March 29, 2018 • 44 mins
This week Matty talks to John Middlekauff from the Colin Cowherd Podcast Networks show, "3 AND OUT with John Middlekauff"! They talk about his start as an NFL scout, if ex players make for good podcasters, the transition from radio to podcasting, and find out which athlete dead or alive, John would would want to hear a podcast from in our 3 Killer Questions round!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Access Podcast, the
podcast about podcast. I'm Mattie Stout and producer Z. You
have put together a guest that I really enjoyed this week. Yeah,
he was cool if I've been listening to him for
a while, so it was nice to have him on
the show. John Middlecoff is the host of three and Out.
It's one of the new podcast on the brand new
Herd network that's calling cowhards new podcast networks. And he's
(00:25):
also somebody I used to listen to every day on
the radio, so it's very exciting to talk to him.
Let's check out a little bit of John Meddlecoff right now.
I will say this the most talented player in this
draft from the quarterback perspective, and I you could argue
just overall player, but let's just just talk quarterbacks. Is
Josh Rosen for me? And I don't really think it's
(00:46):
that close. Just pure talent. There's more to the quarterback
than just ability though the mental capacity, personality that there's
so much more than, but just in a vacuum, Josh
Rosen for me is the number one quarterback on my
draft board. And I'm John Mettalcoff. We don't know each other,
but I know you because I used to listen to
your show a lot locally on on on a radio
(01:07):
station that you did with Haberman, which I want to
talk about in a second. But I don't know if
you know this, but I feel personally responsible for your
podcast since I was one of the people who tweeted
you after your show went off the air and said
start a podcast. UM So, so you're welcome, is what
I'm saying. Thank you, thank you. You know, we just
tried to expand you know, you go from terrestrial radio,
which is uh hanging on by a thread, and you
(01:30):
you always want to uh you know, adapt in life
and things change. And you know, I've enjoyed doing the
podcast for the last couple of years. Well, I left
radio nine years ago. I did mornings in San Francisco
to to get into podcasting and Stitcher um and and
I've always felt that for talk folks, while why wouldn't
you want to be in podcasting because we get to
(01:51):
do everything that we did well and talk, but yet
we get to say whatever we want. I know, it's
you know, it's weird. Once you get into podcasting and
you kind of get the free flow flow of doing
whatever you want and in the way, you know, I
do two separate podcasts now, this one with Colin Coward,
which is just me and I've kind of taken that.
I do a periscope show on Twitter and I've kind
(02:14):
of just taken that a little more segmented to the
Colin show. But two with Haberman. You know, we have
we know what we're doing, so it's we can bang
out topics and kind of set it up like a
radio show, but it kind of adapted to the podcast
medium and it's, uh, it's been great, and you go
back and we filled in a little bit. On radio,
some of the local stations can be are and it's
(02:37):
kind of weird because it's very regimented. You know, you
gotta get out at certain times you're you're not used
to doing that. Once you get a little spoiled in
the podcast world. As someone has come back to radio
and pod and done podcasting in radio, it is tough.
It's a it's a tough adjustment once you've had that
freedom of podcasting to do terrestrial radio again. Have you
always been a radio connoisseur and fan growing up that
(03:01):
you have your favorite announcers that that just you know
that you were like, goddamn, I want to do that. Yeah,
for sure. I mean I remember being in six and
seventh grade and having those Uh kids these days wouldn't
even know what they are, but that that yellow radio
you know, the Walkman, and you had the yellow one,
that was the waterproof one you were fancy. Yeah, I
(03:21):
had the yellow one. So that was probably you know,
mid nineties and listening to Jim Rome and I used
to uh, I used to love Jim Roman in the
mid to late nineties and just he was so badass.
He had so many big at the time baseball, you know,
it was kind of what the equivalent of kind of
what the football is now. It was so big, uh,
(03:41):
every player, you know, two or three stars on each
team throughout all of Major League Baseball. And he'd have
him on all the time, and he'd go to all
Star games and have the sweetest interviews and everyone was
so good with him because he was one of the
at the time, probably in the late nineties, one of
the only big time national radio host you know, especially
(04:01):
that we got and he was a West Coast guy.
I mean, there were some on the East Coast, but
that we could listen to it. I was I'm from Davis,
right up the road here from the Bay Area, so
you know, I would just remember thinking, Jim Rome, what
was the ship? Yeah, no, I love Jim. I mean
I had the same kind of experience growing up in
the East Coast with with Stern. But um, I think
that once you have, like you get that bug, it's
(04:22):
hard to get rid of it. Um when you were
when you were going coming up through high school and
into college, UM was announcing top of mind or you
know sports. You know, obviously you've always been a sports guy,
but you know, when did that become more of something
that you thought, this is where I want to go
with my career. Yeah, I mean it was always my life.
I was playing not not very good, but you know,
(04:43):
when you're in high school, you're playing sports. Hayberman was
actually we went to high school together. He called our
high school football games. So he was basically on a
road map to become in the next Bob cost Us.
You know that that's what he was gonna be doing
for me. I didn't quite know as maybe as clear
clearly at that time that that was what I was
gonna be doing. But I definitely knew once I got
(05:05):
to college in cal Poly that you know, I kind
of missed it. You're kind of screwing around the first
couple of years working in business. You get an internship
at Morgan Stanley, You're like, you know, I'm gonna make
make millions. And then the first day you get there,
they had you know, you wear a suit and tie
to work and they have you spackling the walls. You're like,
what this sucks? What what am I doing? And uh?
(05:27):
And then you kind of get back into it, and
one thing led to another. And I've always been really opinionated,
you know, I've always been you know, my my dad's
first reaction was always to tell me to shut up
because I could never stop talking. So it comes pretty
naturally to me. I just ended up working kind of
on the team side, uh, and got into scouting. It just,
you know a little bit by happenstance. I didn't necessarily
(05:49):
know I was going to do that at the time.
It just kind of one thing led to another and
it just happened. I want to get into that in
a second, but I want to touch on something you
just said about um being opinion aided, and I hope
you take this as a compliment. I'm from the East Coast,
and when I listen to you, I think, I you know,
when I listen to go, that sounds like a guy
from the East Coast, because I do feel that East
(06:11):
Coast sports announcers tend to have that kind of ego
opinionated thing and not not not saying that, you know,
you're this overblown ego, but you're you have that really
strong but you know exactly what I'm saying, right, Yeah,
you know, it just kind of comes naturally. And I
think when you listen, like you said, I mean, you
grew up on the East Coast and here in Stern.
(06:31):
You know, five years ago you just were kind of
you could only listen to what you had around you.
Now with serious XM, you know, I've ever probably the
last ten years, you know, know who Howard Stern is
and be able to listen to him on a daily basis,
or Chris Russo uh living in Philly here and some
of those type personalities like if you fake it. I
(06:52):
think you can fake it for a minute just because
you think that's the way to do it, but eventually
you get exposed. If that's not truly your personality. Like
Stephen A. Smith for exam ample. Yeah, I've met Stephen A. Smith.
He acts like he does on television when you meet
him in the hallway. Super nice guy. But I mean
that's he's not faking it, And I think that's why
it kind of resonates and works. Like me, when you
hear me talk, or you meet me at the gym,
(07:13):
or you see me at a restaurant, or you watch me,
you know, on social media or whatever, like that's I'm
who I am. You know, I'm not you just I
think I always whenever young people ask me for advice
how to get in, I just say, be true to yourself,
you know, do what you want to do. Don't try
to act or be like someone else. And it's you
could have a mentor or look up to people and
(07:36):
aspire to do things, you know, Like I'm working with
Colin Coward now, it's pretty cool. I mean I've been
listening to his radio show for a long time. He's
my favorite radio host by far. Like I grew up
on Jim Rome, but now like to me, Jim doesn't
do it for me anymore, Like I need a little
smarter sports talk. You know, there's other aspects of life
that I like, and Colin no one better in the business.
(07:58):
I don't even think it's close. Uh. So you can
aspire to be like someone, but you have to put
your own twist on it. And ultimately that's kind of
what I've tried to do. Well. You know, I teach
uh and coach a lot of podcasting, and the first
thing I tell people is that this is the most
honest medium that there is. You can't lie in audio
over time, and any of us who have done talk radio,
(08:20):
you know, we go went for four and a half hours.
You can go in and pretend to be in a
good mood, but the listeners are gonna know you're in
a bad mood within about twenty minutes because you just
can't hold that up the whole time. And I think
that that's why, um, you know that that that transition
from talk to podcasting is so much easier than someone
who was coming from a traditional you know, maybe radio
(08:40):
background is a disc jockey, because it's a different skill
set than what you have to do for sure. Uh.
I also think when you naturally one thing that I've
always kind of hung my hat on is when I
got out of the NFL, I realized, like, I don't
really give a ship what people think of me. I'm
not looking to get back in the NFL. So saying
things that may be deemed a controversial or god, you're
(09:03):
taking a hard stance on a g I don't care.
And if anything, like every day that goes by, I
care less. So that that also helps, you know, and
because you realize it doesn't really matter, you know, just
tell what you believe and don't worry about ruffle and
feathers because I'm not, you know, necessarily looking to work
with a guy again or trying to get back into
(09:23):
the business. And I think that's hard for some people.
You kind of sit on the fence if you know,
you're afraid to kind of make someone mad or you
know you might be doing business with them in the future.
Like I, I just I just let a rip. I
think that you just touch on something really important. And
I think that happens all the time. And I can
hear that when I hear an announcer pull away from
a player or a celebrity or or a topic knowing
(09:47):
that you know what, they just don't want to ruin
that rich and guess. You know, you have to do
that from time to time. You know, everybody has to.
You know, we're talking about working in the NFL and
working for the Eagles, So I want to I want
to get this picture of so go to college business?
Now do you go back and you know, I know
(10:07):
you have your masters in sports administration? Corrects? Yeah, did
you go back and get that before working with the
Eagles or was that? How did what was the transition
from that? When did you like make that transition from
business into sports and being a scout? Yeah? From cal Poly.
Actually went to work at Fresno State, uh, and I
worked for the football program and for a lot of coaches.
