Speaker 1: Everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Dave Pash Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Dave Pass ESPN and Arizona Cardinals play
Speaker 1: by play announcer. Our guest this week is the Great
Speaker 1: Jim Nance, who's been with CBS since nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1: He's called the Final Four since nineteen ninety one, been
Speaker 1: a part of the NFL going back to ninety eight,
Speaker 1: and called play by play as the lead voice since
Speaker 1: two thousand and four. Jim will talk with us about
Speaker 1: what's going to be his final Final Four in two
Speaker 1: thousand and twenty three. We'll talk about the timing, and
Speaker 1: then I'll also discuss when he hopes to finish as
Speaker 1: the voice of the Masters. This will be his thirty
Speaker 1: eighth consecutive year calling the golf at Augusta coming up
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three, I would like to be there
Speaker 1: for the hundredth playing of the Masters, and then we'll
Speaker 1: reevaluate because I'm only going to be seventy six. Lookno,
Speaker 1: many of our friends are still working at the stages
Speaker 1: later than that, like Al Michaels and on and on
Speaker 1: and on. But that's the goal. How much longer will
Speaker 1: he continue to call the NFL. We'll talk with Jim
Speaker 1: about that. We'll get his thoughts on the Arizona Cardinals,
Speaker 1: and we'll also get Jim's impression of Frank Kelly En
Speaker 1: notes impression of Jim and Tony Romo. In the booth,
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Speaker 1: Gambling problem called one eight hundred. Next step, Time to
Speaker 1: talk with the voice of CBS Sports and one of
Speaker 1: the all time great guys in this business, Jim nance. Well, Jim,
Speaker 1: first of all, it's it's an honor to talk to you.
Speaker 1: You're one of my favorites. You're one of the best
Speaker 1: in our business of what you do, and you're such
Speaker 1: a great guy. I'll never forget. Well. First of all,
Speaker 1: I met you for the first time when I was
Speaker 1: doing the Final four for NCAA International back in It
Speaker 1: was one of the two Florida Championships two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: I think. And then I'm sitting at a restaurant in
Speaker 1: New York City, delf Friscoes with my wife, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the waitress comes over and says, hey, um,
Speaker 1: this gentleman next to you here would like to buy
Speaker 1: you guys a drink. I look over and it's you,
Speaker 1: and and then you come over and hang out and
Speaker 1: we're chatting it up for a while. So that's that's
Speaker 1: what the fact. I remember that like it was yesterday.
Speaker 1: I think it was two and ten. I was doing
Speaker 1: the Big East Tournament in New York and I can't
Speaker 1: remember what you were there for. Maybe you were just
Speaker 1: out to dinner with your bride. But I'll never forget that. Jim, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't think you would actually remember that day,
Speaker 1: but I remember it vividly. We were neighboring Booths, and
Speaker 1: it was a real thrill to meet you. And we
Speaker 1: have the gift and of being in the same industry,
Speaker 1: which is the childhood dream for each of us. And
Speaker 1: we also share, you know, not only a love of
Speaker 1: college basketball, which you are absolutely exceptional at fall in
Speaker 1: those games, I like you are with everything, but I
Speaker 1: get to see a lot of your work on college
Speaker 1: hoops when you're doing your Cardinals work during the fall.
Speaker 1: I'm always on at the same time, so I don't
Speaker 1: get to enjoy it. But Pat McGrath, famous stats guy.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I worked with you a ton and I've
Speaker 1: had Pat by my side or I've been by his
Speaker 1: side more like it, for thirty something years on college hoops.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people out there, you know, you
Speaker 1: hear things in the industry, and everybody admiers and has
Speaker 1: great respect for who you are not only is a broadcaster,
Speaker 1: but more importantly what you like off the air. Oh
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Yeah, Pat has been He's been with
Speaker 1: you probably twice as long as he's been with me.
Speaker 1: But and I think Doug Collins, I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was you, I think it was Doug Collins that
Speaker 1: gave him the nickname Pat the Rat or PTR for short.
Speaker 1: But Pat's a great statistician. He's as good as there is.
Speaker 1: I think Pat the Rat the nickname belongs to Hankstram
Speaker 1: That okay. He and Hank were close and I worked
Speaker 1: with Hank years and years ago, and one time I
Speaker 1: was on the air on him BBS and I was thinking,
Speaker 1: everybody on the crew and our great stats guy, Pat
Speaker 1: the Rat McGrath. Well, about two days later, Pat called
Speaker 1: sheepishly and said, would you do me a favor? I said,
Speaker 1: what is it? He said, Please don't ever call me
Speaker 1: that on the air again. I don't mind off the air,
Speaker 1: but my mom was watching and she was so confused.
Speaker 1: Why did he call you the rat? And she didn't
Speaker 1: like that, and I said, never again, never again. On
Speaker 1: the air, He's just Pat McGrath. But yeah, optional guy, Jim.
