Wayne and Matt talk with ESPN/ABC play-by-play announcer Dave Pasch

Wayne and Matt talk with ESPN/ABC play-by-play announcer Dave Pasch.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tom Lougan Bill, who I was working with at the time,
had a connection to Zack Snyder, the director, and they
needed two sportscasters. So Tom and I went and filmed
the scene in the movie. Now, if you actually watched
the movie, our scene got cut, you can see us
and we're in the credits. But our scene got cut.

(00:21):
But if you watch the director's cut, like the Snyder cut,
the scene's in there.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
This is the Larovian Lapeye Podcasts, a production of iHeartRadio
Podcasts with hosts Wayne Larravie, the voice of the Green
Bay Packers, and Matt lape the voice of Wisconsin Badgers
football and men's basketball. The Laravian la Pey podcast is
presented by UW Credit Union.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
Here for every U Hi, everybody, I'm.

Speaker 4 (00:49):
Wayne Larravie and I'm Matt Lape.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
On this episode of the Lara Vie La Pay Podcast,
we welcome ESPN ABC play by play announcer Dave Pash
to the program. Stay tuned. We've got good stuff coming
up on the Lara Villa Pay podcast. Ready to get
fees the stiff arm. UW Credit Union can help because
since nineteen thirty one, they've been committed to eliminating fees
for members joined today at UWCU dot org. Insured by

(01:17):
NCUA terms and conditions applot, We welcome into the Laravila
pay podcast national sports play by play announcer Dave Pash
of ESPN, ABC and the radio play by play voice
of the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday afternoons. I first met you, Dave,
along with Andrew Siciliana. To remember back in the mid nineties,

(01:37):
I want to say, nineteen ninety six, We're all together
at WMAQ Radio. The Bears had just moved from WGN
to WMAQ, and here we are, and you and Andrew
are two young pups doing sports updates on this all
news station at the time. And here we are today,

(01:58):
many many years later. You're a national sports play by
play guy. Andrew was on the national scene with NFL
Network for years and years, and now is the new
play by play voice of the Cleveland Browns, succeeding after
the passing of longtime voice Jim Dunovan, our good friend.
But at any rate, Wow, what a difference almost three
decades makes. Well.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
I was honored that you guys asked me to be
on this podcast because I still look up to both
of you. It's funny how I think back to meeting
Matt when I was in college and interning for him,
and then meeting you Wayne, and just knowing your legendary
career even leading up to when I met you in
nineteen ninety six, whether it was the Bears of the Bulls,

(02:41):
I mean, everybody knew who Wayne Lairvy was Big ten football,
and Matt I think at that point you might have
been a few years in being the voice of Wisconsin.
I can't remember if you were doing football at that
point we met, might have just been basketball. But anyway,
I owe both of you a ton because I looked
up to both of you and still doing You guys
were always great to me.

Speaker 4 (03:01):
Yeah, I think one of the one of the summers, right.
But in your time at Syracuse, you see you came
in and did some sports updates and thought, well, I
think this guy's pretty good. There's probably not a whole
lot of advice that I could impart to. It was
you were, you were ahead of the curve. There are
just certain guys that in school yourself, Joe Davis, Jason Bennetti.

(03:23):
But yeah, these guys are going to be fine and
something about that Syracuse program, Dave. What is it we
always those of us who didn't go to Syracuse. I'm
an Ohio State grad think of the Syracuse mafia, which
is an unkind term, but it is. It's a backhanded compliment.
What is it about that program that turns out so

(03:45):
many folks like you and Marv Albert and.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
So on and so well, First of all, I would
beg to differ. I thought I was pretty bad when
I was at that age. I mean, I think back to, uh,
you know, even when I got out of college. Tony Coreedi,
who has been the long time West Virginia play by
play guy, was a Syracuse guy and my first job
was in Morgantown and they had been a little bit
of a pipeline through Morgantown for young Syracuse guys. And

(04:11):
he ripped me up and down, and he was right.
I needed a lot of work. But I do think
in terms of kind of building a baseline, and maybe
that baseline has shifted a little bit because our business
has shifted. But you think back to what traditional broadcasting was.
In traditional play by play, Syracuse was very good.

