September 11, 2023 • 16 mins
Doug is joined by NBA Senior VP of Global Events Joey Graziano discusses the launch of the first annual NBA Conon his FDNY father's miraculous 9/11 survival story. #NeverForget
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hey, welcome in.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm Doug Gottlieb and you're listening to All the Ball
and you know, it's amazing how my job works. And
there are times in which you get into the daily
radio show, the Doug Gottlieb Show, which is broadcast live
every day from five Eastern two Pacific, two hour show
that we do an hour podcast that's called in the
Bonus All it's doing well. But you know, you get
(00:29):
in the summer and you're kinda you know, you're kind
of shuffling all wrong. How can I talk about sports?
Make it interesting? And then you come to NBA Con
and I was excited. Joey Graziano sat down next to me.
He is the SVP of Global Marketing for the NBA,
and I wanted to get into his personal story. You know,
(00:51):
he's a college baseball player and one of the things
I love about college basketball, college baseball, college football. And
it's not that I pushed back on Yeah, I push
back on an il, but it's like, the real value
is in the people you meet, the things you have
to do, and how you get to have a great
job in real life using not just the connections you
make in your sport, but also a lot of the
(01:13):
little fundamentals of what takes to make it in sports,
it takes to make it in life. What you're about
to hear is not planned a completely organic conversation. Oh yeah,
by the way, the NBA's new NBA Cup is also
his baby. It'll also be in Las Vegas. We talked
about it as well. We kind of had to get
it back to basketball at some point. But I would
(01:35):
love to tell you that I had this planned out,
that I knew his personal story, and that's what most
of the pod would be about. I cannot tell you
how riveting this is, how in many ways gut wrenching
it is. And I'm going to promise I don't promise
(01:55):
many things on this podcast. I would just settle in
and listen to this pod and maybe grab a tissue.
It's definitely going to make you think some strong thoughts
of your own. But I want to start, like by
thanking Joey he Dot. We all thought he's just going
(02:16):
to promote the event and tell us about the NBA Cup.
We talked about that. But if you want to hear
personal stories and how your life can change in a
couple hours, as a high school senior. Without further ado,
here's our live pod from NBA Con.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
We're live here at NBA Con.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
One who can say they were they were at the
first once, like the guy who's like I resent to first.
Remember that commercial with the guys that had been to
every super Bowl? They went to the first super Bowl? Yeah, right,
and the Super Bowl started and they had like a
marching band at halftime right now performing at halftime. Hell,
Chris Stapleton's national anthem is like the iconic national anthem
of all time, and that was this pass by the
(03:00):
way Vegas, the site of I think this year's super Bowl, right.
That is so, And we're at the super Bowl, the
super Bowl of the NBA and the Super Bowl the NBA.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I think it's going to be here in December as well.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
The guy to help us kind of break it down
for us is Joey Graciano, who is a senior vice
president of Global Events. Yeah, okay, and okay, So you're
a baseball player in college.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yep, you get done at Georgetown. Yeah, what'd you do?
Speaker 3 (03:28):
So? I kept playing for a little while. I moved
to the Dominican Republic. Had a nonprofit there called Baseball
a libros. The idea was to be able to grew
up in New York City was playing ball. My dad
was in New York City fireman. So I spent a
bunch of time in Spanish Harlem, and the thought was,
I wanted to be able to sort of reconnect with that,
and we build a school there to be able to
incentivize literacy, mathematics, convince kids that you could be able
(03:51):
to play baseball at a high level without having to
forego the academic side. From there, went to Georgetown Law School.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
But hold on, wait, you open some doors.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
There was yeah, because Georgetown was two thousand and two
to two thousand and five. Dad was a New York
City firefighter. Yes, so that means two thousand and one. Yes,
you're in high school.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
I was. You said, I could ask you anything, You
could ask me anything. Where were you at nine to eleven?
