INTERVIEWS: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE FUNNY

you get a lot in my profession. When I was a want to be sportscaster college student, I got the chance to hang out with the great John Madden and people kept coming up to John, Hey who you got? John got grumpy. I made a note avoid that question to people in the business, but you do get it often and I don't get grumpy. But now when people say, hey, foul or who you got, instead of hemming and hawing or answering Bama or Clemson, I can say I got

a roster of guests that you're going to enjoy. This is not a sports pod, but a lot of the guests you're gonna know from the sports landscape. Sports storytelling is going to be a part. I think of most episodes, the topics are going to be surprising, intriguing, sometimes inspiring.

The point of any podcast human conversation. We thought we'd make it the topic for episode one, so we invited four skilled interviewers and superb storytellers to share some moments that ranged from the triumphant to the tragic, the edgy cringe e as well as the newsworthy. Now all four of them got rolling. So we debut with a jumbo double album. I'm not trying to copy Clappton and Derek the Dominoes or Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Their debuts were

both double albums. It just worked out that way. Why cut out good stuff, so consume it at your leisure. We've got Willie Geist, Maria Taylor, Rich Eyes, Jeremy Shop. We had the lead card and we were in traffic. By the way people look over and go and at one point that everyone's filling with their phones and what are you doing this? We're making a movie. It's called Willian now and I was like, oh my god, I really.

I I called my wife as I just need to tell you what just happened to have it on the record. Remember it was a little bit of a soliloquy, like it was like everyone's forcing me to make a comment on my quarterbacks and I don't have to do it, and I'm not gonna do it, so quit asking. And Maria mariaction was just like I hear you, coach, and we moved on to the defense or something like I

knew that we're not barking up this tree anymore. He's gonna join us, We're gonna talk, and he's he's ready to roll, and he proceeds to call me Rick throughout the entire interview. Years later, if you get a bunch of us in the room, it's brought up the fame junior, say how Rick eisen um uh interview on NFL Network. Here i am, I'm twenty three years old, and I've got Bob Night in the chair, and I'm I'm I'm gonna be tough. You know, I'm gonna ask him all

the hard questions. So he says, I'll never forget the exact words. You were doing very well up until now, but now you're in over your head. And I think he's I think he punctuates it. I think I don't don't this is bullshit. This is all bullshit, and he starts threading the microphone out from under the sweater, really flattered to have these four friends and colleagues join me. They've got great stories to tell you. But I thought an episode one I would kick it off with the story.

By far, the most painful interview I've ever done. You never saw it. It never aired. It was that awful. Go back to early Winter X Games in Vermont Stratton Mountain. You got this young musical artist, not a megastar yet, but he's about to break very, very big, and he was obliged to sit down with us in a casual little set in a converted ski lodge before his ex Games concert. He shows up exactly on time. We aren't ready get the light, rigs are still being set up,

we've got crew running around everywhere. We're not even close. So I'm the very young host, looking about thirteen in the little ski sweater, and I've got to walk over to a very punctual and very piste off eminem then break the news to him that he's going to be made to wait a while to talk to me, a total stranger about snowboarding. He did not take that news well, and I can't blame him. That news was totally are bad. So trying to smooth things over, I asked him, is

there something I can get you while we wait? The answers, Yeah, you can get me the name of the mother who works for me, who booked me on this interview, so I can fire his mass. I mean, I'm I'm just yammering and stammering. Well, no, is there anything else we can get you? Bottla Hennessey And now we could get it. This was a converted bar. It was two in the afternoon, but I wasn't going to judge. Eminem has a hendy. It does not improve his mood. He felt disrespected. Um,

we were at fault totally. But finally we'll get the lights good to go. We sit down. First question, So Eminem here he into extreme sports? No, not really, he says, I've been assured by a producer that Mr Mathers was into extreme sports, but that was incorrect. Captain Detroit was not, in fact a snowboarder. And this goes on like that, he's got zero connection to these sports. He's got nothing to say about him. We're going nowhere. Most he is just looking down when he does bring his eyes up.

He's got this look. It says to me, you're getting nothing from me. I'm in a minute or two into it, I'm thinking, thank God, we're not live. I knew this would never ever see air. I just pulled the ripcord. But you hate to do as an interviewer, but at that point we had already crashed. I just quickly politely thanked him, let him go off to find his guy who arranged the interview so he could quote fire his ass. I remember thinking, God, I helped this tape is quickly

bulk erased the eminem interview. I'm a huge fans by the way, for many years, love his music, but that was the most painful interview ever. In the last interview that he and I have done. Never happened to my first guest. Willie Geist has storytelling in his blood. His dad, Bill Geist, still has a wonderful career as a journalist

and an author. Willie's the Pride of Vanderbilt. He started in sports at CNN, joined Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brazinski, has been there for the last thirteen years, and Willie's become a star co host of the Today Show anchors Sunday Today with Willie Guys in NBC and you can catch us Sunday sit Down podcasts, which are great fun. Willie Guys, you are so kind to join and lend your expertise because you have run the gamut

in terms of interview style, format, the goals. The Sundays sit downs that you do on Sunday Today with some of the most famous people in the world are are known for being revealing and comfortable and just fun to watch. The Morning Joe, different goals, different type of backgrap for those interviews, So you really have have spanned the spectrum,

my friend, in terms of interviews. Yeah, it's a good balance because Morning Joe, as you say, Monday through Friday, you are in the You were in the mud, You were in the weed battling with politicians and partisans and everything else. So that Sunday interview is a nice breath of fresh air. When you just go to a restaurant or bar and sit for an hour with Bill Murray or David Letterman, or go out to l A as we did a couple of months ago. It feels like

a lifetime ago now. But with al Pacino and those are like, you know that your job is Morning Joe and you gotta get to the news. You gotta get answers from people. But sort of the luxurious interview is that Sunday interview. It feels that way for a viewer. We'll get to those in a second. But going back to the place for you, Ben since oh seven, I believe in Morning Joe, where as you said, it's partisans who have an agenda there there to use your time

for their benefit, their politicians. And you know when you're sitting there that every answer has the potential to make news, and it being live, there's just no safety net. Have you you know, started to sweat through your shirt and some of those moments because it can be it could be stressful, especially in the early days. It can be. But you know in politics that everyone's coming with an agenda and you generally know what the agenda is. But I enjoy that. And it's as you're good at this too.

It's preparation. You know, you know everything about that person. You're ready for whatever. You know, choose your own adventure storyline. They're gonna go down. You can roll with that and um and as you say, it is live and so sometimes they surprise you and you're not ready for it, and that's when the sweat starts to come through your shirt as you say I was gonna say, you can prepare.

But then there are just those moments where it takes a sudden turn and either something clicks in their head that that says this isn't going right, or I'm gonna now press my advantage, or they see that you're too ready for the expected game plan, so now they're gonna deliberately take it in a different direction and sort of hijack the proceedings. And that is difficult when it is live.

I don't do that many interviews like that, thankfully, but there's that sense in your head, oh no, no, no, you're not gonna take our broadcast and and hijack it for your own purposes exactly. And some people are more creative and better at that than others. Other people literally will come with like a piece of paper and whatever question you ask them, they're going to the talking points. And that's not as fun when the person is a skilled combatant and it's a little slicker in the way

they try to circumvent your question. Then you kind of try to pull them back. When somebody's just a talking point machine, the audience gets nothing out of that. I try, and I get nothing out of that. But when someone is smart and willing to fight you in you know, in a in a real way and not in some theatrical way, and have an actual debate. I mean, it's

sad to say. It's so much of what you see on TV does devolve into theater where it's this person's on that side, that person is on this side, and now it's so the meat in the middle and fight when you actually end up having a real conversation with someone you may disagree with. To me, those are the best interviews. Really, guys wants a worthy adversary, is what I'm hearing from you here. So now I think that we're also taught to try to fight and claw to

make something of it. Even if your internal dialogue says, now this isn't going that well, this isn't going like I hoped it would for our customers, they're not, as you said, getting much out of this, and you do your best to try to salvage it. But I've been there. I don't know if you have. There's sometimes you go, you know what it's it's fourth and twelve. We just gotta punt here. I'm just gonna cut this short. This

is just going nowhere. It's very clear, it's too awkward, it's unproductive, and and we're good goodbye, sir, Thank you very much. Yeah, no, that definitely happens. And your instinct is to push and push and push until you get that person to commit to an answer or commit to news. And at some point it's the law of diminishing returns. When you've asked the question four times subject immediately is that your limit? Four you'll go, You'll go four times.

But if you and you're right, and then it gets weird for the audience. You know, they're like, okay, man, we wanted the answer too, but we're not getting it. Let's move along here, or say about it as a person. One of the most awkward interviews I've ever given was actually at Morning Joe. Through no fault of anybody at the show is but it was an espn PR misstep

where I was the wrong day. They had given me the wrong day, So I'm out in front of my apartment, where's the car that the show is supposed to say? And it doesn't come It's not an easy subway from Upper West Side the thirty Rockers, you know, So I get there somehow, get through the lobby of thirty rock even though I'm not on the list. I'm up there and just the confused look like why why is Fowler here? But he is here? So you threw me in the studio.

