You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast, GAIL and Clavio joining you. It is the 16th of April Tuesday. We are on the the short side of April now as we head into among the busiest times on the sports calendar, NFL Draft coming up, we got the NBA playoffs about to start, NHL playoffs about to start, Kentucky. Derby's around the corner, any 500's around the corner, all kinds of things happening.
And we are going to chat about one of those big things with today's guest Courtney Cronin of ESPN and an Indiana Hoosier joining us here on the show. Not the first time that Courtney's been on Crimson Cast, but it's been too long. It's good to see you how you doing. I You know what, my first, my first appearance on Crimson Cast, now that I'm, like, racking my brain on this, was the night that Bill Lynch was fired that Sunday night in 2010.
That's right. I remember that was my first time I ever went on, and I don't even know where that episode is today, if that's even if it even exists. It was it was lost to the Egyptian hackers which which? People. But we've told this story many times. But for those who haven't heard it, back in the old days when you had to run a podcast through a WordPress account, you you had to install this like special software that it's called Pod Press and that was how you
publish things. Unfortunately, WordPress back then, unless you updated it every day, which if you know me, you know I'm not hitting the update button every day, was susceptible to security flaws. And so on two different occasions we lost our entire library of podcasts because these Egyptian hackers would get into your WordPress account and they'd like throw like Egyptian flags up everywhere and it would only like Arabic language, remember that.
So there's a few podcasts that have survived from that era and I gotta say, both of us were not as good as we are now at being on air. So I'm kind of glad that nobody can go back and listen. If you really want to hear Courtney and me, there's always there's stuff lurking on YouTube and I won't tell you where it is, but there that stuff is out there from a couple of years after that, so. Yeah, that that we looked very different. I'm I'm putting it nicely. We look very different.
I had bleached blonde hair cuz for some reason I thought that was a good decision when I was a junior in college. We live and we learn and I agree we have come a very long way since then. But the roots of that in the Egyptian hackers, God, I can remember that was I used Sportcom, one of those fights that was affected by that. Yeah, that was when we made the the ill-fated decision to try to switch to Drupal as our our our programming setup or CNS setup
for a little bit. We're getting way in the programming weeds for the folks out there, exactly what they were tuning in for. But no, yeah, that was I used for com, got hit by that. It was a weird time on the Internet in a variety of ways and I'm just glad that that's largely behind us at this point. So we're going to have Courtney
talk about her background. For those of you don't know, Courtney, you know, went to IU, got her, got her start in sports journalism, was at the college level at IU and has gone on to tremendous things career wise. We're going to talk with her about her getting started, what she's doing right now and I've got some, I've got some questions that a couple of our sports media alums wanted me to ask just in general. So we'll we'll throw those in. So all that coming up in a
second. But first just a couple of quick notes. We are brought to you by home field apparel here on the back home network, your place to go for the finest in college fashions, the softest fabrics, the coolest designs. We are at a point right now where you know we don't want your home fields. Home field knows it's like college season ends. It's like well, the the people's interest can wane.
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We've got that option as well. We try to throw some extra stuff in. I'm sorry, I have not recorded AVIP video in a while. I've been away. I was in Vegas for a few days at the National Association of Broadcasters Conference so I'm both jet lagged and behind on my VIP content. I promise I will rectify at least one of those things before I wake up tomorrow morning. Probably not the video, but we'll see Anyway.
So again, crimsoncast.substack.com we'd love to have you as part of the community. Almost 900 people now subscribing to Crimson Cast on sub stack which is really nice. So anyway, Courtney, let's let's talk about you. So for those who don't know the Courtney Cronin origin story, where are you from and what brought you to campus in the first place?
So I'm from Glenview, IL for all of the North Shore people that transcend down to Indiana, every year I had 26 from my high school, Glenbrook S that went to IU. And I always tell the story of how my mom and I were on opposite sides of where we thought I should go to school. So Indiana was the first college I had ever visited back in 2005.
I went during the fall time, like at some point, like in October, you know, it's just they they set me up to fail, more or less, because there I was never gonna like another school. Once I went to Indiana in the fall, my mom wanted me to go to Depaw. My grandfather was an alumni at Depaw. He started a scholarship foundation. He came from nothing. It was the school holds a lot of meaning to my family. But I had gone on a a visit at DePaul and I knew the school was about 1200.
In terms of the overall enrollment, it just felt really small to me. And when I knew people who had gone to Indiana University before the sell was if you want to do broadcast, if you want to do journalism, you don't have to wait till your junior year like Syracuse, like Northwestern, like Missouri, like all these other storied programs.
And at the time, what I always tell my students at Indiana whenever I come and do a boot camp is you don't know how spoiled you are because a none of this existed before Doctor Clavio took over the program. And of course moving the the journalism school and moving all of the entities involved into the media school in 2014. And then on top of that, like just the ability to have so many different routes to get on air far sooner than your junior year.
But that started long, long, long time ago at Indiana, and that's what sold me. I wanted to go, I wanted to work. And that's all I did. I didn't have a sorority. I didn't have many outside activities other than student media. That was my that's where I put all my effort into when as a student, freshman year, all the way till the time I graduated in May of 2012. And I loved every minute of it
there were. There were a lot of ups and downs with it. And I look back at the work now and I cringe because I'm like, man, the students today must just be that much better than we were coming out. But it's really cool for me to see how many alumni there are from my my grade, my class, and around that time that have made it in this industry and made Indiana into a destination school for anyone wanting to go in any form of sports
journalism. And it's cool all these years later that I I get giddy and goosebumps when I talk about it, because it truly does mean that much to me. It is why I talk. I was the reason I was in Las Vegas at Nibi was doing a panel about engaging sports media alumni in your program which I'm like, well gosh, I can just. I just, I just rattle off the names and I'm like, well here's
what we do with all of them. But it is fascinating the the the amount of talent that was there right when you were there, right when a lot of the kind of the modern program here at IU was getting started and it's it's names that people know. I mean we've had, we've had, we had Trisha on last month, you
know we've had you on before. But it's also people like, I mean Greg Murray was there when you were there, who of course for those of you who were paying attention, he was IUS baseball and women's basketball broadcaster for quite a while. Scott Agnes, who's still covering things up in Indianapolis, was there at that point.
And you know Sam Daywig who's working for Meadowlark Media And there's like this whole list of people Cody Sherrod who's working for the US Men's and Women's National teams And it's just it's wild to me that all of those people were there at the exact same time. I look back on it and it's you know we have great clusters of students now and we've had great clusters of alumni before but for that many people without really a program that specifically was like devoted to
that that's really special. And and I I've always considered myself lucky that I was there when all of you folks were there because it was it was a two way St. I mean, I needed people that would be willing to work on this stuff. And you, you all did an amazing job. That was a really unique time. Without outside of outside of you there was no other like faculty guidance. We technically at IUSTV had some sort of faculty advisor. I couldn't tell you who that
person was. I really have no clue. I know that we got something within the funding that they had worked out where we got $0.25 for every student who enrolled and at that time the enrollment was like 40 grand. So that was our budget, but that group that you speak of when and you can add in a couple other names, Logan Robertson, Tony Adrania, Lucas, Lucas Mayer, AJ Shu. I'm not sure this is the problem with naming. Names. I know. I always leave people. Out and I'm like, I'm sorry,
well, yeah. So no, but like I, I say all that to say, like that was my, that was my little network and we all had to stay close in order to make what we wanted out of the program because if we didn't do it, nobody would. And that's like I see what it is now in seeing that there's IUSTV, there's the Hoosier network, there's all of these things that didn't exist or they existed in a different fashion.
