Ep 30: The Politics of Around the Horn - Featuring Tony Reali - Spolitics

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, what's up, everybody.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm Jamel Hill and welcome to Politics and I Heeart
Podcast and unbothered production.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Time to get spolitical.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
The W and BA season didn't make it a week
before we got another chapter in the Angel Rees and
Caitlin Clark rivalry, featuring more toxic conversations that frankly sucked
the air out of what was an otherwise tremendous start
to the season. It all started when Kaitlyn Clark was
called for a flagrant file for wrapping up Angel Reaves
underneath the basket and pushing her to the floor. It

(00:40):
was a basketball play because the point was no easy layups,
a standard rule in competitive basketball. Upgrading it to a
flagrant totally understandable because it was an obvious push. Now,
Angel Rees didn't like it, and she let Caitlyn Clark
and all of the Indiana Fever know about it.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Though Angel, I.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Love girl, but you know damn well, you wasn't about
to swing on Kaitlyn Clark. But I get it, as
has been the case throughout their history. The hot takes
were scorching about this incident, and one of the hottest
and most sizzling came from former NFL quarterback and former
ESPN analysts Robert Griffin on Twitter, RG three posted, after

(01:21):
watching Kaitlyn Clark's flagrant foul on Angel Rease in the aftermath,
there is no way Angel Rees can continue the lie
that she doesn't dislike Kaitlyn Clark. I know what hatred
looks like. Angel Rees hates Kaitlyn Clark. Not some basketball
rivalry hate either, hate word hatred Now. RG three elaborated
more on his YouTube show, where he was led in

(01:43):
on pretty thick in calling out Angel Reese. And I
couldn't help but notice that as he's tearing down Angel Rees,
his wife, who is white, is chilling in the background
giving enthusiastic approval. Now, I'm gonna be totally honest. Those
optics not a good look. And my former colleague Ryan
Clark took things a step further and pointed out that

(02:04):
perhaps one of the reasons RG three did not understand
how tone death his comments were about Angel Rees is
because of certain conversations he probably ain't having in his
own house.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
And so, now, if you're RG three, when's the last
time within your household you've had a conversation about what
she's dealing with? You haven't been able to do that
because in both of your marriages, you've been married to
white women. You haven't had opportunities to have those conversations
to educate you on what they're feeling, what black women

(02:35):
deal with, what they're seeing when they think of a
young Angel Rease and the whole time that he's mimicking
Angel Rease and bobbing his head and moving his neck.
While he's doing this whole piece, his wife is in
the back a mining and clapping.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
You bring somebody's spouse into the mix, things definitely gonna
get spicy.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
And here was RG three's response.

Speaker 4 (02:53):
There's a line in life that you just simply don't cross.
Wives and children are always off limits. And Ryan Clark
has sprinted past that line. Ryan Clark didn't like my
sports take that Angel Rees hates Kaitlin Clark. And that's fine,
It's okay. It's part of the game sports media. I'm
gonna have an opinion. This person might not agree with it.

(03:16):
That person might not agree with it. But what you
don't do is turn around and personally attack me and
my family just because you don't agree with a sports
opinion that is purely based off the sport. I didn't
make it personal, but what that really shows is just
how low of a person Ryan Clark is.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
So here's the thing. RG three's opinion wasn't a sports take.
He doesn't know Angel Rees, he didn't talk to Angel Rees.
He didn't know Caitlyn Clark either. His observation that Angel
Rees hates Caitlin Clark isn't about sports, but about something
he senses is more personal. Now, what Ryan was pointing
out was a lack of self awareness. And I certainly

(03:58):
don't care how many white wives are has had. Who
he loves is his business, but this is ultimately a
conversation about cultural competency. Angel Reese's very existence rubs a
lot of people the wrong way. No one knows for
sure how she feels about Caitlyn Clark, but what we
do know from Angel Reese's own public comments is that

(04:19):
she feels a way that she isn't given more credit for.
How she also has added to the popularity of women's
basketball in this moment.

Speaker 5 (04:28):
I think so many people are watching women's basketball right now.
It all started from the National Championship Game, and I've
been dealing with this for two years now and understanding like, yeah,
negative things have probably been said about me, but honestly,
I'll take that because look where women's basketball is. People
are talking about women's basketball. You never would think that
we talk about women's basketball. People are pulling up to games.
We got celebrities coming to games, sold out arenas, like

(04:50):
just because of one single game and just looking at that, like,
I'll take that role. I'll take the bad guy role,
and I'll continue to take that on and be that
for my teammates. And if I want to be that,
and I know I'll go down in history. I'll look
back in twenty years and be like, yeah, the reason
why we're watching women's basketball is not just because of
one person.

Speaker 6 (05:06):
It's because of me too.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
And I want you to realize.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
That those comments from Angel Reese about wanting some credit
for helping to grow the game came from a very
real place for black women.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
For black people overall.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Kaylin Clark, Paige Becker's, and Kelsey Plum have all admitted
that as white stars, they are operating with a certain
amount of privilege. As talented as they are, they each
have acknowledged that they receive more fanfare and opportunities because
of the way whiteness works. Angel Reee, Angel Wilson, and
other black stars in the WNBA know they have to

(05:38):
work a little bit harder to receive the credit and
attention they deserve. They know the marketing push and dollars
sometimes won't be the same for them. They know their
actions will be judged differently and they are under a
different type of scrutiny. For that reason, a lot of
black women identify with Angel Reese. She is so unapologetic

(05:58):
about who she is. I mean, she is out here
living her best life at the Medgala, playing with passion
and enthusiasm, and she speaks her mind. People resent that,
especially coming from a young black woman. Now, there are
so many examples of outspoken and unapologetic athletes being portrayed
negatively by the media, especially if they're black. If black

(06:18):
athletes are confident, they are considered cocky and arrogant. If
they speak their mind, then they are considered troublemakers or ungrateful.
Sam tropes different day. Caitlyn Clark is a super nova.
She's probably the most impactfowl women's basketball player that we've
seen in decades. She's putting up numbers both on the
court and when it comes to the ratings, but two

(06:40):
point seven million people watched that game last week between
her and Angel Rees, and it wasn't all because of
Kaitlyn Clark. Their stories have been intertwined since they played
in the National Championship game and Angel Rees hit Kaitlyn
Clark with a you can't see me. In sports, we
love drama. We love the idea of athletes having to
go through something, whether it be a player, a team,

(07:00):
or just the general obstacles that come along with trying
to win. It's why we love the game. We also
love fiery competitors and athletes who talk their shit and
back it up. But when it comes to women, or
more specifically, these two women, we are struggling to see
them as just two highly competitive athletes who often are
in a position of having to compete for the same things.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
I mean, let's just say.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
It's true and Angel reeslows the ground that Caitlyn Clark
walks on. So in men's sports, petty grievances are accepted
among men and considered part of being a competitive athlete.
I mean, I'm old enough to remember Jalen Rose admitting
he hated Duke and Grant Hill because They represented everything
that was out of reach for him as a young

(07:46):
black man growing up in inner city Detroit.

Speaker 6 (07:50):
For me, Duke was personal.

Speaker 7 (07:52):
I hated Duke and I hated everything I felt Duke
stood for.

Speaker 6 (07:58):
Schools like Duke didn't recruit players like me.

Speaker 7 (08:00):
I felt like they only recruited black players that were
Uncle Tom's. I was jealous of grand Hill. He came
from a great black family. Congratulations, your mom went to
college and was roommates with Hillary Clinton. Your dad played
in the NFL. It was a very well spoken and
successful man. I was upset and bitter that my mom

(08:24):
had to bust her hump for twenty plus years.

Speaker 6 (08:27):
I was bitter that.

Speaker 7 (08:28):
I had a professional athlete that was my father that
I didn't know.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
I'm old enough to remember Doctor j giving Larry Bird
a two piece biscuit and two sides on the court
because Larry was talking so much shit to him.

Speaker 6 (08:41):
Larr Bird was a great trash talker.

Speaker 8 (08:44):
And he's like, Charles, y'all better get this old man
off me, I'm telling you, and he's just roasting Doc. Yeah,
He's like, and this is dog last year. I think
he was right. It was last year. The year before
he's killing Doc, and he's like, Chuck, I'm telling you

(09:04):
for the last time, you better get over here because
I'm gonna kill this old man. And it goes on
up and down and he Larry just killing him, and
Doc had just had enough and I just had them.
They come together and I just kind of grabbed Larry.
I'm not even looking at Doc when I went back
and looked at the tape Doctor nailing his eye. I

(09:25):
was just trying to pull guys apart.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
And I'm also old enough to remember magic, John said,
admitting his friendship with Isaiah Thomas was ruined at one
point once.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
The two met in the NBA Finals.

Speaker 9 (09:37):
Did the NBA Finals change you in Isaiah's relationship?

Speaker 6 (09:40):
Yeah? Yeah, I did.

Speaker 10 (09:41):
And I'm sad that I have to sit here and
say that, but it did both. I'm sure his coach,
just like Pat Rowley, wanted to know, and my and
my teammates wanted to know if I had to am
I'm gonna put him down?

Speaker 6 (09:56):
You did?

Speaker 10 (09:56):
And I said yeah, and I did, and so that
at them said okay, because.

Speaker 9 (10:02):
But he looked he looked at you different. Oh for y'all,
because product they were like, okay, you know, you guys
had a great relationship. You know, you a a bro
a stay healthy good But he came down the middle,
and you had you had to let them.