Speaker 1: I've always thought somebody needs to do and I would
Speaker 1: love to pitch at ESPN. Somebody needs to do a
Speaker 1: thirty for thirty, a documentary on the life of the statisticians,
Speaker 1: because next to the players, the coaches, the broadcasters, no
Speaker 1: one has a better seat for the biggest events. And
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken. Pat McGrath has done thirty Final
Speaker 1: fours and twenty five to thirty Super Bowls. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: at thirty one Final fours and the super Bowl count
Speaker 1: is up there, really high all those years with the
Speaker 1: CBS Radio network in Westwood One, And that would be
Speaker 1: a fascinating thing to see because these guys kind of
Speaker 1: they come in with no fanfare. You're right, they're sitting
Speaker 1: right at mid court or the fifty yard line and
Speaker 1: they have this incredible access and the plus the fact
Speaker 1: that they can crunch numbers and how they just go
Speaker 1: about the mechanics of executing their jobs. It's pretty funny.
Speaker 1: But it's an interesting group. They all know one another. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're all very close knit. The stats guy from one
Speaker 1: crew knows stat guy from another. You know, Al Michael's
Speaker 1: stats guy knows my stats guy, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So that's a good idea. I gotta get it to you.
Speaker 1: That would be an interesting doc just the idio different
Speaker 1: idiosyncrasies for these guys too, right, there's some different characters
Speaker 1: out there. Yeah. I have a guy on football, Ethan Cooperson,
Speaker 1: who he walks into the booth like he did yesterday
Speaker 1: in Tampa and it might be fifteen minutes before kickoff. Now,
Speaker 1: he's done a lot of good prep work that he's
Speaker 1: forwarded than me during the week. But where's he been?
Speaker 1: How did he get here? He just kind of comes in, leaves, disappears.
Speaker 1: You don't even know he's there. But you get in
Speaker 1: the heat of the battle. This guy can come up
Speaker 1: with things like they all can, like Pat can. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just amazing. Well, Pat will be with you for the
Speaker 1: Final Four in twenty twenty three, which, as was reported
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, will be your last with CBS.
Speaker 1: And I'm just as Jim, what went into that decision? Why?
Speaker 1: Why the timing for you to turn that over to
Speaker 1: Iron Eagle after this upcoming Final Four? Well, it was
Speaker 1: time because my chest have been on what I'd like
Speaker 1: to call the Golden Hamster wheel for thirty seven years.
Speaker 1: I have been a part of the NCAA Tournament and
Speaker 1: the Masters, in the PGA Tour and in as well
Speaker 1: as football, and there was really not an offseason for me.
Speaker 1: One season ends, the next one begins. Sometimes like the
Speaker 1: very next week, you go from the Final Four in
Speaker 1: the championship game and I'm in Augusta the next day,
Speaker 1: and it's it's thrilling, it's exciting, it's exhausting too, when
Speaker 1: you get past the age of sixty. Has started doing
Speaker 1: all this when I was twenty six for CBS, so
Speaker 1: I've been at it for more than half my life
Speaker 1: and I needed to get some time back. I've got
Speaker 1: two young kids and an older daughter, but my little
Speaker 1: ones are six and eight, and I just cannot go
Speaker 1: through another ten years of basically Daddy only home five
Speaker 1: or six weeks a year or weekends a year. And
Speaker 1: it started there. I've known for a long time that
Speaker 1: that was gonna be the sport that would have to
Speaker 1: come off the schedule, but it would still leave me
Speaker 1: with a full NFL schedule with Tony Romo for many
Speaker 1: years to comber both sign up for a long long
Speaker 1: time and anchoring the golf, so I still got forty
Speaker 1: weeks a year. It's just that five or six weeks
Speaker 1: removed what my basketball obligations were will make a profound difference.
Speaker 1: And it came up on a year too, when the
Speaker 1: Final Four is in Houston, which was my gateway city
Speaker 1: to the industry coming out of the University of Houston
Speaker 1: and being around the basketball program there and being the
Speaker 1: public address announcer in the embryonic stages of Phi Slam
Speaker 1: a jama That's when I got my start with that
Speaker 1: basketball team, and it just felt right to come back
Speaker 1: to Houston and closed down baskets where it all started
Speaker 1: for me. I thought it might have been because you
Speaker 1: just couldn't take Bill Raftery anymore, not on the air,
Speaker 1: but after the game. I worked with Bill when he
Speaker 1: was at ESPN, and like, if you left dinner before
Speaker 1: two in the morning, like you got an evil look.
Speaker 1: And then there were sometimes if you did leave, I'd
Speaker 1: be going to the airport for six am flight and
Speaker 1: he's just walking in. So I thought maybe it was
Speaker 1: because of raff I want your audience to know this
Speaker 1: is not embellished at all. Okay, this is so true.