Manka if she could have made me disappear with her eyes, I mean she she would have. She didn't know why the football guy was in here. You guys that roll with it did a great job. I felt terrible because

I knew how tightly form of that show is. I would have liked to just gone away and come back, but it's we made a threat, end though, I'm glad we did, and trust me, I promise you you know us whatever we were talking about, we would rather have talked about what you had to talk with So about the schedule income, No, No, that wasn't your fissue at all. I was just I felt terrible about it. I was impressed how you guys just roll with it and and found time in a tight format with much more important

things to talk about. But you know what it is about our shows. It's a three hour show, so it is collapsible and expandable, which is it is a great advantage that we talked about interviews. If something's going great, I mean we've done interviews where it was slotted for eight minutes and it goes thirty five minutes, and we can do that and we can bump somebody later and or say can you come back tomorrow, or you know, skip a segment we're going to do on a different

topic and do it the next day. So that is a real underrated advantage of Morning Joe is we are it's mostly unscripted. You know, you will read some prompters to set up the nuts and bolts of the story and then they thing goes off for an hour and we're just time and it's real and if the conversation is going well, we just go with it. And that's

you know, my other life on the Today Show. That thing is like you've got hard breaks because of the commercial spending and local weather and all these things that you've got to get it to the second and if your conversation is not over, they're going to the commercial anyway and then just go to black on you. So that you feel that if an interview on the Today shows slated for five minutes, it's gonna be five minutes, you know, And on the Morning Job inslated for five

and minute forty five minutes, and that's that's a great luxury. Behalf. You're so skilled at kind of sensing the vibe and setting the right tone for your guests on on the Sunday Sit Down to the long form recorded interviews that then become your podcasts. Have you ever, at any point, whether it's in that show or earlier in your career, made the mistake of sort of misreading the vibe and

trying to be overly familiar with the interview subject. I had to do that when I was interviewing these X Games athletes who I didn't that wasn't my core culture, but as hosted the show, they asked me interview him, and they would let it be known that although we're down with this network TV thing, I want you to know that I'm representing the core culture and I'm a little too cool to be interviewed by a guy like you.

And they weren't wrong, but that that that set up the idea that they'll participate, but they're not going to really open up and give any good stuff or make this an entertaining segment for fear that that's going to make them look bad with their core group. You ever try to overstep and feel like you didn't connect with someone that way. You know what I've found and I've learned from it, and I hopefully I'm better at it now. I think, particularly when somebody's funny, the temptation can be

to try to be funny with them, you know. And so I just thought of this while you were talking, as we had Larry David on um. He was on Morning Dods and years ago and he came on and he was totally Larry David. He was himself. He had a Starbucks and had the lid on it with a little hole in the top. And we said, hey, a new season of Curve and he goes before we start. You know, I invented this. I was at tax you driver in the late seventies that that comes with the top.

I poked the hole in the top. I was the first guy to do that. I get no credit for that. And he went and it was a genuine it was really you know, it wasn't some prepared bit. He looked at that and he had like a three minute riff about it, and so that I think a lot of people fall into this trap is Okay, I'm gonna play Oh my gosh, I got Larry David here. I want to play the game with him. I want to play

curb your enthusiasm. And the truth is, those guys don't really want to come and have you try out your comedy on them, you know. And so I that was that's a good let. I mean, you can still be funny and clever in your own subtle ways, and they pick up on that, and I think they responnd well to it. But the job if you're I'm doing Sunday today, I'm interviewing Jerry Seinfeld on stage at the Beacon, it is not for me to prove to Jerry how funny I am. It's to give him great opportunities to be funny,

which is pretty easy for him to do obviously. And so I think that is that's an interesting thought that takes great restraint, though. I think you have to sort of learn that, because if there's someone you really admire for their humor, you want to show hey, I got a sense of humor too, and you do. You have a great sense of him. You are a funny person in real life, but to keep that out of the

interview when it's their show case you have. You had David Letterman on a very a nice long form interview, and it's hard not to let Dave no, jeez, I was there from day one, and I really admire you and exactly exactly, and I don't they want you to know. They want to know that you're prepared for sure, and they can smell that if you're not, So always be

totally prepared. But if you start to step over that line of you know, I was raised on you and you're the greatest, and then they start to go, oh, they just take them uncomfortable. You don't want to put him in that space. And Dave is a perfect example. I mean, I'm not People always ask me you get star struck in these I don't think. I don't get star struck. You get a little more nervous for some

than others. But David Letterman, you're probably the same way around the same age was like, he was my introduction to what was weird comedy and what was possible and this, you know, this could be mass marketed just being silly and wild and smart, and so I really obviously looked up to him, and you do have to suppress that a little bit, you know, because you don't want a fan boy out when he comes in. He doesn't do

a lot of interviews. No, he sort of stepped out his you know, his guy stepped out of the ledge a little bit to say, all right, we're gonna let him do this interview. Um. And so you want to to show that you're ready and that you can't hang with him a little bit. If he's making fun of you, you can take it and get it back. I mean, his first it was when he had the beard. It was early in the beard, and my first question was what's the deal with the beard? And he, like that,

said what's the deal with your tupe? So like, first of all, what an honor that David Letterman gave you that insult right out of the gate, and he was still as sharp as he's ever been, and that just opened the floodgates that I laughed at myself and we had a good time. But I think, I think I do think about that a lot. And then there are

other people musicians. You don't want to act too cool and talk about all the people you know, and that just you know what I mean, Just be prepared, no, no, everything you can to know about the person, and they'll be impressed by that. You don't have to try to play their game. I think is a good lesson. Yeah, I know you've learned those lessons and calibrated, because it's very obvious that people do fear relaxed and comfortable and Okay, this guy is not gonna make it about him and

I'm not gonna try to parry with me. That the interview you did with with Bill Murray, which has been celebrated a little bit because it was so cool. He doesn't do many interviews that you've told the story about trying to reach him on the phone and then he sort of came to New York. As I've heard the story, he kind of asked to be on a Sunday said, kind of volunteered for but he doesn't do at all.

Did you feel the pressure to make that a thoroughly enjoyable and comfortably experience for him because it was such a rare get Yeah, that was a case like Dave, where a life sort of preparation with Bill Murray came in handy because for people who don't know he doesn't have a manager of publicist. He has no one liked that, and celebrities have these layers of people that you go through. He still has, all these years later, a one eight hundred number that if you want to talk to him

or get an interview, call and leave a message. This is a true story. And for Bill Murray and so our bookers say, Hi, this is so and so from Sunday Today, Willie Guys would love to interview. And we never heard back, so most people never hear back. And then he came in to do a live interview on The Today Show with Savannah I think one morning and he was he's messing around doing what he does with everybody, and he's in the green room and our booker was there.

It's just you're the booker said, yeah, I don't do that Willie Guys show. Let's do that today, and they went there today. Yeah, let's do it right after this. There's no there's a whole thing. We've gotta get it set up, an elaborate shoot. It's called the Today Show. It's gonna got you read Today for a long format. He's like, just do it, why don't we just he slides in the chair, after Savannah we do another interview.

So luckily he was We didn't have time to set it up that quickly, but luckily he said, I'm gonna be in town for another day and all he said, let's have him come by the hotel at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. Okay, So we set up a shoot on the roof of the hotel at a little bar at the hotel. Who was staying, set up our cameras ten o'clock,

the elevator doors open. His hair's messed up, he's in new Balance shoes, corduroy pants, some free golf zip up he got at a tournament somewhere, probably Taho or something like that. And he sat with me for over an hour. And that was another one to your point of don't be the guy who's quoting Caddyshack to Bill Murray because he's gonna smell that immediately. Remember that. And then you said this, and then you said that the Dali Llama,

big hitter, you know, don't don't do that. And I think I heard we were talking before the the interview about he's a big Illinois basketball fan, and my parents went there, so I was raised in Illinois basketball. We talked. It's probably on tape. I bet we're recording twenty minutes about like the Flying the Line nine versus the two thousand Darren Williams d Brown team, and I think even from that and that was genuine for me. I grew

up and then we had trust right there. And so then unsolicited he talks about Caddy Shack and we get into Ghostbusters and then he starts telling me SNL stories. He said, oh, there was this one time Keith Richards and I were in a bathroom stall with a bottle of Rebel Yell while Mitt was out on stage singing some girls and you're just going, oh my. And there are those moments you've probably had them where you're always doing your job or you're looking across and you know,

Bill Murray's telling the SNL story. What a gift this is? You know, sometimes you just freeze the moment. What a gift. And I felt that way with Dave and al Pacino too. But yeah, the ones that don't do a lot of interviews and you can get to tell you things that you haven't heard a million times elsewhere, those are the best. Those are the best interviews. Yeah, that's a great story. I don't know if I had the gift like Keith Richards telling a story quite like that, but that that's

pretty good. The Bill Murray, Keith Richards nexus is cool. It when it happens organically, like you said, you don't have to prompt them and those stories just start to flow. That's the best. Chris Farley had the bit which viewers relate to that the painful interview subject when he just basically recounts to the interview. We remember that time when when Michael when you when you when you hit that

shot and you beat the jazz. That was awesome, And that's just the sort of no question there, and you know, it's just such a cringe e thing. And we've all seen interviews where the the interviewer falls into that and you just the one with McCartney was great too, exactly that that's what he always said. You mentioned these these interviews for for Sundays Sit Down, which you're beautifully produced

and elaborately set up. And I wonder if you've ever had the angst that I have that something is gonna go wrong technically and these elaborate productions is gonna mess with the flow. I told the story earlier about my disastrous sit down with a very young eminem because our lighting was not ready for him and he was on time, which was an upset and we weren't ready, and the interview just was was was a disaster and never ended up airing. You're I'm sure your crew has never made

a mistake on NBC. But all the thing, all the multiple cameras, Bill that don't know, those are incredibly elaborate setups. The lighting takes hours from miking, and these guys have a lot and women have a lot of pride in each of their jobs. They wanted to be flawless. So sometimes you stop, they want you to re ask the

questions because it wasn't perfect sound. I mean, those are the kinds of things I stressed about, is the technical things that can break down in a in a basis of you as you say that, and cringing as you say that. I'm thinking about and I think I won't listenings.

