Speaker 1: Hey everybody, and welcome to the fiftieth episode of the
Speaker 1: Dave Pash Podcast. I'm your host, Dave Pash, ESPN and
Speaker 1: Arizona Cardinals broadcaster. We are certainly grateful that you've listened
Speaker 1: to the previous forty nine episodes. We wanted to do
Speaker 1: something a little bit different for what we consider a
Speaker 1: special episode the fact that they haven't taken us off
Speaker 1: the air yet and we've made it to fifty, so
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring in one of my great friends
Speaker 1: and longtime broadcast partner on the Arizona Cardinal Games, Ron Wolflee.
Speaker 1: For those of you that may not know, Wolf was
Speaker 1: a very good NFL player, four Pro Bowls in ten
Speaker 1: NFL seasons. Wolf will talk about his playing days, why
Speaker 1: he decided to get into broadcasting, and we'll also go
Speaker 1: a little bit more in depth on Ron Wolflee the man.
Speaker 1: There are people that listen to the games and listen
Speaker 1: to Wolf on the radio and have an idea about
Speaker 1: who Ron Wolfley is at his core. This episode, we'll
Speaker 1: go a little bit deeper with Wolf and you'll get
Speaker 1: a greater appreciation for who Ron Wolfley is as a person.
Speaker 1: I went out under the football field. That's Spring, the
Speaker 1: spring where my dad was lying in bad dying, and
Speaker 1: I said to myself, at one hundred ninety eight pounds,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't care if I'm one hundred
Speaker 1: ninety eight pounds. I don't care how big you are.
Speaker 1: I don't care how bad you are. I don't care
Speaker 1: about any of it. I'm gonna make you feel what
Speaker 1: I feel. We'll also bringing our longtime producer Jim Mhundro
Speaker 1: to play some clips that have never made air before,
Speaker 1: some behind the scenes stuff between Wolf and I during
Speaker 1: game broadcasts and frankly, it's kind of embarrassing. Dude, Wolf Wolf,
Speaker 1: Just dude, Yes, believe it, man, No, cannot believe. We're
Speaker 1: gonna be doing a game next week to play for
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl. Oh my gosh, I'm not even talk
Speaker 1: about not being able to move my jar right now.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be locked up, baby. That's coming up as well,
Speaker 1: along with some talk about Wolf as a broadcaster, Wolf
Speaker 1: as a player, and much more coming up here on
Speaker 1: this edition to the Dave Pash Podcast. We are presented
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Speaker 1: Gambling problem called one eight hundred. Next step All right,
Speaker 1: Time to hear from my long time broadcast partner on
Speaker 1: the Arizona Cardinal Games, the one the only Ron Wolflee.
Speaker 1: Guests number fifty. So before I actually introduce you, Wolf,
Speaker 1: let me just go ahead and list off the previous
Speaker 1: forty nine to just give you a sense and perspective
Speaker 1: of the kind of company that you're in here. Here
Speaker 1: are previous forty nine episodes. Kurt Warner, Buddha Baker, Cliff Kingsbury, Medichime,
Speaker 1: Steve Levi and Bryan Greasy, Michael Bidwell, James Rode, Scott Hansen,
Speaker 1: Jason Wright, Kirk, Herbstreet, Frank Kelly, Endo, Steve Kim, James Jones, Mike,
Speaker 1: Rico Vans, Joseph, Jeff Van Gundy, Adam Shine, Colt McCoy,
Speaker 1: Bill Walton, Chris Spielman, Carson Palmer, Drew Stanton, Al McCoy,
Speaker 1: Adrian Wilson, Christian Kirk, mckel Bridges, George Kleoff, Cough, JJ Reddick,
Speaker 1: Andrew Jeremiah, Quentin, Harris, JJ Watt, zach Ertz, Justin Pugh,
Speaker 1: Cliff Kingsbury again, James Connor, Jeff Rogers, Dusty Divorchek, Jason Light,
Speaker 1: Dabbos Sweeney, Charles Davis, Marcus Spears, Damian Lillard, Kevin Clark,
Speaker 1: Greg Olson, Mike dj Humphreys, Greg Sanky, Scott Van Pelt,
Speaker 1: Bobby Hurley, Jim Nance, and Ron Wolfley as guest number
Speaker 1: fifty for several reasons, because, first of all, it brings
Speaker 1: back memories of the time that you and I went
Speaker 1: and got fitted for suits and the guy came out
Speaker 1: and said, we got a fifty. They had to find
Speaker 1: a special suit. Okay to you and your guest number fifty,
Speaker 1: And you and I've been doing this together for eighteen years,
Speaker 1: so I wanted you to be on this very special episode. Well, David,
Speaker 1: I really do appreciate that. But my goodness, you read
Speaker 1: those names off and all I can think of is,
Speaker 1: which one of these is not like the other? Oh,
Speaker 1: my goodness, that's pretty astounding. Well, this is the first
Speaker 1: one that I have not written anything down. Normally I
Speaker 1: write out all the questions. But I figured you and
Speaker 1: I would just kind of riff, oh, I say, because
Speaker 1: we get a lot to talk about, ye and we're
Speaker 1: not really going to talk football because you're on sixteen
Speaker 1: hours a week on Arizona Sports. You're on multiple platforms
Speaker 1: talking constantly about the team. So I figured, let's talk
Speaker 1: about something else. Let's actually give people saying I'm overexposed, David.
Speaker 1: Let's give people an inside look at Ron Wolfley and
Speaker 1: our dynamic two in the booth, because I do think
Speaker 1: there are people that find that interesting. It is it's
Speaker 1: been eighteen years. I remember the first time I met
Speaker 1: you was when I got the job in two thousand
Speaker 1: and two. I came in and after the interview process
Speaker 1: and got the job. At the time, John Missler was
Speaker 1: the analyst, and they said, we really liked John, but
Speaker 1: we want to hear how you sound with other analysts,
Speaker 1: because it's not definite that John's going to be back,
Speaker 1: so let's go ahead and bring in all these other guys.
Speaker 1: So ten people came in and we called the same game.
Speaker 1: You were one of the ten. We did Raiders Cardinals
Speaker 1: from two thousand and one, and I remember, like I
Speaker 1: by the end of it, I was delirious because it
Speaker 1: was the same game over and over. I started making
Speaker 1: up names or you know, calling guys George Bolttnikoff, just
Speaker 1: to change it up. And you stood out above all
Speaker 1: the other guys. You stood out. It was it was
Speaker 1: clear that you were very gifted. And you know, John
Speaker 1: was still the guy at that time, and John was
Speaker 1: great and did a few more years, and then you
Speaker 1: got the job. And here we are eighteen years later,
Speaker 1: and obviously we've been through a lot. We've seen a
Speaker 1: lot of losses. We've also seen a lot of great moments,
Speaker 1: including the Super Bowl. And I'm just curious, wolf from
Speaker 1: somebody who played ten years in the NFL and played
Speaker 1: at a high level. I know I joke with you,
Speaker 1: but look, you went to the Pro Bowl four times.
Speaker 1: You were a legit dude in the NFL. Did you
Speaker 1: know then that you wanted to not just be in
Speaker 1: broadcasting but do games, because I think there is there's
Speaker 1: a different type of former player coach that can do games.
Speaker 1: It's not for everybody. Studio is much easier than to
Speaker 1: talk really quickly and react to something on the fly
Speaker 1: and do it over and over again for three hours. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: you know what, Honestly, I did know that I wanted
Speaker 1: to get into broadcasting. And it wasn't my own idea.
Speaker 1: It was Jude Lacava, you know, Jude Lacava, right, Jude Lacava,
Speaker 1: local news anchor here, of course, Jude Lacava legend. Jude
Speaker 1: was the guy who said, Wolf, you ought to get
Speaker 1: into you ought to get into broadcasting because I always
Speaker 1: had a vocabulary and I'd like to use my vocabulary
Speaker 1: and I like to speak. I love English, I love it.
