker 1: like the nicest podcast, like UM trying to get there
Speaker 1: it wasn't easy. Then when you get a good job,
Speaker 1: I don't want to give it up. I've always we're
Speaker 1: alwayn fighting like the yahoos, ton advantagers and things like that,
Speaker 1: but we didn't always, And then you're still trying to
Speaker 1: stay on top. People want your job. There's too much
Speaker 1: to lose. And I got the family and a mortgage
Speaker 1: and all that, all of them. But pride is basic
Speaker 1: pride and and uh and and liking it. It's funny
Speaker 1: how you said it, like I put out words like
Speaker 1: I said this to the journalism class recently, like you know,
Speaker 1: some of you guys like my favorite I like to
Speaker 1: write in the early evening with a you know, a
Speaker 1: half calf mocachina. I'm like, no, right, there's the deal.
Speaker 1: System is writer's block. I'm a writer. Like when I
Speaker 1: when I dug ditches, there's no dig ditching ditch digging.
Speaker 1: There's lots of mythologizing of writing. It's a job. Do it.
Speaker 1: It's a job. You go. If you're gonna do it
Speaker 1: as a job, you better do it. There's no like
Speaker 1: I just can't. I don't not believe me. I struggle
Speaker 1: at times. It's not easy. But the number I tell
Speaker 1: people to the number one skill in writing is concentration.
Speaker 1: Like I can really concentrate, and I don't know how,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to know how I can do it,
Speaker 1: but I can concentrate. And if you can concentrate, can
Speaker 1: write really quickly. I mean, get all this stuff out,
Speaker 1: because I have written stories in subway cars, on top
Speaker 1: of garbage cans and see on busses, point whatever. Right,
Speaker 1: Like you'll, I'm a journalist. You can't just be like
Speaker 1: I'll now retired to the coffee shop and get my
Speaker 1: box together. That's not the kind of journalist I am.
Speaker 1: Like you know, I was covering the French in the
Speaker 1: world cover of friends, like a hundred twelve degrees. It's
Speaker 1: like a sweating I mean, it's just miserable, like it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter write the story. So um, there's sort of
Speaker 1: this an element of that too, and I kind of agree,
Speaker 1: like you can't. You can't go on your radio show
Speaker 1: and be like you can't speak right now. I just can't. Like, no,
Speaker 1: this is what I do. I signed up for this job.
Speaker 1: You better do it. So I don't like the works,
Speaker 1: though I like the challenge of finding stories and writing
Speaker 1: stories and reporting stories, thinking stories, doing it the whole thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I still really enjoy it. So Bill that
Speaker 1: in like, I got a great job. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: let I'm not gonna give it out because I just
Speaker 1: like I'm easy, good God to be stupid. One thing
Speaker 1: nothing else I can do. One thing you've also done
Speaker 1: is we talked about how to know where the story is?
Speaker 1: What are things are people going to care about? You
Speaker 1: have covered more, I think than anybody else in sports trials,
Speaker 1: whether it's the Aaron Hernandez murder trial, whether it is
Speaker 1: I mean like you know, like it can be a
Speaker 1: high school you know, like a rape case. It can
Speaker 1: be the you know, the the Larry Nasser awfulness that happened,
Speaker 1: the Joe Paterno situation. What is it about those stories
Speaker 1: which are certainly sports related, but they're also in a
Speaker 1: courtroom that you think you have gravitated towards well they
Speaker 1: usually I mean the usually big serious subjects which i'm
Speaker 1: I don't like, I'm I don't. I think I said
Speaker 1: a few times like I don't care if I'm at
Speaker 1: a game, like I never sometimes I don't end up
Speaker 1: at a game like I've covered like every great game,
Speaker 1: but like I didn't. I don't think I went to
Speaker 1: the National Football Championship this year. Um say, I'm sure
Speaker 1: I'm didn't. Right. No, I don't like people you miss No,
Speaker 1: don't miss it at all, Like I don't like I
Speaker 1: don't leave it there. I'm not there, be fine if
Speaker 1: I'm not there. Um So, But a trial, So a
Speaker 1: trial is dramatic. It's a big story. Like I like
Speaker 1: big serious stories more than just I was at some
Speaker 1: game or at some stadium. Um. Sports to me is
Speaker 1: more about like just the backdrop of all these different
Speaker 1: all the different mayhem that it creates. So the trials
Speaker 1: are good. Covering a trial is always interesting, and they