Speaker 10 (10:13):
Know that's right, my teammates as well as the pistons.
You had to let him know that's right, that I'm
here to win, right. And then he jumped up swinging,
and I said, no problem. I had no problem with that, right,
you know. And so it took us a matter of fact,
the last probably a couple of years to mend everything.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
People love hearing these stories, but for some reason, when
it comes to Angel Rees and Kaitlyn Clark, we simply
refuse to view their competitiveness through that same lens. Maybe
they hate each other, maybe they don't. But I want
us to graduate to a point where whether or not
they like each other is utterly irrelevant. Angel Reese is
not the villain in Kaitlin Clark's story, no more than

(10:53):
Kaitlyn Clark is the savior in hers. Every interaction between
them is not a think piece. If there are hard files,
rough language, and things get spicy, so be it. If
you have no problem when male athletes compete hard against
one another or expose their pettiness.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Do us all a favor and.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
Apply that same energy so we can actually enjoy this
WNBA season. I'm Jamelle Hill and I approved this message.
Not sure if you all caught it, but I briefly
returned to ESPN a couple weeks ago to appear on
Around the Horn.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
Now.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
When I worked at ESPN, it was one of my
favorite experiences. That group is one of the best at
the network and they just get how to do good television. Sadly,
Around the Horn is ending as a show after a
twenty plus year fantastic run, but my guest today is
one of the reasons this show has become such an institution.

(11:49):
I guess today is one of the finest people I
have ever known in this business. He's someone I will
always root for. His story is very inspirational. What I
appreciate about him is his radical transparency. He's been very
open about his life and I'm so honored that he
took the time to bless this podcast with his presence

(12:11):
coming up next. He was first known to the world
as stat Boy, and now he's known for hosting one
of the most enduring successful sports shows of all time,
the one and only Tony reality joins me next here
ons politics, Tony. I know that you've probably been bombarded

(12:36):
with a lot of people wanting to talk to you
now that.

Speaker 6 (12:38):
Another of the show.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
And I remember when, you know, when I left ESPN
and all of that, and people are like, oh, I'm
going a missue and this.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
And that and blah blah blah, and like, well, where
we are y'all watching when I was a house sports center.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
So I know there's a lot of people like sort
of grasping, you know, at your time.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
But I'm sure a part of you is thinking, hey,
you know, if y'all love me this much, you could
have show me before.

Speaker 6 (13:00):
I loved Jamal. First of all, you get privileged. You
get privileged. This is I mean, you could pick me
up on the phone any day and I'll be there
for you. But I felt the love all along, but
I wasn't expecting what happened nine months ago when they
announced it or when it first came out. You know,
the the you know, six million hits on a PR release.

(13:21):
What is that? You know, like at ninety five percent
we love you like type approval rating. I've been living
in this skin for twenty three years. It's it's been nice.
It's been seventy percent, you know. So it's never a
bad time to tell people how they make you feel
and how much you meant when you were watching it
with your sister and your brother. So I can hear
that all day. I really can't.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
Well, that's good.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
But before we get too deep into around the horn
and your origin story, I'm going to start by asking
you a question I ask every guest that appears on politics,
and that is name an athlete or a moment that
made you love sports.

Speaker 6 (13:55):
Okay, for me, it really starts in the real All
Holme in Staten Island, New York, nineteen eighty four nineteen
eighty five or so, and for me it was Dave Winfield.
Dave Wentfield played right field for the New York Yankees,
number thirty one, and he was at that time the
biggest guy in the world. He was six foot six,

(14:15):
but most of all, he had a gap in his
teeth like Michael Strahan has now and everything. And that's
what I remember seeing him in the Staten Island Advance,
the paper my father famously delivered Jamel, one of the
greatest newspaper boys in the history of New York City
true story. He won an award for being such a
good paper boy that he went on a trip to

(14:36):
Europe with a chaperone who turned out to be Rick Barry,
the NBA player. I tell very long winded stories, but
I just remember reading the statn Islan Evands growing up
and seeing this face of somebody of complete joy, and
it was Dave Winfield, and I'm like, what's that guy about?
And his laugh and his smile, and I fell in
love with baseball first and foremost. My first game ever

(15:00):
was July third, nineteen eighty three, and I asked my
parents not to go on my birthday, which was July fourth,
and July fourth was a no hitter by a picture
named Dave Righetti. So I already had had lived the
life of a sports fan, Like you're just missing out
on things. But for me, Dave Wentfield made me fall
in love with sports.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah I am, I'm old enough to remember a Righetti
and baseball also was my first love. Oh yeah, it
was funny you mentioned nineteen eighty four because that is.

Speaker 6 (15:28):
The year best year ever for Detroit.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
Well exactly, It's like the year the Tigers won the
World Series. And I still know that entire starting lineup.
I was very you know my recent appearance on a
Round the Horn. I was torn between telling you and
telling the viewers you know publicly how much of a
deep affection I have for you for the show for
the group.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
Between that and Chet Lemon died, I was like, oh.

Speaker 6 (15:54):
I would have loved to hear that. So you know
how I broke in this business, Jamel, I'm a stat boy.
I know that team went thirty five and four to
start the easy even though they're not my team. I
know Chet. Everybody needs to know a good Chet in
their life exactly.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
That was going to be the FaceTime until I was like, no,
I gotta tell these days now. But you know, as
many people know, as you alluded to the fact that
Around the Horn is ending.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
But I want to go back a little bit.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
So you apparently based off what I read, and obviously
you can correct me.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
You know your own story better than I do.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
Is that you've been wanting to be a sports broadcaster
since you were.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
Five years old.

Speaker 6 (16:32):
As far back as I can remember, I always wanted
to be a sportscaster. It's the way I said. It's
like in the movie Good Fellas. Starting that movie. This
is it. That's that picture Dave Winfield. That's that game
where we missed the no hitter. But it was Anthony
reality with the Fisher Price microphone. You know, we used
to have these things. Right now, you could have your

(16:53):
own YouTube page at seven or maybe fourteen, whatever the
age limit. But you can do amazing things. And I'm
gonna be honest with you, Jamal, you know around the
Horn's gonna set off May twenty three. I'm gonna make
myself available to our viewers in a lot of different ways,
community forms, but I want to even talk to young
aspiring sportscasters about how to break in the business because

(17:15):
that was such a such a real thing for me.
I went to six Flags Great Adventure with my brothers
and sisters, but especially Michael, who's my middle brother, younger
than me, and we both put on headsets at the
sports festival and were able to call a highlight package
of Shaquille O'Neal taking down the rim against the nets.
That's what they had. It was a sports festival. Now,

(17:37):
I'm thirteen, and I remember putting on the headset and
I was four foot nothing, seventy five pounds and Michael
three years younger than me, was bigger than me. So
my voice is up here and his voice is down here,
and we're announcing Shaquille O'Neal stunking the ball and bringing
down the whole rim, you know, And I just remember
holding onto that VCR tape and being like, this is amazing.

(18:00):
My microphone was not as it was like off, so
you'd only hurt me in the background, and my brother
Michael had the full microphone, but we kept that tape forever.
I'm like, this is the dream. And every school project
Jamil history lesson on the Revolutionary War doesn't matter. I'd
come in with Mom would give me a cardboard box.
I put my head in the middle and I pretend
like I was Sports Center and I'd be talking about

(18:22):
the Revolutionary But we start today with corn Wallace. What
a terrible move by corn Wallace, the tactics of his
whatever I was talking about in the Revolutionary War, right,
Everything became a sports cast for me, every project, every
time at home. So even though you know, I could
imagine myself doing other things in life, you know, it

(18:45):
was always being about being a sports gas. I applied
to college and it was the only really thing I
thought about.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
I have a similar sort of shared story in the
sense that this is the only thing I've ever wanted
to do, And so I always tell younger journalists I'm
the worst example, because you will probably change your mind
or you will do other things. It's like, unfortunately I
got hooked on sports writing by reading about the time.

Speaker 6 (19:07):
But our stories are so true in so many ways,
you know, because we both grew up even on TV. Yeah,
which is a I wouldn't I wouldn't, you know, recommend
that to everybody, but it certainly fit me because I'm
I'm more of a performer than the average person, right,
I mean, I'm a ham. In my family, we would
say I'm a proshooter. I'm a proshuret you know, I
don't mind doing that sort of thing. Now. How I

(19:28):
got on TV was kind of threw the fire escape right.
I was hired to work on PTI as the show researcher.
What a great job to work with Corneiser and Wilbond
and help them build their arguments. Those guys need no
help building their arguments. What they needed was somebody to
break them down a little bit in the newsroom, and
I started doing that a week before we went to

(19:49):
air and they said, you know what, We're gonna put
this kid on TV. I'd always wanted to be on air,
but I was a little bit rough around the edges.
Some of my college broadcast partner ers were calling, you know,
CBS games right out of school. Spirodidas one of my
great friends, does the NFL package every weekend. Ryan Rutko
a few years after me, is doing our w NBA package,

(20:12):
you know, and the list goes on and on. I
wanted to do that, but was too rough to do that.
And then here I was on a show that became,
in my opinion, the best debate show of its kind
and the best show on ESPN very quickly. And I
was on that show as a supposed to be you know,
associated producer or researcher and turned into be an on
air presence of a sidekick. You know. That's that's a

(20:34):
fire escape that I still now.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
By the way, I you're bad example too, because when
I go talk to younger journalists and I tell them
and it is it is true that, you know, when
I was in Bristol, I would often run it to researchers.
I would often run it too, pas and they all
wanted to be on air, and I was like, listen, guys,
they don't put pas research and be like, damn mean

(20:55):
Tony reality.