Yere was? I was?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
I was a senior in high school. My my father
is was a fireman, an engine twenty two latter thirteen
Upper East Siud of Manhattan. My father is the last
person to leave any Twin Tower alive. My dad's entire
firehouse passed away. I lost incredible, incredible men we were great,
very close to me. I spent my early years at
(04:39):
Randalls Island in New York. You know, we were playing
softball every Thursdays and not go to school. That was
the one rule in our house was you don't have
to go to school on Thursdays if you wanted to
go watch dad play softball.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
So my heroes, you know, growing up, we're not.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
We're not, you know, Dave Winfield and Don Mattingly, but
they were. They were these giants you can yeah there,
I mean in incredible nids. You know Greg stay Jack,
who was a pitcher at Saint John's who you know,
taught me how to play ball and then you know,
ended up being somebody I can remember watching one of
my high school games when I was a junior in
(05:14):
the state championship.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Was there at that game.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Last game he ever saw me play the following the
following fall.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Obviously, things change.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
So names like that that, you know, mean a lot
to me. The guys of the guys of Engine twenty two,
Latter thirteen and their families are you know, a driving
force in my everyday reality.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
It's incredible, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I I was, Actually I was a professional basketball player.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I played a year in Russia.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, and I came back and I played with the
Lakers in the Summer league.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Summerleague was at Olympic State back then.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
And then I came back to Oklahoma and I trained
at Oklahoma State. And what I would do is I
would go and do fill in radio. Yeah, and the
guy who's the big afternoon drive host, theres guy nam
Jim Traper. And he had been he played for the
Orioles and he was like a local legend and he
(06:06):
was the color guy for the Diamondbacks. So the Diambacks
won the World Series. Right, They were really good back then,
and so it was they broke Yankee Van's heart that year.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I mean they reuse Gonzales like, yeah, I mean my dad,
my dad threw out the first pitch of that ALCS.
My dad's a baseball guy. That was That was the
That was the Jeter you know, saved the series. One
of the greatest plays of all time. Yeah, that was
that series. My dad throughout the first pitch at Yankee
Stadium on I'm that.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Serious, Well, then that makes it that the greatest first
pitch in Yankee Stay. Because I was thinking that I
was gonna ask about the George Bush first pitch. Yanke
is s Dame, which is very iconic, iconic as well.
But I mean I remember, I mean, look, I remember
that day and then later obviously working at ESPN, the
Ones and CBS, we up in West Court, and so
many of those families were affected. Uh by nine to eleven.
(06:58):
Uh man, I can't imagine, and I can imagine why
you went away from home to go to to go
to Georgetown, you know, instead of playing for Saint John's.
So you're you're doing a nonprofit, you're playing ball, You're
in the Dominican how'd.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
You get to the league?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
So I ended up leaving I was. I went and
went and went to law school. So I was at
Georgetown Law School for a number of years. Thought that's
probably where I would spend some time. I was fortunate
enough I want a fellowship and moved to Ireland for.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
A little over a year.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
In the middle of my law school, I boxed professionally. Actually,
the first time I got to play hoops again was
I played. I played for the Galway Collegiate basketball teams.
You can imagine, like I've got a.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Hey, hey, A good friend of mine, Dave Revson, works
for the Big Ten network.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
He went and he studied abroad and he played basketball
in Ireland too, and that was where he told.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Me, I don't know if this is true. He said,
you know.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
They say in Ireland, and it's that the closer you
are to.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
The gain where they make the guinness, the better the beer.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Is.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I think that's right? Is it true? I think?
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I mean I was drinking more of the whiskey, but
you know, but but yeah, I think that.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
I think that's a hundred percent. So you got a fellow.
Should you go to Ireland? Yeah, goo to Ireland.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I come back and then I'm now a practicing attorney
and I practiced at Jones today. I expected to probably
spend a big portion of my career there. It was
a great firm. I learned a bunch I had. I
had great law. So I was white collar criminal defense work. Yeah,
saving saving kids and uh, And I thought, I you know,
I thought I would be there for a while. And
(08:26):
there was a family who was very instrumental to my
family during nine to eleven.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
They're the reason I got to go to college.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
And that family they happened to own a small business
in d C. And Guy asked me to have coffee
with him. He said he was going through a bet
the Company litigation. There was a fraud issue with his
with his CEO, and he was like, I need you
to leave the law firm and come work for me,
and we're gonna have to rebuild this entire thing. And
so my dad's rule in our house growing up was
if your neighbor's house is on fire, you run towards
(08:54):
the fire. It's the only rule he ever gave us.
