Speaker 1: This is kJ Live with Chris john Sallie and Chris
Speaker 1: is having conversations with influencers in the sports world and
Speaker 1: entertainment in a strain. Now here's Chris Johnson. You're now
Speaker 1: found in to kJ Live. Today's guests on the show.
Speaker 1: He's a play by play announcement, studio hosts and future
Speaker 1: producer reporter. She has broadcast games with Fox Sports, f
Speaker 1: S One, ESPN, Turner Sports, CBS, and the SEC Network,
Speaker 1: just to name a few. She's a trailblazer in the
Speaker 1: field of broadcasting and in one she was named the
Speaker 1: first full time female played by play announcer in the
Speaker 1: NBA by the Milwaukee Bucks. Let's welcome in, Lisa Buyington
Speaker 1: into the building. Lisa, how are you good? Chris, I'm
Speaker 1: here a little bit of your dad. Boy. That's that's
Speaker 1: a compliment too, election, the pauses, the the pace of
Speaker 1: your speech. I love it. I feel like I'm talking
Speaker 1: to a younger m J. Which, by the way, I
Speaker 1: always want to ask one of his partners, how is
Speaker 1: it working with my dad? Shout out to my dad.
Speaker 1: He hooked this up side. We got to talk about
Speaker 1: markets for a second. How what how is it working?
Speaker 1: With my dad, Lisa. I love it. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: he's part Hollywood, part Hall of Hall of Famer. I
Speaker 1: always feel like he should go into the Hall of
Speaker 1: Fame eventually and be a people take no please. Um.
Speaker 1: You know that's another maybe that's another podcast for another day.
Speaker 1: But you know, Marcus Johnson provides um, what I call
Speaker 1: is very unique in an analyst. You know, and whatever
Speaker 1: sport you're doing, you know, a lot of people are
Speaker 1: either heavy on the excess and nose or heavy on
Speaker 1: the entertainment. And there are very few that can bounce
Speaker 1: between both, you know, and and teach the game and
Speaker 1: be heavy on the excess and os but also be
Speaker 1: fun and entertaining. And Marcus Johnson is the unique individual
Speaker 1: that can nay it through both worlds and he and
Speaker 1: I consider myself a basketball person. I played in college
Speaker 1: and and watched it my whole life. My dad was
Speaker 1: my high school coach, so I'm not It's not like
Speaker 1: I know everything about basketball, but when when you grow
Speaker 1: up playing and watching the sport, you know, you notice
Speaker 1: things beyond the obvious. And he has just a level
Speaker 1: of observations that even teaches the basketball person something about basketball.
Speaker 1: So I love yeah, I love to call my dad
Speaker 1: your favorite basketball players favorite basketball player. I saw because
Speaker 1: I read somewhere or I heard you talk about you
Speaker 1: your love from Michael Jordan's growing up and I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if you're familiar, but Michael Jordan had MJ had
Speaker 1: MJ's poster. That's my claim to favor your favorite basketball
Speaker 1: player's favorite basketball player, that's my dad. But talk about
Speaker 1: talking about your beginnings, the foundation for you. You turned
Speaker 1: into this amazing broadcaster, but you have an athletic back around.
Speaker 1: I kind of wanted to touch on that and just
Speaker 1: get an understanding of when you know, what what sports
Speaker 1: did you play and what got you into athletics so heavy,
Speaker 1: you know, I love it. The fact that my mom
Speaker 1: and dad they weren't they weren't the parents Chris who
Speaker 1: made me specialized. I think too many you know, kids
Speaker 1: growing up these days now like they just specialized in
Speaker 1: the one sport. And thankfully I didn't grow up in
Speaker 1: a household that was like that. So you asked what
Speaker 1: sports I played, It was everything from swimming to tennis,
Speaker 1: to soccer, to basketball to the softball. Um. They even
Speaker 1: have me do some dance and gymnastics, you know, and so, um,
Speaker 1: what they did is they let me, as I got
Speaker 1: older than than Lisa got to choose what she wanted
Speaker 1: to do. You know, So I I gravitated more towards
Speaker 1: basketball and soccer. Um, and that's what I eventually played
Speaker 1: in high school, and that's eventually what I played at
Speaker 1: Northwestern University. I was four years of basketball and two
Speaker 1: years of soccer. But the fact that they let me
Speaker 1: experience a lot of things, and then on top of that,
Speaker 1: the fact that they let me choose is really really valuable,
Speaker 1: I think to my growth and just the versatility I
Speaker 1: like to I still to this day, like to do
Speaker 1: a little bit of everything. Were you a PG, you know,
Speaker 1: I joke with not basketball people, so that would not
Speaker 1: be you. But I try to joke with people that
Speaker 1: I was at five, that I was a center and
Speaker 1: had matt hops. But if you've seen me in person,
Speaker 1: you know I'm I was listed at five six. I'm
Speaker 1: probably more like five four or five five now, But
Speaker 1: being a center is a little bit of a stretch.
