Clay Travis talks with Dan Wetzel

seven Sports to CBS. We talked to Mike Leach, Washington State head football coach, and Paul Findbaum of the SEC Network and ESPN. We are joined to this episode by the most read national columnist in all of the United States. I believe that is accurate. He is Dan Wetzel at Yahoo Sports. You can find him at dan Wetzel on Twitter. He is in the process of writing a series of books, sports biographies for middle schoolers. I've got him in my house. The kids are actually reading them. The two that we

have in our house already. Alex Morgan, US women's soccer player Steph Curry, Tom Brady and Serena Williams will be out soon. Uh So the plug here he didn't ask for. But the truth is, if you're like me and you've got young kids and you're trying to get them to read something, uh, these are really books that ideally would appeal to them, and you can. It's a sort of sort of like giving a healthy food while at the same time you're getting a benefit because it's a sports biography.

So if they like sports, they're getting that, but they're also actually reading, which is important. And as if that weren't enough, Dan Wetzel is joining us right now from France. He's traveled all over the world covering sports. Uh, and we're gonna get probably a little bit to what it's like to be in France. But Dan, first of all, thanks for joining us. Uh. Second, when you were growing up, did you ever think that you might one day be

the most read national sports columnists in the country. Uh? No, no, I don't. I don't think that concept ever Uh struck me as anything. I do think I recall as a kid being like intrigued that people were paid to fall around the Boston Bruins, yes, and uh and report on them. But I think I would have just gone and been a fan. I don't think I would have really grasped

what the job was. But uh, yeah, no, I did not think people would Uh many people would read me let alone that I'd be like in France covering women soccerbout seeing that probably was conceptually not possible when I was young. Yeah. No, it's a good point, all right. So we're gonna get to all of that and work your way up to how you end up at Yahoo Sports again. Dan Wetzel on Twitter at Dan Wetzel. But I want to start here. You mentioned growing up in

Massachusetts in the Boston area. What was your background, How did you kind of move your way into the educational system. Where did you grow up? What was your childhood like? Yeah, I grew up in the South Shore of Boston. Um, you know, uh, just you know, I went to I went to public school eighth grade, went to all boys Genterit School in Boston, PC High and high school, and

then once the University of Massachusetts for college. And UM really was not looking at all at um journalism really until I got to you math, and I kind of joined the student paper and like a club like almost something to do. So yeah, they had an ad in the paper, and I remember being like, I might be interested, and they're down there like just trying to meet people the first week of school. So it started. So when you're growing up in in the Boston area, were you

a fan of all of the Boston area teams? The Red Sox, the Patriots. I mean that you mentioned the Boston Bruins. I mean a typical you know, depending on where you grew up, but regional, regional American childhood where you root for the teams that are local to your your home down. Yeah, absolutely, And we read My dad though was that you know, we got three or four newspapers a day in the house and so and you know, there wasn't like it wasn't that much to do back then.

I mean, so it's like when the news, like the newspaper was there, you read it because it was like, you know, they do only have sports on. It was pre fpn um. But you know, like you just didn't have like endless opportunities to watch sports. So would be like, wow, I read the paper, paper, afternoon paper game. It was like something to do. So I definitely read a lot um, but it wasn't like I was sitting there going, oh, I want to I want to do this. So you

go off the U Mass. What did you think you were going to major in when you end up at UMass a major A majored in political science. I think I thought I might be a lawyer. I don't know what I was really, I was just trying to get a degree. UM. That was kind of my main goal was just get the college and then get a degree. Uh So, I like I worked a lot and just and I didn't really have a set plan. And then I just started. I started covering sports really again just

for something to do. It was pretty fun UM and it kind of took off. John Calipari was a U Mass at the time, and you know, not only did he get the basketball team UM to be good, he was and remains this like just a tremendous newsmaking figure. So he was always causing some kind of like story. It was always it was very very interesting and exciting, like you know, he'd be fighting with different coaches. You know, I was there the day John Chaney went after all UM.

He just was. It was there was so much news off of this that it was like this was really fun to cover and I think that really was like when I was like, you know, this is this is great, Like if I could do this, um, this is a pretty enjoyable career. And so that's that's kind of how most of it really started. So do you remember the first story you of a road at UMS? Yeah? Yeah, I thought my first beat was the women's across country team. Yeah. Uh brutal. Okay, so you go, have you ever been

to across country meet? You would know and you probably never thought of writing a story about it. But they shoot a gun and and the women run into the woods and then they come back like twenty minutes later and they finished, and that's a cross country Okay, So you don't see any of the race at all. You're just standing there at the Yeah. But you so you go,

well what happened? You know? And then it's like you get their times and you try to spell their names, right, I mean, I mean stories were just trying to do whatever, but you know, and then the West I tried to run as fast as I could. I mean, what strategy. You're very strategy, but like you know, you've been a second ago. Here's my question, did you consider going faster? Like I don't know, what I no idea? What to

ask you? This cross gunt people talk about like is it hard to write like a running game or at the super Bowl? Is it hard to cover the the Olympics? No, now cover a women's college cross country meet in the rain? Okay, that's hard, Okay, like cover I covered a um uh girls soccer game once in high school to think zero zero because I was freelancing toil like a local paper, like a zero zero game. Okay, what do we got here? Those those are hard to write. Something always happens with

the super Bowl. Okay, don't worry about the super Bowl. So yeah, I do remember um and I just remember I was trying to spell the names right. That was good. Do you realize like they you know, like this thing actually gets pret it's a campus paper, but when you're at college, like that was everything, So get get the names right? Were you a good student? Three women were pretty good looking too, So yeah, as a college kid,