Speaker 1: just you know, I mean, the stuff that gets said,
Speaker 1: the things that happened are usually very dramatic. Um. And
Speaker 1: then there's definitely an audience because there's a true crime
Speaker 1: element where people follow these things like I just did
Speaker 1: telling Winslow that they don't, but they aren't into the
Speaker 1: sports part. So you get a sports audience, and then
Speaker 1: you also get the true crime and true crime audiences
Speaker 1: like herding out there. Because you know, if you you
Speaker 1: can remember a day before Donald Trump renowned for president,
Speaker 1: like CNN, Fox, MS, they used to cover trials and
Speaker 1: I'm not just talking like Nancy Grace, like Bill O'Reilly
Speaker 1: and all those guys. Like it was like uh, Scott,
Speaker 1: Lacy Peterson and and and Jodi Arius and all these
Speaker 1: like random like some random person would get murdered and
Speaker 1: it would become a big national trial, would be on
Speaker 1: all the TV networks every single night. And so there
Speaker 1: was this huge audience for these trials. And then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, all those networks and now one politics,
Speaker 1: they don't cover anything other than politics and the maybe
Speaker 1: like an occasional hurricane, so where bodies go, there's not
Speaker 1: People stopped being interested in murders podcast. I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: some people would say they're listening to, you know, the podcast,
Speaker 1: true true crime podcast, but yeah, you're right, it used
Speaker 1: to be. It used to be a obsession because you
Speaker 1: have the natural drama, you have the certainty, you have
Speaker 1: the competing stories. I mean, it is an intense level
Speaker 1: of dramatic conflict and not very much in the world
Speaker 1: of sports. Do I think they get covered? No, almost
Speaker 1: nobody goes. Almost nobody goes. And so yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that's another one, like how can I make an impact
Speaker 1: at my job? Right? Like what's my value over the
Speaker 1: other guy? And so it's like, yeah, I'm here, and
Speaker 1: we get massive traffic on those trials, like huge, Um,
Speaker 1: it will be dramatic if they're very challenging. You're there
Speaker 1: like eight hours, you um complicated. So and then it
Speaker 1: speaks to the difficulty, like the skill of being able
Speaker 1: to figure out because in an eight hour trial day,
Speaker 1: what was the story of the day? Right? You have
Speaker 1: to trust your instincts in order to write the story
Speaker 1: that makes sense of eight hours when you have to
Speaker 1: distill it down to I don't know, a thousand of words,
Speaker 1: you might pull out four quotes, right, Yeah. And really
Speaker 1: being um a columnist I think is the best way
Speaker 1: to cover trial because a lot of the trial coverage
Speaker 1: is just so the defense said this, and the prosecution
Speaker 1: said this, and then there was the judgment on evidentiary
Speaker 1: ruling on this, and it's like like there was a
Speaker 1: day of her name, this child and he became a
Speaker 1: famous photo. But where his his fiance brought his daughter
Speaker 1: to the trial and for the last five minutes when
Speaker 1: they brought Aaron back in and he saw made up
Speaker 1: and waving at her and just really amazing scene. And
Speaker 1: I talked to her after, just like you know, um,
Speaker 1: and she granted his permission. That's you know I did.
Speaker 1: That's a bait. You know, you don't really know what
Speaker 1: then can't bring someone in the open court. We're I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say, like the TV wanted to show her and
Speaker 1: she's like, no, it's fine, and it was all this
Speaker 1: thing and it was just like this, it was a
Speaker 1: great moment. And I just wrote about that and I
Speaker 1: don't even know what happened because I think they might
Speaker 1: have been deliberating part of it or something. But it's like,
Speaker 1: this is the moment. And then it would be literally
Speaker 1: crazy because it's like five days later he killed himself
Speaker 1: and basically last time he saw a daughter. We didn't
Speaker 1: know that at the time, but um, I wonder if
Speaker 1: he did. And so this is sometimes like again trusting
Speaker 1: what the story is. It's like, Okay, this is the
Speaker 1: biggest thing. Like again, if you about walking home and
Speaker 1: my wife called me and she goes, what happened today?
Speaker 1: I like, oh my god, they brought the daby that
Speaker 1: the little girl so keyte they brought of the trial
Speaker 1: and it's like, you know, should she up or whatever?