But there are certain people who are such big stars that they have their own sort of criteria for lighting and camera angles, and so there are people will send them ahead of time, and so we try to do everything that they've asked to make them comfortable, and then they get there and they sit down, it's all wrong somehow, and so we're starting over, which leaves me and you as the interview in the position of sitting in a chair across with him for thirty minutes, trying to make

small talk and just keep that ball in the air. If it's somebody you know, that's fine or you've met before. But if it's somebody who's a massive star and they're just sitting there and there's still a little bit upset about the lighting because it's down here and it's just been right here, and let's start over, and where are my people and let's get everybody in here, then that's

when it gets like I feel your pain. I'm going, oh gosh, I'm you know, I'm going through every little deep piece of research that I've got that I can start a conversation. Usually got material before the interview and starts just to keep anything. But you're all in my head, I'm going, okay, like what is this costing me by the minute in comfort level? And relax? What am I? What am I losing from what I'd hope to get?

Because this thing we are waiting on the technical aspect it's a one time now that you mentioned that it worked for me. Was I was interviewing Adham Driver and we were in a restaurant in Manhattan and we started. He was a little reticent at first. He's not like that big, overwhelming, outgoing guy, and he was a little he was he was great, but he was, you know, kind of short answers, and he was, you know, we're getting to know each other a little bit. And ironically,

the big chandelier in the dining room went on. Something happened downstairs and it ruined our lighting. We just stopped down and they couldn't find the guy with the key to the box to turn it off. And again it was twenty five thirty minutes. But in that time he and I got to know each other, and and the minute that thing finally went off, he was a totally different guy. So it's almost like that in that case, it helped us. We had time, and he's got an

unbelievable story. He was a marine, and he's got and we and he again a guy who doesn't say a lot usually about his life. We had an amazing hour long conversation that included all those things I hadn't heard before, so I guess it can work both ways. But those moments it's an already, as you know, an unnatural thing to sit down this close from someone with lights and a bunch of people over there, and that's not a

normal conversation. And then when you've got to add thirty minutes of light adjustment before the unnatural conversation, it's just it can be long, and you're looking down and you're looking at and you're trying to catch your producers. I go, let's go. You're trying to make sure that that's the pr people of your subjects aren't catching there. I going like,

we got we got stuff here. But yeah, you hope they have the luxury of time, as apparently Adam Driver did, because someone like a Nick Saban Willie as you know, notoriously, and if they're if we're messing with the lights for forty five seconds and we're not good to go, I know, that's just making my job harder by the second. Yeah, because he's not giving you much to begin and well, we have a great we have a great rapport actually,

and he's far better than people real is. But he's also punctual and he's got an out time and he's got folks around him to go, hey, you know, if you if you're if you fumble the opening kickoff here and you can't get your act together, we're gonna move on. And that's I respect you, but I'm out of here. And that that when you deal with people who are artists,

and you've had al Pacino's fascinating guy. But part of their brilliance might be they're introverted nature, might be their aversion to that kind of interaction you're trying to get and and their introspection which gets in the way of a good interview, but it's part of their genius. I mean, does that bring up the blood pressure to say a little bit when you know your job is gonna be tough, maybe to get out of them something. He's a Pacino doesn't do interviews number one and number two, and he

does them. He's not known again as an outgoing guy. That was a really interesting one. That was in February of this year. He had a new series coming on on Amazon and they, I guess he did a couple of interviews and we read stout and they agreed that we'd be one of them. And he lives out in Beverly Hills. So they said, he's do it in this restaurant he likes. So you go, oh my gosh, how Pacino. We let's go do it. So we we fly out there and again, yeah, that's like hyper how do you?

How do you so you've got forty five minutes, let's stay with him. How do you narrow down what you want to ask Alpaccino in a fourty five minutes? You know, how do you get there between Cercco and scar Pace, every everything he's done and um, so you sort of make an outline in your head. And the good thing about him was he came this was like an event

for him. It was served a little bit of a coming out party where he was saying explicitly, I haven't done interviews in the past, but now I'm doing an interview. So I didn't have to drag that out of him. And in fact, if you watched the interview, he said that explicitly said I never would have done this even a few years ago. He's like, but I'm about to

be eighty years old. I'm starting to think about my life and my career, and it's fun to do something like this, to look back and I never in the past. I just never wanted to talk about myself in my career. And he was so um he was so open. First of all, and again just without my asking, tells the story behind the set and scenes of the set on Scarface and how it was a bomb out of the box office and he's so surprised that it's become this cultural thing, and he just told the story is unsolicited.

If I I honestly, if you look at that interview, I probably asked like four questions, five questions, because he just started telling stories and by and by me going yeah, yeah, and it encouraged. And there's a couple of moments in there where he said, I'm sorry to go on, are you kidding me? I was, I will literally sit here all day, and then um, he got so we had

a great conversation. He was warm and friendly. And then the sort of second element of our interview was We're going to drive around Beverly Hills in this big boat of a Cadillac. It's in El Dorado. I think I seventy four El Dorado. That reflected something in the show, but also it was the kind of car he had in Scarface. Tony Montana had and that could that be a little gimmicky for him? He's Alpaccino. Does he not want to be riding around into convertible? But he agreed

to it. So we go outside a car I've never seen, let alone driven before. I'm driving al Pacino's and a shotgun and we're driving around Beverly Hills with cameras on us, and you literally I felt like I was riding through a dream. I look over to stop letting go. That is happening in my life that I'm driving al Pacino. And if he didn't want it to end, he well, go up here, take a left. I want to show you there's gonna something happen up here. And then by the end of it and we put it in there

and he's like, this has just been great. What a joy to get to know you and you know you're and give me a big hug at it was just like I still think about it and I can't believe it had I have to see the tape to verify that that day actually took place. You just kind of fly back to New York without the plane. I mean that that is such a booing feeling you're you're driving eleven miles per hour around Beverly Hills in this car leven. Yeah, we had the lead cards and we were in traffic.

By the way, people look over and go and at one point that everyone's filming with their phones and what are you doing? Like we're making a no movie. It's called Willie ow. I was like, oh my god, I really I called my wife adds, I just need to tell you what just happened to have it on the record to make sure it did. So those are highlights, you know, career life, everything else. Just awesome, awesome days.

What a collection of revealing and comfortable interviews. Classic stuff, But not all of Willie's interviews have been that comfortable. He did share one more story about the time that he was summoned to interview the great one, Wayne Gretzky. So they can't all be gems, and the greatest hockey player of all time wasn't It wasn't didn't put the biscuit in the basket in that one. Well, no, he put the biscuit in the basket. It was me. I

whiffed on opening it. So this was at the two thousand ten Olympics in Vancouver, where he was sort of the Grand Ambassador at the Olympic Games meeting Canada, and I was at the time, was ten years ago. I was. I hosted a show called Way Too Early, which was on live at five thirty AM on the remember that four Morning go So in Vancouver it's on a two thirty AM. So I'm getting into the the IBC at midnight.

Every night, I'm waking out at eleven PM, going to bed at seven or eight, but I'm also out shooting things during the day, trying to get on the Today Show, just going a hundred miles an hour. And so the one night I didn't go out much for obvious reasons

because everyone was out while I was in bed. But I did go out one night, finally got some time out, went out with all the NBC people and my phone rang early in the morning and they said, nobody else is around with Wayne Gretzky wants to do a quick interview. And I sort of woke up and it's stupor and I was exhausted after a month of this, and let's be honest, I was a little hungover, and I wasn't feeling I was feeling a little green. And I said, well,

of course, where do I come to the IBC. We'll do it in one of this little you know, this little flash studio. And so I was thinking about, all right, this is a big deal. You know, Costas is still asleep, nobody else is doing It's my turn to do it. So um, I put on I put on a shirt, and then I thought I'm gonna go for like the sweater into the jacket. Look, so basically I had like three layers on. Then I put on a blazer, and