Speaker 1: So he said you should get into broadcasting, you know
Speaker 1: what's And I said, hey, you know what, that sounds
Speaker 1: great because I could tell stories. I could sit around
Speaker 1: and talk about what it was like. You know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like you, David. I have a writer's brain,
Speaker 1: Like I look at people and I imagine something that
Speaker 1: I could write. In a novel or something like that.
Speaker 1: And the first time, it's amazing you you bring up
Speaker 1: the first time we met. The first time I met you, Matt,
Speaker 1: you actually had hair. You had hair right there ahead
Speaker 1: and seriously, it was a bush. I don't know what
Speaker 1: happened since, but you got more hair on your nose
Speaker 1: than you do on your head right now, Buddy, used
Speaker 1: to be a bush. And that's what's truly amazing. You know,
Speaker 1: time does go by, does it not. You still have hair,
Speaker 1: it's gray and it's spiked. Yeah, you also have teeth
Speaker 1: because yesterday or Sunday, Wolf had lost a tooth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: eating something on the way to the game. But you
Speaker 1: got that fixed that you were not supposed to. You know,
Speaker 1: the rule was since the Cardinals won, you were supposed
Speaker 1: to hold off until they lost again before you get that. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: you know what. I hang in there because dinner tonight,
Speaker 1: I'm sure if I bite into something a little firm,
Speaker 1: it might come out again. That's what the dentists said.
Speaker 1: So well, if people are drawn to you, I feel
Speaker 1: like that's something about your personality and your character. It's
Speaker 1: clear off the air just watching when you and I
Speaker 1: always go down to the field before the game. Every
Speaker 1: game we do, and in particular State Farm Stadium when
Speaker 1: we do it, everybody Wolf Wolf, Hey Wolf, And You're
Speaker 1: always responsive and kind And is that something like will
Speaker 1: you like that as a player? Did people love you
Speaker 1: as a player? Yeah, for the most part, David, I always,
Speaker 1: I always made that connection with the common man in
Speaker 1: the stands. And the reason why I say that is
Speaker 1: because they looked at me at six foot two hundred
Speaker 1: and eighteen pounds and said that could be me. I
Speaker 1: could be that guy. They knew that I wasn't very talented.
Speaker 1: They knew that nobody was going to hand me the
Speaker 1: ball and say go run the ball. Nobody was going
Speaker 1: to try to throw me the ball. They knew that
Speaker 1: I was out there to do one thing and one
Speaker 1: thing only, and that was to give damage and take damage.
Speaker 1: And I think that appealed to a lot of guys.
Speaker 1: Especially when I went to Cleveland in front of the
Speaker 1: Dog Bond, they absolutely adopted me as their own. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I just think I made that connection with a common
Speaker 1: man because they thought, man, that could be me if
Speaker 1: I got a break. So along those lines, you talked
Speaker 1: about your height and your weight, and first of all,
Speaker 1: there aren't many fullbacks anymore to begin with, and not
Speaker 1: many Ben Skarnik, who we just saw off of the rams, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, he's not a fullback yet. I think he's
Speaker 1: even bigger than you. Yes, or at the time, How
Speaker 1: did you survive? How did you make it years? How
Speaker 1: did you go to the Pro Bowl four times? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know, that's that's great. Thank you, Lord God from
Speaker 1: what you have done for me, because honestly, I was
Speaker 1: two hundred eighteen pounds, like I said, and they drafted
Speaker 1: me in the fourth round one hundred and four overall.
Speaker 1: Never forget the number that you were drafted, David, never
Speaker 1: one hundred and four overall. And then whenever you find
Speaker 1: somebody who's drafted after you, you just rapped them mercilessly.
Speaker 1: You're one hundred and five. You've got to be kidding me. Anyways,
Speaker 1: I digress. First of all, didn't one of the coaches
Speaker 1: on the Cardinal staff think that you were the wrong person?
Speaker 1: They drafted you and thought, actually you were somebody else. No.
Speaker 1: I kind of suspected that when I showed up, because
Speaker 1: they looked at me. They walked up to me and
Speaker 1: looked at me and said, I thought you were bigger.
Speaker 1: I mean here, I am six foot two hundred and
Speaker 1: eighteen pounds. In an era in the National Football League
Speaker 1: where every fullback was two forty five two fifty plus.
Speaker 1: Didn't they ask you what number you wore? Yea, they
Speaker 1: did the watch? Were they watching the wrong guy? And
Speaker 1: take it. There was a guy that was forty six
Speaker 1: and I was thirty six. John Gay number forty six.
Speaker 1: He was a tailback behind me, but he actually outweighed me.
Speaker 1: He was two hundred and twenty five pounds two hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty pounds. I was two hundred and eighteen pounds
Speaker 1: when I was a senior. They moved me to fullback
Speaker 1: when I was one hundred ninety eight pounds. Once again,
Speaker 1: we're talking about in an era where every fullback was
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty pounds. In David, it was hammer
Speaker 1: and nail. Hammer and nail. That's all it was. There
Speaker 1: was none of this zone scheme or anything like this.
Speaker 1: It was run as fast as you can through the
Speaker 1: bee gap. And oh, by the way, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: another human being and he's gonna be running in the
Speaker 1: opposite direction through the bee gap as well. And the
Speaker 1: two shell meet somewhere at the line of scrimmage. It was.
Speaker 1: It was brutal and it was beautiful or brutiful as
Speaker 1: I like to say, Who was the toughest football player
Speaker 1: that you ever played against? Oh? Have you heard of
Speaker 1: Bill Boy Bates? Special teams legend for the Dallas County.
Speaker 1: Without a shadow of doubt, the toughest Bill Bates was
Speaker 1: the toughest Bill Boy Bates was. He was tough. Now,
Speaker 1: once again, when you say tough, I'm not talking strength.
Speaker 1: We're talking toughness. Toughness is the ability to endure damage,
Speaker 1: to give damage, and to absorb it. And Bill Boy Bates.
Speaker 1: You go against Bill Boy Bates one on one on
Speaker 1: a punt return, whether you're the guy that's on the
Speaker 1: return team or whether you're on the punt pro team,
Speaker 1: and he was trying to keep you from running down
Speaker 1: and covering the punts. I could promise you right now
Speaker 1: abandon all hope ye who enter here, because he would
Speaker 1: never quit. You could take a metaphorical bullet and stick
Speaker 1: it in his head, and I'm just telling you he
Speaker 1: would get off the ground. He would never quit. He'd
Speaker 1: fight you tooth and nail all the way down the field.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, there were times where Bill
Speaker 1: Boy Bates and myself running down the field. This is
Speaker 1: my rookie year. We just run down the field side
Speaker 1: by side, and I'd be punching him in the face
Speaker 1: and he'd be punching me in the face on a
Speaker 1: punt return running down the field. And I remember, David
Speaker 1: I used to get I mean, this was Bill Boy Bates.
Speaker 1: They started sending a human being to the Pro Bowl
Speaker 1: for special teams because of Bill Bates, because John Madden
Speaker 1: saw him and said, oh my goodness, look at this
Speaker 1: madman covering these kickoffs and these punts. So all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, because Madden would start highlighting him, the NFL said,
Speaker 1: we ought to send a guy to the Pro Bowl
Speaker 1: every year. And it was Bill Bates who started that,
Speaker 1: and I knew he started it, and he had beat
Speaker 1: me two years into the league, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I'm in the league and he's like year three and
Speaker 1: I'm punching him, and all of a sudden, I'd stop,
Speaker 1: the whistle would blow, and I'd look at him and
Speaker 1: I'd say, Bill, you created me, Bill, you created me.
Speaker 1: Now your better has come in. He would look at
Speaker 1: me like shut your mouth, but he never said a word.
Speaker 1: Bill Bates would never say a word. He'd punch you,
Speaker 1: he'd fight you tooth and nail, but he'd never speak
Speaker 1: to you. Interesting, speaking of punching and fighting, how many
Speaker 1: fights were you in on the field? Forget off because
Speaker 1: it's funny, Wolf. I hear these stories about you, and
Speaker 1: obviously I've been around you a lot over the last
Speaker 1: two decades, and the guy that you talk about that
Speaker 1: you were, I don't see I see somebody different. You
Speaker 1: remind me in a lot of ways. We talked about
Speaker 1: this off the year, but for folks that maybe listen
Speaker 1: to the podcast or want to go back and listen
Speaker 1: to the podcast I did with Chris Spielman, who's now
Speaker 1: one of the top executives with the Detroit Lions. I
Speaker 1: worked with Chris at ESPN for a long time, and
Speaker 1: there were there was an in there was a an
Speaker 1: intensity underlying intensity with Chris and with you, that's there.
