Straight from the Source

High school that produced, amongst other luminaries, Amy Fisher, who shot Joy Butterfoogo's wife in the face, Steve Levy, the great ESPN sports anchor, Michael Coors, the fashion designer, amongst many of the people that went to our high school. And you know, I grew up as a guy that loved sports. I watched everything. I loved reading the newspaper. I loved reading the newspaper and finding little pieces of information to tell my father when he got home from work. Oh, Dad,

you're not gonna believe this. The Knicks might trade for this guy. Oh the Yankees might sign this guy. Oh the Jets are gonna hire this coach. Like I love that stuff. I never thought I could make a living doing it. Honestly, I thought, Okay, I'm going to go to law school or business school. You know, my parents had a five and dime type store on Long Island.

Maybe I'd worked there. And I went to the University of Michigan and in September nineteen eighty five, is a freshman, I wanted to get into this fraternity and I didn't get in. And when I didn't get in, I'm like, well, I got to do something to keep busy. So I went down to the football office to see if they needed somebody to pick up jockstraps and hand out water bottles, and they didn't need anybody. And so went to the basketball office to see if they needed somebody, and they

didn't need anybody. And so when I got rejected from the fraternity, the football office and the basketball office like, well, I don't even know what I'm gonna do. You know what, let me volunteer for the student newspaper. And literally that's how this started. And if the fraternity had ended an imitation to me that freshman year, there were about fifty

guys going out for about ten spots. I think I would have been very happy just being in the fraternity, being one of the guys hanging out with the ladies. Like I never would have gone to the newspaper, and I never would have gone to this business. It would have been something that would have been beyond my wildest dreams.

And so this was born at a rejection. This was born out of people telling you no. And what I've come to learn is there are a lot of people in a lot of walks of life every time somebody tells you no, that just creates an opportunity for you somewhere else, and it's up to you to take advantage of that. Now. I never would have known that as an eighteen year old freshman at the University of Michigan

in December of nineteen eighty five. But you learned these things over time, and then you work hard to make the most of it. And that, to answer your question in a roundabout way, is basically the start of this and kind of where I came from growing up in belmore Long Island, going to school at Michigan, and winding up doing this.

Was there any type of pain or confusion that you dealt with as a as a young man.

could have imagined. You know. The adversity that that happens along the way is all the rejection that comes your way and trying to pivot from that and figure out what you could do. Like I didn't go to Michigan with the goal to work for the student newspaper. That wasn't what I set out to do. It just kind of happened. And even then I spent a couple of years, you know, on the student newspaper. Like wait, wait, there

are people that do this for a living. I had no idea, Like I thought, it'll sound strange, but I's that these were jobs that other people did, like that you weren't good enough for them, so that other people would do them. And what I came to realize is that people can do anything they want if they set their mind to it. You know, if they want to become the President of the United States, go work to make that happen. You want to become a center or a congress person, go make work to make that. You

want to make it to the NFL very hard. Some people are kindacholetically blessed, like myself, but you work hard and you do your best. I actually now think, in hindsight, knowing what I know, that had the Michigan football team or basketball team giving me a job back in the day, I think that I might have made my way in that particular field. I don't know what I would have done, whether it would have been as as a great equipment manager, somebody that was a director of operation. I have no idea.

But I was placed to the newspaper by accident, through default, and then just tried to make the most of it. And so when you asked for the setbacks, and you know, the opposite, like it was all that like. I had so many rejection letters when I was trying to get a full time job at a Michigan It took me two years to get a job, and I always tell people there was a bar on the Michigan campus called Dominic's that would give you a drink for every rejection

letter you had. I tell people, I forget about a drink. I could have owned the bar if I wanted. That's how the projection letter I had.

But yours was actually in these possibilities of transactions. Looking back, like where do you think that came from? And that that was where your focus was.

it was something. Everybody's got hobbies, everybody's got days, everybody's got something they love. Some people love music, some people love movies. I love sports. So the more I could immerse myself in that world, whether it was reading the newspaper or watching TV or listening to the radio, the more I would do and the happier I was. So that that's all that that was, and it again turned out to be my professional calling, though I had no idea that that would be the case.

They have these passions when they're younger, and as they get older, they lose those passions because society says we need to do this, We need to be this job title to be successful, and oftentimes it's parents and it's the upbringing that says you need to go be a doctor, you need to go be a lawyer, and then we forget and we lose our gifts, and many people get to the top of the ladder and they end up realizing that they're leaning up against the wrong wall. They

have all the success, but they're miserable. And it's just so cool that it's the setbacks and the rejections that actually led you to this point, because it is all about perspective and how it's not the actual event that happens, it's the meaning that we attached to it. And I'm so grateful that you were able to I was able to hear that story, and others are going to be able to hear that that is what led you to what you get to do today. It's just really cool to hear.

