Speaker 1: It is so great to have friends that you've known
Speaker 1: forever that you can hang out with these days, zoom
Speaker 1: with and just tell stories and laugh, old familiar stories,
Speaker 1: stories that have been forgotten for a long time and
Speaker 1: then remembered. Man, that is just needed now more than ever,
Speaker 1: and I will never take for granted those kind of times.
Speaker 1: Had a great day yesterday with Kirk Herb Street and
Speaker 1: Chris Felika. Now, Kirk, you know, if you know anything
Speaker 1: about college football, he's been the top analysts in the
Speaker 1: sport for a long time. And Kirk and I have
Speaker 1: had a twenty five year partnership and friendship. First of
Speaker 1: my years on College Game Day which ended in two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, also in Thursday Night Football, and for the
Speaker 1: last seven years ABC Saturday Night Football, calling all the
Speaker 1: big games on ABC, including the Rose Bowl and the Championship.
Speaker 1: For all those twenty five years, Chris Felika, a k a.
Speaker 1: The Bear has been alongside, first as a researcher and
Speaker 1: in recent years as a TV star, offering his opinions
Speaker 1: and his picks on games from his desk just off
Speaker 1: the corner of the game day set. Now the Bear
Speaker 1: was given his nickname by our beloved coach Lee Corso
Speaker 1: at a game day meeting a long time ago, in
Speaker 1: front of about twenty people, Lee looks over at Chris.
Speaker 1: It just says to him, look at you, Look at
Speaker 1: you over there. You're like a like a big bear.
Speaker 1: All you do is eat, sleep, and ship. The whole
Speaker 1: room just fell over Chris included. It was said with
Speaker 1: great affection, and from that day on he was known
Speaker 1: as the Bear. The Bears also work with me as
Speaker 1: a researcher, by the way to everything from the World
Speaker 1: Cup in South Africa to the Final Four, a bunch
Speaker 1: of Triple Crown races, and the Summer and Winter X Games.
Speaker 1: But those are stories for another day. Today we're telling
Speaker 1: tales mark quarter century in college football, and I hope
Speaker 1: you have half as much fun listening to these as
Speaker 1: we did telling him, all right, Kirk, that's gonna be fine.
Speaker 1: But if I threw you a number four hundred and
Speaker 1: then told you that four hundred was a number of
Speaker 1: false Saturdays that we've worked together on one platform another
Speaker 1: at ESP and like, what's what's your reaction of four
Speaker 1: hundred false saturdays? Are you sure that's accurate? Did you
Speaker 1: you know right away you're checking my math, that's impressive.
Speaker 1: Four hundred twenty five years sometimes about fifteen or sixteen saturdays.
Speaker 1: That's not counting every single thing we've done. But that's
Speaker 1: just the Yeah, exactly I was gonna say, because I
Speaker 1: think it's even more than that. I don't. I just
Speaker 1: I'm one of those guys. It's like time just flies,
Speaker 1: you know, Like I don't. I still feel like I'm
Speaker 1: seven years in, you know, like I don't feel like
Speaker 1: I'm twenty five years of doing this. But I think
Speaker 1: it's it's a reflection and we love what we do.
Speaker 1: You know, we love coming a sport, and I know
Speaker 1: you are able to to cover a lot of other
Speaker 1: sports over to your career and still do. But for
Speaker 1: me and and for Bear, people like that, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is what we do. This is it, you know
Speaker 1: year round? Really? But no, man, that that's that's weird.
Speaker 1: You know when you're in the middle more year round
Speaker 1: than I am. I'll be honest with you, like I
Speaker 1: like to check out. I I know you and Bear
Speaker 1: and we'll get to that. Are you guys are like
Speaker 1: three sixty cf B. I I go away and come back.
Speaker 1: That's only way I can do it. Man, that's great.
Speaker 1: That's great. Everybody finds their little rhythm there, a little patterned,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's cool. You got tennis and other
Speaker 1: things that that allow you to kind of recharge and
Speaker 1: then you come charging back in July August like ready
Speaker 1: to go, you know. But no, that's amazing to think
Speaker 1: four Saturdays you hit that point that you've been on
Speaker 1: the show well and in the sport plenty long enough
Speaker 1: that none of the players we talked about on Saturdays
Speaker 1: were born when you jumped. And that when you hit
Speaker 1: that point when you realize, oh, ship, like, I've been
Speaker 1: doing this job longer than like Justin Fields and Trevor
Speaker 1: Lawrence had been alive, and you realize what has changed
Speaker 1: in the sport, what has changed in the world, what
Speaker 1: has changed in our lives, you know since n That's
Speaker 1: when it gets pretty freaky. Well. Yeah, Like for me,
Speaker 1: as you're sitting there saying that, I'm thinking back to
Speaker 1: the early years, you know, when I was I was
Speaker 1: twenty six, you know, and I remember doing the Home
Speaker 1: Depot Awards show. It was just a different kind of experience,
Speaker 1: you know, back in those days, like we would we
Speaker 1: would meet in Orlando and you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: these guys you'd covered. All of a sudden, they got
Speaker 1: a hall pass for forty eight hours in downtown Disney
Speaker 1: and names. Yeah, I mean I was only a few
Speaker 1: years older than them, and and I remember you and
Speaker 1: I we used to go out and hang out with
Speaker 1: these guys, like when Sark was a player BYU and
Speaker 1: even Pat Fitzgerald I think they were in the same
Speaker 1: year Peyton was a player, you know, I mean that
Speaker 1: was that was like great times, you know, and and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I think you reach a point where you know,
Speaker 1: you reached it before me because I used to like
Speaker 1: tug on your shirt, like come on, man, let's go,
Speaker 1: let's go out, let's go do something. And you were like,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of much more mature at that
Speaker 1: point than I was, and you were already locked in.
Speaker 1: But yeah, those days are long. I think when they
Speaker 1: invented cameras on phones that became like that, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that. That that's when doing the job changed a lot,
Speaker 1: when because he used to be like what in the world,
Speaker 1: like the someone bring out a small camera. Then they
Speaker 1: would have those little box cameras that the little Kodak
Speaker 1: paper camera, and you're thinking like who brings a camera
Speaker 1: to a bar like that's weird? Did start taking pictures
Speaker 1: in a bar? And then of course, boom the explosion
Speaker 1: of smartphones, and all of a sudden, you couldn't you
Speaker 1: couldn't do nearly the stuff you used to be able
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, that that changed the game, I think
Speaker 1: for all of us, for everybody you know at that point,
Speaker 1: Let's bring in the bear. Chris Felika here joined Game
Speaker 1: Day the same season you did. Back in you had
Speaker 1: a question we were talking about. You had a question
Speaker 1: for Kirk. You're gonna right away, he's gonna test your memory. Hers.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. What was our first road show, the
Speaker 1: three of us together? It was Kirk, Kirk and I's
Speaker 1: first road show. What was was was the same one.
Speaker 1: Do you remember what it was? I do? I think
Speaker 1: because your cohorn youre asking Chris, you're asking me. I
Speaker 1: know that I'm asking you. I'm asking you because our
Speaker 1: partner here, I didn't remember it before he thought I
Speaker 1: remember because I could not believe that the first time
Speaker 1: I really seen somewhere besides the big tent. So it
Speaker 1: stands out to me. And we went to Boulder, Colorado.
Speaker 1: It was it was a Michigan Colorado game after uh
Speaker 1: two years after the Cordell pass. Yeah, Chris, Chris actually
Speaker 1: thought it might have been that. Uh that was the
Speaker 1: that was the road show there with the they had
Speaker 1: like the Ralphie the Buffalo statue. It wasn't what wasn't
Speaker 1: a huge crowd there and Boulder remember that. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: there was like there was like u thirty seven people,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'll never forget it. Lee Corso, you know,
Speaker 1: we did an hour show and Lee Corso at the
Speaker 1: end of the show, he you know, one of the
Speaker 1: stage managers, you know, is that he goes, heyy see
Speaker 1: that guy over there with that that hat right there.
Speaker 1: It was just like it was like a ball cap
Speaker 1: with it and it might have had like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: horns coming out of it or something. He was go,
Speaker 1: go go grab the co see if I can get
Speaker 1: that hat. This is the segment right before the id
Speaker 1: no idea what he was doing. Go over there and
Speaker 1: see if I can either. And then the guy went over, hey,
Speaker 1: can uh, Coach Corso borrow your hat real quick? And
Speaker 1: we might have been into like twenty eight people, you
Speaker 1: know by that point. It was an hour later he
Speaker 1: brings the hat up. And then I can't even remember
Speaker 1: if we picked all the games, and we might only
Speaker 1: picked that game, I'm not sure. And then he put
Speaker 1: it on this this ball cap and when he picked Colorado. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do remember that that. That was one of those
Speaker 1: shows there we had a lightning alert. We're supposed to
Speaker 1: a post game show, and lightning all of those Rocky
Speaker 1: Mountain late afternoon thunderstorms like chased us off the set.
Speaker 1: We had to go inside. We sat on a little
Speaker 1: on a card table in the lobby of the basketball
Speaker 1: arena to do a postgame show that day. I do
Speaker 1: remember that. But then that then there was I thought, Christen,
Speaker 1: I thought that the Ohio State show yet your homecoming
Speaker 1: game day show, your first year. I thought that was
Speaker 1: the first time you've been on the road. Because that
Speaker 1: that was a very memorable show. And then and the
Speaker 1: Friday before the show was memorable too. It was as
Speaker 1: a Saturday morning was before the show was well, I
Speaker 1: gotta remember. Now, you gotta cut me some slack. I
Speaker 1: did Arena football. I don't whatever their season started, let's
Speaker 1: say March every weekend and I was twenty six. All
Speaker 1: my boys we lived at all on Tangi Commons were
Speaker 1: like three of us all living together. Weekends were gold.
Speaker 1: I missed every weekend March, April, May, June, July, August
Speaker 1: covering Kurt Warner and the Iowa Barnstormers, and then I'd
Speaker 1: get Then in the middle of that, I I did
Speaker 1: an audition in the middle of that for Game Day
Speaker 1: Who We're Moe Davenport told me You're not gonna get it,
Speaker 1: but just come on out to be good for your
Speaker 1: experience at your career. So I did that in the
Speaker 1: middle of my season and then got the job. And
Speaker 1: then as soon as you know, um, the Arena Bowl
Speaker 1: I think it's called the ArenaBowl ended the very next week.