Speaker 1: But you treat people. You've got a big heart, but
Speaker 1: mess with it a little bit, poke the bear a
Speaker 1: little bit, and I could see the beast coming out.
Speaker 1: So obviously you use that as a football player. You've
Speaker 1: talked a lot about that you turned you you went
Speaker 1: into an altered state of consciousness to play football. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that beast fought how many times on the football field.
Speaker 1: I don't even know dat two hundred? I I want
Speaker 1: to say, no, I don't want to exaggerate here, but
Speaker 1: I would say between college and the NFL. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: I would say probably seventy seven. It really is a lot.
Speaker 1: But you gotta remember, I was a poor kid that
Speaker 1: grew up in a rich town, David end. You know,
Speaker 1: I grew up on a dead end street as you know,
Speaker 1: that emptied into a gravel pit. And I never had
Speaker 1: the right shoes. I never had the right jeans on.
Speaker 1: I never had the right clothes because we had seven
Speaker 1: people living in my house, and you know my parents.
Speaker 1: My mom didn't work, of course, my dad was a
Speaker 1: truck driver. We didn't have a lot of money, man,
Speaker 1: we didn't and growing up in that rich town filled
Speaker 1: with doctors and lawyers, even though we were at the
Speaker 1: other end of the street, so to speak metaphorically. But man,
Speaker 1: I can tell you, David that it was hard because
Speaker 1: kids would just be so mean to you and tease you,
Speaker 1: and you didn't have the right genes on and sometimes
Speaker 1: when you were twelve years old and they tease you
Speaker 1: for your faith. Oh, you believe in Jesus. You believe
Speaker 1: in Jesus, And they would mock you for believe eving
Speaker 1: in Jesus. You know what, I'd beat the dog hut
Speaker 1: of that, can I just tell you. And I didn't
Speaker 1: care how big he was. I didn't care at the time.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget my mom coming in and the principle saying,
Speaker 1: you know, your son esther. Your son got in another fight,
Speaker 1: and it was because they were mocking him for his faith.
Speaker 1: And I said, yeah, that's right, Mom. You know I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna and she would say, Ronnie, you know you can't.
Speaker 1: You can't allow that to happen. You cannot. That's not
Speaker 1: what Jesus wants you to do. And I came to
Speaker 1: an age where I realized that. But on the football field,
Speaker 1: once you stepped in between those white lines, the entire
Speaker 1: paradigm was changing, and it changed to a point where
Speaker 1: you could just knock the dog out of somebody. It's
Speaker 1: one of the most wonderful things. And I thank God
Speaker 1: for this, David, I really do. So you could change
Speaker 1: You're saying you could channel all that all bit and
Speaker 1: put it into hurting somebody else on the football field.
Speaker 1: Not the intent to hurt, but to play the game
Speaker 1: at the highest level, because that's what you brought to
Speaker 1: the table. And it got me into a lot of trouble.
Speaker 1: It would get me into fights because I would fight
Speaker 1: you tooth and nail. I do it legally. I'd never
Speaker 1: cheap shot you either. I do it legally, but I
Speaker 1: would fight you to the bitter end, tooth and nail.
Speaker 1: And it got me in a lot of trouble on
Speaker 1: the football field because I was not going to back down.
Speaker 1: And I need to tell you this story. I learned
Speaker 1: to play the game of football because my dad was
Speaker 1: dying of leukemia when I was eighteen years old. Okay,
Speaker 1: I went through high school and everything else. I thought
Speaker 1: I was O. J. Simpson. Pitch me the ball. I'll
Speaker 1: run and I'll know I'm running a four six forty.
Speaker 1: I'm one of the fastest kids in my high school.
Speaker 1: Pitch me the ball. I'm a running back. Day three
Speaker 1: of going to West Virginia, they recruited me. Of course,
Speaker 1: I signed my letter of intent. I signed I was
Speaker 1: a mountaineer. Day three of being in training camp, my
Speaker 1: freshman year, they said, getting a three point stance. Suddenly
Speaker 1: they moved me to fullback. I weighed one hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety eight pounds and they moved me to fullback my
Speaker 1: freshman year. I went out that spring. That spring, my
Speaker 1: dad was dying back at my house. Forty five Hodson wrote,
Speaker 1: google it, go ahead and look at it. In our
Speaker 1: living room. He was in a hospital bed dying of leukemia. David, Yes,
Speaker 1: I grew up poor, there's no doubt about that. Yet
Speaker 1: at the same time, I can tell you that there
Speaker 1: was a lot of love in that house as well,
Speaker 1: and I love my dad a lot, even to this
Speaker 1: day when I think about him. But I went out
Speaker 1: under the football field that's spring, the spring where my
Speaker 1: dad was lying in bed dying, and I said to myself,
Speaker 1: at one hundred and ninety eight pounds, you know what,
Speaker 1: I don't care if I'm one hundred ninety eight pounds.
Speaker 1: I don't care how big you are, I don't care
Speaker 1: how bad you are. I don't care about any of it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make you feel what I feel. You want
Speaker 1: to talk about, psychological, you want to talk about I'm
Speaker 1: sure somebody would have loved to have put me on
Speaker 1: a couch at that point in time and throw some
Speaker 1: questions at me. But I was like, literally, any pain
Speaker 1: that I felt didn't matter to me. I was going
Speaker 1: to transfer everything that I was feeling inside onto you.
Speaker 1: And that meant running full speed into whoever the end
Speaker 1: man on the line of scrimmage was, or whoever the
Speaker 1: mic linebacker was in the middle running an io, or
Speaker 1: whoever was in a wedge, and I was going to
Speaker 1: be the wedge buster on special teams, busting it up
Speaker 1: whatever it was. Where When I got the opportunity to
Speaker 1: run full speed into somebody, I never hasated. I never
Speaker 1: broke stride, I never gathered myself to hit him. I
Speaker 1: ran full speed. Look, I was running into a wall
Speaker 1: without breaking stride, and the collisions that were happening at
Speaker 1: one hundred ninety eight pounds, I was getting killed. It
Speaker 1: was nineteen eighty one, okay, And that's the way that
Speaker 1: it was back then. I cannot tell you how brutal
Speaker 1: that spring was for me, but I will tell you
Speaker 1: four years later when I left there and Paul Crossula
Speaker 1: was still the running back coach there. When I got
Speaker 1: drafted in the fourth round one hundred and four overall.
Speaker 1: I went in to say goodbye to coach Crsula and
Speaker 1: I said goodbye. When we had a great conversation. I
Speaker 1: turned to walk out and he said, hey Wolf, and
Speaker 1: I turned around and he said, you remember spring of
Speaker 1: your freshman year. I was like, do I remember? How
Speaker 1: could I forget the way that you treated me? He said,
Speaker 1: I did not because I loved you and I saw
Speaker 1: something in you and I knew I needed to bring
Speaker 1: it out. Are you kidding me that that was the
Speaker 1: way that it was hard coaching back then? Man? It
Speaker 1: was a beautiful thing. And I know I'm all over
Speaker 1: the place, David, but you opened this can or weren't.
Speaker 1: Look it's it gives people that are curious about you.
Speaker 1: I get asked all the time about two analysts, you
Speaker 1: and Walton. People ask is Wolf like that? Off the year?
