7-1-24 - Mo Egger Remembers Jim Scott

Mo Egger remembers his friend and mentor the great Jim Scott

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
He's ESPN fifteen thirty USA A ninethirty in the morning. Good morning,
this is Jim Scott playing a requestsfor Northern Kentucky. But you're living Indiana

(00:20):
or Ohio, you can listen now. Hockey Talk woman, oh most are
the best time. The only thingwrong with honky tonk women are those honky
talk men that hang around you know, Hey, tell me about WrestleMania eighteen.
That was fascinating you in the rockwhen Hulkamania hit Toronto, Canada in
front of seventy thousand people. Iwon my millions and millions of fans back

(00:43):
and it was an unbelievable moment.It was the most impressive thing that ever
happened to me. Don Zimmer,this is a treat to talk to you
your fifty fourth year in baseball now. Derek Jeter is a great player,
but he's just as famous for hisluck with the ladies. Does he ever
let you in on the action?Here's them. I'm too old for that.
Hey, Vincent's with us. Whatwould Pete Rose have to do to

(01:06):
be allowed to be voted on toget into the Hall of Fame? He
just has the big story for thelast few days has been, is he
what he? And he decided yes, and he and his wife Nancy are
going to go to wake for it. Skip Frosser, Good morning, Skip,
Good morning, Jim. How areyou good? I wish you and
your wife the best. Really goingto miss you personally in our community.
I'll tell you that. Well,everybody'll plably miss Nancy a lot more than

(01:27):
you miss me. But thank youfor saying that. For my money,
the greatest radio personality in the historyof the city of Cincinnati. And I
harkened back to the first year Iwas with this ball club. Just send
a limo to pick me up andtake me down the Riverfront Stadium to broadcast
my first Major League Baseball game backin April of nineteen seventy four. I'm
Jim Scott. When I first cameto town to do the morning show on

(01:49):
thirteen sixty WSAI, I didn't knowa soul, and now after forty seven
years, I know you and youknow me. That's what radio is all.
It's the most intimate media that exists. Now, my goal was to
meet as many people as I could, so I bought a three wheeled postal
vehicle I painted at red, whiteand blue and I went door to door.

(02:12):
I dropped by businesses, met theowners, met the customers. I
believe you get listeners one at atime, and then you keep them by
giving them what they want, informationand entertainment and most importantly, to be
respectful and honest. Did I evermention your birthday on the radiock? I
did that dozens of times every daywhen you were in school? Did I

(02:37):
close your school for snow and yearslater? Did I close your kid's school?
Did I mention your wedding the birthof a child. One of my
joys is meeting a person who askedme, hey, Jim Scott, remember
me? I met you with aschool dance, the WSAI Haunted House,
at a charity GalF outing, aKroger store grand opening at the Norwood White

(03:00):
Castle, a special Olympics competition.Did we meet walking in a March of
dimes walk? And can you believeit used to be twenty five miles?
Did we tug together or not?In the German Irish Tug of War every
year at Fountain Square? Did youput money in my Salvation Army red kettle?

(03:20):
Did you wave to me when Ibroadcast from the reds billboard? On
I seventy five an opening day.Did we at a lunch or maybe meet
at a church festival or a fishfry or at the WEVN Riverfest. Did
I meet you at a Christmas partyat Hamilton County Work Activity Center, or
maybe at the Harvest Home Festival orthe annual Martin Luther King Junior March to

(03:45):
Music Hall. Did I see youat the aeronaf Arnold's whiskeys On, Pillio's
Playhouse in the Park Greaters, theHome and Garden Show, Skyline Chile?
Or maybe at a United Way kickoff? Did you win a prize in the
radio? Maybe a record, apizza, a new car, tickets to
a concert? Did I shake yourhand when I broke the world's handshaking record

(04:10):
at the Northgate Mall? Do youstill have that certificate I gave you?
Did we ever meet at Bogart's,the John Hyatt concert or maybe at River
Bend for a Jimmy Buffett concert?If we did, I don't think I
remember the Buffet concert either. Whatabout it a Redge game or the Holy
Grail. I love meeting people andradio is a great connector. I know

(04:32):
you, you know me, evenif we've never met in person. That
is the best who's ever done it, and it's not necessarily close. Good
afternoon. My name's Mollegar. Thisis ESPN fifteen thirty. I thank you

