The Voice of Bethune Cookman Athletics - Michael Truilo

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
How's it going, guys, Thanks for tuning into this episode
of the Phil Talk Sports podcast. I got a very
exciting guest for each today. He is the voice of
the Bethune Cook and Wildcats athletic program, Michael Tarrillo. Mike,
it's been a a We've known each other for a
good amount of time now and we want to do
this for a while. So I appreciate you finding time
in your schedule to make this happen. Man, So how
are you.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm doing well, I mean as well as I could
be at the back end of crossover season here at
Third Cook, but basketball ending this week, baseball and softball
in full swing. It's been it's been hectic, to say
the least.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Yeah, well, I appreciate your time and you already leaned
into it. This is like the busiest time of year
for you right now. Crossover season is a great name
for it, where basketball season is just coming to an end,
baseball is getting in full swing, softball's going on. So, like,
I think a great way to jump into this is like,
how do you manage your time, especially in this hectic
part of the year.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
My time management skills are very bad. I will self
admit that usually I am a project based thinker, so
that with basketball and football, it's really easy because like
I have charts to do, I have pregames to prepair.
I have all that and it needs to get done
by the game. So like if we have a game
on Thursday, it's like, Okay, I have all this stuff

(01:28):
to do and it's gonna be done by Thursday, and
I can do it in whatever timeframe suits my other
schedule and whatever else is going on. But it's got
to be done. But that means a lot of late nights,
a lot of early mornings. Like this morning, I was
up at six am because that's the time I had
three hours to kind of carve out to do prep
for basketball tomorrow. As we're recording this, it's it's just

(01:50):
a lot of when you get time, you gotta work
and you gotta lock in see.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
A lot of people, and you have way more experience
of this than me. They think, oh, you work in sports,
it's gotta be fun. You just show up and do
the thing. Like, well, you don't see, you know, if
a game is three hours, you don't see the ten
hours of prep that went into maybe that three hour game.
So definitely I could definitely see how that's the case.
Michael and I met, I'm gonna say, like five years ago.
I've never used this phrase before, but I think it
fits here when we were both cutting our teeth at

(02:16):
the high school sports level. I was shooting huddle film
for New SAMRNA and you were doing a audio play
by a play broadcast of was it Atlantic? Do I
have that?

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah? So I started at Atlantic High School in Port Orange,
a little tiny Atlantic High School, And we'll get into
my background a little bit. But then I worked for
Varsity Sports Network, which does not exist anymore, for a
little while before being picked up by Bithune Cookmand. So
that's kind of my my very abbreviated journey in local sports.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
So when did you decide, like, was that always the
goal to like, I want to be a sports broadcaster?
Is was that like the lifetime goal or did that
come kind of later in your maybe your high school
or college life.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Who it didn't come till really late. Actually. So my
background and my family's background is in music and theater.
My mom professional musician, professional theatrical performer, has been for
her entire life, continues to do so into her retirement.
Perform and direct off and on locally. And my brother

(03:18):
is a professional jazz musician in New York City, so
that was my grandfather violinist conductor, So that was always
kind of the path that was set before me, and
I did it for a long time. High school and college.
I did theater, I did music. I was in plays
growing up. I was in children's theater, I was in
semi professional theater, and even in college. My first three

(03:43):
years of college, I was a vocal performance major, studying
Renaissance opera for because that's what I thought I wanted
to do. And it turns out I still love performing
and do it whenever I get usually once or twice
a year when I'm on off periods with sports. But
it was the kind of grind that kind of burned

(04:04):
me out in college on that. So I eventually ended
up changing my major in college. I ended up getting
my major in audio engineering, which kept me close to
the music program, allowed me to still take voice less
and still being choir and all that, but it shifted
the focus away from being a professional performer to being
someone who has other skills. Like we had to take
music law, and we had to you know, My track

(04:27):
was the audio engineering track, so we you know, learned
how to do studio recording, live sound, all that, and
that honestly has served me in my professional life way
more than any of the music stuff has. Because I
can tech my own broadcast. I can bring all my
own gears, set it up, tear it down, produce the
two streams myself, which starting out in high school sports

(04:50):
then of course and early on at Bethune Cookman when
they had no support system for that, that's kind of
what I had to do. And I thank my background
in audio engineering because it gave me the skills to
pull that off.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
I feel like there was a time for like a
broadcaster where they were considered like talent and they would
just you know, show up and everything's you know, kind
of ready for them to go. And now you kind
of have to be like a one man production crew yourself.
Sometimes you have help, sometimes you don't, but like you
really do need the ability to like troubleshoot on the fly,
set up, breakdown your own stuff. I know about your

(05:25):
music background, but that is another reason I think that
that we hit it off very well, because you're talking
to a former band kid as well, and I totally
get the like the burnout you can get when like
you're really passionate about something but you do it like
through school or through like an organized version it, like
I don't want to say it takes the fun out
of it, but like over time, it's very easy to
get burnt out in that. So I could definitely see

(05:46):
how you make the jump. Were you ever an AP
music theory guy and like high school or anything.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yes, yes, that's a KP music theory in high school.
Although funnily enough, music theory is one of the things
I struggled with when I got to college, especially like
once we got into more higher level stuff. I'm the
people listening to this podcast do not want to hear
me talk about music theory. But like post Renaissance early
classical era, when they started getting a lot of like

(06:12):
key changes and relative major and minor modulations and all
that stuff. I struggled with that, all the theoretical stuff.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
I have a singer.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
I don't deal with that, not it's on the page.
I sing them right.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
I had the chance to do the API stuff. Like
I was a drummer, so I didn't know rhythms. I
didn't have to know notes, so like that is way
out of my ball fit.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Guys.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
We're gonna get to sports in a minute, I promise,
But this is fascinating to me.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
So this is the Phil Talks Music podcast. What are
you talking about it? I need to spin.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
I mean, you're talking to a third generation drummer here,
so people want to talk music. We're gonna talk music
for at least a minute. So you know, we mentioned
getting involved in so like when you were in high school,
you weren't really doing the sports part of it. That
kind of came later on. You kind of doubled back
to cover high school sports.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
Well. I get the love of sports from my dad,
big New York sports fan. Grew up in New York,
born in New Jersey. I was born in Manhattan and
lived in New Jersey for a little bit before moving
down to Florida. So we would always have baseball on
TV or the radio, or football or whatever have you.