Speaker 1: So yes, I was a point guard, okay, okay, and
Speaker 1: I played center. Believe it or not, I'm only six five,
Speaker 1: But I got signed to U C l a as
Speaker 1: a center six pounds center, so I understand what that's like.
Speaker 1: And then in soccer, you were a striker or center
Speaker 1: mid or Yeah. I was the Prima Donna forward. I
Speaker 1: was just like sending to the corner flag. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: chase it down, you know, I want all the glory,
Speaker 1: all the goals. Yeah, I feel you, feel you, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I was. The soccer. Yeah. I always wanted
Speaker 1: to play soccer. I just wasn't quite fast enough to
Speaker 1: do it. I loved the game. I love to watch it.
Speaker 1: Spent some time in Italy with my dad kind of
Speaker 1: fell in love with soccer and that whole culture over there. Um,
Speaker 1: while you were at Northwestern, was that when you first
Speaker 1: rich is a renowned school for broadcasting and journalism. Was
Speaker 1: that when you first got the bug to be in
Speaker 1: front of the camera or a broadcast journalist. Well? I
Speaker 1: always thought I was gonna be playing sports for the
Speaker 1: rest of my life, you know. I had this ocean
Speaker 1: that I was good enough, I was gonna play professionally
Speaker 1: and find something, you know. But I realized actually in
Speaker 1: college that I became the backup point guard for my team.
Speaker 1: So I realized that I probably wasn't gonna be able
Speaker 1: to play sports for the rest of my life. So
Speaker 1: I started to kind of look at real people jobs
Speaker 1: and realizing I didn't want the real people job that
Speaker 1: had to sit at the desk in the corner office
Speaker 1: and and and stare at a computer all the time.
Speaker 1: If I was gonna stare at a computer, I wanted
Speaker 1: to be like prepping for sports, and so I wanted
Speaker 1: to find in a way. I love sports so much.
Speaker 1: I talked about how my parents letting me play sports
Speaker 1: as a little kid, and a lot of different things.
Speaker 1: So I was so I was just thinking, you know what,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get rid of that. So I
Speaker 1: actually was deciding between becoming a basketball coach um and
Speaker 1: becoming a journalist. And I didn't know if I wanted
Speaker 1: to be a print journalist and at the time when
Speaker 1: newspapers are a little bit more popular, being magazine or
Speaker 1: newspaper which would eventually translate to being just an online
Speaker 1: reporter that we have now, or if I wanted to
Speaker 1: go into TV and so. But McDill School Journalism is
Speaker 1: what I unbiasedly or maybe more biasedly, like to consider
Speaker 1: as one of the best journalism schools in the country
Speaker 1: at Northwestern, thank you, thank you, And so it was
Speaker 1: it was really easy to give schooling, the edgication, the opportunities,
Speaker 1: the networking. Someone right, Musburgers another Northwestern grad um. So
Speaker 1: we like to go to Northwestern Syracuse. You know, we
Speaker 1: have our we have our lums, we have our prestige
Speaker 1: and tradition, and we like to kind of compare the
Speaker 1: journalism schools between the two schools. But it was easy
Speaker 1: to do once I once I hopped into that. Yeah, no, um.
Speaker 1: I when I was at U c l A, which
Speaker 1: isn't as famous for its broadcasting as Northwestern, but it
Speaker 1: has produced some pretty solid individuals in front of the camera.
Speaker 1: I kind of, you know, I was playing ball on
Speaker 1: the team we had won an extra championship, but I
Speaker 1: was also focused on kind of, you know, earning my
Speaker 1: chops a little bit. I took drama, you know, I
Speaker 1: took a couple of classes to learn how to do
Speaker 1: stuff in front of the camera, behind the camera. I
Speaker 1: took a journalism course. I kind of just at the time,
Speaker 1: I was just thinking to myself, you know, hey, you're
Speaker 1: at U c l A, You're in l A. You
Speaker 1: might as well because this is the type of town
Speaker 1: that if you got a little a little bit of
Speaker 1: you know, anything, experiencing anything, that you might get a
Speaker 1: shot and doing something. But which leads me to my
Speaker 1: question about your first shot, when you first got your
Speaker 1: first geek um working for a station or a newspaper,
Speaker 1: wherever it was, where was it, how old were you,
Speaker 1: and talked to me about that experience. I would love
Speaker 1: to because there's nothing really the write home about, because
Speaker 1: it's it's the It was the second smallest TV market
Speaker 1: in the country. And it was all the way up
Speaker 1: in Alpina, Michigan. So people who aren't familiar with Michigan,
Speaker 1: and actually even people who are familiar with Michigan have
Speaker 1: no idea where Alpino, Michigan is. So it's up north.