Speaker 5 (04:32):
At hey.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
The most important thing is you document what you're seeing
the game's the star. You're not the star. The game
is the star. Your analyst is the star. And I've
always appreciated that. I think I've tried to model myself
after that, and I don't know that that's still the

(04:54):
case today. I think sometimes you can watch a broadcast
and maybe feel like the game is secondary to what's
going on. And guiltiest charge with go Walton, guiltiest charge
was always the game was always not first, for sure,
but it's, you know, one of the all time greats.
You kind of let Build do what he does and
we'll get back to the game at some point. But

(05:14):
I do feel like the training of this is how
you document a game was there for a lot of
us when we came out, so you didn't really have
to figure out what was important. Do you think it
takes time for people to figure Okay, well what's important? Well,
the game is important. Documenting the game, what you're seeing
in front of you camera won so to speak, the floor,

(05:35):
the field, the ball, whether it's radio or play by play,
or radio or TV play by play.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
You know, Dave, have you seen I don't know the
presentation on radio especially but also on TV has changed
over the years in terms of play by play, and
it's become more personality driven in the score, the down
and yard age where the ball is isn't nearly as

(06:03):
important as it used to be.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
I agree that goes back to just my comment a
moment ago about how thirty years ago, twenty years ago,
I think most people were trained the ball is what
you follow, the game is what you document first and
ten you can't ever say on radio time and score

(06:25):
enough being descriptive, letting people know exactly what's going on,
and any part of your personality or the entertainment side
of it in terms of radio, that comes after like
that secondary where I do think in some ways I'll

(06:46):
listen to some radio broadcasts and I think there's a
lot of very good radio play by plan announcers where
you do feel like they are painting you a picture.
You can follow what's going on, But yeah, there are
a lot of times tuned in and you no idea
what's happening. There's just yelling and screaming or a lot
of cliche sayings.

Speaker 5 (07:06):
And that is.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Okay as long as you're telling me what I'm seeing.
I'm driving in my car, I don't have the TV
on explain to me what's going on. Both of yous
have always been excellent at that.

Speaker 5 (07:19):
Wayne.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
I think of something I think I heard you say
maybe thirty years ago, where a runner was being driven
towards the sideline and you said, steered to.

Speaker 5 (07:27):
The chalk marks.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
I don't know if that's something you still say, but
I don't know why that stuck with me. But like
that is, you're painting me a picture and being descriptive
and showing your personality, but you're still telling me what's happening.
And I do think there are a lot of guys
that do that, but maybe not enough. And I'm not
sure if that's how people are being trained coming out

(07:50):
or we feel like in today's age, I got to
let my personality show. It's got to be about me,
and when it's about me, I'll get promoted as opposed
to the game. Become the reason that you are there
and making sure everything you do serves as the listener
or the viewer with regard to what is actually happening.

Speaker 4 (08:09):
Yeah, No, it's great. It's a great vantage point, Dave,
because it's always like it. Try to tell the younger broadcasters.
Styles vary and what someone loves someone else might not.
But if you're given the score in the time, they
could at least say that and say, hey, I know
what's going on. But at the same time, I mean
you made the Bill Waldman reference was a Jim Gray

(08:32):
who told you when you were just starting to work
with Bill that, hey, hang with him. He can change
your career. That you could split the difference. You can
focus on the game, but that personality starts to come out.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yes, it is definitely a fine line to Matt with
that for sure. And it was Jim Gray who nineteen
years ago, on my first year with the NBA, I
got to know Jim a little bit through golf on
Westwood One. I was a young guy getting an opportunity
to work at the Masters and Jim was working golf
then and was so nice to me and gave me

(09:08):
a lot of great advice. And then when I started
working with him at ESPN, he did say to me,
just hang with Bill. He's going to make you better.
He's right, And I've had a lot of people at
ESPN tell me that as well. That are executives saying
that helped you, because I do think when you start
getting to that point you're at a place like an ESPN,

(09:30):
it is hard to stand out because everybody's really good,
and sometimes what stands out is subjective, and you do
have to be entertaining. You're serving the viewer, and there
is an entertainment side of that along with documenting the game.

Speaker 5 (09:44):
And I think everybody at ESPN documents the game.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
It's maybe how you do it differently that ultimately serves
you well or not. And I think the other side
of the Bill thing is that Bill humanized the players
in a way that I don't know that we do
enough storytelling in our business, and Bill would storytell and
it was different, it was unique, but you felt like

(10:08):
you got to know the player more and on TV
you can see it. You know, in every possession doesn't
have to be documented like it does in football. And
Bill did do a lot of work. Bill was incredibly
prepared and he would seell the program and the city
and the college campus, and that does give the viewer

(10:30):
a sense of place. So while maybe we got off
the rails sometimes, Bill did have a very good sense
of what people, what intrigued people, what made people curious,
And I think that's a lesson for all of us
and that did help me about Okay, Yes, it's great
to call first and ten and get it right that
it's a five yard game and who made the tackle,

(10:52):
and to be excited on a big call, but also
being able to shift gears and have a sense of
humor or playoff your analyst, because the fan wants more
than just being told down a distance. It is a
fine line though, for sure.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
You know, it's interesting because I had a chance to
work with Bill Walton on a couple of occasions, and
one time we were in Indianapolis doing the Wooden Classic,
which was kind of an early season basketball tournament. Anyway,
we're having like a production meeting with the PR guys.
I was just amazed at how in depth he went
with these people, you know, a little nitpicking little story.