But like the expansion of it to where there's multiple competing networks just on the broadcast side that that's that's what we wanted from this program. We wanted to have options outside of just like one thing. And that's what I think so many of us did well. And you know, Trisha and I go back to our sophomore year when we first met Cody and I the same
what thing. And some of my, like closest friends in this industry are people that I met early on in my days at Indiana, like trying to do this for real when we were, you know, kind of all starting out, everybody going to the call out for IUSTV and it's, it's wild. However many years ago that was. I'm not counting or anything, but let's go back and look at that and say, wow, we we really
made something out of nothing. And to see how far like the program has come is such a reflection on the amount of effort that people put in to make it as good as it is now, Yeah. It's well it's gratifying because so many of you are out doing like covering things and are becoming or are already household names in terms of where where people are going to get their information and and news on things and you know, but it doesn't happen overnight and
it's not just the college experience it's it's the route that you take after you get out of college and you had a really interesting one. I mean IIA lot of times I'll talk with like high school seniors and and they'll you know like who do you want to be. And they, you know, they always rattle off kind of the same types of names.
And it's always for me like, well, let's talk about what a similar person, like what somebody in our program has has done to try to get to that point and how it's not really a straight line. And your whole trajectory was really fascinating in that you didn't start out in a journalism role per SE. So like talk a little bit about like like just kind of peg off like where you went and what you
were doing. Sure. So my first, like coming out of college, and I call it it was in post grad internship, but we were there every single day. It was a job. My first job was at the NCAA in a post grad capacity and I got to back up to March of 2012 because up until that point, second semester, senior year, I came back to school and I was full steam ahead. I'm going to get a job in local TV. I'm going to go about this however I have to.
I'll print off 1,000,000 copies of my resume, package it together with a literal DVD. Remember going to Mr. Copy and packaging these things? Spending tons of money that I, you know, probably not. I probably These things probably didn't even make it to the desk of the people that I was sending it to. I don't even know where the hell these things are. I think of the number of CDR's I burned and mail. I'm just like I just. I just. I funded some middle manager at
UPS in the. Retirement claim with the amount of reels I was sending out and I heard nothing from anybody. Like I had interned at Fox 59 in Indianapolis and Jeremiah Johnson, who's now he's now with the Pacers, he's been there I think, over a decade. Remember there was an opening probably like January or February, so I wasn't ready for it yet. But there was an opening in 2012 for a weekend sports anchor in Fort Wayne.
And I remember it might have been the station he came from and he wrote me this like the just the most gracious letter of recommendation. And I was like, this is awesome. Like I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I will at least hear something. Never heard a word from the people that I sent that thing off to her. If it even got to the desk of whoever hiring manager, news director, whatever. And so that kind of became my song and dance for a couple of
months. And my friend Casey Richards at the time was a year older than me. He's a product of IU of Indiana University, but he was in, he was in sport communication through Hyper. I know you had a bunch of classes where he was in your classes and he. But he we became very close friends. It's funny, I'm going to a Cubs game with him. My brother and Cody share it on Sunday. It's just like all these years later, just like how close our little group still is.
But Casey was at the NCAA in working in digital communications in an internship capacity. I had heard about the internship through him, and as I'm applying for all these TV jobs and not hearing anything, I'm like, well, I better have a safety net. So I applied for the NCAA job and I ended up getting it. It was in digital communications, which again, it's kind of like Journalism Adjacent. And I figured, I'll take this, I'll take this opportunity, I'll move to Indianapolis. Cool city.
I've always wanted to live there anyways and and we'll see where it goes. And it was the best decision I could have made because it taught me a side of what I ended up doing for my first legitimate journalism job that I wouldn't have had had I not taken that post grad internship experience which was the video production element. So I was in Indy for 10 months and it was a wild time in
college athletics. Like if you think the nil era is like the Wild West in 2000, like everything post 2021 it is. But let's go back to 2012, when they were talking about putting the death penalty on Penn State for the Jerry Sandusky awful scandal that have surrounded that program and the stuff that was happening with Nevin Shapiro down at Miami.
It was a weird time, a very weird time to be there, And it was cool for me to get to see the underbelly of college athletics and how it was handled from the national office and really how it was not handled. But no, I, like, I very much appreciated my time at the NCAA 'cause it set me up for my opportunity to get into journalism by picking up all my stuff and moving down to Jackson, Ms. to work at the State Paper of record, which was the Clarion Ledger.
And they hired me to build their sports video platform, which I had done all the on camera stuff I had shot, all my stuff I had edited when I was in college. But I really didn't know about how to structure all of that into more or less a library and a network. And how do you make these things look good? How do you make, you know, what are the XS and OS of audio, of lighting, of the production element that I just wasn't sure of, 'cause I wasn't doing any of
that. It wasn't required of me to do that in college. So I got to learn that at the NCAA and then took those skills with me to my first job. And from there it was like it was a blank slate, a completely, you know, nothing. This position did not exist before I got down there. So I had a chance at a very young age to build something and be proud of it at like 22 years old. And everyone asked me like, oh,
so you're you're a writer. Because you know the my, my main job, which I know we'll get into, my main job at ESPN dot, at ESPN and for ESPN.com, is covering the Chicago Bears. That's multifaceted. But writing is a huge part of that. I didn't have writing skills coming out of college. I learned that when I was at the Clarion Ledger, when I was a, quote UN quote, professional journalist at like 20-3 At this time when I had kind of transitioned roles into more of a writing role when I was
covering preps and recruiting. But that's always like I always tell students, you better leave Indiana having taken a couple writing classes through the media school. Otherwise I'll be very upset. And it's it's important to keep in mind, like the whole idea of converged media training didn't exist yet in in 2011, 2012. I mean it. It was. And this was when I went to school. I've talked about this like I
got a little writing experience. I worked at the IDs for a couple of semesters, but you know, I was studying to be a broadcaster. And back then, like, that was a legitimate, like that was a fork in the road. You went One Direction or another. It's why, like, when ESPN started putting print reporters on television, it was a big deal, 'cause it's like, well, wait, these people aren't supposed to be there and the broadcasters aren't supposed to be writing.
And so the idea that they would all do the same thing, it's just we're so used to it now, but it really didn't exist that much 15 years ago. No it didn't. And watching how all of the different schools that are within the journalism realm, whether it was in telecom, whether it was in print journalism, whether it was in hyper with sport communication, watching them all converge under one roof, that's we we were just late on that. So we had to kind of figure it out on our own.