Speaker 1: It's about forty five minutes south of mcinal bridge. I
Speaker 1: think some people have heard of that, and in the
Speaker 1: Upper Peninsula, so it's it's just really really far up north.
Speaker 1: And when I say it was the second smallest market
Speaker 1: in the country, for people who don't know market size
Speaker 1: in the top of the market is based on populations
Speaker 1: New York, in l A and Chicago. It is kind
Speaker 1: of your one, two, and three biggest markets. Alpina, Michigan
Speaker 1: was sitting I think at like two eleven and they
Speaker 1: stopped counting at tot and uh, you know, I mean
Speaker 1: it's it was right above Glenn Dive, Montana. I looked
Speaker 1: on the list to see where is alf Alpina isn't
Speaker 1: the smallest TV market? What is the smallest TV market?
Speaker 1: And the answer was Glenn Dive, Montana. But I loved it, Chris,
Speaker 1: because I got to do a little bit of everything.
Speaker 1: And you know, it very much was a grunt work
Speaker 1: kind of job. You know, you're you're working twelve to
Speaker 1: fourteen hours because you have to do everything. You are
Speaker 1: your own camera person, you are your own editor, you
Speaker 1: are your own producer, You're your own reporter and anchor
Speaker 1: makeup person. You know you you name it. Um. I
Speaker 1: remember several Friday nights where we would hop in a
Speaker 1: car and we would do this high school football show.
Speaker 1: And we would hop in a car and drive from
Speaker 1: high school to high school. And you had to pick
Speaker 1: up a camera and you put it on your shoulder
Speaker 1: back when you know, the cameras are bigger right back then,
Speaker 1: and um, and so you shoot your own high school
Speaker 1: football highlights. You get to the three or four high schools.
Speaker 1: You come back to the station, you edit your own stuff.
Speaker 1: You're looking You're like, okay, I gotta make the eleven
Speaker 1: o'clock news. So so it's like ten forty five. You
Speaker 1: got a race into the bathroom and change because you
Speaker 1: were in sweats and James, because you were just shooting
Speaker 1: your own highlights right and you running there, and you
Speaker 1: do your hair and makeup, you try to look presentable,
Speaker 1: and then you do the uh whatever it was twenty
Speaker 1: minute a half hour high school football show, and then
Speaker 1: you rinse and repeat and you do it again. And
Speaker 1: I got to cover things like the brown Trout Festival
Speaker 1: Alpino Community College. They were the Lumberjacks. That was I think, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, like twenty different high schools and stuff, and
Speaker 1: so like outdoor sports, you know, snowmobil and all that.
Speaker 1: So things that nontraditional sports that I would never get
Speaker 1: a chance to do now. And and I really got
Speaker 1: my foot in the door, which was the message that
Speaker 1: people gave me, Lisa. It's not where you start, it's
Speaker 1: where you finish. You just need a chance. You just
Speaker 1: need your foot in the door, and then work hard
Speaker 1: and treat people the right way and you'll carve your
Speaker 1: own path eventually. No, that's amazing. I mean there's a
Speaker 1: lot to be said for how people start in the surroundings,
Speaker 1: the atmosphere and sort of you know what's presented in
Speaker 1: front of them. So you had to do a bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff on your own, and that taught you a
Speaker 1: skill set that's probably invaluable to you today. I mean
Speaker 1: it makes a lot of things a lot easier. You're
Speaker 1: probably easy to work with because you understand the makeup person,
Speaker 1: you understand the camera. I mean, you understand everybody. So
Speaker 1: you're probably easy to work with. I have to ask
Speaker 1: folks about that. No, I'm just joking. But um, and
Speaker 1: that's but that's that's dope. You're listening to Fox Sports. Um,
Speaker 1: I love the small town story. It's always ironic to
Speaker 1: me how so many of the biggest stories, some of
Speaker 1: our big stories, and our big stars and people that
Speaker 1: have accomplished come from smallest towns and humble beginnings. There's
Speaker 1: definitely something to be said for that. Lisa. In two
Speaker 1: thousand and seventeen, you became the first female full time
Speaker 1: play by play UM announcer in for the Big Ten
Speaker 1: Network College football talk about that experience, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to know, do you get into sort of the thing
Speaker 1: about being the first female in you know, in the
Speaker 1: field of sports doing something, or do you care about
Speaker 1: that or is this something that you wear with a
Speaker 1: badge of honor. It's a great question, Chris. I understand
Speaker 1: why people talk about it. I understand why it's a headline.
Speaker 1: Anytime that nothing has been done before, it makes news.