that wasn't a bit you had. You had an excuse to talk to him, which isn't an which isn't an awful problem. Uh. Were you a good student? Were you a good student at all? When you were you know, like k through twelve and in the in the U Mass I mean, were you were you thinking like, oh, I'm you know, like academics is my pathway? You said you mentioned law school. Is that a sign that you were pretty good or were you disinterested or how would

you describe yourself as a student. I was determined. I don't know if I was necessarily there's a lot of law schools. They go to Vanderbilt. I was, I was. I don't know, I was pretty good. I don't I don't know what I mean. I think i'd like at three five in college or something like that. Okay, I was good, but not not as Union's in any way share or form Alright, I would work really hard to get a good grade. That was what I would do, all right. So you were covering women's cross country or

a cross country meets soccer matches. When do you get to go to a game that there's a crowd there and you actually feel, oh, wow, I've got a good seat. Like when's the first thing you covered and you thought, Wow, it's really cool that I get to sit here and watch this. It was probably like a men's basketball game, um uh that you know, like a good U mask men's basketball game. You know they were they play somebody good. This is for people who don't people who don't remember.

This is during the Marcus can be Ish era, Carmelo Travis like first first year was before Marcus. But yeah, that group, that group and ran and Blue roll definitely, Um yeah, am I right about that? They had Edgar Padilla? Yeah, I remember that, those Puerto Rican backcourt. Yeah, uh wad Edgar and Carmelo good guys. You have Marcus, So yeah, some of that. And then you're like, this is like

an actual event, and not only that. You sit there and it's like the guy next to you show at the boss the globe, like you know, so you're like wow. And then you know like it was a big enough game, like Bob Ryan would come and you're like, wow, this is like serious stuff. Um so that was kind of that was kind of fun. So you're covering Calipari and

you mentioned and that the John Cheney story. And for people who don't remember when John Chaney just went off on John Calipari and was like I'll choke you to death, I'll kill you. You were sitting in that room. What was I mean? That had to be like an out of body experience. It was awesome. Yeah, it was absolutely banana.

So there's no social media. There's no like like you had to wait and see if it came on Sports Center like later like now they probably like break in on it or something or just be all over Twitter. And but at the time, it was like, did that seriously happen? And Um, what had happened was Chane had come in and Donna press conference and he had actually like praised the team and didn't this really good game. I think they're both like in the top ten really

heated game. You m asked one Chaney. I always love Chaney still do um and he, you know, it comes in kind of praises them many leaves. But while he was in his press conference, he heard that Calipari had like gotten into it with the officials after the game. And there's still a lot of dispute on whether that actually happened or not or whatever Janey thought it did. And so then he just comes storming back in and

it was like, all right, what's he doing back? And I was like and I thought he was just gonna be like, hey, good luck to restaurant or something like that, and he just started going crazy and you're like, is this like actually happening, Like he's gonna go track, It's like, I'm gonna kill you. And he went up there ready to fight him, and Um, to his day, I wouldn't fight John Cheney. I mean he's eighty something years old, Jeff John James is gonna win the fight, so nobody

should ever try to fight John Janey. So he's literally like could have been worse, but um, two emass players kind of broke it up. Kept it took two guys the old Cheney back to like twenty year old college basketball players, and uh yeah, it was awesome that I was like, this is this is just a nom It's probably how I ended up telling of sports and sports are for So how many people were actually in the room when that happens, because people may or may not.

If you haven't seen it, you can go YouTube and I'm sure it's out there because if it happened today everywhere. Yeah, I stand up in the middle of it. I'm watching, I'm like, yeah, reporter on the scene. Um, it was probably like thirty people. There was as interview room after. So you can see yourself though in the video if you go back and watch it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't replay it like on ESPN every once in a while, like you know ten best coaching belt bounds or something

and uh and I'll be on there. So did you so you're covering then as as a student reporter? Um, have you had any interaction like does John Calipari remember you from having covered him when you were writing for the U Mass student newspaper now that both of you have gone on to obviously uh different directions. I mean he's obviously had a lot of success at at Kentucky and you're a national columnist at Yahoo. Do you think he's aware that you covered him that far back? Yeah? Absolutely?

Yeah where never were I gotta touch? So yeah he knows. Okay, right A mout and talk to him very often now, but I could so you you cover, you mask you graduate from college? Yeah, you mask back then, Like this wasn't like Kentucky basketball there's only like five or six people cover the team, so it was fortunate for you.

Do you think you would have been a sports report Do you think you would have been a sports writer if you Mass had been what U Mass has been for most of their career, you know, like a mid range at best a ten caliber basketball program. Do you think that them being good made you think, hey, this is something that I want to do in a way that you wouldn't have if they had been thoroughly mediocre very well. May not have very well, may not have. It's hard to say, but it wouldn't be a spun.

That wouldn't have been a big so probably wouldn't be excited me as much, and I wouldn't have seen that there was like an opportunity me there. I might have stopped into journalism anyway, but I absolutely when I first got out of We'll get to that, I guess. But I also liked covering like crime and news and stuff, so I might have ended up going more that route, but I probably not because my real, first real job

was covering college basketball. So a lot of it was connections I made while I was a college student covering Mass because there are such a big story. All these people came through to write about them and TV people

and everything. All Right, So you graduate from college, you've been able to cover John Calipari and U Mass as they made the most successful basketball run, and you know, the last what forty years of U mass athletics I would imagine, and then you graduate from college and what happens? How do you get a job in the world of sports? Well, I go and work actually covering uh news. I covered crime for a summer at the Indianapolis News Indiana. There was a recession and like the Northeast at that time,

so there really wasn't ops. Um. I was out there for that. I was covering, you know, whatever house fired. I covered a murder trial like it was great, um And I really liked doing all that. And you would have been you would this would have been like what year, Like what year do you start your career in Indianapolis? I just maybe nine or something like that. Okay, so the internet the your summer intern The internet is just starting to kind of percolate. Right. Do you remember the

first time you got on the internet. I don't really, but it was, Yeah, the internet was I actually wrote sports for the original American Online if the old dial up, and they had this a little they had these little taps, and I got to know the guy who was in charge of the sports tab on America Online. And I would write like once or twice a week, like a story or column about sports on there. I can only imagine when people read that thing, what did you get astronomical?