He didn't believe in anything else. Simple man, simple rules.
And so I left. I went to the managing partner's
office that afternoon, gave my two weeks notice, walked out
of a law firm and a big pang job, and
ended up at a company that had twenty employees and
nowrail office with a bet the company litigation that was
on the front page of the Washington.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Post on my first day.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
It was a small business that was taking care of kids,
and so allegations of fraud in a very popular small
town become a very very big deal, and we rebuilt
that company. I became their chief operating officer, went from
twenty employees down to one, book it back up to
one thousand, wild successful creating immersive versions of hyperlocalized versions
(09:35):
of Disney World. Around sports, we had a third of
the Major League Baseball type the head First companies, and
then five years later left and was thinking I was
going to I was going back to New York and
I was going to take some time. It had been
a crazy run, and I was going to write this
story about my dad's firehouse. That's what I wanted to do.
I was coming back to do the interviews, to start
taking the notes. I wanted to write this story right.
(09:55):
I didn't know what I was going to do with
the story, but I wanted to write it. And while
I was there, someone asked me, what do you go?
Have an interview with my boss at the NBA, Kelly Flato,
And about ten minutes into the interview, she said, can
I bring hr in?
Speaker 1 (10:08):
And next thing you know.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
I'm talking about a job with the NBA in a
way I was never expect yrs this was five years ago.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
That's amazing. Yeah. So, and at the NBA, I've had
I mean.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
I don't want to dwell on the nine to eleven
because I know it's so emotional.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Have you have you ever asked your dad about the day?
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Yeah, so I've gotten into one fight with my father.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
I appreciate this, by the way, I truly do. I've
got into one fight with my dad.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
It happened to be on September tenth. As you know,
as a senior, you were an athlete. I was an athlete.
I was at that point thought was I was good.
I wasn't good at anything, but it thought I was good.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
And my father.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Said that the coach from Haverford is one of the
all day Beckera, one of the all time great human
beings on earth, had been reaching out, reaching out, reaching
out and trying to recruit me.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
And I was like, Haverford.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Asion of a division based three right, Yeah, And I
didn't And I wasn't being respectful in my response is back.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
I was just letting him reach out and not respond.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
And my father told me that, you know, in this house,
like if somebody offers you like you call him back
and you say no. And you can say no, but
you say no as a man when you call him.
And I refused to, and I told him that he
never went to college, he doesn't know what the heck
he's talking about. And and that's how I slammed the door.
I said a bunch of other exportive words as I
(11:32):
walked up the door, and my father went to work
before I saw him again.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
So I I thought my.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Father had passed away until the next into the twelfth
was when we figured finally found out my dad was alive.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
So, so where are you on the eleventh year in
high I'm a senior in high school.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah, And then how did how did you guys find out?
Because I was I was driving in a car from
still Water, Oklahoma to Oklahoma City and I heard it
on the radio and I thought it was like a
spoof of World the World's Yeah, and I walked upstairs
at the radio station and that's when the towers ru
on fire and I saw them both come down.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Paid the picture for me for that day. Yeah, I
mean I was in, I was in. I was in school.
We were in a sign. I mean, I can remember
taking a biology test. Took a test. We like, we
get noticed at something and happened. And then if your
parents were or in the World Trade Center, you could
come down to the library for the guidance counselor. And
my dad had been at the ninety six World Trade
Center bombing. I knew my dad was working that day,
but I didn't think anything of it. I just was like,
(12:29):
keep going to school, kept going to school. At lunch,
I saw the first video the news of the of
the towers and things like, and I was like, this
is not good, but I again didn't recognize how bad
it was. My best friend his mom worked in one
of the other smaller.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Towers, and I was more worried about her.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
So we went. He picked me up like we went
to school together. He drove me home. We first went
to check on to check on his father, who went
to his father who's a Garden City High school guidance council.
We stopped over there was like, is everything okay with
the mom?
Speaker 1 (13:01):
She was fine.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
And then we get home to my house and I
knew things were wrong the minute I got home, because
the cars were lined up in my driveway. Those are
before cell phones, Like I didn't know on a cell phone,
so there's no way to you need to get ahold
of any bait. And I knew, and my mother was cooking.