And fortunately for me, I was able to figure that out as a young journalist in the field, where I had gotten myself in with my video skills and my broadcast skills and the ability to do something that nobody else at that paper had had the capability of doing. And then when I was around all these writers and, you know, I'm, I'm tagging along to all these different, you know, these football games, these, you know,
recruiting. Recruiting like the signings and announcing, you know, guys announcing where they're going, College football games, college baseball. That was actually a huge part of what I did initially when Mississippi State went out to the College World Series, we were churning out like 40 videos from like short, you know, short interview videos all the way out to like full on features within a three-week stretch. Like I was like, all right, well, I'm pretty good at this. I enjoy doing it.
How about I learn the other side? How about I learn how to write? And so I was fortunate enough to do that. I was there for three years, so May of 2013 till right after signing day 2016. And at this time I was very much in a predominant writing role. I was the high school sports and recruiting editor. I managed my own section for the newspaper, which had a newspaper of that size, which still was. We had 500,000 people in the
entire Jackson metro area. I was still like the only full time high school writer and writing and producing my section and like working with my insane network of freelancers, which, you know, you got to learn how to be able to manage people from a young age. And that gave me that skill.
So I went out to California. It's a long story of how I got out there, but like they, the San Jose Mercury News hired me to do what I had initially done for the Clarion Ledger when I first got there, which was to build their sports video platform. They weren't a Gannett paper the way that the Clarion Ledger was. Gannett really went all in on video about 2015 on, but they they had the same priorities.
But it was doing it in a market that was number six in the country and pro sports versus the colleges and high schools where I had unlimited access, more or less, to covering the Warriors, covering the Raiders, the 49ers, Major League Baseball and just being in a completely different realm that I wasn't used to. So my first year out there was probably the hardest year I've had in my career.
The transition from a personal and professional standpoint, living in a place that was 4 hours away from home covering pro sports. My first crack at covering the NBA when the team is in the middle of a championship run for multiple years of me being. Kevin Durant had just arrived at that point, right? He he got there the year. So, like I got there in the midst of 73 and 9:00 so that season that they finished that regular season in 2016.
Longest stretch of the playoffs from Houston in the first round to Portland to who do they play in the Western to Oklahoma City. Got it like you know more about Oklahoma City for my one stretch of like, which felt like four months out there.
But we were there like a week and 1/2 to the Western Conference finals, 'cause it went seven and then to to Cleveland, which was when they built a the, the joke about, you know, don't know, 3-1 lead is safe because of the Warriors that year, they built A31 lead, they ended up losing it, the Cavs came back, they won in seven and then the following year or a month later, not even was when Kevin Durant joined in
free agency. So I had a chance to cover some really cool things, which it's always wild when I'm on radio and people will bring up the Warrior stuff 'cause I have to
like really go far back. I'm like, God, I did that like that was a really long time ago, 20/16/17 'cause I was only out in the Bay Area for 17 months before I was going to go with several of my colleagues from the Mercury News to the Athletic. I was we saw kind of the writing on the wall with the structure of the newspaper and the ownership of there was, AI believe, a hedge fund that owned
a bunch of these papers. That that always works out well anytime there's any hedge fund and media are. Put together just a. Tremendous comment. Yeah, they're they're really well run entities and they care about the people. But we saw the writing on the wall, and we were all going to the athletic. And literally, as I'm finishing up a shoot, I had my contract
signed. I paid a lawyer to look over it, and I was in Sunnyvale, CA, working on a video shoot for about Prague Merity, who is the #2 in the front office? He's the cap guy for the San Francisco 49ers. Long story. His family owned a pizza place and I tragically and ironically, he lost his sister to an eating
disorder. So it was kind of this dichotomy of a place that, you know, had so many happy times for him and his family growing up, but then losing a sister to something that effectively they were doing every day, which was selling food, selling pizza, selling you know, food to people. So it was a really like heavy shoot. And I remember like putting a light away, like waiting for it to kind of cool down and closing the folds.
I looked out at my phone. I saw, I had an e-mail and this was like on the heels of training camp starting that year. I it was an e-mail from my former deputy editor at ESPN who said don't know what you're doing right now, no camps right around the corner. But we have an opening for a Minnesota Vikings reporter. Would love for you to come out and at least like talk about it. So whirlwind week. I get hired at ESPN on my 27th
birthday, which was really cool. It's like wake up in the morning after flying back from the car wash out there, which is what that's called, which is it truly is like you just go through bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. All these people, you you consume a lot of information. They consume a lot of you. And I woke up to a call that I was hired and I'm like, oh, my God, the training camp's like just starting. And by the time I get there, it's gonna be the season.
And it was, And it was one of those moments that you just can't say no to when an opportunity like that came around. So I was in Minnesota for five years, started out like very truly and heavily at a different era than what we're doing, than what we have right now. Like there were so many more sports centers during the day. The our capabilitiesfor.com. We are writing so much more and I feel like the quality now is up because we've paired a lot of
those things down. But I was on like the season that I got there, the Vikings went to the NFC Championship kind of miraculously, for lack of a better term, not to play on the Minneapolis miracle. But you know, second I get there, I didn't have true professional on air live TV experience because the stuff I was doing in Mississippi was all live to tape for the most part. We had a couple live streams here and there, but I got to learn how to do that on the fly,
too, and it was awesome. And I spent five seasons doing that before moving to Chicago. In March of 2022, my colleague Jeff Dickerson, who was a mentor of mine, passed away from cancer and they asked me to move down here, which is home, of course. So kind of coming full circle with everything. And it's been the best decision I I've ever made from a professional and a personal standpoint.
And the opportunities I've had since I've been here, like my job title on if you go on LinkedIn, if you go on anything, it'll say like Chicago Bears reporter for ESPN. But that's only a fraction of what I do. I host, I have a show, my own show on Sunday morning on ESPN Radio. I am constantly filling in on other shows on ESPN Radio nationally. I have a presence here locally on ESPN 1000 Around the Horn, which has been on the network now for 22 years.
It's a huge part of my week every week. I've been doing it since I got back. I'm on twice a week and it's been really neat to get to do a lot of different things and get to, you know, flex muscles that
aren't just my NFL world. Even though right now it's April 16th, I'm up to here in NFL Draft coverage right now and Caleb Williams and everything that is about to impact the Bears as early as next Thursday. And they just announced that you're going to be part of the the wrap around coverage for the NFL draft. So when you when that sort of thing gets announced, obviously you know it's happening ahead of time, but like what? What is expected of you for the NFL Draft? Like what?
What are they? What are they saying? Courtney, we have to have you doing XY and Z during this coverage. So I actually was talking with my producer about this today. Like we, you know it's it's an all hands on deck sort of effort and there's five of us I want to say that are at teams Like the common thread here is teams are choosing quarterbacks and teams that have you know multiple draft picks like the Vikings, like the Chicago Bears who are
drafting at 1:00 and 9:00. So a lot of it is strategizing. How do we get on TV? What are going? Because there's going to be a lot of a lot of content in the Sports Center shows have to figure out what are the biggest storylines, of course, with Caleb Williams coming to the Bears more than likely, unless like barring something insane in. This top ten video we're going to. Happen, but you never know. It's really like it's gonna be very heavy about the quarterback
next week. So my producer Melinda Adams and I were having a talk today, just trying to figure out, all right, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, next week, Wednesday's or Tuesday's the pre draft press conference where we'll talk to Ryan Pouls, the general manager. So it's gathering information from that. Wednesday, it's gonna be from like 12 to six, more or less, just like whatever Sports Center or NFL live shows want you like you'll do a hit from there.