What did you get paid for that? I couldn't like so that, But but you for people out there you don't remember, you used to have to get on the internet. America Online would send out all these yeah, all these discs. You'd plug them in and then your phone line and would get like a worrying sound, you know, like and for I'm taking people back in time who were old enough to remember this, and the younger people who are listening to are like, what in the hell are you

guys talking about? And then it would pop up, like you know, you'd get that that connection, and there would be a mail Yeah, you got mailed. Yeah, And then there was like a news tab. There was like a sports tab and maybe like a weather for something. And I wrote on the sports tab America was a O

L sports And it wasn't getting tad much. But I mean literally the entire world the only way to get on the Internet was through that page YEA at that time, And so I can only imagine that we're probably like you literally would write something like I don't even know twenty million people would read it have been I mean it might well, be true, because it's the best. I mean, it's like the Netflix homepage now and we'll talk about the Yahoo homepage and it's impact, I mean, which is

obviously still massive. So you're writing in Indianapolis. Uh, and how long does that gig go on? You're covering house fires, you're covering former trial for four months and then what happens? Then I went to Chicago Tribune for like four months, same thing, like just news, all sorts of just like shooting something. Whatever the hell going Chicago, great New city. So just total Bayham every day, every day. So did you did you send out like the clips from your

U mass articles? How did you get those jobs? Yeah, you have to apply to get a clip pack You you have to send a lot of a lot of you send a lot of them out there. That's just kind of a problem. So the process of getting a job is hard, Like you would have to work your ass off to get a gig in any way. You send a hundred packets, I mean you just had to because you didn't know who were at a job and if anyone would read them and you and you had to print them, you had to change the cover page,

you had to fill out the address. You had to find the right person to send it to, like if you couldn't just email or go on like zip recruiter and like it just just fine job with a pain in the neck back then, so you get that, and then you moved to Chicago and then what happens all right,

So then so I really liked covering news. But then this magazine's uh, this guy Larry Donald who who owned a magazine called Basketball Times Magazine, and I had met him from the mass he lived in Detroit, and it was like a man, you were just write about college basketball and correct these long stories. There's a lot of freedom of the writer. And my Schago tribute thing was ending and I got offered like a job covering news and like I'm not even from the Midwest, so like

Chagro was great, Indianapolis is good, Chad was great. And then I got this job offer like covering this small town outside of four Wayne, Indians and I was just like, I was like I don't want to do this. I just I'm I'm just not a farmer like my thing. And then I had this Overgeny to go work for Basketball Time City. So it was a much smaller complication, but write and report pretty much do whatever you wanted. So I took that job and it was in Detroit, which is you know I wanted. I was just want

to go. I always want to be in a big city. That's just me. Um. So I took that job, and at a basketball times, I just had this great uh freedom to let learn how to write. And that was probably the best thing that especially at that age. I didn't need a lot of money. I didn't really need the prestige like I would be a Scott a tribute

and like could be a murder. Like you get out there early and they'd be like something on us, Like we had these police scanners other stuff that allright, homicide, you know, like south Side talking it down there, you

interview all these people, this kid got killed. Whatever you go, and it's been like it's just a brief, Like you have all this stuff to write a story and be like four paragraphs and it's just like you so you're working at a big place, but you weren't really doing like impactful work, and so the opportunity to like just try this was what really appealed to me at basketball times. And then I was just able to kind of do whatever. That was my big break. What would they pay you?

Because a lot of people wonder about getting your foot in the door. Do you remember what your early salaries were in those jobs? I think at basketball don let's take twenty two thousand. I'll tell you a funny story though, um, which was not much money van horn now, but it was enough that I could like live. That was it. I mean I was twenty three years old or something, so you don't really need much. And I really encourage people when they're younger, don't worry about money. Plenty of

time to worry about money. The money will find you if you. If you, this is the time to not care. Right, You get a roommate, you drink sheep beer, you live in it, it doesn't matter. But I do remember I actually out to have this job interview. I went to the Valparaiso I think it's called like the Videt Messengers, this newspaper in Valparaiso, Indiana, you know val Paris University of So I go into this interview. I think I

was in Indianapolis. Then there was a sports job and I'm in the thing and the guy goes on, we want to hire you. Um, we can offer you fifteen thousand dollars a year. It was really awesomely fifteen thousand dollars, guys, that's like less than like like seven dollars an hour. Again, I'm like, I used to work construction and make more. I'm like, I was just like and I must have been so stunned and quitted. This town was so cheap. I probably gonna live there for fifteen thousand dollars. So

I was like, I gotta college. You m works. So I was like, I can't take that job. You gotta pay any more like that, and I think I just said it so boldly. He's like okay, So gets up and he walks all across the news room, like into the publisher's office, like let me go check. So I'm like, oh man, look at this negotiating like I am styling, right, I'm killing this right. So he comes back. I swear

it swearing story is true. Right, we can give you fifteen thousand, one dollar two bucks a week, two bucks a week. I was like, what, uh, So I didn't go there, but um, I could have, but actually I would have been better off there than like even stayed in Chicago. Because you if you're a writer. You want to write, you have to learn how to write, and you have to learn how to report. You have to learn all of us. You have to you just the guys who never do all that stuff. Man, it's it's

a tough it's tough. Like I just you can be really good without going through some of those grinds and cover trying to find out how to make a windy across country meet interesting. But man, that's a good skill to have, you know, like you just to just jump to where it's easy. I don't know. I'm glad I went that round. So be sure to catch live editions about Kicked the Coverage with Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern, three am Pacific. We're talking to Dan Wetzel.