Speaker 1: What's what's Bill like? Is? He always liked that? Is
Speaker 1: Wolf always liked that? So I think this gives people
Speaker 1: some insight to who you are. And you took that
Speaker 1: anger rage and used it to your advantage as a
Speaker 1: football player for a decade. When retirement hit, and I'm
Speaker 1: around retired athletes and coaches all the time because the
Speaker 1: people you work with, well, I work with on college football, NBA,
Speaker 1: college basketball. They're former players. Some of them are Hall
Speaker 1: of famers, either future or are already in the Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame. Some were guys that had a very short
Speaker 1: career in pro sports or none at all. So how
Speaker 1: guys handle retirement? Everybody's different. Yeah, how did you handle
Speaker 1: retirement before you got into this business? Yeah? I think
Speaker 1: I handled it very, very well. I always had prepared
Speaker 1: for the day, at least I felt that way that
Speaker 1: I was going to be done playing football. For me,
Speaker 1: the greatest thing about playing the game of football was
Speaker 1: the fact that you could step in between those white
Speaker 1: lines on the gridiron and you could act like an
Speaker 1: unmitigated savage, David, unmitigated savage, and yet you could walk
Speaker 1: outside those white lines and you love people and respect
Speaker 1: people and treat them better than yourself, David as a man.
Speaker 1: It didn't get any better than that. For me, personally,
Speaker 1: it didn't, So I never used to write poetry about it.
Speaker 1: The fact that I could step outside those white lines
Speaker 1: when I was grown as an adult and totally love
Speaker 1: people and respect people and treat them better than myself.
Speaker 1: But on that football field, it was like I'd never
Speaker 1: cheap shot you, but you were gonna get my absolute
Speaker 1: best period. And I love that dichotomy that it was
Speaker 1: so awesome to be able to be primal when you
Speaker 1: needed to be primal, and then walk outside those lines
Speaker 1: and love people and treat them right. And yeah, for me,
Speaker 1: I really didn't have a problem with that. Between the
Speaker 1: end of your playing career and broadcasting before you actually
Speaker 1: got started in this and like I said, it's many
Speaker 1: eighteen years doing the games, but you were doing some
Speaker 1: other broadcasting prior to that. When did you come out
Speaker 1: to Arizona to to make your home officially and what
Speaker 1: was the transition like when you started getting into broadcasting
Speaker 1: knowing that, hey, this could be my career. Yeah, David Um,
Speaker 1: very tough set of circumstances, very difficult situation, married and
Speaker 1: getting a divorce in nineteen ninety eight, and I came
Speaker 1: out here. I call it my dark days. I came
Speaker 1: out here in nineteen ninety eight, and I came out
Speaker 1: here basically to die because I thought my life was over.
Speaker 1: At that point in time, I was happily married and
Speaker 1: a father of four. And for me, I came out
Speaker 1: here and drank a bottle of Jack almost every other night,
Speaker 1: and I'm talking about drinking a lot, showing up at
Speaker 1: eleven o'clock in the morning, and shutting it down twelve
Speaker 1: hours later, for the most part, And it's so hard
Speaker 1: for me to recall that and remember myself being that way.
Speaker 1: Yet I was David, and it was very, very difficult.
Speaker 1: And I came down here because Jude Lacava once again
Speaker 1: asked me and said, there's a new radio station KMVP
Speaker 1: eight sixty am that is opening up. Why don't you
Speaker 1: come down here and actually try broadcasting. Why don't you
Speaker 1: try out? And that's what I did, because I thought
Speaker 1: my life basically was over. Yet at the same time,
Speaker 1: I needed to make some money that I could send
Speaker 1: the money home and of course make sure that I
Speaker 1: was buying Jack Daniels plenty of that for the evening.
Speaker 1: So in a span after playing ten years in the
Speaker 1: National Football League, I lost so much. I lost everything
Speaker 1: for the most party, and it was all my fault
Speaker 1: because I allowed myself to walk down that path. And
Speaker 1: to this day it's very, very difficult to talk about
Speaker 1: because of how I failed, my family failed, my wife failed,
Speaker 1: my kids failed, my family period, and yet I came
Speaker 1: down here, David, I drank a bottle of Jack Daniels
Speaker 1: in somehow, some way, I'd be ready to go the
Speaker 1: next day and I'd start broadcasting. I'd go right to
Speaker 1: the station, I'd broadcast and go right back to the bar.
Speaker 1: It was, I seriously, it was unbelievable. I'm so glad
Speaker 1: that God pulled me out of that, but it was.
Speaker 1: It's hard to recall, Dave. No. I appreciate you sharing
Speaker 1: because I think it's a story that maybe a lot
Speaker 1: of people haven't heard. And I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people can be inspired by where you are now. And
Speaker 1: I think one of the very interesting aspects of that
Speaker 1: dark time for you was and you've told me the story,
Speaker 1: and I know you've shared it. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've spoken about it publicly. But the waitress who was
Speaker 1: serving you at that time was serving you alcohol, has
Speaker 1: been your wife now for two decks. I mean it's
Speaker 1: incredible two years how you and Stephie Well, David, as
Speaker 1: you know, Jesus Christ is my Lord and savior. You
Speaker 1: know my faith. You cannot take my faith from me.
Speaker 1: You don't have me. You have nothing. There is no
Speaker 1: life from my King, there is none, and because of that,
Speaker 1: and I've believed that since I was twelve years old.
Speaker 1: I accepted Christ as my savior when I was twelve
Speaker 1: years old. I basically was raised in a family that
Speaker 1: was Amish, except we drove cars and used electricity. It
Speaker 1: was so fundamentally biblically sound, I kid you not. I'll
Speaker 1: never forget when my older brother, Craig, who played twelve
Speaker 1: years in the National Football League, was drafted by the
Speaker 1: Pittsburgh Steelers. He's five years older than I am. I'll
Speaker 1: never forget the huge family meeting we had because Craig
Speaker 1: was going to play on the Sabbath. Okay, so now,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, this was a huge deal in
Speaker 1: My grandfather said, you know what, I think he can
Speaker 1: actually do more of God's work by actually playing on
Speaker 1: the Sabbath and using the platform that God has given him.
Speaker 1: Then it's going to be a negative anyways, you know
Speaker 1: the family that I came from, and um, so for me,
Speaker 1: it was a situation where when I went down that
Speaker 1: path the dark days, it was never a rejection of
Speaker 1: my God. It was never a rejection of my King.
Speaker 1: It was never a I don't believe in you anymore.
Speaker 1: I was broken. I was. I was just heartsick and
Speaker 1: blind and walking down that dark path on those dark
Speaker 1: days by myself. Man so hard to recall them once again.
Speaker 1: But suddenly, after four years of doing that, there is
Speaker 1: this firefly named Stephanie who's had this bar and it
Speaker 1: was called McKenna's. And there there she is, and she
Speaker 1: was blind, and she was absolutely beautiful. And yet I
Speaker 1: would know or say a word to her, because this
Speaker 1: wasn't a party. This was spread the elbows, drank the
Speaker 1: Jack Daniels, smoked my three packs of Lucky Strikes a day.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and do that, and you know what, don't
Speaker 1: talk to anybody. Was it a leaving Las Vegas type,
Speaker 1: That's exactly what it was. So you were You were
Speaker 1: there too. I was there to yes, drink myself into
Speaker 1: oblivion for the most part. And yet here's this blonde
Speaker 1: who was just beautiful and like a firefly, David, she
Speaker 1: was just like in all the darkness, I was surrounded
Speaker 1: by it, and yet she was this firefly. And my
Speaker 1: God is faithful, even though I was unfaithful, he was faithful,
Speaker 1: And suddenly, somehow, some way he put us together. She
Speaker 1: actually had her faith as well, and believed in the
Speaker 1: same Jesus that I believed in, and was running for
Speaker 1: her own reason as well. And suddenly God put us
Speaker 1: together and we grabbed each other's hand and said, let's
Speaker 1: do this together. And I've been with her for twenty
Speaker 1: two years, Thank you, Lord God. And you've been sober,
Speaker 1: and you've been fruitful, and you've got a family with
Speaker 1: Stephanie children, you've got a great career. And there's no
Speaker 1: easy way to segue from how serious that is to
Speaker 1: what we're about to do. But I one of the
Speaker 1: things I really appreciate it about you is you don't
Speaker 1: take yourself too seriously. You laugh at yourself. You broadcast
Speaker 1: games because you love the game. And when we've had
Speaker 1: some seasons here where things haven't gone well and we've
Speaker 1: we've had to try to manufacture joy and fun because
Speaker 1: our job is to serve the listener. So how do
Speaker 1: we keep the listener entertained? How do we keep the
Speaker 1: listener engaged? Where the listener can experience a football game,
Speaker 1: but experience maybe something a little bit different. And you're different,
Speaker 1: you're different analysts. All the things you've talked about, the good,
Speaker 1: the bad, the ugly, everything surrounding it your life, from
Speaker 1: where you were as a child to the things you've
Speaker 1: gone through to being a Pro Bowl player to now
Speaker 1: being in broadcasting. That all comes out in you're talking
Speaker 1: about how you channeled that anger as a player, the
Speaker 1: love for the game. I think you channel that very
Speaker 1: well on the air. I think if you're a listener,
Speaker 1: you can't. I mean, I'm sure there's people that love
Speaker 1: Ron Wolfley and people that don't. There's people that like
Speaker 1: me and people probably hate me on the but you
Speaker 1: can't say Ron Wolfley is I'm passionate. Ron Wolfley doesn't
Speaker 1: love the game? So is that something like do you
Speaker 1: think about that before we do a game? Or it
Speaker 1: just comes out ever you? And I know you know
Speaker 1: that too, because I never do. Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: The game of football is brutal and it is emotional,
Speaker 1: and it's one of the things that I loved the most.