The way that coaches get started in the business, they
(10:29):
usually start in college football and it's it's a position
called a graduate assistant ship and you have one on
offense and one on defense. And now with the explosion
to college football, a lot of a lot of programs
now have it in recruiting, and basically what it is
is it pays you like a player, They just gives
you a full scholarship, So it pays you to go
to school. You know, you get a scholarship chip every
(10:50):
week to basically pay for your rent and food and
you know it's not much money, but and you work
on the coaching staff. So I got to do that
for two years. They paid for me to get my masters,
uh my Sports Administration Masters at Frisden State was like
a new program starting, so it kind of worked perfectly.
But I really I didn't go there for school. I
mean I went there to get a PhD in football,
(11:11):
and that just kind of happened, and then we had
a bunch of pro prospects. So over the couple of years,
I was there every scout that came through, every general
manager that came through. I and the guy was technically
working for the recruiting coordinator were in charge of setting
those guys up, giving them information. So it was just
it just kind of worked out perfectly. You were just
(11:33):
constantly with these individuals getting to know them, establishing relationships,
and from their end, they need you because their job
as a scout is basically like a detective, just trying
to accumulate information on these players. And you know, I
was an open book as most You know, young people
are great resources for scouts because they'll tell you anything
because they're trying to you know, they'll tell you the
(11:54):
truth that they're not they're not covering it up for
any agenda. They're just telling you. And they're usually pretty
close with the players because you know, I was four
years old, a lot of players were a year or
two under me. You're around him a lot. You just
you just have a pretty good idea of stuff that
they're asking for. So it just kind of worked out perfectly.
And then on top of that, you just you go
to school a small percentage of the time and you
(12:16):
just try to pass your classes and move on. So
you get the gig working for the Eagles as a scout.
That's gotta be thrilling. Um. But what what what was
like the first like the thing that hit you that
was like, Wow, this job is is really cool, but
this is really hard too. Yeah, I remember once training
camp started, just the pace of everything, and training camp
(12:39):
in college football is hard too, but you're not getting
rid of players. And when you first get a job
in the NFL, usually the position the lowest guy in
the total poll has is you're constantly taking people to
airports because you're cutting players, players are getting hurt, and
you're signing players. And in training camp it is just constant,
the turnover with the roster, the last ten guys. At
(12:59):
the time, it was eighty training camp roster was eighty.
It's not ninety. So you just every day might be
a new player. And the pace and the urgency of
everything and the pressure, you know, and what's being asked
of you. You know, you're not making you're making grand
yet they are depending on you to print out lists
for free agents, to have things ready at the general
(13:22):
manager and the head coach whenever they may need it.
It was just intense and just basic things like you
don't want to screw up, you know, uh, getting a guy,
you know, five minutes late from bringing him back to
the airport just because he may have a ten minute
window of getting a physical and then being a practice.
So it was just it just comes at you full speed.
(13:42):
You can't really be ready for it. You just you
just kind of hit the ground running and you know,
try to do your best. So, uh, what's uh can
you even share, like what what was the what's the
biggest meltdown that you you witnessed? You know, what to say?
The player name? As far as someone getting cut, you know,
I think most players I never had any issues and
(14:06):
I was a guy being the turk kind of picking
up their playbook. Most guys, you know, the guys if
you're a veteran player, you go see the head coach.
Like if you're a guy that's been there a certain
amount of years and you've earned the respect, you you
deal directly with the head coach. But the majority of
guys that are getting cut are like undrafted free agents
(14:26):
and second year practice squad guys that they know going in.
It's not it's not your typical job environment where you
sign a contract or you get hired. You know, for
the most part, you have a certain amount of time
to prove your words. You're gonna be there for a while.
In football, like the urgency level of making the team
for a large percentage of the players is high, so
(14:48):
they know that that given day, a lot of it
it may be disappointment, but it's not that they're not
freaking out thinking they got screwed, because they kind of
know the deal when they get into it. Now you
see tears and you kind of see maybe just the
shock of getting uh, you know, cut, but usually it's
just pretty quiet. You know. I've driven a lot of
guys who have been cut to the airport. But I
(15:10):
never in my experience ever had like anger or anything
like that. It's more just the first couple of dimes
you do it, it's pretty surreal. And then, like anything
in life, as by my second year doing stuff like that,
you just I don't want to say cold blooded, but
you just don't give a ship. You're like, let's get
in the Carlo's go. Come on, man, Hey I got
other stuff to do. Just it's it's a business, you know.
(15:32):
It's just it's the way you look at it. I know.
When um, you know, people find out what I do,
they immediately want me to listen to their podcasts. They
want me to give them advice, they want me this this,
and this and and you know, and at a certain point,
when you do something for a living, you have to go,
I can't do that. Um, how about when people find
out you're an NFL scout. How many people come out
(15:52):
of the woodwork who want you to check out a
player or hey I got this cousin things like that.
It used to happen a lot, you know. And and
at first, you, like you said, whenever you first start
doing something, you're like, oh, yeah, I'll check it out.
Then by you know, six months in, you just stop
even returning emails, let alone looking into it because you
realize the margin for guys making it at this level
(16:16):
is just slim. The nun and the most of these
guys giving you flyers. I always personally hated even wasting
too much time on like seventh and undrafted free agents,
like you should focus on the top end guys, because
that's ultimately how you win. And you know, in in
in fairness, every every dad that has a son playing
college football thinks this kid has a chance, and you know,
(16:37):
sometimes you gotta tell him, no, man, you don't. You
ain't playing in the NFL. Start start your start your career,
you know, start do whatever you're doing, get your internship,
get get it rolling, because that this, you know, I
think the stat is like one point five percent of
college football players making the NFL. And you have to
be so damn good to play Division one college football.
(16:57):
And obviously some Division two guys make it, but the
majority of guys in the NFL are Division one college
football players, and the percentage of them that make it
from their sport, you know, from college football, is just
so slim. It's just it's the highest level you know,
of the profession, and really of basically any profession, because
it's not many you know, sales jobs or even what
(17:19):
we're doing, what most people do. A guy can get
an entry level job and break in in football as
a player. It's basically impossible. Yeah, I think that, you know,
I go through this a lot. I teach at at
university and uh it's here in the San Francisco and
you know, it's a you know, Division two school and
nobody's going pro. But you know, try telling that to
(17:42):
the athletes who are screwing off in class, you know,
because they all think they're gonna especially baseball, because they
they've heard they've had two friends who maybe got a
triple I mean a single, a contract for a year,
and then you know, now they're out of work, but
still don't get it like that. You then have to
get a real job after that, Yeah, I mean, real
life comes at your fast. And I think a lot
of guys you're just naturally kind of immature, you know,
(18:05):
in your early twenties. But it's gonna hit you. It's
gonna hit you hard, and then you just you have
to adapt. And that's you know what I love about
football is a lot of guys are just because of
the nature of the sport. How hard your coach still
even if you do, quote unquote not make it to
the pros. I don't. I wouldn't even consider that just
because some guys make it. Most guys never even had
the opportunity to make it. They are kind of equipped
(18:28):
just with the nature of the sport. How demanding it is.
How you know, it's it's the of the three major sports.
It makes you use your brain the most because you're
learning plays a lot of It isn't meeting rooms in
the classroom. It's it is a very cerebral sport, like
in baseball. It's just kind of ceball hit ball, you know.
I mean, it's not it doesn't take a genius to
do it. But to play, you know, to play like
(18:51):
in the New England Patriot offense. Not just the quarterback,
but if you want to play receiver for Tom Brady,
you have to be really smart. If you're not, you
will not get on the field. You know, I do.
I went to West Virginia University and I do a
podcast with Pat White and Steve Slayton every week. Oh
that's a pretty good one. Yeah, you should say it's fine.
(19:13):
I'm they're really two really good friends of mine now
and um and and and I always you know, and
I talked to a lot of especially former w athletes
about getting into podcasting and that, and and I'm just
always kind of wonder why, you know, I feel like
this is, you know, so many, so many students and
athletes tell me they want to be broadcasters, but they
don't do shit about it. They don't do anything about it,
(19:33):
and that, you know, and you ask them who their
favorite announcer is, and they don't have an answer. It's
just they just want to go do it, but they
don't want to put the work into it. And and
the thing with Stevens and Pat was, you know, you know,
I was like, well, let's start a podcast and that
way you can work out some stuff. Uh. Do you
see a place where maybe we might hear more ex
athletes getting into the podcasting world instead of radio. I
(19:54):
could see it the one thing the radio medium for
a lot of these guys and their local markets. Like
let's say use Pat Wise as example, if you had
the opportunity to a radio gig in Morganstown, you know,
probably it's consistent money. Uh, and the money is just
kind of set, where in podcasts usually have to hustle
a little more than go get your advertising. It is
(20:15):
a little easier if you can get it now. I
also think just because you are a former athlete doesn't
mean necessarily going to be any good. Yeah, you know,
I mean, how many podcasts are terrible? Most of them? Yeah,
that's why everyone's starting a podcast. Well does that even mean?
You know, most of them are terrible. But to me,
I'm a big believer as the cream always rises. So
(20:38):
there are certain athletes that are really good broadcasts for
a reason. They probably work hard at it. They have
a natural personality there, you know, well spoken, they are outspoken. Uh,
they're not afraid to kind of ruffle some feathers. And
those guys will always be good. Just like in podcasts,
you see the cream kind of rise, the other ones
don't really get noticed now. Also, I'm sure there are
also a lot of good podcasts that haven't been noticed yet.
(21:00):
You know, it's just but ultimately they will be Uh.
It's just it's the nature of how things work in
this country. By the way, speaking of cream rising to
the top, your thoughts on West Virginia went into Big
twelve this year. Uh in football this upcoming year. I mean,
is your coach gonna last through the season? Come on,
(21:22):
well we're back, Come on, it's gonna be great that Oklahoma.
You know, they're losing one of the best players they've
ever had in bigger field. Now they are clearly are
stacked every year, but that's a pretty big transition for them,
So you'd have to think it's it's somewhat open. Uh.
Texas Tech has been kind of average. Texas feels still
(21:43):
like two years away from being a year away, even
though they're on their third coach since Mack Brown. Uh,
there is a lot of pressure on West Virginia, right,
I mean, you know better than me. It feels like
Dana kind of held on a little bit this year. Uh,
you know, have they has he left a little to
be desired? You know, it's it is kind of a
tough place to win, just relative to their conference now.