Speaker 6 (20:57):
I know. Yeah. I always love researchers, though, because once
a researcher, always a Researcher's like being a marine. Once
a stat boy, always a stat boy. You can still
call me stat boy. You me and me on the
street called me stat boy. I'm gonna live by that.
I'm great with that because once you're a researcher, you
see the world in that way. What better way to

(21:17):
know things than to to to always have that muscle
in you that makes you want to find out and
then double check it and triple check it. I still
do that, even the most basic around the horn stories.
We think we're just winging it. You know, there's an
intention in researcher, and in fact played out in the
rest of my life. How I try to live now

(21:38):
is with intention, right, So many things we do, especially
I'm wired this way, jamul is habit, you know, Okay,
I'll just wheel my way through this. I used to
work out every day. You know, I had probably had
an exercise addiction, if we were being honest, because I
needed to tire myself out. I got this energy and
it needed to go somewhere, and I want to collapse
at the end of the day. I wind up doing

(22:00):
the same thing over and over again. Well that's not
so good for me because I'll grip it too tight,
and I needed to actually think about intention and why
am I doing it this way and then remove habit
with intention.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
So, uh, you know you mentioned the fact that you
you know your your other classmates because you went to fordom.

Speaker 6 (22:21):
Correct, Yeah, Fordham University bronx me.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
So some of your other peers they went a more
traditional path. Even though you said you were raw, I'm
still surprised that maybe you didn't try to be, you know,
an announcer or play by play person a minor league
team or to kind of go up the traditional way.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
What was it that convinced you that that wasn't the
path for you.

Speaker 6 (22:43):
Well, you know, I was working for Channel eleven wpi
X the night after I graduated for them, and I
was writing the sportscast for sal Marciana, who was a
New York institution, and Sean Kimberling, who has now departed
and who I loved genuinely and he was a young guy.
He was thirty or so. We lost him far too soon,

(23:05):
but working next to them made me think, you know,
there's a chance I could stay in New York and
cover the teams I like. I was in a locker
room in that job in some ways, covering the Yankees
and the Mets, who just had a Subway series. So
the idea of going out to a wonderful farm system

(23:25):
team in Peoria would be fun and be cool. But
at that moment, I was at the World Series with
the Yankees and Mets. I mean, there couldn't be something
that was bigger in my world than that, So that's
kind of it was just by product of covering games,
And once you do that, you're not going back, right,
I mean, once you're on the field at Yankee Stadium
or on a float in a parade. After interviewing Derek

(23:46):
Jeter at nineteen and twenty and twenty one, so while
Spiro may have been doing the XFL, which was big
at that time, and then doing the Lakers and Knicks
within three or four years, that would have been a dream.
But by sheer luck, I started writing trivia questions for
a sports game show, which is another part of my personality, right,

(24:10):
this is Who Wants to be a Millionaire is the
biggest show on planet Earth. And regis Philman as a
guy like I admired as a TV host and and
now in some ways it's just like wow, Yeah, of
course I was drawn to him because I got so
many things similar to him, you know, in some ways.
So the spin off was Kenny Mains show called The

(24:31):
Two Minute Drill, which was on ESPN. This is how
I got to work for ESPN. Yet another fire escape.
I wasn't hired in Bristol Jamel. I didn't have to
go through the whatever trivia, whatever test you had to pass.
I was hired to be a show researcher and writer
on a game show that was based off of Who
Wants to be a Millionaire. So I got hired by
that office. And that's then, you know, how I became

(24:53):
in the ESPN family. This is two thousand, twenty five
years working with ESPN. I'm at right now, you know.
And and that's how you know, I started to hear
about PTI and just a light bulb went off. You know,
maybe I won't be on air, but I'll be the
one who creates TV show, and I kind of liked
that there's a movie director. I'm obsessed with Martin Scorsese,

(25:14):
so we would make little movies when we were in college,
you know, and and that part of all right, I
want to be the announcer with the voice, so it
became this announcer with the voice. But really it was also, well,
maybe I can create in different ways and that so
maybe I was a creator before we use that word,
you know, That's what I was thinking.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
Hopefully you've seen the studio with step Rogan because your boys, I.

Speaker 6 (25:35):
Mean, everybody's yes, and you see Scorsese acting, which I
always appreciate. But I'm going to give you a little
inside information how much I love, you know, Scorsese. Don't
be surprised if you see a little reality Scorsese take
in the last episode of Around the Horn, because it's
too close to my beating heart and it's the only
way I want to say goodbye to something that has

(25:57):
been a heart outside my body for the last twenty years,
you know.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
Now.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
Around the Horn and PTI were the creations of Eric Radholm,
who is I think one of the best in the
business to ever do it. And but it was this
they introduced both of these shows when it was.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
The Shapiro Mark Shapiro regime.

Speaker 6 (26:15):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
Yeah, now I recall hearing this one.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
I didn't get the ESPN to two thousand and six,
but everybody said, like at the beginning, you know, when
Shapiro said okay, yes and gave the green light. When
people heard about the idea of Around the Horn, a
lot of people thought it was the dumbest idea.

Speaker 6 (26:34):
I think there's a quote somewhere the worst show since
my Mother the Call. We we say that, whether it
was actually written or it was our producer Bill Wolf
at that point, you know, cooking a little bit and
coming up with some motivation. It's one of the things
I admire most about Bob Ryan Woody Page at that time,
Jay Mariotti, TJ Simer's and I'm blanking Ja Donde, Bill Plash.

(26:58):
Of course, the Originals and Jackie mcmont, Kevin blackistone, they
just took it and they say, you know what, We're
gonna hunker down. I could just picture Bob Brian getting
in his position and being like, oh, yeah, you don't
like this, well, I'm gonna give it to you this way.
How about that? You know, so I was not the
original host of the show, as we all know, Max
Kellerman was. So I'm now in the room next door
as around the Horn is launch launching doing PTI. We

(27:21):
were literally wall to wall with each other. So the
shows were connected in some ways, and then they became
very connected when I worked for both shows and Eric
became a producer for both shows. But that first year,
we're just witnessing it, and Max was somebody I was
friendly with. I helped move him into his apartment when
we were living. You know, I carried punch out the arcade,

(27:43):
gave into his apartment with him, got splinters. You know,
this is where we were, and we're right next door.
And that show PTI was a success right out of
the gate, which is of course, ay buy product. At
first Tony and Mike being a married couple on TV,
and the light bulb went off for everybody. Oh, this
is the Honeymooners. So this is name your show. You know,

(28:05):
these guys aren't just friends. This is not just mentor mentee.
This is a married couple who may be headed towards divorce.
Three times in the first block of the show, over Jordan, over,
you know, whatever the topic is that then, so dynamic work,
the dynamic and the satire of Around the Horn, because
that's you can use the word satire. You was meta referential.

(28:27):
You know, it's scoring an argument about something that is unscorable.
No one can win a sports debate, Jamil. I mean
you have twenty six times and Around the Horn, but
you really, I mean it all is in the eye
of the beholder, and it took a while for that
to really crystallize into something that wasn't just you know,

(28:51):
all over the place on TV even so me a
while after, you know, so the first year of Around
the Horn, there was a stopdown for a couple of
weeks where they were re imagining how to convey we're
scoring an argument. At that point there may have even
been trivia in the show. One thing I did like,
whatever points you had, was how much FaceTime you got,

(29:13):
so panelists at the end of the show, everybody would
get a FaceTime and if Wood he had minus three points,
he would cut his mind as they were introducing his
face time when they would give him two seconds, He's like,
I got a lot of points. I want to and
then he'd be newted. I do like that. I might
bring that back for the last episode. That's not bad idea.
My point is every show has its origin story, and
Around the Horns has Max Kellerman, his host, Bill Wolfe's producer,

(29:36):
a disembodied voice, and has a show that was was
i'll say, lovingly panned by critics because it was a
little bit ahead of itself. We already had sports writers
on TV that was nice. Sports reporters had its own flow.
PTI had its own flow. Now we're adding a mechanism
with an inexplicable scoring system, a mute button, which I

(30:01):
think worked from the start. The idea of we're going
to silence you was always that was good, that was solid,
and they didn't need to touch that, but they need
to work on other things. Pace of Around the Horn
is so different than anything on TV at that time.
I think that's what most people were reacting to, where
it was just like ahh right, it was a cacophony
of noise. But at some point we were able to

(30:23):
and I took over maybe two hundred episodes in that
was that first first year of the show, and then
I took over, and even then I had to find
my footing on the show because I was a very
Green host, but I never felt, you know, I thought
the show had good bones, you know, and I still
think it has good bones, and I still think it

(30:44):
as gas in the tank, you know, And that's how
I feel. I'll feel that way when we sign off
May twenty three.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
And so you know, as you just mentioned, you you
took it over when it was about two years in.
So how long would you say it took you for
the show to feel like yours?

Speaker 1 (30:59):
Like, when did you now?

Speaker 6 (31:00):
I mean, I'm gonna be honest with you. I was
twenty five, maybe a very young twenty five. I hadn't
done a lot of you know, hosting on TV, so
I didn't feel necessarily comfortable with how the show was written.
Comfortable being the literal sense now, I mean, we were
doing sports debate. I can live in that stuff. But
the host would start the show as it was written

(31:21):
for Max, with these four things I know are true.
That's not how I necessarily operate. Maybe with me and
my friends when I'm breaking, but I didn't want to
start the show with the focus on the host. I
came from a school with Corneiser Wilbond, and even before that,
when I was at Fordham, I worked with the broadcaster
named Marty collicktoran Oh Marty Klickman Hall of Fame broadcast

(31:42):
to jamil beautiful baritone voice at one point was I
think the second or third fastest man in the world.
He ran or would have run at the Olympics with
Jesse Owens at thirty six. He was a Jewish Man
and was not allowed. There's a great documentary. But I
say this because he lived in an incredible life as a
Hall of Fame broadcaster, and before that he didn't think
I had the voice to be on TV. But that's

(32:04):
neither here nor there. Love the memory of Marty, and
my point was the host of a show had to
be a point guard set up to play a point
guard like Bob Cozy here, all right, that type of
not steph pulling up from thirty feet So maybe a
center snapping the ball. And that's how I was raised
and that's how I still feel. Around the horn is

(32:26):
best with the host setting up the panelists and not
these four things I know are true, or the host
wrapping up each segment with their own debate point and
their own opinion. Right. So I needed to massage that
out of the show a little bit and I did
by the time you were on. Of course, it was
these four sports writers standing before you. It took me
over a year to even get the show, jamil. I

(32:47):
mean I got called up the night before to ask
to fill in. Was the night of Patriots Panthers super Bowl.
It was the night of the Janet Jackson justin Timberlake
wardrobe malfunction, so calling me no pressure, biggest show of
the year, and then a story that became, you know,
a story that was on the cover of magazines, High magazine.

