Speaker 1: Welcome to this League uncut in the rule.
Speaker 2: Of twenty four hour NBA News.
Speaker 1: This is you, Chris Haynes. It's time, work's time, it's
Speaker 1: some time. This League uncut is underway in on fire.
Speaker 1: This should be a good one.
Speaker 3: Welcome in everyone to the latest edition of this League Uncut,
Speaker 3: A very special edition of this League Uncut. I have
Speaker 3: to say from the jump, Chris Haynes is not here
Speaker 3: for this recording. We are doing this on a Thursday afternoon.
Speaker 3: Later tonight, Chris will be on the sidelines in Sacramento.
Speaker 3: But don't worry because I am joined by Absolute NBA
Speaker 3: Broadcasting Royalty. In our midst we were colleagues together at
Speaker 3: ESPN for several years. We covered some Olympic basketball together
Speaker 3: in Rio in twenty sixteen. But basketball fans, real hoopeeds.
Speaker 3: You know her as one of the faces of NBC's
Speaker 3: wonderful coverage of the NBA in the nineties, throughout the
Speaker 3: last dance glory days of the Chicago Bulls, and her
Speaker 3: basketball journey actually stretches much farther back than that, all
Speaker 3: the way back to the Red, White.
Speaker 2: And Blue ABA. She's going to cover it all.
Speaker 3: From the time that there were two professional basketball leagues
Speaker 3: in this country to the modern day. It is all
Speaker 3: found in her new long form podcast series, NBA DNA,
Speaker 3: produced by iHeart all Right, I have babbled on long enough.
Speaker 3: Let's just welcome her in, Hannah Storm. So great to
Speaker 3: be with you again after a long long time.
Speaker 4: I know, Mark, it's so great because I follow you
Speaker 4: from Afar, but we haven't seen each other in person
Speaker 4: for a while. But it's awesome to be chatting with
Speaker 4: you again. We did have a lot of fun back
Speaker 4: in the day at ESPN covering some of the same
Speaker 4: events and you know, run it in all those same
Speaker 4: basketball circles.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, except now I think this interaction
Speaker 3: might be the first where I am the one who
Speaker 3: has to ask the questions.
Speaker 2: So I know, I hope I am to the task.
Speaker 3: But look, I have to say first, congratulations on this
Speaker 3: podcast series, because you are doing something I hope to
Speaker 3: do someday. I would love to do a long form
Speaker 3: series that traces history. I love basketball history, and you're
Speaker 3: taking it even farther back than my experience because you know,
Speaker 3: I don't have any ABA stories to tell, so just
Speaker 3: share with us.
Speaker 2: Like what was the genesis behind even doing.
Speaker 4: This, well, for years, I have wanted to tell the
Speaker 4: story of the ABA. My dad was the fifth commissioner
Speaker 4: of the ABA, and he always used to tell us
Speaker 4: all these stories growing up. He'd well, we were at
Speaker 4: basketball games for as long as I can remember, when
Speaker 4: it wasn't a school night. And that's why I actually
Speaker 4: at a time when women were not sportscasters, it really
Speaker 4: was not a career option. I was determined to do
Speaker 4: sports because I had grown up around it. I just
Speaker 4: associated sports with it was really fun, right, and I
Speaker 4: was super, super comfortable with it, and it's something that
Speaker 4: my dad and I always shared. And I was like
Speaker 4: a lot of the people that were involved in the
Speaker 4: ABA were getting older, and as I went on and
Speaker 4: covered the NBA and of course understood at a very
Speaker 4: visceral level everything in the NBA that's derivative of the
Speaker 4: old ABA, I just really wanted to tell that story.
Speaker 4: And I've done a lot of documentaries, I've directed and
Speaker 4: so forth over the course of the last fifteen years.
Speaker 4: And so when I brought this story to the NBA,
Speaker 4: they said, can you just write us an essay about
Speaker 4: your life in basketball, not just the ABA, but everything
Speaker 4: that happened after that, and I said sure, so I
Speaker 4: like banged out this essay and they said this is
Speaker 4: really interesting and unusual and this could make a great podcast,
Speaker 4: and so I partnered with them. And it's it's twelve parts,
Speaker 4: probably could be a lot more than that. So it's
Speaker 4: kind of like different, right because it's through my lens
Speaker 4: and the things that I did. So there are teams,
Speaker 4: like my first big full time job was Sean Hornet's
Speaker 4: right their first year in existence, So we talked to
Speaker 4: Rex Chapman and Del Curry like things that you don't
Speaker 4: necessarily expect, you know, I just did a dream Team episode, right.
Speaker 4: I came to NBC in ninety two to cover the Olympics.
Speaker 4: That was my first big assignment then, so really fun.
Speaker 4: But going all the way back to my childhood and
Speaker 4: the ABA.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and look, I don't want to ask you to
Speaker 3: give away a bunch of secrets from the podcast, because.
Speaker 2: I correct, I want people.
Speaker 5: To listen to the podcast.
Speaker 3: But it's commissioners commissioner's daughter. I don't know that I've
Speaker 3: ever met a commissioner's dog. So and again, like I said,
Speaker 3: my my basketball fandom started right right like the season
Speaker 3: before the merger, so I I wish I had seen.
Speaker 2: The ABA, but I genuinely only know what I've read.