Speaker 1: Raft is such a treasure and he was my first
Speaker 1: basketball partner, by the way, Dave. Back in the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty six and SA tournaments, my first tournament game I
Speaker 1: ever called was Duke against Old Dominion in Greensboro, North Carolina,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six. So now all these years later, I'm
Speaker 1: going to come to my final tournament as a broadcaster,
Speaker 1: and there is a site at Greensboro the first week
Speaker 1: of the of this year's tournament, and you know Duke
Speaker 1: and North Carolina will an all likelihood be sent there,
Speaker 1: which means will be sent there. So it all comes
Speaker 1: full circle. You know. I got to start with I'm
Speaker 1: going to end with raft and the Great Grant Hill
Speaker 1: was just such a gym, such a wonderful guy and
Speaker 1: a broadcaster that has really seized it and has just
Speaker 1: done super with it and will continue for years. But
Speaker 1: I love my teammates and I'm going to miss that
Speaker 1: part of it. Tracy Wilson. I gonna miss that part
Speaker 1: of it more than anything. But I do feel really
Speaker 1: great about I and getting a chance to do it.
Speaker 1: He deserves to have that chance. Here's a stat for it,
Speaker 1: which is typical of Pat to come up with it.
Speaker 1: But before I transitioned from being the host of the
Speaker 1: Final four to calling the lead INCA a tournament package,
Speaker 1: Brent Musburger was doing the games, and Brent was a
Speaker 1: great mentor and friends, and I couldn't believe I was
Speaker 1: in his company the first six years of my career.
Speaker 1: But bent Brent called six final fours in championship six
Speaker 1: he tied the record that belongs to Dick invert so
Speaker 1: Wrent and Dick that sticks championships each This coming tournament
Speaker 1: will be my thirty seconds. So it's been a long time,
Speaker 1: and you know, I don't want to get greedy about it.
Speaker 1: It's been a long time, and I've thought for several
Speaker 1: years that maybe it was time to start scaling back
Speaker 1: just a little bit and just reduce it to NFL
Speaker 1: at golf. But with Houston out there off twenty three,
Speaker 1: this was years ago when they got they got the
Speaker 1: nod for the twenty three Final four. I told CBS
Speaker 1: even then that will be my last, so it came
Speaker 1: as no surprise to them, and just now it's official. Well,
Speaker 1: you will obviously be missed. But if there's anybody who
Speaker 1: is not only talented, but can handle Raftree and also
Speaker 1: just be a great ambassador for CBS and for college
Speaker 1: basketball to follow in your footsteps, it's it's Iron because
Speaker 1: he's so good and he's such a great guy. I'm
Speaker 1: Jim about the Masters. I think this is thirty eight
Speaker 1: in a row for you. He talked about the run
Speaker 1: with college basketball, but longer on the Masters, how much
Speaker 1: longer do you think you'll go why would you ever
Speaker 1: stop with the Masters. I mean, that's well, I don't
Speaker 1: want to, but takes its course. But thank you for
Speaker 1: saying that I have one more Masters than I do
Speaker 1: NCAA tournaments because in the pandemic they canceled the tournament.
Speaker 1: That you're the NCAA tournament, so they're off by one.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this will be thirty eight coming up at
Speaker 1: a custom and long ago, Dave, I'm talking nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: when Jack Nicholas won that historic sixth Green jacket. I
Speaker 1: was making my way back to the compound when Ken ventory,
Speaker 1: the legendary commentator on Hall of Fame golfer, pulled up
Speaker 1: in a golf cart and he said, where are you going,
Speaker 1: young man? I said, I'm walking back to the compound. Sir,
Speaker 1: he says, jump in, Jimmy, I'll give you a ride.
Speaker 1: I was honored to be riding with him. This was
Speaker 1: my first Masters show, and I'd watched Ken my whole life,
Speaker 1: not realizing one day we'd be in the eighteen tower
Speaker 1: together for a long long time and he became a
Speaker 1: huge mentor of mine. But anybody, Ken says, how old
Speaker 1: are your son? And I said him twenty six? He said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make a prediction for you right now. One
Speaker 1: day you're going to be the first golfer to ever
Speaker 1: broadcast this event fifty times. I thought, Wow, that's profound.
Speaker 1: I can't believe he thinks I have that kind of ability.
Speaker 1: Plus he called me Jimmy, which my mom, my, dad,
Speaker 1: my friends all call me because my dad was jim
Speaker 1: I was Jimmy still ams and my family members and
Speaker 1: close friends. Anyway, he said, you'll be the first to
Speaker 1: ever do fifty. But I'll tell you one thing, Son,
Speaker 1: You'll never live to see a day greater than this.