(04:57):
for listening. I hope you hadan awesome weekend. Hope your week,
hopefully abbreviated because of the holiday,is off to an awesome start. Reds
split to a four in Saint Louis, kind of a microcosm of the season.
FC Cincinnati wins again, really badnews for a bear Cat which came
down on Friday. Chad Brendel filledin for me. I thank him for

(05:19):
that, and he spent a lotof time kind of talking about the clinical
and medical part of what Dante Corleonais going through, and that obviously is
much more important. I'll spend sometime with Chad at five point twenty on
the football part of this. Localfilmmaker Cam Miller has an awesome project he's
working on that's Reds related. It'sthe last day the Reds are gonna have

(05:40):
to pay Ken Griffy Junior today,and I've got a bit of a I'll
go guarantee a guarantee on the Bengals. We have all of that between now
and six o'clock, and we're goingto get to it all and it's going
to be a blast. It wouldbe insanely irresponsible of me if we didn't
start the show by talking about somebodywho is very much responsible for it.

(06:04):
I would not be doing this showtoday if if not for Jim Scott.
And I'm gonna imagine that by now, you know that over the weekend we
found out that Jim passed away.He waged a battle against als that we
knew he wouldn't win, but hestill fought it with as cliche as it

(06:26):
might sound, he fought it withamazing courage and amazing grace you have.
I would imagine if you listen tothis show on a on a fairly regular
basis, if you have followed meon on social media, you're probably well
aware of my affection for Jim andmy admiration for him. And it it

(06:46):
doesn't it doesn't solely include his workas a broadcaster, but he was an
amazing broadcaster. You you heard thelittle clip and the little montage put together,
and it started with him as arock and roll DJ. That audio
you heard from his days playing thehits on thirteen sixty WSAI. That's from

(07:09):
nineteen seventy one. I found thaton YouTube, and I need to go
look the guy up who put iton YouTube to give him proper credit.
But that's a clip from nineteen seventyone. And he first came to town
in nineteen sixty eight. That's whathe did. He played rock and roll
music and then kind of mid careerpivots to news talk and he's the morning
man for years on seven hundred WLW. I'm sure that wasn't a very easy

(07:34):
transition, but the format that hethe format that so many of us are
familiar with him being a part of, asked for him to do a little
bit of everything and be a littlebit of everybody. And you know,
you could listen to Jim Show andover the course of thirty minutes, you
would hear him maybe interview a localpolitician about some important Cincinnati relation issue,

(08:01):
and then come back the next segmentand talk to the person in charge of
organizing the chicken dance at Octoberfest,and then come back the next segment and
be chatting with a foreign correspondent aboutthe War on Terror, and then come
back the next segment, and hewould be conducting an interview with the head
coach of the Bengals, and allof that. Each one of those things

(08:26):
requires a lot of preparation. Butto be able to do all of those
things and do it all while adheringto the format, staying on time,
giving listeners essential information, and alwaysconducting himself in a friendly, upbeat tone,
and the entire time on a fastpaced show with so many moving parts,

(08:52):
never not sounding like he was incomplete control. And he didn't do
this for a couple of years.He didn't do this for even a couple
of decades. He did this forever. Think about this. He starts his
career in Cincinnati in nineteen sixty eight. That was the first year the Bengals
played. The Reds were still atCrosley Field, we still had an NBA

(09:16):
team, And he did that clearthrough twenty fifteen. It is remarkable in
this business. That might be thething that I value more than any because,
well, you could fool people fora while and they'll keep you around
if you suck for a bit andgive you a chance to get better.

(09:37):
It's really hard. It's really hardto have him keep you around for as
long as Jim didn't just stick around, but excelled, excelled. His last
day on the radio was twenty fifteen. I'll never forget it. It was
the Friday. I think it wasthe Friday before the Final Four, maybe
the Friday before opening Day. Infact, I know it was. And

(10:00):
he was just as good then ashe had been twenty years before. But
his greatest gift as a broadcaster wasI think his greatest gift as a person.
It was his relatability. And it'sso important that if you do this
for a living, that you relateto people. And maybe I can relate

(10:22):
to some He could relate to everybody, whether it be you know, the
forty two year old construction worker onhis way to work, or the old
lady who really didn't leave her houseall that much, or the homemaker,
or the professional, or the collegekid or the retiree, or somebody who