Speaker 3: And that's one thing in basketball, we've done such a
Speaker 3: poor job preserving history. And it's it really, you know,
Speaker 3: the seventies, like there's just so you know, I always
Speaker 3: complain that, you know, George Gervin and David Thompson had
Speaker 3: the incredible scoring duel at the end of the seventy
Speaker 3: seven seventy eight season, and there isn't one stitch of
Speaker 3: footage of that, so ABA, it's even harder to touch
Speaker 3: that history.
Speaker 2: So just tell us what's.
Speaker 3: Like to be, you know, in your formative years around
Speaker 3: the ABA all the time.
Speaker 4: First of all, you are you are so right, which
Speaker 4: is why it's perfect for a podcast because we do
Speaker 4: have radio calls and such, including a very young Bob
Speaker 4: Costas who was the left college to call games for
Speaker 4: Saint Louis. But it's the stuff kind of of legend
Speaker 4: and lore because they didn't have a television contract, so
Speaker 4: it's the stuff that people didn't see. It really is
Speaker 4: stories that were passed down and what it was was
Speaker 4: incredibly free wheeling basketball and the players could do a
Speaker 4: lot of things that were not allowed in the NBA,
Speaker 4: like dunking the basketball, which was also not allowed in college,
Speaker 4: or things that were not a part of the NBA.
Speaker 4: Believe it or not, three pointers were not a part
Speaker 4: of the game. It was much more like the kind
Speaker 4: of basketball that you would see at Rutger Park or
Speaker 4: that you would see, you know, quote unquote street basketball.
Speaker 4: Very freewheeling, very entertaining, and the ABA didn't have money
Speaker 4: from a television contract, so they had to make the
Speaker 4: game itself entertaining. And they also brought in a lot
Speaker 4: of players who weren't eligible for the NBA for some reason.
Speaker 4: My dad was one of the architects of the quote
Speaker 4: unquote hardship rule, which allowed players they did not have to.
Speaker 5: Finish college to be able to go into the ABA.
Speaker 5: You know, I e.
Speaker 4: Doctor J So really fun, very loose, very wild, very
Speaker 4: pushing the envelope from the halftime shows and cheerleaders and
Speaker 4: all of that was derivative of the ABA to the Red,
Speaker 4: white and Blue basketball. Just really free wheeling and you know,
Speaker 4: kind of renegade.
Speaker 5: Honestly. I mean, they wanted to merge with the.
Speaker 4: NBA at some point, and they wanted to prove that
Speaker 4: their players were as good as the NBA players, and
Speaker 4: they went after like all the NBA refs at the time,
Speaker 4: and they they battled them toe to toe for some players.
Speaker 5: But I mean, it was just a bunch.
Speaker 4: Of guys who were like, Hey, let's go for it
Speaker 4: and maybe maybe someday.
Speaker 5: We'll get to merge with.
Speaker 4: The with the NBA, and let's have a good time
Speaker 4: and entertain people in the process.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: At ESPN, I got to work with Chris Ramsey, who
Speaker 3: son of the legendary doctor Jack Ramsey, and I was
Speaker 3: a Buffalo Braves so doctor Jack having coach in Buffalo,
Speaker 3: I used to always hit Chris up for stories. And
Speaker 3: Chris once told me that as a kid, when Doctor
Speaker 3: Jack was in Philadelphia, he had actually heard some trade
Speaker 3: discussion at the house, revealed it to his school friend
Speaker 3: and it actually got out from there. And this is
Speaker 3: in the six lower Twitter or anything like that. So
Speaker 3: I have to ask you, was there any were there
Speaker 3: any ABA secrets you heard at home that you maybe
Speaker 3: shared that you weren't supposed to share. How good were
Speaker 3: you at secret keeping when you when you heard some
Speaker 3: of the league gossip.
Speaker 5: I was a little kid for a lot of it.
Speaker 4: But I'll tell you one thing that stuck with me,
Speaker 4: and that is what it is like when not only
Speaker 4: when you win, but how painful it is when you
Speaker 4: lose or when your.
Speaker 5: Dad is run out of town. You know that happened.
Speaker 4: If people are holding up signs and I tell you what, Mark,
Speaker 4: I have such an empathy slash appreciation slash understanding what
Speaker 4: it takes to run about football franchise or any franchise.
Speaker 5: And we are so critical.
Speaker 4: Of people and and sometimes even in the media, we like,
Speaker 4: you know, we this guy should be fired and blah
Speaker 4: blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I think it gave me a really well rounded view
Speaker 4: of the business. But one of the things that my
Speaker 4: dad always used to talk about was Operation Kingfish, which
Speaker 4: is always a secret operation that they had to try
Speaker 4: to lure Louel Cinder. Obviously later kareemail dul Jabbar try
Speaker 4: to lure him too, the AVA and so there is
Speaker 4: like this like secret document that my dad kept in
Speaker 4: his desk and it had everything that they were going
Speaker 4: to do and as legend, they did a psychological profile
Speaker 4: of him. You know, they were going to go meet
Speaker 4: with Leuel Cinder. What is it going to take to
Speaker 4: get him to come to our league? You know what
Speaker 4: is what resonates with him and George Miken had a
Speaker 4: million dollars in a suitcase, but he left the meeting
Speaker 4: so convinced that Leuwell's was coming to the ABA that
Speaker 4: he never gave him the money. And then somebody from
Speaker 4: the NBA gave him a million dollars and he went there,
Speaker 4: you know, stuff like that. But like my dad, so
Speaker 4: we had this document, this Operation Kingfish document which I've
Speaker 4: actually seen, which he kept in his desk. But you
Speaker 4: mentioned leaks, so somebody had gotten somebody was looking at
Speaker 4: the document. He knew somebody, somebody had kind of seen
Speaker 4: it or seen what was in it, right, so he
Speaker 4: changed the document.