(22:03):
But I think, yeah, they could win nine ten games,
thank you. That's all I wanted to hear. The other
thing is they would you would you say West Virginia
as a football school or basketball school? I mean, we
are football school. We've always been a football school, but
I mean that's not true anymore. I mean, I mean
from the time that be Line was there until now.
(22:25):
I mean, we've been a consistent top twenty five basketball program,
sweet sixteen three out of the last four years. I mean,
it's it's not uh. I mean, yeah, I think, you know,
I think that I think we are probably a bigger
basketball school at this point, but we'll always feel like
a football school. And I think if I was a
West Virginia fan, my issue would be and obviously Huggies
big time, but it's like our basketball team. As an
(22:48):
outside observer, I watched Huggies team play, It's like these
guys are just badass. They throw haymakers, they're tough, and
then I watched the football team play. It's like they're
kind of soft. So it's how's that now? Granted, Huggins,
if you had to pick all the Division one uh
college basketball coaches, who would be your number one choice
to just transition to become a football coach, he would
(23:09):
easily be the number one guy, because I mean he
dresses literally like a football coach, and his teams, you know,
full court press. But it's just it's it's hard when
you're at a football school and then the basketball coach
now isn't didn't hugging Huggins go to school there? Yeah, yeah,
he's uh, he's actually it's a little it's a little unique,
but I mean the basketball coach clearly is overshadowing the
(23:30):
football coach, and that usually leads to a guy getting fired. Well,
he and he's just not been. And I'll tell you
know where a lot of this started with Dana Why
people don't love him from his how he dresses. He
wouldn't wear the blue and gold, he won't always insist
on wearing black. And I know that sounds like a
little thing on game day, On game day and when
and when that, when that first came, you know that happened,
(23:50):
a lot of West Virginia fans had an issue with
it and his attitude towards it was too bad instead
of maybe okay, things like that. It doesn't matter. It
does matter in the in the pros. It doesn't mean
ship as long as you get it done. No one,
no one even really thinks like that in college because
the alumni has been so closely associated and they go
(24:10):
to all these dinners. When you do arrogant stuff like that,
and then you don't quite get it done. It flips
on you fast. It is it is, and I think
that was. I mean, and there's a lot of us
that you've got this, like you said, alumni coaching your
your basketball team. That feels like God, that's one of
ours doing exactly And I mean and Huggins is he
(24:31):
can do no wrong in Morgantown and Hogerson can't. And
you know, I mean he did you say he has
a lifetime contract, Bob Hoggins, Oh, he absolutely does. But
the way he is, I don't see him. I see
him having another massive heart attack within the next five years.
And it's not a joke. That's at something real concern that. Yeah,
I and a lot of other folks that are close
to you know, West Virginia sports worry about how do
(24:53):
you think he weighs? Oh, he's got to be over
three bills and because he's he's tall, right, he's like
six he's tall, and uh yeah, and just has he's
had two major heart attacks and has zero concern for
what he puts into his body. Zero And clearly he's
a grinder, right, I mean, he's in his office breaking
down film, eating cheeseburgers and whatever. Doesn't even worry about it.
(25:15):
I don't want to get into the weeds on West
Virginia Sports, but on our podcast this week we talked
about why hasn't he won a national championship? And my
thing is that, Um, you know, I work with a
lot of millennials. This is what I do to teach.
You know, all my staff are millennials, and that hard
knock approach works to a certain extent, but you still
(25:35):
have to have a little bit of give with these
kids because that's just unfortunately there they that's their generation,
and he doesn't do that, and it's just his his
insistence on if somebody does one thing wrong, pulls him
off the court and yells at him and you see
him break down at the end of the game. I
would love you to push back on that, because I'm
a millennial. To now the older I'm thirty three, so
(25:56):
I'm right at the beginning of the millennials. You're barely
a millennial. I do think at the core, most humans,
especially the highest level competitive humans, whether you're working in finance,
whether you're playing on a high level basketball team, whether
you're trying to have the number one podcast when you
work with or technically four Like, if he's your coach
or your boss, a high level guy that you really respect,
(26:17):
you can push them to the limits. So to me,
Bob Huggins like even though these kids are one and
their millennials playing on their phone, deep down to their core,
like any competitor worth their salt kind of likes being
motherfucked and pushed a little bit. You know. I don't
necessarily think, because that gets thrown around a lot with
(26:38):
with millennials that they can't handle it. I disagree, and
I think just humans, the highest level competitive humans don't
really mind. I know it's and I don't disagree with you, John,
I absolutely believe and I think I get the most
out of my people because I do push them and
I'm the first voice of reason to say, hey, you're
not as good as you think you are. But I
do think at the end of the day, I need
(26:58):
to give them a little pat on the us once
in a while and say a good job, you know,
I mean, and that's and that's there's nothing wrong with that,
not just going to college basketball tangent here. But I
think when you look at like coach Calipari or or
coach k Like, those guys are hard asses too, you know,
Bill self. I mean those guys are screaming at people,
and I think a lot of times athletes. And this
(27:19):
is where Twitter always freaks out when a dude gets
berated on the side, Like God, they're used to it,
you know, They're just it's not it's not a normal
work environment, like you couldn't. You wouldn't bate a student
in a class like a coach would braid a guy
on a court or on on the field. You've never
been in my classes. Well, I gotta come check it out.
I gotta get an in fine. What do you mean
(27:40):
you didn't finish your podcast on Tuesday, Bush Lee exactly. Um, yeah,
but here, but you understand it's my hot take. You know,
I gotta have something to end basketball season, to get
the get the get the people talking. So that was
my hot take. Another person on the show's hot take
is that he drinks too much, and and that's that
(28:00):
was another one that we we bannered about. But I
haven't gotten the feedback on that yet. I don't think
that we're gonna get a lot of happiness from the
university with that. Mentioned, but hey, how how do you
drinks too much? Yeah? I mean it's sure it doesn't
look like he's you know, drinking G two's. Uh yeah,
I'm gonna leave it at that. Hey. One thing I
(28:21):
wanted to talk to you about is, you know, you
know the NFL. What do people get wrong about the NFL?
And do you feel that the NFL is is is
going towards the less popular side or is it still
as popular as ever. I don't know if it's quote
unquote as popular as ever, maybe as it was like
two or three years ago, but I think relative to
(28:43):
the other sports, uh, it's so much more popular than
the other two sports. I mean, the Lebron game on
like Friday will get a little over a million people
watching it. Those Thursday night football games that Twitter will
tell you are terrible get like thirteen million people watching it.
This second biggest sport in America is Tiger woods. It's
not basketball or baseball. The NFL, and really college football
(29:06):
to football just in general, is on a pedestal by itself.
So even when it has a rough year like it
has this last year in ratings wise, and I personally
think there's more to it. I mean, people are streaming.
The game's changed a little bit, but it's so far
ahead just in terms of the viewership and interest when
you factor in gambling, when you factor in fantasy football.
(29:27):
There's also an element of urgency with the sport. Like
baseball opening days tomorrow, Well, there's a hundred and sixty
two games, So I can't even pretend that the game,
you know, whatever the date will be, March nine begins
to matter that there's six more months of games. We're
in football, and you see this in college football. Definitely,
(29:47):
every game means so much in a society where you know,
urgency is such a big deal, it's always going to
have that just the way the sport is set up.
And you see it in basketball, like the regular season
means nothing. Definitely in college basketball, right just like get
to the tournament and see what happens. That there's an
urgency level that fans that the sport brings, the fans
(30:09):
that to me will never go away. And now they
have to adapt with streaming and engaging all that bs.
But to me, the popularity of the sport, even with
some of the issues they're dealing with with concussions and
the violence, which I also think the little bs. I
think humans yearn for violence. It's why we It's why
I didn't even hesitate to spend when Floyd fought you know, Connor,
(30:33):
even though that fight was pretty bad. But you know,
the big hits. People love it. You know, people love it.
They love car crashes, that love fights. I mean, that's why.
It's why when you're in high school and someone's getting
to fight, every kid runs and circles them. You know,
It's just it's a natural human reaction. That's why world
starts are popular. Exactly. Hey, I didn't even get a
chance to talk about you and Haybrman because I I
(30:54):
love the concept of of two friends doing a radio
show and I thought it was very unique. Um. So
I'm hoping that maybe you guys can swing by sometime
in San Francisco and get in the studio when we
can talk about that podcast. But but real quickly, just
just kind of touch on that how that happened. Um
And for folks that don't know about about the radio
show that you know that you did here in San Francisco. Yeah,
(31:15):
I mean guy was an up and coming star, I
mean still is doing stuff at packed ALF Network now
and uh, he was working in radio. I had just
got fired from the NFL, and you know kind of
I was looking to kind of get into the media
and I came in and just did a couple of
hits on his station. Uh. And the program director at
the time heard my stuff, liked it, kind of wanted
(31:36):
me to get more involved and do more stuff. And
you know, one thing led to another, and then probably
six months later, he had the idea, why don't you
two guys do a show. Uh, And then we started
doing a show and we did that for about three
and a half years, and you know, it was it
was a blast. It was it was fun. You know,
it was fun to listen to as well. I really uh,
I was. I was a listener. Uh, daily listeners. Thank
(32:01):
you for Thank you for making my life a little
better for those for those you know, and and you know,
in the business, one management changes and just you know,
you're working for people that you just you're like, what
am I doing? It's just I mean, my dog could
run this station better. Just no, things aren't gonna work out.
And it was sad because we had we had a
good thing going. And luckily, you know, it's two eighteen
(32:24):
and not ninete, so we were able to just keep
it going and make money in a different in a
different form. Listen. I like to finish off with the
three killer questions. Three questions for you, John Metelkoff, the
first one being if you could listen to any athlete,
living or dead, do a podcast, who would you want
(32:45):
to listen to? That's a good one. Uh, living or dead,
it's a great question, I know, thank you like and
he'd be fully honest. Oh yeah, absolutely, podcast honest. You
know Mike's on. It could be. It could even be
a couple. I mean, Mickey mant would have to be.