My mom does not cook, small irishwoman like we do takeout,
we don't cook, and she was cooking. And when I
(13:23):
walked in and my aunts were in the kitchen, and
I knew immediately stuff with things were not good. My
mom had heard from my dad early in the morning,
and then that was the end. And we ended up
not finding out for hours later when somebody said they
thought they saw my father, and then it wasn't until
he came home after, you know, about two thirty in
(13:45):
the morning. So my dad had been carrying somebody out
from the twenty fourth floor. He had met his the
rest of his firehouse in the lobby, and he was
carrying somebody who had a hard condition. He kept carrying
that man. He jumped on top of the man building
came down. My dad was outside. My dad's fireman and
fellow firemen were inside the tower and the lobby.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
So my dad, I've seen the video. My dad was my.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Dad was buried alive and then ended up and ended
up being able to get out, and and uh, you know,
his fellow fireman were not.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Two third in the morning. To you still have like
soit and dirt, I'll like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
He came home and I can remember the first thing
he said to me was they're all gone. That was
that was the first words I've had my father and
I have had one real protracted, very long conversation about it,
which I sat with him. It was a night we
were together, just the two of us in Florida and
talked for a very long period of time about it.
(14:39):
But that's probably the the extent we've ever talked about
all the details.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Thanks for sharing. This is probably the longest you'll be
off your cell phone for the entire week.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
You got you did. I gotta say, I tip my
cap to you. So this has been amazing. It's an
amazing event. Yeah, I'll look forward to year two. I
can't when you're seeing the growth. I appreciate you telling
your story. That means a lot to thank you.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Thank you. No, we did. We did number one, so
that means I got you for number two, Like definitely. Yeah,
you're a good man. Thank your thanks much. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
My thanks to Joey Gardiano. That was emotional, that was raw,
that was real. That's as as good as as I've
ever been fortun to be a part of.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
And yeah, my my brain.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
When he had told me at the before he when
he sat down, we started just kind of chit chatting,
and he had told me that he was a baseball
player at Georgetown in two thousand and two to two
thousand and five, and then he mentioned that his dad
was a New York City firefighter. My wheels were spinning
and he let me in hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
I'm Doug Gottlie. Dis is all ball
Hey, welcome in.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm Doug Gottlieb and you're listening to All the Ball
and you know, it's amazing how my job works. And
there are times in which you get into the daily
radio show, the Doug Gottlieb Show, which is broadcast live
every day from five Eastern two Pacific, two hour show
that we do an hour podcast that's called in the
Bonus All it's doing well. But you know, you get
(00:29):
in the summer and you're kinda you know, you're kind
of shuffling all wrong. How can I talk about sports?
Make it interesting? And then you come to NBA Con
and I was excited. Joey Graziano sat down next to me.
He is the SVP of Global Marketing for the NBA,
and I wanted to get into his personal story. You know,
(00:51):
he's a college baseball player and one of the things
I love about college basketball, college baseball, college football. And
it's not that I pushed back on Yeah, I push
back on an il, but it's like, the real value
is in the people you meet, the things you have
to do, and how you get to have a great
job in real life using not just the connections you
make in your sport, but also a lot of the
(01:13):
little fundamentals of what takes to make it in sports,
it takes to make it in life. What you're about
to hear is not planned a completely organic conversation. Oh yeah,
by the way, the NBA's new NBA Cup is also
his baby. It'll also be in Las Vegas. We talked
about it as well. We kind of had to get
it back to basketball at some point. But I would
(01:35):
love to tell you that I had this planned out,
that I knew his personal story, and that's what most
of the pod would be about. I cannot tell you
how riveting this is, how in many ways gut wrenching
it is. And I'm going to promise I don't promise
(01:55):
many things on this podcast. I would just settle in
and listen to this pod and maybe grab a tissue.
It's definitely going to make you think some strong thoughts
of your own. But I want to start, like by
thanking Joey he Dot. We all thought he's just going
(02:16):
to promote the event and tell us about the NBA Cup.
We talked about that. But if you want to hear
personal stories and how your life can change in a
couple hours, as a high school senior. Without further ado,
here's our live pod from NBA Con.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
We're live here at NBA Con.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
One who can say they were they were at the
first once, like the guy who's like I resent to first.