Speaker 1: Not everybody could do it, David, Not everybody could do it. Listen.
Speaker 1: The NFL has changed a lot, and it needed to
Speaker 1: change it did. The biggest change in the game of
Speaker 1: football is how you train a human being to play
Speaker 1: in a football game. Period. You don't beat the living
Speaker 1: dog out of a human being to get him ready
Speaker 1: to play in an NFL game. That's what you used
Speaker 1: to do. Anyways, it's all changed. But having said that,
Speaker 1: football was my way out. Football was what got me
Speaker 1: out of that that dead end street, so to speak.
Speaker 1: Football gave me the opportunity, by God's hand in my life.
Speaker 1: Using football, I was able to suddenly, um change the
Speaker 1: paradigm for me growing up completely. I used to say
Speaker 1: it all the time, and it's so true. Mother Gridiron, right,
Speaker 1: the game of football itself will love you. It will
Speaker 1: love you. It will nurse you like a newborn babe
Speaker 1: nursing on its mother, if you will just embrace it
Speaker 1: with everything that you've got, if you will just go
Speaker 1: out onto the field and let yourself know. I'm seriously
Speaker 1: I was trying to go down a different path with this,
Speaker 1: but that's all. That's okay, you're getting fired up again.
Speaker 1: It's good. I'm setting out right now. This is the
Speaker 1: game will reward you if you'll just love her back
Speaker 1: and give everything you've got in between those white lines.
Speaker 1: Not enough people understand that I had no right playing
Speaker 1: in the National Football League for ten days, let loan
Speaker 1: ten years. I not only played ten years, but by
Speaker 1: God's grace in my life. Went to four Pro Bowls.
Speaker 1: As you said, I was team captain eight of the
Speaker 1: ten years I was in the National Football League. Why
Speaker 1: because I knew what it was like to give all
Speaker 1: that I had, which is one hundred percent. Don't give
Speaker 1: me your one hundred and five percent day, don't give
Speaker 1: me your one hundred and nine percent. I don't want
Speaker 1: to hear that you don't have it. There is no
Speaker 1: such thing as one hundred and ten percent. It's one
Speaker 1: hundred percent. I was trying to channel this back into broadcasting.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're going there. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's where you're going. No, Okay, I was trying
Speaker 1: to Are we gonna have to addit? This man point
Speaker 1: I was making is that all the things you did
Speaker 1: to work yourself into an altered state to play football, Yeah,
Speaker 1: in a way comes out naturally in broadcasting. And I
Speaker 1: want to bring in our producer Jim one hundred, who's
Speaker 1: been with us for eighteen years. Because Omo his nickname,
Speaker 1: he's been part of the organization for a long time.
Speaker 1: His dad was the head trainer for the Cardinals forever,
Speaker 1: and so he's kind of been a part of this
Speaker 1: and knows you as well as anybody. And you know
Speaker 1: I mentioned that you don't take yourself too seriously. And
Speaker 1: I think for again a lot of Cardinal fans before
Speaker 1: I bring in Jim. Just the year we went to
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl, I'll never forget you and I are
Speaker 1: on the bus going over to the game from the
Speaker 1: hotel and Kurt Warner is sitting in front of us,
Speaker 1: and you and I are sitting next to each other,
Speaker 1: and we're like, it's Kurt Warner. Kurt Warner getting ready
Speaker 1: to go play in the Super Bowl. What's he's played
Speaker 1: in this game before? I wonder how many other guys
Speaker 1: on this bus right now are crapping their pants, and
Speaker 1: how many of these guys are looking at Kurt. Look,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look at that guy, and I'm gonna follow
Speaker 1: that guy. And I remember you and I kept telling
Speaker 1: each other like, hey, we don't know if this is
Speaker 1: ever gonna happen again. From enjoy it, soak it all in.
Speaker 1: And I there's so many things about that day that
Speaker 1: I remember. And then we've had other great playoff games,
Speaker 1: the Packers with Baum, the Packers playoff game after we
Speaker 1: went to the Super Bowl. There have been great moments
Speaker 1: in great playoff games, but there have also been times
Speaker 1: where when things weren't going well, we had to how
Speaker 1: do we keep the fan entertained in tuning in to
Speaker 1: the Cardinals and being interested in Cardinal football and being
Speaker 1: entertained at the same time. So anyway, Ohma, why don't
Speaker 1: you jump in here, because I think there are a
Speaker 1: lot of moments we've had over the years that kind
Speaker 1: of illustrate that that if I'm a fan, I can
Speaker 1: even if things aren't going well, I can still enjoy
Speaker 1: a Cardinals game. I think that you said it well
Speaker 1: when you when you said that even if the season
Speaker 1: isn't going well, you still found a way to have
Speaker 1: fun and bring the entertainment. Little did you guys know
Speaker 1: that you brought the entertainment to me in several different ways.
Speaker 1: And you guys know me, you know better than anyone.
Speaker 1: And the recorder is always on, no matter if it's
Speaker 1: uh on the air or off the air. So I
Speaker 1: have a library that often joke to you guys that
Speaker 1: you know your roast is gonna be amazing, but today,
Speaker 1: basically you're gonna self roast. I pulled probably six or
Speaker 1: seven clips from over the years. I actually ran out
Speaker 1: of time. There's way too much we could do this
Speaker 1: every year. So oh yeah, so I you know, every
Speaker 1: broadcast starts with mike checks. Now we have the right level.
Speaker 1: Let's say, hey, can you give me a mic check?
Speaker 1: And uh I put together some of the uh the
Speaker 1: fun mic checks from over the years to take a listen,
Speaker 1: Hi over Body, Cardinals ran anyone ring, Woefle Woefle. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's real, real dis Yeah yeah, wolf check one
Speaker 1: one two, one two your botta chuck hot? I know
Speaker 1: how all right? Yes, one, two, three, Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: Ron wilfully getting ready to broadcast from the Edward Jones Down. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I got your order. Gonna hit them high in them
Speaker 1: all by. First of all, are you sure that's us?
Speaker 1: I don't know that. I don't know that I could
Speaker 1: fully believe that. I believe that was wolf. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that that was really Yeah, that was I think
Speaker 1: about a minute worth, but I could probably put a
Speaker 1: ten minute. Well, uh time, Well you have the floor next.
Speaker 1: There's often times, too where in broadcasting you say things
Speaker 1: that everyone knows what you're trying to say, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't come out that way. And once upon a time
Speaker 1: you heard Edward Jones dome in at last clip. Once
Speaker 1: upon a time in Saint Louis, Dave Pash had one
Speaker 1: of those moments, and it left me on the floor
Speaker 1: of the booth, and it left Wolf quite speechless for
Speaker 1: a few seconds. Let's just take a listen. Here, Warner
Speaker 1: takes the snap straight drop, looking left, firing into the
Speaker 1: end zone. It's battered up in the air by Fakir
Speaker 1: Brown and out of bounds in the back of the
Speaker 1: end zone. It hit Brown or right in the helmet,
Speaker 1: right off his dong and out of the back of
Speaker 1: the end zone is dong. You know what I meant
Speaker 1: third domin eight at the fourteen yard line of Saint Louis.