Speaker 1: Around AUGUSTA, so I had all these highs and lows,
Speaker 1: and that one little movie scene I had the high
Speaker 1: of Ken Ventrury calls me, Jimmy calls me Son, is
Speaker 1: very father figurish. He thinks I have a modicum of
Speaker 1: ability to be able to make this outlandish prediction. I'll
Speaker 1: do this for fifty fifty years. And anyway, I look
Speaker 1: at it years later, Dave, and he'd really in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways to define my career. He set up
Speaker 1: what I wanted my career to be like. At the end,
Speaker 1: I wanted to do what Conventuri recognized that day. I
Speaker 1: wanted to do fifty and I used to say that
Speaker 1: too to close associates until a few years later, I
Speaker 1: was actually being introduced. As bizarre as this sounds, Bib
Speaker 1: Venturi and Jack Whittaker and an event at Bellair Country
Speaker 1: Club They've jointly presented me, and I got up and
Speaker 1: told this story that I just told you about fifty masters.
Speaker 1: We retired that night after the speech over at the
Speaker 1: Hotel bel Air bar, and Jack Whittaker looked at me
Speaker 1: talk about an idol for me. He said, I heard
Speaker 1: what is set up there, Jimmy about fifty masters. I said, yes, sir,
Speaker 1: does sound crazy. He says, no, not at all, but
Speaker 1: you need to adjust the count. I said, why is that, sir?
Speaker 1: He says, you need to do fifty one. I said, well, why,
Speaker 1: he says, because if you do it, the math on it,
Speaker 1: the fifty first masters for you will be the one
Speaker 1: hundredth playing of the Masters tournament. He said, you'll want
Speaker 1: to be there for that, but I think it's important
Speaker 1: for the masters that you be there for it too.
Speaker 1: So I tweaked it and that became the goal. Is
Speaker 1: weird as that number sounds, it's fifty one that would
Speaker 1: take me to twenty thirty six. God willing that I
Speaker 1: get that chance. The help holds up and everybody still
Speaker 1: wants me to do it. Let me add that I
Speaker 1: would like to be there for the hundredth playing of
Speaker 1: the Masters, and then we'll reevaluate because I'm only going
Speaker 1: to be seventy six. Loo kind how many of our
Speaker 1: friends are still working at the stages later than that,
Speaker 1: like al Michaels and on and on and on. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the goal, fifty one Masters. If I can get there,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to be greedy about it, that
Speaker 1: would be that would mean a lot to me in
Speaker 1: my heart. Well, I work with Hugh by Brown on NBA.
Speaker 1: He's eighty nine and he's still going strong. Jim you
Speaker 1: can do one hundred and fifteen Masters or Jimmy? Sorry?
Speaker 1: Can I call you Jimmy now? The rest I didn't
Speaker 1: realize everybody that you're you're friends with, and I would
Speaker 1: hope that we can call each other friends. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: call you Jimmy. Um. But the fact that that would
Speaker 1: be you would have at that point have done more
Speaker 1: than half of the Masters. I mean, you'd be a
Speaker 1: synonymous and I think you already are because of you know,
Speaker 1: when people think of the masters, they they they hear
Speaker 1: your voice, they hear the music and then your voice
Speaker 1: coming up. Um, Hello friends. I'm sure you've been asked
Speaker 1: that so many times. When when did that start? What
Speaker 1: was the When was the first time you used it?
Speaker 1: And wow, uh he say, my dog, he heard hello
Speaker 1: friends right on from my family protector. They're getting all
Speaker 1: wound up. The term hello friends was never intended to
Speaker 1: be anything that had lasting power or I would be
Speaker 1: associated with. It was purely the circumstance of me trying
Speaker 1: to come up with something that my father would know
Speaker 1: that I was thinking of him when I when I
Speaker 1: said goodbye to him at his bedside in two thousand
Speaker 1: and two. It's only been around since O two. My
Speaker 1: father was fighting Alzheimer's disease and the mind was slipping
Speaker 1: by the day, and I would play these little tricks
Speaker 1: and word games with him. And as I left his
Speaker 1: side in Houston, I said, Dad, I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: come on the air this weekend. I'm gonna say your
Speaker 1: name because my name is his name, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say hello friends. And that's for you because you have
Speaker 1: nothing but friends. So when you'd see me on camera,
Speaker 1: you know, at that very moment, I'm thinking to you, Okay,
Speaker 1: you got it. I got it. Well. I walked out
Speaker 1: of the room realized there's probably a pretty good chance
Speaker 1: he had already forgotten it badly. But I carried that
Speaker 1: in my heart and from a golf event and Hazel
Speaker 1: team in Minnesota, I open up the third round coverage
Speaker 1: with a hello, friends, Jim nance here, you know, And
Speaker 1: next thing you know, the show ends. I get a
Speaker 1: call from a very close friend of mine and said, hey,
Speaker 1: I heard you say all friends on the here. What
Speaker 1: was that about. I said, I passed them along a
Speaker 1: message to my dad. He said, well, that sounds like you.
Speaker 1: You ought to do that all the time. So I
Speaker 1: did it for the fourth round, the following weekend and
Speaker 1: every weekend thereafter. And you know, my dad's been gone
Speaker 1: since oh eight days, has been gone a long time.