I mean, just give Mickey about a six pack and
(33:06):
just say let it rip, Mick. I think Mickey'd be
right up there. And you know, if he was gonna
truly be honest and tell me all the goods, Pete
Rose wouldn't be a bad one either, that'd be good. Uh,
you know it just it feels like to get Montana.
I've I've heard some fantastic Montana stories. As Randy Cross
I think once famously said you you never went into
(33:28):
a bar and didn't look much better standing next to Joe.
Uh that I don't just Joe's personality. How open would
he be? But I think some of those baseball players
and like the fifties and the sixties would be pretty
damn good. No. I think Michael Jordan would be fantastic.
But like Michael and Joe, they I don't even think
they would say anything. There's no amount of money you
could get to get them to be candid. Mickey Man,
(33:50):
that's a that's a really good one. What's the dumbest
thing you've ever done for sports? Uh? You mean in
terms of this dumbest thing in general? Uh, that's a
good question. I know, I'm very good, John, I don't know.
That's that's that's a good one. You know. I once
(34:12):
when I was working in Philly, I once filled up
the general manager's car with gas because he needed yet
he didn't have time to go to the gas station.
So you just have to do stupid ship like that.
But you never had to go get the bat straightener. Uh.
Do you ever heard that story about the sending the
bat boy around to get the bat straightener? No? I didn't.
I'll send it to you. It's a it's on a podcast.
Very good story. Anyway. How about the last podcast that
(34:34):
you binge? Uh? That's a good one. I was actually
this morning before we hopped on listening to uh, Bill
Simmons and Kevin Durant. He just had Kevin Durant on, Yeah,
and Durant, So I'll probably hit that back up a
little later today. Yeah, I love that. I like Bill Simmons.
He usually has a good guests on. Yeah. He I
like Bill. He he has that kind of interview style
(34:56):
that I like, which is kind of relaxed and conversational
and you know, you don't know where it's gonna go.
He's I'm a big fan of his, have been first
and like I listen to Bill like Bill is not.
I don't look at him like a radio host, like
for me, you're listening to me for my opinion, Like
you listen to Bill because he's getting guests on, and
so I whenever he has a big guest on, I
listen to a show. John Mittelcoff, it's been a real pleasure.
(35:18):
I enjoy talking to you, and hopefully we'll get you
in studio and do this again. Definitely, Thanks man, Thanks John,
that was funzy. That was it was a good interview.
I always like talking to UH folks that have listened
to on the radio. It's it's, it's it's I'm still
like a nerd, right, and I feel like you're also
(35:42):
such a big sports fan that it was such an
easy conversation for I do need to apologize for all
the West Virginia University talk everybody. I should have put
that at the top of the show, a disclaimer. Anytime
I talk sports is going to turn into a w
W conversation. That is just unfortunately, that's what you get
when you when you listen to to pot cast of mine.
If you don't like it, that's like half your brain.
(36:02):
It is half my brain. Yeah. Now I have to
football season because if you want to follow John on Twitter,
it's at John Middlecoff. It's m I D D L
E K A U f F. He does a twitter
uh little periscope thing every day if you want to
watch that. And also you can listen to him with
his former partner or its current partner, but it's former
(36:25):
radio partner, Guy Haberman, which I think is a funny name,
Guy HABERMANN. It's fun to say Guy Haberman and John Middlecoff.
They have Haberman and Middlecoff podcast you can check out too.
But there are more podcasts out there that we want
to talk about. I'm actually to see what you picked
out this week Z for us to check out. All right,
So my first one is called now What with Arian Foster?
(36:49):
And Arian Foster is a former NFL running back and
he is now turn podcaster and it's cool because, um
it's not just a podcast about sports, but it's also
about things that he's interested in that he brings in experts.
So he loves space. So he bought brought in um
an astronaut onto his show. He was he bought Snoop
(37:10):
Dogg onto a show because Snoop Dogg has that football league.
He's a coach now, so it's really interesting. It's cool
to see him outside of the football realm. Let's check
it out. You know, Pok was my friend before he
got on death Row records. I met him at the
Poetic Justice rap party and when I met him, we
was like sort of kind of like battle rapping against
each other the first time we meet. Man, if you
look at all the old clips, they all all the
(37:30):
goats went at each other. Man, it was just liked it.
I've been a big fan of his because he is
so smart and he has he has a lot of
cool things to say. And you know, I was talking
to John about more ex athletes doing podcasting, and I
think that's an example of somebody who who can do
it and do it well, especially because it's not just
about sports. Yeah, and I think that when you do
a podcast that is um had several different things that
(37:53):
you talk about, it's you have to have the right host,
and he is the right host for that. So good choice.
Thank you, so can one. This is one of my
favorite wrestlers growing up. It's a Steve Boston show. Everybody
loves loves Stone Cold Steve Boston. It's I mean, if
you when I moved to America from Sri Lanka, this
is one of the first things my brother and I
(38:13):
were ever introduced to was the w W E on
a second, that was your introduction to United States culture,
and we loved it so much, the Cane and Undertaker
and all of that. I was just like, we were ready.
Did you walk around saying they're they're catch phrases? Yeah,
all the time. We would wait for the alive like
(38:34):
episodes or whatever. I didn't think. I honestly didn't figure
out it was fake until really later on your eyes.
Tell me that you still don't think it's fake. I
just don't want to believe it. Wow, what's your favorite
catchphrase from a wrestler and do it for me for
I keep wanting to say it was the Booker t one,
but then I can't remember. I always say rocks one,
(38:57):
smell what the rock is cooking it? I can't come on,
do it? Can you smell what you guys? Come on?
Do it? No? I just like also like Ray Mysterios
walk up song and then his move in between the ropes.
I can't believe we're talking. Well, I talked about West
Virginia University for ten minutes, so let's go. Yeah, and
(39:21):
a really cool dude. I got to meet him a
number of years back when he his book came out
and he actually came to a charity like we had
him on the show, and then he came and showed
up at a charity event that that next morning. You know,
just asking too when he just showed up. Great guy, cool. Yeah,
I would love to meet him, especially like listening to
his podcast. What surprised me a lot was so the
(39:43):
description is whatever pops into his brain and they really
mean it, like it's it's obviously about wrestling, but he's
so knowledgeable about a lot of other things that he
just talks and it's unfiltered and he's completely the person
that you would think he is outside wrestling. Let's check
it out. The legit boss Sasha has a ring to it.
(40:05):
How did you come up with that name? Very random? Um?
I think I was like my first month in f
c W and Rob Nayl at the time, he said
we need a list of names, and I gave him
a list and Sasha was a different last name and
I don't remember, and Banks is a different first name.
And then a week lay like your Sasha Banks, And
I was like, you like a little caveat to that.
(40:26):
If you're a new podcaster and you don't have a
large following of people who were already fans of yours,
this is not a good format. This format is great
when you're you've already got people stone cold yeah. But
if you were you know, Jim Smith, who has two
people following you on Twitter, and you want to do
a podcast about anything that pops into your head, it's
(40:46):
not gonna work. Not the game plan you want to
go in, Not the game plan. A little a little
free consulting there from Maddie Media. Boom, alright, what else
you got? So the last one is a shout out
to Colin Cowherd. So it's his podcast, The Herd, and
it's about sports, different sports, not just one sport. And
it's a different take. It's not just factual, it's his opinion.
(41:06):
He also has like that old sportscaster voice that I
really like. You know what I'm talking about? Like, I
do know what you're talking about it? Yeah, I like
it a lot. Let's check it out. Offensive guys are
about skill and choreography and unity, playing together. They huddle up,
they call a play on three, they audible together, choreographed.
(41:28):
One guy doesn't get it, penalty blows it up. Defensive
guys are about blowing stuff up. They're aggressive, they're intimidating.
You know what a safety is, it's a wide receiver
that can't catch. You know what a linebacker is a
running back with no moves or speed. I want my
(41:49):
offensive guys to be choreographed and unified, great listeners, you
know what. I want my defensive guys to be little
lack o And I'm totally okay with it. You have
voices like that always like scared me because I never
had a voice like that, and and and it's it
is you don't hear it all the time. Yeah, Collin Collins, Uh,
(42:15):
he's he's a legend in the business. So it's cool
that he's part of We get to have some of
the folks on from his new podcast network, including John Mettalcoff,
who was a great guest today. So I want to
thank John Meddalcoff from coming on this show today and
again follow him on Twitter at John Middlecoff. You can
follow me on Twitter, Instagram, uh, and Facebook and see
lots of pictures of me at West Virginia University of
(42:35):
Basketball games and actually me with the some of the
players from the Sweet Sixteen at Maddie Stout m A
T T Y S T A U d T. Other
than that, lots of pictures of my dogs. Um. I
also want to do a shout out to the podcast
The Cooler on k q e D. It's an MPR podcast.
They actually took our show from a few weeks ago
that we did with them and put it on their
(42:56):
podcast feed, So great little sharing going on there. Uh.
Those I love those guys are like my new favorite
friends online. I talked to them all the time, so
uh go go check them out again if you haven't
done that already. Um and also again if you like
John Medalkoff, checkout habramnt and medalcoffe is other podcast Z.
You're a fantastic producer. Thank you appreciate it. I want
(43:17):
to also announce that we're gonna be changing the format
of the show just a bit. We'll be publishing every
two weeks now instead of every week. Now. That's not
saying we might not stick one in here and there
every week, but we want to just try to be
I'll be completely transparent. I'm slammed and it's hard to
get one of these done every week because a little
(43:37):
more work goes into it than you think. So we're
gonna do it every two weeks. So if you're one
of our thousands and thousands, of hundreds, maybe tens of fans,
I hope you understand. Thanks for tuning in. I want
to thank our engineer's Horse and David and of course
Casey who does the music. I want to do a
shout out to Ricardo a R who works here at
(44:00):
Heart Radio and does lots of all the little promo
things you see on social media. He does a goodbye
and a fawn farewell to our engineer Anna. She's going
back to Drexel University and just revolutionize all the streaming
stuff that you see on all the high I Heeart
stations here in San Francisco. She built the unit that
did that, so really cool stuff. She's she's on the
bigger and better thing, not the better, but she's on
(44:22):
the big things. And I want to especially thank Katie
Wilcox here at I Heeart Radio in San Francisco, Don Parker,
and the pod father Chris Peterson of I Heeart Radio.
