Reign Weekly World Cup Edition Episode 3 - John Strong

networks including Fox, ESPN, and NBC. Before becoming a national broadcast here, he spent years covering the game at every level, including serving as the radio and television voice of the Portland Timbers and as a radio host in Portland, Oregon. Please welcome John Strong. And John my first question for you, given your voice, it is a beautiful voice. I have to ask, as a former theater kid, did you do musical theater? And if you didn't do musical theater, why did you not?

in the twenty fifteen playoffs. And so one of my sort of mentors in the business was Brian Wheeler, who passed away a few years ago, longtime NBA radio voice, was a radio host in Seattle called Games for the Sonics, and I knew him more in Portland, and he had said he had sung and choirs his whole life. So that was a big thing from that example, was like taking singing lessons, understanding how to use my voice, how to use this sort of the mechanics of this tool.

And I can tell you now, Keeley. I mean, so as we talk, we're match day minus two. As we look at it, because we start with the US opener, I'm already fully in sort of my preparation of hydration. I've got my special tea, I'm drinking, I've got lozenges like it's I've learned over the years how to do stuff like that. And it's I tell young broadcast the same as being an athlete. You got to take care of the tools that you've been given to do your job. For sure.

wanted to do it. That was what I wanted to do, and so as a senior in high school, it was largely the looming threat of our varsity soccer coach trying to change the note cut policy for seniors on my behalf to get me off the team, and sort of that sense of I need to I had done a little bit at that point, but that was the motivation, like in August of like I need to start pushing on this because you know this is not going well as a player, I think that's the end for me.

And so that was when I started. And just I've been the benefit of a lot of opportunities where you know, an opportunity has been created for me that didn't exist before. I mean, I try to explain to students now, you know, in the fall of two thousand and two, like what the internet was then as compared to now, the ubiquity of the types of things, even just this sort of zoom conversation and putting games online didn't exist back then.

I mean, the stuff that we were doing. The principle later told my mom that the only reason he said yes was to get us out of his office because he didn't understand what we were asking. But getting the opportunity as a high schooler and then as a college student to just start doing it and calling games and didn't matter the sport, didn't matter if anyone was listening or not. It was just getting that sort of ten thousand hours you need of practice to become proficient. And

what's fun is that. Just yesterday I did an interview on Colin Coward's show, and you know, Colin lived in Portland for a long time, so In the break, he's asking me about high school and where I grew up, and I'm saying, yeah, I saw the jail Blazers documentary recently. Boy did my hometown not come off well in that one.

But that's also what happened, and that I love that type of stuff because it roots me back in where I started and a kid just with insane dreams and hopes and a reminder to never take for granted what I get to do, what I get to see and witness and experience, and always maintain that sense of kind of gallie g whiz, this is amazing what I get to do, and not let it, not let it become normal, and also not allowed sort of the pressure of it to get to me and keep it fun and joyful.

which I've been very lucky to have. You know, Bill Shanley was an inspiration of mine growing up as the voice of the Trailblazers, and then I got to know him a little bit because he sang in the church choir with my and he actually did a reading at our wedding and like it announced us as a couple.

My wife Nicole and I had the reception. So that type of stuff is very fun, and it's there's a surreality in moments when I speak to younger broadcasters who say, like, you know, I've grown up listening to you and now I want to do this, and I go, well, first of all, that makes me feel very old, and secondly, you know, Alexi Lawless's joke is like, you can take this from my cold dead hands, because I love what I get to do. I don't want to give it

up just yet. But those are moments that, as I said, become very surreal to me of like, oh, I've actually been able to get to where I dreamed of being. Not everyone gets to experience that, and I'm very, very lucky that I have been able to.

always stuck with me. I mean, it was that the risk of this being an unfortunate metaphor, It was like having a shot of a drug and there was I became addicted to that feeling of that first taste of what I felt like was the big time. And well, I've had plenty of other moments and opportunities and special things, and I think Friday night, but also the following Friday,

the second US game in Seattle. You know, it's funny we had the opportunity with FIFA in the fall to go stadium by stadium and kind of select, you know, of the available options. Where do you want to be? Do you want to be in a radio booth? Do you want to be in the tribunal which is up in the stands. The television booths are being used only for cameras, so you can't call the game from there.

