MIKE TIRICO (NBC): 19TH HOLE

game in the career of Kobe Bryant. God Rest his soul, Kobe's last game. It was a game that it was me Hub and Lisasualter's got to call in l A and Kobe sat with us for a half hour at five ashof as our producer Eddie had covered Kobe all went back in his early days. Uh. We sat with with Kobe for like twenty five to thirty minutes and talked about career, life, everything else. And he really he said, I don't know what I have in me tonight. I

don't you know. And he ended up having an incredible game that you know, you were reminded the mentality of the athlete and their mental approach to He knew exactly how much he had in the tank, and if he got going, he could he could get or sixty in the tank. Right. What he did exactly exactly. You you be said, you know, I hadn't I had it. I had a dream. I was shaven, and I remembered my dream. I thought, I thought Kobe could have like a fifty

sixty point kind of game. And he threw that out like in the first quarter, and Kobe is going there. I told you, I told you it was. It was one of those. But it's the athletes that the athletes who are so smart, and that's what I've learned to appreciate about Lebron. He talked to Lebron about basketball. Oh my gosh, it's a master class. He sees so much. That's why he's an unbelievable assist guy, rebounder, and he's made so many teams so much better over the years.

And that's what I feel so fortunate, is not just being able to call the events that these folks have been involved with, but to hear what makes them so great. There's a lot more ahead and the privilege of covering some of the greatest sports legends of all the time. Also, there were some surprising turns in our conversation, like the

search for killboard. We talked funny about our twenty five years working together at ESPN ABC, where of course Mike was the voice of Monday Night Football, covered college sports, golf, tennis, posted World Cups, and he reminded me we actually hosted Sports Center together a few times, and he's got a

story he loves to tell about that. Of course, at NBC Sports, since two thousand six, Team Mike has done everything He's called NFL games, hosted Football Night in America, covered the Triple Crown, racist the Stanley Cup, among other things, and of course is now the prime time host for the Winter and Summer Olympics. This was great fun. We got to talk about why we're so grateful getting to

do the thing we love to do. Caught up with Mike in America's most famous town for golf, and now Mike Terko reporting from Augusta, which is a fabled place for all who love and respect the sport of golf as you do. So thank you for taking time, my old friend and your master's prep to join us here. I guess maybe I'm doing you a favor because this is your quarantine day and Augustus, I'm giving you away to kill an hour as you as you sit in

that lovely hotel room. Listen, this might seem remedial for you, But for someone that has a love and a passion and a tremendous feel for the sport of golf, doing what you've done so well for so many years, to someone who doesn't have that stuff, describe the magic of that place and the magic of the sport of golf from an announcer's perspective, Why does it stir your blood so deeply? Yeah? So, so let's just start with the

basic separation the four majors. The other three have been in rotating locations, So the Open, the British Open, the Open Championship, however you want to refer to, rotates around what's called the ROTA nine different courses in the in the British Isles, the U S Openers. We know some years at Pebble Beach, some of your Shandekock, Bethpage, Black Oakmont, Oakland Hills, moves all over the country right Tory Pines. This year the PGA Championship scene, great courses around the US.

This is the one of the four majors that comes back to the same place, so it starts there. Second, it's the timing of it. It is April, it's springtime in Georgia, and absent your pollen allergies, there's no place better to be. I mean, everything is Do you have allergies? Do you have allergies? Of the flowers there? I'm I'm a little bit. I'm not bad. Some people really get knocked out with the oute. The pollen is so thick

and heavy because the blooming, it just it just everything explodes. Uh. In this a couple of weeks stretch of early April. So what what you've set? And this is honestly it's pre climate change because now it's warmer in the Northeast and the Midwest in April and late March than it used to be. Uh. But in the days where you're used to cold weather this time of year, you're just getting that first fifty degree day, sixty degree day you

turn on AUGUSTA, and it looks amazing. I always challenge people when they come here, if they're lucky enough to be a guest in any way, or a patron who comes to the event, go go find go find a cigarette, but go find a piece of trash, go find anything out of place, and you almost never can. It is the most pristine, beautifully landscaped and manicured property. So even if you're not a softie for just the visuals, this

place is the most beautiful, breathtaking, captivating place. And I think the last part is the shots that happened here over and over. It's the first major of the year, so we've waited eight months usually since the end of the major championship golf season, so there's pressure on the players. It's your chance to make history. And the best players,

Nicholas Palmer, player Woods Watson, they've all one here. They've all hit memorable shots going back to Sneed and Gene Sara's and so it's all of that in one big place. And when you come here, you enter through the gates and it just feels different. There is a reverence to the history for the history. Uh, there's an importance of

what has happened here over time. Uh, there's the feeling that when you come here you have a chance to be remembered forever for what you do Bubba Watson hit a shot from way right of the tenth hole in a playoff that is forever talked about. So whenever anybody comes to the Mass they walked down by ten. I think Bubba hit it here. No, it was here. Now you hooked it around this tree. So those things last. That doesn't happen to the other golf tournaments in the

same way. So all of that together makes it special. And the thing I would say, Chris, for people, it's hard to get here as a player, a caddy, a member of the media, a member, or an invited guest. But once you get here, you're treated so well. There's no sporting event where the media is treated better the players anything else. And you come here, if you're lucky enough to come here as a guest of a member and play, you're not treated any better anywhere else in

the world. So it really is the finest of everything when you get here. And that's why I think when we all get a chance to come back, you feel you feel like it's a special week. You really do. I've never been to the Master just the biggest sporting event in the world. I've never been, and I've had a chance. I won a charity silent auction a couple of times. I was all set up to go, couldn't

make it one of these years. So I'll have to have to experience that, because even though I don't feel golf in that way, I will never feel the same about golf as I do about tennis or other sports. I think I would get drawn in by just the things that you described, and so I look forward to doing that at some point. And I won't drink a mint, Julia, because that's a waste of beautiful bourbon. But I'm gonna enjoy the rest of the whole Master's experience, so I will.

I will say that right to your heart, and having covered it with you for five years, I know what what a what a fondness and affection you have for the All England Club for Wimbledon, very very similar to the point that they are private clubs that have a very special membership, and they open their doors for the fortnite for two weeks at Wimbledon for a week plus here now with the drive chip and putt for the kids and the women's amateur that happens this Saturday before

the Masters. Now they open their doors for ten days in the in the Augustus case. Now for the rest of the world, and when somebody competes, it's a little different. As you know, the players have a different feel when they walk onto the grounds of the All England Club. Uh. They come out of that tunnel to the left that you're a great bunker and they walk onto center court. It's the same feeling when the players walk down from

the clubhouse to the first tea in Augusta. And the clubs have actually shared uh practices, hosted each other uh during their events as well some members from the clubs, so they know and recognize each other's similarities. And I think if you got here you would feel those Wimbledon kind of vibes that you get when you go to the All England Club. I think you're right. The difference is one is tennis and one is golf, and golf for me as a love hate relationship, you know, I

I play it badly. I think you have to be a decent or at least an enthusiastic golfer to announce it. It's not true of other sports. You don't have to have played competitive basketball to call a basketball game or football game. I think too too it helps in tennis for sure. That that I played tennis golf, I'm not nearly a good enough golfer or experience of golfer. I could never do what you do and the and the best golf announcers do, so I don't even try to

venture into that world. In fact, I came across my golf bag here. It's in the laundry room. It's kind of touched behind the dryer. I saw it the other day. It's got an inch thick cake of dust on it. That's how long I've been retired from golf. I kind of I wrestle it. It weighs a hundred and fifty pounds. Obviously, I've got six or seven more clubs than you're allowed

to have, three pairs of shoes, a thousand balls. Because I lose some money during a round, I'm gonna get it out and and sort of like gently unretired on the driving range. But but we have never played golf together, which is your loss because you could have taken money from me. But but I've seen you play golf o No, not at the Jimmy V. Have you not at the Jimmy V, which I'm sure you did, But I remember. This is like one of those like why do you remember?