(07:16):
When Orlando City got its professional team back in twenty eleven,
we were season ticket holders right away. My brother and
I loved going to those games. We were season ticket
holders for over a decade before I moved away. My
brother moved away, and my parents were like, okay, we
go to like three games a year. It's not worth
keeping these and I still go every chance I get.
I'll go to a couple games every summer. But that's

(07:38):
where I got the love of sports from. And with
my theatrical background, I always had a good control over
my voice. So the first sports media thing I ever
did was I was the public address announcer for the
Sea Breeze High School baseball team back in about twenty
thirteen twenty fourteen, when I was a junior and senior,
and I loved doing that. I didn't get paid or anything.

(07:59):
I was a student. I showed up with a microphone,
but it allowed me to stay around baseball and I
played baseball and soccer going up. Super passionate about those games,
which is why I'm sad that Bethune doesn't have soccer,
because I would be all over.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
That, right So I My first Orlando City game wasn't
until their first MLS game, but in like the USL era,
for them, I would watch every game. You know, they
streamed them all. You know, the streams weren't always great
on YouTube, but like I was always locked into them
and they were dominanting those early you know, those early
years in the Division two level, if you want to
call it that. But yeah, same thing with me. When

(08:32):
my sister lived in Orlando had season tickets. When she
moved back closer to here, they're like, yeah, we can't
hang on to the seasons anymore because they're only going
like three or four times. So I feel your pain
on that for sure.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
The USL era of Orlando City to me is the
golden age. I mean, I was a teenager, young teenager
to start. We had season tickets until I was about
eighteen nineteen, and that really is what sold me on
the love of soccer because my best friend growing up
played soccer, played all the way up through high school,
thought about playing college, never really got there. But I

(09:06):
never loved soccer the way I do now until we
started going to those Orlando City games that I saw
the passion of the pageantry around the game as a whole,
as something completely different to anything else in US sports landscape.
That's what really sold me on. It was the ruckus,
the noise, the flags, all that stuff. And of course,

(09:27):
now having coached soccer, played soccer, and now referee soccer,
I love the tactics of the game as well. But
it was the energy around it that really sold me.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
Soccer is the one sport. Like when we were really
going to Orlando City games, I'd bring friends that either
a didn't watch soccer and some didn't even watch sports
in general, but they go to that atmosphere and they're like, hey,
so when's the next one? When are we gonna go?
Get Like it did not take much, but no, I
just similar think my sister was a goalie all through
high school. You know, I'd go to her games and stuff.
And in this country where we don't have like a

(09:57):
pro rail system, I felt like what captuinating to me
about A Wayne the City, especially when they got to MLS,
is like, yes, it wasn't a true like relegation or
promotion thing, but like they dominated the division underneath so
well that it was almost like a natural promotion that
I think is really how it should be. And we've seen,
MANI your versions of that with like a Cincinnati and

(10:18):
stuff like that, but like it almost like a natural promotion.
It's like, this is how it should be. You should
have to start at a lower level and if your
front office and you can prove it on the field,
then we move you to the next level. But other
places just kind of buy a team and you know,
next thing we know, there's another team in the league
the next year.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Promotion and relegation is something that I'm very passionate about
and can speak a lot about. I think we're gonna
move on because I don't want to derail this whole
show by talking about the flaws of the US Soccer
Association for two hours.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
But I mean, I plan on having you on again
spoiler now, So we will definitely keep that in the
back pocket with the red and yellow cards for when.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
We're gonna say you can you can see the Wayne
Rudy jersey in the background.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, so it was gonna comment on that the name
is cut off, but I had a feeling it was
Rooney just off the you know the.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah, and it's it's it's game warn and signed. My
dad bought it for me in an auction for Christmas
one year.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
That's awesome. So who's your so is that that's a
Man United right?

Speaker 2 (11:16):
I was a Man United fan for a while. I've
kind of fallen off that bandwagon, specifically after Premier League
went behind Peacock Paywall. I don't watch it nearly as much.
If I have to pick a team in the Premier League,
it's Everton. I really like Everton. It's kind of like
the Minnows holding on kind of story that I love.
But Man United was the families team when we were

(11:41):
My brother and I were really getting into soccer because
they were on TV all the time, so we could
watch them pretty much every weekend. And then my dad
kind of got into it too, so we would watch
them as a as a family. That's where the Man
United thing kind of comes in.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
I always struggled to pick a Premier League like in
like my family's Italian. My grandpa was actually and the
youth academy for ac Milan, so that's our team before
he like came over here, so that was an easy pick.
But for Premier League, like in the nineties, I liked
Arsenal because they had Dreamcast on their jerseys and I
was a Sega kid and I was like nine, so
there was that. And then nowadays I would say Man

(12:15):
United because I don't know if you know this, you
can actually buy stock in Man United, so I have
like four stocks just so I can call myself a
part owner.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
So that's why I do as well.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Okay, so you already know. We're I'll see you at
the next owners meeting then, So but no, that's that's
pretty cool. So out of you know, you sometimes for announcers,
especially like at the college level, they might have a
football guy, a baseball guy, a basketball guy. You do everything.
So that's like a pretty wide net that you cast.
Is the sports you enjoy watching the most, the ones

(12:46):
you enjoy calling the most? Or is it a mixed
match of what that would be?