This is the Winds and Lost his podcast. I'm Clay Travis. Okay, so five, you're living in Detroit. Uh, what do you want? You're writing for the Basketball Times? What do you do? Like? What? What? What is your job there? And how long do you stay there? Um? Yes, I'm writing like feature articles, just all sorts of different stuff. But it was just opening up all sorts of like opportunities to do a lot of radio TV because you're just like a guest or

you're meeting all these people. So like one of the story of the Nfasketball Times was on UM Don Haskins and and uh and you tap, he's a head coach at you Tap, which is the Texas Western, which in nineteen sixty six was the first UM all black starting lineup when they were Texas Western. So I did this long story on Don Haskins, got to know him as a friend and like not immediately, it takes time, but that eventually led to the book Glory Road, and it

was a Disney movie Glory Road. Um. There was like opportunities I did. UM. I covered a ton of a basketball. I covered all these guys in the NBA when they were like in sixteen and seventeen years old. We would do all the recruiting. But instead of just doing recruiting like where you're going to school, what's your top five? You know where you're gonna visit. I I just got to know all the figures in it, and I ended

up doing the book. I wrote a book with with Don Yeager, who was a sports illustrating than called UM Soul Influence, all about how shoot companies and we're dumping all this money into a basketball and it's like completely corrupt and bananas and um, so I was doing it was just leading to all these other things because you had the opportunity to do these stories. So that was kind of a real benefit of basketball times. I think I was there at about two thousand maybe something like that.

But we just have so much freedom. Ary Donald was just a great editor, um and just was like, you know, go go fail, go fail and try things. And that's that's why that job was so good for So you're in Detroit at the time, living as your base. Are you traveling a lot to write these stories? Yeah, like once a month we go I go somewhere in college sports or like the AU circuit maybe maybe like once one weekend a month, or you know, a few days here and there. There was a shoe string budget, but

we would make it work. So the internet is also starting to grow, like these are some of the early kind of you know, launch points of the Internet. Are you still writing for that A O L front page sports articles? I did that for a while. I don't know quite how that ended. I don't really remember anymore. Um. I also, yeah, I was freelancing for for all sorts of different places. Um, I mean any I would write from you know, like all those like f F on book ever anything and do it would do a lot

of Internet. I was a huge believer in the Internet. Um, I was freelancing for um this website or even kind of work for him. But for a little whilcome hoops tv dot com, which is basically the N one mixtape. They created this basketball website where we basically could watch video of basketball on the Internet. It's a problem with everyone at dial up and see our videos. No, it's true because for people who don't remember, it was almost impossible to watch a video on the Internet. Even the

load pictures would forever. So because everybody's working on the slow speeds of the dial up Internet. So you're aware of the rise of the Internet. At the same time, you're not making that much money. I think you also started the Moonlight in a in a casino, right, Well, I was gonna get married. So at this point, I'm you know, like kind of like twenty six or something. I'm not making much money. I've written written soul Influence, but I needed like something steady, and so they were

opening casinos in Detroit. So I Uh. I was like, wow, if I get this, if I get a job at a casino, like, it's very I needed a job that I didn't have to take like the work home, and I didn't want to go back to work construction or something that's exhausting, like not the casino feeling. It can't be softening. But I just needed something like flexible hour, all this different stuff. So I went to the thing. I went to. UM as the part story, it was

called Greek Town Casino College. They're trying to trying to train the dealers, and they literally called it the Greek Town Casino College. They converted like part of a parking garage in downtown Detroit where we would go and learn how to deal. It's the uh the you know how Pepper nine wins most scenic campugn Yes, yes, yes, this is the opposite of that, because exactly we should have been ranked laughs. Um yeah, And I majored in craps and blackjack double major. Um. Crabs is harder than we

can laugh. But craps is harder than it looks. Um. And yeah, I was. I was. I was a certified dealer. My casino didn't open. I never actually worked in the casino. I did deal some other games and some parties and stuff, but the casino had some kind of like ownership shice the owners, so they delayed our owners and and then by then I had gotten a full time job at CBS Sports Line. Well, I want to get to never actually worked. I want to get to that in a minute.

But how long did you train to be a craps and uh and blackjack dealer? I don't know. I think might have been like you might take like six weeks, maybe eight weeks. I don't know. It's a quick quick college, not not not a not too long than you think. Yeah, I mean like I mean there's a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah, they come and trying to trick you, all the guys like you have to guard your money. You can't be wrong.

Um yeah, blackjack not that tricky, but crafts is wild, man, Like you get enough people on there, and they would we were doing we would play and then while someone was trying to deal, and then like of course we're just constantly trying to screw with everybody because that was what we were supposed to do. So it's like throwing bets in late or throwing like the worst possible odds bets like just you know at three coins, you know, three bucks on something like the odds are all messed

up for trying to steal money. So yeah, it's harder than it looks. You said you also work construction, but you know when you were younger, what kind of construction work did you do? Ah? We did like playing like sewage lines, and we weren't built a couple office parks things like that, like how like we put in the sidewalks. Um. I worked for the just a control the owner of it. So we would do just about eight but a lot of road work, a lot of a lot of jackhamhering,

a lot of digging ditches. I mean nothing you know as a as a high school college kids, So I mean you can literally tell your kids now like you worked as a dig ditcher. I did. I did dig ditches. Yeah yeah, Firewood. I had also had a bad jobs. I could run a backhouse, I mean have a license, but I couldn't do it. Yeah, I mean there's not very many probably sportswriters who can run a back oh and also working craps couldn't and I probably could not