Speaker 1: But for that very bleeding little moment, as I'm on
Speaker 1: the air and trying to get get us started, I
Speaker 1: look into that lens that gives us absolutely no feedback.
Speaker 1: As you know, you look into that dark camera lens
Speaker 1: and you don't think about the millions of people on
Speaker 1: the other side. But I look at it and I
Speaker 1: think of him. For I just it flashes in my
Speaker 1: head every time yesterday, and for me it's a nice
Speaker 1: comforting moment. I feel like he's right with me and
Speaker 1: it calms me. That makes sense. I think the public
Speaker 1: would be surprised that you get on some of these shows,
Speaker 1: maybe every show, but the bigger ones, and you do
Speaker 1: have those butterflies, at least I do, and the most
Speaker 1: if you will. Anxiety you feel feeling as a broadcaster
Speaker 1: is just when you're coming on the air, just going
Speaker 1: through the blocking and tackling of getting the show started,
Speaker 1: particularly when they come to me on camera. It's it's
Speaker 1: not like the first t Jitters, but you know, maybe
Speaker 1: a modified version of that. But everybody's so worked up,
Speaker 1: you've been preparing all week and you just kind of
Speaker 1: want to get on the air cleanly. And it made
Speaker 1: me better in that moment because it distracts me and
Speaker 1: it makes me think of my hero, my dad, And
Speaker 1: that's what it's all about. It's not any cheesy saying
Speaker 1: to try to create some sort of reaction. It was
Speaker 1: just born out of a son trying to pass along
Speaker 1: a message that is that's awesome, Jim. That is like, man,
Speaker 1: I had not heard that story, and I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: most people out there that are listening to us probably
Speaker 1: if not. That is incredibly inspirational, just another reason to
Speaker 1: watch you. And I think the best broadcasters are those
Speaker 1: that connect with the audience. And I mean you had
Speaker 1: that connection. That's why you're still doing what you're doing,
Speaker 1: you know, forty years into it with CBS, is because
Speaker 1: of how likable you are. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of times when you say that, I think you know,
Speaker 1: the audience looks at you as their friend. So when
Speaker 1: you say hello, friends, it's it's mutual and it's just
Speaker 1: one more reason to be in love with Jim. Nance Well,
Speaker 1: thank you know. I walked through airports and it's all
Speaker 1: of it is truly a little surreal. And again, I
Speaker 1: know I'm saying things that you can relate to. But
Speaker 1: when we wanted to get into this business, we got
Speaker 1: into this business because we wanted to tell stories. We
Speaker 1: wanted to be at these big events and be the
Speaker 1: narrator of these things that we're going to unfold. It
Speaker 1: wasn't about being on television or radio or people knowing
Speaker 1: you or having a following, or people asking for a
Speaker 1: picture or your autograph. I've never even thought about any
Speaker 1: of that stuff that would be a part of it.
Speaker 1: So it's still after thirty some odd years, it's still
Speaker 1: a little strange to get used to that people actually
Speaker 1: not everyone obviously, but people actually know you and they
Speaker 1: feel like they know you. And I can be walking
Speaker 1: through an airport and I can just get that shout
Speaker 1: out stadiums all with my hello friend, Hey friends, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of go around with it and it's a connection point.
Speaker 1: But I hear it all the time, and it still
Speaker 1: catches me a little off guard, you know, dealing with
Speaker 1: some of the recognition, I guess is the word It
Speaker 1: comes with it the people. You go perform it, and
Speaker 1: you go you go do your shows, and you prepare
Speaker 1: all week, and you try to do service to the
Speaker 1: game and make sure the game is the thing and
Speaker 1: you're not the thing. And then you step out of
Speaker 1: it and you realize people like listen to you and
Speaker 1: they do feel like they have a relationship with you.
Speaker 1: I'm honored that people feel that way, but I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how long you do it, it's still
Speaker 1: a little bit like I'm still the kid that never
Speaker 1: even thought about that being even any part of my life.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know that anybody would know who I was.
Speaker 1: I just want to be a storyteller. So the hello
Speaker 1: friends thing has become a way that people approach me.
Speaker 1: So I hear it all the time, and it's lovely,
Speaker 1: it's nice, it's again. It all traces back to Done
Speaker 1: trying to trying to stay connected with his dad because
Speaker 1: his dad's mind was deteriorating. You talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: not being bigger than the show, and you never are.
Speaker 1: And I think you're as good as anybody at that.
Speaker 1: And that coincides with getting the best out of your
Speaker 1: broadcast partner, which is big part of our job is
Speaker 1: to get the best out of the analyst. And and
Speaker 1: I you know, I know you get credit, but I
Speaker 1: don't think you get enough credit for the job you
Speaker 1: do with Tony Romo and allowing Tony to be Tony
Speaker 1: and getting the best out of him. If you did
Speaker 1: things differently, and maybe you know, tried to be the show,
Speaker 1: Tony wouldn't get to do what he does. And did
Speaker 1: you know that you did a mock broadcast of the
Speaker 1: Cardinals Cowboys Pro Football Hall of Fame a handful of
Speaker 1: years ago. Did you know right away that Tony would
Speaker 1: you get the buzz that he gets. What was the
Speaker 1: process like of bringing him along into the booth? Well?