Remember that commercial with the guys that had been to
every super Bowl? They went to the first super Bowl? Yeah, right,
and the Super Bowl started and they had like a
marching band at halftime right now performing at halftime. Hell,
Chris Stapleton's national anthem is like the iconic national anthem
of all time, and that was this pass by the
(03:00):
way Vegas, the site of I think this year's super Bowl, right.
That is so, And we're at the super Bowl, the
super Bowl of the NBA and the Super Bowl the NBA.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I think it's going to be here in December as well.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
The guy to help us kind of break it down
for us is Joey Graciano, who is a senior vice
president of Global Events. Yeah, okay, and okay, So you're
a baseball player in college.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yep, you get done at Georgetown. Yeah, what'd you do?
Speaker 3 (03:28):
So? I kept playing for a little while. I moved
to the Dominican Republic. Had a nonprofit there called Baseball
a libros. The idea was to be able to grew
up in New York City was playing ball. My dad
was in New York City fireman. So I spent a
bunch of time in Spanish Harlem, and the thought was,
I wanted to be able to sort of reconnect with that,
and we build a school there to be able to
incentivize literacy, mathematics, convince kids that you could be able
(03:51):
to play baseball at a high level without having to
forego the academic side. From there, went to Georgetown Law School.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
But hold on, wait, you open some doors.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
There was yeah, because Georgetown was two thousand and two
to two thousand and five. Dad was a New York
City firefighter. Yes, so that means two thousand and one. Yes,
you're in high school.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
I was. You said, I could ask you anything, You
could ask me anything. Where were you at nine to eleven?
Yere was? I was?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
I was a senior in high school. My my father
is was a fireman, an engine twenty two latter thirteen
Upper East Siud of Manhattan. My father is the last
person to leave any Twin Tower alive. My dad's entire
firehouse passed away. I lost incredible, incredible men we were great,
very close to me. I spent my early years at
(04:39):
Randalls Island in New York. You know, we were playing
softball every Thursdays and not go to school. That was
the one rule in our house was you don't have
to go to school on Thursdays if you wanted to
go watch dad play softball.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
So my heroes, you know, growing up, we're not.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
We're not, you know, Dave Winfield and Don Mattingly, but
they were. They were these giants you can yeah there,
I mean in incredible nids. You know Greg stay Jack,
who was a pitcher at Saint John's who you know,
taught me how to play ball and then you know,
ended up being somebody I can remember watching one of
my high school games when I was a junior in
(05:14):
the state championship.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Was there at that game.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Last game he ever saw me play the following the
following fall.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Obviously, things change.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
So names like that that, you know, mean a lot
to me. The guys of the guys of Engine twenty two,
Latter thirteen and their families are you know, a driving
force in my everyday reality.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
It's incredible, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I I was, Actually I was a professional basketball player.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I played a year in Russia.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, and I came back and I played with the
Lakers in the Summer league.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Summerleague was at Olympic State back then.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
And then I came back to Oklahoma and I trained
at Oklahoma State. And what I would do is I
would go and do fill in radio. Yeah, and the
guy who's the big afternoon drive host, theres guy nam
Jim Traper. And he had been he played for the
Orioles and he was like a local legend and he
(06:06):
was the color guy for the Diamondbacks. So the Diambacks
won the World Series. Right, They were really good back then,
and so it was they broke Yankee Van's heart that year.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I mean they reuse Gonzales like, yeah, I mean my dad,
my dad threw out the first pitch of that ALCS.
My dad's a baseball guy. That was That was the
That was the Jeter you know, saved the series. One
of the greatest plays of all time. Yeah, that was
that series. My dad throughout the first pitch at Yankee
Stadium on I'm that.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Serious, Well, then that makes it that the greatest first
pitch in Yankee Stay. Because I was thinking that I
was gonna ask about the George Bush first pitch. Yanke
is s Dame, which is very iconic, iconic as well.
But I mean I remember, I mean, look, I remember
that day and then later obviously working at ESPN, the
Ones and CBS, we up in West Court, and so
many of those families were affected. Uh by nine to eleven.
(06:58):
Uh man, I can't imagine, and I can imagine why
you went away from home to go to to go
to Georgetown, you know, instead of playing for Saint John's.