run the back home. Now I would probably screw it up, but at one point I could dig all with the backup. So you are preparing like for whatever you need to do to have a consistent job, and then you've been talking about how you have like kind of you're you're paying attention to the rise of the internet. How do you end up working at CBS sports Line which I think was CBS dot sports line dot com if I'm not mistaken at the time it was yeah, or even

just sports Line. Yeah, I think you might be. One of the problems was I was like, so, I was trying to get like a job in a newspaper, but newspapers are different than like the first off, you could never tell a newspaper editor you worked like working in a moonlighting at the crafts dealer, like that would have killed you, um, because they wanted like everyone to go to Northwestern and like Colombia and like you had. If you didn't have like all the right connections, it was

hard to break in. And I by working at them like Basketball Times and Ivan when I worked at Shaba Tribute and I could get like everyone's interested and hired me. But once I left, they weren't interested and hired me anymore. And you had to like just you couldn't tell people like all that stuff with secret. I didn't tell people for years that. I was like I went to Casio College. Um now I just don't care. They can't do anything

to me. Now it's no newspaper writers left. But at the time it was all like I mean there was. They were gatekeepers. They were gatekeepers to the access to Oh. I was on the wrong side of the gate man. I could not get through the gate. I couldn't get anything. So I was scrapping around for Internet and stuff like that. But one thing is I was I knew how I knew how powerful the internet could be. And all I

wanted was like a good Internet job. And I to the credit of uh Sky, Steve Miller, Mark Swanson and the late Craig Stanky was his name. Um down at sports Line. They did not care where I weren't. They just wanted me. They were like this guy hustles and he had tons of connections and like college and a basketball like I had every I knew every college stattt a system in the country and every head coach pretty much.

I all the different people and that they saw the value in that, so they hired me to be uh national college basketball writer at sports Line, and they didn't

really care about all the you know, I didn't. I didn't have the right this, that or the other thing, and that that was the big break or else I probably would not be doing this at all because I was like twenty years old, and it's like at some point you're like, all right, I mean it's a sports right, and it's actun s work by now, Like how long do you go like this is not I'm not like this is like I'm about to start my reson and see as a doctor, Like it's that's right, and I

should be I should be able to make this work. Now. If I'm not, I gotta get something else. It's interesting you mentioned that because, to the credit of at least two of those three guys, they got me started writing when I had no pedigree whatsoever either. I was writing on my own site and I wasn't even getting paid. They were just running my articles back in like two thousand five ish. So we'll circle back around to that

in a minute. But I do think it's an interesting point for people out there listening, because this podcast is called Wins and Losses. You kind of saw an advantage because one reason you had an opportunity on the internet, and why I had an opportunity to tuning on the internet is because we didn't have that pedigree. Because if we had had that pedigree, we probably would have gone

to newspapers and they would have hired us. The newspaper guys didn't want to go to the Internet yet, right Like they were like, oh, this Internet is a fad. You don't get paid as much money. I'm not sure how it's gonna work out. It's not as part prestigious to be writing on some random website. Like I even remember when I was writing at FanHouse, guys sitting around saying, like, what's our circulation, like asking the editors, and they're like, well,

I don't know. I mean the whole internet, you know, like is anybody can go everywhere. But you had these ideas, you had these different fiefdom so to speak, in newspapers back in the day. And this is gonna sound an equated to a lot of our listeners, but you know, we kind of are on the tail edge of this where you and I can remember waking up early enough, uh you know, you check a newspaper to see who won a game, right, Um, and now that's like crazy

to my kids. Yeah. Yeah, for the weather, the movie times, yeah, movie times, playing at the movie theater, stuff like that. It was your access to all information. Yeah, and see what's playing. You had all these different islands of dominance. So and the the size of the newspaper was in large large part a function of the marketplace itself of

the city. So, like you mentioned the Chicago Tribune, but you also had these newspapers competing in the markets, and there was pretty good salaries to be made back in the day. Right, if you were working in the eighties, you can make a good living in the newspaper business. Well, I think you always good. I mean, and even if you still have a job in newspaper industry put unfortunately, but all the way through, all the way up through the nineties, things are going well, especially if you're a

good columnist everywhere else. So you get the job at CBS Sports or sports line dot com or whatever it's called, and you're in your late twenties. And I remember reading this when I was in college. I remember reading your column because there still wasn't that many people out there writing regular, regular pieces on the internet, right, I mean, it just wasn't that competitive, remember you, Andy Kats, Like who did you compete with that was writing about college

basketball back in that day? Because I was at George Washington University and we were pretty decent in college basketball and I always wanted to see the top twenty five every week. And like, I think they hired Dennis Dodd pretty early at sports Line. I mean he's obviously been there forever, but like, who did you consider your competitors on the internet at that point in time? Do you remember Denna Dennis was at that, uh sports Line? And

who didn't mainly college football? And it was basically Andy Chats and I, yeah, was about it, and and then there were all these newspaper guys. But the thing that Andy and I and Andy event the friend Noe biby, But what was we talked about it? We still do like we were like, okay, distinction, here's the thing. Every coach in the country can read this, yeah, right, like someone that they may have had to print it out, Okay, Like I don't think that Dean Smith is somebody who

levels you know, these guys or on the internet. And he shutting. But it went to every went everywhere it is amazing, right, you could read it anywhere. They had to even have mobile then, but the and and you could write as long as you wanted, and you could

write as much as you wanted. So there was none of this like, well you can't fit it in, like if you weren't working for you know, the Scholarks Tribune and some incident happened that U C l A or whatever you may be, it halfly really big to make it. We're just quite about everything. She is right right, right, right right, which, of course how the internet works. Put back then it was like, gosh, i'll re stores you write,

and what do you like? But I didn't care because I was just like, this is an unbelievable opportunity to get known. And and then really quickly you could call anybody and they call you back. And when you have the access to it, to the coaches and then the players and everybody, you know, it just it just blew up really quick. And and so I don't know, I don't think I knew my traffic numbers back then, but