That can make me look worse than I already made myself. Look, I'm thinking unless, unless, I unless, I imagine this. Didn't you do a pie in Cincinnati playing golfic? Yes, but it only can I only had We didn't play a full round. We had some shots. He hit some drives and and I actually didn't choke. See at the Jimmy V which he played and enjoyed, Charles Barkley brought his entire gallery to my tea box off of their green

when they were adjacent. I Mike, I melted down. I can now describe choking in a way that I never could have before, because it was the worst choking experience, athletic or otherwise, of my life. He falls on the ground, laughing with a thousand people because I Scottish a tea shot that gets a foot off the ground, hits off, bounces off, the ball, cleaner goes and and my group is mortified. I have to like try to play that off. You put on that brave face, but you're dying inside,

dying so badly. I mean that event, that event, and it's heyday. It's funny because I was telling people about watching the NC Tournament, right, and uh, watching teams and Cinderella's and all that. And now my on twenty or daughters. You know, she's a teenager. She's in college now. So so I've got two kids who have experienced the tournament and loved the tournament for growing up with it, and I'm kind of taken them back to, well, when did

the tournament really take off? Right? He started talking about the magic and Larry Bird game in seventy nine, realist, Oh my god, how long ago is that? And we started talking with the Jimmy v Game and the V Foundation and how all of us, uh really had a wonderful time. And I just started telling someone. I don't think it was the kids, just the stories about Jimmy V uh in his last couple of years working in Bristol. And you did a lot of those studio shows and

John Saunders did. I was doing more radio. I was doing I'll Never Forget V's last night in Connecticut. He felt really good after the show came up to the news room hung in the back of the old news room at ESPN with when you stepped up to the news room, it was like on that one step up for all the cubicles. Right. V stood in the back and held court with Saunders, and I was doing the two thirty am I Sports Center with Chris Myers half

hour at that time. Uh, it was it may be the worst show I've ever done, because all we did from twelve o'clock when when they came up until one thirty two was listening to V tells stories and of all the good people we've been around, Uh, nobody captivated the room and told stories like Valvano. And that's why the Jimmy V. Celebrity Golf Classic after he passed and Raleigh was one of the most enjoyable weekends because it truly, Chris, It's like one of those rare things that actually was

in the spirit of the person. Somebody says, then let's do this in the spirit of so and so that weekend was in the spirit of Jimmy V. And that's some of them, some of my most enjoyable memories over time. Notwithstanding you Shank and went off the off the team with the job. You got me smiling and thinking about those memories. I mean, people will always remember the speech at the SPS. Don't give up don't ever give up. But we saw it on a nightly basis how inspiring

Jimmy was. Because what you just described is a great memory. He was an agony as that was happening. You just know that he was. We saw it in Bristol. I saw it at the last final four sadly that he covered and the pain was unbelievable in his back, and he he was managing that and still being the life

of the party, still bringing the great energy. And I think that that's what such a treasure Mike, about what'll you've been lucky enough to do for a long time, and I've known you for thirty years is working with these personalities, working with these analysts. I think you share my joy in working with those folks, building chemistry on and off the air, and and the characters that you've worked with the I'm just gonna throw a few names

out there. This just scratches the surface. But not only are they great analysts, great at their job, but the characters as human beings, Lee Corso, he Be Brown, Doug Flutie, Nick Fouldo, Curtis Strange, all the golf guys, John Gruden, Johnny Mack and Tennis among others len Elmore, Tony Dungee. I mean we haven't. We'll get to the soccer guys at the World Cups. But that that roster of people that you've gotten a chance to work with, to bring out the best in and then just to to learn

from them life lessons. I know you don't take that for granted. Not, not not at all. And I loved every second of it. Uh, it's so funny. So I was driving from Florida up to the up to Augusta, and I called Carl Rabbits because we're coming up an opening day baseball And you know, played hundreds of rounds of golf with Ravy over the years when we were living in Connecticut. He was working baseball tonight or in the late night sports center around the same time. Our

kids were about the same age. So we get out and play golf at nine in the morning, off no sleep, and play in the afternoon. And so we played a ton of golf together. And all of the people at sports center, like you, like Saunders, like Linda, like Levy, Dan Patrick, Keith, Jack Edwards doing some hockey. I've I've run across Jack Edwards now more than a few times. Is now the TV voice of the Bruins, that it's

like minds of the great story. Jack would always everybody had their quirks of what they did at Sports Center, right, Gary Miller would take seven seconds to put his makeup on. He would talk, he would tuck the tail of his earpiece into his pocket. He'd like walked down on the set with papers everywhere. By the way, look it looked like he took seven seconds to do it. He plug his I FP and do this with makeup real quick and do like a great baseball tonight by an hour

with for an hour with Peter Gammett's. Jack would always bring a see through the clipboard to the set. He keep his rundown on there whatever nots. Jack was super organized. Jack brought that from local TV. And the earpiece that we all have is called an I F B. Right, So Jack had printed in large letters like on the back of it like this no I F B. And to this day, for some reason, I remember that. So I saw Jack, like, do you still have your No I FB clipboard? He's like, how do you remember that?

But like all those characters and Sports Center, I think and I'm curious how you feel it prepared me for all the characters and all these other sports, you know, because you had the straight guy, the funny guy, the different person you were working with, their different sensibilities. Uh, we do an NB, we do a sports center. Chris Myers always wanted the NBA highlights. I wanted the NHL highlights.

We would trade highlights like if if I had like the Lakers game for its, like, hey, what would you can I'll give you too, Like the Kings of the Canucks here and the Sharks if you want to slide me over, like the Sacramento Clickers guys were highlights there. We would swap highlights and like, hey, later in the show, when we get down to like the d s, maybe maybe we could just flew the director. You're gonna do this? We we we we did to the producer and the director.

But like all all that stuff, everybody's different quirks, personalities. I think prepared both of us for the large group of people that we worked with as analysts. And it has been, like, like you said, one of the great thrills for me. Um like Hugh be the all time MultiMate teacher, Gruden the ultimate coach. John just wanted another team to coach and our Monday night football group from director of producer around down the production assistant. He coached all of us up and we all got a masters

and football. Being around John Jaws the quarterback position, there are more things that I look at the quarterback position still today that have been just drilled into my head from Jaws. Doug Flutie, who wasn't by the numbers guy. He's just a field guy. You know. The way he played, ran around, made stuff happened. That's that's Doug. I love the fact that we've been able to get to be really close with all of those different types of people, and that's why we love sports. We love sports because

of the great people. And usually the analysts are the really good or the best at what they do, and getting the chance to hear how they tick, to see what they do, and then to get them to trust us a little bit that we're not gonna bury them with something that's unfair. We're gonna ask him an honest question. We're gonna bring out the best in them for the viewers. Uh. That to me, that's been the most fun of what we get the chance to do on a regular basis.