Speaker 1: We were in Boulder, Colorado. So I've been on the
Speaker 1: road for like four months straight, so then it might
Speaker 1: have been Bear What was it week two weeks? Was
Speaker 1: it second or third show that we traveled? Where'd we
Speaker 1: go before? After? After Boulder, we we were our first
Speaker 1: experienced SEC football Peyton versus Florida, the rain YEP, fourth
Speaker 1: and fourth down, Spurio Ridel Anthony Post and went from
Speaker 1: get to your Friday Night and Columbus get to that part. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So we had a state the week before in in
Speaker 1: South Bend as well. Okay beat South Bend loose team,
Speaker 1: Yeah Bend. Luke Fickle was a big part of that
Speaker 1: in Brabel. Then then then we went to Columbus and
Speaker 1: then we all went out and it was a mess.
Speaker 1: The only memory I have is waking up Saturday morning,
Speaker 1: fourth week of my career, and being terrified that I
Speaker 1: had been out way too late and you made me
Speaker 1: have way too many drinks night. I couldn't really, I
Speaker 1: was just like, I don't even want to go. I'm good.
Speaker 1: I was not gonna go. Alice rescued you man. One
Speaker 1: of the great careers in sports broadcasting almost got like
Speaker 1: cut short in a week four of year one. Listen
Speaker 1: to this, I somehow bang I make it into the
Speaker 1: r O t C Building next to next to St.
Speaker 1: John's arena. You guys have no idea. What's going on?
Speaker 1: My sunglasses on some idea. I had some idea, But
Speaker 1: you're going, you know, you and Becker are arguing about
Speaker 1: something and I'm my stomach is like not feeling good,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to like keep it together, trying not
Speaker 1: to get fired just because of the way I am
Speaker 1: in the meeting so I'm just holding on for dear life,
Speaker 1: going through this little production meeting before our show starts
Speaker 1: on Saturday. And in the middle of it, ran down
Speaker 1: the hallway and just got sick really bad for a
Speaker 1: long time, and I was pale white, like I was
Speaker 1: banged up. I had Bama Dave bring me. He brought
Speaker 1: me a Bama. Dave is one of the guys on
Speaker 1: our crew a game day. He was worried about me.
Speaker 1: He brought this trash can for me, and he put
Speaker 1: it just to the left of my seat during the show,
Speaker 1: So if I had to vomit during the show, at
Speaker 1: least I had a trash can to turn my head
Speaker 1: over to and and throw up during the show. Thank
Speaker 1: god the show was an hour back then. Thank total pro,
Speaker 1: total pro that. Damma Dad helped us at a couple
Speaker 1: other times as well, but we will get into that.
Speaker 1: Remember remember the first time we swung the camera around
Speaker 1: and like, the bear is now an icon, but but
Speaker 1: he was a valuable part of the team, but not
Speaker 1: in front of the camera. Was it your idea? What
Speaker 1: we all of a sudden we're sitting over there and
Speaker 1: we're like, there's a lull or something. It was his calves.
Speaker 1: I wanted to shoot the calves like wait that that
Speaker 1: that was the whole impetus for you. Let's let's show
Speaker 1: his calves not not his calves are like that big.
Speaker 1: And he had shorts on and I you know, that's
Speaker 1: when we used to just a lot of times with
Speaker 1: fitting in the chair, we get off the rails and
Speaker 1: he loved it. He encouraged it. So I hit talk
Speaker 1: back and I was like, you gotta you gotta get
Speaker 1: the camera on bears calves. I'm gonna say something. He goes, oh,
Speaker 1: that's great, that's great, bring the camera over to his calves,
Speaker 1: and I just started talking about bears calves and I'm
Speaker 1: just like, look at this. No, I forgot about the
Speaker 1: calves part. Bear I knew, I knew he. I thought
Speaker 1: we were gonna talk to some football. But then think
Speaker 1: about from one calf cutaway comes the empire. That is
Speaker 1: the exactly. It's the former off supp lineman at me.
Speaker 1: It's funny you say that because I can remember do
Speaker 1: you remember World Cup in South Africa? We were in that.
Speaker 1: I do remember the World Cup in South Africa. One
Speaker 1: of the first nights in in the bar. I came
Speaker 1: down in the lobby and shorts and you were there.
Speaker 1: I think rud was there and Maco was there, and
Speaker 1: I'm like walking and like macam made some comment about
Speaker 1: my cats too, and it's like, oh yeah, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is unbelievable. Like everybody just all these pro soccer players.
Speaker 1: Kirk admiring his caves soccer moment. They are shredded up
Speaker 1: like big, thick, strong ass Caves. I mean like he
Speaker 1: looks like a road grader, like he's gonna move some
Speaker 1: people out of the way in the day. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was telling him the Remember we used to swing the
Speaker 1: camera around like he wouldn't know it was coming. Nobody
Speaker 1: really knew it was coming. We was get the idea
Speaker 1: right now, we're gonna throw And remember he used to
Speaker 1: get so piste off when he wasn't ready, like if
Speaker 1: they didn't have the headset ready, he didn't know what
Speaker 1: was going on. But that's great TV, Like that's what
Speaker 1: we want. I mean, we bear off the top of
Speaker 1: his head, his gold like if you ask him right
Speaker 1: like like I I was like, I don't forget what
Speaker 1: we did this year. I think I had a name stadiums,
Speaker 1: like like you know the guy, no medium you do too,
Speaker 1: but like I think we were like, uh, you know
Speaker 1: the game right in eastern Michigan, Yeah, stadium, And I
Speaker 1: was like, are you kidding me? Like, uh, you know
Speaker 1: Colorado State? You know he names that stadium. That's where
Speaker 1: bears so much fun. You know, when he has no
Speaker 1: idea what you're coming at him with, what did you
Speaker 1: What did you guys make of when you come on board? Kirk,
Speaker 1: I mean of Courso is kind of becoming courseo. But
Speaker 1: it hadn't fully he he had a thing with Craig James,
Speaker 1: who was on the show before you or he He He
Speaker 1: was kind of making a name for himself before they
Speaker 1: had like hot take artists before that was like a
Speaker 1: gig on TV. Elci used to kind of do that.
Speaker 1: He used to throw some crazy stuff out there. I
Speaker 1: did a studio show with him one time. Wisconsin had
Speaker 1: lost a game. Barry ovres had made a decision in
Speaker 1: the game. Of course it was very right about I
Speaker 1: was with you, and he said, he's got he's got
Speaker 1: a quick he's got to go into his team and
Speaker 1: apologize and resigned. Yep. I'm like, you're not serious, and
Speaker 1: he goes, nothing I say is serious. But he used to.
Speaker 1: He used to really go after coaches, and I think
Speaker 1: they and he he loved the profession. I think it
Speaker 1: kind of got back to him like, hey, listen, you're
Speaker 1: one of us. You can't do that. And then he
Speaker 1: kind of backed away from that. But there's a dot
Speaker 1: dot dot to that story. I was sitting next to you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was on the set. It was the first people
Speaker 1: forget when game day didn't travel, like we would do
Speaker 1: all the rap stuff, you know, and we would do games,
Speaker 1: halftime shows and in between shows, you know, leading up
Speaker 1: to a seven o'clock game, and that was coming. It
Speaker 1: was an ESPN game Northwestern and Madison and they ran
Speaker 1: the ball instead of taking a knee. And he was furious,
Speaker 1: just the ethics of football, one on one, coaching one
Speaker 1: on one, you take a knee there, and whether it
Speaker 1: was right or wrong, in his mind, it was right.
Speaker 1: And that's what he said all that about Barry Alvarez,
Speaker 1: and he you're right, Like it wasn't just least funny.
Speaker 1: Lee was like a lightning rod in those days, man,
Speaker 1: And he said that. And I was with him in
Speaker 1: New York City and when you hosted a National Football
Speaker 1: Foundation and dinner at the end of the year and
Speaker 1: every coach in the countries and and this is really
Speaker 1: cool for me the first time I've been to this.
Speaker 1: Every coach in the country's here black tie event waldor Forstoria,
Speaker 1: New York City. I'm in like, Holy Cow, where am i?
Speaker 1: And here comes al Capone, long trench I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh. And he's seen Lee and Lee's moving real
Speaker 1: quick in his talks, you know, and he seen him,
Speaker 1: and he goes right up to him, puts his finger
Speaker 1: in his chest and said, I did not appreciate what
Speaker 1: you had to say, and you know, like, hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: I forget about it's all, you know, Like Lee just
Speaker 1: kind of dodged it, and no, I understand, I understand.
Speaker 1: And then he just kind of moved on. But that
Speaker 1: was very very pre intimidating guy pinky ring to come
Speaker 1: at you that way. Yeah, exactly, That's what it felt like.
Speaker 1: Al like to this day, I call alb I call
Speaker 1: him Capone because of that that day, you know, watching
Speaker 1: him come in, long trench coat, dark hair, still you know,
Speaker 1: he's balding. But he looked over at Lee like, don't
Speaker 1: you dare do that again? And Lee just kind of
Speaker 1: but Lee did not hold back. That's Lee. That's why
Speaker 1: Lee built his brand. In my mind, what you just
Speaker 1: said that that say he'll say anything and not worry
Speaker 1: about the consequences, way before people did that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: want to get back to some funny stuff. But I
Speaker 1: do think it's a really powerful moment. And we we
Speaker 1: we all have such you know, deep love and affection
Speaker 1: for him and respect for him. Learned so much from
Speaker 1: him when he had the stroke. I thought that was
Speaker 1: one of the most courageous things that anybody's done. A
Speaker 1: guy who spoke so effortlessly he was it was so natural,
Speaker 1: and he was such a great ad lib and to
Speaker 1: be robbed at that And the first show back after
Speaker 1: his stroke and this wasn't that many months, and he
Speaker 1: had gone to speech therapy that he says is the
Speaker 1: hardest thing he's ever had to do to relearn how
Speaker 1: to speak. And we weren't sure if the gears were
Speaker 1: gonna mesh when the light went on. And this season
Speaker 1: review of the show is in Atlanta, and we're outside
Speaker 1: and there's a big crowd around, and I think all
Speaker 1: of us were so anxious and holding our breath and
Speaker 1: how is this going to go? For him? Is he
Speaker 1: going to be uncomfortable? Is he going to be able
Speaker 1: to get the words out? And and that was I
Speaker 1: think a two hour show at that point, and the
Speaker 1: fact that he was able to to get through that
Speaker 1: and it got better and better from from that point on.