(10:43):
was a country club type, ormaybe somebody who was a little bit more
blue collaring. He could find aconnection with everyone, And they don't.
You don't go to broadcasting school tolearn that. You know, I took
radio TV courses at the University ofDayton. They don't. That's not in

(11:03):
the catalog. You don't learn that. You don't learn that by being around
the radio. You have that oryou don't. Jim Scott had it,
and you know, on a radiostation where you know they deal with and
that's obviously not the station I'm onon a regular basis, but on a
station where there are a lot ofdivisive topics, a lot of controversial topics,

(11:28):
a lot of polarizing personalities for fourhours every morning. Uh, he
found a way to bring everyone tothe party, to include everyone, didn't
matter, didn't matter political background.I don't know what Jim's political background was,
it didn't matter. I've not heardor seen anybody since who had that

(11:50):
gift, and I never will again. One of the one of the best
things about this job, especially ifyou're as lucky as I am to have
worked in the same place for awhile, is when you find out that
people who have done what you're doingbut have done it better tell you they're

(12:11):
listening. I think that made sensewhen people who are doing what you do
but did it better and do itbetter, when they tell you, yeah,
I listen to your show, orI heard that segment or I heard
this interview, that's awesome. Someof the coolest moments sitting where I'm sitting

(12:33):
right now would be in the middleof the show. We do a segment
and I'd get to the break andI don't love looking at my phone during
the show, but occasionally I wouldlook at it and there would be a
text from Jim Scott and it wouldbe boy, that was a great segment,
or man, that was an awesomeinterview. And by the way,

(12:54):
sometimes the text would be constructively critical. Hey, get your energy up.
Let's move on to another topic.It's like, if you're a baseball player,
it's like Joey Vado telling a hitterthat he likes your swing, or
to look out for the breaking pitch. The guy who, for my money,

(13:18):
is the best who's ever done thisin this town. And by the
way, I'm not the only personhe would do this with just telling you
he was listening and sharing his thoughts. Can you it happened to me And
I can't fully wrap my brain aroundthat. I met Jim Scott in May

(13:45):
of nineteen ninety eight. And Iknow I've I know I've passed some of
this on before, and so indulgeme here. I know some of this
is are things you have heard before, I started at the radio station.
I was still a student at UDI, and I'm working part time. I'm
running the board on the weekends andfilling in here or there. And you

(14:07):
know, for me, all Iwanted to do growing up was work at
a radio station. All I wantedto do once I realized I wanted to
work at a radio station was tobe on the air. And then once
I realized I wanted to be onthe air, all I really wanted to
do was host a sports talk show. That's it. That's what I've wanted
to do since I was nine yearsold, work at a radio station.
And so but when I got here, I didn't really know anything. I

(14:31):
didn't know anybody, I didn't haveany clue as to how it worked.
But I had a great amount ofenthusiasm and I had a great amount of
enthusiasm for working with people that Iwas very familiar with. So after working
here for a few months, theycome to me, and it was right
when my junior year UD ended.So this is like April May of ninety

(14:52):
eight, and they come and theygo, we have a full time job
for you, and like, awesome, great, because this is where I
wanted to work at a year ofschool to go. We have a full
time job for you. It's producingthe Jim Scott Show. And I hadn't
met Jim to that point, buthell, I knew who he was.
And they bring me in and there'sJim, and it's explained to me,

(15:15):
you know, we don't want youin there to just hit buttons. We
need you to be creative. Wewant you to come up with ideas.
We want you to book guests,we want you to kind of be in
charge of the production of the show. And my late friend, the great
Rich Wahlberg sort of oversaw all thisand held my hand and taught me so
much and had veto power. Butit was basically, mo, you and

(15:35):
Jim are going to work with eachother. Now, think about that.
If you're Jim, this is nineteenninety eight, He's already a legend,
he's already been on the air forthirty years, and here's this twenty year
old kid. You have no compellingreason to listen to him, to care
about him, to even learn hisname. And instead, well, he

(15:56):
did the exact opposite. He couldn'thave cared more about what my opinions were.
At least he made me feel likehe cared and it was awesome.
It was awesome. He would askwhat my ideas were. He would ask
what I thought about a guest,He would ask what I thought about a
segment. He always asked for myinput, and as a kid, as

(16:22):
a young guy, that was awesomeand it was empowering, and it gave
me confidence I didn't have, andit made me feel like I was a
part of his show and a partof his team. I produced that show
for five years, and I didn'trealize it really in real time. I'll
admit that. But it was havinga front row seat to greatness every day,

(16:48):
every single day, a front rowseat to witness greatness, legitimate greatness.
And it was a graduate level course, a five year graduate level course
in what it took to not justbeing on air personality, but succeed in
this business, which is not easyto do. And he taught me everything.