(33:08):
You know it was you know, so there was a
lot of pressure that day. I sweated through my suit.
I was out of closed by by Tuesday. I had
to do the next day. I changed my tide once,
you know, you know, I was a kid. So how
Stu Scott didn't get called in to host the show
or Linda Cohene called in to host the show, It's
always mystified me. How they how they didn't think, you

(33:30):
know what, the show is going to need a host.
They let me grow. I don't know if who the
day is there. Honestly, no one ever said, you know,
Shapiro never had the conversation with me, try it out.
See what happens. We liked your style. No one ever
said that I was just somebody who filled in one day,
who filled in a week. They brought in a dream

(33:50):
job contested at one point, which was a show they had,
but that didn't stick. They may have, you know, had
other ideas. But my origins is put your head down,
say yes, do the work, and then make it yours.
And that's what I did over a year, Jammel, over
two years. I signed my first contract with ESPN, probably

(34:12):
a year in, and I felt comfortable. It took me though,
It took me a year and a half. And that
I mean, who gets a year and a half to
kind of feel theirselves out? Somehow? The show is doing
all right, So I'm.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
Going to guess.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
That the number one question that you are asked, and
I only guess this is the.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
Number one question you're asking.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
And I'm asking a question as someone who has appeared
on the many times.

Speaker 6 (34:35):
How the show has scored.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
Rob Horne is over You could tell us now, well.

Speaker 6 (34:43):
It's what people say. Now you know, it's all vibes, Jamel,
It's all vibes. I know the answer, right, So here
I am and I'm thinking, how do you score the unscore.
All right, now I am. I am somebody who probably
elevates in their own inside their own ears what I'm doing,
all right, So what I'm gonna tell you now, I'm

(35:04):
gonna make it sound like around the Horn is an
art for or my own Martin Scorsese. But if you're
gonna tell me it's a satire, you're scoring games that
are actually scored with your own scoring system. That let's
develop a rule book on the scoring system. I'm gonna
tell you now that we're in a space where we're
operating much like life. Every day, the rule book for

(35:26):
life changes on you. Jimmel. You know this. You do
things amazing one day, you try to do it the
next day the same way, and it goes right back
in your face and blows up. It's not the same thing.
Every day life will give you a new blueprint to
work with, and you got to roll with life. This
is what I am figuring out as I am a
very emotional person in my youth twenties and thirties, and

(35:50):
I'm growing up on TV in a lot of ways,
and I'm learning how my emotions are both my greatest
strength and I wouldn't call my greatest week, but something
I need to now really come to grips with my
mental health. This is why, Jamel, you know me, This
is why it became a secondary pulse of the show

(36:14):
for me. For me, maybe some of the viewers feel
that it became literally something that I want to address
on TV when it came up, but it was actually
something that was motivating my intentions and how I host
the show, if I can say it like that. So
I am now scoring every show each day with its
own rule book and allowing the panelists and by proxy,

(36:37):
the viewer to understand life's coming at you in different ways.
Every single day. It's going to score you in different ways,
and you have to show that you're going to roll
with it. So some days I would look for the
most analytical answers and the stack King and the stack
Queen of the show would win that argument. And other
days it would be I was in the locker room,
Tony inside information Jamel, there we go ding ding thing,

(37:01):
And the other days it was like, wait a second,
Whoever's going to give me the most real answer here?
You hear what they're saying here. We were just talking
before we sat down, and they told me. They went
to bed at nine o'clock. They didn't even watch the game. Whoa, whoa.
Look at you. The vibes of that day change. So
what I'm trying to tell you is I was trying
to score the show like life scores all of us
different every day. Make your best opinion, make your best argument.

(37:25):
Prove why your opinion is the best one at this
exact moment. Now, don't just have an opinion, Prove why
it's the best at this moment, and you'll get points
for it.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
Do you hear that, Ladies and gentlemen, Okay, stop asking
me what.

Speaker 6 (37:38):
That's ridiculous what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
No, it's like, yes, the very institution of Around the
holady is just broken down how it is scored.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
Now.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
Of course, you know, I think for me being coming
up through the print newspaper business, as many of the
Around the Horn panelis have this to me now, is
Around the Horn represents Probably it might be one of
the last, if not few, remaining shows that actually honor
sports journalism. Now I don't know if that was always

(38:07):
the intention, but can you just speak to how that
part of it? Because the beauty of the show is
that you make fun of sportswriters. You makes fun of
sports dentalumists, and I think that's the fun thing about it.
But how this space in particular the impact that it
has had on sports journalism.

Speaker 6 (38:22):
Yeah, I literally turned the microphones off on the nine
time Sports Columnist of the Year Bill Plashki, or the
how many Hall of Fames is Bob ryan In or
Woody Page or you Jamelle, And that even at an
age of twenty five twenty six, that was another thing
I had to come to grips with. I tried to
work hard on on making sure they knew those mutes
came with smiles. And that was one of the dial

(38:44):
adjustments I made in the show. I just didn't want
it to be you know, it was high level, bombastic answers,
and I love that That's part of me too. And
then I also wanted to be able to adjust the
dial and show it could be different things. I mean,
I do feel the outpouring we got hearing young aspiring
sports writers talk about I saw myself on TV, and

(39:07):
I applied that for any different ways. You know, you know,
young people were on our show, old people were on
our show. Men were on our show. We brought in women,
and it was very important for me to have any argument,
any discussion, and have people we feel like could have
that discussion, and we weren't, you know, we were covering
all of our I wanted that the show was based
on you know, four panelists in four different parts of

(39:29):
the country. Now apply that to four different generations, four
different regions growing up, four different styles, four different perspectives.
You know, that was important to me. And that's what
I loved about reading sports journalism growing up. You know
that you were going to get somebody who had a
particular voice, right. So I believe there's space in the

(39:52):
industry for everything. I think the advent of athletes voices
so prominently is wonderful. It's amazing you have your own
podcast and they can tell you I would this is
how I felt in this game. And then I hear
people also critiques of shows with sports writers. You've never
played the game, how can you Well, we're not playing
the game here, We're actually this is the communication business.

(40:15):
We're talking about it, This is the information, factfinding business.
We're talking about how we got the and we're getting
to the truth of a story. You know, that's what
we're doing here. We're not trying to shoot three pointers.
We're trying to talk about so so to me, that
was never it was never real criticism of the show
because I knew what that was. You know, we were
our job was to communicate, and we had access, and

(40:36):
there was something great about around the Horn being able
to say, you were at this game last night, you know,
or you've covered this team or not even you've covered
teams you know in a different sport, But tell me
what it would be like in the locker room. That's
an amazing thing. And as our industry now has expanded,
because the landscape is so much bigger, there still needs

(40:58):
to be a place for people who have information. I mean,
I mean, it can't just be now to borrow what
I just said vibes. The whole industry can't be well,
we're just people having a real conversation, two friends hanging out.
You know. I still want information. There's still these are stories,
These are news, you know. So I mean, I I

(41:18):
trust there are friends of mine, Jamel and yours who
feel sports media is broken. You may feel that way
sometimes as well. I don't feel that way per se
because I do it from a from the perspective of
the consumer. I could I can get, I can still
get everything. I can't get as many sports writers now
as I used to, and and I would like more,

(41:40):
and there'll still be places for them because I'll make more,
you know, we'll find more. But but I still feel
storytelling is never going to wedge amount.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
It's just yeah, I would, I would definitely agree with that.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
It just I guess sometimes it can feel a little
disheartening because I saw the end of sports Reporters.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
I'm seeing the end of this show.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
You know, Outside the Line still exists, but not in
the same form that it did before. And so seeing
all these kind of journalistic institution ends ending, it can
have a bit of a drain on the spirit.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
But I agree with you, there always will be room
for that.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
But there's so much more that I want to talk
to you about, you know, about the show and about
your life.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
But I just have to take a very quick break,
you know about those you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
I just gotta take a quick break, and we'll be
back with more with mister Tony Reality. Now Tony, since
you are you know, originally sat Boy, I'm sure you
know these stacks the Oprah Winfrey Show lasted.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
Four five and sixty one, The David Letterman Show two
hundred and fourteen. So Around the Horn, what are you guys? Well,
over forty nine hundred episodes.

Speaker 6 (43:04):
You were on four nine hundred and forty three last week.
We'll finish with four nine hundred and fifty.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
Okay, Oh wow, you'll be just shy of, just.

Speaker 6 (43:13):
Shy of for ourselves. I mean, who's counting.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
So when you think about the pantheon of these television institutions,
where or how do you see the Around the Horn legacy?