Speaker 5: He falsified the document to.
Speaker 4: Say that secretly the ABA had already signed lou Al
Speaker 4: Sinder and so it got out through whatever that leak
Speaker 4: was that they had actually signed it, when of course
Speaker 4: they didn't. But like crazy story, like no, no, no,
Speaker 4: I was not the leak.
Speaker 2: It was not me.
Speaker 4: But like I do remember sitting at the kitchen table
Speaker 4: and like drawing up the pacers logo, Like how crazy
Speaker 4: is that? And it's still the same logo, and I remember,
Speaker 4: you know, all these guys would come over like Thanksgiving or.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they had nowhere to go.
Speaker 4: They were hanging out at the house, Christmas party, stuff
Speaker 4: like that. It was really fun. But it kind of
Speaker 4: normalized athletes for me. So I was never at any
Speaker 4: point in my career. I was never like starstruck really,
Speaker 4: you know, being around athletes. They just felt like you know,
Speaker 4: people that were at the house.
Speaker 3: Well, that was the foundation for an absolutely incredible career.
Speaker 3: You have literally covered everything, and I saw it just
Speaker 3: came out today you're doing the Boston Marathon. Like I
Speaker 3: don't know what major event there is that you have
Speaker 3: not done, and like.
Speaker 5: I have not done that one.
Speaker 3: Speaking for myself, like, you know, the era of specialization
Speaker 3: really served me well because I'm like, you know, basketball, soccer, tennis,
Speaker 3: a little bit of hockey and that's it. Like you,
Speaker 3: but you've done like twenty sports. I remember running into
Speaker 3: you at the US Open.
Speaker 2: You're doing tennis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But as you've said in many interviews, I know
Speaker 3: the broadcasting world was not exactly teeming with opportunities for
Speaker 3: women as you're making your way through the rank. So
Speaker 3: at what point did it become real to you, when
Speaker 3: did you see that this was actually possible.
Speaker 5: I mean I always saw that it was possible.
Speaker 4: I just couldn't get other people to see it the
Speaker 4: same way. And my dad always told me, he said,
Speaker 4: because I back in the day, I sent out hundreds
Speaker 4: of tapes and resumes and all of that, and you know,
Speaker 4: you just could get rejection letters in the mail.
Speaker 5: I mean that was what you did.
Speaker 3: It.
Speaker 4: You're answering one ads, you're sending stuff out, and I
Speaker 4: was just getting, like, I mean, dozens and dozens and
Speaker 4: dozens of rejection letters and people saying, you know, you
Speaker 4: should just be a feature reporter or something like that.
Speaker 4: And my audience won't accept a woman, and my sports
Speaker 4: director doesn't want to work with a woman. And you know,
Speaker 4: nobody was very politically correct back then, so they just
Speaker 4: they just said it like it was. But my dad
Speaker 4: was like, you only need one yes, like you literally
Speaker 4: only need one single person. So if you look at
Speaker 4: the odds that way, somebody, there's gonna be one person
Speaker 4: along the way. And I got my first full time
Speaker 4: job in Charlotte, and I kind of got hired as
Speaker 4: a gimmick because it was a new station and they
Speaker 4: were trying all these crazy things, and they were like, wow,
Speaker 4: what if we had a woman sportscaster. And I was like,
Speaker 4: I'm there, awesome, I'm want me to learn NASCAR.
Speaker 5: Let's go.
Speaker 4: And it was the first year of the Charlotte Hornets
Speaker 4: and that was a pretty cool year because the NBA
Speaker 4: came to town and I had covered in radio. You know,
Speaker 4: I'd covered the Rockets and stuff like that in Houston.
Speaker 4: I used to host the Rockets. I think when I
Speaker 4: got a job part time in Houston hosting the Rockets
Speaker 4: pregames and halftimes, and the same station carried the Astros
Speaker 4: and you know that being in the mid eighties, and
Speaker 4: those teams were really good. You know, they didn't win titles,
Speaker 4: but they got close. I think then it became for me,
Speaker 4: like I would say, Houston days really solidified. And then
Speaker 4: when I got my first full time job in Charlotte,
Speaker 4: and I was only there like a year and a half,
Speaker 4: and then I got hired by CNN, and then that
Speaker 4: was was really you know, the big leap was doing
Speaker 4: late nights at CNN. And then at the time CNN
Speaker 4: was like a viable like it was it was ESPN
Speaker 4: versus CNN.
Speaker 3: Like I became I mean that I first became aware
Speaker 3: of you. I was in college, and I mean yeah,
Speaker 3: every night, I mean every night late night like ESPN,
Speaker 3: you know ESPN and CNN, Like we lived for those shows.
Speaker 2: I mean those shows.