Speaker 1: Me personally, when I say this, I don't embrace, not,
Speaker 1: you know, embrace being a role model. Let me get
Speaker 1: that out of the way. But what I don't embrace
Speaker 1: are those adjectives first and female, because I don't look
Speaker 1: at myself in that way. I look at myself as
Speaker 1: just an announcer. I mean, you know, when I sit
Speaker 1: next to your dad and I'm about to call it
Speaker 1: Bucks basketball game and I put on the headset, I'm
Speaker 1: not thinking I'm a female announcer. I'm I'm putting on
Speaker 1: a headset thinking I'm an announcer, and I'm an NBA announcer,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking about what our storylines are. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about matchups. I'm thinking about what Janice is going to
Speaker 1: do that night, you know, and so it's it's the
Speaker 1: furthest thing from my mind. But in two thousand seventeen
Speaker 1: and that opportunity that you reference with football, it was
Speaker 1: it was really the first time that I got a
Speaker 1: feeling of maybe the implications. I don't want to say heaviness,
Speaker 1: because I didn't. I didn't feel like overloaded by it.
Speaker 1: But I felt the attention, and I felt a little
Speaker 1: bit more of the pressure. And what I really wanted
Speaker 1: to do was to be good enough that people would
Speaker 1: continue to hire women in some of those positions. And
Speaker 1: I've always said this, Chris, is that I cannot wait
Speaker 1: when you know, first of all, we lose those adjectives
Speaker 1: first and female. But when we watch a sportscast and
Speaker 1: and we're listening, and we're watching, and we're not paying
Speaker 1: attention to the gender of the announcers, and I do
Speaker 1: it too. You know, if I'm if I'm listening to
Speaker 1: a men's game, whether it's in basketball or football, baseball, soccer,
Speaker 1: you name it, and I hear a female announcer on it,
Speaker 1: I stop when I'm doing and I literally try to
Speaker 1: figure out who's who's the woman doing this game? And
Speaker 1: I think it happens across the country and many different households.
Speaker 1: But you know, eventually, um, you know, maybe a female
Speaker 1: voice can be back noise on a men's game and
Speaker 1: and that's that's that's my dream. You know that that
Speaker 1: someday that happens. Is that we're sitting here and we're
Speaker 1: doing work, we're on our phone, you know, looking at something.
Speaker 1: We got a game out of the background, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't make we have a female voice doing an NBA
Speaker 1: game or a college football game, and you know what,
Speaker 1: we don't not trying to figure out who that female
Speaker 1: announcer is doing that game. Yeah that that hopefully we'll
Speaker 1: get to that place sooner than later. Um. But I
Speaker 1: do enjoy the background noise at times when when that
Speaker 1: that that that you reference, because when you hear a
Speaker 1: woman calling the game, there's always a perspective that you're
Speaker 1: you're introduced to, so you're getting a perspective that it's shared,
Speaker 1: but it's also it's a different perspective. There's a little
Speaker 1: nuances in there, and so I enjoy it. Um. I
Speaker 1: just know that our culture is a little weird about it,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that I saw you talk about it
Speaker 1: a little bit. Some of the things social media that
Speaker 1: take place where there's really no place for where people
Speaker 1: are saying you know things. But just so you know,
Speaker 1: we love hearing you. We love your voice, we love
Speaker 1: your insight and knowledge, especially the knowledge of the game.
Speaker 1: That's the part that I think that is the most
Speaker 1: impressive thing about it. It's the knowledge of the game.
Speaker 1: And it's like it's like Doors does the same thing
Speaker 1: Doors Burke. When you listen to Doors, it's like, Okay, boom,
Speaker 1: you know, and you all you almost enjoy some of
Speaker 1: some of the takes a little bit more than some
Speaker 1: of the dudes. But that's another podcast. UM. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: heard you talk about stuff. You said this many times,
Speaker 1: um or not many times, but you've referenced this this phrase.
Speaker 1: You said, you gotta do the grunt job to get
Speaker 1: the glory job. I want you to expand on that
Speaker 1: and just kind of talk about what that means because
Speaker 1: that kind of resonated with me when when I heard
Speaker 1: it the first time. M Well, it goes back to
Speaker 1: my first job. You know, I was making four team
Speaker 1: when an Alpina Michigan. Chris and we talked about that job,
Speaker 1: and I was making fourteen thousand dollars a year and working,
Speaker 1: you know, twelve to fourteen hours a day, and I
Speaker 1: loved it. And and that's when I realized I was
Speaker 1: doing the right thing, because I wasn't counting the dollars
Speaker 1: in in my bank account, which wasn't very many, so
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have taked long to do that. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't paying attention to my watch and how many
Speaker 1: um hours I was lying because I just enjoyed the work.