Speaker 7 (43:25):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (43:25):
I think it's among the most underrated shows of its kind.
I really do. I'm probably part of the reason of that.
I don't bang the drum maybe. I mean, you're gonna
ask me now, was I surprised to hear we were
we were having to say goodbye? I was a little bit.
Our ratings were up and we were doing well, and

(43:45):
I felt like we were putting great people on TV
that were headlining the next shows for our network in
the industry. So so that part of it. I mean,
if if I have regrets, it's that I wasn't, you know,
talking about how we were number one in this or
number one in that you know that sort of thing.

(44:06):
I think the legacy of the show will, of course
be the voices that we put out there. So I
even think that's not talked about enough. I don't think
there was a show with as many different voices as
we were, you know, in any part of the television
industry at that point. So I'm proud of that. I'm
immensely proud of this show. I'm immensely proud of of

(44:27):
how we showed people on full because that is as
I evolved from the biggest sports nerd in the world
who only wanted to live in sports discussions to realizing
sports was the greatest conduit for emotion in my life

(44:47):
and then realizing how it will be that for other
people at home. Well, let's let's let's show the full
emotional picture of a person on our show. So when
we have have Woody Page on FaceTime talking about the
most challenging moments of his life away from being a
sports writer and feeling the impact that had having Jackie mcmull,

(45:11):
having Jamelle having you on in a FaceTime you know this,
you could talk about anything you want. I wasn't gonna
mute any FaceTime ever, once I was getting a little jokeing,
but I wanted people to see the full you. You
weren't just on the show because you were a great
sports writer. You were on the show because you were you.
And here's our chance to meet you. Tell me anything,
Kevin Black and someone yeo about you know people who

(45:34):
don't put the cards back at supermarkets. Well that's a
good FaceTime. That's just as much as the equal on
opposite one is when Israel Gutierrez is talking about coming out.
You know, that to me was something I never would
have foresaw a sports debate show with a mute button
get into. But once I realized, yes, it's our show,

(45:57):
we can do that, we can do whatever you want.
Let's meet the people a little bit more, and allowed
myself to open up a little bit more.

Speaker 1 (46:03):
And we're going to talk about how you opened up
in a moment.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
But Tony, you saying that reminded me of one of
the narratives that really bothered me.

Speaker 6 (46:12):
Oh that's a band phrase that around the horn. You
can say it here? Ye Well, you know I put
the button on that word, yes, overuse. I have this
list of band phrases and it's ten words and it
changes every day a bunch, like the scoring. But it's
because people have sports writers have over used that word.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
You are absolutely right, I love this. That was sort
of like a that was a bubble mute.

Speaker 6 (46:34):
I loved it, yea, yea one of.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
The storylines, yes, exactly, yes so.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
But one of the things that has come out ever
since it was announced that Around the Horn was ending,
and it was said by unfortunately a former Around the
Horn panelist, Jay Marriotty, is that when he said that
Around the Horn was ending because it was too woke,
And we know what has become this catch off phrase
that people have weaponized to mean either things they don't
like or frankly, in my mind, I'll say it because

(47:06):
now that we're on my platform, I mean, I could
be as as petty as I want to, But I
think it had a lot to do with the fact
that you had diverse voices on the show, women, women
of color, you know, black men, you know, all kinds
of people on there, and suddenly the presence of these
people is considered too woke. But nevertheless, how did you
feel about Jay Marriotty saying that about this show?

Speaker 6 (47:31):
Oh, I understand where that's coming from. Of course. I mean,
I worked with Jay for two thousand episodes. I've talked
about this a little bit. I'm happy to talk about
it here. You know, I was a very young TV
host when he was, you know, on this show every
single day, and a superstar on this show and so great.
And I don't want to get into the legality of anything,
so I don't have the words in front of me
now exactly what happened, but there are certain, you know,

(47:55):
things out of a twenty eight year old host control.
But I felt all of it. I felt a man
whose career was now going away from him, and there's
hurt there. And I've tried to reach out with him
and have successfully. We've had good conversations over the last
ten years we've been apart, whatever it is, and they
would still always end in a place where his hurt

(48:15):
was very much his own hurt, and I have to
be aware of that. As far as the criticisms of
the show, I mean, I am fine with anyone feeling
any way about what's out there. I understand myself. I'm
not everybody's cup of tea, but I do know I've
had forty six and a half years of walking in
this skin around this earth. I get along with everybody,

(48:39):
and I want to get along with everybody, and I
will work to get along with everybody. It's a I'm
a pleaser to a fault. It's put me through therapy
for years. I have people in my own family who
I disagree with everything they feel on any number of topics,
and I love them and we live together, and that's
how I live the world. I don't ask how people

(49:01):
vote before we going around the horn. I'm happy to
talk about it because I could talk about anything. I
don't demand we only talk about one thing in any topic.
I'm having a conversation with you, and you want to
bring in something else, that's fine. I know we have
people who family are from the military, family are from
the police, people who voted Republican voted them here. I'd
never really you could say there's more one way or

(49:23):
the other. I'm not counting. I'm not. I'm just not
going to operate or live in that space. You're gonna
tell me we did four nine hundred and fifty three
episodes and eight ten topics a day, Jamal, what is that?
It's five hundred thousand topics? May mean if we if
we went to a place that some people didn't like.

(49:45):
Ten times, that's what point two percent, twenty times, one
hundred times I've said things I wish I could take back.
I'm sure you know I've been been in moments before
where where you know you did the best you could
with a very difficult topic. I'm not this is we're
not trying to We're trying to have the best conversation

(50:08):
people who are being authentic and having that one moment
you could say you're not being authentic. I'm being authentic.
Ask anybody who knows me. I'm trying to be a
one to one ratio on air and off air. So
I recognize the show expanded its roster by my own
desire to want to have as I mean, we needed

(50:28):
to be able to talk about women's sports. You cannot
tell me the roster we had our first five years
of the show was best equipped to do that. We
needed to be able to talk about you know, apply
it to This was the advent of athletes having more
of a voice. Absolutely, we needed to be having a
conversation about when an athlete says like Osaka or small

(50:53):
Biles are talking about their own mental health and something Okay,
I want to have panelists who are maybe more open
to do that. Does that now apply it to places
that are spaces that are politics for people? Did? I
took one episode and I talked about the special Olympics.
This is something that's near and dear to my heart.
I've worked it before. I've worked it as a kid,
you know, I mean, this is this is we grew

(51:14):
so so I did that go to a political space
for some people? Take it any way you want. Forgive me.
I put my heart out there. You know, That's how
I see the world. If and then that happened. Ten
of five hundred thousand episodes, one hundred of five hundred
thousand topics. I'm sorry, you know, fifty thousand. My numbers

(51:36):
are all mixed up, but you see what I'm saying.
It was such a small percentage that I was able
to say. It was just such a small percentage. But
for somebody else it was the face of the show.
So we just did a show last week and Kate
Bacon used her FaceTime as she s's fit. You know,
I'm not muting facetimes. I'm just not So another instance,
we talked about the Olympics that were in China. We

(51:58):
talked about the Olympics on a show then the host country,
and a conversation played out after that. That's not inventing
stories to talk about for the sake of wanting to
cudgel in topics that are near and dear to people's hearts.
So though whenever criticism was made about the show, I
felt like I had intention. I knew what I was.

(52:20):
I knew how I was born and raised and who
my parents are, and I knew, you know, I knew
what my intention was. I knew how pure it was.
I born in ash On TV for twenty three years.
Does that mean I believe everything the Catholic Church does
or doesn't believe? No, I'm my own person, you know.
I was raised to be strong about that by my parents,
or by the Jesuits or by the Christian Brothers. But

(52:42):
that doesn't mean I defend everything. I'll go out. You know,
I'm an Italian American. I said something bad about Columbus,
or I didn't say something bad about Columbus. I said
something factual about Columbus. And I don't think I got
invited back to the Italian American Foundation, So be it.
You know, no, one's going to question you know how
I feel about things. This was a long answer, and
I know, Jamel, I'm sorry. I guess what you're hearing

(53:05):
is I heard it all. I feel it. But I
hope what I'm saying is that's okay. You can feel
a certain way, you can have feedback criticism. I think
you'll find that I was a person who lived on
social media and addressed criticism back at me in a

(53:29):
way that allowed it to be heard and said, yes,
I took this criticism. Our roster got too big and
we brought in people you didn't like. I can understand
that now see it from my perspective. I think I'm
comfortable in addressing anybody at any moment, whether I did
or it didn't. I mean, I think I am so.
I wanted to model to people how you can say criticism,

(53:53):
and that was something even when I responded to You know,
some people we've worked with in the past and it's
been very negative and Mariotti would be an example of that,
or have too much edge, and Jason Whitlock would be
an example of that. I'm not worked side by side
with that, but Jason, for quite some time, he is
a he and I have a knowledge of who each
other are. He's going to say things that I think

(54:15):
go over a line that come into my space. I'm
gonna let him know that.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
And this is why Tony, you're one of the most
well liked people in the business. You have a universal
high approval rating, which is very hard to get in ours.
I'll say it is like those criticisms were always intellectually
lazy and bullshit because I know, you know the way
that sometimes people responded, even with Kate, because I shared
the FaceTime with her when when we were on together,

(54:42):
and I thought what she said was amazing. But for people,
it's not even about the discussion of these things which
are related to sports.

Speaker 6 (54:50):
Yeah, I mean that was to be fair, that was
I mean, that's a FaceTime. So again, I'm not of
the muting business. That is incredibly complex, the most complicated
story of its kind in our little space of the world,
right in sports, right trans youth athletes. I don't think
it was professional league and trans athletes in the w

(55:14):
NBA versus the Olympics. It wasn't. It was. It was
about that's the way she set it up, about thirteen
year old kids wanting to be feel belonging in hys light.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
It was about the transformative power of sports.