Speaker 2 (12:51):
That's a good question and a question I don't really
have a definitive answer to. The answer is yes kind
of and no kind of.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
What is your favorite to call? And what is just
the one that you know? Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna
call this as well.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Okay, so there's one at the top of both, which
is baseball. Baseball was the sport I grew up playing,
grew up loving because of my dad, and I love
calling it. I grew up listening to John Sterling on
the radio every night for the Yankees, and yeah, I mean,
if you've listened to me call any baseball, there's definitely
some of that in there. But yeah, no, baseball is

(13:26):
my first true love when it comes to sports. I
would say the sport that I have grown to appreciate
the most over my time as a sportscasters basketball. I
didn't really appreciate it. I enjoyed watching it growing up,
but I didn't really appreciate the tactics and the physicality
until I saw a high level of basketball up close
and got to call it. And it's honestly probably my

(13:48):
favorite sport to call radio wise, because it's got the
fast paced like football, but you don't have to remember
a million names. There's ten people on the floor tru
and you just get to go, go, go, go go,
and it's a ton of fun.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
My big beef with basketball like when I work at
Stetson game, which I think you actually did PA the
last sets in game I worked, and we talked about
this for a minute. Almost every game evolves into like
fouls at the end, So like, the fast pace that
you're talking about is great, but they almost all come
to a screeching halt at the end. I wish there
was a way to get out of that, but no,
the atmosphere of basketball is fine. I agree like working

(14:23):
different sports, like there's something about baseball that's the most
fun to work, I think, and like I was a
later fan to baseball. I think really like working baseball.
I got the bug like three years later, and like
basketball has just falling off me. I was a Magic
fan growing up and all that stuff. So do you have, like,
is it a different point of attack preparing for each

(14:45):
type of sport or if you found kind of a
system that not one size fits all, but like you
you know, a blanket coverage kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
Oh, one hundred percent. It's different for everything. The two
that are most similar volleyball and basketball, because the stats
spread is similar, This roster size and are similar, so
I use the same chart for both. I always print
on legal paper for basketball, and I use one sheet
for each team for basketball and volleyball. Football is one

(15:16):
different beast. Football is so many players, so many things
to keep track of, so many storylines to eat track of.
The games are long, it's three plus hours. I'm on
the radio, so I got to be entertaining the whole time.
I start Monday or Tuesday prepping for a Saturday or
Friday football game, and for that, for just the two deeps,

(15:42):
I use four sheets of legal paper landscape, one for
each side of the ball for each team, and I
have a little I actually have it right here. I
use these. These are legal sized Manila envelopes SEP and
I'll staple and tape them in to each side so

(16:04):
when like offense defense, and then if the team has
the ball offense defense, well I just have them right there.
But I have that, and then I make a game
day sheet with generic storylines for both teams and things
I can go to in a dead moment, I could
just look over and find a bullet point keep talking.
I have a stat like a full stats print out

(16:26):
for both teams where they rank in each stat in
the conference nationally. It's there's so much that goes into
football to make that tick, and I've kind of come
to resent it a little bit because it's so much
work and then you are working for about five hours
and then all of it goes away and you got
to start over for the next week.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
And it's almost worse the lower let Like if you
were to do a pro broadcast, those rosters are capped
at fifty two to fifty four whatever the magic number is,
But then a college roster could be like ninety eight people,
and like thirty two of those people won't even see
field but you gotta have some knowledge of them.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
So we're shared numbers. Shared numbers are the bane of
my existence. We had a game for BCU. We were
in Houston at Texas. Southern guy had a pick right
in front of me. I looked down, I saw the number,
and he gets the interception and it was the different
guy wearing the same number because it was the wrong
side of the ball. I'm like, come on, I don't
think that's.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Your So my small version of that is, we have
like a Jackie Robinson day for the Tortugas, but it's
nine to night because he wore nine and the miners
as opposed to forty two. So we will have a
game where everyone on our team wears nine. And it's
early in the season. It's like April sixteenth, fifteenth, one
of those. And so like I haven't gotten the roster

(17:42):
down quite yet, so like when it comes to playing
walk up music and stuff, it's like, all right, number
nine again. I've only seen this guy these roster for
like a week already. So that's my version of that.
But yeah, Doup, we'll get numbers. Is I get why
they do. It's a necessity really in college football at
this point, but like it can be really rough.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
Absolutely, it doesn't need to be. You get zero, double zero,
and one to ninety nine, use them all. That's one
hundred and one numbers right there. You don't need more
than that.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
Yeah, And I want to get back to where like
tight ends are wearing number forty seven, and you know
your freshman wide receivers that barely touch the field have
to wear ninety eight as a fresh.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
That I don't care about it. That I don't care
about as much. Yeah, because I on my charts, I
group my position group and then depth chart number, so
it's easy, it doesn't really matter. But duplicate numbers just
I hate get them out.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
While we're on numbers. Do you like the semi still
new thing in the NFL where like skill guys can
wear single digits now, yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
Anybody can wear any number. I don't care if it's
a superstition thing, let them wear any number. I don't care.
Just no duplicates, that's my thing.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, No, I don't. I don't doubt. I don't disagree necessarily.
There's a few guys that it's like, yeah, I don't
know what they would have wear, like you're used to
them wearing it and like for me, like someone that
collects like game more in jerseys, even from like UCF,
A number five will come up and I'm all right,
is this the player that I want? Or was this
like the guy on defense that barely played And you
have to like do the research and see on like

(19:12):
what size they were or whatnot. So on top of
all the Cookman stuff you've been doing. You already mentioned
this is your busiest time of year. You had it
on top of that plate this year doing the state
championships for soccer in high school out in the land.
What was that experience like, Well.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
Actually I've been doing that longer than anything. This was
year six for me doing the FAHSAA state championships on
their public address out in DeLand at Stetson. Yeah, that's
a great event. And I mentioned I love soccer. It's
like the only soccer thing I get to do all year.
It's a great time. We had Tiger Woods out there
this year because his daughter was playing for Benjamin they