to be a sports reporter in the worst way. Once I got a taste of it, like it mattered so much to me that at the age of twenty three, I'm sending applications all across the country and wherever a newspaper called to offer me a job, whether it was South Dakota or Georgia or Louisiana, I was gonna go, Like it didn't matter. I was leaving my family, I was leaving my friends. I was going wherever they offered me a job, And it just happened to be that

it was Denver, Colorado. They called and offered me a job, and I flew out there at the age of twenty three, really didn't know very many people at all, and started a new life where I began writing for the Rocky Mountain News, which is now basically out of business, and their assignment to me was as a general assignment reporter, and I got to do a lot of stuff with the University of Colorado and the Denver Broncos and again,

more accidents, more craziness. Right when Colorado was awarded a baseball team, a Major League Baseball franchise in the early nineteen nineties, I went to the newspaper and begged them to let me cover the Colorado Rockies, and they hired this experienced baseball writer by the name of Tracy ringles Bey, who was a legendary baseball writer, and he wanted to cover the beat, and he wanted to bring in one of the people that he knew as an established baseball

writer named Jack Eckin, And so there was no room. So I couldn't cover the baseball team. I couldn't do what I wanted. I was forced forced to stick on the football beat and cover the Broncos. And so I covered the Broncos there for almost sixteen years. And I tell people I went to the University of Michigan undergrad, I went to Northwestern Grad School, and then I got

my masters in football from the Denver Broncos. Because I just hung around that building for almost sixteen years, dealing with the players, the coaches, the front office people, and you learned what was acceptable and what wasn't, and what worked and what didn't, and what people were good with and what they were and you know, I was I'm grateful to the time that the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post gave me being around the NFL, and again like I said, didn't sit out to do it,

was stuck doing it, and it led to where it did. All this is pretty accidental.

to do this. I'll do this wherever it takes me, whatever the role is, whatever they're paying me, I'll take it as opposed to having demands or thinking like oh I got to make this much or I need to be riding here, I need to be But you're showing up and these opportunities just happen to fall in your

lap because the love and the passion is there. And I feel like a lot of people may have that backwards, like in the year like twenty twenty three, they want things to be great when the time that they show up, as opposed to allowing the process to take time, allowing me to develop, allowing situations in doors to open for me at the perfect time that they should, and my skills and my character will be developed enough for me to succeed in these roles that come.

you know, becoming a newsman, and that's the education. And by the way, the way I felt was if I had covered the Denver Broncos for the Rocky Mountain News and then the Denver Post for the rest of my career, I was good with that. Like, I loved it. It was great. Now it evolved into a job eventually at NFL Network for five years, which led to a job at ESPN, where I've been since two thousand and nine. So it's over almost fourteen years now. It feels like

a lifetime. So I think The point is is that people might have an idea of what they think they want to do, but the idea is just to do good work with whatever it is that you're doing, give people your all and let's see where it goes. You don't know where it's going to go. Like people may sit out to become a doctor and may become I don't know, like a medical expert on TV. Things happen. You can't lock yourself in. You just have to work hard, do good work, and then you see where that goes.

you on TV or hear you, I'm like, he's so clear and concise on the things that he's saying like he knows what he's talking about. But I also just wanted to ask you, like with with the hustle and the bustle and how hard you grind, how do you find balance? And what does balance look like for you in your life today?

a verbal way on television. So when a text comes in that Darren Waller's traded to the New York Giants, I can quickly just formulate that in my mind and be like moments ago, the Las Vegas Raiders trade Darn Waller the New York Giants for a third rem whatever it was, and it just my brain has been trained and wired that way from newspapers. Now, as for the balance, my brain isn't wired as well as it should be. I think, I think everybody in any line of work

struggles with that to a certain extent. You do the best you can, but you can't dine in all areas all the time. If you give more time to your professional career, there's no way that your personal career can't suffer some If you give all your time to your personal life, there's no way to your professional career. The trick is to find that balance, and it's different for everybody. Some people five for different things. Everybody's got different goals

in life. It's all about what makes you happy. I know that, you know, it's important for me to be around my family and my daughter, my son, my five dogs that we have. You know, I love that. But it's also there are times when work is busy, and you know, I have a friend who's very successful. I was with him this week and telling me about how his wife was really getting on him for not being present at all times. And I'm like, oh, I've heard

that many times. You know, many times, And I'll bet you that we are hardly in the minority of people who have heard that. People who are passionate, dedicated, committed to their jobs probably carry it with them a lot of the time. And so while you're sitting there having dinner with a boyfriend or a girlfriend a spouse, now you're thinking, have I gotta check on this, or what's going on with that? Or how am I going to

handle the situation? And that's just natural because that's what it takes sometimes, and so people don't always love that, but reality is your brain's all over the place. I try my best to have a balanced life, and I think I often do, but I'm sure that sometimes I fall short, just because that's the way it is, right, Like, you just can't be all things to all peop people at all times. It is very hard to do that in all areas.

human every now and then. You know, you see some things, some things you're proud of, some things bother you because you're human, But overall, you know, I know, you know the work that I put in, I know the level of fairness I try to have, and people don't understand always know everything that goes into every situation, and so you just do the best you can. I've done this

job now for thirty three years. Thirty three years, and the job has changed quite a bit over that time, from the time when I was a newspaper reporter and

the news cycle was really twenty four hours. You know, the stories would run the newspaper and then they show up and you look and then there wouldn't be stories again until the newspaper showed up on your doorstep the next day, and now you know, the news cycle is less than twenty four Just anytime you post on Twitter or Instagram or threads or whatever it may be, it's just everything is faster, quicker, more sudden, more people scrutinizing everything.