All the analysts you work with in all the sports. I'd like to ask you to rank them first to worse now and I think the listeners would enjoy that. Uh No, I mean some of the stuff not everyone has been enjoyed to work with that. Everyone has been brilliant and wise and effective and efficient. We know that, but that's just part of the fun to you. Just roll with it. I mean, we're on this topic, so I'll jump uh to to the World Cup in South Africa, which for us we share the idea. This was a

career highlight. I mean to be able to go be a part of hosting that event. That's a country. The mental lot to me, it's a sport. The meant a lot to me, and the coverage was just top shelf. Uh So, proud of everybody. But the characters, Mike, that we get to share the sever come to it. These are global rock stars, you know, Rude Hullett, Steve McManaman,

Jurgen Klinsman. I mean, Alexei lalas the token American on that set, but all these guys who brought to the set a completely different sensibility on the global sport there. They're rock stars, rich people in their own right, and now you've gotta make it kind and by the way, language is sometimes it's not their first language English, so you can make it all kind of work. And you had no time before or between halves of a World Cup. But it's still that that sort of like tap dance

on the high wire, was so much fun. I'll never forget kind of those moments on the set and off the set at the World Cup, from from the very beginning to the very end, that that is right up there for every part of it, with one of the best professional experiences that I have ever or will ever have um lifelong friendships out of the group. But you know, you you were far more versed in soccer, far more comfortab both with the sport. For me, it was somewhat

new bobbly obviously with us has. You know, he carried the flag for soccer and ESPN for generations right going back to the very start and MLS things. So for me it certainly was kind of tiptoeing through doing something new. I'll never forget. I mean to the people who become closest, true, close personal friends Julie Faudi and her husband Ian right, and we've vacationed with them. We we are in great

touch with them. We're on the line after we arrive with our passports, getting our credentials, and Julie's in front of me, and I've been at like in a vent or two with her and it kind of knew her and she kind of knew me, but we really didn't

know each other. So we're talking and Juliet had their second child a few years just maybe a year or so before that, So so we're just chatting and I said, so, what's your role and said, well, I'm doing a lot of hosting stuff here, which she had never done before, right, And I said, I'm the really first time for me doing soccer. Is like, okay, here's our pact. When you're gonna ask this up a question, we can ask each other, right, And so that that developed like a great friendship from

the start there. And then I can't remember. I remember asking Julian like, boy, everybody's personality here seems really big, Like, no, no, they're they're if they walk through their country, if they walk in that stadium, you'll see people will flock to them. And it was true, and the band came together. I don't know how they shared the ball somehow all the time, they like they all bought into this is a big event and this is not about me. It's about all

of us and in their own unique ways and personalities. Uh. They they made it an experience of a lifetime. They really really did. I I'm glad you brought that up. I'm glad you feel the same way about that, because I've got a bottled art down there. I've got a couple of pictures and I see those and I fondly remember thirty five, thirty six of the best days on the road covered sports that I will ever have no doubt. People who get surprised it's thirty seven days in one

hotel room. So there's that, but you don't care because the momentum of the event builds. And I'd tell you, if you're lucky enough to do this for a long time, you can have a handful of out of body experiences. And for me, standing on a platform at the top of our scaffolding with this giant set, but we went outside of that building to to look across at the stadium and bring the World Cup Final on the air.

I would never presume to call it. I don't feel soccer from birth in the way that are the veteran, legendary soccer match callers do. So that's not a job for me. I would always yield that, but to be able to be a part of the coverage and just to say at heart we are all Africans because that's where humanity was born, and just to kind of bring bring the event on the air and just to be a part of it. I'll never forget it now Brazil, to your point, right to your point that in Brazil, yeah,

I have a chance to do that. And it's funny that you said that, because it's not often that we were remember like one specific moment in uh a pregame show or a postgame show or things like that. It's the collective experience. But I do remember grinding, and I pay great respect to you, Like nobody gets a show on the air better than Chris Fowler. And I've learned so much from watching you over the years. Like you, you grind on every single word to get it just

right to get on the air. And I remember grinding to just trying to figure out the right ways to phrase the words before throwing to Ian Dark for the start of World Cup Final, the final match and it was trying to encapsulate that you at home are joined by a couple of billion people or every corner of the world doing this right now, You're about to watch the World Cup final, And it was just one of

those moments that I remember. I remember, hey, guys, look, you can do whatever you want time wise, just make sure I had fifteen seconds so I can kind of deliver this the right way because I've been thinking about it for a while and You're right, there was a power to that that was just different than the other stuff because Chris I didn't realize it until the World Cup was in the US and then especially South Africa that experience and then Rio, um, how no event stops

the world like that. It stops the world. And you know from from Brazil when when Brazil played that that that ill faded game against Germany. I was in the stands man, I was a fan, you were there right right. I would go ahead, but I that that is one of those things that if I were to mind the memories and really think about things that I witnessed in person, um, the shocking way that game unfolded from the celebratory, euphoric pregame.

I mean seventy thousand people and Belzon singing the national anthem, and then they got buried, the first buried in the first few minutes. I mean it was seven the fans from being shocked to outrage, just at the end just laughing and just cheering Germany because they recognized the greatness of that display. I still get chills thinking about it. But I didn't mean to cut you up that when

you bought that up though. That's just that's it. It's an incredibly powerful memory, lucky enough to have as a fan because I wasn't able to cover that tournament because Wimbledon conflicted. I flew down there to be there as a fan and wow, unforgettable. So so because of that, and then I'm hosting. So we're sitting in our set uh Alvan in the Atlantica and Rio's right there, the oceans right there, there's boulevard that just become this incredible spot.

Our kids came down for a few days. They still talked about watching the US play while sitting on the beach in Rio, being able to watch on the big screen because they set up a big screen on the beach and that became like the centerpiece for where everybody. That was like the identifying point for people of watching. It was like watching people in Times Square New Year's Eve, you tune in to watch people watching the match on the beach. Uh. So what struck me? And I'll never

get this. The game started around five o'clock local time. I'm maybe missing by an hour. The whole country shutdown, and you know, we say, oh yeah, the whole city shutdown. No no, no, no, the subway shop to two doors down, shut down, everything shutdown. This boulevard, one of the most busy thoroughfares in the country. Not a car. This unbelievable

rainstorm came through in Rio. Game was not played and Rio, as you said, it was like the thunder from the gods, and it was pouring so much so that it knocked out the power in our studio. So Alexei Lawless was with me. We had to do halftime from the quote panic room from the Men and Blazers. That was the only place we could get a camera and lights. So the halftime of that happened on the team. It's me and Alexei seriously in the closets four room, right, I

mean exactly. So it's one of those things you'll you'll never forget. But it was it was that true, like signed from above, that this was a moment that was different than all the others. But that's the power of the World Cup. I think that's that's our our point here and the shared experience the people. There's power in sports, and uh, it's different nations, different things bring that power and that was one of those moments that reminded me of the global power of the World Cup as an

event of the Soccer is sport, beautifully said. Crushing blow to lose the rights to that, I have to say, although Cutter doesn't quite carry the magic of the places

we talked about. Hey, the true highlight of the World Cup and Brazil, though, I think came when we were hanging out in the bar of one of the lobby hotels there the the complic amant of beach and my wife Jennifer had the idea, you brought back the old days of Sports Center, why not text her old friend, long lost Craig Kilborn because we had we had we weren't sure what happened to Craig. He kind of went away and went underground and we hadn't heard from him.

And it's one of those after a couple of drinks and you're you're kind of euphoric to be there. She has the idea and lone both you do it, and he responds, I mean from the other world where he's been spending the last few years. And it follows with connect in touch, follow him now on Instagram and every day, every day there's something good. There's Craig enjoying, enjoying life. But the picture that he sent you, the picture that

he take fright nally he takes. He texted you a picture which was a precursor of his genius Instagram feed where he's very much in character this kind of like cocktail swirling renaissance man. Here we are in freaking rio and and Craig Kilborne emerges from a secrecy to like send you this text of enjoying a cocktail and you you were, so you came and knocked We had we had parted way and night you came down the hallway knocked on the door. That's right, and that that was Uh.