Speaker 1: That year, Uh god, I just remember the tension, Kirk,
Speaker 1: you know, just loving this guy so much and just
Speaker 1: hoping things are gonna go okay. Yeah, totally. I can
Speaker 1: remember it like it was yesterday. I mean really to me,
Speaker 1: when he had his stroke and he was determined, Nobody
Speaker 1: was like, are you sure you're okay? And he wasn't
Speaker 1: letting anybody stop him from getting back to that show.
Speaker 1: And his motivation was his love for that job, his
Speaker 1: love for that show, his love for the sport and
Speaker 1: what he had become, you know, within the sport. And
Speaker 1: he was not going to be slowed down. And and
Speaker 1: you're right, whether you have a family member or you
Speaker 1: know somebody that's that's suffered a stroke, and you know
Speaker 1: it's it's sometimes the side of your body can be paralyzed.
Speaker 1: You know, his right side was in his hand was paralyzed,
Speaker 1: right side of his mouth kind of droops a bit,
Speaker 1: and the speech was this cognitive thinking was fine. That's
Speaker 1: I think the frustrating thing for stroke victims is your
Speaker 1: cognitive thinking is fine. You just can't get the words out.
Speaker 1: And the herder you try, and the faster you try,
Speaker 1: the worst it gets. And he had to learn how
Speaker 1: to do that all over again. We did Thursday night games,
Speaker 1: so the l s to Kirk remember like most animals
Speaker 1: that have a chart like you do, and they got
Speaker 1: every the players are written out there with the stats
Speaker 1: that LC would bring in the post it notes. I
Speaker 1: don't even know if that. He might not even had
Speaker 1: a chart with him. I don't you tell me. But
Speaker 1: he would go into the booth and there'd be like
Speaker 1: a hundred little post it notes on the wall of
Speaker 1: the boot. Stuff he wanted to say, like tidbits. I mean,
Speaker 1: no one has done a game like that. No he uh, Mike,
Speaker 1: Mikey Tarico spoiled all of us because we didn't really
Speaker 1: know what a board or it was. And when we
Speaker 1: started to do the Thursday nights, Mike was so far
Speaker 1: ahead of the curve with technology and he would go
Speaker 1: to think about this. He would have his computer, he
Speaker 1: would print, he would go to Kinko's Kinko's and print
Speaker 1: out the sheets the boards for us and Lee and
Speaker 1: I are just we're trying to figure out our rental
Speaker 1: car and what we're doing. And then he would he would,
Speaker 1: he would every week provide us both with our our board,
Speaker 1: and um, we just kind of thought that's what happened,
Speaker 1: you know, because that's all would lose his and throw
Speaker 1: it away. I didn't even use it. I mean the
Speaker 1: post that carried over to when I did. I replaced Mike,
Speaker 1: and I go, what the hell is you get like
Speaker 1: little like words on a post it note on the
Speaker 1: booth all over the wall. The weeks Tarko went there,
Speaker 1: he didn't have his board, you know how, he's a
Speaker 1: system guy, so he probably just come in, would come
Speaker 1: up with a new way with his post it's and
Speaker 1: and everything else. But he he was so much fun
Speaker 1: to do games with. I remember, of course, you remember
Speaker 1: the b y U game when something that happened with
Speaker 1: lavell ed words and you and you said something the
Speaker 1: and he was I think I think Lee used the
Speaker 1: expression shot his wad and was day. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: the game we did. Oh smy little bit might a
Speaker 1: run up the score? Oh yes, I do remember that now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you threw out one of your wise guy lines
Speaker 1: about something and it just made back. He certainly, yeah,
Speaker 1: something like that, and then he almost said bullsh like
Speaker 1: that's b You know how when he gets going, he
Speaker 1: doesn't care. He was going there on you and were
Speaker 1: you too, were sitting there having like an argument over
Speaker 1: the over the game. Do you better remember that at all?
Speaker 1: Obviously I wasn't there, but I remember, yeah, I was
Speaker 1: making light of something was deadly serious and the coaches
Speaker 1: Ethics book that that had been violated there and he
Speaker 1: was he was not having it. Not having probo was
Speaker 1: the side of a couple of actually that it might
Speaker 1: not have in pro but but b y U get correctly.
Speaker 1: I don't know what was the better part of the show,
Speaker 1: Uh Lee Lee with the shot shot as you know
Speaker 1: what Aura or Christ's neighborite mask out their cosmo. Well,
Speaker 1: that's when the that's when the b y U cougar
Speaker 1: that does set to my right and I see over
Speaker 1: the side that the cougar is trying to get it.
Speaker 1: By the way, this was built way off there. This
Speaker 1: is like a ten foot thing we bab over time.
Speaker 1: It came from being a stage on the ground where
Speaker 1: anybody could step over to be and stuff. You had
Speaker 1: to kind of scale scaffolding to get up to the set.
Speaker 1: And I see this cougar's head coming over the railing
Speaker 1: and what the hell get get down? So he goes down.
Speaker 1: I think, okay, emergency is not gonna happen. Then he
Speaker 1: comes back up, jumps over the railing, comes around in
Speaker 1: my left which is between me and Corso, jumps up
Speaker 1: on the on the table right, have my notes, kicks
Speaker 1: over my coffee. My phone's right there now. The rest
Speaker 1: of the show is got covered covered in coffee. He's
Speaker 1: standing there like making a whole scene. Picks up which,
Speaker 1: by the way, I did for the next shot sheet
Speaker 1: rips it in half. Cosmo the cougar okay, okay, I
Speaker 1: fella got fired, like got down off the stage, boom
Speaker 1: fired on the spot. I don't know he was kicked
Speaker 1: out of school, but he was fired from his job. God,
Speaker 1: that's the same show that Lee said, no forget about them.
Speaker 1: They blew their wad last week. Yeah, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: some stuff happened to y u. I mean you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, there were there's so many like funny moments
Speaker 1: where this happens in the booth with us too, Kirk,
Speaker 1: where you just you almost can't look at the other
Speaker 1: guy because if you do, it's over. Like you like
Speaker 1: you gotta just keep your eye away and you any
Speaker 1: sort of like eye contact, and we're on the brink.
Speaker 1: We're on the brink. A lot of completely losing it.
Speaker 1: I think, especially on game day, Oh my god, there
Speaker 1: when you would get me going and I can't control it,
Speaker 1: and it was like having church giggles. You know, you
Speaker 1: just mom's telling you not to laugh and you just
Speaker 1: can't stop laughing. Usually it was something like Lee saying
Speaker 1: Marcus tu yasa sopo or you know some name the
Speaker 1: wrong way. No, he called Tom Rinaldi timmy dead serious,
Speaker 1: and people Aaron Andrews still calls Ronaldi timmy. He called
Speaker 1: Desmond Howard Dennists. I think that's when we that's when
Speaker 1: either we lost it. Dennis on the air, he said, Dennis,
Speaker 1: let me tell you. And the only thing I could
Speaker 1: think of was, um, he coached against Dennis Franklin at Michigan.
Speaker 1: I think right like back in that air was a
Speaker 1: Dennis Franklin, who's the Michigan quarterback that they had early
Speaker 1: seventies right before Rick Leach. I think you're trying to
Speaker 1: crawl inside his head and figure out what he called.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to like, I'm trying to put it all together,
Speaker 1: you know, like, oh no, it was just moments like that,
Speaker 1: are I mean, are just priced? I want I was
Speaker 1: thinking about something, Chris, did you leave me alone? Still Water, Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: We used to always do the Bedlam series in game
Speaker 1: day and it was always frigid. It was always like
Speaker 1: thirty mile winds ten below zero. And we were in
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City for one or Oklahoma State for one Bedlam
Speaker 1: game and it was so cold that all you guys
Speaker 1: left the set, everybody. I had to do a lead
Speaker 1: in to a tear jerking piece about the anniversary of
Speaker 1: JFK's assassination and Army Navy in the wake of that,
Speaker 1: and it was it was just one of those like
Speaker 1: heart rendering pieces, and and you guys all went back
Speaker 1: to the bus. I'm out there doing doing the lead
Speaker 1: in the loan and Lea you might I don't know
Speaker 1: if you left the set or not. You remember being
Speaker 1: out there. You know where I'm going with this? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So so I tell the crowd, like when we have
Speaker 1: a sensitive piece. Sometimes I would inform the crowd, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: just you know, pay attention to the screen, react accordingly,
Speaker 1: react with class. It's a sensitive kind of piece, So
Speaker 1: come out and go. I'm talking about President getting assassin it.
Speaker 1: So they get it. So we're all set. So Lee
Speaker 1: fitting who you talked about earlier, is counting me down.
Speaker 1: In my ear it's quiet, they're respectful. This is gonna
Speaker 1: go well. All of a sudden, the Oklahoma state mascot,
Speaker 1: like everybody's got in the Big twelve. He's got firearms,
Speaker 1: and I'm getting counted out of this piece. On JFK Assassination,
Speaker 1: the crowd is quiet. Over on the demo set, like
Speaker 1: a short distance away, bing bing bing. I hear this gunfire,
Speaker 1: like there's gun he's got. Dude is shooting his gun
Speaker 1: in the air, just happening for him. It was too quiet.
Speaker 1: He didn't know what was going I didn't get the memo.
Speaker 1: He starts shooting like his little mock guns in the
Speaker 1: air were like three two. I'm the look in my
Speaker 1: face like I'm panicked that we're gonna come out of
Speaker 1: this piece and we're gonna hear like gunshots in the air.