It'll the storylines will probably change. You're gonna wanna alter everything, like from show to show. So it's not the same information, just at a different time. And then Thursday's the draft, and you know, that's gonna be a busy day, 'cause we go from, I think, 11:00 AM all the way through the evening. And I typically don't leave there on night one until midnight and you're back at it the next day when they bring in not one but two first round draft picks. And it's gonna be a really
exciting time. And it's a it's my first year getting to do the draft coverage for TV in addition to all of the draft coverage I'll be providing over at ESPN.com.
And that's a really cool opportunity that I'm very excited about because typically they send out national reporters who don't have like a who are not team specific, but clearly I did something right to where they're like you can just handle the Bears. But it's I mean, it's been a it's been a crazy offseason, but a very rewarding and good for business offseason for me. Just given how in the news my team has been and and how eager this fan base is and like the
people who are consuming the Bears are to see, can this team get it right with the quarterback for once? So this is, we have a lot of Bears fans and Chicago area natives in the podcast audience. And you know this is an interesting role for you to be in because you know you you have to be a journalist your your objective in the way you cover
the team. But there's also, it feels like from an outsider's perspective, a requirement, you have to not just understand the team inside and out from a credibility perspective, but you have to understand the culture of Chicago sports and Bears fans in particular. Yeah, which obviously you you've grown up with and in and around. So like, how do you, how do you put that into practice?
Is it something that you're doing consciously, or do you not even have to think about it, given that you are so kind of familiar and ingrained in that culture to begin with? Being from here, 'cause you know, I've been here two years and I feel like I've gained a lot of traction here in two years. Not just because of the work that you put in. Not just because of, you know, the stories you break. All of those things are super important, and the quality of your work, first and foremost,
stands for itself. But I'm from here. I know what this is like, 'cause I grew up in it. And a prime example of that is, well, people always ask me, like, oh you, this is so cool. You must have, you know how cool it is to cover the hometown team and a team you were a fan of. And I will tell them honestly, my first Bears game that I ever went to as a quote UN quote fan spectator was the NFC Championship in 2010 when it was an interdivision. It was Packers. Bears as the Jay Cutler got hurt
in that game and they lost. It was a chance for them to go back to the Super Bowl and they lost and the Packers ended up winning the Super Bowl that year. We didn't go to games as when I was a kid because they were not a great team. They had won the Super Bowl 5 years before I was born. And if you just take a look at the names of the quarterback position from like Jim McMahon onwards, like Cade McMahon was the quarterback that I grew up
with. As somebody who was a conscious like sponge of of, you know, just taking in sports at that time figuring out what do I like? Do I had the Bulls, do I like the the Bears? Do I like the Cubs? Like, you know, bulls at my like when I was starting to really, like come into being a sports fan, Bulls weren't very good anymore. Like I you know, the Jordan years were when. The Tim Floyd era, right? Yeah, like the Jalen Rose era of the Bulls. Cool.
Like, that's not, you know, there wasn't much to get behind like the Cubs, obviously. Like, we're my team because I remember 98 really well, like in the home run race that year and everything else. But like the Bears were just not a good football team. So my parents were like, we're a college football family, we'll go to Northwestern games. Not that that was much better, but like, they were familial ties there and I just kind of tagged along.
But I I can use that experience of knowing, Oh yeah, like this is how, how tough it was for Bears fans. Even though I wasn't a Bears fan because I wasn't really allowed to. Because like, my parents, like, we're not paying for tickets to go watch this product. And I can understand the ones now who are so, so, like, worried, excited and worried. There's like, this anxiety about, OK, finally everything's falling into place.
I hope they get it right and you can understand where they're coming from, because there have been years before where it looked like it was going in the right direction. But there was something missing. Like in 2018, for example, the year that they had this otherworldly defense that was in a way spoiled by the quarterback play and obviously spoiled by a double doink. But like it was, there was always something holding this team back.
Now you can see all the pieces are in place from a trade of the number one pick last year to then get the number one pick this year, which was a lot of luck involved in making that happen. But some strategic play by the team to find Carolina as a trade partner. And then on top of that you've got a team that went on an upward trajectory at the end of last season after a really bad
start. You've got a visionary and Kevin Warren who sees a big picture here for what this team can be, and moving the team out of Soldier Field, but not that far away from it and trying to build a stadium in the city. There's a lot of momentum around this team and it's an exciting time to cover not only the Bears, but I thought about this last night. Like Caleb Williams is gonna hear his name called to Chicago next Thursday. Connor Bedard's gonna win Rookie of the year in the NHL, Just got
here in May of last year. Angel Reese and Camila Cardozo are gonna come take the sky back to where they were for their coach, quit and decided to be a bench coach in in Toronto for the Raptors with a better job than have being the GM and the head coach of the Sky. And after winning a championship and how far that team has fallen, Like it's a really cool time to be in the Chicago sports media landscape because of this youth movement that is on the cusp of doing some really cool
things. Which that's something too. Like, I can't remember a time growing up where I had that as a sports fan, as somebody who wasn't covering teams but was more consuming them and being able to put all those pieces together, I think and like being able to kind of have the institutional knowledge of this city really helps versus when I went into Minnesota, I didn't know anything about the Vikings. I mean, I grew up in the NFC North, but I had to learn.
I still have my books right over there. I bought like 10 books from that time. I got the job from at ESPN to time. I moved out of Oakland like I was like, all right, Brandt Arkington, let's go, let's learn. Let's learn about this four Super Bowls A-Team went to and you know, lost all of them. Like, you know, it's it's it's much different when you grew up in it, even if you were just kind of like through osmosis learning about a team that now I
know very well. I think it's easy to underestimate how much knowledge you have to have not using most of it, but never knowing when you're going to need to use the the knowledge that you've got and especially with as much content as you do. I mean because it's not just the television hits, it's not just the stuff that you're writing for the web, those the radio, sports, talk radio in big
markets. And really I think it's just New York and Chicago. I I think LA is a different animal largely, but New York and Chicago that is a savage environment to have to operate in on a day by day basis. So you know, to to be able to not just have the knowledge and selectively utilize it and put it out there, but also to understand how to deliver things.
I mean, we've seen people in the Chicago radio market not fare particularly well because they are kind of sussed out as as either not knowing what they're talking about or coming at things from an angle that doesn't actually make a lot of sense. And that's it's interesting when someone does get it like you, you're going to have an
audience. It's like, OK, we want to listen to this person over that person, but that's a hard thing to to get your head wrapped around and like how to do that on a day by day basis. It is. And you're right about Chicago and New York being and I'd I'd throw Philly in there. Maybe. Maybe Boston as well, but yeah. Boston Yeah.