I'm sure they're very good. But inside college basketball where I was writing, and and college administrators, they all knew. Everybody knew who you were and so, but you would still go to like the n s A basketball TOURNT and they do like, well, we don't have a sheet for you because your circulation is like they were so hung up on the old school, like you couldn't get into some places, and you feel like this is absurd. Like I remember there was a conference that I think

it's called like the Midwest Collegiate Conference. It's now it kind of became the Horizon League. Like there was like a lot of those like like Butler back in the day might have been in it or something like that. I remember trying to go to the conference basketball team. They wouldn't give me a sheet because I didn't have a print publication along with the internet site. And I was like, are you great? And so it was like

it was so you were fighting like that. But then I could call any coach in the league and they called back and can men. So it's just there was just this huge disconnect. So the internet was just static aneral's reading it, and obviously they still do, but it was just like this whole wide open thing. And and like you said, like if this had gone to a full competition on who the best person was at the time, I probably wouldn't have gotten a job. So my advantage

was I was like a hundred stories a week. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox Sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart Radio app search f s R to listen live. You would grind. But also, and we're talking to Dan, what'sall on Clay Travis? This is the Wins and Losses podcast. You recognize something that I think a lot of people didn't, which is in

the past, and it still occurs. Right Like the local newspaper people are obsessed with what somebody in that local newspaper market rites. But a lot of times, and you know this from from your experience, you can end up in a situation where there's not that much interesting to write about in the local news market. But if you're writing about college basketball, there's pretty much always something that's

popping on a national level. And those guys also who are reading you, both the coaches and administrators never everybody else, are curious about things outside of their own world. And so you had almost you and Andy Katz a monopoly on the entirety of national college basketball coverage from a writing perspective, which theoretically a lot of other people could have seen, but they didn't because they were may be

worried about trying to protect what they already had. Yeah, it's probably some of that, and then some of it would have been like, you know, you were gonna I don't remember what I got paid. I was certainly getting paid much better at that point, but it wasn't like huge money. So it was like, those are good jobs, but yeah, people didn't want to take a pay cut or I don't know, it's very comfortable work. Those have been around like a hundred years, right, you know, those

are like good comfortable jobs. But yeah, the ability to have an impact was much much greater on the Internet, just not much much greater. Now. I want to go to the credentialing thing because I think it also establishes the paradigm shift. And and I remember dealing with this

a lot writing online. Is they all of these schools panicked when the Internet started, and they're like, oh my god, we're gonna have everybody who has a wet email address is going to be arguing they're a member of the media, and so uh, they will credential all these tiny newspapers, these little tiny community newspapers with no issues whatsoever because quote unquote they are a print publication. But if you were on the Internet, you weren't allowed to be uh,

to be credential. And I remember like all sorts of craziness, like, for instance, and I'll get to Yahoo, how you ended up there in a sec. But Yahoo is a big deal, right, like a massive, massive website. And the way they would

credential Yahoo was or like CBS sports Line. I remember, like CBS sports Line did a print publication one year for like uh, college basketball or college football magazine, right, And it's kind of a funny thing to think about anyway, but I guess it was an advertising point for them, and they would credential the CB sports Line sometimes because of that print magazine because they were already letting in Athlon and Lindy's and all the other people who do

the you know, yearly print publication. But that was crazy, right. You fought those battles for years. It was unbelievable and trying to explain what you are arguing, um, And I can tell you a million stories. The hardest one was baseball MLB. But I got to Yahoo and I'm jumping a little bit ahead, but holy cow, because they were so old school and they'd always say, well, are you in the Baseball Writers Association? Okay, so he've been this baseball right Association? Like no, well, I go, how do

you get in that? Like where you have to cover a hundred and fifty games? I'll be like, well, I'm the only guy at the website, Like I didn't want to cover the World Series, right, like the NFL the NBA. Don't sit there and go, well were you at the Sacramento Kings Timberwolves game? Yeah, be a final car that we want attention MLB. So one time I was a spring training I'm gonna spare this guy that's the name

because he really isn't a bad guy. But this one guy at the at the Mets says to me, you know, you, guys, here's what needs to happen at this time. Joah, who has probably had a had a it was worth about fifty billion dollars okay, because you know ya who used to say and he goes, you guys need like the Sporting News to buy you so you have a print publication, And I go, how about we buy the Mets? What are you talking about I mean a fifty billion dollar

market cap. Sporting News is worth like fifteen million dollars. And he's thinking to I mean, it does kind of speak to the difficulty that people had understanding the Internet that he's like, oh, Sporting News should buy Yahoo. Yeah, who could buy every major League Baseball team. That's where we could have done. Could have bought them all if they was for sale. You know, we're worth more than the league. Yeah. I was like, okay, I don't even know.