Speaker 1: I think I think on one he stopped shooting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys were in the bus. You're like, you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm getting warm, I'm out of here. I'm like, I
Speaker 1: had no idea that happened, No idea, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't see that. That's probably true. We probably did bail
Speaker 1: because I think at the time we're like batting a
Speaker 1: thousand for bad weather and still Water. Whenever the show
Speaker 1: went there that I remember that that that Bedlam game
Speaker 1: in still Water. Once they moved into November, was always
Speaker 1: always talking about the game in Big twelve, the Big
Speaker 1: twelve Championship, That's what I was gonna say that were
Speaker 1: The one that I definitely thought you were gonna go
Speaker 1: with was the the Oklahoma Kansas Stay Big twelve title
Speaker 1: game in two thousand, where I mean it was cold, windy, snow.
Speaker 1: Literally we're getting ready to do the truck and there's
Speaker 1: nobody there, zero zero fans around the secause the weather
Speaker 1: is just brutal. And then like a couple of minutes
Speaker 1: before the show, this one random dude just like straggles
Speaker 1: around and it's like a like a barrel there. He
Speaker 1: puts the barrel on fire to keep warm. So we
Speaker 1: can watch the show before that. Oklahoma can to stay
Speaker 1: big twelve title games. I was pissed, not because I
Speaker 1: just didn't want I wanted us a perfect but I
Speaker 1: don't wanted zero fans. Wanted to see the show in
Speaker 1: front of zero fans, and he came and ruined the record.
Speaker 1: You guys remember those NFL stadium shows. How much we
Speaker 1: used to dread those just because you know, it was
Speaker 1: either really hot or really cold, and we just want
Speaker 1: to be on a campus so bad. I think that
Speaker 1: game you're talking about, we were way in the corner.
Speaker 1: We could almost see Arrowhead. We're way way way. It
Speaker 1: was like by an overpass, like by a parking in
Speaker 1: the corner of a parking lot. Yeah, that's the show
Speaker 1: where it was so cold. I wasn't wearing a tie.
Speaker 1: It was refusing to wear a tie because I was
Speaker 1: wearing six layers under a shirt, and I was gonna
Speaker 1: wear a giant scar because I gonna see a tie.
Speaker 1: I had the scarf up to my chin and a
Speaker 1: top coat, and the producer executive producer at the time,
Speaker 1: charges out of the truck and demands that I moved
Speaker 1: my scarf to see that I had a tie on
Speaker 1: underneath it for the show? Was I was I complying
Speaker 1: with the dress code or was I not wearing a tie?
Speaker 1: This is like we're right before air flick. Remember this
Speaker 1: not not pissing off the host of rattling the host
Speaker 1: is pretty good. That's a good policy. I've I've never
Speaker 1: asked you about this, but Baron I's first year or so, like,
Speaker 1: we didn't know who Steve Becky one who was but
Speaker 1: it was pretty quick and clear. I knew who you were,
Speaker 1: but it was pretty quick that you could see that
Speaker 1: there was some editorial exchanges that would go on, whether
Speaker 1: it was a Friday meeting or maybe something else. But
Speaker 1: that was an interesting dynamic. I think just just to
Speaker 1: come into TV for the first time doing TV and
Speaker 1: having that there was some volatility going on. I'm sorr.
Speaker 1: I apologize, no, no, I mean listen. I it was
Speaker 1: not always kumbaya on the show. That there were times
Speaker 1: when I hate to say it, but people would never
Speaker 1: know it from watching on Saturday morning. But like you
Speaker 1: showed up on a Friday afternoon and you were not
Speaker 1: exactly eager to be at this party right like you?
Speaker 1: It was it was tense. The show would go on
Speaker 1: the air, be fine that those are the days we
Speaker 1: didn't have a screen behind us, and the producer sort
Speaker 1: of fought putting a screen behind us. And remember the
Speaker 1: Michigan stake and you almost got decapitated by a beer
Speaker 1: can comes curling through the air, pin wheeling through the air,
Speaker 1: almost almost takes the back of your head off. Golf ball,
Speaker 1: the golf ball and l s U two golf ball.
Speaker 1: But that's when that's when Corso taught me again brand
Speaker 1: new to the party, a lot of Friday energy. And
Speaker 1: then I just would sit next to him and then
Speaker 1: he would say say nothing. That's what he would tell me,
Speaker 1: meaning what like like don't talk in the meeting, say yeah,
Speaker 1: say nothing, say I go. I would like elbow him
Speaker 1: like maybe whisper something to him and be like just
Speaker 1: sergeant Shultz and he say nothing, say nothing. Say nothing.
Speaker 1: Became like a catchphrase, you guys that have for all
Speaker 1: of the whole team. Yeaheah. Became the thing like say
Speaker 1: say nothing, I say nothing. But he was saying in
Speaker 1: Friday meetings, say nothing, say nothing, say nothing, And I
Speaker 1: like you better that way. Like that, that's that's the
Speaker 1: other one. Things are things are going wrong yeah, miss
Speaker 1: your miss your connection in Atlanta. It's better that way.
Speaker 1: It's not a bit of that way. But at least
Speaker 1: when you guys were on the show, there was no
Speaker 1: fist fights in the production the I think the year
Speaker 1: before you get there, Kirk Craig James leapt across the
Speaker 1: table and we we almost almost we almost had a
Speaker 1: fist fight, he and the producer at the time. So
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff happens in TV and even happened
Speaker 1: in Game Day, and thankfully we worked through that where
Speaker 1: it became well, we went. We went from that energy
Speaker 1: to I think the next chapter was Stu Barbara, which
Speaker 1: was completely calmer, very very different. Uh energy. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't know if you wanted to get into that
Speaker 1: or not, but I was just telling you that that
Speaker 1: that that was our first year and it was our
Speaker 1: first like, wow, this is crazy got into it. So
Speaker 1: we did. I'm I mean, listen to your credit, dude,
Speaker 1: like you you looked at Game Day and still probably
Speaker 1: do to a certain extime. Mean that was like that
Speaker 1: was still the beginning of it was like a child,
Speaker 1: like you were raising a child. I mean you took
Speaker 1: you know, there was producers and directors and whatever else.
Speaker 1: But it was very clear that you were kind of
Speaker 1: either producer or co producer of the show, and if
Speaker 1: something didn't align with what you thought, it was not
Speaker 1: good for you, but good for the show that you
Speaker 1: you would fight for it. So it was all good.
Speaker 1: It was all done with good intentions. But it was spirited,
Speaker 1: you know, for a guy to ben like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a guy that likes peace. I come into here,
Speaker 1: I'm like, WHOA, what's going on in here? You came
Speaker 1: to the wrong place at the wrong time. I learned, well,
Speaker 1: I thank you. You. You were always a very chilled energy,
Speaker 1: which is important because you don't need more volatility later on.
Speaker 1: You you listen, I mean, don't act like you didn't
Speaker 1: have strong opinions later on, obviously you're pretty stronger, cared
Speaker 1: deeply about the show, and you would throw more than
Speaker 1: your two cents in there, and we would have to
Speaker 1: earn my respect to I could be invited into that,
Speaker 1: but I did not walk in. It took me five
Speaker 1: years or longer maybe to feel that I put the
Speaker 1: sweat equity into it, to feel like I could, you know,
Speaker 1: all for some insight. But and now these days you're
Speaker 1: shut up and listen, this is what we're doing rightfully.
Speaker 1: Now he goes in, it's a very different kirk when
Speaker 1: he goes to the me. All you guys, shut up.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you how it's gonna I'm kidding. Yeah, that's hilarious.
Speaker 1: You can tell the story about good there is a
Speaker 1: producer now, I mean bear all these years and when
Speaker 1: you and Fitting left, I mean, I think Bar and
Speaker 1: I really took on a different role together. Um, because
Speaker 1: that's a significant get loss. But that's the thing, though,
Speaker 1: that the sport is the sport of opinions. You need
Speaker 1: a lot of people with a lot of different sensibilities
Speaker 1: and background. It should be like a bunch. There should
Speaker 1: be a bunch of cooks in the kitchen. And I
Speaker 1: think for game day, you know there for the most part,
Speaker 1: there were, and there are and that that's what makes it.
Speaker 1: That's what makes it still great. Chris, tell the story
Speaker 1: you're telling me earlier, which no, Jennifer, my wife does
Speaker 1: not know the story. But it's okay. But but the
Speaker 1: time that I had a near near disaster the day
Speaker 1: before game day, that was one and only trip to Purdue. Right,
Speaker 1: it's cold, and it's raw and windy and for some reason,
Speaker 1: We're all out on this big open field, screwing around,
Speaker 1: throwing a football around, and somehow you lose and notice
Speaker 1: that your wedding ring has suddenly fallen off in this huge,
Speaker 1: wide open field. And it was it was dark, and
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, maybe say it was like I
Speaker 1: don't know if a time change had happened yet, but
Speaker 1: it was late afternoon, so yeah, we we were up
Speaker 1: against the up against some light and we're all on
Speaker 1: our hands and knees looking around. It's huge, Like you
Speaker 1: have no idea when you lost it, but all we
Speaker 1: know is that there's nothing on your left hand anymore.
Speaker 1: And I think right before like the sun went there,
Speaker 1: wasn't it Roman that ultimately saved your marriage. Yes, he's
Speaker 1: saved a big fight anyway. Yeah, No, that was like that.
Speaker 1: Anybody that has a wedding ring, eventually you're gonna it's
Speaker 1: gonna fall off at some point. But that was like
Speaker 1: a moment of sheer terror because it was pretty early
Speaker 1: in the game there, and I did not want to
Speaker 1: return home with the like the wedding ring gone two
Speaker 1: thousand four, so you were three years in? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: four years, but yeah, almost over four years. But that
Speaker 1: that was like he found was what was the search?
Speaker 1: That that was a team effort though it was about
Speaker 1: thirty people on their hands and knees crawling around this
Speaker 1: disgusting like feel with thick grass like trying to find this.
Speaker 1: It was like it was it was Herb Street's favorite
Speaker 1: like light brown, midwest fall color where perfect sun sunset
Speaker 1: at three thirty type of day. Yes, that was was
Speaker 1: was Wisconsin? Were they the one? What was that was?