Speaker 6 (55:27):
That was which I think everybody feels in belief. So
now now she applies it to trans youth and there
are people who feel they feel all sorts of way
about that. But it wasn't like a decree that things
need to be this way or anything, And this is like,
this is how I feel. So this is how I feel.
So we've had other examples in the SHAW again, I'll
bring it up. I'm not going to reference specifically with

(55:50):
the quotes, but we're talking about China hosting the Olympics
and a comment is made about, you know, our country
in it, and I responded back in kind in a
way that so wait, wait, wait, let's le let's let's
talk about what we're talking about here, and brought it
back on point. That's the job of a host. The
job isn't necessary to wag a finger or or you know,
shut somebody out. I know there's a mute bunny, but

(56:12):
in certain topics to shut shut down a conversation. This
is This is one of the things I struggled with
Jamelle because in my own person, I would never have
a mute button in life. Ever, I would never shut
somebody down. I would, you know, so here I'm gonna
show it is. And now you're you're seeing the ebb
and flow like I'm gonna shut you down in a
in a conversation about you know, the goats of the NBA,

(56:33):
if you bring up you know, Kobe, and I think
you know it should be about Lebron or or Jordan.
But I'm not gonna be doing that in the next
conversation if you or might be able to connect those dots.
And I'm not scoring this topic. You know, as it
became and as you know it became with Kaepernick, or
it became with you know, all these I mean, you're
not doing your job if you're not addressing those topics.

(56:56):
That's why we do it too much. I mean we're
rian in the middle of a pandemic where no sports
were happening, and then athletes were positioning conversations that were
a little bit different. Yes, I can admit to all this.
The topics became harder to come by, you know, not
the stories became harder to come by. I'm sorry. The
topics became more challenging to discuss. You know, we were

(57:19):
thrust more challenging stories, but we were going to try
to talk about them like the people with the expertise
that we had on the show that day. And that's
you know, I can't say it any other way than
we had right intentions. And maybe you would have said
they should have hired six more panels from a different
part of the country and brought in, you know, four

(57:40):
more panelists that you know, we're from different you know backgrounds. Yeah,
I guess we could. I would like to for the
next ten years of the show elsewhere. Yeah, but that's
where we are.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
Yeah, No, I get it, you know, But that, to
me was the heart of Around the Horn is being
able to have granted into bite sized time like some
of those tough conversations, but real and authentic conversations. And you,
especially when it comes to opening up who you are
in your life, have been especially candid. You know, Tony,
you and your wife Sammy, you guys had twins. You

(58:14):
lost one of those twins, your son Amadeo. You revealed
this publicly in an Instagram post and then on an
episode of Around the Horn, you and panelists is real.
Gudierres he gifted his face time to you and you
had this to say about the loss of your son.

Speaker 6 (58:30):
The notes and the condolences my wife Samy and I
have received have gone right into our soul. And I
wanted to say that talking about the duality of losing
a child, your childbirth and delivering another healthy one is impossible.
I was talking about this yesterday on Twitter. How can
you ever be whole again? Parents have had to go
through this before. I'm going through this now, and I

(58:51):
spent time, you know, pledging that it's not it's okay
not to be okay. And for me, the recognition that
I've come to is that life can be out of
our control and that's okay. It's how we respond and
what we do, that's what we have control of. So
here's where I am today. Grief is part of humanity.
Grief is proof of humanity. Parents dealing with loss, or

(59:13):
anybody dealing with loss, meet yourself where you are. Give
voice to your feelings. Young men, young women watching this
can be how you grieve. Don't bury your heart, keep
it on the outside and look to other people because
humanity can lift us. That has been my experience. But
I need to say this now, more duality. If I'm
brutally honest. Today, my thoughts were children in cages. That's

(59:33):
parents experiencing laws too. Humanity needs to be better. I'm ada, Oh,
I love you forever. You're named for God's love. Maybe
you all be craving it. Maybe we all be giving
it to each other, and maybe we all be compassionate
enough to give it to all.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
Now, Tony, you've been very open about your grieving process,
and I think a lot of people have really appreciated
being let in. But how did you publicly sharing what
you were going through? How did that impact your greeting process?

Speaker 6 (01:00:02):
Oh? Yeah, I mean I'll say this first. You know,
Sam and I breathe differently, live differently. You know, she's
not a public person. I mean you see a photo
behind her behind me right now of Sammy. I mean
it took us years for me to be like, oh
come on, let me show you know, you know, and

(01:00:24):
I told her her you know, I gave a eulogi.
Of course, it wasn't too dissimilar to what I actually
just said on TV to of course, my parents and
her parents and everybody. That day, we we we said
goodbye to Amadeo, and I said, this is how I
do it. You know, I need to be able to
to communicate this and put this out. Something in my

(01:00:47):
life changed even before this, this particular event, you know,
having Francesca Even and Sam is an incredible business person
in travels abroad. And I was doing the show and
doing Good Morning America and watching a baby along with
some help from Grandma and really burning it too much
at both ends, and I first experienced real anxiety disorder

(01:01:14):
to the point where, you know, I'm not one for labels,
but I certainly called a postpartum hotline or phone number
and didn't get picked up, but got a call back
a couple hours later in the middle of the night.
The longest time in my life. This was. So I'm
telling you all this to say this was a moment

(01:01:34):
where it was the most pointed moment of my life.
We just lost Amidale, But I had already done a
lot of work on myself leading up into that. That
wasn't just something happened to me and now I'm feeling
my way through it. I was, but I had been
going to therapy and am a big proponent for talk
therapy for years. I had already been able to recognize

(01:01:55):
some things in me and what it was was, I
I am a person. I feel everything inside you, but
I feel everything inside you too. This is called transfer instance.
There's a lot of things, and I had to come
to gris with that. But then I realized one of
the things I could do is if I'm going through something,
I could put it outward to somebody projected outward and

(01:02:16):
it could help them. So this is a long way
to say, I knew I had a space in me
to do that as a person, and I knew I
had an opportunity on air to talk about something that's
not talked about much, which is lost still birth and
loss of life and the grieving process. Because to me, Jamelle,
as I said in the post and on it, grief

(01:02:39):
is part of life. Grief is proof of life, and
mental health is simply health. I think of it as
I would, you know, any type of ailment I would
have on any given day, stomach ache, a headache, a
pull the hamsterring. Today, you know, there are no good
feelings and bad feelings. They're just feelings, and we're going

(01:03:01):
to navigate what that is. And I want to communicate
all these things as as a person. But a sports
show with a mute button, you know, how can I
do it here? But Israel and I had already shared
some moments together where where you know, it made sense
for me to talk about it on teaving. I say

(01:03:23):
all this because it's important for me for viewers to know,
you know, to live in their feelings and with their feelings,
and it's important for me, even a young people to know.
You know, your sports may be the first time you
think about your feelings in a way like you can
you really sad when your team loses, and you're happy

(01:03:44):
when your team wins, and you can't process what that
is when you're working through something with your parents or
your siblings. But it's a lot easier to do it
when it's you know, they missed the shot, we lost
the game. So leaving a space in our show for
that became a mission of mind the emotion of a show,
you know. And then of course it has played out

(01:04:08):
where other panelists took that opportunity to do that as well,
and now that is a legacy of the show. I'm
incredibly proud of.

Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
Yeah, and how does it make you feel?

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
Because I've seen several other of your colleagues who have
just talked about how you had an impact on their
life and the show did because of the way you
opened up.

Speaker 6 (01:04:27):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
David Dennis Junior, who is a panelist the regular panelists
on Around the Horner, and he wor at this amazing
piece for Ndscape about how Around the Horn was more
than a show for him and how it came around
at a time where he was struggling. And Mike Ryan
has talked about the producer for the Dan Lebatar Show.
He's talked about how you were there for him. When

(01:04:50):
people are telling these stories about how their connection to
you and their connection to the show is more than
just you know, dumb sports writers like arguing about things
that you know can't really be settled.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
How does that make you feel?

Speaker 8 (01:05:05):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (01:05:05):
Well, I mean I want to say this to anybody.
You know, you got to reach out to people in life.
You know you can't do it all on your own.
I was somebody who was always going to get to
where I wanted to go by force of will, enthusiasm,
energy and positivity. I wanted every day to be the

(01:05:25):
greatest day ever. Now we know what this is. You
can't live in bliss, You can't have the greatest day ever.
You can't. So I say that because the two examples
you just I mean, I've worked with David for a
few years. Mike reached out to me in ways that
were incredible, and we had been in the same space

(01:05:49):
as each other two or three times in advance of that.
So sometimes it's easier to reach out to somebody that
is not exactly in your family, in your space. You know,
I've had I've struggled with this, you know, as I'm
navigating things with people I love so much in my
family that I can actually affect change or do something

(01:06:10):
for somebody that is not as physically close to me
and and and have a great relationship where we both
fell lifted up by each other. But I can't even
do it with my own person right here. And that
that's that's a riddle of life maybe, and I don't
need to come to an answer with that. But things

(01:06:30):
don't just get better on their own, and things don't
just get better in time. They get better with time
and work. You have to put in work, but you're
not always in position to do the work. You know.
I have friends who we have talked about it. They
go to talk therapy and then they want to just

(01:06:50):
go out and live maybe as someone else they've seen
who's gone through it. You're still in it. You know,
you shouldn't necessarily try to be getting so far ahead
of yourself. Yeah, have to. So it makes you feel
part of something. You want to feel good about yourself,
do something for other people. That's a good little thing
that I think about all the time. But also it

(01:07:16):
makes you realize, you know, as simple as this, you
never know what someone else is going through on the
other side. And that's why, to harken back to the
last conversation we have, I never take any I always
think of as feedback, but not criticism of the show
or anything like that. That's you know, somebody had said,
you know that we worked with Yeah, of course, you

(01:07:36):
never know what they're going through, so you I mean,
it's almost like a pause that you have to put
into your initial whoa, whoa, whoa every time you're dealing
with somebody else, because they're seeing it through their own eyes,
you know. And also you should be viewing yourself as
the subject of your sentence and not the object of theirs, right,
so you have to recognize it's a very grammatical way

(01:07:58):
to think about it. I did it for you beause
you're a writer. But I mean, I mean you're the
subject of your own sentence. Take ownership over there, right.
I mean just because they said this doesn't mean that's
you know, you know your truth and you should be
putting in the work to figure out if your truth
is right, you know the right truth for you that day.
So it's it's a job that I think I always

(01:08:22):
had in me to be out public. And I am
comfortable now saying modeling one way to do things, not
the only way, not the best way, but I'm comfortable
putting myself out there because if you can talk about
an experience that you've been through, you could help somebody
else who may be going through something similar in their
own way.