Speaker 1: And you know, I didn't just roll out of bed
Speaker 1: yesterday and say, you know what, I think would be
Speaker 1: really cool to be an NBA play by play announcer today,
Speaker 1: or you know, like you know, brushing my teeth in
Speaker 1: the morning and say, you know what I want to do,
Speaker 1: and I want to call the Olympics or the World
Speaker 1: Cup or n C Double a tournament. And I think
Speaker 1: we fall into that trap where we meet someone, you know,
Speaker 1: and the person standing in front of us. We forget
Speaker 1: that there's so much work that goes into the person
Speaker 1: you're standing in front of us, and and and so
Speaker 1: many curdles and and so many mountains to climb and
Speaker 1: and we all have them. And you know, when I
Speaker 1: say grunt took glory a job, I'm talking about that journey.
Speaker 1: And sometimes the space between grunt job and glory job
Speaker 1: could be a month or five months, sometimes it could
Speaker 1: be a year. Um there's a story where for me
Speaker 1: that space in between grunt job and glory job was
Speaker 1: ten years and and and my grunt job with Alpina Michigan,
Speaker 1: and my glory job at the time was to be
Speaker 1: a sideline reporter for the men's at c Double, a
Speaker 1: tournament for CBS and Turner. And when I made my
Speaker 1: first ask it was in um it was in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven. And then when I finally got the
Speaker 1: first offer from CBS and Turner, it was two thousand seventeen.
Speaker 1: And I asked every single year Chris, and I got
Speaker 1: a no no no no year one year, two, year,
Speaker 1: three or four or five, six seventy, I mean all
Speaker 1: the way to year ten. The irony of that is
Speaker 1: I didn't even ask in your tent. I had given
Speaker 1: up because I had thought, you know what, I'm good,
Speaker 1: I'm getting some good opportunities. But that's my point is
Speaker 1: that I think everyone should appreciate the journey that each
Speaker 1: person goes on, and we all have a job if
Speaker 1: we can yes, M M. How do you stay locked
Speaker 1: in through all the nose, Lisa, how did you stay focused,
Speaker 1: you know, on on continuing to knock on those doors
Speaker 1: year after year? They tell you know, what drove you,
Speaker 1: what motivated you? Inspired you to keep trying? I think
Speaker 1: that's an athlete in me, quite honestly, you know, like
Speaker 1: it's it's the stubborn little you know, blonde point guard
Speaker 1: who's trying to, you know, work her way through a
Speaker 1: game and trying to figure out everything. And and that
Speaker 1: was me. You know, I'm a stubborn person. I'm a
Speaker 1: determined person. And um, I decided to not get better.
Speaker 1: I decided to get better. And it's one of the
Speaker 1: hardest lessons that you can learn. But as a as
Speaker 1: a former athlete, you learn to be coached, right. You
Speaker 1: learn to be told you're not good enough here, you
Speaker 1: need to improve here. And it's probably one of the
Speaker 1: everyone asks, like, well, what's the value of translating your
Speaker 1: athletic background to your professional background? Is I want to
Speaker 1: know where I need to improve on. I want to
Speaker 1: know where I could get better. Um, sometimes I want
Speaker 1: you to tell me no that yet you know, and
Speaker 1: and then I'll figure out how to get to that point.
Speaker 1: And so those are the lessons that you learn. You
Speaker 1: don't get better, you get better, and you might not
Speaker 1: always agree with the nose and you might not always
Speaker 1: agree with the evaluation that the person is telling you.
Speaker 1: But there's something there. I guarantee you there's something there
Speaker 1: with that note coming from that person that you can
Speaker 1: learn from and you can use and it can make
Speaker 1: you a better person and a better professional. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a very constructive way of taking criticism or taking a note,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Because sometimes the nose could
Speaker 1: it could break a person. You could it could really
Speaker 1: take away your love of something. And you know, if
Speaker 1: you're constantly told no, So no, that's great advice. Um,
Speaker 1: that's great advice. What when you got to the NBA,
Speaker 1: was it everything that you thought it was gonna be?
Speaker 1: Covering it on a day to day basis, I wasn't
Speaker 1: sure what that what that image is gonna look like?
Speaker 1: You know, Um, I grew up, as you mentioned, I
Speaker 1: grew up a Michael Jordan fan. I grew up a
Speaker 1: Bad Boys fan. I grew up at the State of Michigan.
Speaker 1: So watch that. How can you be a Jordan fan
Speaker 1: and a Bad Boys fan at the same time, Lisa,
Speaker 1: how is that possible? I was a little screwed up.
Speaker 1: I was a little messed up, but I always wanted
Speaker 1: MJ to get you know, forty and Pistons to win.
Speaker 1: So absolutely I navigated through that world in in that way. Um.