Speaker 1: That was? That was? That was Kyle Rton fullbole. You
Speaker 1: banged Ulsie on the head with the flush time where
Speaker 1: you gave him a cut. That's funny because that was
Speaker 1: like that is the one and done. People ask where
Speaker 1: have you not been? In Gandhi? Almost every power of
Speaker 1: five school, but but Purdue is one of the one
Speaker 1: and duns and hey, Kirk, tell tell the story because
Speaker 1: it's been There's been so much that's happened, like in
Speaker 1: our lives that coincides. Are doing these shows, will you
Speaker 1: tell the story of like we're in New Orleans and
Speaker 1: the millennium is about to change over, let me tell
Speaker 1: most of it? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, that was that was
Speaker 1: a crazy Were you just married? You were just married?
Speaker 1: We were engaged, not yet married now o at um. Well,
Speaker 1: there was as obviously people forget, especially younger people don't
Speaker 1: really realize. But getting ready for the millennium, it was
Speaker 1: a lot of what's what's gonnappen to the computers? And
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen to this? And what's gonna happen to that?
Speaker 1: It was a lot of Yeah, we were in New
Speaker 1: Orleans and I've been married for a couple of years
Speaker 1: of my wife came down and we you and I
Speaker 1: and Jen, we and Ali. We all went out and
Speaker 1: had a couple of dinners and you know, not that
Speaker 1: we're partying hard, but we we'd have a cocktail at dinner,
Speaker 1: and my wife didn't have a cocktail, so I didn't
Speaker 1: really think. I don't know, I didn't really cross my mind.
Speaker 1: And then we were, um, we did a segment might
Speaker 1: have been a bowl game that night. We were the
Speaker 1: French quarter where our set was, and we did a
Speaker 1: segment or a show and we were I can't get remember,
Speaker 1: we were in tuxedos or we had something going on.
Speaker 1: We were like BoA's. We had feather boas on. Yes,
Speaker 1: we're having fun and and uh and New Orleans is
Speaker 1: one of the sites where ABC throws it around all
Speaker 1: over the country for for the ball to drop. And
Speaker 1: so there's a ball right there, and it's we're getting
Speaker 1: under a minute. Everyone's getting excited and here comes the ball.
Speaker 1: Everyone's like, what's gonna happen? Here we are, we're going
Speaker 1: into two thousand and ten, nine eight, and you know,
Speaker 1: we're all kind of standing together six five and Allison
Speaker 1: turned to me and she said, I'm pregnant. And it
Speaker 1: was like it was like next thing I know to
Speaker 1: wand that and and I was just like, holy cow.
Speaker 1: We didn't know she was pregnant with twins at the time,
Speaker 1: but she she was pregnant. That's how she broke the
Speaker 1: news to me. LC was there with his bomber jacket
Speaker 1: and his jeans and yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: We're all there together. But yeah, that was quite a
Speaker 1: quite a memory. And good thing you didn't have to
Speaker 1: go right in the air after that announcement, right, well,
Speaker 1: I think we were done for the night. Could you imagine, like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, how about her holding off for three days?
Speaker 1: She was in New Orleans, didn't tell me anything. How
Speaker 1: do you not notice she's not drinking for three days
Speaker 1: and she's the only one in New Orleans not drinking
Speaker 1: for three days. And I'm not even thinking anything about it.
Speaker 1: And then right right as the balls drop and she, uh,
Speaker 1: she broke the news. You know what else that was?
Speaker 1: That was when Michael Vick and the Hokeys were taken
Speaker 1: on the seminoles. Remember what else happened that New Year's Eve? Filiki?
Speaker 1: Remember who broke curfew? We see Sash Janikowski and Bobby A.
Speaker 1: Bowden kind of had a curfew. But if fans remember,
Speaker 1: they had all kinds of problems kicking, and kicking had
Speaker 1: cost him a lot of big games. Now they had
Speaker 1: Janikowski did the stud kicker, and he kind of knew
Speaker 1: that no matter what he did, he wasn't gonna get
Speaker 1: disciplined by Bowden. He it's it's strictly prohibited after midnight
Speaker 1: out in Bourbon Street in the French quarter. Uh, breaking curfew.
Speaker 1: The game as the next night and there's Janetkowski out there.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine now with social media, everybody would have
Speaker 1: been all over like in a Gosh, they didn't really
Speaker 1: need him, did they in that game? I mean, the
Speaker 1: the Hokey has led going to the fourth was going
Speaker 1: to the fourth quarter, and all you know, we were
Speaker 1: in the rooster. Marcus outs in fourth and fourth, they
Speaker 1: get that stop, they get that stop right there, they
Speaker 1: weren't stopping Virginia Tech. Yeah, that's when that's when everybody
Speaker 1: looked at Michael Vick from It was almost like the
Speaker 1: Lamar Jackson against Florida State moment. People looked at uh
Speaker 1: and Michael Vick like he was a great player, but
Speaker 1: when he did what he was doing athletically running around
Speaker 1: at Florida State defense that night, everyone was like, whoa,
Speaker 1: this dude is different. Different people ask how did game
Speaker 1: they become Game Day in terms of the road shows
Speaker 1: in Virginia, Texan answer and Frank Biemer saw early on
Speaker 1: that this was like an infomercial for their program, and
Speaker 1: the people didn't know about Blacksburg, Virginia. We're gonna find
Speaker 1: out if they tuned into Game Day and he would
Speaker 1: just put like fifteen thousand people behind us in the
Speaker 1: stands of Lane Stadium. We had a good relationship with
Speaker 1: Virginia Tech. And that's sort of the act drop for
Speaker 1: the story I wanted to tell, because you know, some
Speaker 1: of these shows we tend to remember the ones were, oh,
Speaker 1: the guest pickers crazy. Of course, it was something nutty.
Speaker 1: Some of the some of the most powerful memories I
Speaker 1: have Kurk and Chris are are the ones that are different.
Speaker 1: The shows had a totally different texture. And we were
Speaker 1: at Virginia Tech for the first football game after the
Speaker 1: tragic shootings that previous spring. And it wasn't a big game.
Speaker 1: The opponent didn't matter. It was about the occasion and
Speaker 1: sort of marking their return. It's coming together for something
Speaker 1: that was positive and not to grieve and mourn. And
Speaker 1: I know we felt a huge responsibility to sort of
Speaker 1: document that event and strike the same tone because you
Speaker 1: don't want to be, you know, morose for like the
Speaker 1: entire length of the show. You had to kind of
Speaker 1: go back and forth cover football. Uh, the game was
Speaker 1: was part of our discussion. But but the energy they
Speaker 1: are just kind of captivating that And remember we we
Speaker 1: had a camera walking through that long tunnel. It goes
Speaker 1: from the locker room outside and then back in the
Speaker 1: lanes stadium. People know it. That's where they come running
Speaker 1: out to enter sandmenment. We had the camera kind of
Speaker 1: walking through this dark tunnel and then coming out into
Speaker 1: the light at the end of it to sort of
Speaker 1: symbolize what was going on on that campus. And I
Speaker 1: know we all felt like a responsibility to sort of
Speaker 1: document that, to get that right, to make them proud
Speaker 1: and have them approve of how we handled that. What
Speaker 1: do you remember about that that day? I really feel
Speaker 1: like you're really describing that perfectly, because you're right about
Speaker 1: Frank Beamer. He was the first guy to to look
Speaker 1: at game day, not necessarily as a nuisance, but because
Speaker 1: of the distraction it could become. Um but more of
Speaker 1: we've arrived game days putting the stamp. Not that we
Speaker 1: try to do that, but that's how he viewed it.
Speaker 1: We're the game of the week, They're coming to Blacksburg, Virginia,
Speaker 1: And he had worked so hard to build his brand
Speaker 1: up and he challenged the Hokey Nation to fill up
Speaker 1: Lane Stadium. And I think they had like eighteen or
Speaker 1: twenty tho people on that lower side of the home
Speaker 1: side of that Lane Stadium. And we did the show
Speaker 1: from the corner of that end zone, um, right where
Speaker 1: they come out. And I could not believe, you know,
Speaker 1: when you look over your shoulder to see that. And
Speaker 1: the game was at night first time we ever did
Speaker 1: a game. They were there that many people and Lee
Speaker 1: put this crazy mascot head on at the end of
Speaker 1: the show. And then of course Lee's car. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was that game, but at some point
Speaker 1: Lee had his car hit by lightning. And I don't
Speaker 1: know what a hokey is, but God's one of them.
Speaker 1: I'm going with the hokeys. I mean, it almost was
Speaker 1: like the team they became Game Day's team and Lee
Speaker 1: Corso's team, and there was there was a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, not just familiarity, but there was it was
Speaker 1: just like we we cared about their program and we
Speaker 1: loved their program. We really appreciated and valued what Frank
Speaker 1: Biemer really did for Game Day because it changed Game
Speaker 1: Day from that point on. And so when that happened,
Speaker 1: I remember all of us when that when that shooting
Speaker 1: happened on that campus, it was almost like I told
Speaker 1: my wife, I was like, I've been a lot of campuses,
Speaker 1: like the last one, the last campus that I would
Speaker 1: tell you that you would think that that could happen
Speaker 1: is Virginia Tech. It's like hidden up in these mountains,
Speaker 1: in these trees, and it's like a fort it's just
Speaker 1: nobody knows about it unless you're a hokey. And I
Speaker 1: was like, I cannot believe that that happened, and I
Speaker 1: think it shocked all of us who cover college football.
Speaker 1: And then you're right whatever it was. Five six, seven
Speaker 1: months later, we're on their campus. They're playing e c
Speaker 1: U ended up, I think, being a competitive game. But
Speaker 1: we're there and Chris, you did an amazing job. We're
Speaker 1: talking about the tone of you know, it's you gotta
Speaker 1: set the day up. It's a start of college football,
Speaker 1: so you want to be celebrating but at the same
Speaker 1: time appreciating what they had been through as a campus
Speaker 1: and a community, and uh, you know, as you always
Speaker 1: have done. You you captured that balance. I think we
Speaker 1: remember we moved inside yeah um for the last maybe
Speaker 1: half hour of the show, and there's a very touching tribute,
Speaker 1: you know, on their video board, and that's a memorable
Speaker 1: show for me without it. I think we when when
Speaker 1: the show had a responsibility to document something and be
Speaker 1: a little bit more than just funning games and picks
Speaker 1: and opinions. I think that those are those are what
Speaker 1: stood out to me. I mean I was talking to
Speaker 1: Chris earlier It wasn't a regular game day, but after
Speaker 1: September eleventh happened. Um there was a studio only show
Speaker 1: where the games were canceled. I had to drive in
Speaker 1: a rental car from Colorado back to Bristol, Connecticut to
Speaker 1: to do the show. I was thinking, maybe there wasn't
Speaker 1: going to be a show. Now guess what there is?