That's the funny part I think for all of us over time is we were we were there and you're still there at ESPN. Obviously we were there at such a really cool time because the talent of when you think about the talent of the people that were there, and I mentioned a bunch of names before, and you can go on and on. We just had so many

really unique, cool, talented people. At the time when ESPN had the rights to all the major sports, and college sports were becoming a bigger deal, and ESPN was no longer nice to try the guys on cable compared to the network sports the network's covering sports. Excuse me, it became a real power in the industry, which it remained for quite some time. But to share those experiences with Craig and you look at rich Eyes and now and now a pop Baniborne America. You see where Bob and

you're on your driving, your going around Sirius XM. And here Charlie Steiner doing the Dodgers games. It's like every everybody's everywhere, and it was. It was one of those step back moments. I text Chris Myers during the football season too. I'm sitting there watching the NFL games and here's Chris loved the NFL and was an exceptional reporter when he was in the l A Bureau, And uh, they came to Sports Center and uh, we did the

two thirty am together. But did you know, I did not know the whole that is wild, wild and wacky stuff. And we got away with so much stuff. And I see I see Chris doing the NFL game. Speaking of getting away with so one of my all time favorite Sports Center memories includes you. So like in the summer, right in the summer, there was the rotation the six o'clock the early Sports Center was Bobbly and Charlie, Lee Steiner and Robin Roberts for the most part. In Dan

and Keith would do the eleven so on. So both both Chris, Chris and I we we had moved on to do you know, you're doing game day. I'm doing some games, college football, studios and golf bunch, different stuff. But you had to fill out the schedule sometimes, right, So there were these it was Bristol days where show up in the building for a little bit maybe work sometimes you don't need to, but sometimes we'd end up

on the air. So we end up on a six o'clock Sports Center it was seven o'clock, I don't know. In August it was goody. You can get away with stuff, right, because we're not on this show in a regular basis. We'll just kind of have some fun, and we we were.

We were sarcastic, We were tongue in cheek for a majority of the insignificant dance sports, including Fowler getting the highlights of the Pirates playing the Cubs a very meaningless baseball game and just kind of giving you that Brian Williams side look shoulder into the camera, kind of like this hundred sixty two games on the baseball schedule, and the Pirates and Cubs played one of them too, and that was just like dead Pad. It was like it

was in the spirit of the late great Tombies. It was like, I'd like to think that I was channeling one of the all time great anchors, and maybe I was just being lazier a total lack of inspiration. By the way, as we recorded, these Pirates and Cubs are playing opening days, so it's not not insignificant game today. No. You just had that feeling though, and you you're right,

it was two things about that. One, you felt like you could get away with more because it was a less scrutiny, and and also what you describe is a different climb. I don't want to sound like two old guys sports center. There's only two buildings on the campus, and we didn't have electronic teleprompter. But it was different. So the personalities that you named, and the thing about the climate there. We both came in as very young guys. You're doing sports center. I mean a few years out

of college. I had done a couple of things, Classic Sports America, some studio stuff. When I was drafted into the rotation. I think I did every sports center there was for a while. But I look to eleven years old. But still you know, you knew the rest of the anchors. You knew where they went to school, you knew about their families, you knew what sports they like best. I think now the sheer scope of the company, the fact that the sports Center is around the clock, it takes

place in different buildings, different shifts. This this is pre COVID when they're no one sees anyone in Bristol now. But even then it had grown so big that you can't have what what existed when we were young. We were there, the camaraderie, the learning from the elder statesman. Sometimes it was tough love. I mean, you get the I mean the great Tommy's or Berman. I was in awe watching Chris Berman do Sports Center in person. If you think you saw something on your television, you had

to see it in person. Stacks of wire copy when when such a thing existed, and shot sheets and scripts in total disarray, complete disarray of the floor space on the desk he had eighty person, you had twenty. You want you looked over at this How in the hell can he execute this show so beautiful? It's like Somemont type stuff. And that was a great way to learn and and and that's how that's how sports has passed along. Right. Um, you know Sterling Sharp who I worked with, another character

who are working with for many years. Sterling was always fond of saying, look, just because you used a urinal in the San Francisco forty and offices doesn't mean that you know the West Coast office, right. He dressed it up a little differently than there's only Sterling, yes, right, But like that was the point. Just because you came in to do Sports Center didn't mean that you could

be Chris Berman. And the people who survived the people who thrived, and that's many talented people and credit to credits to people like Steve Anderson and John Walsh and Al Jaffee who people may have gotten to know through Uh, I just forget the name of the show. Where um the show where all the town fantasy show they try

to get you. I forgot it too, But now you're talking about, Oh my gosh, I can't believe I just forgot Mike Hall, who is now a Big ten network for over a decade, Mike Hall was one of the winners of the show. It was it was American idol for sports center anchors. In any case, um Like, the talent that was found was truly unique and everybody couldn't be a Chris Burman copycat, but a lot of people figured out what their lane was with their personnelity. What

Olberman and Patrick did was brilliant, was absolutely brilliant. There's no way though that Chris Myers and I could follow and pull that off. So you kind of did what was in your personality and what was different, and that that was I think I think it helped us all learn how you had to have a little bit of a little bit of every club in the bag that you could play, but you had to have your own swing You couldn't copy Burman swing, You couldn't be Olberman.

You just can't. You just can't do that. And that, to me is what helped our whole generation succeed and throve. We We would be different people in different times like now, but for what it was back then, where I think we're all blessed that we not only had the place, but we all had each other to learn from, to push each other, to take the best of and put

it in the way I do things. And I think that's why so many of us are lucky enough to still be doing this thirty years after we started, Because you do it a long time, your career can stretch back to an era where you have a chance to intersect with legends. You're you're gonna host the Olympics in Tokyo. It's a thrill. The thing that first attracted me to this business, or one of them. One of them was Jim McKay hosting the Olympics in nineteen seventy two when

I was just almost ten years old. But I vividly remember the catastrophic events, what happened to these Raeli athletes, spits, the US basketball, all those things that he brought such humanity to it. But working with with Jim McKay later in life when he was near the end of his arc and he was covering the Triple Crown races, and Jack Whittaker, and in Dick Edinburgh, who I grew up watching cal Wimbledon, and everything about that place was filtered

through Dick's sensibility his work. Getting to work with them, I mean, you mentioned some of the old sports, then the guys, but what's been an outer body experience for you or you someone that meant so much to you when you were a kid, and getting a chance to actually work with them, no doubt, two things come immediately to mind, and they're the two individuals who primarily have been the Olympic host for America for like you said, better part of fifty years now, and that's not including

the years that CBS had the Olympics in a in a whicher spot a couple of times in the nineties. McKay at the end of his run also did a few British opens with us. And you know, maybe maybe the most famous ending of a major championship in the history of golf, or right up there with it, is what happened to Jean Vandervelt that with his triple bogey and all that stuff and those histrionics. So I'm on the air with Curtis Strange and we're facing this way

with the eighteen hole out in front of us. Jim McKay is doing some essays and bring us on and off the air, and he is probably sitting behind us with a camera facing that way, and everybody in the booth there is watching, obviously, And now you're we're on the air for twenty seven minutes. I think it is NonStop, and you're just into this moment. You've never seen anything like it. The late great Bob Rossberg is on the

golf course. Rossi and Curtis had exchanges between two golfers, the likes of which were just you couldn't script any better. And we get done and we go to break and it turns out we're gonna have a three man playoff with Paul Laurie and Justin Leonard and John van de Veldt, and we'll be back after this message from your ABC station And you just go, wow, what just happened? Right

tap on the shoulder. It's McKay who was sitting back there behind us, and he says, I don't know if you'll ever see anything like that in your career, and you did a great job. I'll never forget that. Like the feeling that ran through my body was like, Okay, good, now, what's now? It's going to the playoffs. It's like, no,

wait a minute. Jim McKay understood what I was going through at that moment and knew that that would matter to me, and all gives that gives me shivers to hear that second hand, man, because it's not about your preparation, not about the facts that you've called and spit it out, and it's about reacting in the moment. Is something that not only you haven't seen before, maybe it's never happened quite that way in the history of gold before. There is no script for it, there is no blueprint for it.