I was I'm not talking to a rational human being at this point, like they're just we're not speaking the same language. He's back, I guess I'm not going to spring train and of the Mets baseball would be absolute worst. And I hated covering baseball, and once I didn't have to, I never covered it again. So you hated everyone in baseball. You're at CBS. How many years do you write covering college basketball? I think it was like three? And then uh,

and then what happens? Yeah, and then what happens? So then so a guy knew from college, Sam Silverstein calls me. He just became a sports editor of Yahoo Sports, which at the time was like they had a fantasy game, but like they would just beinglike when need to get into original content, and he's like, you should come work here. And I was like, now, at this point, at Yahoo was a I didn't even know if the ad mayde had a fantasy game. Probably a fantasy game. But it

was a search engine. It was a search engine. That's all. It was email and search. But they would put five headlines on the old Yahoo drunk page and he's like, dude, like these stories are incredible, We're gonna do this thing. And I was like, I don't know. I was just like you know what this is, Like this could be really big, right, like this this is like a startup, but it's got fifty billion. It's a fifty billion dollar

startup that makes tons of parting. And we're like, no one's even gonna know whether we're not doing a good job, Like we had time to try to like build this thing out. And so I switched from CBS Sports too Yahoo and everyone was like you're crazy. I mean, people are like I like, that's a search engine, and that's

why could never people understood like the CBS Sports thing. Eventually, but the idea of the search engine wanted a media path forget it, um, but I did that and then we had we had to like restart all the fights, but the the traffic and a bout of people and all the all the assets we have, We're just incredible and the opportunity to like, let's create a website. So were you the first Yeah, whoo's I mean they might have had Fantasy sports and Luis, but were you the

first first sports writer? And probably I was the first like journalist writer at all the whole place, like, no, they didn't have moves, was just like an ATC dead nothing. So what ye what year would this have been? Like two thousand three? Do you ask anybody to talk because two thousand three it's still really early days of the internet right there? Aren't you said people thought you were crazy? Did you almost inherently just trust your instinct on that move?

Or was there somebody you talked to other than the guy who called you and said, hey, you know, we got huge sight traffic here, we want to make a go of it. What made you you think willing to take that risk that other people weren't. I remember talking to uh Adrian ward Strowski, who was working band at like the Bergen record in New Jersey and is a longtime friend of mine. Um long before the worlds bombs, Yes, um um. And I remember he thought he's a very

smart guy. And I remember he thought it was a pretty good idea and that that really helped. There's another guy gave Scott, a longtime friend of mine, works at the US and he thought it was a good idea, and I knew. I just felt like, you know what, what the heck, let's try this. Um. I kind of felt like, what's the worst thing that could happen? UM,

I don't know. I just to me, it was like, there's so much potential here, and I was kind of the other thing in two thousand three was like I was covering college basketball at that point before the one and done, like the last year there was Lebron's senior year in high school. I was like spent more time covering high Lebron like nobody was going to college, none of the players, and so college bess was like Lane.

I still a lot of fans, but it was like this wasn't as interesting, Like I believe me, when they get rid of the one and done college that was not gonna be remotely as big of a dealing now, it's really not that big of a deal now, so I wanted to Like I thought like, well, if I can cover the NFL and I can cover baseball and n b A and we was in the Olympics, we had all these plans. I was like, that would be a good opportunity for me to get out of just

being a college fastival writer. So that was part of it too, because I kind of thought college basketball in trouble and like like back in the day they used to be like at least be great. Like tennis writers, Well, there's no job to be a tennis writer. So if you want to be a sportswriter in America, you better

cover football or or the or the NBA. Like it this a couple of baseball guys, but like Garris is in So that was a big part of it too, was like I'm gonna be able to spread out and do different things if if this doesn't work at Yashop. But I really felt like if we did it right, it would work. And Sam Um was super really smart guy and a really good guys at the Path twelve now and Um we just kind of were like, I think we can make this work and so I was like,

what the heck? Right, So sixteen years you've been at Yah. Who sports now? And the people out there who think back at what Yahoo was like back in the day. I mean the amount of site traffic that Yahoo dot com would do, and that MSN dot com and a O L dot com and they still do, even though those three sites are not as popular now as they wore back then. I mean they were insanely popular. But you're talking about Yahoo in a pre Google universe, right, Like I mean, I don't even think Google had been

founded yet hardly or is only a couple of years old. Um, So you go to Yahoo, what is your first Like how do you even get started? You just start pitching ideas on stories? Like what is that process? Like, well, Bertally, yeah, we're like we'd start writing store like we had to set up everything, and we had to set up a news desk like comanitor Like it was just a lot of planning and then we're trying to find people to let you go cover things because that would give credibility.

But then you could just you know, like anything like you know, NBA Free Agency or whatever, like whatever's going down. I remember the US Open tennis I covered that. It was like one of the first things. It was like, yeah, well you can come cover cover tennis tournament in New York. Um, there's a lot of like meeting and like we just we had to plot out what we're gonna do. I mean, it was it was it was a total startup we had,

but we had the opportunity to do or anything. So it was like what kind of sight do we want to be? How much journalism do we want to do? Um? You know, eventually it was like what positions would we add? The Mexical while Sam was really really smart guy and he was like, we're going to cover the Olympics, okay, and I seemed radical with one guy. And so he's like we're going You're going to the two thousand for Olympics.

And he's like, the thing is it would spark all like all the people at Sonny Island in California would be excited about the Olympics. And if we're covering the Olympics, it would like make an impact in turn renally, and then if we do a good job, that will create like internal investment because like, yeah, who had all the money so we could do anything you want. It. We just needed more, so we're gonna be better, like putting

our eggs in that. So that was a big one internally because when we did a good job at the at the Athens Olympics UM and we would get selling our stories on the front page and we're kind of building up the sports page that that that was kind of a cap for the first year and then there and then, like I think internally they're like, yeah, you can hire like a couple more people or want don't you try that? It grew a lot of things and it was very smart because I had never thought conceptually.