Like, I mean, there's really a four that are like true savagery style within like the way that content is delivered and the way that content is consumed and the callers make everything. Like, I know we've moved into a completely different era of audio where it's not just sports talk radio and where podcasts rule. A lot of people's like, look at
us right now. Like, this is content that people choose to like versus when you get in the car and you turn on the radio, like you're at the beck and call of what's on right now. Whereas in the podcast world, which has changed the way that we consume audio things on an audio platform in Chicago, still radio is king here. I mean between our myself at at at ESPN 1000, which I do a ton of stuff with them. I'm on the Chicago Bears podcast
twice a week. I have multiple hits throughout the week, whether it's on Cap and J. Hood, Carmen and Yurko, Waddle and Sylvia. I'm actually filling in for a cap on Friday. So it's me and and Jonathan Hood, which is one of my favorite stories that like I grew up listening to him when he was doing overnights on the score, my brother and I would be
like a white. Our Cubs game gets over and we'd listen to hoodie for like hours and hours, like in the summertime with like the literally the old boom box that was in my room. And it's neat now that I get to like be in the, you know, in the in the copilot seat with him getting to do shows. I just, I adore him and I adore everybody that works there because the style like to to make it in this market. You better have your chops.
Like, you better have opinions, you better have facts to back up your opinions and you and you have to be bold about it. Like you don't have to be obnoxious about it. Like some markets I think just like are trying to sell you something based on how loud they can be.
Certain hosts but I really enjoy getting to find my voice on local radio here because people listen and people make that a big part of their day in in choosing that over other mediums of where they're going to consume their bears. News 'cause there's a ton of Bears podcasts out there, there's obviously multiple radio stations in the city.
People talk about this team right now all the time, whether it's on TV, whether it's in radio, podcasts, you know, on social media, like anywhere, print, whatever it is.
But the following that I kind of inherited just being part of the ESPN 1000 brand and the platform has given me a chance to really flex my radio muscle, 'cause there's a big difference, as you know, between doing national radio, which is what I do for ESPNESPN Radio and then ESPN 1000 being a hyperlocal, but like hyperlocal in the national scope, whereas this is.
The conversation on the Bears starts here and goes nationally, and it's neat to kind of teeter the line of what topics matter to what what audiences 'cause it changes. Yeah, around the horn. I know a lot of people are interested in this. This is a show that my generation, you know, started watching right when we were coming out of college. Your generation grew up watching. It's it's still relevant, obviously, you know, so how does that work on a week by week
basis? You're on twice a week, you've kind of slid right in and you're just a regular on it now, you know. So what's the experience like being on Around the Horn and and working with the different people and working with Tony Rialli? It is been the greatest honor, like I've had as a professional, getting to be part of that show. Just how well oiled a machine it is for that happy hour time slot which is you know 5 to 5:30 is around the horn and then 5:30 to 6:00 going into Sports Center is
PTI. That same time slot has been in existence since 2000 and one 2002 with with around the horn coming in in O2. That doesn't happen. If it's not a good product, if it's not a sustainable product, if it's not a product that can evolve with time and seeing how it's evolved, is is been something I've been really proud to be a part of. Because like when they gave me the call to like, ask if I'd be interested in coming on as a panelist, like I didn't know it was gonna become a regular
thing. And I I had obviously hoped it would. But it's a really unique opportunity for me to get to tap into so many different topics in so many different sports and have opinions about things that I don't get to write about every single day, where, yes, my main focus every single day, it's going to be the Chicago Bears.
But I was on yesterday and we opened up talking about the Masters and Scotty Scheffler and the dominance that we've seen from him and Tiger Woods. Like, you know, do we need to adjust our expectations? Do we even like watching him play anymore when he's clearly struggling out there, even though he made 24 straight cuts? Like when he's clearly struggling on Saturday and then finishes with his worst score ever? Is that something we're still
buying into? And then it was the game that was on tonight, Nuggets. And excuse me, Lakers and Pelicans. Like should the Lakers strategically try to not be playing the Nuggets in the first
round? And then we went on to talk about the Mark Popire, Kentucky and the Eastern Conference and how that's shaking out it with the play in tournament coming up. Like all of these things have nothing to do with my day-to-day, but it allows me like on radio, which radio is what really gave me my start. And being a proficient panelist on Around the Horn, you got to know a little bit about everything. And you don't have to be the end all, be all expert on any
specific topic necessarily. But I've got to watch the games, I've got to have a passion for it. I've got to be able to sell what I think about something so people either hate it or they love it or somewhat how they fall somewhere they fall in between, which typically in this
society doesn't happen. There's usually like A1 or the other black or white, but it's it's a lengthy process, but it's a very rewarding process because of how I feel after I get off every show where there's, you know, like six or seven different things I got to hit on that I wouldn't be able to if I wasn't on Around the Horn. This reminds me of conversations we would have when you were in college though, where it would be like 7 or 8 different topics that were only moderately
related to or sometimes not related at all other than being sports. But I think you know, you have to some to some degree be able to start from that basis. Like, if you're already thinking about those things, and if you grow up consuming media in sports and you're really interested in all of the sports, I don't think it's hard for people to realize, like, how unusual that tends to be.
Like normally people drill down on the things that they're specifically interested in, as opposed to having opinions on all of it. No. And I when we were talking earlier about podcast, like why do people go to the podcast route now? Because they want to hear specialized content that is specific to what they want to consume.
Same thing with sports. Like I grew up in an era where, you know, in a market like this too, I think I was very blessed to be able to have a place that had four major sports with with five teams, White Sox, Cubs, Bulls, Blackhawks and Bears.
Like I didn't just, you know, I I don't, I don't know if it would have been the same had I grown up in a place like Bloomington and just had college basketball or I mean I think about more relevant example of it now is watching that crowd, that BBN crowd for Mark Pope's press conference, if you wanna call it that. That's all. They have. I was going. It's either a coronation or it's some kind of religious ceremony. But yes, go on. Yes.
But like, you know what I mean? Like that's I don't know if I would have been as worldly in my sports ability to consume had I not grown up in a place like this. I don't know if I would have had the wherewithal to know to look outside of what was right in front of me. I just had a lot of options when I was here, from like college sports all the way to the pro sports, and obviously it's a pro
sports market. But it's been, it's been really unique for me getting to go to different places like in Jackson, Ms. High school sports are king. SEC football and SEC baseball are obviously a big deal, but that was something I didn't grow up with. I didn't understand the importance of high school sports
until I got down there. But I also think that like the reason I can be proficient on a thing like on a platform, like around the horns, because I've covered a lot of different things throughout my career I didn't just specialize in. I mean obviously now my world, my day-to-day is so heavily rooted in football, in the NFL. But I covered college sports when I was in college and I went to a place like another thing about Indiana, like I got to cover like real college sports.
Not no disrespect to anything like AD 3 school or D2 or NAI whatever. Like I covered a team that people talked about through through a really tenuous rebuild and I covered you know going down to Mississippi. I covered two SEC schools. Might not have been that the that the premium SEC schools even though they both were like one and three for a stretch in 2014.