Speaker 1: And they don't. And your columns about Snefidencia are ruling
Speaker 1: like you missed the story. Be sure to catch live
Speaker 1: editions about Kicked the coverage with Clay Travis week days
Speaker 1: at six am Eastern three am Pacific. There's lots of
Speaker 1: people out there listening right now and again the podcast
Speaker 1: called Wins and Losses. I'm Clay Travis, Dan what's so
Speaker 1: Yahoo Sports National columnists? So this you bring up the
Speaker 1: daughter there and you've got two daughters. I've got three sons.
Speaker 1: This is something we've talked about. How do you balance
Speaker 1: when you work as much as you do? How do
Speaker 1: you balance out family life with your work life? Um,
Speaker 1: and especially when you have a job where you might
Speaker 1: be on the road for a week covering a trial,
Speaker 1: or you might be for like you are in France
Speaker 1: right now covering into World Club, Like how do you
Speaker 1: multiple weeks maybe a month? I remember you were over
Speaker 1: in wherever it was, I think Korea, South Korea covering
Speaker 1: the Olympics over there. How do you balance out work
Speaker 1: and family life? I mean to me, that's the number
Speaker 1: one challenge for literally every parent who's every working there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everybody struggles with it. Um, everybody wants more family time
Speaker 1: and but you also have to you know, one of
Speaker 1: the things you have to do is provide for your family.
Speaker 1: So that is a challenge. I just think everybody grappled with.
Speaker 1: You know, the benefit this is, at least how I
Speaker 1: just fi it is. You know, when I'm home, I'm home.
Speaker 1: I got I'm not commuting to an office. Um, you
Speaker 1: know there's a lot of time when I can when
Speaker 1: I'm home and I'm trying to really be this is
Speaker 1: the date, the minute by minute challenge. But being engaged
Speaker 1: with your kids when you're there, Yeah, you would be
Speaker 1: there and it's not paying attention to you them. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm a very early on pushing one of my kids on,
Speaker 1: my older daughter on a swing and while I'm looking
Speaker 1: at the telephone and I'm like, what am I doing?
Speaker 1: Like like whatever that hell, I can still remember the swing,
Speaker 1: you know, Like what are you doing? Put the phone down,
Speaker 1: like it's not bad. Whatever is on whatever, text messages
Speaker 1: or whatever, I get it your way. Like I'm literally
Speaker 1: at the park with with like two year old, Like
Speaker 1: this is way more important. But I think that's just
Speaker 1: a struggle everybody has, whether you travel for work or
Speaker 1: you have long community, you can't be home for this
Speaker 1: or that. Um and then how do you end work
Speaker 1: and start family time as fast as possible? Because I've
Speaker 1: heard like Mark Cuban's is like times the most precious
Speaker 1: thing you have, Like it's the one thing you can't buy.
Speaker 1: It's the one thing you can't buy. He's like, um
Speaker 1: and and you know, being a parent, man, it's slow
Speaker 1: and fast exact same time. Um. So, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I wish I had the I said that one, but
Speaker 1: it's well in particular, I think you're you're mentioning like
Speaker 1: you right from home. I do much of my work.
Speaker 1: I got a home radio, home television, you know, I
Speaker 1: I write and in my office. Like the flip switch
Speaker 1: between I'm you know, Dad at work versus I'm Dad
Speaker 1: at home is I think particularly challenging for people. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's just us, but I think if you
Speaker 1: have a job where it's it's it's hard to escape
Speaker 1: from it's hard to have those delionated hours. Like I
Speaker 1: remember talking to my dad recently, and when we would
Speaker 1: go on family vacation, he would take two weeks and
Speaker 1: he wouldn't talk to anybody at his office, right, like
Speaker 1: he would be unreachable, and like we were just as
Speaker 1: a family out on our own. And on some level,
Speaker 1: I envy that so much, like that ability to just
Speaker 1: escape from all contact for a couple of weeks. And
Speaker 1: I don't know that as a society we're ever going
Speaker 1: to have that. Oh, there's no way we'll ever have that.
Speaker 1: They just don't. I mean two weeks and be I
Speaker 1: mean times of a job, I guess you have. But um,
Speaker 1: you're always you were always too connected now with everything.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that would have been that would be great.
Speaker 1: But you know, I look at that and go he
Speaker 1: offer like working at home or working around like I am.
Speaker 1: You know, I can get the kids off to school
Speaker 1: and then start work or like you know, see there's
Speaker 1: no commute, man, It's not a lot of people commute.