(19:47):
won the state title in three A. But yeah, that's
always at a great time and I love doing that
and it also gives me a chance to connect with
the referees that I've worked with doing local rec games
and local club games because the Local Referee Association EFRA
staffs the event and provides the clock operators and provides

(20:08):
the officials, and so I get to see all my
refereeing friends for a week and that's always fun.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
Do you do any sort of fishiating anymore? Of you
pretty much moved on to the broadcast.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
I've pretty much moved on. Every time I see Sam,
who's the leader of EFRA, He's like, we need people,
come on back. I've still got all the uniforms in
my closet, so it's not out of the room of possibility.
But this year I let my my badge laps. I
would have to reapply take the test again, and it's
like a whole like ten hour process to do that,

(20:38):
which I'm not sure I have time to do.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
Sure, while we're talking high school sports, I gotta hijack
the whole show for two minutes. A little bit of
breaking news. We're recording this on Friday night. New Summerna
Beach women's basketball team has won the five A state
championship ten minutes ago. So congrats to the ladies. Congrats
to Aisha Patrick, the head coach, who's also a former
UCF basketball player. So go nights. That's what you need

(21:02):
to get some wins, is to have a night be
your head coach. So great, great stuff for them. I've
been following that journey and I just saw on Twitter
that they pulled it off.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
So Congress two straight years with a Volusia County state champion.
Mainland died it last year, and now New Smurna's got
it this year. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
Usually when it comes to this area, when you're talking state,
you're only talking Mainland. So I'm glad New Submurna for
like other sports, so I'm glad to see New simurna
A getting thrown in there. I know the wrestling team's
doing great there. They just won districts and a bunch
of other stuff. So prior to even probably the soccer thing,
prior to the high school thing, you are pretty pivotal
in the start of the Simulation Football League, which I've

(21:41):
always been fascinated by, like how that all starred and everything.
I don't expect you to like summarize the whole history
of the league or anything, but how did you get
involved with that? And just in a sentence or two,
like what what is that for people that don't know.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
So that's the genesis of the whole sports casting thing
for me. That's where it started. In twenty seventeen, twenty sixteen,
I don't remember at this point, somewhere around there. I
was a sophomore junior in college and I had just
changed my major to music industry, and one of the
requirements for the music industry major was you had to

(22:17):
do a summer internship with somebody in the music industry
and get a certain amount of hours. This leads back
to sports. I'll get there. So I went to a
local radio station here in Daytona Beach when I was
home for the summer, and they were like, nope, we
got nothing for you. Go away. And I was sitting
in my car in the parking lot feeling kind of
depressed because I'm like, well, how am I going to

(22:39):
get these credits now? And I scroll through YouTube just
on my phone in the car, and I come across
the season eight championship game for the Simulation Football League.
I go, what in the world is this? Because I

(22:59):
love of not just sports, but sports video games. Of course,
you know their representation of the sport. I love the sport.
I was playing, and I'll be the show earlier today.
The other thing you don't even know about me in
sports games is I'm really bad at them. I can't
play PvP and anything. I just get wrecked, especially Madden.

(23:23):
Can't do it. So I would do the whole GM
thing I loved. Let's let the computer play itself. I'll
make the coaching decisions, I'll make the managing decisions. I
like doing rebuilds, all that kind of stuff. Sure, And
what I would do when I was a kid, is
I do that let the computer play itself and pretend
I was John Sterling or Marv Alberts or Bob Costas

(23:48):
and call the games in my bedroom or whatever. And
so I click on this simulation football league and I'm like,
what is this? And they're using at the time, All
Pro foot Ball two thousand and eight.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
I was going to ask you that I was curious,
what because I look at him, like, is this NFL
two K five? Is this all PROJA? Because the graphics
are very distinguishable. If you have the history of so okay,
so that that was gonna be one of my questions.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
Well, that we were using two K five. Now, okay,
back then they were using All Pro Football two K.
We made this switch because of back end limitations with
like roster files and uh play calling. The playbooks weren't
as big as two K five. That's why we made
the switch. But back then it was All Pro Football
two K. And I'm listening and doing the commentary is

(24:38):
someone who had become one of my best friends. The
name's Cameron of Mine. He's the commissioner of the Simulation
Football League, and he's doing the commentary for the season
eight championship game, and I'm like, wait a minute, this
is not the commentary that's in the game. He's actually
doing this. He's doing in real life what I've spent
hundreds of hours in my bedroom doing. Yeah, And so
I sit there for a couple of minutes, watch it

(25:00):
on my phone, turn it off, think nothing of it.
Drive up. A couple weeks later, it gets recommended to
me again on YouTube and it's like a preseason game
for the next season, and I'm listening and it's the
same guy, Cameron Irvine, doing the broadcast again, and he
mentions that they're looking to expand the broadcast team, which

(25:22):
at that point I think was five people. And so
me had never done any sort of play by play,
had never done any sort of anything like that except
to myself in my head, being summer, nothing to do,
depressed that I didn't get this internship and I have

(25:43):
really nothing to do, said why the hell not, and
shot him an email saying, listen, I've got no experience,
but I love sports and I'd love to give it
a shot. And he said, yes, why. I'll never know,
but I'm sitting here in this position today thanks to that.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
Yes, So I imagine that's how those first five people
started to so I probably, you know, at some point,
you got to give some guy a shot.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
So he gave me a shot. He gave me a
tryout on a preseason game on a program called rabbit
dot TV, which I don't think exists anymore.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
It was a way for a group of people to
all watch a YouTube video simultaneously back in about twenty seventeen,
and it allowed you to like take the stage or whatever,
so you could do commentary that way. Yeah, I guess
a little bit, a little bit, but it was more
of like an open form, like it was a like YouTube,