Speaker 1: That was That was an amazing evening. We were stuck
Speaker 1: in the corner of an end zone that was like
Speaker 1: forty yards back of the corner of the end zone,
Speaker 1: a little temporary well al Michaels. They showed it on
Speaker 1: the broadcast. They called it a deer stand. But that
Speaker 1: was one of eight games that we actually practiced. Three
Speaker 1: of them were on site, the one in Akron, one
Speaker 1: in Charlotte, one in Oakland. Five were in a studio
Speaker 1: And this happened from mid May until mid August. We
Speaker 1: would do these rehearsal practice games. I gotta tell you, Dave,
Speaker 1: I knew the first time we did a practice game,
Speaker 1: it was on May seventeen, twenty seventeen, that he was
Speaker 1: good enough to go on the air right there and
Speaker 1: be one of the best for that show. For that
Speaker 1: rehearsal game. His instincts were so good and his enthusiasm
Speaker 1: and excitement were just off the charts. You're right, I mean,
Speaker 1: we are trying I believe it's one of our primary responsibilities,
Speaker 1: if it's not number one, to be the ultimate set
Speaker 1: up guy in point guard for your analysts. Look, nobody
Speaker 1: does it better than you. With Bill Walton, it's to me,
Speaker 1: it's I don't have a choice, Jim. I don't have
Speaker 1: a choice, Jim. He just talks anyway. So I kind
Speaker 1: of left left and that's PA's awesome pairing. Um, but
Speaker 1: I I just I just I just think the world
Speaker 1: of Tony and I don't really put any boundaries. This
Speaker 1: is what you need to do, this is what I
Speaker 1: need to do. It's not a dance step. It's two
Speaker 1: guys watching a game, and Tony has this ability to
Speaker 1: break it down faster than anyone I've ever seen. So
Speaker 1: this is year six. We've gotten here rather quickly, but
Speaker 1: it has been it's been just a fantastic ride. And
Speaker 1: like I said, I'm hoping for somewhere around another dozen years.
Speaker 1: That would make me happy. That would be about right.
Speaker 1: A few more and we'll let you go, Jim. Um,
Speaker 1: and I really appreciate the time. Um. Tom Brady, whenever
Speaker 1: he decides retires going to go in the booth. I'm
Speaker 1: curious because obviously you spent a lot of time with
Speaker 1: Tom over the years. How you think he'll be as
Speaker 1: a broadcaster. Are there any other active NFL players? Because
Speaker 1: part of our job is we meet with coaches and
Speaker 1: players each week leading into the game that we're calling,
Speaker 1: regardless of the sport. Is there anybody you think that's
Speaker 1: an active player, maybe even somebody that is off the radar,
Speaker 1: that's a younger guy that you think could do this
Speaker 1: if he wanted to. Well, the first guy that comes
Speaker 1: to mind for me is not a player, but a coach,
Speaker 1: and that would be Mike Comlin. I think Mike has
Speaker 1: the gift of expression like no one I've ever heard
Speaker 1: in football before. And by that I mean he says
Speaker 1: things a turn of a phrase that has I've never
Speaker 1: heard it before. It's the exact opposite of cliche. Everything
Speaker 1: he says is new and fresh. His phraseology is it's incredible.
Speaker 1: I don't know how, and he does it off a cuff.
Speaker 1: If you watch one of his press conferences and hear
Speaker 1: and break down the game or what's going on with
Speaker 1: the team, his material is. His mind works really quickly.
Speaker 1: He's a brilliant guy, and I think if he ever
Speaker 1: wanted to do it. I think he could be I
Speaker 1: just think. I just think he could be exceptional. Now
Speaker 1: we know this abount Tom. When Tom decides to do it,
Speaker 1: he's got the contract and you know it's all set
Speaker 1: up to go to Fox. But he will work as
Speaker 1: hard as anybody ever on trying to be prepared for
Speaker 1: these games. It's just the way he rolls, and he
Speaker 1: will go through. I would think one of those summers,
Speaker 1: like what we did with Tony, he'll do a lot
Speaker 1: of practice games. There'll be a lot of things that
Speaker 1: he doesn't realize that are a part of it. By that,
Speaker 1: I mean meetings with the players, the amount of data
Speaker 1: that comes to you now, I mean, there's so many
Speaker 1: sources of information out it's almost information overload. But Tom
Speaker 1: will one all of that. So I think he'll be
Speaker 1: very good at it whenever that time comes. Have you
Speaker 1: heard Frank Caliendo's impressions of you and Tony? By the way,
Speaker 1: because Frank lives here and Phoenix, he actually lives. I'm
Speaker 1: doing this right now from the Cardinal's facility, and without
Speaker 1: giving Frank's address away, he's close by. He came in
Speaker 1: studio last year and we had him call highlights of
Speaker 1: Cardinal Games. It was actually against the Rams and went
Speaker 1: against the Rams, and I would stop him in mid
Speaker 1: sentence and you know, throwout another name and he would
Speaker 1: have to adjust quickly on the fly and change the impression.