Thanks everybody for listening.
Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Access Podcast, the
podcast about podcast. I'm Mattie Stout and producer Z. You
have put together a guest that I really enjoyed this week. Yeah,
he was cool if I've been listening to him for
a while, so it was nice to have him on
the show. John Middlecoff is the host of three and Out.
It's one of the new podcast on the brand new
Herd network that's calling cowhards new podcast networks. And he's
(00:25):
also somebody I used to listen to every day on
the radio, so it's very exciting to talk to him.
Let's check out a little bit of John Meddlecoff right now.
I will say this the most talented player in this
draft from the quarterback perspective, and I you could argue
just overall player, but let's just just talk quarterbacks. Is
Josh Rosen for me? And I don't really think it's
(00:46):
that close. Just pure talent. There's more to the quarterback
than just ability though the mental capacity, personality that there's
so much more than, but just in a vacuum, Josh
Rosen for me is the number one quarterback on my
draft board. And I'm John Mettalcoff. We don't know each other,
but I know you because I used to listen to
your show a lot locally on on on a radio
(01:07):
station that you did with Haberman, which I want to
talk about in a second. But I don't know if
you know this, but I feel personally responsible for your
podcast since I was one of the people who tweeted
you after your show went off the air and said
start a podcast. UM So, so you're welcome, is what
I'm saying. Thank you, thank you. You know, we just
tried to expand you know, you go from terrestrial radio,
which is uh hanging on by a thread, and you
(01:30):
you always want to uh you know, adapt in life
and things change. And you know, I've enjoyed doing the
podcast for the last couple of years. Well, I left
radio nine years ago. I did mornings in San Francisco
to to get into podcasting and Stitcher um and and
I've always felt that for talk folks, while why wouldn't
you want to be in podcasting because we get to
(01:51):
do everything that we did well and talk, but yet
we get to say whatever we want. I know, it's
you know, it's weird. Once you get into podcasting and
you kind of get the free flow flow of doing
whatever you want and in the way, you know, I
do two separate podcasts now, this one with Colin Coward,
which is just me and I've kind of taken that.
I do a periscope show on Twitter and I've kind
(02:14):
of just taken that a little more segmented to the
Colin show. But two with Haberman. You know, we have
we know what we're doing, so it's we can bang
out topics and kind of set it up like a
radio show, but it kind of adapted to the podcast
medium and it's, uh, it's been great, and you go
back and we filled in a little bit. On radio,
some of the local stations can be are and it's
(02:37):
kind of weird because it's very regimented. You know, you
gotta get out at certain times you're you're not used
to doing that. Once you get a little spoiled in
the podcast world. As someone has come back to radio
and pod and done podcasting in radio, it is tough.
It's a it's a tough adjustment once you've had that
freedom of podcasting to do terrestrial radio again. Have you
always been a radio connoisseur and fan growing up that
(03:01):
you have your favorite announcers that that just you know
that you were like, goddamn, I want to do that. Yeah,
for sure. I mean I remember being in six and
seventh grade and having those Uh kids these days wouldn't
even know what they are, but that that yellow radio
you know, the Walkman, and you had the yellow one,
that was the waterproof one you were fancy. Yeah, I
(03:21):
had the yellow one. So that was probably you know,
mid nineties and listening to Jim Rome and I used
to uh, I used to love Jim Roman in the
mid to late nineties and just he was so badass.
He had so many big at the time baseball, you know,
it was kind of what the equivalent of kind of
what the football is now. It was so big, uh,
(03:41):
every player, you know, two or three stars on each
team throughout all of Major League Baseball. And he'd have
him on all the time, and he'd go to all
Star games and have the sweetest interviews and everyone was
so good with him because he was one of the
at the time, probably in the late nineties, one of
the only big time national radio host you know, especially
(04:01):
that we got and he was a West Coast guy.
I mean, there were some on the East Coast, but
that we could listen to it. I was I'm from Davis,
right up the road here from the Bay Area, so
you know, I would just remember thinking, Jim Rome, what
was the ship? Yeah, no, I love Jim. I mean
I had the same kind of experience growing up in
the East Coast with with Stern. But um, I think
that once you have, like you get that bug, it's
(04:22):
hard to get rid of it. Um when you were
when you were going coming up through high school and
into college, UM was announcing top of mind or you
know sports. You know, obviously you've always been a sports guy,
but you know, when did that become more of something
that you thought, this is where I want to go
with my career. Yeah, I mean it was always my life.
I was playing not not very good, but you know,
(04:43):
when you're in high school, you're playing sports. Hayberman was
actually we went to high school together. He called our
high school football games. So he was basically on a
road map to become in the next Bob cost Us.
You know that that's what he was gonna be doing
for me. I didn't quite know as maybe as clear
clearly at that time that that was what I was
gonna be doing. But I definitely knew once I got
(05:05):
to college in cal Poly that you know, I kind
of missed it. You're kind of screwing around the first
couple of years working in business. You get an internship
at Morgan Stanley, You're like, you know, I'm gonna make
make millions. And then the first day you get there,
they had you know, you wear a suit and tie
to work and they have you spackling the walls. You're like,
what this sucks? What what am I doing? And uh?
(05:27):
And then you kind of get back into it, and
one thing led to another. And I've always been really opinionated,
you know, I've always been you know, my my dad's
first reaction was always to tell me to shut up
because I could never stop talking. So it comes pretty
naturally to me. I just ended up working kind of
on the team side, uh, and got into scouting. It just,
you know a little bit by happenstance. I didn't necessarily
(05:49):
know I was going to do that at the time.
It just kind of one thing led to another and
it just happened. I want to get into that in
a second, but I want to touch on something you
just said about um being opinion aided, and I hope
you take this as a compliment. I'm from the East Coast,
and when I listen to you, I think, I you know,
when I listen to go, that sounds like a guy
from the East Coast, because I do feel that East
(06:11):
Coast sports announcers tend to have that kind of ego
opinionated thing and not not not saying that, you know,
you're this overblown ego, but you're you have that really
strong but you know exactly what I'm saying, right, Yeah,
you know, it just kind of comes naturally. And I
think when you listen, like you said, I mean, you
grew up on the East Coast and here in Stern.
(06:31):
You know, five years ago you just were kind of
you could only listen to what you had around you.
Now with serious XM, you know, I've ever probably the
last ten years, you know, know who Howard Stern is
and be able to listen to him on a daily basis,
or Chris Russo uh living in Philly here and some
of those type personalities like if you fake it. I
(06:52):
think you can fake it for a minute just because
you think that's the way to do it, but eventually
you get exposed. If that's not truly your personality. Like
Stephen A. Smith for exam ample. Yeah, I've met Stephen A. Smith.
He acts like he does on television when you meet
him in the hallway. Super nice guy. But I mean
that's he's not faking it, And I think that's why
it kind of resonates and works. Like me, when you
hear me talk, or you meet me at the gym,
(07:13):
or you see me at a restaurant, or you watch me,
you know, on social media or whatever, like that's I'm
who I am. You know, I'm not you just I
think I always whenever young people ask me for advice
how to get in, I just say, be true to yourself,
you know, do what you want to do. Don't try
to act or be like someone else. And it's you
could have a mentor or look up to people and
(07:36):
aspire to do things, you know, Like I'm working with
Colin Coward now, it's pretty cool. I mean I've been
listening to his radio show for a long time. He's
my favorite radio host by far. Like I grew up
on Jim Rome, but now like to me, Jim doesn't
do it for me anymore, Like I need a little
smarter sports talk. You know, there's other aspects of life
that I like, and Colin no one better in the business.
(07:58):
I don't even think it's close. Uh. So you can
aspire to be like someone, but you have to put
your own twist on it. And ultimately that's kind of
what I've tried to do. Well. You know, I teach
uh and coach a lot of podcasting, and the first
thing I tell people is that this is the most
honest medium that there is. You can't lie in audio
over time, and any of us who have done talk radio,
(08:20):
you know, we go went for four and a half hours.
You can go in and pretend to be in a
good mood, but the listeners are gonna know you're in
a bad mood within about twenty minutes because you just
can't hold that up the whole time. And I think
that that's why, um, you know that that that transition
from talk to podcasting is so much easier than someone
who was coming from a traditional you know, maybe radio
(08:40):
background is a disc jockey, because it's a different skill
set than what you have to do for sure. Uh.
I also think when you naturally one thing that I've
always kind of hung my hat on is when I
got out of the NFL, I realized, like, I don't
really give a ship what people think of me. I'm
not looking to get back in the NFL. So saying
things that may be deemed a controversial or god, you're
(09:03):
taking a hard stance on a g I don't care.
And if anything, like every day that goes by, I
care less. So that that also helps, you know, and
because you realize it doesn't really matter, you know, just
tell what you believe and don't worry about ruffle and
feathers because I'm not, you know, necessarily looking to work
with a guy again or trying to get back into
(09:23):
the business. And I think that's hard for some people.
You kind of sit on the fence if you know,
you're afraid to kind of make someone mad or you
know you might be doing business with them in the future.
Like I, I just I just let a rip. I
think that you just touch on something really important. And
I think that happens all the time. And I can
hear that when I hear an announcer pull away from
a player or a celebrity or or a topic knowing
(09:47):
that you know what, they just don't want to ruin
that rich and guess. You know, you have to do
that from time to time. You know, everybody has to.
You know, we're talking about working in the NFL and
working for the Eagles, So I want to I want
to get this picture of so go to college business?
Now do you go back and you know, I know
(10:07):
you have your masters in sports administration? Corrects? Yeah, did
you go back and get that before working with the
Eagles or was that? How did what was the transition
from that? When did you like make that transition from
business into sports and being a scout? Yeah? From cal Poly.
Actually went to work at Fresno State, uh, and I
worked for the football program and for a lot of coaches.