(17:12):
And sometimes they were lessons I justlearned by watching, and sometimes they
were lesson lessons I would learn byhim taking me to brunch or him having
a chat with me even during commercialbreaks of his show. He was also
very demanding and I needed that asa young guy. I early on was

(17:34):
you know, it's a morning show. You're on the air at five am,
and I overslept and I got herelate, and he was cool about
it. But then it happened againtwo weeks later, and I'll never forget
it. Man show ends pulls mein his office and it's like, dude,
if you're gonna get here at fiveo eight when our show starts at

(17:56):
five oh five, you might aswell not even come in Legitimately, if
you're gonna get here late, like, don't bother. Our show starts at
five oh five, you need tobe here and when you're here, And
I got this, I got thisfrom him a lot. Man. Look,
I know it's early. I knowyou were up late doing God knows
what. I need you here.I need you alert, I need you

(18:18):
awake, I need you ready toparticipate every single day. And the lesson
there was, you know, here'sa guy. If he could bring that
to the table every single day,guy whould accomplished everything, well, then
stupid old me in my early twentiesand my formative years in this business,
I could do the same thing aguy with a lot to prove. It
was insanely crucial for me to watchhow hard he worked, and to witness

(18:45):
his work ethic. This was aguy you talk about somebody who could afford
to mail it in. He couldafford to mail it in, and he
never did. He never relied onanyone else to do the work for him.
He always gave credit on and offair, and then you know,

(19:07):
kind of above and beyond the onair part of this. It was remarkable
to watch. It was remarkable towatch how he would do a show and
get here at you know whatever,four fifteen, four thirty in the morning,
have as much energy as you couldimagine anybody ever having at that hour
for four hours working on the nextday show, and then right around lunchtime,

(19:32):
hustle off to go speak at aluncheon, and then after that maybe
go meet with advertisers, sponsors fora happy hour, and then go host
a charity dinner or a banquet.The hours that he kept were superhuman,
and the hours that he kept forpeople that he didn't ask a dime from

(19:56):
was remarkable. Charity group, civicorganization, youth group, big, small.
He didn't say no. He didn'tsay no to anybody, and if
he said no, it was onlybecause he already had a commitment, and
then to get up the next dayat two thirty in the morning and do
it all over again, and dothis every single day. It amazes me

(20:19):
even now. It amazes me evennow. I did that show for five
years and all a while. It'stough, man. It's tough when you're
young. It's tough when you're youngworking here because you know they're not gonna
put a twenty two year old kidon the radio, and they shouldn't put
a twenty two year old kid onthe radio, at least not every day.

(20:41):
But all I wanted to do waswas was get a crack at hosting
and yes, initially filling in,but then, man, all I wanted
was a chance to be on theair every day, and if I failed,
I failed. If I succeeded,I succeeded. But all I wanted
to do was was have a Ijust wanted to have a puncher's chance to
show that I could carry three hoursevery day. One could very easily argue

(21:03):
I have not yet demonstrated that,but maybe one day and so I get
a chance to be on the air. And I'm the first to admit,
and many have told me this whowere around back then that when this show
started, I struggled immensely. It'shard. Some people like Jim make it

(21:26):
look easy, but it's hard.And without fail he would offer advice,
he would offer consultation, he wouldoffer encouragement, he would offer constructive criticism.
He would actually listen to our show. And I'm still flattered by that.