Speaker 1: Um when they got to work two jobs, I worked
Speaker 1: two jobs. But it's a little more flexible, So I
Speaker 1: don't know, man, I mean it's just I just think
Speaker 1: it's something everybody fights every day because you want to
Speaker 1: do I've had things like, you know, I've had opportunities
Speaker 1: like well, come come here for a week, be on
Speaker 1: the TV show, or go go do this, and I
Speaker 1: just do like or you know you gonna if you
Speaker 1: do this, you gotta be on the road like the
Speaker 1: next six Saturday nights. And looks like if it's not
Speaker 1: for y'all, or I mean, I write books, try to
Speaker 1: do my second jobs with like books, some things that
Speaker 1: like sit into that I'm just like, I'm not giving
Speaker 1: up all those weekends. Like and I know it's just
Speaker 1: maybe not the smartest career thing, but I really want
Speaker 1: to be a parent. And so like sometimes you just say, now,
Speaker 1: you know, I think I was a lot of the
Speaker 1: guys that do really well on TV they don't have
Speaker 1: that they aren't married. Yeah, it is true that there
Speaker 1: it seems like there's a lot of people who don't
Speaker 1: have families or they aren't married. And you know, basically
Speaker 1: you can just have your career and when you're young,
Speaker 1: you can do that. And you were talking earlier about
Speaker 1: you know, you can make five working for the basketball
Speaker 1: times or whatever it is, because you don't have those obligations.
Speaker 1: And I do think for to the extent people are
Speaker 1: listening out there, when you're young and you're not married,
Speaker 1: or even if you're married and you don't have kids
Speaker 1: and your wife's working or your husband's working, you have
Speaker 1: a lot more flexibility. Take advantage of it. Um. And
Speaker 1: that's the last question I want to ask you. And
Speaker 1: then I'm Clay Travis. We've been talking with Dan Wetts,
Speaker 1: so we do a weekly podcast here called Wins and Losses.
Speaker 1: What advice would you give someone out there right now
Speaker 1: who is listening and they're thinking, I want to one
Speaker 1: day make a living writing in the world of sports.
Speaker 1: What would you tell them to do right now? Uh?
Speaker 1: I mean, I just I don't know. I learn how
Speaker 1: to report and learn how to concentrate. I guess those
Speaker 1: are the two days. Don't don't worry about what you're covering,
Speaker 1: um early on. I mean, it's you know, like I
Speaker 1: just it's just not that important. Everybody wants to cover
Speaker 1: the super Bowl and the super Bowl, and there's a
Speaker 1: ton of people at the super Bowl don't know how
Speaker 1: to cover it. So it's like they're like there's lots
Speaker 1: of people. They're just sort of kind of in the media,
Speaker 1: but they don't they don't really ever preach anything substance.
Speaker 1: And so it's like you just really have to learn
Speaker 1: how to do the job. Uh. I think there's too much.
Speaker 1: There's just too many. You're not you're not gonna laugh
Speaker 1: unless you know how to. I say that, and I
Speaker 1: hope I keep lasted. But um, you just you have
Speaker 1: to learn how to give the job. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: a job. It's not where am I at? Um? And
Speaker 1: if you can figure out how to think on your
Speaker 1: feet and they give you all sorts of different people
Speaker 1: and do all these different things and right really quickly
Speaker 1: and write a lot and get it right all the
Speaker 1: different things you have to do. Um, then you have
Speaker 1: the skills and then you'll get to go to wherever
Speaker 1: you want to go. But just because it's like a
Speaker 1: big event, that's not the best stuff you do. I
Speaker 1: guess that's probably the biggest thing. Everyone was like, all
Speaker 1: you got to go to that. I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: like that's yes and no, like you always get to remember,
Speaker 1: like how fortunately are being it? It was it was
Speaker 1: a covered daytona five hunter all time and the Masters
Speaker 1: and Jay Bugsby and Jay Hartsdag to work with and
Speaker 1: we always would take time to get the day five
Speaker 1: d on like the Thursday night they do like a
Speaker 1: shootout that they at race and we always still out
Speaker 1: in this grandstands and have a beer and just like
Speaker 1: remind us of like how often this is, Like yours
Speaker 1: a third number likes how great it is to be
Speaker 1: at some place and bring passion to a game, But
Speaker 1: like just being at the game is not. My job
Speaker 1: is not to go to the game. So it's like
Speaker 1: just because the game is going on and it's a
Speaker 1: cool game, that's and I just think there's so much
Speaker 1: sports media. It's just like I get to go to
Speaker 1: the game. Like, you're probably not going to produce something
Speaker 1: that's going to keep getting you to go back to
Speaker 1: the game. So learn how to do that and you
Speaker 1: probably will be able to do this job for a
Speaker 1: long time in whatever shape formed this job is. I
Speaker 1: know I said last question, but I want to go
Speaker 1: back to the very beginning. Now, you said when you
Speaker 1: first started covering U Mass in college that John Calipari
Speaker 1: years that you'd be like, oh, this is a really
Speaker 1: big game. If Bob Bryan's there. Um, have you had
Speaker 1: the experience yet, and I'm sure you have of people
Speaker 1: coming up to you and they're like, oh Wow, Dan Wetzel,
Speaker 1: I can't believe you're here. You know, the young guy
Speaker 1: version of you, who a college level kid now who
Speaker 1: is like kind of oh my god, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a really big event because Dan wessels here. And what
Speaker 1: does that path feel like to have gone from being
Speaker 1: the kid who's at the event thinking, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I can't believe Bob Ryan's here too. Now maybe occasionally
Speaker 1: hearing from people I can't believe Dan Wessel's here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's definitely weird. Um, I I'm not on TV
Speaker 1: a ton um, so like I don't get that, like
Speaker 1: just random fan. They don't easily. I don't know me.