The way that coaches get started in the business, they
(10:29):
usually start in college football and it's it's a position
called a graduate assistant ship and you have one on
offense and one on defense. And now with the explosion
to college football, a lot of a lot of programs
now have it in recruiting, and basically what it is
is it pays you like a player, They just gives
you a full scholarship, So it pays you to go
to school. You know, you get a scholarship chip every
(10:50):
week to basically pay for your rent and food and
you know it's not much money, but and you work
on the coaching staff. So I got to do that
for two years. They paid for me to get my masters,
uh my Sports Administration Masters at Frisden State was like
a new program starting, so it kind of worked perfectly.
But I really I didn't go there for school. I
mean I went there to get a PhD in football,
(11:11):
and that just kind of happened, and then we had
a bunch of pro prospects. So over the couple of years,
I was there every scout that came through, every general
manager that came through. I and the guy was technically
working for the recruiting coordinator were in charge of setting
those guys up, giving them information. So it was just
it just kind of worked out perfectly. You were just
(11:33):
constantly with these individuals getting to know them, establishing relationships,
and from their end, they need you because their job
as a scout is basically like a detective, just trying
to accumulate information on these players. And you know, I
was an open book as most You know, young people
are great resources for scouts because they'll tell you anything
because they're trying to you know, they'll tell you the
(11:54):
truth that they're not they're not covering it up for
any agenda. They're just telling you. And they're usually pretty
close with the players because you know, I was four
years old, a lot of players were a year or
two under me. You're around him a lot. You just
you just have a pretty good idea of stuff that
they're asking for. So it just kind of worked out perfectly.
And then on top of that, you just you go
to school a small percentage of the time and you
(12:16):
just try to pass your classes and move on. So
you get the gig working for the Eagles as a scout.
That's gotta be thrilling. Um. But what what what was
like the first like the thing that hit you that
was like, Wow, this job is is really cool, but
this is really hard too. Yeah, I remember once training
camp started, just the pace of everything, and training camp
(12:39):
in college football is hard too, but you're not getting
rid of players. And when you first get a job
in the NFL, usually the position the lowest guy in
the total poll has is you're constantly taking people to
airports because you're cutting players, players are getting hurt, and
you're signing players. And in training camp it is just constant,
the turnover with the roster, the last ten guys. At
(12:59):
the time, it was eighty training camp roster was eighty.
It's not ninety. So you just every day might be
a new player. And the pace and the urgency of
everything and the pressure, you know, and what's being asked
of you. You know, you're not making you're making grand
yet they are depending on you to print out lists
for free agents, to have things ready at the general
(13:22):
manager and the head coach whenever they may need it.
It was just intense and just basic things like you
don't want to screw up, you know, uh, getting a guy,
you know, five minutes late from bringing him back to
the airport just because he may have a ten minute
window of getting a physical and then being a practice.
So it was just it just comes at you full speed.
(13:42):
You can't really be ready for it. You just you
just kind of hit the ground running and you know,
try to do your best. So, uh, what's uh can
you even share, like what what was the what's the
biggest meltdown that you you witnessed? You know, what to say?
The player name? As far as someone getting cut, you know,
I think most players I never had any issues and
(14:06):
I was a guy being the turk kind of picking
up their playbook. Most guys, you know, the guys if
you're a veteran player, you go see the head coach.
Like if you're a guy that's been there a certain
amount of years and you've earned the respect, you you
deal directly with the head coach. But the majority of
guys that are getting cut are like undrafted free agents
(14:26):
and second year practice squad guys that they know going in.
It's not it's not your typical job environment where you
sign a contract or you get hired. You know, for
the most part, you have a certain amount of time
to prove your words. You're gonna be there for a while.
In football, like the urgency level of making the team
for a large percentage of the players is high, so
(14:48):
they know that that given day, a lot of it
it may be disappointment, but it's not that they're not
freaking out thinking they got screwed, because they kind of
know the deal when they get into it. Now you
see tears and you kind of see maybe just the
shock of getting uh, you know, cut, but usually it's
just pretty quiet. You know. I've driven a lot of
guys who have been cut to the airport. But I
(15:10):
never in my experience ever had like anger or anything
like that. It's more just the first couple of dimes
you do it, it's pretty surreal. And then, like anything
in life, as by my second year doing stuff like that,
you just I don't want to say cold blooded, but
you just don't give a ship. You're like, let's get
in the Carlo's go. Come on, man, Hey I got
other stuff to do. Just it's it's a business, you know.
(15:32):
It's just it's the way you look at it. I know.
When um, you know, people find out what I do,
they immediately want me to listen to their podcasts. They
want me to give them advice, they want me this this,
and this and and you know, and at a certain point,
when you do something for a living, you have to go,
I can't do that. Um, how about when people find
out you're an NFL scout. How many people come out
(15:52):
of the woodwork who want you to check out a
player or hey I got this cousin things like that.
It used to happen a lot, you know. And and
at first, you, like you said, whenever you first start
doing something, you're like, oh, yeah, I'll check it out.
Then by you know, six months in, you just stop
even returning emails, let alone looking into it because you
realize the margin for guys making it at this level
(16:16):
is just slim. The nun and the most of these
guys giving you flyers. I always personally hated even wasting
too much time on like seventh and undrafted free agents,
like you should focus on the top end guys, because
that's ultimately how you win. And you know, in in
in fairness, every every dad that has a son playing
college football thinks this kid has a chance, and you know,
(16:37):
sometimes you gotta tell him, no, man, you don't. You
ain't playing in the NFL. Start start your start your career,
you know, start do whatever you're doing, get your internship,
get get it rolling, because that this, you know, I
think the stat is like one point five percent of
college football players making the NFL. And you have to
be so damn good to play Division one college football.
(16:57):
And obviously some Division two guys make it, but the
majority of guys in the NFL are Division one college
football players, and the percentage of them that make it
from their sport, you know, from college football, is just
so slim. It's just it's the highest level you know,
of the profession, and really of basically any profession, because
it's not many you know, sales jobs or even what
(17:19):
we're doing, what most people do. A guy can get
an entry level job and break in in football as
a player. It's basically impossible. Yeah, I think that, you know,
I go through this a lot. I teach at at
university and uh it's here in the San Francisco and
you know, it's a you know, Division two school and
nobody's going pro. But you know, try telling that to
(17:42):
the athletes who are screwing off in class, you know,
because they all think they're gonna especially baseball, because they
they've heard they've had two friends who maybe got a
triple I mean a single, a contract for a year,
and then you know, now they're out of work, but
still don't get it like that. You then have to
get a real job after that, Yeah, I mean, real
life comes at your fast. And I think a lot
of guys you're just naturally kind of immature, you know,
(18:05):
in your early twenties. But it's gonna hit you. It's
gonna hit you hard, and then you just you have
to adapt. And that's you know what I love about
football is a lot of guys are just because of
the nature of the sport. How hard your coach still
even if you do, quote unquote not make it to
the pros. I don't. I wouldn't even consider that just
because some guys make it. Most guys never even had
the opportunity to make it. They are kind of equipped
(18:28):
just with the nature of the sport. How demanding it is.
How you know, it's it's the of the three major sports.
It makes you use your brain the most because you're
learning plays a lot of It isn't meeting rooms in
the classroom. It's it is a very cerebral sport, like
in baseball. It's just kind of ceball hit ball, you know.
I mean, it's not it doesn't take a genius to
do it. But to play, you know, to play like
(18:51):
in the New England Patriot offense. Not just the quarterback,
but if you want to play receiver for Tom Brady,
you have to be really smart. If you're not, you
will not get on the field. You know, I do.
I went to West Virginia University and I do a
podcast with Pat White and Steve Slayton every week. Oh
that's a pretty good one. Yeah, you should say it's fine.
(19:13):
I'm they're really two really good friends of mine now
and um and and and I always you know, and
I talked to a lot of especially former w athletes
about getting into podcasting and that, and and I'm just
always kind of wonder why, you know, I feel like
this is, you know, so many, so many students and
athletes tell me they want to be broadcasters, but they
don't do shit about it. They don't do anything about it,
(19:33):
and that, you know, and you ask them who their
favorite announcer is, and they don't have an answer. It's
just they just want to go do it, but they
don't want to put the work into it. And and
the thing with Stevens and Pat was, you know, you know,
I was like, well, let's start a podcast and that
way you can work out some stuff. Uh. Do you
see a place where maybe we might hear more ex
athletes getting into the podcasting world instead of radio. I
(19:54):
could see it the one thing the radio medium for
a lot of these guys and their local markets. Like
let's say use Pat Wise as example, if you had
the opportunity to a radio gig in Morganstown, you know,
probably it's consistent money. Uh, and the money is just
kind of set, where in podcasts usually have to hustle
a little more than go get your advertising. It is
(20:15):
a little easier if you can get it now. I
also think just because you are a former athlete doesn't
mean necessarily going to be any good. Yeah, you know,
I mean, how many podcasts are terrible? Most of them? Yeah,
that's why everyone's starting a podcast. Well does that even mean?
You know, most of them are terrible. But to me,
I'm a big believer as the cream always rises. So
(20:38):
there are certain athletes that are really good broadcasts for
a reason. They probably work hard at it. They have
a natural personality there, you know, well spoken, they are outspoken. Uh,
they're not afraid to kind of ruffle some feathers. And
those guys will always be good. Just like in podcasts,
you see the cream kind of rise, the other ones
don't really get noticed now. Also, I'm sure there are
also a lot of good podcasts that haven't been noticed yet.
(21:00):
You know, it's just but ultimately they will be Uh.
It's just it's the nature of how things work in
this country. By the way, speaking of cream rising to
the top, your thoughts on West Virginia went into Big
twelve this year. Uh in football this upcoming year. I mean,
is your coach gonna last through the season? Come on,
(21:22):
well we're back, Come on, it's gonna be great that Oklahoma.
You know, they're losing one of the best players they've
ever had in bigger field. Now they are clearly are
stacked every year, but that's a pretty big transition for them,
So you'd have to think it's it's somewhat open. Uh.
Texas Tech has been kind of average. Texas feels still
(21:43):
like two years away from being a year away, even
though they're on their third coach since Mack Brown. Uh,
there is a lot of pressure on West Virginia, right,
I mean, you know better than me. It feels like
Dana kind of held on a little bit this year. Uh,
you know, have they has he left a little to
be desired? You know, it's it is kind of a
tough place to win, just relative to their conference now.