Speaker 3: Now now an amazing play happens in the NBA and
Speaker 3: it circulates literally within seconds to millions of social media.
Speaker 3: But for our generation, like ESPN and CNN at night
Speaker 3: are gonna have highlights from calves hornets. It was just
Speaker 3: it was unbetable, you know, it was it was It
Speaker 3: was such a game changer.
Speaker 4: Man, And we did highlights from every single game every
Speaker 4: single night. And then, I mean obviously then NBC got
Speaker 4: so many properties. NBC got the Olympics, and they got
Speaker 4: they got the NBA, they had the NFL, and NBC
Speaker 4: need all of a sudden found itself like there was
Speaker 4: like a triple cast for the Olympics. Like we need talent,
Speaker 4: like we need it like it was nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 4: Like we have all this stuff going on. And Dick Eversall,
Speaker 4: who ran NBC Sports was he didn't sleep. He never slept,
Speaker 4: so he watched late night television all the time.
Speaker 5: Who was on late night?
Speaker 4: I was on late night and so it was my
Speaker 4: husband Dan Hicks at the time obviously not my husband.
Speaker 5: So Dick eversall saw me.
Speaker 4: Like all the time and also saw Dan and he's
Speaker 4: a guy who always thought out of the box. And
Speaker 4: we separately got hired by NBC to do different things,
Speaker 4: and hilariously, secretly we were like dating. No one knew
Speaker 4: about it, and we both ended up going to NBC,
Speaker 4: which was pretty cool. But it really was the NBA
Speaker 4: on NBC where you know, everything came full circle. You
Speaker 4: mentioned how different it was back then. We had five
Speaker 4: games on a weekend when things got really really busy,
Speaker 4: right the playoffs, we would do a doubleheader one day
Speaker 4: and a triple header the next day, and that was it.
Speaker 5: That was the only place you'd go watch the NBA.
Speaker 5: And that was the Jordan years.
Speaker 4: So this is literally the glory days of basketball.
Speaker 5: And I was hosting.
Speaker 4: I was either hosting games or Bob was hosting games,
Speaker 4: and if I wasn't, I was on the sidelines like
Speaker 4: for all the great moments, like all the great games,
Speaker 4: and it was just, yeah, talk about shit getting real.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's when it got really really real.
Speaker 4: And I would see all these people who knew my dad.
Speaker 4: I mean, it was just like unbelievable. It was just
Speaker 4: like I just felt so at home.
Speaker 3: Because you've been now with the ESPN for more than
Speaker 3: fifteen years, so I'm guessing probably the longest stop of
Speaker 3: your career. But it is those NBC years have to
Speaker 3: be incredibly meaningful because it was, Yeah, it was such
Speaker 3: it was such a seminal time. Yeah, for the fans,
Speaker 3: for fans of the game, and I think people look
Speaker 3: back on NBC's coverage with huge funness.
Speaker 2: Now there's just a lot of nostalgia about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you know, you look back at obviously
Speaker 4: the Last Dance was incredibly successful because of Michael and
Speaker 4: the Bulls, but we were the network that documented all
Speaker 4: of that. And then obviously for me kind of really
Speaker 4: being usedon kind of being my adopt at hometown and
Speaker 4: then the Rockets winning back to back titles was incredible,
Speaker 4: and I just think that obviously, when Magic and Bird
Speaker 4: came into the NBA, that took the NBA to one level,
Speaker 4: and then you know, Michael and I think you know
Speaker 4: the Dream Team Barcelona that was just that was just
Speaker 4: such a I mean there had never been anything like that.
Speaker 5: There never will be again.
Speaker 4: But when you look at the audience that watches the Olympics, right,
Speaker 4: because those are a lot of your non traditional sports fans,
Speaker 4: and you look at what the Olympics and the kind
Speaker 4: of ratings that those got back in the day, and
Speaker 4: so all those guys who would later go on to
Speaker 4: battle it out in all those years following, you know,
Speaker 4: because you had Stockton.
Speaker 5: And Malone, and you had you Ing, and you had.
Speaker 4: David Robinson, and you know, you had all those guys
Speaker 4: like on that.
Speaker 5: Dream team too.
Speaker 4: So I think that also just kind of like pushed
Speaker 4: it along.
Speaker 2: Selfishly.
Speaker 3: I have to ask you this because you worked with
Speaker 3: some real heavyweights at NBC, just legendary former players and coaches.
Speaker 3: But I mean, you know what I do for a living,
Speaker 3: so naturally my focus was the reporting of mister Vessi,
Speaker 3: who is a one kind character in this league and
Speaker 3: someone who has been a tremendous mentor to me. But
Speaker 3: just I gotta ask, give me a tail or two
Speaker 3: of Peter Vessi muckraking and causing some trouble with him.
Speaker 2: I mean, his reporting was.