I hadn't slept in a month, and I'm hungover. And so I go into this little booth and there's Wayne Gretzky, total gentleman, and they say it's pretty hot in the booth. I don't. They hadn't fired everything up yet, you know. And I've got four layers on, and so they say, all right, three to one interview Wayne Gretzky and Chris like I've never had on TV or off. Just the water works from the forehead down. And if you've ever been in that position, the more it happens, the worst

it gets. You're thinking about it, you're trying to stop it with your mind, and for some reason, nobody stopped the fight. There are producers in there. I'm going he's in, but he's gonna like throw the towel in here right now. Literally, I could have used the towel and stop this fight. Into his great credit, I'm this close to Wayne Gretzky. He's talking about how great it is to have the

games in his home country. I'm just pouring sweat and he just without acknowledging it, he didn't say word, did the entire interview and just kind of gave me a pat on the back and a wink like, I don't know what's going on here, buddy, but I'm glad we got through that together. And he walked out like the gentleman he is, and my producer came in was like dude, and I said, dude, what about you canna help me out here a little bit? And of that interview now,

for all times, has been known as the Sweat Sky Interview. Oh, the sweat Ski Interview. I want to search for that on YouTube. How great is Willie Guys star? Thanks to him, you can follow Willie on Instagram and Twitter, sam handle at Willie Geist and check out his Sunday sit down podcasts. The baton is now passed to Maria Taylor. Maria has

become a really important voice in sports broadcasting. She's my teammate along with Kirk kerb Street on ABC's Saturday Night Football, works the sidelines on all the biggest college games, this tremendous job hosting NBA Countdown, and among her many talents, she's a gifted interviewer and Maria also has some stories to share. Maria Taylor, thank you so much, my friend,

for joining me on this interesting topic. You have been in interviewers supreme and many different fronts, both with NBA coaches and college coaches, which I think are in general very different personality these So what leads to mind when you think about the challenges of conversing with another human when they are sometimes not at their best, They are in a pressurized situation, their mind is elsewhere and you

have to try to get something out of them. I always joke Chris Um and you know this just from because I've seen you be a sideline reporter before and have to deal with some of these issues that we are on the front lines basically, and a lot of times coaches are in the middle of battle ground mode, so they're in an aggressive state, you know, there's ten thousand things racing through their minds, and it's not just

what they want to say during halftime. It's like what happened on the first play of the game and how they want to make sure it doesn't happen when they come back for the second half. So the first thing I'm always trying to do with a sideline reporter is like, big smile, Hey I'm here. This is a different moment. Like you're trying to bring them down with your body language, Like I'm trying to be calm, But it doesn't matter. Sometimes you're just gonna be in the way and you're

and you're just gonna catch one. You gotta stay in the ring and come back for more. What I think it's interesting in your job you get to see within a three and a half hour period a coach, potentially three times pre kickoff where he's got the far away eyes, he's got the urban Meyer used used to call it, the thousand yards. Stare trying to get something out of the mayor. As you said, halftime, they're either mad because they're losing, or they're on guard because they're winning and

they don't want their team to let down. And then if they win, you're out there in that sea of students where they've just been hit with a gatorade bucket. They're celebrating a win, and now you're trying to corral them because their mind is in a different place. How interesting within that amount of time, you're seeing potentially the same coach in three different ways. It's like you're riding a roller coaster of emotion with them, and you're right

when they come out for that first interview. I mean they're locked in. They've just grabbed their headset, they put it around their neck. You know, we've just had the coin toss maybe, or I'm standing with him while he's watching the coin toss. So sometimes he's like getting together, you know, the kicking team or something and giving them

a last minute instruction. Or he's got a guy he wants to tell us me do right before, and you guys might be throwing down to us and what I've had Dabbo just saying to me, Hey, I didn't know you played basketball. This is before the ACC championship. He's saying this to me right before we come on, and we're just having like a mini conversation. So it does

depend on the coach's personality. So a dabbo is gonna be more lighthearted than when you start a conversation with Nick Saban pre kick, because he's already dialed in and all the way in Urban Myers the same way completely dialed in by the time it's time for that pre kick interview, So you kind of have to gauge what personality you're dealing with. Each time you mentioned locked in and you mentioned Saban, those two things kind of go together.

Few ares locked in as saving has been. All of us who have known Nick over the years have had our I think you can call him run ins yours. Take us through that whole process and sort of where the where the storyline ended in an unexpected place. Maybe let's start with your interview with Saban the night before. Do you remember this, Chris, because you were asking him

about the quarterback situation who was going to start? And we ran it on college game day the next day, and you guys had a pretty good laugh about it, right, wouldn't you say? That was the night but that was that was not the morning of the game, right, So you know, I'm thinking maybe maybe we're gonna be okay here. Um, so I have a pre kick interview with Save and it's the Louisville game, and obviously the only question anyone had is Jalen Hurd's gonna start or will to a

songo by low start? And so I asked that question, and I'm pretty sure it is a response with something along the lines of, well, you might as well wait until they run out there because we're so close to kick off. It wasn't he didn't say it was gonna be Jalen was gonna be two or why. I was just like, you'll find out in two seconds, you know. Um So I knew then, like this is gonna be something that we're dealing with the entire game. At halftime,

of course we're interviewing coach. They're up. It wasn't like they were playing very bad. We had seen both quarterbacks by this time. Um so it's more just a question of assessing quarterback play in the first half and and then asking so who, how do you decide who's going to get the most reps, you know, in the second half? And um he handled that one well. I think the first half or the halftime interview was the most happy he was because the team was playing well coming off

of the field and then post game. I should have known this because we had um, you guys know s I D their sports information directors that worked very closely with the coaches and they're constantly in contact and getting them ready for interviews. So when I saw Josh walk up to coach and act if we could get Jalen into it, and coach was not interested, and I was having quarterback interviews right after the game, I should have

known what the attitude was gonna be. So when my first question is about assessing the quarterback play, you guys all saw the reaction. Remember it was a little bit of a soliloquy, like it was like everyone's forcing me to make a comment on my quarterbacks and I don't have to do it, and I'm not gonna do it, so quit asking. And my my reaction was just like I hear you, coach, and we moved on to the defense or something like I knew that we're not barking

up this tree anymore. And christ I know that you know this. But in those situations like you can't take it personal. I like if I would have been like, well, don't yell at me, then that would have just made it worst we would have all gone downhill, So you almost have to like accept it, teflon, don it and

move on to the next thing. And um, the best part about the story though, is I feel like the closest one of the best relationships I have in college football is now Nick Saban because since then, now we've like gone into this Mercedes commercial where we're playing basketball and playing horse. And I've heard stories about how much he loved playing basketball and how you know that's kind of informed the type of coach that he is or why he coaches. And I've seen him let his guard

down even a little bit more. And sometimes you know how it is where if you are a kid and you're the one that gets yelled at, it's because you know they like you and they want you to be your best self. That's what I've decided. I'm like coaches just coaching me up the sideline. But it was interesting when it happened. I just remember going it went back up to the booth, and I think Kurt said something like, well, look, she handled that was like twelve rounds or something like that.

She stayed in there and kept boxing. But we all knew that was going to be a headline the next day. Interesting you say, out of a really uncomfortable situation can be one of the most like rewarding and fruitful relationships because it's a good guy to have trust with, and I think you have he has. You have each other's trust now more so. Haven't you had that experience before where you go through something where it's like that was so awkward and tense, but then it breeds something different,

like it's it's helpful to the relationships. Yeah, I mean, you hope that it can be. I mean, over the years, have been so many tense situations with coaches and meetings where they don't like something you said in a previous broadcast or some of their platform, and that comes into the meeting and it hangs in the air, and all you're trying to do is get stuff out of them to help your viewers. We do this for the customers.

You don't interview Nick Saban for yourself. We do it for the viewer, and we're trying to get them to open up and give our customers something. And those meetings can be pretty tense because those guys then skinned hold onto things and take it very personal. You know, I wouldn't be surprised that down the line you and Nick Saban or colleagues, because I think he wants to get into this business and that would be interesting because the most awkward ten, I would say, openly hostile relationship I

had when I interviewed a coach with Lou Holtz. But he was back at Notre Dame and it was a season opener, very big opening game with Michigan, a lot on the line for him. We flew three people to South Bend from Connecticut back in those days, a crew of three traveled to it. And then he wasn't gonna come out of his office and do it. He was gonna blow us off, and that was that would not

have been good. So he talked him off the ledge, got him into the room, but he wouldn't say one word to me or even look at me except when the mic was on and the camera was rolling. And the minute the cameras rolling, he started smiling and oh the lady in the dome and there's a Notre Dame. Great at what a rivalry with Michigan. Finished the interview up, thank you, coach Mike off him snapped out of the room. Not not a word, And it was so we got

what we needed, but it was so so uncomfortable. And later on, obviously Louke comes to Notre Dame and it comes to UH from ESPN, and and after leaving Notre Dame and we end up being colleagues and it all worked out in the end. But I remember how how hostile that was for a few minutes and how tough, and we have to keep your composure and still realize you're there to do a job. You know. Another funny

one um that happened was the same season. You know, John Calipari is hilarious and he's loud, and he's boiterous and he's great, and um, it's a halftime interview, so we just talked about how coaches are. They're already dialed in on something. And it's the Champions Classics, so you know, Kentucky is playing Kansas. It's a blue blood game, and

of course both two really want to win. And he was so upset with maybe the way his team was playing defense, I want to say, And so I asked a question about defense and he like looks at me. He's like, I mean seriously, Like I'm telling them what to do and they're not doing it. And he like grabs my arm during the interview. I don't know if you've seen this, but he literally drives my arm. You can go back and watch this. And he asked me,

he asked me a question. I was like, coach, I'm not one of your players, like, and I was just joking with him, like, oh, I'm one of your players. He's like grabbing me. He's asking me questions like I don't have the answers to your defense right now. You know. I wasn't expecting it, But at the end of the day, like it was one of those funny moments that I would want to have on like a lifetime fun reel of like the different things that I've happened doing interviews.

I would put that on there too. What do you find is the most rewarding aspect of interviewing? My favorite I've always said that being in the moments of say in NFL or NBA draft, where you're getting to you've seen the entire arc of a player's career, you know what I mean. They've worked so hard from their freshman year to you know, fighting through. Maybe they had a little bit of trouble, maybe they knew they needed to work harder. Maybe you know, you've heard stories about how

they became even more active in their community. Then they became a captain and they became a leader. You've watched them win all the awards, and then on the day of the draft. I always think back to the NBA Draft two seasons ago, and you're getting you know, you're getting the tears from Zion, even though he knew he was going to be the number one and overall pick.

But it's still I mean, I started in South Carolina as a kid who's just trying to make it to college, you know, and now look at where I am and we're talking about the whole city of New Orleans celebrating just because my name was called, and I'm overcome with emotions.