(11:31):
I'm looking at stants here and things, and he's going
into like exactly what you said, Dave, the different the
little factoids about a player or a place or a
coach or these types of things that never crossed my desk.
And he was fun to work with, he really was,
and he wanted you to kind of dig at him

(11:54):
a little bit. He enjoyed that. He thought it was
a you know, I just he was a wonderful human being.
And I remember years later after we'd worked together, he
came up to me all the time, he said, you know,
I was in the car listening to the NCAA, Chuck.
It was about a year or two ago, and you
were doing the game and it was this and I
knew exactly where this was and that wasn't and just
you know, he boy to the energy he brought to life,

(12:18):
it was amazing. And he was just a great person,
a great guy. And you're right, Dave. And there are
two people that people that the average fan doesn't understand. Okay,
Bill Rafties when I've worked a lot of games with them,
and Bill Walton was the other. They just think those
guys roll in and Bill has you know, a couple
of cocktails on the way to the desk and sits down. No,

(12:39):
these guys works hard or harder than any analyst I've
ever worked with, and they knew what they were doing,
and their whole stick may have been different, but boy,
don't you cannot underscore enough how prepared they were and
the depth of what they were talking about.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
And in the ancient days of the back twelve two
year years ago, I here.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
Is he the pack too? Now are you going to
be all over this? You got to be you're the
boys of the pack too.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
What a weird twelve months it's been. And obviously Bill's
passing being at the top of the list of just
the shocking things and the hard things to deal with
and still trying to process all of it. But you're
right on Bill, It's interesting. We would have Arizona or
UCLA eight times a year, yet Bill would still be

(13:32):
on the phone with the sports information director for an hour,
and then he'd be at every shooter around, even if
we had seen the team over and over again. He's
at the shooter around. He's talking to the coach, he's
talking to the players, the s idea is sitting down
with him, he's gathering information. He'll talk to, you know,
the coach, what's your wife's name, what are your kids name?
Where are they what are they doing? And his whole

(13:53):
point was to celebrate them and give the viewer a factoid,
a piece of information that again would make them interested,
and to humanize them. I mean, that's why we love
reality TV. Imagine if you just watched a show like
The Bachelor, and all they did was just cut to

(14:13):
the end of where the Bachelorette or the Bachelor gave
about the rose and you didn't know anything about the players.
What gets people interested in those shows is they humanize
the people that are on the show, and then you
get attached to them. And that's our job as broadcasters.
And I thought Bill was as good as at that
as anybody.

Speaker 5 (14:33):
I know.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
He wasn't for everybody in terms of, you know, whether
it was a grateful dead reference or you know, saying
something off color, or you know, maybe getting away from
the game sometimes, But I do think the intent was
always to get the viewer to be curious and intrigued.

Speaker 5 (14:51):
In what they were watching.

Speaker 4 (14:53):
It makes so much sense too, Dave, right, because if
it's an NBA game, the viewer knows who Steph is
or janis Joel and b Jokers, so on and so forth.
You guys worked a Wisconsin cal game maybe ten years ago.
People tuning in probably didn't know who Frank Minski was,
and it was like he would introduce them to the

(15:16):
In college, people oftentimes know who the coach is, like
coach Cal Now was at Arkansas, And I challenge anybody
to name one player. Yeah, but you know who cows.
But Bill would introduce the nation in a lot of
ways to these guys.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
He would Matt for sure. And even if it was
a team that you know, we had, For example, we
had Miami a couple of weeks ago college football, and
people know who cam Ward is? Do they know his background?
Do they know that he started out at Incarnate Word?
Do they know where Incarnate Word is? Do they know
about his parents?

Speaker 5 (15:53):
Like that?

Speaker 1 (15:53):
You know, even if it's something you can't assume that
everybody knows and everybody's heard the story, and so repeating
your best stuff, as somebody, an old coordinating producer at
ESPN once told me, repeat your best stuff, assume that
not everybody if you say it again fifteen minutes later.
I don't know if you guys ever get this, but
I'll get people tweeting at me. Not as much anymore,

(16:16):
but people will tweet at man if I hear you
say again you know where this guy came from? Or
tell the story again. Well, you might be watching the
whole game, but most people aren't, and that's you obviously
want to serve both, but your focus is on the
people that might be tuning in from time to time,
resetting the storylines late in game, resetting the situations, time out, score,

(16:38):
all that, but also resetting the heroes, resetting, for lack
of a better word, the villains, because that's what we love,
you know, the heroes and the villains, the good guys
and the bad guys, and that is you know Bill again,
I thought mastered that. And for as wild as Bill
was on certain things, Bill understood television. He understood people.