And to handle it beautifully and then get that seal of approval from guy who brought more humanity to the job than anyone I've ever known. That That's what was so And I'll tell you, Mike, it's not all warm

memories too. I Mean, we we saw these guys near the end of the career, as they were still bringing valuable things to the broad cast perspective, the gravitas, but there was appoints to watching Jim and Jack work as well, because there was Jim McKay doing some stand up on the backside of of of Churchill downs and wanting to have things sort of taped to the tripod so he wouldn't lose his way so he could naviget through that. And remember seeing that and filing that away, and you know,

he was still a big part of the team. But it's like, wow, you know time time waits for no one and all of us have to cope with with that kind of thing. If we're lucky, you have to hang around and be asked to do this at that age, right, which I hope you just exactly because just his presence meant so much. And Jack with the the same way. And uh, you know, we saw it with with dick Enberg.

Just as you said at Wimbledon, he came back to Wimbledon as you as you know, he was invited back and got to sit in the Royal box and have a have a wonderful visit. So that morning, as you well know, there's a caden to Wimbledon and you get in early and you do the big production meeting with the entire group, which is a story meeting, which is which is that's a podcast all of its own that

that that meeting is the Wimbledon meeting. If there's anything in this, if somebody asking name three things in the ESPN, you missed the meetings before the Grand Slam events in tennis the first week when everybody's in the room with their with their schedules, it's the best um in any case, I would like to take my my match notes, what you might do the matchup court to that you just got a sense maybe that will end up being part

of your late afternoon. And I like to go downstairs and have a cup of coffee quietly, and I don't know if that area is still there where where the food was a broadcaster from around the world and just kind of highlight my notes in peace and just kind of organized. And that morning dick Enberg was there and Dick comes down. Do you mind if I sit with you, like you know what, I'll be okay if I don't have the start guests gay note for a we will then six years ago, I'll be fine. And I just

said and he asked it. So how do you go about how do you go about preparing yourself in the day? And I was I felt like I was under exam. I felt like the professor was coming to check. Okay it was It was just really neat and it was a curiosity. And what struck me to you the point that you made for us. This is not for people who watch we talk on TV. It's for us. This is our life and our craft and our profession, and

we're always trying to maximize it. And our preparation is what we feel gets us to the place where we can be comfortable on the air. We could be ourselves. We can get the most out of our analysts. And that's what made the greats great and they all did it in different ways. And to have dick Enberg asked me, how, let me see, how do you prepare? What? What do you go and do? And it was just reaffirming. He said, oh, that's a great idea, that that's that's neat the way

you did this. How did you come up with this? And he probably didn't care, He probably could could have cared less. But the curiosity, the professional care, those are the people we grew up. Those are the people who inspired us to do this and to be able to share those things with them and then to see somebody like Dick Emberg who was there as a fan, but you know when he walked into that place, all he could think of at the times that he did Wimbledon over and over and over and just this much, just

vicariously living through you. You know, I do that when when I watch you do the college football, when you're doing the championship game or or some big game. We all get our chances, but you all you're you're watching the person doing it. Um to learn to take away in a lot of ways because a whole bunch of us, now our friends, you're rooting for them to have a great game and just have this great open and just be in the perfect place. Uh. But you just know,

like that's a part of you in that spot. I know exactly what Christmas feeling. And nobody's thinking. I know, Okay, like it it's hard. We're gonna get this, and we're gonna get this. Is the right stuff gonna come U but they're gonna run out on time. We gotta hit this way. And it's like the eight things that are going there are very few of us who know what's going on. In your mind, and I sit there and you watch that and you're like, damn, this is fun,

this is cool. And to sit with one of the greats as we were going through that process was something that I remember Veteran share a house with Dick and Woman a few times. They should have called it the odd Quartet. Cliff drives Dale, the elegant South African Better Dick, Brad Gilbert, I love him, dear friend, one of the crazy characters. Won't stop talking, and and and Berg and Gilbert in the same house where it was oil and water. Here,

I am just trying to like you anyway. You brought up something that I wanted to talk about, and I'm glad you did, which is some behind the scenes stuff that listeners to this might be surprised about because people presume there are rivalries and competition, but the people who do this, there's a surprising level of of respect communication.

I mean, you you'll be doing games, will sometimes text when we're gonna say how much during a game, but there are commercial breaks that are three minutes long, but certainly before a game, after a game, and I do this with you know, Joe Testa, tore Sean McDonough Steve Levy and I have had a thing going because we we called blowout after a blowout this past season, and was we were threatening the record that his crew had the average margin of victory in the games with twenty

six points. We were right on that record all season long. So what's so neat, Mike, is that it's not just sometimes its producers, other people worked other networks. It's it's hey, have a great game. You did a great job with that call. Right, No, it's it's kind of it's really cool. I don't think that existed in other eras, maybe to degree that it does. Now. People talk about the late night wars most Letterman and Leno. Now the guys who do those shows late at night on the different our friends.

They communicate, and that's it's neat that we have that kind of group in broadcasting now. I couldn't agree more. And I think it's it's helped build in part because there are more jobs. There were only a few gigs when it was the three networks and no real ESPN presence, right, And let's just look at the volume of sports that's that are on TV now compared to them, right, So, whether it's no PAL or Jim Nance or um, Mike

Breen that that whole, that whole, that whole group. Dan Hicks, you me like, you know, I consider I consider all all the people I just ain't friends. And you kind of communicate on a regular basis, you know, whether it's a text on Christmas so you see it's their birthday, or a game or something or something like that. Um. I love that camaraderie and the fact that we help each other out of you you obviously do noted in games.

We did a couple of this year and you were so generous with the information that you had on the Irish. There really only somebody that's around the team a lot can get me parachuting in a couple of times a year. Yeah, we have relationships, but not the same as when you're around the team. Incredibly helpful at happens from other networks within the network. It's so nice and and I think you're right, it used to be competitive and and it

still is. We we want to have a better broadcast in our studio on Sunday nights, and we'll do Football

Night in America than Fox did or CBS did. But there's there's a text that goes around the start of the year, before the first pregame show on Week one, I text Rich Eysen and j J. B It's CBS, and Kurt Menafe at Fox and Sam Ponder at ESPN, and we all text each other and we're on a text chain, And as Susie, I've included on the host in the Monday night countdown show and just like, hey, have a great season, and we'll check in during the year, and it's it's just fun, I think because we all

appreciate um. The fans very often don't differentiate network to network. They're coming for the games. They may enjoy our studio shows, but we have a respect for what the business takes right now, the challenges that are out there, but also the support because there are not many people who understand what we do. Again, like I said before, we're not

doing a lot. It's not very hard, but we are a few who understand the pressures, the difficulties, the challenges, and to have that support network of peers is kind of cool. I love and respect you, but I want you to have a terrible game when your head to head, you guys end up having an NBC the game of the college football season Clemson Notre Dame regular season game in South Band ends up being this overtime classic. We've

got some pack twelve game head to head. So Kirk and I are basically watching your game and a monitor where we know what kind of what's going on in the field, but it's a way down on the significance meter. And so we were texting, you know, I mean, we're we're in a black hole where you guys are the world is watching this game. So you do wish that when your head to head you I wish your game was over in the first quarter. We we'd we'd send

those kind of sex the same thing we do. Know, hey have to have a great, great game to the first quarter and hopefully think welcome you guys, come on over. I think I think it was a world series. He did a world series opposite of Monday Night Game. And uh, I remember joking with Joe Buck like, you know, should I say thanks, Joe? Or I think Joe said, should