Speaker 1: And so it's just you know, I love I love
Speaker 1: the sports, right, I love I love that that um,
Speaker 1: that aspect of it. But you know, it's just it's
Speaker 1: figuring out, um early kind of like what you want
Speaker 1: to do, right and finding your passion and working your
Speaker 1: way through it, um and then just kind of making
Speaker 1: the most of it. Yeah, yeah, was there anything about
Speaker 1: that when you got to the NBA? Was there anything
Speaker 1: about the NBA that might have surprised you? Covering it
Speaker 1: from day to day? Were you surprised by the I
Speaker 1: mean anything with the players as far as their ability
Speaker 1: seeing it up close in personal? Obviously you've been watching
Speaker 1: the game for a long time that you know, I
Speaker 1: would pay attention a lot and like every like a
Speaker 1: lot of people, a lot of basketball people pay attention
Speaker 1: to the playoffs, right, and and it's and you really
Speaker 1: find an NBA fan when they pay attention in November
Speaker 1: and December in January. So so my biggest question was,
Speaker 1: was my passion going to be there in November, December,
Speaker 1: January be easy once you get February, March, April, as
Speaker 1: you're navigating towards the end of the NBA season. So
Speaker 1: that was my biggest question in a night out, UM,
Speaker 1: when they're throwing out lineups that are unique, let's say,
Speaker 1: you know, and and maybe you know, managing minutes right
Speaker 1: of of some of the best players and you're not
Speaker 1: getting sometimes the best matchups right in December or January
Speaker 1: or whatever, was I still going to enjoy it? And
Speaker 1: the answer is yes, I mean I just you get,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the best seats in the house, um,
Speaker 1: and to watch the best players, the best athletes in
Speaker 1: the world. And and as a basketball person, as a
Speaker 1: pure basketball person, there is nothing better. There's no job
Speaker 1: that is better than that. They take care of us,
Speaker 1: you know, like we travel with the team, so I
Speaker 1: have no complaints about where we stay and how we fly.
Speaker 1: And the only thing that I have to make sure
Speaker 1: I'm doing is is making that bus on time that
Speaker 1: goes to the arena or in the second bus, the
Speaker 1: first bus or the second but well I'm always first bus.
Speaker 1: I loved getting there early. Your father's would be like
Speaker 1: the fifth bus, even though there's three buses available, he
Speaker 1: would be on bus five. You can help show up
Speaker 1: like five minutes before we have Oh my god, Oh
Speaker 1: my god. But he's he's first in line for the
Speaker 1: food post game. Oh you know if he's john he's
Speaker 1: a Johnson. He knows what's up. He's the last of
Speaker 1: the court to arrive in the pre game, but the
Speaker 1: first in line for postcame dinner. Absolutely. Oh that's funny.
Speaker 1: That's so funny. You're listening to Fox Sports Radio. I
Speaker 1: wanted to get your perspective on your honest because I
Speaker 1: feel like he's one of the greatest basketball players I've
Speaker 1: ever seen played a game. Um, do you share this sentiment?
Speaker 1: Is it too early to call him that? Where are
Speaker 1: you at with him in his historical standing already? I
Speaker 1: mean it's he's twenty seven years old, he's going on
Speaker 1: twenty eight, and he's a two time league MVP, He's
Speaker 1: an NBA champion, he's all offensive player. I mean, you
Speaker 1: name it. Um, he just did in in the last season.
Speaker 1: He just had four straight seasons of averaging twenty five
Speaker 1: or more points. Ten or more rebounds, five or more assists.
Speaker 1: No other NBA player has done that. And here's here's
Speaker 1: the deal. He's at twenty seven, going to twenty eight.
Speaker 1: So this is the sweet spot part of his career.
Speaker 1: We've seen so many athletes and basketball players in general,
Speaker 1: you know, I think from maybe ages twenty seven to
Speaker 1: maybe thirty three really kind of stepped their level up.
Speaker 1: And and I think he's He's the one guy where
Speaker 1: you tell him you can't make a free throw, honest,
Speaker 1: what's he gonna do. He's gonna work on his free
Speaker 1: throw you can. All you are is a is a
Speaker 1: driver and a dunker, honest. So what's he gonna do.
Speaker 1: He's gonna work on his mid range game, He's gonna
Speaker 1: work on his three point game. He's gonna do all
Speaker 1: of that he has. And here's the other thing. So
Speaker 1: I have two favorite honest moments from year one of
Speaker 1: calling the Bucks, and I'll tell you what they are.