Speaker 4: Okay, real Mark Peter Vessi is in the first three
Speaker 4: episodes of this series. You know, one of my first
Speaker 4: calls was Peter Vessi. Peter Vessi was so he was
Speaker 4: in love with my mother. He liked my dad, He
Speaker 4: covered my dad. But my mom was extremely She was,
Speaker 4: you know, so glamorous. She always you know, dressed to
Speaker 4: the nines for the game, She had her wigs, she
Speaker 4: was just you know, she was a beauty. And so
Speaker 4: Peter Vessi obviously never let me forget that my mother
Speaker 4: was really the reason why he talked to my father
Speaker 4: all the time. But you know, I mean, Peter's so
Speaker 4: good in this series, Like he talks about coaching doctor
Speaker 4: j at Rucker Park, like the Rucker Park days, which
Speaker 4: are really cool, which everyone should know about. I mean,
Speaker 4: talk about legendary stuff that wasn't you know, isn't on
Speaker 4: video anywhere, right, And you know he was part of
Speaker 4: the you know, so Peter and and you know Bob Costas,
Speaker 4: I mean those guys who covered the ABA. I mean
Speaker 4: they would go out with the players afterwards. I mean,
Speaker 4: this wasn't and they would. They're they're flying commercial, they're
Speaker 4: flying early flight, they're flying the cheapest flights possible, you know,
Speaker 4: and Peter talks about like sleeping in. You know, whatever
Speaker 4: clothes you were gonna wear on that plane the next day,
Speaker 4: that's what you went out with the night before because
Speaker 4: you were gonna have time. You know, you were never
Speaker 4: gonna go to bed, you were never gonna be able
Speaker 4: to change your clothes.
Speaker 5: And he was a good time and we had a
Speaker 5: great time on NBC.
Speaker 4: He called me Hannah. He never called me Hannah, hannaer
Speaker 4: And people just give me grief about it all the time.
Speaker 4: And then Peter always had these sly, sarcastic one liners
Speaker 4: that worked great in print, and then he would say
Speaker 4: them on the air and then we would all like laugh,
Speaker 4: but we knew the one liner was coming at the
Speaker 4: end of everything.
Speaker 5: But I am telling you that guy scooped everybody. He
Speaker 5: scooped everybody on everything. He pissed so many people off.
Speaker 5: People were always mad him. I loved it. I love
Speaker 5: every time.
Speaker 4: And he would give you this like sly little look
Speaker 4: in his eyes, like you're not gonna believe what I have,
Speaker 4: and then he would just boom drop this bomb on.
Speaker 5: The air like whatever it was, and uh yeah.
Speaker 2: And again it was the days of the Twitter.
Speaker 3: There's not even no Internet, like you could break news
Speaker 3: on TV, like the Brian Hill, the magic, the magic
Speaker 3: gonna fire, Brian Hill.
Speaker 5: Just like incredible all the time, all the time.
Speaker 2: It couldn't happen. Now it just came.
Speaker 4: He knew, he knew everybody and everything, and I don't,
Speaker 4: I don't know how. And he and we had this
Speaker 4: tiny teeny we need little green room at NBC.
Speaker 5: And I mean we.
Speaker 4: Were, like I said, we were on for tripleheaders, doubleheaders,
Speaker 4: pregames post.
Speaker 5: I mean we were there for hours in there.
Speaker 4: I have spent a giant, huge portion of my life
Speaker 4: with him. He was in there, you know, Spider Sally,
Speaker 4: Tom tomar Ziah Thomas, Quinn Buckner. I mean we had
Speaker 4: all sorts of guys sort of in and out of
Speaker 4: there as analysts, you know, doctor J. I mean all
Speaker 4: sorts of people. And the one constant was Peter VESSI.
Speaker 4: He was always there, always scooping, causing trouble man, big trouble.
Speaker 3: So what is the secret though, to doing like fifteen
Speaker 3: other sports on top of basketball?
Speaker 5: Oh, I don't. I guess work in somewhere that has
Speaker 5: all those sports. I don't know. I'm a big homework person.
Speaker 4: People always kind of tease me or if they don't
Speaker 4: know me that well, Like I'm like, I drilled down
Speaker 4: on everything.
Speaker 5: So for me, I just figure, you know what I
Speaker 5: think as.
Speaker 4: A woman, I came in and I was like, I
Speaker 4: can learn this stuff. And NASCAR really taught me that,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, Like Witch to Charlotte through,
Speaker 4: You're you're gonna do NASCAR specials, You're going to cover
Speaker 4: NASCAR full time. I barely knew, like I didn't know
Speaker 4: anything about it, but I was like, if you study
Speaker 4: hard enough and you ask questions, you can learn it,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, if you're willing to put
Speaker 4: in the work.
Speaker 5: And so I guess I've all that way about basically.
Speaker 4: Every sport, every event I've ever done, and that's just
Speaker 4: kind of how I approach it. And then you know,
Speaker 4: if I study really hard enough and I ask enough
Speaker 4: questions and all of that, and once I get there,
Speaker 4: I feel comfortable and then I can relax and cover it.
Speaker 4: But you know what sports is. You and I are smart,
Speaker 4: but you know what, it's not brain surgery. It's really not,
Speaker 4: and it's not Sports isn't really like some secret language
Speaker 4: that only certain people can speak.
Speaker 3: But what it is, though, is it is something that
Speaker 3: everyone cares about so deferent yes, so much more than
Speaker 3: almost anything else in life.
Speaker 2: And that's what gets people angry.
Speaker 5: It's sports and music. It's I think music, right.
Speaker 3: It's like most team owners, you know, I think when
Speaker 3: they come into the sports world from the business world.