(22:03):
But I think, yeah, they could win nine ten games,
thank you. That's all I wanted to hear. The other
thing is they would you would you say West Virginia
as a football school or basketball school? I mean, we
are football school. We've always been a football school, but
I mean that's not true anymore. I mean, I mean
from the time that be Line was there until now.
(22:25):
I mean, we've been a consistent top twenty five basketball program,
sweet sixteen three out of the last four years. I mean,
it's it's not uh. I mean, yeah, I think, you know,
I think that I think we are probably a bigger
basketball school at this point, but we'll always feel like
a football school. And I think if I was a
West Virginia fan, my issue would be and obviously Huggies
big time, but it's like our basketball team. As an
(22:48):
outside observer, I watched Huggies team play, It's like these
guys are just badass. They throw haymakers, they're tough, and
then I watched the football team play. It's like they're
kind of soft. So it's how's that now? Granted, Huggins,
if you had to pick all the Division one uh
college basketball coaches, who would be your number one choice
to just transition to become a football coach, he would
(23:09):
easily be the number one guy, because I mean he
dresses literally like a football coach, and his teams, you know,
full court press. But it's just it's it's hard when
you're at a football school and then the basketball coach
now isn't didn't hugging Huggins go to school there? Yeah, yeah,
he's uh, he's actually it's a little it's a little unique,
but I mean the basketball coach clearly is overshadowing the
(23:30):
football coach, and that usually leads to a guy getting fired. Well,
he and he's just not been. And I'll tell you
know where a lot of this started with Dana Why
people don't love him from his how he dresses. He
wouldn't wear the blue and gold, he won't always insist
on wearing black. And I know that sounds like a
little thing on game day, On game day and when
and when that, when that first came, you know that happened,
(23:50):
a lot of West Virginia fans had an issue with
it and his attitude towards it was too bad instead
of maybe okay, things like that. It doesn't matter. It
does matter in the in the pros. It doesn't mean
ship as long as you get it done. No one,
no one even really thinks like that in college because
the alumni has been so closely associated and they go
(24:10):
to all these dinners. When you do arrogant stuff like that,
and then you don't quite get it done. It flips
on you fast. It is it is, and I think
that was. I mean, and there's a lot of us
that you've got this, like you said, alumni coaching your
your basketball team. That feels like God, that's one of
ours doing exactly And I mean and Huggins is he
(24:31):
can do no wrong in Morgantown and Hogerson can't. And
you know, I mean he did you say he has
a lifetime contract, Bob Hoggins, Oh, he absolutely does. But
the way he is, I don't see him. I see
him having another massive heart attack within the next five years.
And it's not a joke. That's at something real concern that. Yeah,
I and a lot of other folks that are close
to you know, West Virginia sports worry about how do
(24:53):
you think he weighs? Oh, he's got to be over
three bills and because he's he's tall, right, he's like
six he's tall, and uh yeah, and just has he's
had two major heart attacks and has zero concern for
what he puts into his body. Zero And clearly he's
a grinder, right, I mean, he's in his office breaking
down film, eating cheeseburgers and whatever. Doesn't even worry about it.
(25:15):
I don't want to get into the weeds on West
Virginia Sports, but on our podcast this week we talked
about why hasn't he won a national championship? And my
thing is that, Um, you know, I work with a
lot of millennials. This is what I do to teach.
You know, all my staff are millennials, and that hard
knock approach works to a certain extent, but you still
(25:35):
have to have a little bit of give with these
kids because that's just unfortunately there they that's their generation,
and he doesn't do that, and it's just his his
insistence on if somebody does one thing wrong, pulls him
off the court and yells at him and you see
him break down at the end of the game. I
would love you to push back on that, because I'm
a millennial. To now the older I'm thirty three, so
(25:56):
I'm right at the beginning of the millennials. You're barely
a millennial. I do think at the core, most humans,
especially the highest level competitive humans, whether you're working in finance,
whether you're playing on a high level basketball team, whether
you're trying to have the number one podcast when you
work with or technically four Like, if he's your coach
or your boss, a high level guy that you really respect,
(26:17):
you can push them to the limits. So to me,
Bob Huggins like even though these kids are one and
their millennials playing on their phone, deep down to their core,
like any competitor worth their salt kind of likes being
motherfucked and pushed a little bit. You know. I don't
necessarily think, because that gets thrown around a lot with
(26:38):
with millennials that they can't handle it. I disagree, and
I think just humans, the highest level competitive humans don't
really mind. I know it's and I don't disagree with you, John,
I absolutely believe and I think I get the most
out of my people because I do push them and
I'm the first voice of reason to say, hey, you're
not as good as you think you are. But I
do think at the end of the day, I need
(26:58):
to give them a little pat on the us once
in a while and say a good job, you know,
I mean, and that's and that's there's nothing wrong with that,
not just going to college basketball tangent here. But I
think when you look at like coach Calipari or or
coach k Like, those guys are hard asses too, you know,
Bill self. I mean those guys are screaming at people,
and I think a lot of times athletes. And this
(27:19):
is where Twitter always freaks out when a dude gets
berated on the side, Like God, they're used to it,
you know, They're just it's not it's not a normal
work environment, like you couldn't. You wouldn't bate a student
in a class like a coach would braid a guy
on a court or on on the field. You've never
been in my classes. Well, I gotta come check it out.
I gotta get an in fine. What do you mean
(27:40):
you didn't finish your podcast on Tuesday, Bush Lee exactly. Um, yeah,
but here, but you understand it's my hot take. You know,
I gotta have something to end basketball season, to get
the get the get the people talking. So that was
my hot take. Another person on the show's hot take
is that he drinks too much, and and that's that
(28:00):
was another one that we we bannered about. But I
haven't gotten the feedback on that yet. I don't think
that we're gonna get a lot of happiness from the
university with that. Mentioned, but hey, how how do you
drinks too much? Yeah? I mean it's sure it doesn't
look like he's you know, drinking G two's. Uh yeah,
I'm gonna leave it at that. Hey. One thing I
(28:21):
wanted to talk to you about is, you know, you
know the NFL. What do people get wrong about the NFL?
And do you feel that the NFL is is is
going towards the less popular side or is it still
as popular as ever. I don't know if it's quote
unquote as popular as ever, maybe as it was like
two or three years ago, but I think relative to
(28:43):
the other sports, uh, it's so much more popular than
the other two sports. I mean, the Lebron game on
like Friday will get a little over a million people
watching it. Those Thursday night football games that Twitter will
tell you are terrible get like thirteen million people watching it.
This second biggest sport in America is Tiger woods. It's
not basketball or baseball. The NFL, and really college football
(29:06):
to football just in general, is on a pedestal by itself.
So even when it has a rough year like it
has this last year in ratings wise, and I personally
think there's more to it. I mean, people are streaming.
The game's changed a little bit, but it's so far
ahead just in terms of the viewership and interest when
you factor in gambling, when you factor in fantasy football.
(29:27):
There's also an element of urgency with the sport. Like
baseball opening days tomorrow, Well, there's a hundred and sixty
two games, So I can't even pretend that the game,
you know, whatever the date will be, March nine begins
to matter that there's six more months of games. We're
in football, and you see this in college football. Definitely,
(29:47):
every game means so much in a society where you know,
urgency is such a big deal, it's always going to
have that just the way the sport is set up.
And you see it in basketball, like the regular season
means nothing. Definitely in college basketball, right just like get
to the tournament and see what happens. That there's an
urgency level that fans that the sport brings, the fans
(30:09):
that to me will never go away. And now they
have to adapt with streaming and engaging all that bs.
But to me, the popularity of the sport, even with
some of the issues they're dealing with with concussions and
the violence, which I also think the little bs. I
think humans yearn for violence. It's why we It's why
I didn't even hesitate to spend when Floyd fought you know, Connor,
(30:33):
even though that fight was pretty bad. But you know,
the big hits. People love it. You know, people love it.
They love car crashes, that love fights. I mean, that's why.
It's why when you're in high school and someone's getting
to fight, every kid runs and circles them. You know,
It's just it's a natural human reaction. That's why world
starts are popular. Exactly. Hey, I didn't even get a
chance to talk about you and Haybrman because I I
(30:54):
love the concept of of two friends doing a radio
show and I thought it was very unique. Um. So
I'm hoping that maybe you guys can swing by sometime
in San Francisco and get in the studio when we
can talk about that podcast. But but real quickly, just
just kind of touch on that how that happened. Um
And for folks that don't know about about the radio
show that you know that you did here in San Francisco. Yeah,
(31:15):
I mean guy was an up and coming star, I
mean still is doing stuff at packed ALF Network now
and uh, he was working in radio. I had just
got fired from the NFL, and you know kind of
I was looking to kind of get into the media
and I came in and just did a couple of
hits on his station. Uh. And the program director at
the time heard my stuff, liked it, kind of wanted
(31:36):
me to get more involved and do more stuff. And
you know, one thing led to another, and then probably
six months later, he had the idea, why don't you
two guys do a show. Uh, And then we started
doing a show and we did that for about three
and a half years, and you know, it was it
was a blast. It was it was fun. You know,
it was fun to listen to as well. I really uh,
I was. I was a listener. Uh, daily listeners. Thank
(32:01):
you for Thank you for making my life a little
better for those for those you know, and and you know,
in the business, one management changes and just you know,
you're working for people that you just you're like, what
am I doing? It's just I mean, my dog could
run this station better. Just no, things aren't gonna work out.
And it was sad because we had we had a
good thing going. And luckily, you know, it's two eighteen
(32:24):
and not ninete, so we were able to just keep
it going and make money in a different in a
different form. Listen. I like to finish off with the
three killer questions. Three questions for you, John Metelkoff, the
first one being if you could listen to any athlete,
living or dead, do a podcast, who would you want
(32:45):
to listen to? That's a good one. Uh, living or dead,
it's a great question, I know, thank you like and
he'd be fully honest. Oh yeah, absolutely, podcast honest. You
know Mike's on. It could be. It could even be
a couple. I mean, Mickey mant would have to be.
I mean, just give Mickey about a six pack and
(33:06):
just say let it rip, Mick. I think Mickey'd be
right up there. And you know, if he was gonna
truly be honest and tell me all the goods, Pete
Rose wouldn't be a bad one either, that'd be good. Uh,
you know it just it feels like to get Montana.