Speaker 1: And and it had nothing to do with setting the
Speaker 1: all time Bucks scoring record, which a lot of people
Speaker 1: would think, oh, was you know against the nets when
Speaker 1: he you know, surpassed Kareem. It wasn't that. So there
Speaker 1: was a game, uh, January one against the Pelicans, and
Speaker 1: he had a triple double. So he gets you know,
Speaker 1: everybody needs that last tenth assist, you get your triple double,
Speaker 1: that's the last stat you're usually chasing. So he he
Speaker 1: passed it off. I think it was Deconnasson and Pat
Speaker 1: Connatson his three pointer and so now he has his
Speaker 1: triple double. So then the next time down the court, um,
Speaker 1: he doesn't have to worry about passing it off. He's like,
Speaker 1: this is my time. So triples across. McCourt pulls up
Speaker 1: and uh and just drills the three and it was
Speaker 1: at five serf form, and the place goes nuts and
Speaker 1: he starts walking back like this. People are listening to
Speaker 1: this and they can't see what I'm doing, Like I'm
Speaker 1: kind of waving my arms back. You know. He's like
Speaker 1: saw turning back like this, and um, and my call was,
Speaker 1: you know, this is his night, this is his year.
Speaker 1: And and that was one of my favorite moments for
Speaker 1: Janice was because I realized at that moment when he's
Speaker 1: flaring his arms and he's walking back like I'm honest,
Speaker 1: not the pompo, you know, And but it was the joy.
Speaker 1: So Number one, it's the joy that he shows that
Speaker 1: he never takes for granted with this game. You know,
Speaker 1: he's always going to be that seven year old or
Speaker 1: eight year old kid growing up, and he will never
Speaker 1: lose that passion. He's a multime millionaire and one of
Speaker 1: the best, is not eventually the best to ever play
Speaker 1: the game. And he still has that joy. That's number one.
Speaker 1: Number two thank with the Chris. Number two is his
Speaker 1: awareness of the game. He scored, he scored fifty points
Speaker 1: against the Pacers in February and he was sitting on
Speaker 1: forty eight points, did a little like step back move
Speaker 1: from the wing and knocked on the jumper and you
Speaker 1: know what he did. He went five zero with his
Speaker 1: hands and he did it to the camera. He knew
Speaker 1: where the camera was, and he just suddenly as he's
Speaker 1: running back, went five zero. He knew the meaning of
Speaker 1: that shot. He knew where the camera was. It's just
Speaker 1: his i Q, his awareness and number one the joy
Speaker 1: and number two that that i Q and awareness that
Speaker 1: is in my opinion, going to set him apart absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean when you you saw him this summer in
Speaker 1: Greece and just how that joy love for the game
Speaker 1: just kind of with his rubbed off on his teammates
Speaker 1: and he's like, you know, the jokester. Behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: he's picking up, hugging the coach. I mean, he's doing
Speaker 1: all kind of crazy stuff, but it makes you just
Speaker 1: fall in love with the guy. I mean, there's nothing
Speaker 1: about Janice that I don't love. I can't wait to
Speaker 1: hear him talking to press conference because he's gonna come
Speaker 1: with a joke. He's gonna say something funny. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be like an old school dad joke, but it's gonna
Speaker 1: be funny. And that's the thing I love about him
Speaker 1: is that old soul. Um the Bucks. Can you honest
Speaker 1: lead this year's Milwaukee Bucks to the title? He tried
Speaker 1: his hardest to do it. Uh In that in that
Speaker 1: Celtics playoff series last year, right when when Chris Middleton
Speaker 1: is hurt, I mean he was. I just remember the
Speaker 1: image of the cameras finding him when when they finally
Speaker 1: realized in Game seven, Bucks aren't gonna come back, and
Speaker 1: and he just was He's sitting on the bench and
Speaker 1: he was exhausted. He I've given everything he could and
Speaker 1: it's still the Bucks still felt short. So as good
Speaker 1: as Janice is, he's gonna need a healthy team around him,
Speaker 1: and and I think he needs all of the Big three.
Speaker 1: You know, we saw if you lose one of the
Speaker 1: Big three, they're just not which is not the same team.
Speaker 1: And so so they need all three of those guys
Speaker 1: and Drew Holiday and Chris Middleton and Janice to be
Speaker 1: healthy to even begin that conversation. Their defense needs to
Speaker 1: get better, and I think we're seeing at the early
Speaker 1: part of this season some of the early three point
Speaker 1: opponent defensive adjustments that Button his staff are trying to make.
Speaker 1: But but that needs to get better. And so do
Speaker 1: they have the talent, absolutely, Do they have the health?