(21:47):
And in the early days of it, Man, there weren't that many
people who are listening to it thinking, you know, this might end up
being okay, And maybe he didn't, but he told me it would be
two thousand and nine, you know, was a year is tough year for
me. Man. My dad passedaway that year. We were doing a
show in the morning and it gotcanceled and they put me on in the
afternoon, splitting with Lance. Butthen I was also back on Jim show

(22:11):
doing morning sports, and I wasready to quit, Man, as ready.
You know, the economy really suckedback then, as in my early
thirties, I couldn't get anybody toreally, at least in my opinion,
expressed that they believed in me.And yet, you know, Jim on
some of those days would do hisshow and then he would sit down with

(22:33):
me to talk about my show thatday and convinced me that this was worth
pursuing and that I had an opportunity, even though I didn't realize it,
that I needed to take advantage ofand I needed to take advantage of it
and be serious about it. Andso the show gets going and I'm just
I'm trying to find somebody to careabout it, anybody to care about it.

(22:57):
And we get going, and we'vebeen on for a few weeks,
and I'm now kind of if youremember, during the non baseball season,
I'm hosting the afternoons, and thenduring baseball season, Lance and I are
splitting it, and you know,personally, for me, that was for
a while, deeply frustrating. AndJim said to me, one day,

(23:17):
you're gonna come on my show,and you're gonna join me on Mondays,
and you're gonna join me on Fridays, and we're gonna talk about on Mondays
the weekend in sports that just happened, and on Fridays, the weekend ahead
in sports. And he would haveme on, and as they say in
the wrestling business, this was hisattempt to put me over. And every
single time he would have me on, he would mention mo Egar ESPN fifteen

(23:41):
thirty this afternoon from three to six. Uh, that doesn't happen in our
business, Like somebody like that doesn'tcome along and say let's get you on
every day and make sure we talkabout your show online. It's if you've

(24:03):
listened to this now, and Iknow I've been rambling for a bit,
it should be abundantly clear. WhyI tell everybody that this is somebody that
is primarily responsible for this career,whatever good I've made out of it,
and this show happening on a dailybasis. I could I got two and

(24:29):
a half more hours. I promiseyou we're gonna work. I could hear
Jim right now. Okay, mall, that's enough. But the Reds played
yesterday talk about Hunter Green like Icould hear it now. But I just
I got a few more things Iwant to say. I could give you
story after story of what this guywould do, not just for me either,
what he would do for young peoplein the business on air and off,

(24:53):
and how he would would always goout of his way if he felt
like he could hel help you.He wouldn't think about helping you, would
he would go do it. Ihad a chance late in twenty twelve to
start doing some fill in work onESPN Radio. And I remember sometimes Jim

(25:15):
would do his show, we wouldhave ours in the afternoon, and then
in the middle we'd go have aquick lunch. And I was telling him
that within about a week or so, I was going to be in Connecticut
anyway for a UC football trip,and then on that trip, I was
going to go to Bristol and Iwas going to have a chance to effectively
interview for a chance to be sortof a part time filling which I thought

(25:36):
was a really cool opportunity. AndI happened to mention to the to Jim
that the guy that I would beinterviewing with was his name is Scott,
had spent some time in Lexington radio, had mentioned to me that he had
listened to Jim before, had listenedto the shows on w wel W even
was familiar with ESPN fifteen thirty.And so I mentioned this to Jim and

(25:57):
didn't really think much of it.And then you know, a week and
a half or so later, Igo to Bristol, which was an awesome
experience, and I sit there andI wait, and I go into this
guy's office, and this is likethe first real job interview I really have
ever had. And this man proceedsto tell me that two days prior,

(26:19):
he had had about a twenty minutephone call from Jim Scott. You might
think that sort of stuff happens inthis business all the time. It doesn't.
I told this story before earlier thatyear, twenty twelve, I was

(26:44):
really sort of at a low pointin my life. I got divorced that
year and felt awful about myself becauseof it, and had gone through,
you know, my dad had passedaway and it s having a hard time
getting traction on the air, andthen get a divorce and it's like nothing
in my life is going right.Nothing in my life is going right.