Speaker 1: I meant his ding. I meant his dome. I meant
Speaker 1: his dome. The best part about that clip is Wolf's
Speaker 1: just paused and then he goes Who's dome? Okay, so
Speaker 1: full disclosure. That may have been the game that I
Speaker 1: was not fully there, meant to leap because I had
Speaker 1: a foreign substance in my system. Okay, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: this isn't the t shot you touch I woke up.
Speaker 1: I think it was that day I woke up. I
Speaker 1: couldn't move my neck, couldn't move it. Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: you convinced me because you used to get shot up
Speaker 1: every game. You're like, go get go, get shot up
Speaker 1: by one of the team docks. Yeah. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: what do you mean. He's like, I'll trust me, it'll
Speaker 1: feel better, you'll be able to do Lynda Blair right,
Speaker 1: three sixty exactly. And so I go downstairs into the
Speaker 1: locker room with Wolf and first of all, like everybody's
Speaker 1: kind of like, okay, well what's going on here. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I can't move my neck. Document her to adjust me
Speaker 1: a little bit. And then I go in and one
Speaker 1: of the docks pulls out a big needle and I said, so,
Speaker 1: what is this like four advil? He's like that it's
Speaker 1: more like thirty. He shoots me in the rear end.
Speaker 1: Unbeknownst to me, Wolf is taking a picture snap he
Speaker 1: still has it on his phone, and then I show
Speaker 1: it to you, just so yeah, you don't get cocky.
Speaker 1: By the way, I couldn't move my neck, and I
Speaker 1: was pretty fired up. I was pretty juice. So that
Speaker 1: could have been the reason for the mistake. First of all,
Speaker 1: stop a thing about this right now. The way you
Speaker 1: set that up day that honestly, it doesn't do a
Speaker 1: justice whatsoever. You got shot up to do a broadcast?
Speaker 1: Do you have any idea how legendary that is? At
Speaker 1: your behest, you forced me to do it. You were like, like,
Speaker 1: you know what would it? Would it help my neck? Honestly? Yea, David, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna help your neck. Look you know what, it
Speaker 1: will stick the blue juice right in your can and
Speaker 1: you'll be able to broadcast. That's it, man, I can't
Speaker 1: even believe that that is the most legendary thing. I
Speaker 1: wish that happened to me. Where I wish I would
Speaker 1: have gotten shot up to do a broadcast. As Johnny
Speaker 1: Carson would say, we have a clip. Normally, Ron Wolfley
Speaker 1: is extremely passionate. That level of energy has reached the
Speaker 1: new height today as his broadcast partner was able to
Speaker 1: do something that wolf himself has not done in a decade.
Speaker 1: You were awfully proud to see it done. That's right,
Speaker 1: you've taken the shot, is that what you're talking about?
Speaker 1: Woke up neck and back, couldn't move my neck. We
Speaker 1: tried everything. The only antidote was to get shot up.
Speaker 1: You are the stuff of legend. My brother shot up
Speaker 1: for a broadcast there it is said it at the
Speaker 1: time and will continue to say it. That is still, man,
Speaker 1: one of the best things that could possibly happen. You
Speaker 1: get shot up as a broadcaster to go talk a
Speaker 1: little t shot. Well, you know when Pash woke up
Speaker 1: and had a complaint. But over the years, there's been
Speaker 1: several times where each of you have complained about something
Speaker 1: and I put a few of those together. Got a
Speaker 1: crimp in my hip? All right there, chief Chief? My
Speaker 1: butt is hurting first it was your hip. Oh but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: my knees are killing. It is warming here? Isn't? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It is? Wow? Is anyone else just ripping? Here? Is there? Anyway?
Speaker 1: Are you doing anything right now? Could you try to
Speaker 1: find me for Adville? I got this massive spike in
Speaker 1: my head, you know, and I think I got a
Speaker 1: couple here Wolf. What do you have, David? Adville's always
Speaker 1: worked the best for me, Man. I got a headache?
Speaker 1: Any advil? Oh? Yeah, I do. I've had it for
Speaker 1: like three days. Seriously, you want it? Yeah? If he
Speaker 1: got something, you know, I got advil, Duke just like two,
Speaker 1: David crank it up. Now you're kidding me too. That
Speaker 1: will do nothing. I start with four. Really, yeah, here
Speaker 1: you go. Oh I've had it, man, I got it
Speaker 1: down now. Oh my goodness, I give me two advil please, David,
Speaker 1: come on, man, just cram it down. You want to
Speaker 1: get rid of it? Or do you not? You must
Speaker 1: have an iron stomach when when you whenever that day
Speaker 1: comes and they do the autopsy, they're gonna be like,
Speaker 1: we just found a cure for something we thought was incurable,
Speaker 1: and it's in Ron wolf Lee's system. How do we
Speaker 1: extract it and use it worldwide? It really is, even
Speaker 1: to this day right now, Edville has very little effect
Speaker 1: on me right now. Sometimes you got to take six
Speaker 1: to get the job done, as does coffee. I don't
Speaker 1: recommend that to anybody that is listening. I walked in
Speaker 1: here with a small coffee that's been half consumed. I
Speaker 1: give Wolf sent me a text of what he wanted
Speaker 1: from Starbucks. Let's just say there were four more shots
Speaker 1: in there than I normally have. Right, go ahead. So
Speaker 1: when putting us together, I knew over the years, we've
Speaker 1: all encountered great characters and players from team's past, and
Speaker 1: one of those guys is the Hall of Famer gray
Speaker 1: Beard as you call him, Kurt Warner. One time, I
Speaker 1: believe it was around two thousand and seven or eight,
Speaker 1: we were playing and Kurt took a shot to the
Speaker 1: chin and he didn't have the hard chin strap. He
Speaker 1: had like a little cloth of one, and it became
Speaker 1: red because he was cut under there. And during the
Speaker 1: break I suggested a nickname that we should call him
Speaker 1: upon our return, and uh, this is the conversation leading
Speaker 1: back into the actual broadcast. The gray Beard turned to
Speaker 1: the red Bear. You say that. I no, you say it,
Speaker 1: and then I'll say, hoist the calash. You're a slimy dog,
Speaker 1: baty me. Vernacles are kidding me. We're gonna call the
Speaker 1: rest of the game like a pirate dude. Stop cover
Speaker 1: that kick and do it smartly laughing during the break,
Speaker 1: Kurt Warner is no longer gray Beard. He's now called
Speaker 1: red Beard, right, wolf Bat. He's got a red beard
Speaker 1: with the blood coming off the chip and dripping after
Speaker 1: the hit by Kavika Mitchell, Hurt Worner calas, oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: First of all, you tried to go right there, didn't
Speaker 1: you tried? Yeah, that was you, the little er the
Speaker 1: nicknames like that was easy. That was an easy nickname.
Speaker 1: Some of the nicknames that you come up with over
Speaker 1: the years. Larry Fitzgerald to this day despises You called
Speaker 1: him the Japanese fighting fish. And you got it from
Speaker 1: the movie The Naked Gun. Yes, right, single minded and
Speaker 1: deadly of purpose, that's what U. Who is the game
Speaker 1: show host who plays the bad guy? No, I am
Speaker 1: Ricardo Montalba. But he wasn't a game show. He was
Speaker 1: in Fantasy Island. Ricardo. Yeah, he says, a Japanese fighting fish.
Speaker 1: It's a type of fish single minded and deadly purpose.