(16:59):
And that's what television is. You're you're reaching people with
information and stories that you think they will find interesting
and they will get attached to. And if you don't
understand people, how can you really understand broadcasting?

Speaker 3 (17:16):
Our guest on the Lay of Vilape podcast ESPN ABC
play by play announcer Dave Pash, Dave, I want to
you know, we've talked about. You do a lot of
television and a lot of different things on television, but
you also do radio. On Sunday afternoons and a lot
of times when I'm driving, let's say, from a noon
game at landbou Field back home, I'm listening to you

(17:37):
and Ron Wolflett on your broadcast from Arizona and Wolfe
is and it was so much fun to talk to
you guys in the press room at lambeau Field before
the game earlier this year. The thing that was interesting
to me, you know, Ron is a personality. He's a
different kind of sort. He sounds different, he talked to different,

(17:57):
He's he's totally into it, kind of almost off the
wall type of personality in some respects, and I love it.
But to me, I said to myself, you know, Dave
handles this a.

Speaker 5 (18:09):
Lot like he handled Bill Walton.

Speaker 3 (18:11):
I mean, you know, you kind of let the parameters
form it and Wolf gets to do his thing, and
you're doing your thing. You're updating us where the ball is,
who caught it, and all this stuff. But it did
that experience with Walton kind of help you with this
different experience with Ron Wolfley.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
Well, it's funny two way. I mean, I've been with
Wolf for twenty years, so you know what I and
I actually worked with Bill early on, probably about the
same time I started with Wolf on NBA, and then
Bill was not at ESPN for a period of time
and then came back and then they paired us together
on the college games. And yeah, I would say one
helped with the other, and Wolf, while not as wild

(18:56):
as Bill in terms of just all of a sudden,
a story coming out of nowhere, in terms of how
Wolf looks at football and what football means to him
and how he takes it personally, that does come out
and yeah, you've got to know, Okay, when do I
When do I feed into that and get him to
go deeper there? When do I redirect him back to

(19:18):
the game?

Speaker 5 (19:19):
When do I poke fun? When do I say something?
When do I ignore? More like?

Speaker 1 (19:24):
Yeah, that's a that takes time. You don't always get
it right. But again, you're hoping that the goal is
to help the listener understand what's going on and be entertained,
make them feel smart, make them laugh. And Wolf sometimes
just does that on his own for sure, and right
his voice is unique, it is and it does stand out.

(19:48):
But he knows football and he wants you to know
that he knows football, and he wants you to know
he cares about football. And it's funny. He used to
Tyron Matthew. Bill or Wolf would always tell the story.
He'd go up to Tyron Matthew when Tyron a honey.

Speaker 5 (20:03):
Badger was with the Cardinals.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
And he'd say, you take this game personally, don't you tie?
And Tyron be like, oh yeah. And that's one of
the reasons people love Tyron Matthew like he loves football
and it's like personal to him and that resonated with
wolf because that's how he is. And if we could
all care about something as much as Ron Wolfley cares

(20:25):
about football, it really comes through on the air.

Speaker 3 (20:30):
It does interesting as a listener, it does Dave, and
it's it's whenever you guys are on, I'm trying to
listen to that broadcast and you know, you get to
pick all the in the car. And the beauty of business.

Speaker 5 (20:43):
Is satellite radio.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
Matt.

Speaker 5 (20:45):
I mean, if I'm not.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
At Wisconsin, I can listen to the Badgers and you
know it just I love it. It's just maybe as
a nerd in this business, but it's fun to be
able to listen to the different broadcasts. But I do
love what you and Wilford doing with the Arizona.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Just one quick anecdote on that. This is from Sunday.
So I work a lot of NBA games with Bob Myers,
who is the longtime GM of the Golden State Warriors
won four championships and Bob is now in broadcasting. He
listens a lot to the NFL games on serious. He
now is consulting the commanders he was involved with with

(21:21):
Josh eris the owner on going through the process of
hiring the GM and the coach. And he texted me
yesterday listening to something Wolf and I were talking about.
It's a great tool for people to kind of because again,
you don't get NFL on TV outside of the national broadcasters,
so in order to get the local flavor, you got

(21:41):
to listen to the radio. And I just found it
interesting to your point about that it's available, and you
also never know who's listening. But he found he finds Wolf,
like everybody does, interesting to listen to. Is he now
kind of gets into this next phase of his life
of being a broadcaster.

Speaker 4 (21:58):
I've always found two guys, is your thoughts on this
in college? You know the reputation the college broadcasters, you
know the styles very wildly. You know, you get into
a an SEC program and you know it's the old ones.
It lester months and the way back when with Georgia and.