(27:04):
And you know, you find outsometimes when you go through stuff like that,
people people who you think are gonnabe there for you, they cut
and they run. Jim Scott didnot cut and run. He dug in
and he stayed. And I'll neverforget Spring of twenty twelve, I'm doing

(27:26):
a show on a Saturday night aftera Reds game. And if you've ever
done this for a living, ifyou've ever podcasted, there are certain days
you know you got it, orat least we're doing okay. There are
certain days you know like it,It just it ain't working. And maybe
I have some of those days morethan others. But this particular night,
as I'm on the air, Iknow I suck. And that's not typical

(27:51):
you know, self deprecation that youmight hear. I know it's not working,
and nothing that I'm saying is makingsense. The audience isn't responding.
I just I'm doing nothing more thanfilling time, and I know it.
And this was back in the oldconfiguration in our building. Here, I'm
getting close to the end of asegment and all I want to do is
get to the break so I couldspend the next five minutes feeling sorry for

(28:14):
myself and then come back and justget the next segment over. And when
you're doing that, you're not tryingto create compelling content. And as I'm
getting near the end of the segment, I look at our phone and the
hotline's ringing and I recognize the numbers. It's Jim's number, and so I
get to the break and the guywho was producing the show says, it's

(28:34):
Jim Scott for you off air,and so I answer it and in the
most encouraging way possible, proceeds tolet me know. On a Saturday night,
Hey, I'm just letting you know. I'm listening. You know what,
You're sounding really good? You know, why don't you pick your energy
up just a little bit. AndI wasn't feeling it, and I'm like,

(28:56):
you know this, I suck.I shouldn't do this. I'm gonna
quit on Monday. And I rememberhim saying to me in that conversation,
you know, MO, just pretendit's you and me. Now that sounds
really hokey, but in that moment, it's kind of what I needed.
And he knew I was going throughstuff, and he was the one that

(29:17):
told me, like, you knowwhat, it's okay to talk about yourself.
It's okay to tell your audience what'sgoing on in your life. And
I didn't do it that night,but I did it the next week on
this station, and it was extraordinarilytherapeutic. The last year or so,
finding out that Jim had als.I went last year. For the last

(29:40):
couple of years, Jim and Iwould go to a Reds game together Tara,
and I know, I'm insanely late. I apologize. And the game
we went to last year happened tobe La de la Cruz's major league debut,
and so we had made plans wewere gonna go to this game.
It was a Tuesday night, itwas June second or third, and it
just so happened to be The Redscall up Elie de la Cruz, and

(30:02):
he was so excited, he wasso pumped up, and so, you
know, I get done with myshow and we'd go down and and meete
it the Holy Grail. And ithad been a little while since I had
seen Jim, and he had slowednotice noticeably. He was walking with a
cane. His voice was not quiteas as strong. You kind of had
to lean in a little bit.But while he wasn't the same, he

(30:26):
also was exactly the same physically.He was different, but he still had
an incredible curiosity and and and stillhad an insane amount of fun, and
he was still didn't let me payfor a thing at the ballpark. He
still had the same sense of humor. And it was an incredible night.

(30:47):
The Reds win the game. It'sEllie's debut, and Jim and I part
ways and after the euphori of thegame had sort of passed. I knew
something wasn't right, but but okay. And then about a month later he
calls me, and it was duringthe weekend, and I answered the phone
and he informs me that he hasALS. And this is maybe about a

(31:14):
month or so before he went public. He told a handful of us,
and as far as I was concerned, that was his story to share publicly,
which obviously he ultimately did. Butbecause this was a guy who he
handled everything with grace and dignity,he's telling me that he has ALS.
And as he's telling me this,I'm I'm thinking the worst, and I'm

(31:37):
scared for him, and I'm devastatedfor his family, for his wife,
and for his three sons, andfor his grandchildren. This is going to
be awful. And in the middleof all this, he tells me,
I'm teaching myself to play one armgolf, and you're going to have to
tell everybody on Twitter that you lostto a guy playing one arm golf.

(32:01):
It's a small example, but it'san important example of handling something like that
with humor. I wouldn't you probablywouldn't. He did. The ALS symptoms
accelerated. Jim got pneumonia, andI remember his wife telling me about this,

(32:27):
and I think on a Saturday,I texted him and just wanted to
know how he was doing. AndI finished the text by saying, is
there anything I can do? AndI didn't hear from him that day.
The next morning, I am onthe air at the Holy Grail. It's
Tony Pike and I ken Brew wason vacation. We're doing a Bengals pregame
show, and I look at myphone and he was responding to the text

(32:51):
from the afternoon before, and allhe wrote back was just keep making great
radio like you and Tony are rightnow. That's somebody who knows what's coming.
You know. When he announced thathe had ALS, we mentioned it