Speaker 1: And that's what you called Larry. You called the greatest
Speaker 1: yes player in Cardinal's history. That first of all, you
Speaker 1: gotta google Japanese fighting fish. Go ahead and google it,
Speaker 1: because you'll see it. It's a side shot. You get
Speaker 1: a side shot, a profile, if you will, of the
Speaker 1: Japanese fighting fish. It looks like Fancy with the hair
Speaker 1: and everything that he's got. It looks like Fitzy in
Speaker 1: his profile for the ball's part. Right, and not only that,
Speaker 1: deadly and single minded of purpose, said Ricardo mappel Bon.
Speaker 1: Oh why um I called him the Japanese fighting fish.
Speaker 1: Because of the red zone. The red zone in Larry,
Speaker 1: if he got the ball, he was going to score
Speaker 1: a touchdown, right? Was he not going to score a touchdown?
Speaker 1: Of course? The Japanese fighting fish was deadly and single
Speaker 1: minded of purpose. He was going to get it into
Speaker 1: the end zone. That's why I called we didn't need
Speaker 1: the five minute X one. I just was saying, oh,
Speaker 1: you didn't want but three of my favorite wolf leism.
Speaker 1: So again another bat had nickname, but the way he
Speaker 1: does hate it, just for he hates it. Most people
Speaker 1: hate the nicknames. Yes, you called Adrian Wilson the gas man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, and again a bad nickname. But what was
Speaker 1: really funny was if if there was a big play
Speaker 1: by Adrian Wilson, Wolf on the air would go does
Speaker 1: anybody smell gas? That? Along with at the line of
Speaker 1: scrimmage you would say that's where the fur flies. I
Speaker 1: love that because it's such an appropriate picture for no doubt.
Speaker 1: And then I forgot what the other one was go
Speaker 1: ahead of him? So I had something else, But the
Speaker 1: Wizard of Oz secondary you're forgetting not ah, that's right,
Speaker 1: the Wizard of Oz secondary where you had ten man,
Speaker 1: of course, and I think Greg Toler was brave. Total
Speaker 1: you remember, total right there, excellent go ahead. Speaking of
Speaker 1: another character, Neil Rackers, you know, he had a very
Speaker 1: solid kicking career. Um a few high profile misses, but
Speaker 1: for the most part he was one of the better
Speaker 1: kickers we've had here. But he also was known as
Speaker 1: a pretty good tackler. For a kicker, he'd go in
Speaker 1: there and uh. He definitely left an impression on Wolf
Speaker 1: back in the day. Let's take a listen, were laughing
Speaker 1: at Wolf. Somebody get Neil Rackers and neck roll him
Speaker 1: flying that seem running serious Neil Kicker rage. He said,
Speaker 1: a frenzy down there, Neil Rackers. Let's let's see get
Speaker 1: him a neck roll, brother. I mean, you've got he
Speaker 1: can run too. He has a little feet. I cannot
Speaker 1: believe that. Whoa did you say? He was no Jay feeling?
Speaker 1: All right? Jay would go down there, and Jay would
Speaker 1: go down there, he would. But man, Rackers was nuts.
Speaker 1: If you will hear the screaming of it. He was.
Speaker 1: He was a different dude. I think one of my
Speaker 1: good Way favorite wolf Lee is ms that he doesn't
Speaker 1: use anymore that I would love for him to bring back.
Speaker 1: But I can understand why it might have a negative
Speaker 1: connotation or a word picture that's inappropriate. Is like if
Speaker 1: an offensive lineman got beat, wolf would say he got
Speaker 1: his Jimmy whipped. Yeah, right, exactly why can't you say that?
Speaker 1: I have no idea. I mean, it doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: what some might think it does. It doesn't mean exactly.
Speaker 1: It's just a name you pick. You could say he
Speaker 1: got his Johnny whipped. Whatever. Well, that one probably is
Speaker 1: what a little bit more close to home? What are
Speaker 1: you talking about? Well? John and Jimmy John is a
Speaker 1: term that's used with Matthews. See why why do we
Speaker 1: have any more? Save one last time? A good walk
Speaker 1: off one for this part of the program. Um So
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, everyone remembers the great run
Speaker 1: to the super Bowl super Bowl forty three, but two
Speaker 1: games before that, it's probably the most incredible memory I
Speaker 1: ever have, Like no one gave the Cardinals a chance
Speaker 1: to go into Carolina and win the divisional playoff against
Speaker 1: the Panthers, who were undefeated at home. It was Jake
Speaker 1: Delom's birthday, you know. The Cardinals got off to a
Speaker 1: huge lead and we just kept looking around as like,
Speaker 1: don't don't say no, don't say anything. Don't say anything.
Speaker 1: And then it became clear like we're gonna win this
Speaker 1: game and we're gonna be playing in the NFC Championship.
Speaker 1: We found out the next day that we'd be hosting
Speaker 1: the NFC Championship. But listen that I always liked this
Speaker 1: clip and I always wanted to play it on the air,
Speaker 1: never really had the opportunities too. This is a good
Speaker 1: time to do it. You guys, especially Dave Pash sound
Speaker 1: like a little kid who just got the best Christmas
Speaker 1: present ever. So this is off air and then it
Speaker 1: goes back to on air and then back off again.
Speaker 1: Just listen to the Jubilasian in the booth. I think
Speaker 1: I might even be screaming in the background on this one.
Speaker 1: But this one is one of my favorite memories in
Speaker 1: my twenty two years of doing this. Dude, Wolf, Wolf,
Speaker 1: Just dudes, do you believe it? Man? No, I cannot
Speaker 1: believe We're gonna be doing a game next week to
Speaker 1: play for the Super Bowl. Oh my gosh, I'm not
Speaker 1: even talking about not being able to move my jar
Speaker 1: right now. I'm gonna be locked up, baby, blowout City,
Speaker 1: blow Up. Thank you so much. The Cardinals knock off
Speaker 1: the Carolina Panther's thirty three thirteen. They are going to
Speaker 1: the NFC Championship game back in a moment on the
Speaker 1: Cardinals radio network. Yes, we're playing for the right to
Speaker 1: go to the Super Bowl. I cannot believe it. I
Speaker 1: never ever ever thought I would see it this quickly,
Speaker 1: this quickly, dude, never thought i'd see it? Is that? Yes?
Speaker 1: All right? Boys right, never a doubt. Yeah, yes, you
Speaker 1: gotta be joking. University of Phoenix Stadium will be a
Speaker 1: freak show. Wow you're predicting. Yeah, well we would host.
Speaker 1: Um that was two thousand and eight, so that was
Speaker 1: six years into it, and so and for me and
Speaker 1: I still feel this way. And this is my twenty
Speaker 1: first year you know, doing games. I love doing games
Speaker 1: for ESPN. Love it. Yeoh, this is different because the
Speaker 1: Cardinals had become my team. They became my team early on.
Speaker 1: I grew up in Wisconsin. I was not a huge
Speaker 1: Packer fan. Don mccowski was the quarterback when I was
Speaker 1: growing up, The Magic Man. I met him one time
Speaker 1: and he called himself the magic Man when he introduced himself. Um,
Speaker 1: don't ever do that, kid, don't do that. Very nice
Speaker 1: guy though, but like I didn't have growing up in Madison. Again,
Speaker 1: kind of a Packer fan, but not really. And so
Speaker 1: when I got the job here, you know, you are
Speaker 1: around the team, you're part of the team. You live
Speaker 1: and die with what happens. So it became my team quickly.
Speaker 1: And obviously I've stayed here for more than twenty years,
Speaker 1: so it gives me a chance to root. So just
Speaker 1: listening back to that fourteen years ago, I mean, that's real,
Speaker 1: that's real emotion. And hopefully Cardinal fans and they listen
Speaker 1: to us, Hopefully they sense that it's important to us too,
Speaker 1: that we care, because really our job is to be
Speaker 1: the conduit. Like what you say and what I say,
Speaker 1: the fan is supposed to be thinking the same thing,
Speaker 1: and sometimes that means saying something that maybe somebody doesn't
Speaker 1: want to hear. Right now, I think we're good at that.
Speaker 1: I think we're very fair. I think we can criticize,
Speaker 1: but we criticize in a fair professional murder, sure, because
Speaker 1: sometimes there are things that need to be said because
Speaker 1: the fans are thinking that and they expect that. David,
Speaker 1: for me, I can tell you right now, I think
Speaker 1: we are really really good at being objective on that.