Speaker 1: My wife always jokes like your groupies are all like everybody,
Speaker 1: Like everybody I know who's like a thirty to forty
Speaker 1: nine year old man knows exactly who you are. Like No,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, that's your wheel. Oh the guys, that's
Speaker 1: my real house, right, is right? I'm like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: got the worst groupies, like I have know, like hot
Speaker 1: twenty year old girup. Now they don't know who I am,
Speaker 1: but they're like two year old guy mowing his lawn,
Speaker 1: chatting mew to Tennessee listening to the podcast it was
Speaker 1: in my people. Um, yeah, the young writers. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: I don't even it's really unnerving. I don't it's not unnerving.
Speaker 1: I just don't even know what to say because I'm
Speaker 1: really annoy I have a very interesting job, but I
Speaker 1: have a really normal person. I mowed my lawn, I
Speaker 1: drink bush light, I have a bad golfer. Like there's
Speaker 1: nothing vaccinating about my life other than the job. That's it,
Speaker 1: Like you know, and so I always just kind of
Speaker 1: people a little pop off. So I don't know, like
Speaker 1: I get it. So I'm sure you get the same thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, just sort of like I'm not famous, right
Speaker 1: so and I don't try to be famous, so it's
Speaker 1: a sort of a little odd I don't know. I
Speaker 1: guess I never I don't really know what to say,
Speaker 1: except you know, I'm encouraging and flattering, I guess, but like, okay,
Speaker 1: but I'm here to work and you're here to work
Speaker 1: or um. I've done Ohio University this year and with
Speaker 1: lunch with a couple of kids, like listen, I mis
Speaker 1: knew everything about all journalism is kind of funny, and
Speaker 1: I don't know, it is interesting you mentioned that. But
Speaker 1: what I always try to think is you you talked
Speaker 1: about your your upbringing. I think the advantage that you
Speaker 1: have and that I have in some sense, and that
Speaker 1: I worry about, honestly my kids having, whether they're gonna
Speaker 1: be is I was raised so middle class and so
Speaker 1: middle of the road, so middle ordinary that I feel
Speaker 1: like I understand who the audience is for sports, right.
Speaker 1: I remember hearing and this is the quote that I
Speaker 1: that I've always loved, Like, um, there's lots of people
Speaker 1: who worry about writing for quote unquote the elites, right,
Speaker 1: Like I'm trying to write for the people who live
Speaker 1: in New York City and live on the Upper East Side.
Speaker 1: Or I'm trying to write for the people who yeah right,
Speaker 1: in the same same thing, like yeah right, like and
Speaker 1: so and and I think you know from where I
Speaker 1: came from. I'm writing about SEC football. Initially, my audience
Speaker 1: is like literally the the middle part of America, right,
Speaker 1: those are the people who love college football, the people
Speaker 1: who are opening up a beer and kicking back on
Speaker 1: their couch to to watch a game. And I think
Speaker 1: that there is and and I'm not saying that being
Speaker 1: elite is in any way a bad thing, but I
Speaker 1: think that speaks to you saying, like I know what
Speaker 1: people are going to care about. I remember a great
Speaker 1: quote about Jerry Bruckheimer, right, Like Jerry Bruckheimer makes movies
Speaker 1: that everybody is gonna want to watch, right, like his Goal,
Speaker 1: you know, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean. Like he's making
Speaker 1: movies that are gonna appeal yeah, right, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: well you may Gloria. Right, So that's a great example. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like he's trying to speak to the masses. And he said, like,
Speaker 1: so you gotta ask a question. Once he said, somebody said, um,
Speaker 1: how do you know what moves the needle? Right, It's
Speaker 1: one of the best all time quotes I've ever heard.