So you're you're doing a nonprofit, you're playing ball, You're
in the Dominican how'd.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
You get to the league?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
So I ended up leaving I was. I went and
went and went to law school. So I was at
Georgetown Law School for a number of years. Thought that's
probably where I would spend some time. I was fortunate
enough I want a fellowship and moved to Ireland for.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
A little over a year.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
In the middle of my law school, I boxed professionally. Actually,
the first time I got to play hoops again was
I played. I played for the Galway Collegiate basketball teams.
You can imagine, like I've got a.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Hey, hey, A good friend of mine, Dave Revson, works
for the Big Ten network.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
He went and he studied abroad and he played basketball
in Ireland too, and that was where he told.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Me, I don't know if this is true. He said,
you know.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
They say in Ireland, and it's that the closer you
are to.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
The gain where they make the guinness, the better the beer.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Is.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I think that's right? Is it true? I think?
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I mean I was drinking more of the whiskey, but
you know, but but yeah, I think that.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
I think that's a hundred percent. So you got a fellow.
Should you go to Ireland? Yeah, goo to Ireland.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I come back and then I'm now a practicing attorney
and I practiced at Jones today. I expected to probably
spend a big portion of my career there. It was
a great firm. I learned a bunch I had. I
had great law. So I was white collar criminal defense work. Yeah,
saving saving kids and uh, And I thought, I you know,
I thought I would be there for a while. And
(08:26):
there was a family who was very instrumental to my
family during nine to eleven.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
They're the reason I got to go to college.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
And that family they happened to own a small business
in d C. And Guy asked me to have coffee
with him. He said he was going through a bet
the Company litigation. There was a fraud issue with his
with his CEO, and he was like, I need you
to leave the law firm and come work for me,
and we're gonna have to rebuild this entire thing. And
so my dad's rule in our house growing up was
if your neighbor's house is on fire, you run towards
(08:54):
the fire. It's the only rule he ever gave us.
He didn't believe in anything else. Simple man, simple rules.
And so I left. I went to the managing partner's
office that afternoon, gave my two weeks notice, walked out
of a law firm and a big pang job, and
ended up at a company that had twenty employees and
nowrail office with a bet the company litigation that was
on the front page of the Washington.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Post on my first day.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
It was a small business that was taking care of kids,
and so allegations of fraud in a very popular small
town become a very very big deal, and we rebuilt
that company. I became their chief operating officer, went from
twenty employees down to one, book it back up to
one thousand, wild successful creating immersive versions of hyperlocalized versions
(09:35):
of Disney World. Around sports, we had a third of
the Major League Baseball type the head First companies, and
then five years later left and was thinking I was
going to I was going back to New York and
I was going to take some time. It had been
a crazy run, and I was going to write this
story about my dad's firehouse. That's what I wanted to do.
I was coming back to do the interviews, to start
taking the notes. I wanted to write this story right.
(09:55):
I didn't know what I was going to do with
the story, but I wanted to write it. And while
I was there, someone asked me, what do you go?
Have an interview with my boss at the NBA, Kelly Flato,
And about ten minutes into the interview, she said, can
I bring hr in?
Speaker 1 (10:08):
And next thing you know.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
I'm talking about a job with the NBA in a
way I was never expect yrs this was five years ago.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
That's amazing. Yeah. So, and at the NBA, I've had
I mean.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
I don't want to dwell on the nine to eleven
because I know it's so emotional.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Have you have you ever asked your dad about the day?
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Yeah, so I've gotten into one fight with my father.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
I appreciate this, by the way, I truly do. I've
got into one fight with my dad.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
It happened to be on September tenth. As you know,
as a senior, you were an athlete. I was an athlete.
I was at that point thought was I was good.
I wasn't good at anything, but it thought I was good.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
And my father.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Said that the coach from Haverford is one of the
all day Beckera, one of the all time great human
beings on earth, had been reaching out, reaching out, reaching
out and trying to recruit me.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
And I was like, Haverford.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Asion of a division based three right, Yeah, And I
didn't And I wasn't being respectful in my response is back.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
I was just letting him reach out and not respond.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
And my father told me that, you know, in this house,
like if somebody offers you like you call him back
and you say no. And you can say no, but
you say no as a man when you call him.