I've I've heard some fantastic Montana stories. As Randy Cross
I think once famously said you you never went into
(33:28):
a bar and didn't look much better standing next to Joe.
Uh that I don't just Joe's personality. How open would
he be? But I think some of those baseball players
and like the fifties and the sixties would be pretty
damn good. No. I think Michael Jordan would be fantastic.
But like Michael and Joe, they I don't even think
they would say anything. There's no amount of money you
could get to get them to be candid. Mickey Man,
(33:50):
that's a that's a really good one. What's the dumbest
thing you've ever done for sports? Uh? You mean in
terms of this dumbest thing in general? Uh, that's a
good question. I know, I'm very good, John, I don't know.
That's that's that's a good one. You know. I once
(34:12):
when I was working in Philly, I once filled up
the general manager's car with gas because he needed yet
he didn't have time to go to the gas station.
So you just have to do stupid ship like that.
But you never had to go get the bat straightener. Uh.
Do you ever heard that story about the sending the
bat boy around to get the bat straightener? No? I didn't.
I'll send it to you. It's a it's on a podcast.
Very good story. Anyway. How about the last podcast that
(34:34):
you binge? Uh? That's a good one. I was actually
this morning before we hopped on listening to uh, Bill
Simmons and Kevin Durant. He just had Kevin Durant on, Yeah,
and Durant, So I'll probably hit that back up a
little later today. Yeah, I love that. I like Bill Simmons.
He usually has a good guests on. Yeah. He I
like Bill. He he has that kind of interview style
(34:56):
that I like, which is kind of relaxed and conversational
and you know, you don't know where it's gonna go.
He's I'm a big fan of his, have been first
and like I listen to Bill like Bill is not.
I don't look at him like a radio host, like
for me, you're listening to me for my opinion, Like
you listen to Bill because he's getting guests on, and
so I whenever he has a big guest on, I
listen to a show. John Mittelcoff, it's been a real pleasure.
(35:18):
I enjoy talking to you, and hopefully we'll get you
in studio and do this again. Definitely, Thanks man, Thanks John,
that was funzy. That was it was a good interview.
I always like talking to UH folks that have listened
to on the radio. It's it's, it's it's I'm still
like a nerd, right, and I feel like you're also
(35:42):
such a big sports fan that it was such an
easy conversation for I do need to apologize for all
the West Virginia University talk everybody. I should have put
that at the top of the show, a disclaimer. Anytime
I talk sports is going to turn into a w
W conversation. That is just unfortunately, that's what you get
when you when you listen to to pot cast of mine.
If you don't like it, that's like half your brain.
(36:02):
It is half my brain. Yeah. Now I have to
football season because if you want to follow John on Twitter,
it's at John Middlecoff. It's m I D D L
E K A U f F. He does a twitter
uh little periscope thing every day if you want to
watch that. And also you can listen to him with
his former partner or its current partner, but it's former
(36:25):
radio partner, Guy Haberman, which I think is a funny name,
Guy HABERMANN. It's fun to say Guy Haberman and John Middlecoff.
They have Haberman and Middlecoff podcast you can check out too.
But there are more podcasts out there that we want
to talk about. I'm actually to see what you picked
out this week Z for us to check out. All right,
So my first one is called now What with Arian Foster?
(36:49):
And Arian Foster is a former NFL running back and
he is now turn podcaster and it's cool because, um
it's not just a podcast about sports, but it's also
about things that he's interested in that he brings in experts.
So he loves space. So he bought brought in um
an astronaut onto his show. He was he bought Snoop
(37:10):
Dogg onto a show because Snoop Dogg has that football league.
He's a coach now, so it's really interesting. It's cool
to see him outside of the football realm. Let's check
it out. You know, Pok was my friend before he
got on death Row records. I met him at the
Poetic Justice rap party and when I met him, we
was like sort of kind of like battle rapping against
each other the first time we meet. Man, if you
look at all the old clips, they all all the
(37:30):
goats went at each other. Man, it was just liked it.
I've been a big fan of his because he is
so smart and he has he has a lot of
cool things to say. And you know, I was talking
to John about more ex athletes doing podcasting, and I
think that's an example of somebody who who can do
it and do it well, especially because it's not just
about sports. Yeah, and I think that when you do
a podcast that is um had several different things that
(37:53):
you talk about, it's you have to have the right host,
and he is the right host for that. So good choice.
Thank you, so can one. This is one of my
favorite wrestlers growing up. It's a Steve Boston show. Everybody
loves loves Stone Cold Steve Boston. It's I mean, if
you when I moved to America from Sri Lanka, this
is one of the first things my brother and I
(38:13):
were ever introduced to was the w W E on
a second, that was your introduction to United States culture,
and we loved it so much, the Cane and Undertaker
and all of that. I was just like, we were ready.
Did you walk around saying they're they're catch phrases? Yeah,
all the time. We would wait for the alive like
(38:34):
episodes or whatever. I didn't think. I honestly didn't figure
out it was fake until really later on your eyes.
Tell me that you still don't think it's fake. I
just don't want to believe it. Wow, what's your favorite
catchphrase from a wrestler and do it for me for
I keep wanting to say it was the Booker t one,
but then I can't remember. I always say rocks one,
(38:57):
smell what the rock is cooking it? I can't come on,
do it? Can you smell what you guys? Come on?
Do it? No? I just like also like Ray Mysterios
walk up song and then his move in between the ropes.
I can't believe we're talking. Well, I talked about West
Virginia University for ten minutes, so let's go. Yeah, and
(39:21):
a really cool dude. I got to meet him a
number of years back when he his book came out
and he actually came to a charity like we had
him on the show, and then he came and showed
up at a charity event that that next morning. You know,
just asking too when he just showed up. Great guy, cool. Yeah,
I would love to meet him, especially like listening to
his podcast. What surprised me a lot was so the
(39:43):
description is whatever pops into his brain and they really
mean it, like it's it's obviously about wrestling, but he's
so knowledgeable about a lot of other things that he
just talks and it's unfiltered and he's completely the person
that you would think he is outside wrestling. Let's check
it out. The legit boss Sasha has a ring to it.
(40:05):
How did you come up with that name? Very random? Um?
I think I was like my first month in f
c W and Rob Nayl at the time, he said
we need a list of names, and I gave him
a list and Sasha was a different last name and
I don't remember, and Banks is a different first name.
And then a week lay like your Sasha Banks, And
I was like, you like a little caveat to that.
(40:26):
If you're a new podcaster and you don't have a
large following of people who were already fans of yours,
this is not a good format. This format is great
when you're you've already got people stone cold yeah. But
if you were you know, Jim Smith, who has two
people following you on Twitter, and you want to do
a podcast about anything that pops into your head, it's
(40:46):
not gonna work. Not the game plan you want to
go in, Not the game plan. A little a little
free consulting there from Maddie Media. Boom, alright, what else
you got? So the last one is a shout out
to Colin Cowherd. So it's his podcast, The Herd, and
it's about sports, different sports, not just one sport. And
it's a different take. It's not just factual, it's his opinion.
(41:06):
He also has like that old sportscaster voice that I
really like. You know what I'm talking about? Like, I
do know what you're talking about it? Yeah, I like
it a lot. Let's check it out. Offensive guys are
about skill and choreography and unity, playing together. They huddle up,
they call a play on three, they audible together, choreographed.
(41:28):
One guy doesn't get it, penalty blows it up. Defensive
guys are about blowing stuff up. They're aggressive, they're intimidating.
You know what a safety is, it's a wide receiver
that can't catch. You know what a linebacker is a
running back with no moves or speed. I want my
(41:49):
offensive guys to be choreographed and unified, great listeners, you
know what. I want my defensive guys to be little
lack o And I'm totally okay with it. You have
voices like that always like scared me because I never
had a voice like that, and and and it's it
is you don't hear it all the time. Yeah, Collin Collins, Uh,
(42:15):
he's he's a legend in the business. So it's cool
that he's part of We get to have some of
the folks on from his new podcast network, including John Mettalcoff,
who was a great guest today. So I want to
thank John Meddalcoff from coming on this show today and
again follow him on Twitter at John Middlecoff. You can
follow me on Twitter, Instagram, uh, and Facebook and see
lots of pictures of me at West Virginia University of
(42:35):
Basketball games and actually me with the some of the
players from the Sweet Sixteen at Maddie Stout m A
T T Y S T A U d T. Other
than that, lots of pictures of my dogs. Um. I
also want to do a shout out to the podcast
The Cooler on k q e D. It's an MPR podcast.
They actually took our show from a few weeks ago
that we did with them and put it on their
(42:56):
podcast feed, So great little sharing going on there. Uh.
Those I love those guys are like my new favorite
friends online. I talked to them all the time, so
uh go go check them out again if you haven't
done that already. Um and also again if you like
John Medalkoff, checkout habramnt and medalcoffe is other podcast Z.
You're a fantastic producer. Thank you appreciate it. I want
(43:17):
to also announce that we're gonna be changing the format
of the show just a bit. We'll be publishing every
two weeks now instead of every week. Now. That's not
saying we might not stick one in here and there
every week, but we want to just try to be
I'll be completely transparent. I'm slammed and it's hard to
get one of these done every week because a little
(43:37):
more work goes into it than you think. So we're
gonna do it every two weeks. So if you're one
of our thousands and thousands, of hundreds, maybe tens of fans,
I hope you understand. Thanks for tuning in. I want
to thank our engineer's Horse and David and of course
Casey who does the music. I want to do a
shout out to Ricardo a R who works here at
(44:00):
Heart Radio and does lots of all the little promo
things you see on social media. He does a goodbye
and a fawn farewell to our engineer Anna. She's going
back to Drexel University and just revolutionize all the streaming
stuff that you see on all the high I Heeart
stations here in San Francisco. She built the unit that
did that, so really cool stuff. She's she's on the
bigger and better thing, not the better, but she's on
(44:22):
the big things. And I want to especially thank Katie
Wilcox here at I Heeart Radio in San Francisco, Don Parker,
and the pod father Chris Peterson of I Heeart Radio.
Thanks everybody for listening.
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