Speaker 6 (22:16):
We stop thought on that we just scored on a
thirty yard run, and this that or the other. But
in punching around Serrius XM on Sundays. I don't know
if I would say it's that wildly different, But there
are a lot of different approaches, right I mean, Paul
Allen up at the Vikings. You know, Jeff Joniak is
really straight and very precise with the Chicago Bears. Have you, guys,

(22:39):
when you've listened, is it really like different strokes different
folks As certain parts of the country it might be
more of a homer others it's more down the middle.
Have you found that to.

Speaker 5 (22:51):
Be the case?

Speaker 1 (22:53):
I think sometimes with the NFL it's what does ownership want?
What do they want you to sound like? And I'm
sure sure there are teams where it's you need to
be really positive and with you know, the Cardinals have
never said, hey, you're not doing this or we need that.

(23:13):
They kind of trust us. I'm not sure that that's
the case with every team, And I don't know In
terms of the school, I do think it is probably
where you are in the country. SEC football is different
than Big ten football, so it should sound different. NFL
it does depend on the personalities too, but I do
wonder how much of it does come down to is

(23:35):
our broadcast supposed to sound fair or is our broadcast
supposed to be a if it's just throwing this team
out there, the Dallas Cowboys, is it supposed to be
Cowboys centric and Cowboys positive as opposed to fair and
balanced throughout? And that's nothing.

Speaker 5 (23:53):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
I shouldn't have said that. Sorry, Brad Shammon, You're a
great broadcast. Nothing to dow with for out of the Cowboys,
that just was the first team that came to mind.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
You know, I think you're you're exactly right, David. And
when you look at the college landscape, it's different. I mean,
the West Coast is different. The blending now that's going
on in the Big Ten, a Midwest centric league in.

Speaker 5 (24:20):
Aura.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
Now you've got East Coast, You've got Rutgers, and you've
got Maryland, and you've got Penn State. And then now
you got the West Coast with all these California teams
in Oregon and Washington, and you know, I think there
was a regional sound that was, you know, especially in
the Southwest and in the Southeast, that was very distinctive

(24:42):
in the college level. I think the Midwest was always
kind of what it is. It's always you know, you're
pretty much straight down the middle. You can tell we're
in the middle of the country. We sound in the
middle of the country. But I think that's all getting
skewed now. And I also think you're getting into more personality,
like we said earlier, personality driven and play by play,
and I know that's happening on the NFL level especially,

(25:05):
so it'll be interesting to see where it goes. But
I do think on the college level, the sound probably
is more to the school, the conference, the part of
the country, and that's that's a big part of it.

Speaker 4 (25:20):
I agree, I've been lucky on Wisconsin. It's never been
I mean we I think we're fair. I mean Wisconsin
got a boat raced at Iowa Saturday. And Mark Tauscher,
who I've been working with, the former Badger and Packer,
and we joke around a little bit. But we're lucky
in that we can say I would just ran the
ball down Wisconsin's throw you a'll turn it into talk radio.

(25:43):
But I think i've when I've heard you guys as well.
I mean, if the other team is playing better, you
say it right, not I mean, yes, you want the
Packers to win. With the Packers have a big moment.
You could tell same thing with the Cardinals. But it
seems as though both of you guys work under the UH,
the notion of they want you to be honest without

(26:04):
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Speaker 3 (26:25):
I think you know, I've always had this UH in
team play by play, and I think even in television too,
I think where people get upset and I don't know
if you would buy into this. Dave Dave Patch, by
the way, our guest of ESPN ABC on the lair
view the pay podcast. But Okay, your team does something bad,

(26:46):
you you document it, you say, you maybe say disappointed, boy,
that was not a smart thing to do. I think
everyone's okay with that if you're not five minutes later
still beating that horse, you know what I mean with
the whip, And I think that's really the key.

Speaker 5 (27:01):
No question.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
It is a lot of how you say it, how
you present it, how long you stay there, how you criticize, Yes,
for sure, And that's true with a national broadcast. If
you disagree with a call, it's are you disagreeing with
a call you're making it personal, or are you taking
a shot that's unnecessary or if you take the shot,
you go back to it. Yeah, there's a certainly a

(27:25):
line to cross, and I think that line is different
with every sport, with every team who you're working for
a local broadcast, national broadcasts. And that's why I was
saying earlier, I'm not sure what that line is for
each team. I know what it is for us, meaning
they trust us. Of course, if we come out and

(27:47):
say something incredibly negative with no evidence to back it up,
we might hear about it.