Speaker 1: Can we do Nance and Roma on one of these?
Speaker 1: Jim's gonna coach Jim. What's going on here? This is
Speaker 1: a great read. But Kyler paris coming in here. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be tone is here we go jump Tony? He
Speaker 1: did you know, Tony? And you have you? Have you
Speaker 1: heard those from Frank? I've not only heard it, I
Speaker 1: hear about them all the time. And it was really
Speaker 1: at such a high level and frequency. It might have
Speaker 1: been two years ago that I actually sought him out
Speaker 1: and called him and thanked him. I said, I'm just
Speaker 1: getting so much feedback out of more than anything, I
Speaker 1: just want to let him know. I thought it was hilarious.
Speaker 1: But he's got Tony down. It's a dead ringer. And
Speaker 1: he said that my voice was a little harder to replicate,
Speaker 1: but he does this shrieking high pitch here. I'll give
Speaker 1: it to you, Tony. And you got me laughing just
Speaker 1: thinking about it. What a talent. I just I wanted
Speaker 1: to see Franklin person. We almost cross paths here recently
Speaker 1: for one of his shows and in Nashville, but that
Speaker 1: that's still become great regard for him. I'm gonna let
Speaker 1: him know. I'm gonna text him when we're done and
Speaker 1: let him know that you just because I don't know
Speaker 1: that he's heard your impression of yourself. Hey, I'm his
Speaker 1: number one fan. You please let him know. Um, all right,
Speaker 1: two more. Sorry didn't to keep you this long. I
Speaker 1: know you get other things to do. Yeah, we're good.
Speaker 1: Thoughts on the Cardinals. I know that you were working
Speaker 1: opposite the Cardinals game on Sunday and the loss to Seattle.
Speaker 1: You had the Cardinals Week one against Kansas City. What
Speaker 1: are your thoughts on what's going on here with Arizona. Well,
Speaker 1: we saw a lot of what the season has been
Speaker 1: so far that very first week. It it just didn't
Speaker 1: seem as though the Cardinals were hitting on all cylinders.
Speaker 1: It just seems like something's amiss. I can't put my
Speaker 1: finger on it. But it's foreign to all the Cardinals
Speaker 1: faithful because they're used to this team jumping out of
Speaker 1: the gates and then struggling on the back half of
Speaker 1: the year. You know, maybe there's still time. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's still time. But maybe they're gonna maybe
Speaker 1: they're gonna streak into positively streak into the postseason. It'll
Speaker 1: take a lot of work now, I mean that loss
Speaker 1: to Seattle was a crusher for them. They go three
Speaker 1: games behind them plus the dead essentially four games back.
Speaker 1: There's the there's I don't I just don't know. Everybody
Speaker 1: battles injuries. I get that, and then again, they didn't
Speaker 1: get d Hop back until a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and Connor has been banged up. But it's just right now.
Speaker 1: It's a strange year in the NFL. It's all upside down.
Speaker 1: We're dealing with it. Every week. We can't get a
Speaker 1: matchup for our a game where we have two teams
Speaker 1: with a winning record. In fact, this week we have
Speaker 1: Jacksonville at Kansas City as our number one game. Never
Speaker 1: would have guessed that Jacksonville at three and six at
Speaker 1: Arrowhead and that this will make now eight out of
Speaker 1: nine weeks for us we've had a matchup with at
Speaker 1: least one of the two teams with a losing record,
Speaker 1: not even a five hundred record. One of the two
Speaker 1: with the least a losing record yesterday, Rams Bucks last
Speaker 1: two Super Bowl champs both with losing records. So you know,
Speaker 1: you start thinking about where the Cardinals are. The only
Speaker 1: solace you can find is you can look at where
Speaker 1: Green Bay is, what Tampa season been like. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just right through the league. It's the Rams in
Speaker 1: This's just everywhere you turn is like all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it's like the league shut down for three years and
Speaker 1: nobody has any more positive momentum off of what they
Speaker 1: did the year before. And the older quarterbacks. That's not
Speaker 1: your issue there in Arizona, but the older quarterbacks, it's
Speaker 1: a struggle. It's just there's there's just not a happy
Speaker 1: story there to be found. This last question, maybe this
Speaker 1: is a proper transition going from talking about the Cardinals
Speaker 1: to wine, just given how it's been a struggle and
Speaker 1: very stressful for a lot of people around here. The
Speaker 1: calls transition your wine label, your winery, the calling I've
Speaker 1: had the cab it was a few years ago. It
Speaker 1: was very very good. Tell me the genesis of this
Speaker 1: and how involved you are. Very involved. I own fifty
Speaker 1: percent of the venture with my friend and business partner
Speaker 1: Peter Deutsch. This is something that I kind of had
Speaker 1: worked on, not talking about full time worked on it,
Speaker 1: but for a good ten years I was trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to get into that space and talk
Speaker 1: to many people in the industry and visited wineries and
Speaker 1: vineyards and ventnors and try to get a handle on
Speaker 1: how that could possibly come about and have a label.