Speaker 1: I don't know yet. You know, we we haven't seen
Speaker 1: Chris Middleton yet return. You know now he's got a
Speaker 1: new risk injury from that knee injury that that forced
Speaker 1: him to miss the playoffs last year. So health is
Speaker 1: number one. They have the talent, but but they have
Speaker 1: to it healthy. Joe Ingles is gonna be an important
Speaker 1: equation in my opinion. Um, I love what the Sports
Speaker 1: Performance stafted last year with Brook Lopez, and they had
Speaker 1: a very systematic with his back surgery. So they had
Speaker 1: a very systematic timeline of when he would return. You know,
Speaker 1: they were they were targeting February March, and they hit
Speaker 1: that target. And when he came back, only played what
Speaker 1: like thirteen games, but when he came back, it was
Speaker 1: so impressive to me. It was almost like he hadn't
Speaker 1: missed a beat, you know, especially in those first few
Speaker 1: games back, and he was such an integral part. And
Speaker 1: I feel like the timeline for Joe Ingles is going
Speaker 1: to be in a somewhat similar way. The sports performance
Speaker 1: team is going to get him back. They wouldn't have
Speaker 1: brought him in if they didn't see that health was
Speaker 1: going to be there. He's going to be a key
Speaker 1: component because we realized the wing depth wasn't there when
Speaker 1: we lost Chris, and so um, he's going to provide
Speaker 1: a little bit more of that that wing depth as
Speaker 1: a shooter, as a creator, even with his size. So
Speaker 1: I think he can be a really key component that
Speaker 1: we won't even see until maybe January or February this year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: looking forward to listening to you and my dad on
Speaker 1: the calls this year with the bucks. Um, you guys
Speaker 1: do an amazing job and every game Chris I tried
Speaker 1: to I try to listen to it I tried to
Speaker 1: listen to every game. We gotta give you more of
Speaker 1: a shout out that I know, right, but he never
Speaker 1: shouts me out. But that's okay, that's okay. I'm used
Speaker 1: to it by now. He talked about his daughter the
Speaker 1: other day. Yeah, she's a baller. So she's like, she's
Speaker 1: like six one, she's like a k D. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be good. It's gonna be good. And she works
Speaker 1: hard to Yeah, she loves the game as well. She's
Speaker 1: obsessed with it. She's looking up stuff on YouTube, watching
Speaker 1: old players. You know, anytime you watch looking at video
Speaker 1: old players from back in the eighties and stuff, and
Speaker 1: you're a thirteen year old today, you love a game
Speaker 1: because you know she's got her daddy's heart. With that, right, absolutely, absolutely, well,
Speaker 1: at least I wanted you to leave leave us with um. Um,
Speaker 1: just just a piece of advice for young broadcasters, men
Speaker 1: and women, boys and girls that are coming up that
Speaker 1: aspire to be in your shoes one day. Um. Centered
Speaker 1: around this phrase that you use, shaping the moment versus
Speaker 1: being the moment? What does that mean? And what type
Speaker 1: of advice would you give to broadcasters coming up to
Speaker 1: use that sort of as you know, it's something that
Speaker 1: they should listen to. Well, I use that phrase really
Speaker 1: to describe my job as a play by play. You know,
Speaker 1: everyone says, hotway, what's your style? What do you try
Speaker 1: to do? And and that was my answers. I tried
Speaker 1: to help shape the moment and not be the moment.
Speaker 1: And so that is meaning, you know, add your own
Speaker 1: style and the personality to it, but know that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of other people to go into that and um,
Speaker 1: you're not the most important person that's going into that moment.
Speaker 1: So um. So that's that's where that phrase comes from.
Speaker 1: And and my advice would be two people who are thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, how do I get in this business or
Speaker 1: what do I do? I have all these dreams and goals,
Speaker 1: and I think it's you know, dream big, right, but
Speaker 1: understand that there's the small steps to get to that
Speaker 1: big dream sometimes and and be willing to do it
Speaker 1: no matter how much you're getting paid, no matter how
Speaker 1: many hours you're working. And we've talked about getting the nose.
Speaker 1: So don't let this maybe the most important piece of advice.
Speaker 1: Don't let someone else's know be your no. And that's
Speaker 1: really important. Let me say that again. Don't let someone
Speaker 1: else's know be your no. Might be someone else's no
Speaker 1: for you at the time, but it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be your no for eternity. You know, you define your
Speaker 1: own road to success, You define the stops that you
Speaker 1: say yes or no to along the way, and you
Speaker 1: define what your dreams are. So don't ever let anyone
Speaker 1: tell you that your dreams are too big or you
Speaker 1: can't accomplish those, because it is your life, it is
Speaker 1: your world, and you get a chance to kind of
Speaker 1: shape that in and around everybody else's world. Absolutely well, Lisa,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your time today. I know
Speaker 1: you gotta catch a flight. I appreciate you spending some
Speaker 1: time with kJ live. I think everybody's gonna really love
Speaker 1: hearing your perspective on a lot of things and find
Speaker 1: it a little bit about you. This was a lot
Speaker 1: of fun, kJ. I really enjoyed it. I'm happy that
Speaker 1: you asked me on. And I'm a big I'm a
Speaker 1: big Johnson fans, so with the with the family, and
Speaker 1: so it was an offer to be on. We're fans
Speaker 1: of yours as well. Thank you. I appreciate ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: Lisa buyington