So one of the greatest things is just to even be there holding the mic, documenting that moment for a player or a person, because we get to be there in those moments that they can remember them forever and they will look back at that and think about that moment and re able to remember some of those emotions and hear how they were feeling, and we get to share that with them. So that's probably the best part

of it. Maria the massive events that have shaken our world, the COVID nineteen, the George Floyd death and the response to it. Black Lives Matter, really has to reshaped the landscape for everybody, including college athletes people of that age, as you go into a new season, the idea of interviewing them with the backdrop of football and a pandemic, and football and a within a battle for social justice.

How do you see, if at all, the equation changing when you talk to young people and the necessity or not of sort of engaging them on those topics or seeing if they have something to say about them. You know, Chris, It's interesting because I feel like we're in a time where we're seeing a little bit of a dynamic or a power shift where the student athletes are really realizing

that their platforms matter. I mean, we've been able to see it with Cuba Hubbard, just one tweet and it creates an instant reaction from the head coach from the University um kyl and Hill Mississippi State. The ability to change the course of history is what the power that some of these student athletes have and they're just now starting to realize it. So I know that when we're interviewing them, especially in long form interviews, these are questions

that are probably going to come up. We're gonna be asking about how the protest was started by the Ohio State Athletic Association and which football player initiated it, and how many conversations were had to make it come to fruition and realizing that every single time they sit down or every time they say something, they have to be using their platform wisely. And I think that it's going to be something that's interesting to watch them suss through

as the season goes on. But I think it's very much still on their minds, and this might be the first time that it really is, and it's just been a trickle down to front effect. We've seen Deshaun Watson, DeAndre Hopkins. If they're tweeting about buildings on campus, then you see more Clemson players, you know, piping up and saying the same things that they too don't feel comfortable.

Or the University of Texas has their athletes putting together a referendum and asking and making requests and demands of their athletic association. That's not going to stop. I don't see that stopping anytime soon. And I see really these athletes holding people accountable moving forward. I think it's a good thing. I think it's great that no longer do they feel stifled, UM, no longer than they feel like maybe their name is also only it can only be

associated with the brand of their school. UM. If they don't feel comfortable, they feel comfortable speaking out. And that's going to be something that we'll we'll have to continue to hear and those are gonna be the stories we're talking about if we do have a season, if we actually do have some competition. But it's going to be interesting. I've been enjoying watching players take hold of their power and I'm trying to shape their narrative a little bit more.

Last thing, we all have our lists. The list includes some coaches who are going to be honest with you, not intimidate you, be expressive. Another list for coaches fall short of that criteria. I'm not gonna ask you who's on the ladder list, because I know you're still interviewing a lot of these same people. But would you acknowledge that those lists exist? And how does it shape the experience of the preparation for you? When when a coach

falls in one of those two camps. Okay, so in the second camp and just straight dread what you're gonna get um and you're like, oh no, that's on the schedule. Okay, here we go. I'm gonna have to I'm gonna put my taffl on on for this one. And then there's coaches like I mean Steve Spurrier, who's not coaching anymore, but I would always love it doesn't matter if it's a pregame, doesn't matter if it's postgame and pathtime, you're gonna get a great quote from spur because he's gonna

be funny. It's probably gonna be a little bit light harder. I don't care if they're down, I don't care if they're up. He's gonna make fun of somebody, and it's just gonna be interesting. Like you gotta have the old

ball coach in the first category. And again, I think when you're in the second you're just very You're trying to keep your questions as neutral as possible, like trying to find ways to not have the attack come at you if it's possible, and uh, also just knowing that no matter what happens, like I'm still a good reporter after this, you gotta build your own confidence for those. Maria Taylor, you thank her so much more than a quote good reporter. She could do it on It's tremendous

to work with. You can follow her at Maria Taylor on Twitter and on Instagram, where she's very active and has a great feed. Rich Eisen, Michigan Man Rich and I became good buddies when he was a star sports center back in the day. Then he became the flagship anchor for the NFL Network, where he's been since two thousand three, hosting all of the biggest events in NFL network, most important sport in America. Also has his own show, The Rich Eyes and Show, which features just a bunch

of entertaining interviews. Every single episode. Rich and I sat down and got to swapping stories where the theme became mistaken identity. Delighted to have my good friend and interview extraordinary man Rich Eyes and join us here. Rich, good to see it. Thanks for taking time. I appreciate it to see you. Chris. It's been too long, man. You do so many interviews and so many great ones, and such a breadth of character as that kind of wander through your show on YouTube and obviously have years of

doing sports interviews. So when we look back they can all be perfectly crafted. They can't all be exactly as we envisioned them. And those awkward moments, which feel terrible in the moment, can can often yield a good story or two. So what leaps to mind as far as one that just went horribly sideways? Oh? Sure, um, let's

let's see. Let's go with one from NFL Network. Early on, you know, we would always, um, you know, try and give as much access as possible, and try and get as many scoops as possible and utilize the NFL's you know, um inside access to our advantage and UM. But you know that that comes at a sort of a negotiation,

just like any other any other news outlet. And I remember Ricky Williams, uh, member of the of the Miami Dolphins at the time, had some sort of storyline involving um, a green plant, UM that he would occasionally light up and UH would pretends give him a certain sensation. UM.

And that's what everyone was talking about. And we had the opportunity to interview his teammate, Junior Sayo at the time, and the question was you know, you know, Junior doesn't want it the entire conversation to be dominated by Ricky, and you know, we don't want you to ask him at all about Ricky. And we're like, look, come on, I mean, this is what everybody's talking about. Uh, we gotta ask one question than a follow up. And you know that's the sort of song and dance. You've been

through this before, Chris. And so the song and dance is finally handled. And because the last thing I'm gonna do is check my journalism degree completely at the door. Um. So we went back and forth a negotiat he's gonna join us, We're gonna talk, and he's he's ready to roll. And he proceeds to call me Rick throughout the entire interview. Uh uh yeah, Rick, Uh well Rick, you know, and you just said you feel like you could correct him.

I don't you know what it's it's like, you know, what do you do year, especially when it was this whole Rigama role setting up that his access was gonna be uh in question the entire time, and he called me Rick throughout the entire and I just couldn't, like, you know, bringing up other than you know, um, how do I. It wasn't even on the radio where you could reset. You know, hey, I've got Junior say I on the Rich Eisen Show was on NFL network. Um,

there really was no artful way to do it. Do you keep you have to keep from laughing were someone else on the set? You know, I was initially piste, you know what I mean, like, okay, like we had to go through this whole Rigamar role just to get him to agree to do it, get the Dolphins to make him available, um, and finally have him do it, and then proceed to call me Rick throughout. I go from totally piste too, thinking is he trolling me on purpose?

We had met before, Um, he knew who I was. Uh. Then it got to the point where you now it works to Chris, it's sort of a happy family if everything is um at your workplace, UM right and done right? And uh so halfway through the producers in the control room, we're having fun. You know, a couple more questions Rick, you know, like getting in my ear and so uh it was It's it turned into a gag to the point where years later, if you get a bunch of us in the room, it's brought up the fame junior

say how Rick eisen um Uh interview on NFL Network. Well, on game day, Lee Corso bless his soul, used to call your fellow Michigan man and legend, Desmond Howard. He called him Dennis one time, and so Desmond became Dennis I mean forever. So that's how it goes. That's it, you know, I mean how it works. Yeah, it's the it's the celebrities who are not in the sports world. You kind of I'm a little more age. Earlier, I've

told the story about eminem which was incredibly awkward. But there was an interview that would have been the worst I've ever done, except it was called off and the interview subject refused to be interviewed buying me on game days, So you ended up being interviewed about twelve feet away on a small set by leak course. So the story starts with backstage to the SPS Radio City. I had been presenting on stage back when ESPN talent were presenters,

back before they got real celebrities to do it. So I'm still kind of in that glow exit the stage, and now I'm side stage with the big curtains, the ropes, the pulleys, the sandbags, in the dark, going one way, coming the other direction, heading for the stage. Is this group of people I can't really see. All of a sudden, out of the dark, a huge and hard punch to my shoulder. I'm started. I look around. It's Burt Reynolds. Come on and know, hey, Birt, I met about Hey Bert. No,

don't you give me that. Don't you give me that? And he's like pointing a finger in my chest. I have no idea what he's talking about. I have no clue why Burt Reynolds has punched me and is now yelling at me. You know what you did? You know what you did? Don't give me that. I have no idea what what I did. It's got to be a mistaken identity. He I didn't. I don't talk about Burt reynolds personal life. He claimed that I had when he was at his lowest point getting divorced with Lonnie Anderson,

I had kicked him while he was down. What his divorce is not a topic that comes up on this show. We talked about him in relation to f s U and he was Lee Corso's college roommates, so we told old stories about Burt, but it was always in this kind of warm, glowing term. So I see him at at a Florida State football game. He will not come on the set of Corso interviews him. They have a

fine time. Later on, I walk over on the sidelines at Dope Campbell Stadium, f SU legend, and then seventy plus year old Burt Reynolds comes over and get some my face again on the sidelines. You don't want to fight a seventy year old man, He said, no, no,

I don't burn. I do not want to fight. I mean it's a lose lose, right, Either Burt Reynolds kicks your ass as a seveny year old man and everybody sees it, or you punch Burt Reynolds living legend on his home field and now you're now you're a villain. I mean, right, how do you There's no win there. I never found out Rich and I figured maybe maybe it was you, Maybe it was Keith, maybe it was Damn.