I say thanks? Mike? When your game gets to halftime, you're just gonna sit there and click over, click over, and look, we know the viewers patterns were viewers to god, we're not on the air we're home. We're home being fans just like everybody else. I wonder if you have a story. I'm not gonna bog this down and through a reread. Racing not as many listeners connect with that

sport as others. But you were in that seat for derby a couple of years ago when something happened, working by the way with with good friends of mine, Jerry Bailey, Randy Moss, with whom I worked at ABC. I love those guys are They're truly and it's it's a good thing that they were great because you have to orchestrate

one of the all time unscripted television tap dances. I want to say it went twenty one twenty two minutes from the time that Maxim Security crossed the line first and the stewards had their endless debate where they gonna make history and take down the horse that crossed the finish line first in the derby, which had never happened. Do you have a story from that? Because that was just that is that is like the Vandervelt situation. You

will never see something quite like that again. And you're out there on on a very thin tight rope at that point. Yeah, the story the story from that that that sticks out, perhaps more than any other is the fact that it was raining. So in addition to everything else, like now you as you know, when you do these events outside the elements, you'll have a set and and now like the range dripping down on the side of the set, so your concentration is a is all over

the map. But I would say the the on air part. Rob Highland is our producer and he lucky enough to work with Rob on our notreame football games and Football Night in America and the Triple Crown. So over my you know, five years now at NBC, we've gotten to know each other really well, and you know, the cadence of a producer it right. So we're in the interviews, and our interviews are kind of moving around. We've done one on horseback with Donna Brothers and then Kenny Rice

is doing an interview. And as Kenny's doing the interview, the second question comes up, Rob. So I hear Rob, and when when the producer talks to you. Some folks think producers directors talk to us all the time. They don't, but the good ones don't, right, well said, you can onways sense when they open up their keys, so they have a button that they can hit and you can hear even just the little small difference in background noise

in your ear. And I heard Rob's key open up and all he said was just hang with me for a minute. I'm like, Okay, something's going on, and then the cascade, the cascade begins, and um, I would I would say the conversation was interesting because we were trying to get to the right We couldn't find the right spot for where the inquiry essentially was going to and

basically a stampede right exactly. And as you know, the Derby is, you know, a race on like any other because of the twenty horses and the stampede and there's always jostling and bumping, so it's it's figuring out all of that. And as you said, Jerry Bailey and Randy Monster is so good and Rob has done the Derby for over a decade. And there are other people who are in our production truck, like Amy Simmerman, who are

around horse racing all the time. So everybody's got a sense, so they're all trying to get to the right spot. So in football we know right away catch no catch, Well, it's that foot right there. It takes us eight seconds. We know we're focusing on so as everyone's focusing, I know not everyone on our set is listening to what I'm saying, So I'm trying to You're trying to get their attention. Are you hearing what I'm saying. I'm about to ask you a question? Stay with me here for

a couple of seconds. There's a lot of I'd love to see the camera of all of our hand gestures and trying to get each other's attention through all of that, and then the weight. There's one point during the wait where I wasn't sure because I haven't done horse racing for thirty or forty years. I wasn't sure. And then I just kind of got to that point as I'm going through my mind, but there's never been anything like this, Like you you don't want to overstate this is landmark territory.

But now I'm like, okay, this is, but you have to That's what are your obligations is to say, hey, folks, this is something you might never see again exactly. And the interesting part was when we went back and looked, viewership went up. And that's the power of social media, Like what the hell happened to the derby? What's going I don't know? And now people start turning it on. So now it's like at some point in the middle

I would go back. Okay, for those of you just tuning in here, you're waiting for a hockey game and all all this stuff. So now now we're doing all that. It's like date line Mike, where they come out every break and they recap what's happened over the previous minutes. Here Like it's maddening, but you have to do it because you know the audience is growing. You you you do, and I just remember it ending and it just felt

so empty. It was just it didn't it being the result, or for you, the experience of doing it felt the result. You have to do it. You have to express why country house a horse it was not at all affected by what maximums the Articane, Kentucky racing rules deemed that country house was not going to be the answer to

how do you explain that to people? It's it's they don't. Yeah, that's the odd thing because country houses right around the horses where the jostling happens, yet not affected, but ends up being the largest beneficiary and it gave it gave power to what Jerry kept saying, or I was Randy kept saying that, you know, really, maximum Security was the best horse. So do you go by the letter of the law and the rule and what you saw there, or does common sense go and go, you know what,

maximum Security was the best horse. We should we shouldn't take him down here. It was. It was a fascinating experience capped by We didn't go back last year because the derby wasn't in May, was running the fall in September, i should say, And we did that from the studio. So I have not been back inside Churchill Downs since then until a month from now for the for the derby,

which is may first Derby this year. So it's gonna be weird going back there because that was one of those odd bizarre days that started in sunshine, ended in rain. We started out in paddock, you end up inside, you're sitting on the sets for six hours. Those are those are the cool days when you go back and think about them. Absolutely, yeah, that's great stuff. I mean you do leave Churchill Downs with the feeling you've seen a piece of history. But that was a year unlike any

other and and and and hollow and empty. Those are good words speaking of shocking results. Jump back to tennis here. You you come from Queen so working in the US Open, I know it was a very special experience for you, and well, just to tell people what will document a match and maybe you know where I'm going with when you document a match, you've got to be right down the middle. You have to celebrate whatever happens. Sometimes the person who loses it is a bigger story, but you

have to celebrate the winner. But when you're covering a tournament and you're not calling the match, you certainly are interested in getting the best storylines to play out for the biggest matches. The viewers want Serena to win. They want Roger Rafa to win so that they can be around for the end. We very much in two Pass and fifteen want of Serena Williams to be there in the final because she was going for the Calendar Grand Slam, which is truly all the things she's done. She hadn't

done that. Nobody really had done that. Siphi Graph had done it, It's been a long long time. In the semifinal, she takes Underberda Venci, you're calling the match. Roberta. Evenci has booked a flight home to Italy. Burda. She has not been able to hang with Serena. She's basically a clay court specialist playing on a hard court. Serena wins. I think it was thirty three Grand Slam matches in

a row, heavily favorite. All you've got to do, Tarico, is get Serena Passerberda Vinci so that the world can have a chance to watch your go for the Grand Slam on Saturday in New York. And you couldn't do it. Even though Serena won the first set six two, was up a break in the third, you couldn't get Serena over the finish line. So I can't believe. I remember you in the booth. Was was your semifinals after our after yeah? Right, So so just to set us Amona Halla,