Speaker 2 (01:08:41):
So, Tony, this is going to be a major pivot
in your life. You've had the same job for twenty
plus years and now Tony, reality is going to be
a free agent, I think. So, you know, are you
going to have a press conference at the to announce
where you're going next? But what, in all seriousness, what
does this next phase of your life? How are you

(01:09:03):
handling such a big pivot out of this?

Speaker 6 (01:09:06):
Well, I'm handling it is a good way to say, Jamal,
I know Sammy and other people in my life are
like man because they know how I dealt with Horn,
like it was a child of mine.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
You so much of that into into the show.

Speaker 6 (01:09:19):
Your Yes, I lived and died with every ep right.
So the point is that you know, I siloed myself
away purposefully, and I just I was discerning about other
uh you know things I could have done other other projects,
very discerning. I didn't take on a podcast in hindsight seeing. Uh.
You know how ownership works in the business. You know,

(01:09:42):
it's an amazing thing. You know, hot Ones the day
our store, our show was, we got the news hot
Ones was on the open market selling for real money.
And this show for me, which I did four thousand
ullered times, is now maybe going in the ESPN Bolt.
I have no idea, I mean I don't, I haven't.
I haven't heard a lot with what the plan is.
I know what my I know what it's in my heart.

(01:10:05):
You know, I want to do a lot of things now.
You know, I'm somebody who immediately, in the immediate wants
to continue to connect with the people who who we
owe so much to, Even as small as that was
that day you were on last week. There's some dude
outside our studio that I shared with them. Jammel felt good.

(01:10:29):
There's got to be a way now. I want to
do some fun things. I got to create technology, Jammel,
But I want to do around the hoard with the
viewers at home. I mean, I've done it with you before.
I've always heard how you score the show. You've ever
thought about having an average fan on maybe not on
ESPN air waves, but now there's plenty of places for
me to do it. I want to do things like that.
I want to do the biggest sports in the world,

(01:10:50):
you know, I mean, I want I want to do
the biggest stories. But even you know, with that, I
want to own something that is that is entirely my own.
I want to I want to do game shows, Jamel.
You know I love game shows. I grew up writing
sports trivia questions. I want to do that again. I've
got Google documents full of that. But I'm certainly looking

(01:11:12):
over a cliff now and thinking, Wow, there's so much
I could do, But I am navigating. Wow, let's, you know,
let's try to focus on one thing. You know, Dad's
gotta work I'm definitely seeing that. Okay, So I know,
you know, May twenty fourth, the first day that there
isn't a horn. That's gonna be something. I'm gonna have
to live by the code that I just talked about

(01:11:36):
dealing with my emotions and being truthful to tell how
I feel about that. How do you say goodbye to
something you know? I don't know if I know that yet.
I've never been broken up with Jamel. This is the
first time I'm being broken up with, so I need
to know how that feels.

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
Well. I can tell you haven't gone through the breakup.
It's a little weird at first.

Speaker 6 (01:11:54):
Yeah, I'll want to ask you about that. I mean,
I'm in a situation now where I'm known for nine
months or seven months. There's the expression, uh. I think
it's you know, the Irish goodbye. Oh yeah, I'm in
an Italian goodbye right now. I've been saying goodbye for
six months or four months. I've talked to a few people,
you know, I've been thinking about it every show. I

(01:12:15):
want everyone to have their moment, right, you know. I
want everyone to get a FaceTime. I want all the
I'm trying to I'm Red Panda I'm spinning eight plates now,
but Dad's gonna find a job. And I'm talking to
the most amazing people in the business, and I'm loving
those meetings, and I'm just imagining what if I did
you know my own I'll ask you. I mean YouTube, right,

(01:12:38):
It's the most used and stream thing in the world.
Where's the traditional sports media person on YouTube? And I'm
not talking about a simoch. I can create every day, yeah,
and I can give it to you every day. You know.
I might be in that space very soon, while also
doing the greatest games we all while also doing a
game show, you know. So I'm I'm gonna fork in

(01:13:00):
a row, but my fork looks more like a spork,
you know. I'm all up in here, Bruce Lee, the
five finger death paunch or something. I don't know. I'm
going to see what I'm doing. I'm making up like
seven different metaphors.

Speaker 1 (01:13:15):
I'm picking up what you're putting down. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:13:18):
Maybe one of those jobs could be replacing Ernie Johnson
once he retired.

Speaker 6 (01:13:22):
Oh, don't say that, there's no replace. First off, there's
no I got myself in trouble because I talked with
such enthusiasm and excitement, and I idolize jobs and people
in my life.

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):
And Ernie Johnson is retiring, so this is not yes
he is. He is not immediately, but he is hinted.

Speaker 6 (01:13:40):
We're all retiring. I hope he goes on until forever.
I want to say this loud and clear. I am
the type of person who likes to create an event,
and I'm going to invent the next job jiml just
as much as as maybe initially when when I was
going through I was talking about chairs that already exist,

(01:14:02):
and you just imagine yourself in that. That's a great,
you know, barometer or a compass to shoot for. But
I know me. I'm a test kitchen type guy. That's
why you didn't see me doing Sports Center and a
fantasy football show and all these other I always thought
around the Horn and PTI strength of these two shows,
the two best shows on ESPN, were because they were

(01:14:22):
different than those other shows. You felt different. Maybe you
feel that way too, may maybe other viewers feel that way.
It didn't feel like some you know, some of the
other shows that originated from Bristol or elsewhere. Right, they
had a rundown, they had a horn, they had a
different people, they had a different cast. Those were important
to me. You know, I didn't go to a big college,
you know. You know, I'm very proud to have worked

(01:14:44):
with this company now twenty five years, and I'm happy.
I'm not jaded. I'm still the great sports fan I
always was, which is an amazing thing. After four nine
hundred and fifty three episodes. Some people might take that.
You may go the other way with that, and that's
not me, but on my own dude, you know, So
being comfortable with finally being able to be proud, that's

(01:15:06):
been a journey for me. Jamel. You I mean, you've
been in my space and I've been in your space.
We've all dealt with imposter syndrome. We've all faded, faked
it till we made it. You know, those are things
for a reason. People say that, But you got to
do the work to get to the next stage. It's
above that, which isn't just the power of yes and
saying yes to every job is the power no and

(01:15:28):
say I know who I am. So I know who
I am. I'm not worried about the great beyond of
what's going to be out there, and I'm not just
imagining the great, you know, fill in the chair of
the last great that was before me. I want to
invent the new one. I believe in that because I
think I'm a one of one, you know, a real
one of one, you know, who's not necessarily just a

(01:15:52):
host about sports stats or a guy who can only
work with a mute button. You know. I could around
the world any number of ways. However, they said that,
you know, you know, it's going away. I'm like, I
could tell me how you want it. I'll give you
any way you want it. I could do any hot
job you want. You want to put Kayson it on,
so not on, and Kat Williams and and a comedian

(01:16:14):
and and you know, and you want to put you know,
four people and mess around. I could be that host too,
you know. I could be the host that's doing a
show on sports parenting, you know, and dealing in uge sports,
which I really believe in. I think there needs to
be forms for that, and I think it's a huge market.
And all you ever hear Jamail was about the dad
punched the referee in the game and it's the end

(01:16:35):
of the and the coaches hate the parents. I want
to live in a space where We're talking about how
parents talk to their children, and how children talk to
their parents, and how the relationship gets lifted by this
wonderful thing. We're talking about sports. So it's not about
the parent punching the ref. It's about those thirty minutes
you're in the car with your dad and mom or

(01:16:57):
vice versa with your kid, thirty minutes to the game,
thirty minutes back. That's when parenting's start. That's when the
relationship is really built up. There's something out there now
that the landscape is so big where I'm doing that,
So that's not you know, necessarily. I mean, I think
Ernie Johnson is one of the most admirable people in
the business. Everything you hear about it, so I think
he could do that too. But that's kind of where

(01:17:20):
I want to what I want to be as well.

Speaker 2 (01:17:22):
You know, so have how much have you thought about
how the final show is going to feel?