Speaker 1: One day and lo and behold, I ran across Peter
Speaker 1: just serendipity at a restaurant in Connecticut, told him as
Speaker 1: my dream to somehow be involved in this, and I
Speaker 1: would be very involved, and we decided to partner up together.
Speaker 1: So we're in year eleven now, Dave. We're in five
Speaker 1: thousand restaurants nationally. We have great, great following in Arizona
Speaker 1: by the Way of Wine and all their stores and
Speaker 1: many restaurants. We're in all fifty states. And wine's a
Speaker 1: finicky thing, you know. It's not going to be about
Speaker 1: your success, about who owns it. It's going to be
Speaker 1: about what's inside the bottle. It has to be good.
Speaker 1: And we are basically the gms, the owners or the coaches,
Speaker 1: however you want to look at it. I would say
Speaker 1: our winemakers are our coaches. We're the gms, and that
Speaker 1: means we got to go out and get the best
Speaker 1: sourcing because we don't own the dirt, we don't own
Speaker 1: a vineyard, but we do source and buy grapes or
Speaker 1: we take if you will, leases out on blocks of
Speaker 1: vines at some of the great wineries in our country,
Speaker 1: and that's really helped put us where we are today.
Speaker 1: That is, by the way, a very high percentage of
Speaker 1: the wine business today is sourcing, what we call it
Speaker 1: sourcing where you don't own the property, but you source
Speaker 1: your fruit. And we've had partners there that has been
Speaker 1: legendary vineyards like Dutton Ranch. And what happened now is
Speaker 1: we've had sixty somewhere approaching sixty five ninety plus point
Speaker 1: rated wines in ten years. That's and they're all spread
Speaker 1: across that Cab you mentioned, you know, the Wire and Chardonay.
Speaker 1: So it's not like people can say, oh, that's a
Speaker 1: Chardonnay brand, that's a Cab brand, you know brand. We
Speaker 1: like the consistency and we feel like we've kind of
Speaker 1: at this point not getting ahead of ourselves, but we
Speaker 1: like the way we've built it. We want it to
Speaker 1: be multi generational Someday, his kids, Peter's kids, my kids
Speaker 1: will own it, and I believe it's going to be
Speaker 1: around for a long, long time. The next time you
Speaker 1: and I have a conversation, let's make sure that there
Speaker 1: is a bottle of the Calling open as we assip
Speaker 1: and chat about life and broadcasting and just kind of
Speaker 1: like we did back because some fifteen years ago when
Speaker 1: you were kind enough to send over or drinking. Then
Speaker 1: come spend some time with my wife and I in
Speaker 1: New York. It's long overdue to do it again. And
Speaker 1: I will be in your neighborhood the weekend of the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl. Not for the Big Game, we don't have
Speaker 1: it until next year in Vegas, but we'll be there
Speaker 1: for the waste management Phoenix open. It's going to be
Speaker 1: some time in Arizona. If you're not too busy, we'll
Speaker 1: have a chance to maybe get together and sip on
Speaker 1: that wine and chat. I'd love that, would love it. Jim,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for your time, my friend. Terrific. Thanks Pal.
Speaker 1: Really appreciate a Maria. Thank you. What a great sport.
Speaker 1: Jim is hearing Jim do the impression of Frank Caliendo's
Speaker 1: impression of Jim and Tony in the booth, And how
Speaker 1: about the touching story of the genesis of Hello Friends.
Speaker 1: If you didn't love Jim Nance before, just man, that
Speaker 1: pulls at the heartstrings that he's talking to his father
Speaker 1: when he does that, and Jim is so likable on
Speaker 1: the air, and that story. I loved them already, but man,
Speaker 1: that story is incredible and it's just a big reason
Speaker 1: why Jim connects with the audience the way he does.
Speaker 1: We are presented by bet MGM, the official sports betting
Speaker 1: partner of the Arizona Cardinals, and by Hila River Resorts
Speaker 1: and Casinos. You can follow us on Twitter at Pash
Speaker 1: pod and please tell us what you think about the podcast,
Speaker 1: if there are any guests that you'd like to hear from,
Speaker 1: and what's your thoughts on from the first forty nine episodes.
Speaker 1: You can go to your podcast platform and rate us
Speaker 1: and review us. Thanks again to you for listening to
Speaker 1: the Dave Pash Podcast, and thanks of course to our guest,
Speaker 1: the great Jim Nance. We'll talk to you next time
Speaker 1: right here in the Dave Pash Podcast.