Speaker 3: You they might have made bazillions of dollars in business,
Speaker 3: but they never work. They're never in the spotlight like
Speaker 3: they are owning sports teams and that, you know.
Speaker 4: I mean, some handle it better than others, and some
Speaker 4: I've never out of my group phone they didn't like
Speaker 4: and maybe they should back off.
Speaker 5: A little bit.
Speaker 4: But yeah, being a team owner, sometimes I just sit
Speaker 4: there and I hear the salaries, and you know, I
Speaker 4: was just like kind of listening about, you know, sort
Speaker 4: of what was happening with the Timberwolves, and I was
Speaker 4: just like, man to like write those checks, Like wow,
Speaker 4: I don't know, you have to be like a certain
Speaker 4: certain kind of person to just write those checks and
Speaker 4: take so much grief and also lose a lot, because
Speaker 4: you lose a lot more than you win. You know,
Speaker 4: you could go through your whole career and not get
Speaker 4: that championship and not get the success that you want,
Speaker 4: and you got to be okay with that, because that's
Speaker 4: just the reality.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you're sought quite a bit, sought out by
Speaker 3: young women who want to do some of the things
Speaker 3: in the business that you've been able to do. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's probably not easy to just generally say what is
Speaker 3: your best advice? But what kinds of things do you say?
Speaker 3: You know, that's something I struggle with. I have, you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of young people who ask me for advice,
Speaker 3: and that business has changed so much and so much
Speaker 3: so many of them, you know, there's just so much
Speaker 3: less media, there's so fewer places to go than there
Speaker 3: were when when we were trying to get started. So like,
Speaker 3: if I ask you to maybe give us some words
Speaker 3: of encouragement to the aspiring youth of today, what are
Speaker 3: some of the things you tell students who seek you
Speaker 3: out for advice.
Speaker 4: I mean, I do think there's in some ways more opportunities,
Speaker 4: like you don't just have to like I had to
Speaker 4: go to, you know, a radio station to start off right,
Speaker 4: or you know, I couldn't get a job in TV,
Speaker 4: you know, and so I started off in.
Speaker 5: Radio my first two jobs.
Speaker 4: But I do think like there are more opportunities obviously
Speaker 4: with all the expanding media and and I think we've
Speaker 4: seen it and how successful people can be in different
Speaker 4: areas like you know that do monetize like a YouTube,
Speaker 4: you know, and there is still a ton of radio,
Speaker 4: and there's satellite radio, and there's podcasts here we are
Speaker 4: yay you and me, and thank God for that, and
Speaker 4: you know, there are opportunities out there. I would say,
Speaker 4: you know, I always tell people that there's no substitute
Speaker 4: for hard work, and that's very very boring answer, it
Speaker 4: is very very true. I do think the thing that
Speaker 4: plagues young people today is I think rejection is so
Speaker 4: much a part of their lives because they put themselves
Speaker 4: out on social media and Instagram and things like that,
Speaker 4: where people can be really cruel, and I think that,
Speaker 4: you know, I think you have.
Speaker 5: To be okay with rejection.
Speaker 4: I think you have to be okay with the fact
Speaker 4: that you're going to get a lot more knows than
Speaker 4: you are. Yes is, but you still have to put
Speaker 4: yourself out there. And I do think that people are
Speaker 4: little bit afraid young people at times to take risks
Speaker 4: and put themselves out there and taking risks and doing
Speaker 4: things that might not be exactly what you want, but
Speaker 4: it might be a path to getting there. And being
Speaker 4: open minded about it is really huge. I mean, if
Speaker 4: I didn't put myself out there and take risks like
Speaker 4: I never would have called NFL games for four years
Speaker 4: at Amazon, Like that just wouldn't have happened, you know,
Speaker 4: something that seemed terrifying but was an opportunity, and I
Speaker 4: was like, Okay, I'm going to do this. You know,
Speaker 4: sometimes it's hard to take a leap of faith like
Speaker 4: that and or believe in yourself or believe that you
Speaker 4: can do it.
Speaker 5: You can learn it.
Speaker 4: And I would just say, you know, to try to
Speaker 4: get comfortable with the fact that not everybody's going to
Speaker 4: like you.
Speaker 5: They're not going to see your vision.
Speaker 4: But if you see it, that's enough, you know, and
Speaker 4: that's okay, and just man keep at it.
Speaker 2: When you say radio you started off as.
Speaker 4: A heavy metal DJ, really, yeah, That's where I got
Speaker 4: my name. So I had done I had actually had
Speaker 4: a really nice television reel coming out of college. But again,
Speaker 4: no nobody was hiring a girl. They just weren't doing it,
Speaker 4: and they just weren't going to do it, you know.
Speaker 4: And again I got told over and over you know,
Speaker 4: my audience doesn't want this, like this isn't happening, you know,
Speaker 4: do something different, blah blah blah. But I had done,
Speaker 4: you know, a good amount of work at Notre Dame,
Speaker 4: and through the four years they had done a ton.
Speaker 5: Of internships and stuff. So I was like. My dad
Speaker 5: was like, hey, Hannah li In, it's my middle name.
Speaker 4: There's a lot more radio stations in the country than
Speaker 4: TV stations.
Speaker 5: And I was like, you're right, dad, And.