Flavia Panetta, Yes, just to set it for people. I mean, you've got the booth and at the US Open, it truly is a hockey line change. It's okay, great, so so wins. That's great. They'll be out on the set with Christma Kenry right after this, and then you're taking your stuff and you're getting out because the next two are coming in to do the next match. So you and Chrissy are getting ready to do the next match. So one player wins the first set, Like, okay, this

is probably gonna go in like four fifteen minutes. I need to kind of get my coffee, get my notes, get just be ready to jump in, right, and then report of it. She starts this, this comeback, this unbelievable comeback, and poor poor Chris, because you because your Look, we all love to be a part of history. That's one of the things because we talked about history and sports forever. So you've got a chance to call a piece of history. And it's not just your voice being a part of it,

but it's you getting to be in the moment. It's the closest thing we have to competing. We get to be a part of something like this, right. I wanted to see her do it though, I mean, I listen, I mean, you're you're, you're, you're truthful. But I more wanted to see Serena do what she deserved to do it the tennis needed at the fans. I mean, in fairness, I mean whether I get to call it or not. Um, oh, no doubt, but no doubt. But Bomne, she's so close and it's up to her. Just don't don't succumb to

the nerves. And you've got this. You know, this is your podcast. It's about you, so so so like now now this is going on. Now, it's getting real that Robertavinci's getting shot after shot passing shot and she is just to totally emotionally invested in this match. And it's a pro Serena crowd. But now you're getting some people who are like, wow, this is a pretty good match

to get to a third set. Okay, And Mary Joe Fernandez, I'm working in the match with Mary Joe, and I just remember looking over at Mary Joe a couple of times because it was one of those matches where, uh, there was so much good ambiance and noise in the stadium. You didn't have to do much right And as things would get more tense and tight, Mary Joe's eyes would get bigger and bigger, and you'll go over Mary to

like like she's in trouble. Now, this this is getting real here, and it was you could just feel the pressure of it, right, and it was one of the great upsets of all time. That felt like a lecta, you did a great job, Docu, you were very fair. I mean then she what was a interesting personality, as you said, even in a pro sermenic car. She was winning people over, putting her hand to her ear, asking for crowd support, and plus she was just running down every ball, so she was gutting it out. The New

York audience appreciated it. But but still at the end you eleberate her win and you realize we're never going to get to see a calendar slam, are we? No, no, no, so and then she does an interview with Ronaldi on the court, which was it was like, here's Serena, she's lost, that opportunity is gone. Try to frame that moment now the winner, and here's Tom. And her interview with Tom was was roberta Vinci, It was personality, it was her

Italian passion for life. It was it was great. It connected even the fans who were disappointed at what happened, couldn't help but like her when it was done right. The interview so we kind of great one a moment, this is great, and you'll hear from her on the set. And then the second semifinal, christ and Christy, you'll have that come up. We're gonna break and you're just like here over my shoulder, like, oh man, you gotta be

kidding me. How could you not deliver? All I needed to do was close the match out, and then I had the joy of calling uh, Roberta Venci Flavia Panetta in the final, which is a tremendous match if you're in Italy, but uh not what we had expected. And now listen, I mean listen, I'm kidding. We celebrate it. It's you have to celebrate every championship moment you're lucky enough to call. Whatever the sport, it means so much to those involved, the joy, the cumbination of a dream,

all the work they put into it. You try to get that across to the audience. And that's why we two. That's why I got choked up watching the Dodgers win the World Series and the weirdest of seasons. I don't like the Dodgers at all, but I respected what they had come through. I tuned in to watch the World Series and especially the clinching game, because we just celebrate kind of those championship moments, and when you're calling it.

You can't quite allow yourself to feel that. You have to sort of you want, you wanted to come through right, but you gotta temper it. But that's why we love sports, as those moments real, real quick. One, the Red Wings are this close to winning the Stanley Cup against Pittsburgh. We live in Michigan. My wife's from there. We've lived there since the late nineties. I've never seen the Cup skated in person, so I'm like, oh my gosh, it's here's the game five. The Wings are gonna close out

the Penguins. There's three minutes left. The Wings are up one and we're fifth row behind the goal and with three buddies at the Joe the Old Joe Louis Arena, three minutes left. Everybody watches the whole third period on their feet. You know what those buildings are like. Nobody sits down there cheering. It's the Penguin score with a minute to left to send it to overtime. The game goes to multiple open overtimes as only the Old Joe

Louis Arena ken. They've run out of all caffeine. There's no soda, there's no coffee available, but you can get a twenty four hours beer between the second and third overtime, like, come on, boys, there we go, because if they wait, will celebrate. It's like one in the morning, and the Wings will skate the Cup. Penguin score. Don't get to see the Cup skated. Wings win two nights later in Pittsburgh on a Friday night win the Cup. So I

still haven't seen the Cup skated going around whatever. Now I'm working with NBC, I get to work on some of the pre in the post game for the Cup Final, a couple of couple of the games. So Game seven St. Louis Boston in Boston road team is won. Every game we're at Boston, the Blues win Game seven, shockingly, they win the Cup. Great. We're down in a green room as a spare locker room. We got to wait for the Bruins to come down because their locker rooms passed us.

So I kind of cracked the door open to watch the Bruins off camera. Nobody sees this. Just watch the just devastation on their faces they just lost Game seven in the Cup Final at home, just to see what they look like and aw stunt they were walking through is pretty interesting. Then they clear out. The halways cleared, I'm not on the air. Doc eMates gonna take us off the air. Dr and Edzo will do the rest of NBC. Then they'll do the post game on NBCSN

and everybody's escapes with the cup. I sneak out. I was standing on the Bruins bench, but not on the bench, but like the space where you walk onto the bench and got to watch the Blue skate the cup. And it was the coolest thing because, like you just said, and that's why I think why we still love doing this, the true passion the athletes. This is their moment. This is what these guys J Boy stirring all these kids, this is what they their whole lives wanted to do. Work, sacrifice,

parents driving them to morning skates, cold rinks. This was the moment. And to see the guys their eyes as their hands got on the cup, that's the stuff that makes me love this job and love what I do so much and feel really like you do. So fortunate that we get to share those moments, sometimes frame those moments.

Sometimes we are the narration for the visual of those moments that people will go back and watch ten or twenty years later and when when when Clemson, Obama or Ohio Standard handed the trophy, you want to make sure that in twenty years, when they go back and watch that tape, that your words fit the moment, and that is exactly what you're talking about. How that's something that just keeps us going and makes us work hard to do the right thing for the event and for the people,

not necessarily for us. Beautifully said, we're both perfectionists, so sometimes what we do end up saying to match those amazing moments doesn't meet our own standards, and there's no taking it back. You just live with it. You move on. I don't beat myself up anymore. But but sometimes you you know, like another line, another word, would have made that better. But that's the nature of it. You get just like kind of when you're playing. You get one chance to do it right and to to to punctuate

that moment um. If you had a chance to ever reflect what you've been able to do. You've been able to cover golf in the era of Tiger NFL, in the era of Brady and Manning and Breeze and so many others, Kobe and Lebron calling I don't know, I don't think you were a little bit too late for Jordan. Jordan had retired by the time you got there. But actually got the back end of the back end of Jordan Jordan too in Washington. Okay, well, I consider his

career end when he was a bull. But but we've talked about in Serena and Roger and Rafa in tennis. I mean the gratitude that I'm sure we share for being around and being able to see that and never taking that for granted for a day. You're right, Uh, do count myself lucky for you've done and there's other things you've done. I just named Yeah, I'm with you. And what it what it made me think of right away was I get asked often what players do you like to talk to or what players are the best

in meetings? Right And I say to folks, my favorite meetings with players, that there's something that you enjoy, but the meetings that are the ones that you walk away and go okay, that that guy's wired differently, that woman is different than the others who I cover. Is that all these great athletes see sports to me differently than

the others do. In addition to their physical abilities which are extraordinary, their minds are powerful, uh, very broad and wide in the scope of what they take in and their ability to take the mental and match it with the physical. Like if you if you ask me, what what football meetings do you look forward to? UH? For NFL games Peyton when he was playing Brady Rogers Breeze, Like those guys, you just have a different quality of meeting with them. It's because they mentally do it so well.