Maybe it was one of those mistaken in any cases where somebody insulted Burt Reynolds and mentioned his divorce and he thought it was me, and he never forgave me. You never, you never found out what happened, I asked, course, so I said, would you please ask him what in the world he's talking about? I have no He would never tell me if finally came out that it was about his divorce, and I just I never mentioned Burt reynolds divorce. That's ridiculous. The only I love trading these

stories here. The only thing that compares that, you know, I albeit, you know he didn't star in Cannonball run Um. But I'm on the set at NFL Total Access at the Super Bowl in Tampa between the Cardinals and the Steelers, and we're on live TV. And joining us next is Adrian Wilson, the Pro Bowl safety of the NFC each champion Cardinals, and the head coach Ken wizzen Hunt. And if you recall, that team that made the Super Bowl had a dreadful final few weeks of the season, dreadful.

We were, you know, NFL Network. We saw them at the Thanksgiving night game in Philadelphia where they got waxed a short week trip. This is back when they would take West Coast teams and travel them on a short week. They didn't care and and they got waxed. And then they would go to New England and they got waxed there, they got totally waxed, but they turned it on in the playoffs and then made a magical run to the Super Bowl Arizona versus Pittsburgh. And there we are. We're

welcoming on Adrian Wilson and um Ken Wizzen Hunt. And it's one of those things that we used to do all the time, which was introduced them going to break. Here they are coming on the set and shaking their hands and and I would introduce them. Here they are, and there's Adrian and here's a coach wizen on and wizzing on stairs through me and on the air just as soon as we thankfully this wasn't caught on the air, he looks at me because I heard what you said,

and didn't shake my hand and sat down. And we're in the commercial break. I now have three minutes to solve this mystery before I'm on the air live with a clearly hostile guest who happens to be the head coach of one of the teams in the Super Bowl and his you know, defensive thumper on the back end, who's staring a hole through me because clearly Wizzen hunt brought him up to speed on whatever concocted thing I might have said. So of course I'm going spending the

first minute thinking to my what do I say? What did I do? And I'm I didn't say anything. So I look at coach during the break there's now ninety seconds till we're back, and I say to him, I'm like, all right, I'll buy Coach, like, what what did I say? And he goes, you said we were the worst team to ever make the super Bowl, the worst playoff team to ever make the super Bowl. And I think, in my head, I'm like, first of all, that doesn't sound

like anything I would say. I'm not like a hot tache artist or and it's not anything I would say. And then off, you know, on my MICUs open to the control room. Here's what he's saying. They get in my ear. They said, Chris collins Worth said that on inside the NFL on HBO, and I turned to him, um, like, Chris collins Worth said that, Coach, not me. I would never say that. And he's like, are you sure you didn't say that? Three too? Want go back live on

NFL network. Everybody here we are holy crap, Like he didn't threaten to hit me, but they take it very personally. I mean, they take that kind of stuff very personally. There's been plenty of instances in production meetings, not not live interviews, thankfully, where the coaches are staring right through you and Matt as hell about something you said on a broadcast, but thankfully that's not live TV. And it

went okay, though he didn't. He didn't. He got over leave an interview or whatever, and then you know, as he's leaving, he needed more convincing. And I said to him, look, I if I would own up to it, and and if I'm going to be tagged with it, I'd like collins Worth salaries and amount, you know salary, and and multiple Emmy awards that he goes along with it. You know, I'll take both of them. But I didn't say it. But the mistaken had did anything. We all get that.

We all get that mistaken thing, right. I've had people say, you know, the insist that you're Steve Levy, Okay. Then I've had people insist that I'm John Saunders, Okay, that's harder to believe it, or insists that yes you are, you're Mike Terico don't tell me you're not. No, trust me as a friend, but we're not. We're not the same person. I mean, Rhees Davis and I get get mistaken, so I get blamed for things he said, and vice versa.

But there was a much more of a resemblance. But yeah, the fan and and or interview subject mistaken at anything is frustrating. But I'd rather, you know, even though my story involved a Super Bowl coach, I would rather have a mistaken identity at the hands of of Burt Reynolds. You sure he wasn't like so addle minded he thought like you were Dom Deloise or I don't know who you're talking you're talking about, you know, Paul crew That I mean the mean Machine, the Longest Yard, original one,

I mean smoking the bandit Westbound and Down. We're gonna We're gonna do what they say can't be done. I mean, I'm a I'm a huge fan. I'll tell you this story. So the uh one year UM. This was back when at the Pro Football Hall of Fame where they allowed UM presenters to speak. Okay, so when you go into Pro Football Hall of Fame, you have a presenter, and they used to let that person have a speech um

until um. Steve Young went in and his dad Grit introduced him, and literally Michael Jordan's style, spent his entire speech running down every slight his son had received in his life, from his kindergarten teacher to Joe Montana, I mean the whole thing. It was like an absolute airing of grievance, as a festivus, without the feats of strength, and and it went on forever and ever and ever.

So they asked presenters for the next year to write out their speech and and thus it would be um, you know, vetted um, and you would know how long the speech was going to be. A few people did it, others didn't. This was the year though, that the presenter for Ralph Wilson, the owner of the Bills, was selected to be our buddy, Chris Berman. Berman couldn't be host

and presenter, they up they upgraded me to host. I actually hosted the Pro Football Hall of Fame ceremony because Burman did his thing with Hey, every let's all circle of Lackey's right. So there were two others who went in in that class. They were Bullet Bob Hayes of the Cowboys and Derek Thomas of the Chiefs. They were both posthumously inducted, but the presenters were allowed to speak on their behalf and were told please keep those speeches

to five minutes. Just five minutes. Thus, Bullet Bob Hayes was presented by Roger Staubach, Hall of Famer navy man did it right down to the second, literally five minutes. You could click it that it's done. After five minutes, sat down. Derrick Thomas was introduced by the time General manager of the Chiefs, Carl Peterson, who proceeded to speak perhaps five minutes for every sack Derek had in that

seven sack game. And it went on and on and on on to the point where I, as host, was able to get up during the speech, go in the back to find sweet Joe Horrigan, who was the long time UM VP of Exhibits and UM and UH and Communication who put on this event, to find him to ask him what should I do? What should I do about this? He's like, I don't know. I mean, we don't have like this long cane to come, you know,

Like we are like what do we do? And I'm like, all right, I guess I'll go out there and hope this ends soon as soon as I turned, staring me right in the face, sort of like Burt Reynolds like did to you without the finger, And the accusation was Roger star Back, and he goes rich. I was old, I couldn't speak longer than five minutes for Bob. How is Carl able to talk as long as he's talking about Derek? I followed the five minute rule? Did Carl never get that five minute rule? And of course I

have nothing to do with this. I'm just the m C of this because Berman was circling the wagons for Ralph Wilson. And I'm staring at this thinking to myself two things. One, you know, can I work blue on this on this pod? Okay, I'm thinking to myself, holy sh it, Like Roger star Back is pissed at me.

I don't even know what to say to him. And the other one is the eight year old who had watched the summer all Brookshire calling of the games of star Back under center and the offensive lineman, you know, getting up and down and watching in my basement in Staten Island, New York. And I'm thinking, I said, holy sh it, this is Roger star there was a Heisman

Trophy winner. I've done it for twenty six years and there's only one where the voice the year, the year piece that connects to you to the truck, which is uh was parked way outside, two yards away. But first they they suggested, then they urged, and then they demanded that I walk out there and hook him. And the acceptance speech by this highestman trophy winner, which you just don't do. I mean, the show is gonna run long, over the top of the hour. Sometimes it's boxing as

it now. I forget what it was that particular year, but the executives got very nervous because this speaker went on and he was crying, talking about his family, telling stories. You never know. Sometimes you think these guys might be really brief. I wasn't sure how long Joe Burrow was gonna go this most recent year. He went on forever. It was beautiful speech. This was Reggie Bush, and Reggie Bush went on and on and on talking about his family.

Was tearful, and I that's their moment, Richie. You cannot walk out there and hook a guy. You can go to the edge and maybe kind of like try to get his peripheral vision you can. You cannot approach the podium or grab him or end it under any circumstances. That's kind of the Now they put the speech earlier, before the top of the hour to allow for that. But I'll be damned, I was gonna walk out there and end he had to give the heisman back. But

you know that's another story. Rich and I also got talking about this sometimes thankless roll of m c at these various galas. Now he's hosted the NFL Hall of Fame Jacket Dinner. This is where the new Hall of Famers get fitted with that yellow jacket for the first time. It can be emotional. It's a big deal. One of those long evenings though with the multi tier days and

sometimes the program can get a little bit unwieldy. It's also the night where the broadcaster gets a moment or and the sportswriter gets a moment annually before they get into the Hall of Fame. And Myron Cope, the long time voice of the Steelers, was being inducted into the broadcasters version of the Hall of Fame, the Rosella. You know, Myron is the guy who created a terrible talent, terrible

the Steelers and you know it. And Myron was doing his speech, and I think Myron had been overserved, is the only way to describe it, because he used his speech two call out the hall for not putting certain members of the Steel Curtain team in the Hall of Fame, as if they've been overlooked, you know, like of all they only had a dozen have been there. Let correct me, like like you're you're down, You're down to a second string linebacker pretty much you know about that should be in.

And he was talking about Andy Russell, who was a linebacker not very well known for the Steelers. Andy Russell should be in the hall. And the thing that really he went on and on and on and on, and I'm wondering, you know when did what? You know, how how long is this really gonna go? And um He then called out that certain people don't deserve to be in over Andy Russell, including that year's UH inductee part of the group, none other than Western Pennsylvania's finest Dan Marino.