Speaker 1: And he said, I am the needle. And I love
Speaker 1: that responsive, really cocky answer, right, But it speaks to
Speaker 1: it on two different levels. One like, I know what
Speaker 1: people are going to respond to, so I can move
Speaker 1: the needle as I need two. Right. That's one way
Speaker 1: to take that answer. The other way to take it
Speaker 1: is I am Middle America. I know what people are
Speaker 1: going to respond to because I am my audience and
Speaker 1: I always like to focus on it more on the
Speaker 1: second part, knowing your audience. And when you just said,
Speaker 1: you know, I drink push light, I mowed my own
Speaker 1: law and you know I go to my I go
Speaker 1: to my daughter soccer games. Like that is the Yahoo
Speaker 1: audience right that my weekend. Yeah, and we were doing
Speaker 1: our college we're doing our college football podcast top forty
Speaker 1: and damn when I do it. Um, now, when you
Speaker 1: listen to two hours of this podcast, you should listen
Speaker 1: to that one started again. But there was a night
Speaker 1: when I think it was like, um, Tom Herman and
Speaker 1: Mike Van Gandi almost got in a fight, like during
Speaker 1: the game was last year. It's like some moment they
Speaker 1: were yelling at each other like it was gonna be
Speaker 1: a fight. And I remember there was some notes came
Speaker 1: out from one of our like a producer like this
Speaker 1: is what we need to talk I'm like, no, we're
Speaker 1: talking about who win the fight? Yeah, like you know,
Speaker 1: like you know, do you get an advantage because you
Speaker 1: got got the mullet? You know, Like this is what
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about our podcast. Like I'm great on
Speaker 1: the podcast, They're like, now we're doing this, this this
Speaker 1: because I'm like, you're sitting at home and I wonder
Speaker 1: who would win that fight. You know what, here, that's
Speaker 1: a shame. This is sort of shame many to find
Speaker 1: these coaches for acting up who kids homes? Fine, Um,
Speaker 1: it was funny, like I think Tom Herman would win,
Speaker 1: you know, I think Gundy. Gundy's got a bobby knife
Speaker 1: on him all that. You know. Like, I just atomic
Speaker 1: completely different than what they want, whatever pretty Ture would
Speaker 1: want us to do. And I feel like, yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: we're doing this. Don't worry. This is what they're talking about.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to hear about this. I'm not gonna faint
Speaker 1: outrage at two millionaires almost fight. Let him fight, That's
Speaker 1: be great. And then it became actually a big thing.
Speaker 1: I remember they would have Leech Leech talking about who
Speaker 1: would win the fight in the fact twelves and kind
Speaker 1: of started to become a thing. So yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: very confident in knowing what I grew up in these coasts,
Speaker 1: so I don't feel foreign to these coasts. It's not
Speaker 1: in California, but I mean I live in the middle
Speaker 1: of the country. And you know, I'm feel pretty confident
Speaker 1: what what my audience is interested in and and and
Speaker 1: what they're not interested in. And sometimes you gotta write
Speaker 1: about stuff they're not but in a way that's not
Speaker 1: like driving them crazy, you know. So um, it's so,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm just comfortable with it. I don't and
Speaker 1: I'll do this like I don't care about it. I've
Speaker 1: never care about a ward, like advised to speak at
Speaker 1: the like I don't want to go to any of
Speaker 1: that stuff, Like I'm much sure how to be home,
Speaker 1: like speak on this panel, like no, thanks God, no
Speaker 1: outstanding stuff. Dan Wetzel go follow him on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Dan Wetzel. If you've listened to the whole podcast, as
Speaker 1: I hope you guys have, you definitely need to buy
Speaker 1: Epic Athletes for one of your kids. Their sports biographies
Speaker 1: for middle school ers. Alex Morgan, Steph Curry, Tom Brady,
Speaker 1: and Serena Williams are going to be out soon. This
Speaker 1: has been the Wins and Wastses podcast. I'm Clay travi Us,
Speaker 1: He's Dan Wetzel. Thanks for hanging with us. We'll talk
Speaker 1: to you next week. M