Speaker 4: So I there were a couple of publications back then,
Speaker 4: broadcasting magazine and radio and records, and they both had
Speaker 4: one ads, and so I started, I went, I just
Speaker 4: made a radio tape, just made a tape. And I
Speaker 4: had done some radio and college. I had DJed and
Speaker 4: I had a sports radio talk show at our local
Speaker 4: Notre Dame station. So I was like, all right, So
Speaker 4: I did sports tape and I did a DJ tape,
Speaker 4: just made one up, started sending those out.
Speaker 5: I got two job offers.
Speaker 4: One was for a station in somewhere into San Angelo, Texas,
Speaker 4: and the other one was for a heavy metal rock
Speaker 4: station of Corpus Christy will come on, I mean rock
Speaker 4: was going to be a lot more fun, So I.
Speaker 5: Was like going down to Corpus Christy.
Speaker 4: They changed my aim. My name is Hannah Storn. They
Speaker 4: changed it to Hannah Storm and it was stormed by
Speaker 4: the c C one oh one headbanger era. I played
Speaker 4: like Quiet Riot, like Motley Crue, Hagar, Shaun Eyrinson and Strieve,
Speaker 4: you know, scorpions, like back to back to back Death Leopard,
Speaker 4: Quiet Riot.
Speaker 3: You get the idea, can we get some of that
Speaker 3: audio in this podcast?
Speaker 4: I believe it is going to make its way in
Speaker 4: because that story is there in the podcast.
Speaker 5: So yes, because I mean, you know, so every one
Speaker 5: of our.
Speaker 4: Podcast episodes has what's called a cold open, so it
Speaker 4: kind of opens with something like a story or whatever.
Speaker 4: So my first one is the story of me and
Speaker 4: Charles and incident that happened when I was at NBC
Speaker 4: and he's we're really good friends now I remember, you
Speaker 4: know that incident. The second one is about the movie
Speaker 4: like Mike, and the third one.
Speaker 5: Is the story of like DJ Days and you know,
Speaker 5: like all of that. So it's really fun.
Speaker 2: We're not going to do the Charles story here. Let's
Speaker 2: save that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yea, yeah, no, that's okay.
Speaker 4: It's awesome, and but but yeah, but but you know,
Speaker 4: my voice was a lot higher.
Speaker 5: And like now that i'm they have some old clips
Speaker 5: and stuff.
Speaker 4: I like my voice is like I guess your voice
Speaker 4: gets lower as you get older.
Speaker 3: Charles sounds way different years later than he did.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he his voice was very high. And I guess
Speaker 5: maybe we all I guess I guess.
Speaker 2: Mark.
Speaker 4: I'm sure if you listened to your voice like back
Speaker 4: in the day, the octaves would be higher. I think
Speaker 4: that's one of the things that gets like more mellow
Speaker 4: and beautiful, you know, with.
Speaker 5: Age, is your voice.
Speaker 4: But but yeah, that was me.
Speaker 5: I was like headbangerri era man. I loved it.
Speaker 4: And then and then I got my first job in
Speaker 4: Houston doing morning and afternoon drive sports, but I was
Speaker 4: still spinning records on the weekends, and that was at
Speaker 4: ninety seven Rock, which was a legendary Houston rock station
Speaker 4: Kick Ass Rock and Roll KSRR Houston.
Speaker 3: So you know, we've mentioned your dad many times here,
Speaker 3: and as you said, you know, Mike Storen, former commissioner
Speaker 3: of the ABA, your last name is actually Storin. But
Speaker 3: so basically what you're saying is the station just said
Speaker 3: you are now hannahs Storm and you had to roll
Speaker 3: with it.
Speaker 4: Well, they said, first of all, Storin does not translate
Speaker 4: like storin like they're like, But then, nobody was named
Speaker 4: Hannah at the time. There were literally no Hannahs. And
Speaker 4: I was named after my mom and my grandma. Now
Speaker 4: it's super popular. So they said, we would like you
Speaker 4: to be Anna Storm, and I was like, oh, okay.
Speaker 5: I'll change one of my names.
Speaker 4: But I'm like, I don't want to like completely lose
Speaker 4: myself and be Anna Storm, Like can I be Hannah?
Speaker 5: Can you? And they're like, oh, okay, whatever.
Speaker 4: And so you know when you have a baby and
Speaker 4: they have all the baby names in there and they say, well,
Speaker 4: this person has that name, right, like this celebrity has
Speaker 4: that name. For a long time, I was like the
Speaker 4: only Hannah. It was like the next to baby Hannah.
Speaker 4: It was like Hannah Storm sportscaster because it just wasn't
Speaker 4: like a nobody was named Hannah. Now we've got all
Speaker 4: these great especially like all these girls in the NCAA
Speaker 4: tournament there were tons of Hannahs, but especially Hannah Hadagah
Speaker 4: my favorite.
Speaker 5: But yeah, so that was it Anna Storm, but Hannah Storm.
Speaker 5: So that's how I got I.
Speaker 4: Have a TV name, and people always joke like you
Speaker 4: should do weather.
Speaker 2: It's amazing that it just like they just tell you
Speaker 2: and that's the way it is.
Speaker 4: And oh, I mean I've been told like die your
Speaker 4: hair blonde, you know, wear dress, don't wear you know, pants,
Speaker 4: wear hair long, don't wear dangly earrings. Do you know?