But you know, I covered programs that people cared about and then obviously going out to the West Coast, everybody cared about the Warriors for that stretch and and obviously still do. And it's neat to get to say that I covered a lot of different things. And even with baseball, like I covered the, you know, the year the Giants were in last in the NLDS before the recent stretch, like I got a chance to cover
that. And that was it's a way that like, makes you, I think, a more well-rounded for obvious reasons, 'cause you're doing so much like a more well-rounded sportscaster and ability to tell stories, even if it might not be your, you know, premier sport that you're like most, that you
know the most about. Yeah, it's, it's interesting on a number of levels because really it does come down to you're going to go through a natural expansion after a while of what you're focusing on and what your interest levels are. And and I mean, I'll say as someone who grew up not in Bloomington but like a Bloomington equivalent I grew up in, in West Lafayette of all places. I think the people that are really interested in sports, you start to branch out relatively early.
And even if you don't necessarily have a local rooting interest, you'll often times there'll be something about the sport that's compelling. I was, I was trying to explain my NFL fan and it's like I was a Broncos fan for about the 1st 15 years that I consciously watched the NFLI also rooted for the Colts but the Colts were the games were always blacked out because they they moved to Indy in 84 and really weren't a team that people paid attention to until the mid 90s.
So but the Broncos had John Elway and they were always on in the 4:00 hour. And it's like, you know, that I was I I found that team compelling in a number of ways. And then that opens up everything else.
And it's in, you know, sports media coverage is fascinating because when you're reporting on teams or when you're commentating or when you're, you know, you're on a show like Around the Horn, you know, it's easy I think for people to assume that you're either talking down to them or you don't know what you're talking about.
When in reality it's like, no, I've just, I've learned so much of these things that it's like, how do I take that knowledge and apply it in a way that that sounds relevant, like the fact that national commentators are able to talk relevantly about sports all across the country. I've always found like a really unique talent that's hard to do and there's not a whole lot of places where you can where you have to do it that way.
Otherwise, like a a Miami Dolphins fan, if you if you don't see really understand the roster of what's going on with them, you're going to come across very quickly as someone who does not know what they're talking about. And there and it's not to say like, you know, there's a lot of prep work that goes into that. You know the trying to think like what's a good example of this. Like hockey is not something that and the Blackhawks are in
this rebuild period right now. So like my fandom of trying to latch onto I I said this when I came back I was like you know what I'm back in my hometown like market. I'm gonna find a team to be a fan of. And like you know goals are goals are not even trying. Like, they're, you know, they're the ninth seed.
And I get it. Like, they're gonna be out tomorrow anyways when they lose in the playing tournament or if they win a game, then they're going to, you're gonna get probably get swept in the first round. Like, that's cool. But like, I didn't have that, the Blackhawks, kind of like what you were saying with the Colts. They were blacked out for most of my childhood because that was just the way that they did things here as an old way of thinking.
But I didn't really become a Blackhawks fan until after college and when I was in college, when they won the first Cup in 2010. But like, now it's like, all right, team's rebuilding. So what am I gonna latch on to? What am I going to expand my bandwidth to like be a fan of? And I and I and I still kind of not hesitant, but I'm still kind of in that spot where it's like, all right, I'm not really sure if I'm like a true fan of any certain team. I mean, like, I love going to Cubs games.
The team's really good, you know, it's gonna be really good this year. But that allows me then to tap in like I can parachute in and watch 76ers heat and have a vested interest in what the outcome's going to be. Because I know the storylines, 'cause I have it. I've invested myself in learning the storylines.
And you know when you can, when like as a national voice or somebody who's like tasked with talking about national topics, like you have to have that, you have to have the ability to stretch and it's not something that comes overnight. And even even sometimes now and around the horn, there'll be like a topic like on on something that I'm trying to think, what's a good example of this?
It's something I may not be like all that all that up to speed on, but you have to, you have to get yourself up to speed out. Like tennis. Yeah, I mean, tennis is a good example because, you know, pretty soon we're gonna be coming up on. Sorry, sorry. Jeremy Gray, apologies, but yes. But I mean, like, you know, I like, will I watch what happens at Roland Garros absolutely. Every year? I do.
And you know, it's really, last year was awesome when Wimbledon was going on when we were out in New York, 'cause I was doing first take and get up and we watch the I'll never forget like watching the Sunday 5 hour match between Carlos Alvarez and and and Novak Djokovic and watching how that ended. But like, am I watching every single tennis match like the Miami Open and everything else leading into that?
No, I'm not. But when when the time comes to be able to talk about the big events, you gotta have a knowledge base to go off of. And that's just how I consume things every single day. Little bit by little, bit by little bit. And then you'd be surprised. I mean there's a lot of things floating up in here that I don't
know where it gets stored. But when you have this recall, like pulling out this random ass fact from like, you know, like I just gave you like, you know, I could tell you exactly where we were in the Financial district the day we watched Carlos Alvarez fall to the ground. And you know just what a cool match that was like beating, you know, beating the goat, by many people's estimation in in Novak Djokovic. And then, you know, I can't remember what I ate for dinner. Right. I know it's.
I have. I have the same affliction. I wish mine was just limited to sports but it it it extends into every area. Well, let's let's let's transition a little bit here. We had some questions that people had had set in. So Jay asks what is this insanity about JJ McCarthy being a top six or so pick? I. Mean. There's a lot of smoke around it right now, but I get it from the sense of, you know, scouts are very conflicted on him, at least
people that I've talked with. And I think that's kind of been the common theme about if he was, if he was this, if he was worth this high of a draft pick, how come we didn't see him throw more in college? How come we didn't see more of the offense built around him? And there's a multiple number of reasons for that happening. But I I I've heard he can go as high as two. He can fall as as low as 12.
And when you have a gap like that, it's kind of like just be careful if you're if you're one of these people who wants to bet on where guys are going when the discrepancy is that large. And we heard Washington had him, Jaden Daniels and Drake May in the building this week. He went out to the Patriots
recently. Like, I don't. I'm always skeptical when I see quarterbacks in the order going 1234, which would mean that the Cardinals trade out of four and somebody like Minnesota maybe comes up and gets JJ McCarthy. Last year we heard it was the order was gonna be 1234. Very rarely does the order pan out the way that we see it. And I think the wild card in all of this is gonna be what the Patriots do at three. Do they trade out of that pick?
Do they take a receiver there and just roll with Jacoby Brissette and think that, you know, they can get more of it? And maybe even trading out of that pick, getting more draft capital to use later? Could they get a quarterback later? Like, whatever? The draft order is never usually what we expect it to be, which is what makes this thing even more wild with JJ McCarthy being considered by some, at least in the conversation right now.
Is the #2 quarterback taken? The quarterback stuff is always so fascinating because it's the the draft is so divorced in order from the reality, you know the the number, the number of times the Patrick Mahomes like pick number gets brought up in relation to like Mitch Trubisky for instance. And and there's so many instances of that. It's such a crapshoot. OK. We had, we had a couple of other questions here. This was mostly from our our IU Media Group, Matt.
Matt asked if you liked the Bear. Not not the team, but the TV series, if you had a chance to watch that yet. So in August of 2022, I started it, but I fell asleep on the couch, right? Behind. The first episode, there's a lot going on. There's like a lot of ASMR, a lot of like noise and like chopping of things. But I do live right near Mr. Beef. Like that is a fun fact about me. That's over at the corner of Huron, more or less and Orleans,
and I'm not far from there. So I pass it literally every single day. And they were filming in my neighborhood. I don't know what is it? Season three. I guess they were filming recently. So I don't know if I'd be like, if if you'll see me in the background with some shot driving down the street, but I will give it another go, 'cause I've heard really good things about it.