Speaker 1: And so I had to get back from Colorado, where
Speaker 1: I happened to be when when the attacks took place,
Speaker 1: and drove across the country the eeriest time. The skies
Speaker 1: are empty, no planes flying, no jet streams above. Nothing
Speaker 1: on the road, empty highways for three days to get
Speaker 1: to Bristol. Do the show, chriss, you were in the studio, right,
Speaker 1: I was in there. Kirky must have been at home.
Speaker 1: It was no one, no one else. You couldn't fly,
Speaker 1: so no one else could get to Bristol. We did
Speaker 1: this crazy. I don't even this. The show is such
Speaker 1: a blur because just getting there was so like with
Speaker 1: such a powerful experience. We should pull that one back,
Speaker 1: because if you're right, the show is a blur. Were
Speaker 1: you in studio? Oh yeah, I was. I was definitely
Speaker 1: in studio. I wonder if I have a d V
Speaker 1: DVD at that show, but yeah, I can't remember. It
Speaker 1: was just it was just kind of weird because we
Speaker 1: just had you were on satellite coaches. Everyone was kind
Speaker 1: of separated and we just had guests throughout the the
Speaker 1: show talking about whatever was going on, like now, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's interesting. And then I can't remember moving it
Speaker 1: forward a couple of weeks and just getting back on
Speaker 1: the road for the first time. I think actually our
Speaker 1: first show was in Norman for a really good Kansas
Speaker 1: State Oklahoma game, and I just remember how everything was
Speaker 1: different from from flying to stadium purity and and every
Speaker 1: it was just like kind of like your your realization,
Speaker 1: like Okay, this is a what you thought was a
Speaker 1: a complete culture changing experience of life changing experience and
Speaker 1: in moment, really is gonna be with us for a
Speaker 1: long long time. We were We did a show at
Speaker 1: the Air Force Academy open and we also did a
Speaker 1: post September eleven show there too, were only military personnel
Speaker 1: where were allowed on it. Then there was the show
Speaker 1: that was the weekend after there had been a fatal
Speaker 1: shooting at Ford Hood in Texas and Army Base, and
Speaker 1: Army was playing Air Force so they had the Army
Speaker 1: cadets who are there for the exchange along with the
Speaker 1: Air Force, and they were standing side by side, and
Speaker 1: we had a flyover scheduled to sort of bring us
Speaker 1: on the air as one of those powerful shows. It
Speaker 1: was not going to be a regular game day show, clearly,
Speaker 1: and I remember wanting to lay out as the planes
Speaker 1: flew over, but you know, never being sure how long
Speaker 1: it was gonna take. And I stopped talking in these
Speaker 1: planes where they were a long way away, like you
Speaker 1: think they're gonna get here. It just it took forever.
Speaker 1: It took forever this flyover. But once you kind of
Speaker 1: lay out and we're gonna be respectful and you're gonna
Speaker 1: you can't really come back in and say, hey, there's
Speaker 1: nothing else to say. I remember just sitting in silence
Speaker 1: for about a minute as these planes came by. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think, um, you bring up Air Force, And
Speaker 1: I think one of my like one of the stories
Speaker 1: for the road is a hard, hard segue right there.
Speaker 1: No go ahead and make it. But you before you
Speaker 1: go to that bear, you want to talk about me
Speaker 1: throwing up in a in an F fifteen for for
Speaker 1: an hour, and I'll let you talk about that if
Speaker 1: you want, dude, that you're so lucky to throw up.
Speaker 1: I mean one of the experiences that I couldn't have
Speaker 1: because I was doing Thursday night games that that year.
Speaker 1: You and Dez got to do back seat rides in
Speaker 1: these planes. Man, And they've been always offered to us.
Speaker 1: You get great opportunities, but ned never worked out. Never
Speaker 1: were finance gonna work out. I can't get there in time.
Speaker 1: You guys get to go up and have the fun.
Speaker 1: And I, you know, I'm a I'm a thrill seeker
Speaker 1: to a degree like I I I've always grown up
Speaker 1: love roller coasters. The only thing I don't like is
Speaker 1: going in circles fast. That gets me nauseous. But I
Speaker 1: thought this would be, like you said, once in a
Speaker 1: lifetime experience. And they were nice enough to offer it
Speaker 1: up and Des and I took him up on it.
Speaker 1: Dez has a brother near force. He was all about it.
Speaker 1: And we probably went through three hours of prep. I
Speaker 1: mean they went through everything we put on, the uniform,
Speaker 1: we put on, you know, the You cannot imagine how
Speaker 1: much information we were able to process there before they
Speaker 1: would let us get into plane. And I mean they
Speaker 1: went through the parachute, sequence of the of the of
Speaker 1: the explanation. We really need to They were so thorough
Speaker 1: on the parish shot that I thought it was part
Speaker 1: like like, it's not like you know when you stand
Speaker 1: and you're in a plane and there's the stories is
Speaker 1: going over. You know, hey, if you know the oxygen
Speaker 1: wal dropped down, you're kind of listening kind of not.
Speaker 1: These guys were really thorough and needed you to understand
Speaker 1: about the parachute. And I turned the death I was
Speaker 1: like like, is this happening? Is the parachute happy? We're
Speaker 1: really covering this and um. But then they went through,
Speaker 1: you know, because we had four or five pilots, and
Speaker 1: they went through the entire you know, mission of what
Speaker 1: we were going to accomplish for the next hour and
Speaker 1: forty five minutes. And these guys were using this even
Speaker 1: though we were riding along. They were using it is
Speaker 1: you know, like a practice session. And they went through
Speaker 1: all their their terms and everything they were gonna do.
Speaker 1: And then we finally got our jute g suit on.
Speaker 1: I mean just trying to helmet and the oxygen mask on.
Speaker 1: I was like getting claustrophobic because they got to connect
Speaker 1: your oxygen mask to the tube to an oxygen little
Speaker 1: tank to test it to make sure it works. So
Speaker 1: when they put that on, it's like suction to your face,
Speaker 1: and you need to get that thing plugged in fast
Speaker 1: into an to test it. And I'm just sweating already,
Speaker 1: getting a little bit uncomfortable. You thinking about maybe I
Speaker 1: should bail at this point. Huh. You're thinking maybe I
Speaker 1: should bail at this point, are you? Yeah? Yeah. But
Speaker 1: I'm excited too. And so the pilots a couple of
Speaker 1: more former Air Force players, you know from earlier back
Speaker 1: when I had played. They were really good guys. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously they're so excited to have Dez and I going
Speaker 1: along with them, and they're like, you're gonna be fine,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll ease into it. As we're walking out
Speaker 1: of the plane. You get into the plane and you know,
Speaker 1: you there's instruments everywhere you get you get locked in,
Speaker 1: I mean, and again you know you're locked in, which
Speaker 1: is again a thing that doesn't go well for me.
Speaker 1: I need a little bit of like, I mean, I
Speaker 1: just don't want I don't want so much pressed down
Speaker 1: on my chest where I can't breathe real good. So
Speaker 1: it's all locked in, and I'm like it's worth it.
Speaker 1: This is gonna be worth it. You got this, you
Speaker 1: got this, And here we go. We start the taxi.
Speaker 1: We go. First guy takes off. We're like third or
Speaker 1: fourth in line. First guy goes and you just see
Speaker 1: him just gone. Next guy and then he's like you
Speaker 1: hear all the you know the radio talk. He's like,
Speaker 1: here we go. You know, boom takes off, you know,
Speaker 1: you go back like this, takes off, goes straight He
Speaker 1: didn't ease uh, he goes down. He goes straight up.
Speaker 1: And then I think he went like back that way,
Speaker 1: like he like back that way, and I blacked out,
Speaker 1: like I was gone. So he's not letting you get
Speaker 1: used to this. It's like right, we're going right to
Speaker 1: the hard speak. He was gonna ease me into it
Speaker 1: and then back that way. And then from that point on,
Speaker 1: any time he would pull a g my suit would tighten,
Speaker 1: and every time it would tighten, I would throw up.
Speaker 1: So they I had these bags to throw up in,
Speaker 1: and after like two or three different times of pulling geez,
Speaker 1: I I ran out a puke. So I just would
Speaker 1: every time you would do it, I would just dry heave.
Speaker 1: Every time he did it, I dry heath and that
Speaker 1: went on. I'm not exaggerating. He we gotta like a
Speaker 1: forty five minutes in. I'm sweating. He's like, take your
Speaker 1: mask off, blow the air conditioning on you. I'm trying
Speaker 1: everything I can to try to like get my breath.
Speaker 1: He even let me, I don't know, he let me
Speaker 1: like take the whatever what is that called the stick
Speaker 1: just he said sometimes that can kind of like allow
Speaker 1: you to kind of like not I feel like you're
Speaker 1: in the back seat of a car kind of. So
Speaker 1: like he let me do that a little bit. But
Speaker 1: any time he would pull a g it would where
Speaker 1: do you five minutes I thought that was that. Do
Speaker 1: you get the feel of it? Five minutes later, you're
Speaker 1: back on the ground. And he told me, he's like,
Speaker 1: do you want to go back? We can go back,
Speaker 1: And I was like, no, no, no, I don't want to.
Speaker 1: I don't want to do that because they're they're they're
Speaker 1: like practicing the Taliban, you know. I I see a
Speaker 1: guy down here we needed you know, they're they're talking
Speaker 1: all the lingo, and I didn't want to take away
Speaker 1: from their practice. So we just I just endured and
Speaker 1: then we got down. The plane came down, and I'd like, meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Dez perfect loved it. Could have gone next time. You know,
Speaker 1: he had no issue. His pilot was disappointed. The first
Speaker 1: thing they ask each other when they get back in
Speaker 1: the ground, did you make him sick? Do you get
Speaker 1: do you get him sick? Like that's that's what they
Speaker 1: want to want to know. So your guy at least
Speaker 1: get the big was was perfect. He had a ball.