(26:45):
but you could like join a live stream or whatever.
It was weird, so that's how I got my start,
and I I was bad. Do not let anybody lie
to you when I first started. You can go up
and look those games up from twenty seventeen. I was bad.
They still exist if you want to find him. But

(27:06):
I caught the bug, that's the term we use. I
was hooked. And I did it as a hobby, calling
a couple of SFL games every week for years, for
three four five years, all through college. And I speak
a lot more about this, not the self plug but
on YouTube. I got inducted into the Simulation Football Y

(27:29):
Hall of Fame two years ago. In my Hall of
Fame induct speech, I go into this a little bit
more in detail if you want to find that. But
being a broadcaster for the SFL and being involved in
general got me through a lot of tough stuff in
my life, and it was always something that was there
that I could do. Every week, I put the headset

(27:51):
on or turn the microphone on, because all I had
at that point was like a music recording microphone and
just shut the world out and someone else for a while,
and that was enough for me. And so that's the
Simulation Football League, and that's how I found it. So
a broader answer to your question of what the SFL

(28:12):
is is. It is an AI versus AI simulation league
that currently uses all Pro espn NFL football two thousand
and five. And how it works is there are teams.
My team is the Carolina Skyhawks. I'm on their team staff.
I do a lot of graphic design for them. So

(28:35):
there's thirty teams. I can think we're not twenty eight teams. Now.
Every week you submit a playbook that you would like
the AI to run and it matches up against the
other team's playbook. And the great thing about the SFL
is you let go. Once you submit your playbook. There's

(28:57):
nothing you can do. There's no buttons you can press,
there's no timeouts you can call. You were at the
whims of the AI and your playbook against the opponent's playbook,
and football magic happens. There have been so many great games,
close games, championship winning moments, all AI generated through this

(29:17):
video game that hundreds on hundreds of people that are
involved in this tune into every week and love passionately
just as much as I do. And it is a
great thing. I love it so much.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
I think one thing that helps very and again I've
just I've looked at it even before I knew you.
I have come across it before. It helps that you're
using one of the best still to this day, one
of the best football games of all time. I think
that is a big thing to do with it. But
like I have a semi similar Like my first content
ever put on YouTube that I was connected to was

(29:48):
someone that's become one of the best friends of mine,
Nick Rice, started the Dream Season Football League, which is
the he gets the all time rosters of each team
and we simulate through a season this yearies using Matt
in twelve. I believe so same thing. I had no experience.
I'm gonna you know, I have a voice. I'm told
I have a face for radio, So let's just do
it this way instead. And you know we've done. He's

(30:11):
on season nine of and it's ninety percent his leg work.
But I've I've called games for him and stuff. So
it's really cool how that community can come together for
something like that. So and you already said that was
the catalyst to like everything else that's happened. So is
it Are you just the caller for your Carolina team
or are you How does that work. Actually, no, I
don't call any Carolina games, so every broadcast is neutral.

(30:34):
There's no hometown broadcast or anything like that. And the
broadcast director, Mike Daggs does a great job of scheduling
everybody so they don't call the team that they're affiliated with,
so there's no bias in that sense. Yeah, no, but no,
I have a player.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
Good thing about the SFL is it's not just the
coaches and staff submitting playbooks and stuff. You can have players.
You have skill aggressions. You can like progress your attributes
throughout the season and get better as a as a
player of a cornerback on Carolina. Is it you or
for somebody, I'm I'm made up a name. It's it's

(31:12):
a combination of of my grandfather's name on my mother's side,
on my grandfather's name of my dad's side. So nice. Yeah,
but yeah, So there's ways to interact with it that way.
You could just be a player. If you don't want
to be involved on the coaching side, you can be broadcast,
or you can write articles for the website. Uh, there's
so many things to do in the SFL, and it's

(31:35):
a great teaching tool if you want to get involved
with sports media because you have to do all the
things that sports media needs to do. You need to
create content, you need to keep up with stats and schedules,
you need to do all those other things that That
was a great teaching tool for when I eventually got
into the real world and started doing this, where I
already kind of had some of those soft skills without

(31:59):
knowing it because I use them for the SFL for
all those years.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
So the website for this is sim FL dot net
for the people that want to check out the league
and everything they got going on. If I'd ask you
this question prior, I would have added a Hall of
Fame broadcaster in your intro. So that's my bad. I'll
be sure to do that moving forward. But no, that's incredible.
I mean just what people can do, and I'm sure
the people involved in this, much like yourself, like all

(32:24):
over the country, maybe all over the world, and the
fact that they can come together to make this league
and this isn't like I feel like people attempt small
versions of this all the time, and the same way
people start a podcast, do three episodes and never upload again.
This has been going for what it's got to be
over a decade at this point, right.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Yeah, we're on season twenty four with two seasons per year,
so yeah, And I mean it is Cameron Irvine's full
time job to be the commissioner this league, because I
will tell you up front, if you want to jump
into this, it is a paid thing. You got to
pay to have a player. You can just join the

(33:01):
like the Discord community and be a fan without having
a player, but if you want a player, if you
want to be part of a team, it is a
it is a paywall thing. So that is his job
to run the league. And there's another one that's now
out called the UFL. That's yo UFL, which is less
player involvement and more of like you're a fan of
this team. There's actually a Daytona Beach team in that

(33:21):
league called the Floria Sharks, So I'm I'm now heavily
invested in that too. But that's a different thing. But
Cam also does that. That's kind of a little offshoot
of the same concept. But the SFL is the more involved.
I explain it to people like this, You know you
have fantasy football, but what if you were in the
fantasy football it was your player, it was your team,

(33:41):
you were more emotionally attached to it. That's that's how
I think of it.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
Is there a Florida team in the SFL currently or.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
No, there is. It's the Florida Storm. They're Miami based,
so eh, yeah that counts, but it doesn't. Yeah, yeah,
Florida is the same. So that's where you got your start.
It's where you got your start. Let's talk about where
you are now with Cookman.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
How did that journey start for you?