It was just in the middle of training camp two years ago that I started it and just knocked out in the middle of the second episode. And I by the time I woke up like two or three episodes of play, I was like, God, I I can't deal with this. And then I then I have it turned it back on. It's hard for me to to sink my teeth into any TV series at this point. Because I struggle with it. It's just a it's a time suck.
And and this actually brings up another question that was brought up which is a similar question to to one that that our friend answered when she was on the show. But like, what kind of work life ballots are you able to establish given the amount of things that you do and the number of places that you're expected to be in, the amount of time that those things take to do? It's something that I struggle with.
And I mean, Trisha did her podcast from the kitchen, so I did mine from the kitchen to, you know, in solid area. Sorry, I have like awful lighting in here. But it's one of many things that Trish and I work, life balance and the imbalance. One of the many things that she and I have in common. And it's like you go through different seasons during the year where the work is at its heaviest and when you're able to push back a little bit.
And right now I'm kind of, I got my calendar right here and I have been like this my my April right now, which is kind of just like a chicken scratch everywhere. But I've been having the panic attack moments when I'm like, Oh my God, training camp starts in July 20th.
That is so much closer than we think it's going to be by the time you get through the draft, you get through rookie mini camp, you get through mandatory mini camp and then the NFL takes a break, more or less from like middle of June till for the Bears early July. That doesn't mean I have a
break. I mean, my last couple years have been Bears ending straight out to New York right after the NBA Finals for First take for Get Up and I I've been filling in summer as a huge radio opportunity for me, 'cause I'll do sometimes four to five shows a week, including my own. And Around the Horn doesn't go on break until the middle of August, which is kind of nice at balance as well with training
camp. But it's it's difficult when it's a it's a privilege, but it's difficult when you have, like I don't just have one job at ESPN. And I think that's a good thing for someone like me who wants to be in a have my hand in a lot of different pots. But allocating time to do all of those things that require you to use different parts of your overall toolbox, it's sometimes it it can be overwhelming to where you're like physically and mentally tapped out after certain days.
Like you know the days that I have to do around the horn and write and or add radio or a podcast in there. That's three different mediums all in one. And you know they all require an immense amount of preparation. Like can I riff, can I go, can I, You know can I wing it on radio? Yeah, sure. But is it gonna sound good? No. Like you have to prep. Like even for the podcast that I do and my Co host and I have been doing it now for more than a year. We know each other's body
language. We know how to, you know, have a conversation. We still do prep for all of those things And it's it's difficult when you try to fit all of those things into one day. And then by the time the day is over, you look up and you're like, what did I do today? And then you could like, holy crap I did so much. And the prep element like for Around the Horn I I remember showing my students my calendar the first boot camp I taught at Indiana last April in 2023.
I I kind of did this exercise for myself as much as I did it for them to show when you have. I work for one entity and technically it's two because Good Karma Brands owns ESPN 1000 but I work for Big ESPN and then under that umbrella ESPN 1000 like to allocate my time between more or less four or five rolls. Within all of that and what it looks like on a daily basis, like there are a lot of different colors on the calendar because it's all different things that are eating up time.
And the prep element is, is a huge part of it. Like for around the horn, my day more or less starts with like prepping around 7:30 in the morning. I get out of the chair around 2:15, 2/30 by the time we're done filming. And that's not straight through, like you're not like in front of a computer for like 9 hours or however long that is. But it's the prep time for me.
And that's consuming, that's reading the stat packet that they give us, that's, you know, going my place, is that I typically go to consume information on whatever it is that's having the conference call, that's, you know, calling my producer. If I want to sort through something else that's going doing hair and makeup, that's getting in the chair, that's the actual filming process, and then you're done. It's like, whoa, that was more than half a day. Sometimes that might be.
All somebody would do in a day, but then I've got to go write something about the bears, or I've got to start working on a different story. I've got to make a call for an interview. Like, it's very hard when you're trying to do it at a high level to have much of A work life balance. And the rare times I do have time, that's like more downtime. I've I feel like, I can't even say, like, time off, 'cause there's always something that's gonna fill the void. It's difficult for me to know
how to act like. Even today. I got some edits back on a story my editor sent me. I had made all these calls and sent out emails for another story I'm working on. I'm like, I've got like two or three hours here that I could just go for a walk or like, you know, like go go go to the grocery store or like, or even like just clean my house. Like, it's hard when you're in the grind. And the grind becomes so second nature to know what happens when you have a moment of respite.
And I don't do what with that. And maybe it's because I've kind of got the high achiever thing going where I want to achieve, I want to win, I want to do things at a very high level, but it can be very difficult to turn that off. I I wouldn't know anything about that, but it's no. Like you made me. You made all of us like. My fault. I'm sorry. I should have been a better parent No.
But it's it is it's tough and and it is the IT is the big and look it's funny in in sports related jobs I everything you just said it's it sounds a lot like how coaching operates where it's like you the talented people end up getting asked to do more and more and it you know you don't really feel like you have a choice especially if you're in your your late 20s early 30s that's like when you're blossoming you're going to get taxed in like 9 different directions and it's easy for
people who don't or aren't aren't you know they're out in the business or they're like they think you just pop up on television and you just talk and that's it. It's you know it's hard for people who don't really grasp how much time all of that takes to really get your head wrapped around it and it's a tough balance.
I I that's probably the one thing I've done a terrible job of teaching is like what are you supposed to do to to get that balance in place And honestly I think it's different for everybody that's it's kind of like the it's like we were talking about earlier with who gets excited about multiple sports. I think you're either born going into OverDrive whenever these things happen, or you're not and there's not really a good in between.
No, you're right. And it's like you have to love the grind, which sounds so cliche. But it is like coaching in that sense, where the hours are chaotic and they're not normal and you can't really get into a a morning routine a lot of days where, you know, I've I've gotten into routines where I know where I'm at my best, like I'm not a night. If I've got to transcribe, I can't be the person like, oh, let me just like mindlessly do this while I've got, like, Netflix on.
I'm a 4:00 AM wake up when the world is sleeping and grind it out for a couple of hours and get my writing done with my. That's when I'm most focused and where I have a clear head where I wish I could be a night owl, 'cause then I can actually, like, sleep like a normal person. Hopefully after time you're done working. But you have to be able to adjust to it too And it's it's hard. Like what You know, Trisha for
example. Like I don't know how she, like people always ask me about the NFL like oh like must be nice like you know season goes September to January. What do you do the rest of the year like not realizing or being too ignorant to understand that this is a year round league, but my travel for the NFL, like I've got eight or nine Rd. games. Like what Trisha does and what other people do who have the NBA or Major League Baseball. When you're on like 3 game Rd.
trips and then you've got like another city you're flying to, then you're back for like that is. I don't know if I'd survive doing that. That is a grind. That is, every grind is difficult. But that's one that like, is just so difficult. I couldn't do all that I'm doing and and do and have a travel schedule like that. I couldn't do all these different mediums if I had, if I
was covering baseball. For those for those who didn't listen to the podcast with Trisha Trisha's the sideline reporter for the Tampa Bay Rays and also does sideline reporting for Apple TV Plus and you're and we actually I was just talking with her about this the other day where it's like you're on a six game road trip you're it is. And I, for those who don't know, I did play by play for about five years in minor league sports which was like a different and both better and
worse version of that where you're on buses instead of planes. But you're still, you're gone for a week and a half and then you come back and you're not really home. You're just waiting until you leave again and then even and it's funny we're talking about this we're we're doing this podcast on the 16th of of April and I'm looking at the MLB scoreboard and Razer hosting the Angels right now and then the bottom of the 13th inning.