Speaker 1: He's laughing him. You know, you imagine Das laughing at me.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean I'm talking hard, laugh at me
Speaker 1: because I am just I'm a mess man. I'm a
Speaker 1: good sport. Though. I think you got you show a
Speaker 1: little highlight there in game day, a little that not
Speaker 1: full of the tail. That's you just wit into way
Speaker 1: more detail. But I mean recovered that. And then Bear
Speaker 1: wants to tell a story about after the next night,
Speaker 1: well and when it was not it was Notre Dame.
Speaker 1: Remember it was willing Ham's first year like you know
Speaker 1: or whatever. Notre Dame was great year night game at
Speaker 1: air Force And did you did you call the game?
Speaker 1: Can't what what did you call the game? Or not?
Speaker 1: So I mean we have game day so we're a
Speaker 1: couple of hours back. So game day is on it
Speaker 1: like seven am mountain time, I think it was, And
Speaker 1: this game was like eight o'clock mountain time, seven thirty
Speaker 1: mountain times. So we're like long, long, long day. So
Speaker 1: we're talking probably I don't even know the game ends.
Speaker 1: And this is the time when we would still do
Speaker 1: like post game hits or so we do a little
Speaker 1: hitting and Kirk and I head out to out to
Speaker 1: the car. Remember this is so this is like what
Speaker 1: I said two thousands two. This is before a game
Speaker 1: day had the the operations crew on the road and
Speaker 1: the opposite that would arrange escorts out park our cars
Speaker 1: and spots. This is like the days before Patrick. So
Speaker 1: Kirk and I are like on our own here, like
Speaker 1: we gotta drive to Denver to get a flight the
Speaker 1: next morning or whatever. So and it's old out you
Speaker 1: every you know, you know, the academy and the entrance
Speaker 1: there at the State it's like one road in, one
Speaker 1: road out because you have to for security stakes. So
Speaker 1: Sir Kirk and I make our way that wherever the
Speaker 1: hell we're parked mile walk from the stadium where the
Speaker 1: game BaseT was, and late at night it was gonna
Speaker 1: say it had to be ten thirty eleven, eleven o'clock
Speaker 1: at least eleven o'clock. So so we've been up. We've
Speaker 1: been up a good eighteen hours or so, nineteen hours
Speaker 1: or so, and uh, I get in, Kirk getts in
Speaker 1: and it's just tail lights everywhere in the parking lot,
Speaker 1: like no one is moving. So he's got the cars on.
Speaker 1: We were all a said, we're talking, blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, it's just silence. My head
Speaker 1: goes back. I'm snoring. I like, I like, look and
Speaker 1: he sound asleep with walk Carr running probably in gear
Speaker 1: sleep sound asleep as well. I'm like, and I think
Speaker 1: we didn't move. And however long we were asleep, we
Speaker 1: didn't move. And I think it probably took us like
Speaker 1: two and a half hours to get to that park
Speaker 1: a lot, and I think we probably went like straight
Speaker 1: to the straight to the airport. That was not the
Speaker 1: car wasn't drive. I just put my head and thirty
Speaker 1: seconds and he's out, and I'm just like, in a
Speaker 1: long day, a long couple of days, I just closed
Speaker 1: my eye for a second, fell asleep. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: good thing. Yet you're footing the brake if the car
Speaker 1: isn't drive I say that I saw one look at
Speaker 1: that traffic. I wasn't driving to the airport. I was
Speaker 1: staying in town. I took one look at that line
Speaker 1: of cars, that single file line of cars, and just
Speaker 1: pulled the car over and went out and drank some beers,
Speaker 1: tailgated with some random strangers who are like disappointed the
Speaker 1: Air Force lost, but still partying there. I was, I
Speaker 1: want to know part of of getting in that traffic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was tough. It's funny to circle back to up
Speaker 1: in years we were talking about the beginning with with
Speaker 1: Lee and and and Barry Alvarez and like realizing like
Speaker 1: people and what you say on the air and how
Speaker 1: people watch and listen and pay attention. One of my
Speaker 1: favorite moments still was the the pregame show prior to
Speaker 1: Florida State North Carolina on that that night in nine seven,
Speaker 1: where where you picked North Carolina to be Florida State.
Speaker 1: And then we're up above the Florida State locker room
Speaker 1: going into in Kennan Stadium, but before the expansion, and
Speaker 1: this is back when Florida State meant something like Florida
Speaker 1: State was still Florida State and walking off bands playing
Speaker 1: helmets up and they get to it about the probably
Speaker 1: the ten fifteen yard lander so and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: Chevin Smith starts yelling Herb Street, Herb Street. He gives
Speaker 1: the old throat slash. So obviously Florida State with with
Speaker 1: what And the look and the look on Kirk's face
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, I'm dead in North Carolina
Speaker 1: is dead because it was like it was it was
Speaker 1: back with Florida State still had the catch a and
Speaker 1: like like okay, they watched. He knew the pick was dead.
Speaker 1: You knew your pick had no chance, and you saw that.
Speaker 1: I hear because we back then we wore headphones, and
Speaker 1: I hear Herb Street and I'm just like I'm looking around,
Speaker 1: I keep and Herb Streight and I think I look
Speaker 1: over like that and I just happened to look down
Speaker 1: and it was number thirty Florida State, Chevin Smith. They
Speaker 1: just went like that, like not not today. I think.
Speaker 1: I was like, can I change my pick? The Noles
Speaker 1: are gonna shown up to play tonight North Carolina. Did
Speaker 1: they cross Midfield that night? I don't. I still don't
Speaker 1: think they know they had two they had two quarterbacks
Speaker 1: knocked out of the game, injured Chris. It was not
Speaker 1: two quarterbacks out. Chris calder Freo later who played played
Speaker 1: that game, was one of the quarterbacks that was knocked
Speaker 1: out in that game. Who he wound up coming up
Speaker 1: to ESPN and working on college football for a while.
Speaker 1: You would tell us like he still, however, many years later,
Speaker 1: had nightmares about Andre Wadsworth and that game, just to
Speaker 1: how how scary that Florida State defense was. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: speaking to fixed, people asked the time, I'll tell the
Speaker 1: story about else and Houston and the f bomb. At
Speaker 1: this point, it's well established he's gonna put the headgear
Speaker 1: on and picked the team. And at this point, Kirk
Speaker 1: he had already was he had already perfected the fake
Speaker 1: left go right things. So he was gonna build up
Speaker 1: one team and then picked the other team. SMU has
Speaker 1: got no chance in this. I mean, there's no way
Speaker 1: they're gonna win in Houston. That Cougar has had a
Speaker 1: great team. They're scoring fifty points a game, uh and
Speaker 1: and they're working to stop him. But he tried to
Speaker 1: build up s m U and he was looking look
Speaker 1: at that red, white and blue. Look at that sm
Speaker 1: you look at what a team? What? And he was
Speaker 1: trying to kind of take the audience in one direction.
Speaker 1: The director wasn't getting it, and he was a great director,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't cutting all the things that Lee was talking.
Speaker 1: He wasn't building up SMU. So there was that, and
Speaker 1: that's what kind of frustrated to him. And he finally
Speaker 1: figured enough of this ruse and that's when he just said,
Speaker 1: fuck it, give me that Houston and he put on
Speaker 1: the Houston hat. And Carl Lewis was the guest picker.
Speaker 1: They're kind of falling over and um, I put my
Speaker 1: head down. You shoved your chair away. You you you
Speaker 1: instinctively you had to distance yourself. I didn't even know what.
Speaker 1: I think I threw a pen in the air. I
Speaker 1: remember Carl Lewis going. He leaned over in the midst
Speaker 1: of that chaos and he goes to me. He's like,
Speaker 1: he looked at me. He's like, a good thing we're
Speaker 1: on delay was enough? Yeah, you looked, you looked at
Speaker 1: the mascot. You look, you looked, you opened the cougar's
Speaker 1: mouth and like looked in there. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: very I mean all of us that you know, something
Speaker 1: like that is like possible on live television, but that
Speaker 1: had never happened before, so I was kind of the funnier. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the best part of it. When we were we
Speaker 1: had about a seven hour flight to Eugene for USC
Speaker 1: Oregon that night. That that's the best part of the story.
Speaker 1: When we get to Eugene. Yeah, we we land in Eugene. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, ESPN makes him, uh issue an apology.
Speaker 1: How he he Fitting comes out. Everyone's high. You know,
Speaker 1: at the end of the game day, we're always like,
Speaker 1: good show, that was fun, that was fine, good job,
Speaker 1: And then Fitting comes out. He's like, coach, good job,
Speaker 1: that was great. Listen real quick, hey, he kind of said,
Speaker 1: He goes, what what what what? What you you said
Speaker 1: the f ford He goes, so what he Well, I
Speaker 1: can't really say that with TV. So we've written out
Speaker 1: this three sentences just saying your apology and let's look
Speaker 1: into the camera. Goes okay, no problem. He looks into
Speaker 1: the camera. He's like, earlier today on college game day,
Speaker 1: I said something I shouldn't have for that reason, I'm
Speaker 1: very very sorry doing like we're doing a coke commercial
Speaker 1: like he does like his home home depot, you know.
Speaker 1: And well he's just so innocent with this. We're like, coach,
Speaker 1: I was that was great, good, good good on the
Speaker 1: back end this time, how about we just don't smile.
Speaker 1: How about we just kind of look, you know, just
Speaker 1: look at the camera. He's like, okay, good good. So
Speaker 1: he does that, or we get through that. By now
Speaker 1: all of America's you know, googling Lee Corso, F bomb
Speaker 1: and all this, and we flo We fly all the
Speaker 1: way out to Eugene. We land as soon as our
Speaker 1: plan to us see a good USC Pete Carroll team
Speaker 1: against Oregon and Chip Kelly. We get out of the plane,
Speaker 1: go into the FBO, stop in and use a quick bathroom.