Speaker 2 (34:09):
So actually, the other catalyst besides the SFL for me
to get involved in this was COVID. I left school.
I went to James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, change majors,
spent five years up there. I left in fall twenty
nineteen and move back here. I moved back in with

(34:32):
my parents and I'm like, Okay, I'll be here for
like six months, find something, and move on because at
that point I wanted a job in the music industry
as either a live sound producer or a studio session guy.
And I'm like, oh, maybe I'll move to Orlando and
try and find work over there. And then COVID happened
and everything stopped. And because everything stopped, It gave me

(34:54):
a lot of time to sit and think about what
I wanted with my life, and what I realized I
wanted to do more than anything else was keep calling
games because again, the SFL kept going through the pandemic
because it was all virtual. And I mentioned getting it
through through hard times, that's one of them. But I

(35:16):
realized going into the fall of that year was the
FHSAA was going to try and play football, and I thought, well,
this might be the perfect opportunity to get in and
try it. I don't know if it's going to go anywhere,

(35:36):
just try it. So I sent a cold call email
to every high school in Volusia County, Flagler County, Seminole County,
and even some of Bivard County saying I want to
set up a internet radio stream for your school. I
will do it for free. I have all the tech,

(35:57):
I have all the expertise. All I need is a
spot in the press box, access to power and internet
and I'll do the rest. I heard back from three
three schools even got back to me out of the which.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Like how you didn't have twenty two yeses and then
you had to pick where you were Like, I don't
I don't get in some schools.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
I got one no, and I won't say what school
that was because I don't want to throw them under
the bus. I got one maybe that was Seabury's High School, Okay,
and one yes. And that one yes was from Tron
Griffin at a little, tiny Atlantic High School in Port
orang And he said, sure, I'll give the Sky a shot.

(36:36):
Why the heck not. We're not going to pay him anything.
Why not? And so I got in with Atlantic and
I was the voice of the Sharks for almost two
and a half years. I did football, yes, that's where
I started, but it was also where I branched out
and did basketball for the first time, where I did
volleyball for the first time, where I did baseball and

(36:57):
softball for the first time. And that really laid the
groundwork for what I'm doing now with Bethune Cookman, where
I do everything because I have experience with everything from
Atlantic and also from Varsity Sports Network, which I got
into kind of around the same time a little bit
later than that. I don't remember how exactly I got
in touch with the people running that, but I called

(37:21):
mostly football, a little bit of basketball, a little bit
of volleyball a little bit of baseball for them for
about a year and a half before they shut down.
And that was the high school experience. I wasn't getting
paid from Atlantic. I was making fifty dollars a game
for VSN. At the same time working for the Little
Theater of New Summer to Beach as their live engineer

(37:42):
and fully work doing sound effects and stuff. And I
love that because it connected me to theater, connected me
to my youth. I love theater as that early in
the in the in the episode like I still get it,
try and get a chance to act and perform when
I can. So that was fun. And on the the way,
I got in with Bethune Cookman, which I'm assuming is
your next question.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
YEP, that's exactly it is.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
I I sent again sent another cold call email to
the Gazelle group because I saw them advertise the Sunshine Slam.
It was the first every year that they were doing
the Sunshine Slam. This was twenty twenty one, and at
this point I was two years in almost so it
was because it was November twenty twenty one, almost two

(38:28):
years into the whole high school sports thing. And I said, listen,
I know I'm nobody, but I do public address, I
do play by play. I can do media content or
whatever for you if you need somebody. Shockingly, the Gazelle
Group got back to me and said, sure, we need
a PA guy, come on down nice. So uh That's

(38:50):
how I got in with not only the Gazell Group,
but also all the other stuff I do at the
Ocean Center because I'm the first call PA for all
the stuff at the Ocean Center, they do basketball. Therefore,
the first ever event I worked there the twenty twenty
one Sunshine Slam. Guess what first game, first day air
Force against Bethune Cookman men's basketball.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
Ooh, and.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
I get to talking in the green room with at
that point assistant sports information director Bryce Roynosky. Remember this
Rouse thatt up Price. I remember this is around Thanksgiving
of twenty twenty one, and I ended up handing in
my business card at the end of the weekend saying hey,
I'm local if you need ever need anybody. I didn't

(39:38):
think anything was gonna come of that, like less so
than all the high school stuff, like this is a
D one college. Now they don't want anything to do
with me. What would I do? Uh? Three weeks later,
I get a call from now head of sports information
and really the only person in the office, Bryce Rynosky, saying, Hey,
the play by play guy we had left to take

(39:59):
a job in in Virginia. You fill in for a
couple of basketball games. Do we find somebody else? And
that was the start. The first game I did for
Bethune Cookman was Bethune Cookman women's basketball against Florida International
December nineteenth, twenty twenty one. It's my first game and

(40:19):
I've done pretty much everything for them ever since. And uh,
you know, almost five years later, they haven't fired me yet,
or they haven't found somebody permanent yet. So I guess
we got a game tomorrow night, so I guess I'm
still filling in. So that's the whole story with Bethune Cookman.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
So the other thing I noticed with a lot of
your work, and like I've seen you more lately than
previous because I've been, you know, filling in for PA
at times, which has been a fun adventure to jump
out on. But like, not only do you do every sport,
but a lot of the time it's a one man thing.
Like sometimes we already shout out Bryce hopefully future guest
of this show, we'll jump in there with you. Sometimes Kenny,

(40:57):
who has been a guest on this show, will jump
in there, But a lot of times it's just you,
and I think I don't think people realize how tough
that can be. Like I don't even do a solo
podcast more than once in a blue moon. If I'm
really feeling confident, I'll come on here and do twenty
twenty five minutes and that's it. Where an episode where
the guest will go an hour plus at times. So
I don't even do a solo podcast. You do a