So it's like even if you even if you've got a game like a night planned out it's like I'm gonna go do something after the game. Then you get 5 extra innings of baseball just randomly thrown at you. It's it's it is a hard balance and it's certainly something that's it's it's you don't really grasp it unless you're in it. So and you and you only get better at like I I've learned little tips and tricks of working ahead to stay on
schedule. That's why I have like a physical written out planner so I can keep like have you know, benchmarks for myself. Because when you have a schedule that's all over the place and a lot of things that are, you know, eating away at your time and a lot of demands on your time, it can be really hard to actually get the work done. When there is the travel element and there is the meeting element and there is the prep element, that's it, it that helps.
What I've been doing now has been kind of help keeping me accountable on all of that 'cause it can just be so overwhelming and you look up, you're like, wait, I had all these extra things I had to do today and I wasn't able to get them done because work got away from me. And of course, what did I do to Courtney right before she's getting ready to do all these draft things? We kept her on a podcast for 65 minutes as opposed to letting her. Go to stuff.
No, but this is, this is my way of kind of like unwinding, as weird as that probably sounds to somebody, where it's like, well it's technically it's not work to me, but it's like we're still talking about work. But this is my way of unwinding and I think you just have to find that whatever it is, whether you know, cause a lot of people ask me, oh, are you, you know, cover sports. You must be a huge sports fan in In a way I am. But I don't have the.
I have to sit down and watch every single Cubs game every single night the way that I would if I wasn't working and entrenched in this all the time. Because sometimes you just need like a mental break from it. Like I love football and you know, I'm constantly consuming whatever games are on. But there's not, you know, for me it's you just have to find something sometimes that just like lets you put it down for a
couple minutes. And if that's me being able to go to bed an hour earlier, then then that's what I'll do versus let me stay up and you know, watch. You know, whatever is gonna happen in this Warriors Kings game, excuse me, Warriors Kings game, if I if the game's not over and I'm tired, I'm going to bed, then I'm going to bed and I'm going to catch up on it in the morning. This is where the DVR era has really helped. Oh God, or. Or whatever they're calling it
now. If it's not DVR, no I. I I still have Xfinity. I think I'm the only one in America who's not cut the cord and. You're keeping the RSN's alive by yourself right now. So no, I am, as I always tell students, and we'll we'll wrap up after this. But it's, you know, if you're going to go in this business. I didn't invent this.
This actually I think came from Keith Olbermann in that in that book that he did with Dan Patrick, the big show where, you know, it's like, do you like ice cream, you know, Yeah, everybody likes ice cream. What if you had to eat ice cream for your job three times a day, every day? And not just the flavors that you enjoyed, but like the weird flavors that you wouldn't normally touch.
That's essentially if you can still love it, but you have to take breaks from it for a while, you know, just to just to kind of refresh the palate and give your mind a break and get it on to something other than that. Because after a while you reach
a point of saturation. And I think this is, it's a good lesson for anybody going into anything that involves like really deep study of, you know, I mean sports, you would think it'd be a casual thing, but sports is so complicated and it's such this weird combination of personal stories and storylines and personality profiles and statistics and analysis and all of this noise and it seems to get added to
every year. There comes a point where you cannot digest anymore, like you're you're just going to hit a point where your brain's like, sorry that didn't make it in. Some of the hardest times for me in doing that, oddly enough, is like is during the NBA playoffs. Because a lot of times I'm doing radio or at least last couple years, like I was filling in a bunch, the two to six stretch and I'd have around the horn like, you know, the next day. So I've gotta stay up and watch
multiple NBA games. And sometimes it's like, God, I just got done talking. Like one thing I've had an issue with. Like an issue is probably like a strong word. But one thing I have like coming down and like my family's kind of, like gotten to like know, like you know when to when to expect me to be present, when to
not expect me to be present. Because when I've been talking for four hours and I know it's four hours out of your day, but like, you have to be on that entire time because otherwise you're not gonna be entertaining, you're not gonna say anything worth a damn. And it's just bad radio. If you're you can't be like somewhere else. You have to be fully physically and mentally present. It's not easy for me to shut that off.
And by the time I may turn that off at the end of the of the of my shift or whatever it is, I'm exhausted. And then I've got a I'm not just sitting down casually watching, you know, watching Jimmy Butler rip apart teams last year like it made it easy because he was so entertaining and that my Heat team was so electric as they just ripped through the Eastern Conference. But I'm consuming that in a way where I'm consuming for knowledge of what I'm gonna use
for my arguments the next day. I'm not just oh, let me casually watch this. I'll be on my phone. Like, you know, that's when it's your job, you consume it differently and you're taking notes and you're you're trying to remember certain things. Oh man, like, look at this run, they went on. I'm gonna reference this 'cause I know it's gonna come up in this thing tomorrow. Like, like when when the when what you used to do or what some people do for enjoyment is part of your job.
Like you've got to massage that delicately so you can get what you need to out of it, 'cause it's sometimes that's where I get burned out. The most, and that's the challenge I think is with people working in in any form of media, but especially sports media. Can you can you not become cynical about it? Can you retain the the optimism and the enjoyment that the audience wants to hear?
And if you try to come across, you know, if you try to manufacture the enthusiasm, people notice that immediately. So you have to find a way to make it genuine, and that can be a genuinely difficult thing to do so well, Courtney, this was, this was awesome. This was kind of a therapy
session as much as I know. That's why I like doing them because it does feel like a therapy session and I've anytime I do a friend's podcast and we end up like talking about like the business element around sports and what you do. It's like we all have common threads in it and we all deal with the same struggles and and that's, you know, it is therapy to get to like talk through those things. But it's also really cool to like see how far you've come.
Cause like when you're in the thick of it every day you don't realize like oh wow, I've got all these really cool things like you didn't just didn't just come out of thin air. You earn them and it's it's neat to kind of stop for a second and realize, wow, I am doing some really cool things I'm very proud of. Yeah, and you should be. You've done. You've done. You've had an amazing career so far and it's it's nothing but a source of pride watching you do what you do on a daily basis.
So, so we'll on that note go ahead and wrap up. We really appreciate Courtney joining us here on the show and I appreciate all you folks listening as well. You can catch Courtney on NFL draft coverage coming up and pretty much everywhere else in the ESPN constellation, especially if you're living in Chicago. So tune in for that. Thanks to all you folks. We'll be back. Lot of Little 5 content this week as the Little 500 is happening Friday and Saturday.
So stay tuned for that. For Courtney, I'm Galen, this is Crimson Cast. We'll catch you folks. On the flip side, bring back the Bison. So everybody.