Speaker 6 (01:17:28):
A lot? I had a Google document opened six months ago.
That's how I dealt with you. You know, I was
sad that I was sad, If that makes sense. I
think I said it. No, maybe I said it not
to you, but I said a note to everybody who
works on the show. Like I I was trying to
do the work to keep it going. You know, I

(01:17:48):
tried to take meetings, tried to get more meetings, you know,
I wanted more meetings, AND's let's talk about it. You know,
how do you want if you want to refresh the show,
Let's refresh the show. You know we're doing good. I'm
seeing all of our people elsewhere on all these other
great shows, and our ratings are up, So how do
you want me to refresh it? Refresh it? So then
I was sad that. I was sad when they said

(01:18:09):
because it's their decision. You know, they're making it for
whatever reason they are. I don't need to convince them.
I'm not in that. So now I'm like, Okay, well,
what can we do. We do the best show we
can for the next six months. I've been proud of that,
but you know, you know me, I want to make
a little movie in my last show. I've procured music rights.
We're working with ESPN's rights. It's hard to do there,

(01:18:31):
but it's hard to do. But I see these other
shows have real music on them. When I'm watching Game
Day and First Takes got you know, it's time for
some of us to get that too. And I made
a phone call to a franchise that is near and
dear to our heart, in our family, our favorite team,
and they and somebody who's near and dear to that

(01:18:53):
franchise who's a superstar now who may be making an appearance.
So all I'm saying is I'm gonna have so fun
with with the first couple of minutes of show, and
then that's me, that's my that's part of my goodbye.
And maybe I'll have the last words too. The host
is gonna have the last words the show. But I
definitely need to to see our ogs. We're ogs for Europe,

(01:19:14):
for your emogs. We want people to call our original
gut you see how the lame I am. Uh, you
know our original Gangsters. You know. Yeah, we don't make
show one or two or three without Woody and Bob
and Jackie. And we're gonna see everybody we saw you
last week and I was so thankful for that, and
uh and and and Sarah Spain and and and We're
we're bringing back everybody that that we we really can

(01:19:37):
logistically bring back at this moment, which means, you know,
we only got six shows left or whatever it is.
And so, but I'm gonna cook a little bit in
that last show. You're gonna You're gonna get, You're gonna
get reality cooking.

Speaker 1 (01:19:50):
I love this. Well.

Speaker 2 (01:19:51):
Before we wrap this episode up, Tony, I always end
every episode with what I call the messy question.

Speaker 1 (01:19:58):
Tony, this is where we make the headline.

Speaker 6 (01:20:00):
Okay, go make a headline.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
Oh yeah, this is where we make the headlines. Andy,
listen with the show ending, it's a great time for it.
So here is the messy question. There have been I
think around sixty around the Horn panelists.

Speaker 6 (01:20:16):
Yes, don't ask me who my favorite show.

Speaker 1 (01:20:19):
I'm not going to ask you your favorite is.

Speaker 2 (01:20:21):
But could the around sixty or so around the Horn
panelists who have appeared on the show in the show's history,
could they beat one gorilla?

Speaker 6 (01:20:31):
Y Sarah Spain could be one gorilla on her own? Okay,
let's all with that one. I like our chances against
anybody in the animal Kingdom. You ma, anybody, I think
you'd have to engineer some sort of I mean, even

(01:20:53):
AI with synthient thinking. I mean, I think we got them.
So it's got to be it's got to be some
form from a different gallery. I mean, you got no shot.
You're rolling with with Jackie mcmowan and Sarah Spain, who's
got the pointiest elbows in the world. You got Kevin Blackstone,
who might just start reading you uh, a think piece

(01:21:15):
that would put the gorilla to sleep in some ways.
You got you know when I say that, you know
that's a softball question. Okay, No, I mean I would
love I would love all sixty of us to get
together somewhere in the world and and just uh and
then have a live audience in front of us and
no mew button and and and see if we can

(01:21:36):
do like a talk marathon and see who drops last?
That's what I wanted to Who drops last? Who could?
And the joke of it all is that I'd be
the last person standing. I was the one who who's
my job? But but if you remove me from that,
you know who who would have the absolute last word?
It would be between Woody Page, Bomani Jones, Bob Bryan

(01:22:00):
and Sarah Spain. Those four, Yeah, those those four would
be the So who's the last four standing? Let's answer
it like that. Who's the who is the big was
it was a gorilla? You said, who's the big gorilla
of our show, you know, and who's the last person standing.
It's it's gonna be what he paiged. Yet he has
the will to do what others won't in a debate.

(01:22:23):
That's I'll answer that question.

Speaker 1 (01:22:26):
I think I tend to agree with you on that. Well.

Speaker 2 (01:22:30):
Listen, as I said at the beginning, Tony, thank you
so much for taking this time. I know you don't
do these interviews very often, so I did not.

Speaker 6 (01:22:37):
For many many years. I mean, that's how much I
love this show, and I love all of you. I mean,
I I hope you getting your your rightful du as
as a panelist on the show. I make you a
mission of my life the last you know, four months
to tell the people in your life how they have
impacted you. And you and I I grew up a

(01:23:00):
little bit on TV, both of us and our careers
are different, of course, and and you did try some
incredible things, which I am. So it's such an admirable tree,
you know. I think his and hers was incredible. I
think I Choku and stayed on TV for for thirty years,
much like PTI.

Speaker 1 (01:23:19):
Yeah, right, we did.

Speaker 2 (01:23:20):
I think Mike and I both told you this, Me
and Michael Smith that we knew so much of what
we learned on around the Horn working with you all
and brought it to his and hers.

Speaker 1 (01:23:31):
I mean we didn't we didn't necessarily have a mute,
but right, but.

Speaker 6 (01:23:33):
You're talking about a dynamic, and again that was that
was a friendship dynamic. So what I'm trying to say
is you've taken risks in your career. I mean, headlines
will tell you you've taken risks in a lot of ways.
I mean, I know who you are to a certain extent,
and I love that person. I mean, and then and

(01:23:54):
and I love how you are relentlessly yourself. And that's
what I would tell everybody when I called them before
their first show. I'm not sure I did this, you know,
six with you because I was still feeling myself out.
Who would I be to say? You know? You know
I always try to tell people I'm proud for you.
I'm not proud of you. I mean, that's not my
position to be proud of you. I'm proud for you, you know,

(01:24:14):
you know, but you're on this show to be you
be you. You know, when I got in this industry, somebody,
you know, ESPN sent down a voice coach to work
with me, right, And I was wearing a suit those
first couple of years, you know, and I was trying
to yes in order to get the job. Sometimes you

(01:24:35):
got to do that. But part of my goal was
then to make other people feel like they can be
themselves on TV or they could see themselves on TV,
you know. And now, I mean, you're the perfect example
of that for everybody. Right, you have, you know, and
you take it. You know, no show last forever. So
as as Sports Center went away, you know, it goes away.

(01:24:57):
Some days we're all NBA coaches. Do you want to
you in a title? And two years later you're looking
for a job, And that doesn't mean the title goes.

Speaker 2 (01:25:05):
Away, you know, classic Tony reality complement toward him and
turning it back on you.

Speaker 1 (01:25:13):
But it will.

Speaker 2 (01:25:15):
It will be sad for me to see it go.
But I guess I'm one of those people to use
the old phrase. I smile and laugh because it happened.
I don't fine because it's over anyway. Thank you, Tony,
appreciate you, and I can't wait to see this final.

Speaker 6 (01:25:30):
Show, Alrighty.

Speaker 2 (01:25:33):
One more segment to go coming up next, the final Spin,
all right, everybody. Time for the final spin, I give
you the topic, then the spin, and finally the truth.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
Today's topic.

Speaker 2 (01:25:53):
NFL owners have voted to permit players to participate in
the twenty twenty eight Summer Olympics and flag football. A
max of one player per team will be allowed to
play in. Each club's designated international player is also permitted
to take part for his.

Speaker 1 (01:26:07):
Country the spin.

Speaker 2 (01:26:09):
According to the NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, this is part
of the NFL's increased efforts to.

Speaker 1 (01:26:13):
Make football global.

Speaker 2 (01:26:16):
Now the real Now, if you think players like Lamar
Jackson or Sakwon Barkley or any of the top guys
are going to be competing in flag football, you need
to temper and greatly lower those expectations. I do not
envision the NFL putting together a team that would be
the equivalent of what we had with the Dream Team
and men's basketball in nineteen ninety two, with Michael Jordan
and all those guys. Now, I know that playing for

(01:26:37):
Olympic gold is something that many players embrace, but the
NFL is a grueling league. They're also talking about adding
an eighteenth game, and from a body an injury management standpoint,
how exactly is this supposed to work?

Speaker 6 (01:26:50):
Now?

Speaker 2 (01:26:51):
How pissed would you be if you were a Buffalo
Bills fan and Josh Allen blew his knee out playing
some damn football.

Speaker 6 (01:26:57):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:26:57):
I know the nature of flag football and the NFL
are different, but don't get attached to this idea of
the big Stars plan. I think there's way too much
left to be figured out.

Speaker 1 (01:27:09):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:27:09):
I love hearing from you all. You can hit me
up on social media or on email. I'm at Jamail
Hill across all social media platforms, Twitter, Instagram, fan Base,
and Blue Sky and threads.

Speaker 1 (01:27:19):
Please use the hashtags politics.

Speaker 2 (01:27:21):
You also have the option of emailing me at Spolitics
twenty twenty four at gmail dot com. You can also
send me a video of your question, but please make
sure it's thirty seconds or less. Don't forget to follow
and subscribe to Spolitics on iHeart and follows Politics pod
on Instagram and TikTok. Politics is spelled s po l
I tics. A new episode of Spolitics drops every Thursday

(01:27:43):
on iHeart Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This
is politics where sports and politics don't just mix, they matter.
Spolitics is the production of iHeart Podcasts and the Unbothered Network.
I'm Your Host Jammel. Executive producer is Taylor Chicoigne. Lucas

(01:28:03):
Hyman is head of Audio and executive producer. Original music
First Politics provided by Kyle VISs from wiz FX

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Ep 30: The Politics of Around the Horn - Featuring Tony Reali

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep 30: The Politics of Around the Horn - Featuring Tony Reali