(41:17):
three hour solo broadcast weekly. So I don't think people
understand how difficult that can be.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
So it was more true early on because, as I mentioned,
Bryce was the only person in the sports information office
back when I started, and the whole thing with BCU,
it wasn't immediate like, oh, let's give him the keys
to the kingdom immediately. I ramped up. So the first
year I did like some basketball games, and then the

(41:43):
next year I did all the basketball games, and then
at the end of the year he's like, hey, we
want to put the the not the celebration Bowl. Oh God, brain,
help me. A classic versus bc You want to put
that football game on the radio, can you be there
in two days? So that was an adventure. My first

(42:08):
ever college football broadcast was two days notice for the
biggest game of the year. And also there's another story
about that game, which is they had someone lined up
to do color and he just didn't show up. Didn't
show up, couldn't find him, no idea. Shout out to
Chris Shaw, who works for Beethune Cookman for jumping in

(42:29):
literally last minute. So I didn't have to talk to
myself for three hours on a football team. But I
hadn't covered it all but those early years. Yeah, I
was mostly by myself for basketball and then eventually baseball.
I've never done a football broadcast solo, thank god. But
recently the last two years now that the sports information

(42:53):
staff at BCU has been built up, there's now four
or five people in that office, and we're really pushing
the CATI network side of things, which is the student
driven thing. And this season, specifically for basketball, was the
first year that outside of me being the voice and
Bryce kind of overseeing everything, the entirety of the broadcast

(43:16):
is student driven. We got students producing, we got students
on the camera, we got students on the replay, and
I've had students the last two years on color with
me for basketball and baseball. But Bryce still does baseball
because he loves that. So we try to involve the
students in any way we can. But yeah, so I've
done a lot less solo broadcasting than I used to.

(43:38):
But yeah, at the start, it was just me. I
would roll up with my with my laptop with OBS
because that's how we used to push it to YouTube,
and my mixer and a headset and my notebook and
that was it and that's all I had. So yeah,
I have a lot of experience talking to myself.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
Not that you did it just then, but I will.
I will take no obs slander because that thing will
do everything. No.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
I love OBS. It's great. I do a lot of
I do some streaming on Twitch and I love OBS.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
I'm using it to shoot pro wrestling events and the
land lately shout out PWR and it's like the perfect
thing for what we need. So yeah, it works out
good for that. So we can do this for another
another forty five minutes. But Michael actually has a similar
football League game to call later on tonight, so I
don't want to keep him for too long, So I'm
gonna throw a few more lightning rounds at you and

(44:28):
then get you out of here. Sound good?

Speaker 2 (44:30):
Sounds good?

Speaker 1 (44:31):
All right? So you mentioned your New York roots, then
you moved here. Just quickly, what are your all your
favorite sports teams, just so everyone gets like you your
sports personality?

Speaker 2 (44:40):
All right? I mentioned the Yankees for baseball, and that's
mostly because I listened to John Sterling growing up and
he's a big influence of mine. The other team I
like for baseball, funnily enough, is the Giants and the
other and the main reason at that is John Miller.
I'd listen to the Yankees games in the early evening
and then I'd fall asleep listening to John Miller on
the West Coast doing the Giants games. And also, I

(45:00):
love Barry Bonds growing up. He's my favorite player. So
that's why the Giants. So that's baseball, basketball, Miami Heats,
and I'm not a Lebron bandwagoner. I was a fan
of the Heat back in the Shack days when they
won that first championship at back in OH two. That's
like where my Heat fandom started. So that Miami heat
for basketball soccer were already talked about at nauseum. About

(45:21):
Orlando City, a little bit of Everton, but mostly Orlando
City hockey, New York Rangers football, New York Giants. It's
mostly New York teams. Thanks again for Barkley. By the way, Yeah,
I know, I see the Eagles banner behind you there.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
I'm redoing this. I'm redoing this whole thing, but for
now I needed something to put behind me. So this
isn't just for you. That's a stand for a while.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
Yeah, are there any things I've missed?

Speaker 1 (45:51):
You said? Baseball? Basketball? Uh No, I guess that's that's mostly.
Oh so for college, do you are? Is JMU?

Speaker 2 (45:57):
Just your school?

Speaker 1 (45:58):
Is that who you?

Speaker 2 (45:59):
Jamie's school. I'll also root for Florida UF because that's
who I grew up rooting for my best friend growing up,
big Gators fan, went there, graduated, just graduated with his
masters from there. His dad is a is a football booster,
so we went to a lot of football games growing up.
So I learned to love football at the swamp, which
is actually really cool. So yeah, that's that's college a

(46:21):
jam you first, Florida second, and of course Bethune Cookland
when I'm working for them.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
So I didn't plan on asking this, but this has
been coming up. While where do you stand on people
having quote unquote second teams because some people that like
it's sacrilegious, other people don't care. Where are you on that?

Speaker 2 (46:37):
With that? I don't care root for who you want. Yeah,
I mean I don't really have second teams in a
lot of sports, Like baseball is the one exception where
I have the Yanks to the Giants and they don't
really but heads that much because they're AL and NL
and also on opposite coast, so it doesn't I.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
Mean, the second team the gap could not be like
you know, it's the Phillies. And then because I technically
work for the Reds, I'm gonna I feel like there's
my favorite team and in just a team that I
also follow. Like before I got to college, I was
I was a Penn State guy. I just enjoyed watching them,
and then I got to college and was like, Okay,
UCF is my school because I go here, but my
first college football game ever was a Penn State Bowl

(47:14):
game here in Orlando, so it's you know, to me,
there's like there's always a massive gap if you are
going to have the second team.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
College is the one exception I think for me both
while I went to JMU. So I'll root for them. Yeah,
I love UF because I'll all root for them. I
work for a Thumne Cookman, so I'll root for them
when I'm not calling their games, well even when I
am calling their games. But that's a topic for a
different time. Sure, but I think pro sports it's a
little more taboo quote unquote. But again, I don't care