I swear to God, said Dan Marino's getting in and Andy Russell's not like that's something wrong and dance like this is big night. He's about to get his jacket he's cutting into the rubber chicken. People start booing and they were ready to throw stuff at the stage, at which point there's a phone in front of me that doesn't ring, but there's a light. Yeah, mimics the ring

because it can't have an audible ring. That's lit only once in the near twelve years that I've hosted this event, and it was on that moment from again the aforementioned

Joe Horgan saying what's going on up there? Like you gonna get him off, you know, And like I literally went from the top down to the bottom and kind of like stood next to him and looked at him in the same way that you're referring to, in the same way that I guess you would look at somebody who's still sitting at your table with the bill paid and dessert already eaten, and you're fifteen minutes past your reservation time that you start staring at the table like

you know it's time. And I was so close to give him like a little tap on his elbow when he finally did subside, and sure enough he sent an apology letter to me. What about Dan Marino? That's great stuff. The one time the bat phone rings of the NFL Hall of Fame Jackets ceremony there. That's awesome. Iron Cope. May he rest in peace. Rich always makes me laugh, very dear and supportive friend. You can follow him on Twitter, where he's got more than one point two million followers

at Rich Eyes and the same handle on Instagram. Okay, anchor like in this four person relay, Jeremy Schap proud to say that they have covered many of the same events as je me World Cup, Wimbledon, College Championship Games.

He's the host of ESPNS Outside the Lines, and he's sixty the Sporting Life radio show and podcast New York Times best selling author for the awards We don't have enough time even on a double album podcast, the Peabody Award, Edward AR Murraw Award, Robert F. Kennedy Award for reporting on social justice and human rights. He's known for his way he interviews, and we'll get to Jeremy's sit down

with Bob Knight and Mike Tyson, among others. But I asked him ever been surprised caught off guard by an answer in sort of a one of the mill interview. I remember once I want to I don't want to name him um at this moment because he, uh, it would be embarrassing for him. But I remember, just off the top of my head, I was talking to a famous basketball player and I was I was with him, uh um, not at a hotel, not in a public place, and his wife was nearby, and he had done some

controversial things. And I asked him, you know, all the stuff that's been going on recently, uh, you know the last few years, you know what, what's your biggest regret? And he looked at me and he kind of you know, was it soda whisper says getting married, as though whispering was going to make it less offensive to the other party involved in his marriage. Right, No, he just didn't want her to hear because she was about five feet

from us. So I was like, oh, next night, I asked Jeremy about the other end of the intensity spectrum interview that he did deep in the interior of Brazil with the widow of our Turo Gotti. Thunder Gotti was one of my favorite fighters ever. Loved to watch his bouts. He died in Brazil under mysterious circumstances. So Jeremy through the assignment that put him in a very charged situation. Certainly one of the ones I remember most vividly, UM

was interviewing our Truro Gotti's widow. And I don't know if you remember the thunder Gotti is one was one of my favorite fighters and met a tragic and somewhat mysterious demise. Yeah, so we went to investigate his wife. Initially had been arrested after he was found dead in their hotel room in a resort near Recife. And you know he she was from Brazil, and she'd been arrested. Uh,

But after a few weeks they freed her. UM and I went to interview her, and I guess we knew that she had, you know, shortly before he died, she'd got to see a divorce lawyer and they'd had his will rewritten all things you know that Um, you know, she obviously wouldn't want to be talking about in that moment. And I started asking her about it, and and we're

interviewing her at I think a relative's home. It was about a five hour drive from Bellow Horizonte and and we found her and she agreed to do the interview. And I think we started the interview at like eleven o'clock at night, something like that. And you know, when I got to that stuff, she got very upset. She

got very upset. And you know, you know it's hard now all these years later remember was yelling or screaming or just but she she got she got very upset with me when I brought up to her asked her about going to see a divorce lawyer shortly before our turo died. So you know, but that's what you're paid to do. You're paid to ask those questions. That's an exceptance situation. The middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere in Brazil, asking a boxer's widow about his

demise is about as challenging as could get. I'm not surprised that that got fraught. It got it got, it got very fraught. They're all kinds of moments and then you know, there are you know, I've had a few run ins with guys named Bobby uh Night and Fisher. Those those are interesting and and um to say the least.

I mean, let let's start with Night. Obviously, everybody remembers Jeremy the famous showdown interview which you knew there would be friction going in back it's been twenty years since that, if you can, the passage of time. But but you had had to run out, you tell me before before that with Night, that was not your first encounter with the general, No, it was. It was actually so I you know, he and my dad were friends, you know that. Um. You know, I don't know what it says about either

of them really, um, but they were ends. And and so I've known Bob Knight. It's not like he came over the house for dinner and stuff like that. But you know, I go to Indianapolis with my dad when he was doing peace and we'd spend time with him, and we'd hang out with him a little, and he was always very generous with his time with me. Here i am, I'm twenty three years old, and I've got Bob Knight in the chair, and I'm I'm I'm gonna be tought. You know, I'm gonna ask him all the

hard questions. So you know, I'm sure I asked him some easy questions for the New York Market about Eric Anderson, who at the time was playing for the Knicks. And then it's like the story in those days, like n was Bob Knight's mellowing. So I figured, I gotta ask, is Bob Knight mellowing? Is he still you know, the hard ass of you know, season on the brink, fame

and all that stuff. And so I asked him, I somehow someone you know, the courage to squeak a question out of my voice box about it, and uh, he deflects, But I'm like, I'm I'm going for the follow up. So I had no idea what it was. Now, Chris, He's been thirty years, but it was a follow up. And I'll never forget the response from Bob. I do have to give him credit. I was kind of a master class and condescension. He doesn't just say you're a moron and I'm done with you. He he says, I'll

never forget the exact words. You were doing very well up until now, but now you're in over your head. And I think he's I think he punctuates it. I think I don't, don't. This is bullshit. This is all bullshit. And he starts threading the microphone out from under the sweater, and you know, my heart's racing, you know, and pounding in my chest, and I'm like, oh no, I just mean you know it's you know, I just feel like it's a topic whatever kind of you know, um justification.

I kind of summoned to get him back in the chair. And he gets back in the chair. You know, the the the tantrum has died off, the intimidation UH performance is over, and we resumed the interview. But that one got more heated than the one in UH that we did on ESPN about seven eight years later. At one point in that famous live interview, Night got agitated and aggressive because he felt Jeremy was interrupting him. Then he got demeaning, delivering what he might have thought was the

ultimate put down. After a long pause, he told Jeremy, you got a long way to go to be as good as your dad. You better keep that in mind. That got very personal, and you knew it was going to get potentially personal coming in because he held your dad in high regard, and he he went right after you, and and of course ended up looking pretty small for it. And and you handled it brilliantly and have to be proud of that because you didn't just land the plane

in in turbulent error. You ended up you know, doing I would I would imagine what you set out to do. But that had to be again you said, you said your pulse had to be going during that. Oh my god, it was nerve racking because it was um. As you know in these situations, Chris, you know, it's um, particularly

that one. That one's unique and I think I think it's it's probably different from anything else you've done in ESPN in the sense of it's confrontational interview obviously with a famously cantankerous that's an understatement guy, and it was live. You know, there was no margin for error. Um. That

never happens in those big news making interviews. You know, it's always a hotel suite and you've got time to kind of relax and get into a moment, and build momentum and establish a report during the course of the interview, all those things that you can't do with the limitations of live TV. Not only UM. You know, every question has to be to the point, and but you can't waste any time. We had an allotted amount of time.

Do you think that night knew because it was live, there's gonna be no editing out what he was going to say. So he seized on that and exploited it. That was why he insisted on that format and UM, and that's why we did it that way. So it certainly increased the degree of difficulty. And you know, I had I was thirty one. This was by far the biggest thing I've ever done in my career, probably still is.

Maybe that's a sad statement, but it's true. And you know, everybody was watching, and there had been UM, there was a lot of pressure. And I prepared, you know, and I talked to a lot of people. UM, and I prepared, But you know, there's nothing that can really prepare you for that moment. You mentioned other eccentric figures Bobby Fisher and Mike Tyson, not usually lumped together in the same sentence, but you have had famous interviews with both of them.

When you're dealing with some world champions from Brooklyn Chris, there is a connection. They are linked, I stand corrected. Other than that, I don't know. I don't know about Bobby Fisher's facial tattoos or or or different kind of warfare, different kind of battle that he was involved in, also mental. But but those two guys, where you know that they're eccentric, to say the least, could be especially in Tyson's case volatile and that any word or even inflection could kind

of send it in a certain direction. I mean, what, what do you remember most about the the kind of the charged atmosphere around talking to Tyson always interesting talking to Mike if that we're doing a show now, we're putting together a show, um which is kind of a compendium of Mike Tyson pieces and interviews that I've done over the years, and so I've been thinking about it lately, and he's certainly the guy WHOVE interviewed the most over the years, and he's certainly the guy that I thought

was the most compelling and the most willing to kind of explore his own psyche and to let you attempt to um in a way as an amateur analyze him, which which may which is why you know, Mike Tyson interviews are interesting, and you know people people will say, well, you know, Mike Tyson is a vo little god guy. Obviously we've seen rage over the years, and we've seen moments like that in interviews from him in press conferences.