(33:13):
on this show, and you knowwhat did he do. He went out
and walked in the walk to defeatAls and encouraged as many people as possible
to join him. And he knewwhat the outcome for him was gonna be,
but he wanted he wanted to increaseeven by this tiny bit. He

(33:35):
wanted to increase the likelihood that perhapswalking that event and getting others to walk
in that event would help the nextperson, whether it be somebody living with
als or maybe somebody who ultimately beatsals. That's what he did. All

(33:57):
he wanted to do is help people. This is a guy who, for
all of his acclaim, all ofhis accomplishments, for as well known as
he was, that's what he wantedto do, whether it be on a
grand scale like that or just withme and so many other people at the
radio station. One more and thenwe'll move on. And I was wishing

(34:21):
David Bell would have gotten thrown outyesterday so we'd have that to make fun
of. In radio, we havethe Marconi Awards, and when I say
we, like I'm gonna win oneone day, I don't know who determines
who wins them. I don't know, nor do I care. But Jim
was nominated for a Marconi in twothousand and two, and I remember thinking,

(34:43):
like, this is stupid. Thisis not a guy who needs a
trophy to validate his career, Likehe doesn't need that, and he knew
he didn't need it, but hewas nominated. I think it was Major
Market Personality of the Year, andso U again I mentioned the name Rich
Wahlberg. He and I the ceremonythat year was in Seattle, and the

(35:06):
ceremony is at the end of thislike three day convention where radio people get
together and essentially congratulate each other.So it's out there in Seattle, and
Rich and I and a few ofus at the radio station we had planned
on getting together and then finding outwhether or not Jim had won, and
had he won, you know,we were all going to celebrate and had

(35:29):
he lost. Let's be honest,we were going to drink to that too.
And then about a week before theceremony, our boss at the time,
Darryl Parks, calls Rich and Iin and I don't remember if it
was together or individually, but hebrings I remember he brings me in and
he goes, you know, Jim'sup for Marconi and I said, uh,
yeah, I know, and hegoes, well, you know,

(35:50):
he wants you to be there.And at the time, I was like
twenty four years old, I didn'texactly have spare change to go and buy
a last minute ticket to Seattle.So I said, well, well,
you know, that's great, butthat's not gonna happen. And he said
to me, well, Jim's gonnapay for you, and he's gonna pay
for Rich and he's gonna pay foryour significant others, my wife and whoever

(36:14):
Rich wanted to bring. Think aboutthat for a second, and then the
most amazing thing is we go andwe spend the weekend in Seattle. And
I'm sure often during the weekend Richand I behaved in a way that made
Jim regret paying for us. Butwe go and this this ceremony is happening.

(36:36):
And his award was one of thelast of the night. And the
more the night went on, themore I just intensely wanted Jim to win.
And he did. And he waslike that night, like the fifteenth
person in win a Marconi, right, It's like the Academy Awards. There's
a billion categories. And towards theend of the night, he wins,

(36:58):
and he goes up on stage andhe called us up to his moment of
triumph. What does he do.He brings up the two guys that he
works with. He was the onlyperson to do that, and he thanked
his family, and he thanked hisaudience, and he thanked advertisers, and

(37:21):
then he talked about Rich and Ifor four minutes. That's his moment,
and he made it as much oursas his. Who does that? Who
does that? My favorite part ofthe entire thing that was on a Saturday
night. The next day, wego to the airport. We're flying back

(37:42):
to Cincinnati, and we're sitting thereat the airport gate and we're waiting for
the plane and we're all kind ofbasking in the glow of what had just
happened. This is this is whatwe want a Marconi. I mean,
I had almost nothing to do withit, but it was our Marconi.
He made it feel like it wasours. And I'm still sort of feeling
the effects on the before because wedid go out and party and we're sitting

(38:02):
at the gate and he looks atme and he goes, what are we
doing on the show tomorrow? Andif you do what what we do,
If if you can't draw a lessonfrom that, then I don't know what
to tell you. This industry haslost a legend, This city has lost

(38:25):
probably its biggest advocate. Many ofus in this building have lost a friend.
And I've lost one of the mostimportant people I've ever crossed path with.
And I thank you for letting metalk about him. It's three forty
two on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati's sp