And when we went to Seattle Stadium, as we're calling it, liberate decision of I want to be for US versus Australia in the visiting team radio booth because I've called a dozen plus games there over the years, both as the Timbers radio announcer. But then we did an NBC game there once actually randomly, and like the idea of being able to walk into a booth that I have been in so many times in a stadium I've been in so many times, but calling this very unique, unusual game.

Those sorts of things are really special and meaningful for me, And I think that's a big part of this whole month for me, is just taking mental snap shots because it's very possible for a number of reasons, I never get an experience quite like this again, so I don't want to let it just pass by.

broadcast industry. I'm always surprised how few young hiring, very successful announcers are either interested in soccer or are really trying to pursue it because it's it's still sort of an and or it's either soccer or football, basketball, baseball, and there's a variety of reasons for that. I look back on it now, I was so professionally and emotionally unprepared. It was such a reckless decision for the Timbers to make, and for NBC and Fox to make to give me

these opportunities when they did. I was so young, I was so naive, I was so inexperienced. It's insane to me. And I listened back to some of what I said on television in those early days, and I'm like, what are you doing? You know, you don't know what you don't know, and you don't know any better when you're young.

And I'm very thankful that I've been in situations where I've had bosses that have and coworkers that have allowed me to sort of make mistakes as I go and learn on the job and play my way into the role. I'm still really quite young for this profession, honestly, and I'm still learning and growing significantly. The fact, honestly that I lost my hair as young as I did. That worked in my favor because I think I tricked some people into thinking I was older than I was. That's

not as I'm dead serious about that. So yeah, you know, things came really quickly from me, and I'm very thankful. And that's what's nice, is I do. It's something that gives me comfort and confidence going into this unique opportunity this month is I do have a lot of experience under my belt and that helps. If I was if this was my first World Cup, I don't think I'd

be able to handle that pressure in that anxiety. I still struggle with the pressure in the anxiety, but I at least have the benefit of Okay, I've done this before, I know how to do it, have confidence and faith in what I'm doing and what we're doing as a team.

Each one of them has a sticker, and on each sticker there's the biographical stuff, but then there's also a what would be their twenty second life story I want to say about them, you know, trying to give context to every possible eventuality for every possible player. I love that part. It's it's it's overwhelming. We're preparing to see eighteen different teams in the group stage, twenty six per squad.

That's over four hundred and fifty players, and you kind of have to have it done before the tournament starts. You don't have time between games to do anything else. Yeah. I actually get more joy talking about the players you don't know than talking about the stars. I have to I have to correct myself a little bit sometimes of Okay, yes, I would love to talk endlessly about Christian roll don, but also I need to make sure I'm talking about Christian politic too, like that's you do have to play

the hits like that's why they're there. And also I have to hold myself back from overdoing it. Sometimes I've made the mistake at times of too much storytelling, too many Because I love it, I fascinating, I want to celebrate the journeys that every single player has gone on to get to this moment. They're playing in a World Cup. That's incredible. And being able to rain myself in and pull myself back to not overdo it is the bigger challenge,

but I love it. That's when you know, at whatever point I get to where I'm not enthusiastic to do all the preparation work, that will be the red flag that it's time for me to stop doing this. But I still love the blank sheet of paper and Okay, what's the story of this team, what's the story of this game? And then being able to try to give a little bit of that to viewers who, especially a World Cup. You know, they're not watching this spore week in week out. They don't know who these guys are.

I love that part of it.

flight of the next city. Very unlike in Qatar, where we called a game every day, but it was the furthest drive from our hotel was forty five minutes. So that's where doing the prep ahead of time is big. That's where keeping it simple is big, because it does

start to bleed together. You know. There's a couple of them where we have one where we do a Tuesday night of next week, eight pm Central time kickoff Argentina Algeria Kansas City, and the next day at three pm Central is England Croatia in Dallas, and then that night we are we get in late that night to Seattle, so you know, we'll see if we can still do this. That we were a lot younger when we pushed ourselves to this extent back in Russia. But I love it.