Speaker 5 (27:53):
But there were.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
Times, you know, thinking back and when I started where
they're you know, the Cardinals were really struggling at the
time and going through coaches, and you know, we'd be
pretty honest, and no one ever said, hey, you should
have said that, or I wish I would have heard
it differently. And I think that just comes down to again,
trusting that we're going to serve the listener, that the

(28:16):
fan is not a fool. They know what's going on,
can't you can't deceive them. They want to root for
the team like you do, because ultimately that's where the
conduit to the fan. There's a part of us that's
a fan, and it's just finding that balance. Some do

(28:38):
it better than others.

Speaker 5 (28:39):
Some there is no balance. I think it just depends.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
I mean, I've heard broadcasts, not really in the NFL,
but some other sports where there is no balance. It
is totally one sided college or pro meaning it's just
a it's a you're sending out a flyer promoting your
team regardless of what happens. And I don't hear that
as much in the NFL though.

Speaker 4 (29:03):
I don't think what a shift years a little bit. Dan,
just your own background. I know in Chicago you did
some talk shows. You were also the Blackhawk's pregame host. Right,
you called some games and you had some You have
an IHL background too. In Detroit, right, you call some
Vipers games. Was there a point where you thought hockey

(29:24):
might be the path?

Speaker 5 (29:26):
There was?

Speaker 1 (29:26):
Mad there was when we moved to Chicago. So first
job was in Morgantown, West Virginia, out of school, out
of Syracuse, got a job in Detroit. Was in Detroit
for two years was hired by this woman named Lorna Gladstone,
who Wayne and I worked with in Chicago, and I
was hired to do sports casts. And Tom Wilson was

(29:50):
the president of the Detroit Pistons at the time and
the Detroit Vipers, and I knew how to run a board.
They were simulcasting their radio and TV for minor league hockey,
and I said, well, I can call a game. I'll
run the board and call the game, and that way
you get a radio call. I think they paid me
twenty five bucks or something like that to call the
game and run the board. And so from there, Laurna

(30:16):
hired me in Chicago and a big part of my
job was doing the pre and post for the Blackhawks.
As Wayne mentioned earlier, the Bears had changed flagship stations,
the Blackhawks had changed flagship stations.

Speaker 5 (30:26):
There were all these new people coming to WMAQ. Jeff
Joniac was one of them.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
I just saw Jeff this weekend because the Cardinals played
the Bears. And like you two, I still look up
to Jeff and still thank him for what he did
for me. And I think when I was doing that
and I started, I was in my mid twenties, and
I was like, okay, well, maybe this is the path
I did minor league, I did pre and post. Maybe

(30:53):
the next step is an NHL job at a radio
or maybe on TV. And when I I thought that
there was a at that point the court or the
Blackhawks what I mentioned the viper Samocus. The Blackhawks were
simulcasting the road games. The home games weren't on TV
at that point, and when I got hired, there was

(31:13):
a conversation about, hey, maybe we eventually put all the
home games on TV. We have a TV TV team
and a radio team. You've got a great chance to
be the radio guy. And in my second year there,
I started thinking, I don't know that this is going
to happen, and if it does, I don't know when.
And the Syracuse radio job came open football and basketball.

(31:34):
So I thought, you know, I need, I really need
to look.

Speaker 5 (31:38):
At this because if I don't.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
First of all, I may not ever get a play
by play job, and second of all, might be in hockey.
And I'm not sure that I'm a hockey guy. It's
not my strength. So I got that job and that
that changed everything. But had I not gotten that job,
I don't know how things would have played out because
I enjoyed hockey, I appreciated the sport, but I was
not even.

Speaker 5 (31:59):
Growing up in Addison.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
I was not raised in the sport. I didn't follow
hockey growing up, and there was definitely a part of
me that was, well, if I don't get this job,
I may either be waiting till they figure out whether
they want a simulcast, or like every other person that's
gone through the minor league system or gone through the
pre and post game hoping to get the big job,

(32:21):
I may be waiting for a long time.

Speaker 6 (32:23):
You Know.

Speaker 3 (32:24):
It's interesting because I think a lot of people in
our business now jump to play by play from hosting
pregame shows, and I'm not sure that really prepares you.
I think play by play prepares you for play by
play now. A lot of them make the transition well,
but a lot of them don't. And and a lot
of them are hired because they're there and they're on

(32:44):
the payroll, and boy, you let's just roll this guy
in here. And I think in some respects that hurts
the play by play the way we came up through
the business. But it's different today, and like I said,
it's more personality driven anyway, Dave, I want to ask
you something. You know, you do a number of games
over the course of a week, and I remember in
my career, we're doing all these games. Like there would

(33:08):
be weeks when I would do a college football game
on Saturday afternoon, I might have done an NBA game
on Friday night. I'd go to an NFL game Bears
or Packers on Sunday, and my head was just it
was like every week of the football season for me,
when I was doing two football games was like final
exams week at college. Now do you handle all this?