And it was the same thing we uh, God rest his soul. Kobe's last game. It was a game that it was me huld Be and Lisa Psalters got to call in l A and Kobe sat with us for a half hour at five. Bishop was our producer and he had covered Kobe all went back in his early days. Uh. We sat with with Kobe for like twenty five to thirty minutes and talked about career, of life, everything else. And he really he said, I don't know what I

have in me tonight. I don't you know. And he ended up having an incredible game that you know, we were reminded the mentality of the athlete and their mental approach to he knew exactly how much he had in the tank and if he got going, he could he could get to sixty in the tank. Right what he did exactly exactly. You you be said, you know, I had it. I had it. I had a dream. I was shaven, and I remembered my dream. I thought, I thought Kobe could have like a fifty sixty point kind

of game. And he threw that out like in the first quarter, and Kobe is going there. I told you, I told you it was. It was one of those. But it's the athletes that the athletes who are so smart, And that's what I've learned to appreciate about Lebron. You talked to Lebron about basketball, Oh my gosh, it's a master class. He sees so much. That's why he's an unbelievable assist guy and rebounder, and he's made so many

teams so much better over the years. And that's what I feel so fortunate, is not just being able to call the events that these folks have been involved with, but to hear what makes them so great. And it's an under standing. As the the axes crossed between ability and mental acuity, the greats are able to maximize it longer because they know how to get the most out

of their body. They know how to handle situations like Tiger winning the Masters in at forty four forty three that at that time, excuse me, I mean that that was stunning given what he had gone through physically, but Tiger's mental approach around Augusta and on the second nine on Sunday when they got to the twelfth and all the other guys hit it in the water and Tiger ended up over the bunker middle of the green, made three, and he just played smart golf well everybody else to

try to go win the Masters, and his mental abilities the reason he won that Masters, and just to be able to tap into that briefly every once in a while is what I take away from the best of the best in this era of great efforts, great point not just what happens on Mike, but what happens in the preparation that's priceless, that you can't you can't duplicate. Maybe because you're a great host, broadcaster, play by play guy, or maybe he was wired together. You brought it back

to Tiger. You're sitting there in Augusta. I want to finish with the guy who will not be playing the Masters, obviously, but a guy who is fortunate to be alive after his car accident, and the question that's going to be on so many minds as the Masters unfolds. As we recorded this, the tournament hasn't happened yet. The back, the foot, the ankle, the things he's got to heal from to get back. Yes, Ben Hogan did it. It was a very different era. The competition around him was nowhere near

what Tiger has to face. So Tiger getting back and being able to play golf at a high level and then trying to win another Masters and the Major. What do you think, Mike, I mean, it's gonna You asked this a lot, I'm sure, but people are interested in as we as we another Masters comes around, he will not be there, sadly, except in spirit. Yeah. You know, Um,

we have been asked a lot. And your immediate thought connecting the dots is no, because of the age and the back, and it was a leg injury that was so severe it took weeks to get him back, even to the state of Florida, right, and we don't know all the details of it, Um that I do have this very cautionary light bulb that goes off every time this conversation comes up to never doubt him, because I think I have, I think other people have, and we've seen, uh,

we've seen different results. He's been able to overcome so much on and off the course over the years. I do think it's selfish to even think that way right now, While it's a natural sports question, because he's given us as golf fans and the sport and the industry so much. I personally think a lot of my success professionally is thanks in part to Tiger's success because Tiger turns in

the fall of ninety six. I got the job doing ABC's golf in January of the first tournament I did was Tiger winning what I believe was his third tournament of his career at that point, the Mercedes Championships at La Costa in San Diego, and then he goes to win the Masters that next April, Jim Mansw's great call went for the Ages, and then he wins his next start in Dallas, the Byron Nelson a month later, and

we're on the call for that on ABC. So that's like the era where out of nowhere people are paying attention to golf and I had just gotten the job Brent was the lead voice for golf for ABC. They reworked the booth. Roger Twibel was there for a little bit as well. It became me. Curtis Strange, Ian Baker Finch joined us a few years later, Steve Melnick junior rankin, Bob Rossberg. Uh. It was just a time when, for some reason, so many more people and the reason was Tiger.

So many more people were paying attention to golf, and I was lucky to be surrounded by great people on the air, a great production group led by Jack Graham and Jim Jeannett, veterans of the Olympic world over the years. In the truck, Mark Loomis, who went on to be a sensational producer at Fox doing the US Open, he was our He was one of our main main assistants in terms of production of the broadcast. I was just surrounded by people who didn't let me fail and kind

of steered me in the right place. And I think any of us who were around golf at that point were elevated because of Tiger, and that went on for a while, so the association with the sport when it got big. I'm so appreciative of Tiger's dedication, his success, his beyond the sports world stardom that gave us the opportunity to be seen by so many more people that Chris.

For me, I don't need to see Tiger hit another shot in competition again, but he's given me, as a sports fan and as a professional more opportunities, uh to help my life and help my family go forward. And um, I just want to see him enjoy his kids, be able to go out place golf with his son, uh, be able to watch his daughter play soccer, do whatever they're gonna do as teenagers and young adults, and to

find some happiness and peace in his life. And for me, if I don't ever see him, you know, getting announced on the first team hit the team shot, I'm over overloaded with appreciation for what he's given us as an athlete over these years. Yeah, wonderfully said. If it's not important to him, if he's not driven to get back and try to do more, if he's quite content and satisfy with the aspects of your life that you talked about,

then I hope that's okay. If that's not the case, you just don't want him to go out and not on his terms. You know what, any athlete has been as great as he has been, contributed, as much as he has built up the fan base to not be able to go out on their terms. So I hope if he wants to come back, if he's driven to do that and put in the hard work. And I'm told by people who are surgeon into physical therapist how much that's going to take to get back to that

level of golf. It's it's an incredibly challenging thing ahead of him. If he wants to do it, I hope he gets a chance to do it, and he doesn't go out on terms that they're not his. So he's always he's always been the guy to do the work. And I've always said to folks that you know that when you get to the top of the mountain, the dismounts is never graceful, right, It's very hard for people to scale down the top of Look, we're seeing it with Serena, We'll see it with fed and with Nadal Djokovic.

Eventually at some point all these grades will They're not what they were, They're still so darn close. They're they're gracefully coming down from the top of the mountain. About as well as any individual athletes ever do. It's just hard. It's just hard because in your mind, Tigers the best and what you see is not the best, and it would be hard to see him less of that. But as you said, if that's what he wants, and that's gonna drive him. I always tell people when they ask,

but what do you want to do? What do you want to be? Like? What wakes you up? Right? Those those doing sports on TV? Wake you up? Do you do you want to get that? Didn't great? Go do it with Tiger if he wants to go through the rehab, to find a way to get out there and play one more Masters and two three or whatever it might be. Man, let's let's go. Let's let's go. I'll be privileged to be around to watch the ride and be rooting for

him to do whatever he wants to do. There are limits to your time, even on a quarantine day, and august you've been very generous. We could go on for six hours and people will be listening or not listening, but we we'd have a great time doing it. I hope as Augustine moves past the calendar you get the triple crown. Uh, Stanley Cup coming up, and then of course the primetime host of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, which will be quite unique and bizarre in their own way.

I hope you have many more of those out of body experiences stopped the world and be grateful and then documented beautifully. I think you will, and I'll be watching and keep your phone open because you just might get a text when you don't expect it any any especially from you. Like one of the greatest of the greatest joys in my career in life has been being friends with you since n since I got to Bristol, and uh,

it's just been really cool and fun to watch. It's nothing like I'm like seeing people who do it the right way and who you who you love dearly enjoy what they're doing. Mike Arico gracious as always. That sounded like an abrupt edit. By the way, it's because I typically like to cut out the over the top complimence. Not always so comfortable with that. I don't know why.

I do appreciate our long friendship. I appreciate the example of Mike's excellence, and when I'm a viewer like you, I just appreciate the skills that he brings no matter what he's doing. As always grateful to my co executive producer Jennifer Dempster and producer Jason Whitekell. Invite you to subscribe and leave feedback on the podcast on my Instagram at Chris Fowler. I'll talk to you soon.