But with Mike, I I never had the feeling that he was going to blow up on me because we had this rapport going back a long way now at the beginning, m you know, twenty years ago, maybe maybe I did think that was gonna But there was just something about the way that um Tyson I interacted where I felt like he respected you more if you asked him the tough questions. Did he try to intimidate you? Because intimidation is a theme these interviews. I know that

Night tries to intimidate people. I looked about eleven years old, interview him a few times early on, and it was palpable. He was trying to intimidate. He tries to intimidate a room full of parters. Mike. My My attitude always was, well, if you break down the reasons why you should not be intimidated, they are a can he get you fired? No? Is he going to punch you know, because that could be a career ending Now, Tyson, you don't know, he

might just haul off and try to if it. If it, if you catch him in the wrong day with the wrong question, I would never get onto. I never considered that a possibility with Mike. I gotta tell you there were a lot of like average major league pitchers who I thought were much more sensitive to tough questions than Mike Tyson was. And I think and it's not a I shouldn't say it's a ruling boxing because I've met a lot of fighters as well. I've covered fights a

lot who who are sensitive to what you ask. But there there are fighters who I think what they do is so hard. What they do literally is risking their lives when they get in the ring. And so for a guy like Mike Tyson, I think, you know, he can be set off. We've seen that in certain ways.

But but I think again, because we had this rapport and because he respected my father, Um, he he kind of came um to our interactions with a different viewpoint, and um, you know, I thought, you know, it was interesting though, because again I've interviewed him dozens of times in many different situations, after big fights, before big fights, in this second and third acts of his life, all that stuff, and Ralph, initially, I think I was more

confrontational with him, and you know, I wanted people to remember that that you know that Mike um had done horrible things and he was a convicted rapist, and and that you know, it wasn't all just fun and games, which is what it's kind of become and I remember though, Ralph Wiley, the late great Ralph Wiley, was a mentor to me too. He said, you know, I'm watching what you're doing with Mike. And Ralph wrote beautifully about boxing,

as he wrote about so many things. He said, I watched you know, your interactions with Mike, and all I want to tell you is, you know, you should you should try to make an effort to understand him so that your audience understands him. You know, I understand you know, being the tough guy and confrontational and all that, but um,

you're supposed to be the interviewer. Um. And you know, he told me basically bear that in mind, and it it kind of shaped the way that not only I approached Mike in the future, but a lot of interviewing. You know, there are moments where there are tough questions you have to ask, and you've got to nail it

down and you've got to be willingness. But you also, you know, we're dealing a lot with people, um, whose lives are interesting to our audience, and you want to get them to a place where they're going to talk in an emotionally honest way about themselves. And sometimes Obviously,

confrontation is not going to produce that response. And so, um, I think over the years, if if if you were to stack up all those moments I've had with Mike Tyson in interviews again, dozens of them, I think, Um, you found that we found places where he really does reveal himself. That's wonderful advice that Wiley gave you that because we're so used to the sparks and the heat coming from confrontation, but just taking the time to to learn about him a little bit as much as you could.

And we're in times right now where we're so divisive and you're trying to connect with people and understand where they are. And I think without awareness, there can be no empathy or compassion, there can be no greater depth of understanding, which is what an interview really should be about. That that's just good advice and I wish more people employed that. And it's great that you took that lesson from from the prep for that interview and applied it

later on. Yeah. No, and and again there have been moments though, I mean where there have been flare ups. I interviewed him again, This is all fresh in my mind because we've been talking about this project. But you know, I don't want to bore you with the whole details. But I was interviewing him when he was starring on Broadway and the one man showed that Spike Lee was directing we're talking about And the story at that time

was it's three years after the hangover. Mike Tyson, you know, the baddest man on the planet, the guy who you know went to prison convicted of rate was now, you know, a funny man, and he was the star that one of the stars of this franchise. And people were um

processing their relationship with Mike Tyson in different ways. I'm asking about this and we you know, I talked about, hey, you know, how does it happen like that you were convicted rapists become this guy that you know, people love to have on late night talk shows and laugh and all that stuff, you know, And he's and he you know, and he said, well, my lawyer was and he started talking about Vince Fuller, who had been his lawyer, and and um I heard him say this many times. He said,

you know, Vince Fuller was a terrible lawyer. He was a tax attorney. And Don King set me up with this terrible lawyer. There's no way I could win words basically those words in so many words. And I said, look, Mike, I've heard you say this a lot. Vince Fuller was not a tax attorney. He was a extremely eminent, prominent criminal defense attorney. He defended John Hinckley when John Hinckley attempted to assassinate the President of United States killed the

police officer, I believe it, and paralyzed James Brady. And and he won um acquitto by reason of insanity. You know, he's not a tax attorney. And nobody, the best of my own if nobody had ever called him on that before. And I was sick of him misrepresenting it. And he said, I don't care what he was, and he starts, you know, getting very angry um about my pointing out that Vince Fuller was not a tax attorney, the application being that

he was wrongly convicted representation. Don King had had messed up the whole thing by getting him that attorney anyway. So there are moments like that, and then they're you know, they're unpredictable moments Like I told you, this story wasn't an interview, but it was before the way In for the Clifford Etten fight in two thousand three, The Waynes in Tunica, Mississippi. The fight was in Memphis, and I'd

seen Mike a couple of weeks earlier in Vegas. I got out to interview him as like a preview for this fight, his first fight in a year since Lennox Lewis laid him out. And and I come into the hotel or into the parking circle. I get out of the car with our producer Louie b Lynn, and first person we bumped into his Mike, and he's with his entourage and he's in an incredibly friendly moved like he was often very friendly with me, but even like over the top. Uh, you're my guy. It's great to see you.

Anything you want, Jeremy, you know you want to come up to the suite, you know, are you thirsty? Like literally? And I'm like, that's my my things so much. I gotta get ready for the live show. I'd love to interview you, you know, during the way and of course whatever you want. You're my guy. And I say to him, I say, Mike, I gotta ask you. I saw you a couple of weeks ago. Everything seemed fine, you seem to be in a good frame of mind, and and

you went off and you tattooed half your face. This is like a few days after the tattoo, and they had to postpone the fight because it was healing all that stuff, as I recall, And I said, Mike, why did you do it? He said, oh, you know, and he got serious, like I hate myself. I hate looking at myself. I don't want to be reminded of who I am. I mean, it was like this deep psychological stuff and he was going down the self loathing path at that point that um, you know, I just wasn't

prepared to deal with in that moment. I was like, you know, well we'll talk later on the show. And you know, he's got all these all these guys standing around him, and it just seemed like a weird moment to have that talk. So I say to him, though, you know, what what does it mean? Though, Mike, what is the tattoo? I want to know? I want to be able to tell people. He said, well, it's a you know, it's um a New Zealand thing. Um. I don't know if he's said, well, yeah, it's a Mauori thing.

He and I said, I say, oh, it's a Maori thing from New Zealand. And he's he says, yeah, I say, and I think. I say, like, well, David Tooa's um from New Zealand. You know, the fighter David two is from New Zealand, the heavyweight that people thought he would fight with. Something like that. And he said, I don't give up blank about David Toua, just like that, I don't give a about David Toua. I'm like, okay, he like he did like a one a d I was like, oh my god. So Bobby Fisher, So yeah, that's a

weird one. So the Bobby Fisher thing is the most intense experience I've had asking questions of another human being. And it wasn't an interview per se and the normal sense because it was a press conference, but it kind of devolved into an interview one on one between the two of us, and a long story short, Bobby Fisher, the Great World Chess Champion, fugitive from justice. Two thousand five, he becomes a citizen of Iceland, which allows him to

be freed from prison in Japan. I fly to Iceland because I'm hoping there might be a moment as he's getting off the plane where I can talk to him, and then he's going to go back into seclusion. It's he's been the white whale for generations now of people in the business, and not just in sports. Why he never defended the championship? What went wrong with him? Why shut up all these people? Why says all these hateful things?

And and uh, to my uh, to my enduring surprise, he has a press conference the day after he gets to Iceland. I've seen him at the airport the night before, and then it becomes just this confrontation between me and him, and I really thought going into it. You know, he's he's been acting so radically for so many years. And I mentioned my father to him the night before, with whom he had been very close from the age of twelve. I'm not sure if he remembered him. I'm not sure

what do you remember? But of course a chess champion you have to have an extraordinary memory, you have to have one of the great memories. To be the greatest chess player ever, you have to have almost super human powers and memory. Anyway, he did, and it became his very ugly confrontation, and he said anti Semitic things and uh, you know, just wild things. And I was put in a position where I had to, you know, I kept

asking him questions. Meanwhile, the rest of the press corps there from all over the world, they're asking him these totally innocuous, anodyne questions about whether he's gonna learn the language, if he's gonna go whale watching. You know nothing about none of the real questions. I'm not making it up, none of them. And so I'm put in the position of being the only one and m and the setting in needon have been awkward had you been given a

one on one interview. You you're pressed in now into having to do this in a situation where for you and for him it becomes increasingly awkward because you've got the world press sort of looking on and as spectators to this evolving train wreck. And it got very ugly and firm point like I couldn't just continue asking questions. I had to basically defend my family's on or if you want to put it that uh that way, um and uh, but you were bringing around a whale watching

at the end, or did you? And when Yeah, that was Bobby by the way, Yeah, will you be eating the minky whales like everyone else here. I hope you enjoyed this debut double album. I appreciate and applaud your stamina. I love it if you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

or wherever you get your podcasts. And I'm so grateful to Jeremy shapperd Chuse, and Maria Taylor and really guys for sharing their stories, and to this podcast co executive producer Jennifer Dempster and the producer Jason Whitehill for his ideas and editing skills. I'll talk to you again soon. M