It's it's a tougher, more critical world where people, you know, everybody's a critic and everybody has something to say. And you know, I wish we lived in a world that was a little bit more positive and a little less negative, but this is how it is. Right Like, people are going to rip the New York Giants if they don't win, and they're going to praise them when they do it. It's just it's kind of how it goes. That's the world we live in.

I hope it never occurs. You know, my wife when she lost her husband, she had a one year old son. They just bought a house a month before he died, and she was left to raise their son, Devin, on her own. And I married Sharry about six years later, and I moved into the house that her and Joseph bought, and I helped raise the son that her and Joseph helped raise, and I basically stepped into his life. And

so I don't know. In the fifteenth anniversary of nine to eleven, ESPN had asked me to do a piece, or I had asked on the tenth anniversary. I think it was I volunteer at ESPN. I'm like, hey, if you want to do a piece, I would do a piece on my wife late husband and they're like, yeah, I don't know, We'll say. You know, nobody expressed any great interest in it. I got it, you know, Like I said, there are a lot of families that were

impacted that day. For some reason, on the fifteenth anniversary, one of the ESPN producers came through me was like, I think we'd like to do that on Joe my great Now. I didn't even know what form it would take, and I worked with a producer at ESPN, Dominique, who did a great job, and we put together a story

that was on Joe. And what was amazing was you're upset, and right when I got upset, my phone blew up and it was like all kinds of people from all walks of life, entertainment, politics, people were touched and moved by Joe's story, which you can just google it, you know, Adam Shefter or Joe Mayo's story on ESPN. And so somebody said, well, you should write a book about it, and I was like, yeah, I don't know want to

write a book. But I did write a book. I enlisted the help of a guy that I knew, a great writer from Sports Illustrated, Michael Rosenberg, who went to the University of Michigan, and Michael helped me through it and we called the Demand I never met a memoir and it was a book about Joe and me stepping into his life. And that's basically the story. You know, listen, Like I said, you know that event was enormous to everybody. It feels felt even more enormous on the East Coast.

I was living in Denver when it happened. But you know, my parents' best friend perish that day. I had fraternity brothers to perish that day. My wife lest her husband that day. The people that I call in law has lost their son that day. You know, it's hard to be from the East Coast and not know somebody who lost somebody that day who was impacted. And it's just a way to honor and remember and let people know

a little bit about the life of Joe Mayo. And like I said, there were a lot of people, great people who tragedy lost their lives that day.

We live in that house, and I've just tried to honor him and respect him and tried to look out for his family, to do my part to look out for the people that he loved the most. It's, uh, you know, it's it's it's a very strange thing. Like I said, I'm not the only one who's lived this kind of life and stepped into these set of circumstances. I have other people that have done the same. I can't tell you specific what did I learn. I learned it it's not always easy. I learned it's hard. I

learned you can't replace that person. I learned that person lives on even though they're God. I learned that you can't be that person, and all you can do is the best you can. I mean, like, I don't know all these little petty little things that I learned, I don't know what they amount to, but you know, you just you know, it's such a sad thing, you know, to Today's the is the anniversary of Joe's parents, and uh, you know, I texted them this morning to wish them

a happy Eniwver. And you know, our family is unique because our kids have three sets of grandparents. They have Joe's parents and my wife's parents and my parents, and I have two sets of in laws. I consider them in laws, and so it's there's a lot of unusual family structures in the world we live in today, and that's our version of our unusual Fisch structure.

gratitude of the situation. And I feel like you've done that your entire life, through your your journey as a reporter too, and it just spills over and these lessons that we learned just there's no boundaries to where they can go in our life. They are character and who we are and who we're growing into. It goes into everything that we do. And it's cool to see you have such a such an angle and a perspective on that situation and you willing to share that with people.

come back from that. There is enough negativity and setbacks that everybody continually has the chance to come back from something. And it's up to them to choose whether they want to do that and how fast they want to put it into motion. They just want to accept it and be defeated and crushed by it. And the people who have shown the brightest, like Darren and I'm sure you Donnie, they've taken those setbacks and they've pushed ahead, and they

pushed forward. They pushed through the setbacks so that they could have the type of glorious comebacks that deserve to be highlighted.