(47:44):
who you root for.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
Yeah, because I mean there's even people like, let's you
talk Yankees and Mets like it's usually pretty like decisive
who you like. And then there's people that are like, eh,
they're they're both New York teams, so they'll you know,
I think it's when you wear the gear of both
that's that gets a little risky.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
That's yeah. Yeah, So I gotta bring up because you
mentioned the Mets. It's funny. I love all these New
York teams, and I get it from my dad. My
dad's a fan of the opposite New York teams. Complete
So I'm Yankees, he's Mets, I'm Rangers, he's Islanders. I'm Giants,
he's Jets.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
So my entire family I was born here, My entire
family's from Long Island, So it's some combination of those
as well. So I kind of get where you're coming
from that. You know, it could happen that way, But
there tends to There tends to be groupings together like Yankees, Giants, Jets,
Mets is very common. When you start breaking up the groupings,
it gets a little strange in my opinion. Yeah, but

(48:39):
like a friend of mine, his dad is the rare
what is the Yankees Jets? And I think that's a
very odd combination.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
Yeah, that's you don't see that a lot.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
No, all right, so on our way out here, because
again he's got a game to call here in a
little bit. But again, man, I appreciate your timing. Glad
we finally got to do this. I look forward to
doing it again. What is your future goals either at
Cookman or just as a broadcaster? And what advice? What
did you wish you know now when you were starting
You can answer that in any I feel you beat

(49:08):
the same answer.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
But okay, so career goals, I guess one the big
one is like be financially independent, which I'm currently not.
I mean, working for the food is great. I'm close,
I'm very very close, but I'm not quite there yet.
I'm still relying on the kindness of my family, who
have let me chase this and they've seen the vision
and they've let me go for it. But my career aspirations,

(49:34):
I guess I would like to be the A one
radio at a big school. I guess so like a
UF a UCF someone like that. To do football, men's basketball,
baseball at one of those schools. That would be like
career endpoint. I don't really think I want to do

(49:57):
professional sports because I like the versatility that college demands,
and you touched on it a little bit, where like
I do everything. Yeah, and thank goodness, Bethune Cookman doesn't
have like lacrosse, we don't have soccer, we don't have
beach volleyball, which would make things endlessly more complicated. We
only have fifteen teams and I only really usually interact

(50:18):
with about eight of them. But I love getting to
do all those different sports. I love the calendar that goes,
you know, volleyball and football, then men's women's basketball, then baseball, softball,
and then you get a break, and then starts over again.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
I love.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
Diving into different things I was pigeonholed into, like oh,
you're the baseball guy and you work for the baseball team.
I think you would get old after a while. And
I think the diversity keeps me on my toes and
keeps me striving to me better at all these different things.
And advice to my former self. I mean, I kind
of I've taken all of it. Is kind of funny

(50:55):
because if you know ten year old me could see
where I am now, you go like, oh, that's cool,
you're doing the thing. I would say, just jump at
every opportunity be an advocate for yourself, because that's what
I've had to be and at every turn I've had
to be an advocate for myself in you know, getting

(51:16):
involved with the SFL, getting involved with high school, at BCU,
getting my foot in the door, yes, but then convincing
them to let me do more and more and more
and even this year, like we're doing more every year.
We started the official BCU podcast, which is Hail Wildcats Radio.
If you want to go check it out.

Speaker 1 (51:32):
Check it out.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
So it's always about finding that next step and about
well what can we do better? What can we do
more of? And I mean next year, I want to
make the production value on our broadcasts better. And of
course there's always the every broadcast you learn something new,
take something away from it, always try and better yourself

(51:56):
every time. And something that I've found infuriating a lot
of times, but it served me very well throughout my
I guess you can call it a career. Now is
I listen back in full to almost every broadcast I do,
and I have right here. I have the notebook with

(52:17):
all of my self critiques and it's at my desk,
and so when I find an hour or so of time,
go to the last broadcast, hit play, start critiquing. And
that's how you get better. That's how you strive, and
that's how you get better.

Speaker 1 (52:31):
Yeah, I mean that makes a lot of sense to
the best way to improve is just to just look
at it that way. I totally get what you mean about,
like maybe if you if you were just their baseball guy,
you maybe have aspirations to do pro baseball, but it
would be difficult, I would think, to go from the
guy that does three to eight sports a year to
just have to tunnel vision back to one. I could
see how that would be difficult for sure. But aside

(52:54):
from that, man, I appreciate your time. Again. He's an announcer,
he's a singer, he's a jazz position and he's been
a friend to me for for a lot of years now,
So I appreciate your time. And I'll see you next
Sunday when I do PA again. So I'll see you.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
I don't think i'll be there. I think why we
might be still in Atlanta at slack basketball. So all right,
so well unless unless both teams lose really early. But yeah,
thanks for having me on. We've been trying to get
this podcast together for a while. I I always enjoy
sharing sharing my story and then we got off on
a couple of tangents. But that's how these things go.

(53:32):
And uh, I'm sure next time we'll we'll we'll have
a lot of stuff to talk about because there's a
lot going on in the sports world and we both
have opinions about it.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
So definitely that'll be the more traditional style next time.
But I'm glad you got to tell your story here.
Simulation Football League check it out with Une Cookman Hail
Wildcats podcast. Check it out follow with Une Cookman Sports
and you know, just you get to see more of
Michael's word. Next time you see Bryce still, tell them
I'm coming for him next so he can be a
guest on here as well.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
Oh I'm seeing him tomorrow night because we've got basketball,
so I'll let him know perfect.

Speaker 1 (54:02):
All right, that's it for us today, guys, Thank you
all for listening, and we'll see you next time. Take care,