Speaker 1: Am I a homer? Absolutely, I'm paid by the team.
Speaker 1: I bleed Cardinal Red. I had seven of my best years.
Speaker 1: I played ten years in the NFL, and seven of
Speaker 1: my best years it was with the Arizona Cardinals in
Speaker 1: the Saint Louis Cardinals. So yeah, there's no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: I bleed Cardinal Red. Yet at the same time, I
Speaker 1: can be fair and objective and be able to look
Speaker 1: at it, and I think we do a very very
Speaker 1: good job and have done a good job of being
Speaker 1: objective and not being blinded by the fact that we
Speaker 1: want the Cardinals to win games. It's not like I'm
Speaker 1: doing a national broadcast. It's not like you're doing a
Speaker 1: national broadcast. We're broadcasting for Cardinal fans on the radio.
Speaker 1: So heck yeah, I'm not afraid of letting them know
Speaker 1: that I want the Cardinals to win a game. Yet
Speaker 1: at the same time, I think we've always done a
Speaker 1: fair and accurate job of describing what is happening and
Speaker 1: doing it objectively. Ohms, anything else now, I was going
Speaker 1: to say to finish up on the Carolina game. The
Speaker 1: one clip I didn't play was the clip of former
Speaker 1: front office executive accidentally drinking Wolf's dip spit. Yeah, Nie
Speaker 1: accident went to sip his coffee and sipped Wolfs no
Speaker 1: dip spit. Oh my goodness, I want to bar fright now.
Speaker 1: You want to seriously, what is going on? He looked,
Speaker 1: he saw a ghost. Um. The best memory ever for
Speaker 1: me personally was the NFC Championship game when we were
Speaker 1: going to the Super Bowl and we knew it that
Speaker 1: fourth down play right there covers zero. Here we go
Speaker 1: and suddenly went after against the Philadelphia Eagles, hosting it
Speaker 1: right there at the stadium a home game. The realization
Speaker 1: of knowing that we were going to the Super Bowl
Speaker 1: still is my favorite memory personally to this day. For me,
Speaker 1: it was the Super Bowl again, just being a part
Speaker 1: of it, taking it all in, remembering every moment. I remember.
Speaker 1: I'd done a college basketball game at pitt the saturday
Speaker 1: before I went down to Tampa with the team, and
Speaker 1: then flew out to do my ESPN responsibilities, and I
Speaker 1: had an assignment at Pittsburgh, and so I flew from
Speaker 1: Pittsburgh to Tampa and I am the only person on
Speaker 1: the plane think of where I'm coming from, not in Steeler.
Speaker 1: Geart whoa, And someone asks me sitting next to me,
Speaker 1: are you going down to the Super Bowl? Like, yep,
Speaker 1: you're not a Steeler fan. I worked for the Cardinals.
Speaker 1: You want to go. Thankfully this person was kind enough
Speaker 1: to not stand up. It's hey, we got a Cardinal.
Speaker 1: It was every single person on the plane with Steeler gear.
Speaker 1: And again, just from the bus ride over. First of all,
Speaker 1: we thought we might miss the bus. We'll close on
Speaker 1: this thought we might miss the bus. We are sitting there,
Speaker 1: you and I are talking to the late great Bill Bidwell.
Speaker 1: We're having a conversation. Mister B is sharing great stories.
Speaker 1: One of the things I always appreciated about mister B
Speaker 1: was he had a very He had a wide knowledge
Speaker 1: of broadcasting. He really knew broadcasting, going back to Saint
Speaker 1: Louis and some of the legendary broadcasters going back to
Speaker 1: Jack Buck. He knew them all and knew about them.
Speaker 1: And I'm very immersed in the history of broadcasting. And
Speaker 1: so he was telling all these stories and then storyteller,
Speaker 1: I look up. There's three people left in the meal room, you, me,
Speaker 1: and mister B. I'm like, oh my goodness, we are
Speaker 1: going to miss the bus to the Super Bowl and
Speaker 1: then we were like, wait a second, they're not leaving
Speaker 1: without him. Good, but getting there. I didn't script anything,
Speaker 1: you know, you want to those moments where like when
Speaker 1: I do a TV game, I will always script my
Speaker 1: open the first thirty to forty seconds where you come
Speaker 1: on the air. You saw you show shots of you know,
Speaker 1: if it's an NBA game, the way it's set up
Speaker 1: a lot of times because the stars are the show,
Speaker 1: it's set up almost like a boxing match. So if
Speaker 1: you're watching an NBA game, you know, in this corner
Speaker 1: it was it was last week, So it's Lakers Clippers.
Speaker 1: I'm doing it. You know, it's without saying in this corner,
Speaker 1: but it's Lebron James and the Lakers, Paul George and
Speaker 1: the Clippers, and you're kind of setting it up. So
Speaker 1: I usually script that. For the Super Bowl, I didn't
Speaker 1: want to script the end because I thought it would
Speaker 1: jinx it. If I wrote something down, I am going
Speaker 1: to jinx it. So I'm not going to do factor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do it. When the Cardinals took the
Speaker 1: lead and Larry Fitzgerald ran into the end zone, and
Speaker 1: first of all, they're playing the Cardinals, touchdown music that
Speaker 1: we played at State Farm Stadium. And also this booth
Speaker 1: next to us full of NFL employees are looking at
Speaker 1: us laughing because we are going nuts, and actually the
Speaker 1: stadium has kind of turned and they're rooting for the
Speaker 1: Cardinals obviously not the Steeler fans. So I'm like, I
Speaker 1: bet I better put something down. I better write something
Speaker 1: down because if they win, whatever I say, it's going
Speaker 1: to be played over and over again for a long time.
Speaker 1: I don't remember exactly what I wrote down, but I
Speaker 1: do remember that I tore it up and threw it
Speaker 1: in the trash about a minute later because Aaron Francisco
Speaker 1: fell down they got into steel Cardinal territory, and then
Speaker 1: Santonio Holmes two minutes. Yeah, in seconds. But look, there
Speaker 1: have been a lot of great moments since. There have
Speaker 1: been some heartbreaking moments since. And Wolf, we've been doing
Speaker 1: this together for eighteen years. I hope we get to
Speaker 1: do it for at least eighteen. Yeah. I appreciate you
Speaker 1: coming in. Thank you for sharing a lot about who
Speaker 1: you are. If there are people that didn't know your backstory,
Speaker 1: whether it's as a player or some of the things
Speaker 1: you've been through personally, I think if you didn't love
Speaker 1: Ron Wolfley before, you'll you'll you'll come away love and
Speaker 1: Ron wolf David love you you great stuff. This was fun.
Speaker 1: Thanks Wolf Holmes, thanks for helping appreciate it. There's play
Speaker 1: more where that came from. Well, we went about an hour.
Speaker 1: We honestly could have gone about four hours. There's so
Speaker 1: much more we could have discussed. Hopefully Cardinal fans and
Speaker 1: even if you're not a Cardinal fan, you've got a
Speaker 1: taste for who Ron Wolfley is at the core and
Speaker 1: maybe get a greater appreciation for Wolf as a broadcaster.
Speaker 1: You can just hear the passion in this conversation with
Speaker 1: Wolf and obviously that comes out on game day as
Speaker 1: well as he eats and breaths Arizona Cardinal football. We
Speaker 1: are presented by bet MGM, the official sports betting partner
Speaker 1: of the Arizona Cardinals, and by Kila River Resorts and Casinos.
Speaker 1: Please follow us on social media on Twitter at pashpod,
Speaker 1: and also we'd love to hear from you. Tell us
Speaker 1: what you think about the future guests. You can go
Speaker 1: to your podcast platform, rate us, review us and tell
Speaker 1: us what you think about this episode or any of
Speaker 1: the previous forty nine episodes of the Dave Pash Podcast.
Speaker 1: Thanks again to you for listening. Thanks again to our
Speaker 1: guest Ron Wolfley for being a part of the fiftieth
Speaker 1: edition of the Dave Pash Podcast.