That's what we say to our bosses, like push us, push us as hard as you possibly can. It's a World Cup. When are we ever going to get this opportunity? The bigger thing that would upset me is if we were sitting around like I wish we had a game to call today, you know, because we love this and the games we're not calling, we're going to be watching.

And by the way, that's just the group stage, and then the knockouts are going to be even crazier because one of the things that's wild with the expansion of the tournament, when we reach the end of the group stage, we will have played as many games totally as the last World Cup in its entirety will already be past sixty five games and we haven't even started the round of thirty two. And that's something that one of our

top executives. The other day was saying to Stu we had a kind of a group dinner, and he said, I know what it feels like the morning of the Super Bowl and then that night when it's done. I know what it feels like the morning of the World Series Game one, and what it feels like at the end. I don't know what it feels like day nineteen of

this World Cup. No one has ever attempted something on this scale as an American sports broadcaster, so we've been given every resource possible, but there is an awareness that none of us know what this is going to be like until we're in the middle of it. And that's a very exciting challenge.

they've been to the last two finals. I think Portugal are really well placed because they they have the horses to do the running around Christiano Ronaldo and allow Cristiano to just stand in front of the gold score. And I think I'm such a big fan of Roberta Martinez, their manager. He is the ultimate it's fine, we got this, don't worry about it, guys, and he keeps everything cool, which I think is really important. I have much less faith and confidence in England, but also because I just

think it's funnier if they don't do well. You know, I think those are the big ones that I would say any of those for I would be in no way be surprised to see them in the final.

can make a run. There's a scenario where Mexico play England in the round of sixteen in Mexico City, which I would want nothing to do with that if I'm England. I think, at the risk of it sounding like I'm being evasive, part of it, honestly, Laura is like, I don't I intentionally go in with a blank slate in my mind. I intentionally go in with no expectations, and I intentionally allow myself to be surprised. Yes, we do our research, we have our context. You're trying, you know,

is this expected? What's happening here is unexpected? That's an important part of framing it. But I have long since given up going in with any sense of here's what I think is gonna happen, because I think it's a lot more fun to allow myself to just kind of be on this joyful roller coaster. And by the way,

look at two World Cups that we've done. No one in their right mind was looking at Croatia in twenty eighteen, no one in their right mind was looking at Morocco in twenty twenty two, and no one in their right mind at to Neil Argentina seventy minutes seventy five minutes played in the final thought that would end up in a penalty shootout and only by an Emmy Martinez say

that France doesn't win an extra time. So the international game has a allowed us to continually expect the unexpected, and that's what's really fun for me.

I think it's super cool. One of the things I always love when successful players and coaches come into broadcasting. I think is really fun now because there's this natural element of not liking a lot of broadcasters in media and thinking these these morons, what do they know? You know? And then they come in and it's like, oh, that okay. It's very I've loved that process of seeing the Clint Dempseys and the Carly Lloyd's and the Landon Donovan's and

other people come in. Julie Art's last year was terrific. She was in for a couple of days with us in the studio on the women Juro's coverage and chatting with her beforehand, She's like, I'm really nervous. I'm like, what are you talking about? You've won multiple World Cups? How are you nervous by this? But because it's outside of your comfort zone and so the fact that Laura, you have embraced this so much, that you steered so hard into it, and you sort of made it a

part of your regular thing. I think is really fun because it's a really neat job. It really is, and it's harder than people think. It requires dedication more than people realize. But it's also a great way to stay connected to the game. One of my favorite memories was with Stu walking into the final in Moscow in twenty eighteen and he said, this is the first time since I was forced to retire because of injuries, I felt anything close to that rush that you get as a player.

And that was really cool because I, of course was just freaking out i'd have to call a World Cup final, but for him, who's played at a World Cup, who's played in the Premier League, to be like, wow, I kind of feel that too. That's that's neat to kind of bring people into our little nerdy world of broadcasting and get them to experience that same field.