(33:30):
I mean, I kept going into games. I said, I
don't really feel prepared.

Speaker 5 (33:34):
For this, but I've got to do this game.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
You know, Well, I am in a funny you ass
that I'm in a stretch right now. This is week
three of five straight weeks of Wednesday, NBA Saturday, College Football, Sunday, NFL,
and I am preparing a lot so my Wednesday, you know, like,
I'm preparing a lot today and tomorrow for the NBA

(33:56):
game On Wednesday. The day at the NBA game, most
of my prep is done, so I'm preparing a lot
of that day for the college football game, But then
I have to change my focus as the day goes
on to Okay, wait, I've got the NBA tonight. That's
got to be what's most present. So I'll go back
and review everything I've got on my board for that

(34:17):
NBA game. And it's a balancing act of managing how
much work do I do ahead of time, because I'm
not sure how you guys operate. I retain information when
I write it down, So how much information do I
want to retain on a Monday for a game that's
on Saturday. When I may hear the information, write it

(34:40):
down on Monday, think about it for a couple of days,
and all of a sudden, now I got to go
back on Thursday Friday and revisit it. Where if I
just had one game, Sure, it's much easier to just have.

Speaker 5 (34:49):
All the info.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
I over prepare, I think for everything, and there is
a danger in over preparation, because sometimes you flood your
brain with too much info, feel like you've got to
get it all in. I think I've learned. I've trained
myself that even if I have a board that's full,
that probably a tenth of it's getting in. Don't try

(35:11):
to jam it in. You might have ideas of what's
important when a game starts, and then all of a sudden,
that changes based on what happens in the game. Going
back to our whole thing at the beginning of this
podcast about the games the star, you document the game.
If you're coming in like I've got Philadelphia and the
Clippers on Wednesday, Paul George looks like he's going to
be back, first game back in la Joel Embiid at

(35:35):
that point, might play, might not play. Those are the
stories going in. But if all of a sudden, James
Harden scores thirty points in the first half, well that
becomes what we're talking about most and maybe a lot
of the information I had on the other guys doesn't.
We're talking about it, but maybe not as much, not

(35:55):
as in depth. Maybe that's not the best example, but
you get the idea that you do all this prep,
you write all these things down, you read all these articles,
you talk to different people, and so little of it
actually gets.

Speaker 5 (36:08):
On the air.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
And you've got to be smart with what you present,
because don't you don't want just because you did the
work to feel like, well, I've got to get in
because I put all this effort into it, no what's
best for the listener and the viewer. That's the balancing act,
the preps, the balancing act. I've always thought, I don't
know how you guys feel, but when you have the

(36:30):
same team every week, whether it's Wisconsin or the Packers
or the Cardinals, it's so much easier. Yet you still
have to be dialed in on what's going on with
that team. And if I'm not there a week, well,
I got to make sure I'm talking to people to
get the information so that I, first of all, can
get more. I can give more to the listener than

(36:50):
what I.

Speaker 5 (36:51):
Just read in the game notes.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
And that's hard. It takes time, it takes energy, it
takes sacrifice. Not that we're carrying cancer or anything, but
we are grinding to try to again do the best
we can to serve the viewer in the most constructive way.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
The hardest thing I've found, and I don't know, Matt,
you do some overlaps too, because basketball and football overlap
now very soon for you. The hardest thing I've found, guys,
is and I do. I do a lot of information
on boards too, Dave, and it's mostly an exercise for me,
not for the broadcast, but it kind of helps me
remember players and numbers. And you know, if I just

(37:28):
look at a roster, names and numbers, I have a
lot of trouble. I don't have that photographic memory. I
worked with Bob Costas years and years ago, and he
would come into a Missouri game and he was doing
radio for KMOX at the time. He'd sit down to
the press room with a hamburger or something, look at
the list of players in everyone memorized. And I'm sitting
here saying that would take me four days to do

(37:49):
the act. You know, that's the hard part I follow
with the overlapping seasons is you try to know everybody,
and it's.

Speaker 4 (37:56):
Hard if they For me, it starts tonight as we record.
The basketball season for college starts tonight, and they played
three games here in the coming week. So you work ahead.
You get the boards at least part of it for
the three games taken care of sooner than later, so
it doesn't sneak up on you. But it's I mean,

(38:16):
what I do. I mean, everything's home this week, So
I'm not like Dave like you You're you're popping all over
the country here. Everything this week is in Madison. But yeah,
there are times you get though, like we'd you used
to have Wayne those the late night flights, scepter a
college game to get to the to wherever the Packers
are playing and all of that. You just stay ahead
of it a little bit. But yeah, the over preparing thing, Dave.

(38:38):
I find that on the radio side especially, there's always
stuff because it is down and distance, who has the ball?