Speaker 1: And as we're coming out, this guy looks like he's
Speaker 1: driving like a driver, says, hey, um, you do you
Speaker 1: mind if Phil Knights says hello real quick. He's he's
Speaker 1: on his way over. He just landed. He's on his
Speaker 1: way because we saw his plane we landed, but we
Speaker 1: didn't realize he was there. So yeah, he wants to
Speaker 1: say hello real quick. Yeah, because we met him a
Speaker 1: few times on game day, no problem. So as we're
Speaker 1: walking out to get to our car. Phil Knight's big
Speaker 1: r V. He comes jogging down the stairs. You could
Speaker 1: see him, comes jogging over to us, and he's like
Speaker 1: he high fives me and he's like manly Corso, I
Speaker 1: can't believe that s sob He's my hero. I can't, Man,
Speaker 1: what was what happened? Tell me? I mean he want
Speaker 1: to sit there and hear all about it. He was
Speaker 1: so like fired up, you know. And then I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: you know, everyone's like, because before we got to there,
Speaker 1: everyone's like he might be is he gonna get suspended?
Speaker 1: You know? Would they fire him? All? You know, that's
Speaker 1: the all the talk. Then we then we drive the stadium.
Speaker 1: We get in there, Lane killing it was Lane Kiffin.
Speaker 1: Actually he hes over. He says something to me about
Speaker 1: man of course, so I can't believe it. And then
Speaker 1: Chip Kelly literally is at the other into the stadium.
Speaker 1: He seed's me at the other twenty walking towards the fifty.
Speaker 1: I'm talking white visor all black outfit full sprint over
Speaker 1: to me and Darren to like high five us and
Speaker 1: tackle us, and he wants to hear about it. I'm
Speaker 1: just like, lead course is the only guy that can
Speaker 1: see the F bomb and his his Q rating goes up.
Speaker 1: You know, you say, it's like a huge game. It's
Speaker 1: a huge game. They're playing. Both coaches. All they want
Speaker 1: to talk about is like what else said at the
Speaker 1: end of game day? You know, Oh, it's so true.
Speaker 1: I don't want to leave with this. I want to
Speaker 1: do a footnote. But Kirk, just this season that just
Speaker 1: got done with in college football and like anything else,
Speaker 1: I mean, so weird and challenging and difficult for so
Speaker 1: many people for so many reasons. I mean, obviously we're
Speaker 1: both really grateful to be able to have the gigs
Speaker 1: that we have and be able to call games for
Speaker 1: the most part in person. But now that you've got
Speaker 1: a little bit of distance since the championship game down
Speaker 1: here in Miami, what other than like thinking like what
Speaker 1: was that for the last few months, Like what do
Speaker 1: you what do you think you're gonna be remembering from
Speaker 1: this past year in another years? Uh? Just just how
Speaker 1: unusual that everything was. And I think probably always go
Speaker 1: back to what the players and the coaches had to
Speaker 1: go through in order for us to to be able
Speaker 1: to watch football and debate teams and topics like we
Speaker 1: normally do. I think you and I probably have. Uh
Speaker 1: In anybody who called games has an appreciation a little
Speaker 1: bit more for but just because we're exposed to so
Speaker 1: much being around on zoom, not around but on zoom,
Speaker 1: but every week talking to coordinators and head coaches and players,
Speaker 1: and you do that, you know, early September, and then
Speaker 1: it just keeps going on and everybody's on pins and
Speaker 1: needles and really learning. It's unchartered waters. You're learning as
Speaker 1: you go. We were learning, you know, we're doing tests
Speaker 1: every week ourselves and hoping to get a negative test
Speaker 1: and just hoping to be able to do the games.
Speaker 1: Then you know, you have family members, whether it's your
Speaker 1: wife or my case wife and kids. I mean someone
Speaker 1: gets positive. Now you got one time I got dgging
Speaker 1: for the Florida State Miami game for contact tracing. So
Speaker 1: you know, now I'm in my bay calling the Florida
Speaker 1: State Miami game and you're a Miami you know, calling
Speaker 1: the game. Um So just just the EBB and flow,
Speaker 1: the the improvise and adjust approach that that we all had.
Speaker 1: I think that the thing that I'm going to be
Speaker 1: most proud of for us is that we provided a
Speaker 1: few hours for for people to be able to watch
Speaker 1: a sport that they love and and get away from
Speaker 1: from the world that maybe they were in with with
Speaker 1: COVID and all the all the issues at that time
Speaker 1: that we're going on in the country. I mean, it
Speaker 1: wasn't just a a COVID issue. This country has never
Speaker 1: been in my life, never been more divided, and never
Speaker 1: had such poor leadership, and so I think there was
Speaker 1: a lot of angst and frustration and people feeling hopeless.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, to be able for us
Speaker 1: in our little community to come together and be able
Speaker 1: to provide games was was great, but always just appreciate.
Speaker 1: Without those coaches and players making the sacrifice we would
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have had a season. So just so much, man,
Speaker 1: there's a lot there that you know, I'm gonna think
Speaker 1: back and then to get COVID late um and just
Speaker 1: deal with some of those you know, symptoms and still
Speaker 1: dealing with a little bit just just a year. Put
Speaker 1: a star and asterisk next to You're never gonna forget it,
Speaker 1: you know, none of us will. Chris, what are you
Speaker 1: going to take away from this year and your experiences
Speaker 1: because you were on on the road with game day, Uh,
Speaker 1: in this kind of disjointed season every every week. Similar
Speaker 1: to what Kirk said, everyone had their own personal challenges
Speaker 1: this year, whether it was being stuck at home or
Speaker 1: in your home, or not really leaving your immediate area
Speaker 1: for nine, eight, nine, ten months, whatever it was. And
Speaker 1: I had people had anxiety and issues surrounding that, and
Speaker 1: people wanting to get out and do some things, and
Speaker 1: and and here I will is kind of on the
Speaker 1: opposite end where Okay, you have to travel, so you
Speaker 1: have to deal with kind of like the anxiety get
Speaker 1: over is it safe to travel? Should I be traveling
Speaker 1: at the same time, Like, okay, no, you know what.
Speaker 1: The first time I got on a plane, it was weird,
Speaker 1: but there really was. It was a lot less stressful
Speaker 1: and anxiety related as I thought it would be because
Speaker 1: the airline had had their they had their act together,
Speaker 1: and people seem to get it. And then when I
Speaker 1: got to that set for that Weak Forest show, I
Speaker 1: was like, you know what, we have a great opportunity
Speaker 1: here to really provide a little bit of normalcy in
Speaker 1: a in a year where there is no normalcy whatsoever,
Speaker 1: Like even if it's for for three hours of us
Speaker 1: doing whatever it is, we normally do on a Saturday morning, Like, ultimately,
Speaker 1: did I what I have loved to like all my
Speaker 1: stupid picks? Yeah, but you know who really cares? It
Speaker 1: was like we're out there, we're doing something, We're giving
Speaker 1: people a little bit of a window as to something
Speaker 1: that they actually remember, and they're they're part of their
Speaker 1: routine on Saturday morning. So I think it was just
Speaker 1: kind of like the battle between like people stuck at
Speaker 1: home and here we are with this great opportunity to
Speaker 1: be able to help them out a little bit. I
Speaker 1: think you find out and feels simultaneously that what we do,
Speaker 1: you know, it feels kind of silly compared to the
Speaker 1: serious work that is being done out there to try
Speaker 1: to keep people healthy. But you also hear from so
Speaker 1: many people how important it is for for the reasons
Speaker 1: that you said, Kirk, I won't I won't go on
Speaker 1: this too long, but I do want to add that
Speaker 1: what I learned is never to take for granted all
Speaker 1: the stuff that we love about the sport that we love,
Speaker 1: you know, and I can't wait to get back. I
Speaker 1: got to hope it's this coming season with full stadiums
Speaker 1: and the bands like You're You're more of a band
Speaker 1: guy than I am. Kick, but I've how much how
Speaker 1: much I miss like the band, the mascots. You know,
Speaker 1: it's about the game, but it's about so much else
Speaker 1: in this sport. And I think, when we're never going
Speaker 1: to take that stuff for granted again, when we get
Speaker 1: back to have football as we've known it for the
Speaker 1: last twenty five years and all that stuff him play,
Speaker 1: and you realize this was all part of what goes
Speaker 1: into making the sport great. You know, the traditions. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, the fans, the tailgating, You pull up to
Speaker 1: a stadium and smell the smokers and yeah, the people
Speaker 1: that are just you know, they stuffed me so much
Speaker 1: to them fifty two weeks out of the year and
Speaker 1: they only get six home games, and man, they are
Speaker 1: just and they some of them travel on the road
Speaker 1: with their team and just just the energy at the hotels,
Speaker 1: at the restaurants, the buzz in the air, the anticipation
Speaker 1: of what's coming tomorrow, and then you get into that
Speaker 1: stadium and it's just I'm a big band guy because
Speaker 1: I think that's part of the tradition of it. I yeah,
Speaker 1: I you know, hopefully in twenty one, right, hopefully we'll
Speaker 1: get them back. Can't wait, you guys. It's been fun,
Speaker 1: there's been generous, and knew the time we go fast.
Speaker 1: But yeah, let's leave it in that hopeful note like
Speaker 1: looking forward, and we can all that together and and
Speaker 1: and experience the sporp we love, and then we'll have
Speaker 1: some more stories to tell. Appreciate you guys, yep, you
Speaker 1: gott buddy man. I enjoyed that. I am so grateful
Speaker 1: to those guys for their friendship and for their professional
Speaker 1: excellence all these years. And we could have done about
Speaker 1: four or five episodes of that length and still not
Speaker 1: scratched the surface of all the stories we've got. So
Speaker 1: maybe I'll have Kirk and Chris back on sometime down
Speaker 1: the line. You can follow them both on Twitter and
Speaker 1: Instagram pretty simple at Kirk Curb Street and at Chris
Speaker 1: Felika f A L l I c A is how
Speaker 1: Chris spells his last name. Grateful for your your time.
Speaker 1: Know that Season two of this podcast is now up
Speaker 1: and running and we have some very cool guests coming
Speaker 1: up in future episodes. Keep an eye out for that.
Speaker 1: Thanks to my co executive producer Jennifer Dempster and producer
Speaker 1: Jason and Whiteheld. Please leave any feedback you'd like on
Speaker 1: my Instagram d m me at Chris Fowler and I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you sooner one