Speaker 5: Like listen, I.
Speaker 4: Mean I came up, you know, back in the day
Speaker 4: when you know, like I said, a lot of people
Speaker 4: said and a lot of things that you know, they
Speaker 4: probably wouldn't say today. But yes, I have been told many, many,
Speaker 4: many things about you know everything.
Speaker 3: Well, look, in our short time together, you've told several
Speaker 3: great stories. And if you enjoyed this, you can listen
Speaker 3: to the NBA DNA podcast series, twelve episodes worth of
Speaker 3: stories like this from Hannah Storm, who has been around
Speaker 3: professional basketball since the seventies, all the way back to.
Speaker 2: The ABA, a league that I sadly did not get
Speaker 2: to experience firsthand.
Speaker 3: But now I'm going to listen to this podcast and yeah,
Speaker 3: try to learn about it. And like you said, you know,
Speaker 3: you've got Bob Costas on there, You've got Peter Vessi
Speaker 3: on there. These guys are champions of the Doctor j
Speaker 3: They all are champions of ABA history and it's you.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 2: I am always going.
Speaker 3: To urge listeners please learn the league did not start
Speaker 3: with Michael Jordan. Please go back in time and learn
Speaker 3: some of these lessons and let me let me just say,
Speaker 3: this is my chance to say thank you to you.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you remember this, but for me
Speaker 3: in Rio, I was doing both TV and writing, and
Speaker 3: so it was it was constant. I mean, the days
Speaker 3: were really really long, and I am the worst morning
Speaker 3: person ever. The sports centers you were hosting were always
Speaker 3: in the morning, and I'm up late at night covering
Speaker 3: games and writing. But I remember that mister Woodtalka, our producer,
Speaker 3: said hey, you know, Hannah, Hannah really needs Hannah really
Speaker 3: wants you to join her for this morning segment.
Speaker 2: So when once I heard that, then sleep.
Speaker 3: Was sleep was off the table because that was that
Speaker 3: was a very high sorry, that was a very high
Speaker 3: compliment to hear that you did insisting that I should
Speaker 3: join you.
Speaker 2: So thank you.
Speaker 5: I did.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 5: You were amazing, and you know, we really kind of.
Speaker 4: Smushed a lot of our Olympic programming into like these
Speaker 4: special hours, so you know, it was really important to.
Speaker 5: Have you there, and I mean you were like a
Speaker 5: one man band. Man. I don't know how you did it.
Speaker 4: I do not know how you did it because you
Speaker 4: were you were everything. Like you were like one person
Speaker 4: covering an entire Olympic basketball.
Speaker 5: Series and that was it. That was a really.
Speaker 4: Special I remember, like you know, interviewing coach k and
Speaker 4: some of the players leading up to that. That was
Speaker 4: a really cool It was a cool team.
Speaker 5: It was a really interesting experience. Well, we'll talk about
Speaker 5: Rio another time on our next podcast.
Speaker 2: Let's definitely do it again.
Speaker 3: Seriously, congratulations on this, Thank you this podcast. And let
Speaker 3: me also say, you know, you recently revealed your battle
Speaker 3: with breast cancer, and I can't even imagine what that
Speaker 3: was like for you to do. You're a public person,
Speaker 3: so I mean it must make it twenty five times harder.
Speaker 3: And I really just wanted to send you all the
Speaker 3: best wishes. And you have a zillion fans out there
Speaker 3: who love you, and I just again wanted to send
Speaker 3: you all.
Speaker 2: The best wishes and.
Speaker 5: You're the best. Don't don't feeling great.
Speaker 2: Don't have a don't have a elegant way to say it,
Speaker 2: but just.
Speaker 5: You know, what there. You know, the thing is there.
Speaker 5: You don't have to have an elegant way to say it.
Speaker 4: Like what you said was incredible, and people are like,
Speaker 4: I don't know what to say, and I'm like, say anything,
Speaker 4: say anything, just same thinking of you whatever, whatever you
Speaker 4: want to say. Like just what you said was beautiful
Speaker 4: and perfect and it wasn't easy, but I want I
Speaker 4: just want people to get out there and you know,
Speaker 4: get tested, like get their mammograms, do what you're supposed
Speaker 4: to do. And for guys, you know, if there's a woman,
Speaker 4: a person that you love in your family, you know,
Speaker 4: obviously men have a history of breast cancer too.
Speaker 5: You know they have to be very careful.
Speaker 4: But you know, just make sure whoever that person is
Speaker 4: in your life, support them however you can, and make
Speaker 4: sure they're getting tested because it really really does save lives.
Speaker 3: Everybody, listen to Hannah Storm on matters of life and basketball.
Speaker 3: All right, that is going to do it for this
Speaker 3: edition of This League Uncut. Like I told you from
Speaker 3: the jump, Chris Haynes missed out the legendary with us here. Everybody,
Speaker 3: you know what to do, follow the show, rate the show,
Speaker 3: review the show, and listen to Hannah Storm's NBA DNA,
Speaker 3: a twelve part podcast series produced by iHeart Chris and
Speaker 3: I'll be back together with you very soon.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening everyone, and that'll do it for us.
Speaker 1: See you next time.
Speaker 2: This league un Cutters and iHeartRadio production Chris Hanes and
Speaker 2: Mark Stein