Speaker 5 (38:44):
Where is he?

Speaker 4 (38:45):
And then you're thinking, oh, man, there was this little
nugget that I didn't get in there. And I think
we all deal with that every week, like we miss that.
But that's just kind of the way it works, right,
There's always going to be a ton of stuff that
you might have written down but you're just not going
to get to.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
I remember this was in twenty fifteen, so there was
this movie called Batman v. Superman Dawn of Justice with
Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill. So Tom Louganbille, who I
was working with at the time, had a connection to
Zack Snyder, the director, and they needed to sportscasters. So

(39:24):
Tom and I went and filmed the scene in the movie. Now,
if you actually watch the movie, our scene got cut
you can see us and we're in the credits, but
our scene got cut. But if you watch the director's cut,
like the Snyder cut, the scene's in there. But anyway,
the reason I bring this up is it took two hours,

(39:46):
two and a half hours to film this scene where
all we're doing is calling a game, always just being me,
just calling a game. That was like a thirty second clip,
and let's do it this way. Let's think about that
and then Zack Snyder what time. It's like, you know what,
just ad lib the whole thing. Just do whatever you want.
And it made me think about how much a director

(40:10):
goes through or a film producer goes through to actually
get what eventually goes to the viewer. And it's kind
of like us, we're preparing and writing all these things
down and what's important. Maybe I should read this story,
Maybe I should talk to that person. Maybe that little
nugget is going to come up and it's going to
be a key thing, and it never sees the light
of day. It's left on the cutting room floor. It

(40:32):
gave me an appreciation. You know, you hear the stories
about people that go through and all these takes for
a TV show or a movie, but to actually be
there to kind of see it and again I'm like, well, boy,
I thought that was pretty good. Like I don't I'm
just calling ITGA. I don't know how many different ways
I can call this fake football game between Metropolis and Gotham,
but sure, if you want me to do it, I'll

(40:53):
do it. And again, seeing the final product was kind
of funny. I'm like, huh, that's kind of like what
we do in terms of just doing all these writing
all these things down and doing all this prep work,
watching tape all this and then eventually what comes out
is a thirty second little snippet on something maybe you
spend three hours.

Speaker 4 (41:12):
On, and isn't it funny too? As much as you
we might put into any broadcaster puts into, you know,
if it's statistical stuff or an anecdote, is locked in
as we think we are for every game, the reaction
from a listener or it could go, you know, social
media is a funny moment. Something that Bill Walton or

(41:33):
Jake billis or whoever you're working with, Wayne, you and
Larry or any of your partners. It's the it's the
it's the funny remark, it's the off the cuff. If
you're jabbing each other, that's what resonates. You could have
the you could have a buzzer beating, call, a walk
off touchdown, whatever, But boy, you guys are really funny
the other night. I would imagine you both get those

(41:56):
kind of reactions.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
Certainly with with Bill, we yeah, I mean we've had
some great finishes and buzzer beaters and classic moments with
regard to the game, But what most people remembered was.

Speaker 5 (42:10):
Bill, you know, eating.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
A lit candle on a cupcake, and it is you know,
you can't Like.

Speaker 5 (42:20):
I remember early on.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
In my ESPN career, I was told by a couple
of people, you know, you're really good, but you're not memorable,
Like there's nothing I'm hearing that really I'm going to remember.
And it's funny that a lot of what I think
people do remember is the moments with Bill that weren't intentional.
He probably wasn't saying in the back of his mind, oh,

(42:42):
let me say something here that I think people are
going to talk about for the next month, and I
certainly didn't think that, So you just kind of sometimes
stumble into that.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
I think, yeah, you know, it's really it's amazing. Dave,
can't thank you enough for being with us today. It's
just been great to catch up with you and congratulates
on the tremendous success you've had in your career and
many many more years ahead.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
Well, I appreciate you guys having me on. Good talk
to both of you, Wayne, Matt, thanks, oh, I.

Speaker 4 (43:12):
Thank Dave Pash for joining us. Always wanted to catch
up with the Madison native two decades at ESPN.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
Time time flies, Well that'll do it for us this
time special thanks to Dave Pash, ESPN ABC, a good
friend of ours in just a wonderful interview. Our guest today,
Our producer engineer is Dave McCann. Our executive producer Jeff Tyler.
For mathis is Wayne. Thank you very much for listening
to the Leryo vill Pay podcast.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
The Larovian La Pay podcast is a production of iHeart
Radio Podcasts with hosts Wayne Larvie and Matt Lapey, with
production engineering by Dave McCann. The Larovian La Pay podcast
is presented by UW Credit Union. Here for every you
listen to. Other episodes available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast

Speaker 1 (44:00):
Step any pay