And I refused to, and I told him that he
never went to college, he doesn't know what the heck
he's talking about. And and that's how I slammed the door.
I said a bunch of other exportive words as I
(11:32):
walked up the door, and my father went to work
before I saw him again.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
So I I thought my.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Father had passed away until the next into the twelfth
was when we figured finally found out my dad was alive.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
So, so where are you on the eleventh year in
high I'm a senior in high school.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah, And then how did how did you guys find out?
Because I was I was driving in a car from
still Water, Oklahoma to Oklahoma City and I heard it
on the radio and I thought it was like a
spoof of World the World's Yeah, and I walked upstairs
at the radio station and that's when the towers ru
on fire and I saw them both come down.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Paid the picture for me for that day. Yeah, I
mean I was in, I was in. I was in school.
We were in a sign. I mean, I can remember
taking a biology test. Took a test. We like, we
get noticed at something and happened. And then if your
parents were or in the World Trade Center, you could
come down to the library for the guidance counselor. And
my dad had been at the ninety six World Trade
Center bombing. I knew my dad was working that day,
but I didn't think anything of it. I just was like,
(12:29):
keep going to school, kept going to school. At lunch,
I saw the first video the news of the of
the towers and things like, and I was like, this
is not good, but I again didn't recognize how bad
it was. My best friend his mom worked in one
of the other smaller.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Towers, and I was more worried about her.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
So we went. He picked me up like we went
to school together. He drove me home. We first went
to check on to check on his father, who went
to his father who's a Garden City High school guidance council.
We stopped over there was like, is everything okay with
the mom?
Speaker 1 (13:01):
She was fine.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
And then we get home to my house and I
knew things were wrong the minute I got home, because
the cars were lined up in my driveway. Those are
before cell phones, Like I didn't know on a cell phone,
so there's no way to you need to get ahold
of any bait. And I knew, and my mother was cooking.
My mom does not cook, small irishwoman like we do takeout,
we don't cook, and she was cooking. And when I
(13:23):
walked in and my aunts were in the kitchen, and
I knew immediately stuff with things were not good. My
mom had heard from my dad early in the morning,
and then that was the end. And we ended up
not finding out for hours later when somebody said they
thought they saw my father, and then it wasn't until
he came home after, you know, about two thirty in
(13:45):
the morning. So my dad had been carrying somebody out
from the twenty fourth floor. He had met his the
rest of his firehouse in the lobby, and he was
carrying somebody who had a hard condition. He kept carrying
that man. He jumped on top of the man building
came down. My dad was outside. My dad's fireman and
fellow firemen were inside the tower and the lobby.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
So my dad, I've seen the video. My dad was my.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Dad was buried alive and then ended up and ended
up being able to get out, and and uh, you know,
his fellow fireman were not.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Two third in the morning. To you still have like
soit and dirt, I'll like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
He came home and I can remember the first thing
he said to me was they're all gone. That was
that was the first words I've had my father and
I have had one real protracted, very long conversation about it,
which I sat with him. It was a night we
were together, just the two of us in Florida and
talked for a very long period of time about it.
(14:39):
But that's probably the the extent we've ever talked about
all the details.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Thanks for sharing. This is probably the longest you'll be
off your cell phone for the entire week.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
You got you did. I gotta say, I tip my
cap to you. So this has been amazing. It's an
amazing event. Yeah, I'll look forward to year two. I
can't when you're seeing the growth. I appreciate you telling
your story. That means a lot to thank you.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Thank you. No, we did. We did number one, so
that means I got you for number two, Like definitely. Yeah,
you're a good man. Thank your thanks much. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
My thanks to Joey Gardiano. That was emotional, that was raw,
that was real. That's as as good as as I've
ever been fortun to be a part of.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
And yeah, my my brain.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
When he had told me at the before he when
he sat down, we started just kind of chit chatting,
and he had told me that he was a baseball
player at Georgetown in two thousand and two to two
thousand and five, and then he mentioned that his dad
was a New York City firefighter. My wheels were spinning
and he let me in hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
I'm Doug Gottlie. Dis is all ball
Host
Doug Gottlieb
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