I think it just wasn't in my wheelhouse to think like internal pr right, like how how are you being seeing inside your company? Because a big company can can put their resources wherever. So that was kind of an interesting lesson that we still try to do. So you're at the Athens Olympics, it's two thousand four, you're representing Yahoo Sports. You're basically the only employee. How in the

world you decide what to cover? Right? But I mean for people out there who are listening, I think they have this idea and I want to get into this you a little bit more. But when when the story is packaged for you, and you go and you read it, you think to yourself, oh, of course they went to go cover this. But effectively, when you arrive at the Olympics, it's like you're given a huge menu, your one random dude in Greece, and you've got to figure out, oh

my god, what are the stories here? What am I gonna do on a day to day basis. It's not like there's some you're not NBC, right, who's putting on the Olympics that has a thousand people there and they all sit around a table and they're like, oh, well, we know we're gonna cover gymnastics, and then we're gonna do this, and then we're gonna Mean like they have

everything mapped out, you know, a year in advance. I mean, I know, Fox, for instance, has the Super Bowl this year coming up, and they're already you know, they've already hired hundreds of people, they got their cameras and their sets already scheduled. I mean, you're a random dude just going over to Greece and you're like, yeah, I'm writing for this website that nobody knows. How do you decide how to cover the Olympics. Well, yeah, he's just trying

to pick your spots, you know. And then if even if you're not, like if something big happen and you're not actually in the arena, you just right about it anyway. But yeah, it would be like there's a track need that dymastics need to swim me, there's basketball game, there's this. You know, you're just you're just trying to guess on what the best story is gonna be. Also, like what

can you do that you're going to differentiate? Like that was kind of a big thing, Like it's like value over replacement player, you know, like in in in uh in baseball, Like what what can you do that will stand out and make it work you being there? So sometimes it's not just being at the at the big event, it's it's being at the right place or where the best story is or something like that. That was something

I learned in the magazine. So it's like it's just going to the biggest games doesn't always mean you're in the right spot. It's it's a lot easier to make an impact when no other not many reporters are around, and like being at the super Bowl, Like I love being at the super BOWLK like the challenge of competing as all the other writers, but like there's two thousand people there, you know, So it's it's to to differentiate yourself as a real challenge. So sometimes you're better off

at something else. Um, but I don't know, man, I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't I was not a very good column to stare back back then, I would try to read all the other guys that basically get my brains beating men every day. But you know, whatever we're trying. So I definitely like I never went to like the all the touristy spots. Everyone's like, did you go there? I don't even know what all this stuff is in Grease, But I would now go to anything.

I literally went in nothing today eight I would once it has worked. I was just like, so we were panicked. We're like, we gotta make we gotta make this work. We run all the way to Grease. You mentioned that you didn't think you were very good, Um, you know, initially on the columnist business and and and I probably

should ask this question earlier. I don't. I think there's a lot of people out there listening to us right now that don't even spend that much time on the distinction between news and opinion, right, and so much of it has gotten mixed up today that it's sometimes hard and you sometimes get confused. Even if you're just a regular person. You're reading, you're like, wait a minute, is this a news article or is this somebody's opinion about the news? And I feel like there used to be

a more substantial difference. But you are hired to be in the opinion business right when you go to work Yahoo, but also when you're at the Olympics, you're also kind of in the news business because if a big news story breaks out, that's something that people want to read about. Two, how did you straddle that line and how complicated was it? And were you thinking in your mind is this a

news part piece or is this an opinion piece? Because I would imagine early on when you're at Yahoo, you kind of have to fill every different aspect of the news, right, whether it's an opinion piece or just a straight you know, like something happened here and it's a news story. Well, I would try to write an opinion piece, but I would probably just not trust my opinion, so make it too loosy so how do you come Yeah, so how do you come to trust your opinion? How did you

work through that to get more comfortable? Because I think you're the best national opinion writing writer in the business of sports now, But how did you find that voice and how did you work your way into it? Yeah?

Well thank you, but yeah, doing it and then reading the other people, so like you know, you'd be there and like Bill Platsky's a phenomenal, phenomenal sports columnists from the l A Times, and you know, you'd be at the same thing and you just you'd read his the next thing and to be like I got my asking like why do I suck it right? This disaster right right? And I was like why I didn't even think of this, Like I didn't trust it or I can't even remember,

but you O'Connor, who might for care? I mean, I just everybody. I mean, that was when korn Heiser and Will Bond were righting. I mean, Bob Ryan, like all these guys that are kind of all on TV now, older guys, those guys slaughter you, Dan Lebatar, Holy Cock and LeBatard right a column um just phenomenal and and they just bank like in an hour, they just kill you. And it's just like my column is not anywhere as good as this. So he just you know what, guy

could tug anything. He's got to keep doing it. You know, what's that like ten thousand hour? You know, I'm glad, Well, you just I mean, there's just no he's gotta keep going. So, yeah, it's a little rough some of them days. But but you know, there's so many swings that at the Olympics or anywhere anything you're trying to do, and you still always kind of I don't know, you just trust yourself a little bit and you you kind of just figure out,

like what's truly interesting. I mean, I have some different tricks I'd come up with. I always I always try to say, um, you know, like if if if I'm driving home from the assignment wherever I'm at, and somebody calls me and my wife calls our friend go and they go, what happened at at at the game denying or the events or whatever, what you do today? And like it's the first thing I say, isn't the column

that I didn't write the right column? Because sometimes you you know, I don't know, you just be like, wow, you wouldn't believe what you know, Kobe Bryant said after, but then you ended up writing about like some inbound players. I mean, you know, like what what you do. But you see that a lot in sports writing or the other thing that really helped me. I had actually did a lot of talk radio. I had a talk radio

show briefly in Detroit, and that helps a lot. Talker everyone makes on the talk radio, but you have to be on topic, and you have to figure out a topic that the listener wants to listen to or they aren't listening, like they are hitting that button in one second. And that's a big Talk radio was a big training ground too, because if you're on a bat, there's nothing worse than a segment on talk radio, a bad talpic. You just you can just feel all the people clicking away.

I'm glad you mentioned that because I always tell people advice. You know, from a writing perspective, you do this too for writers. Go on radio every opportunity you get, because it will crystallize oftentimes your central thesis as you talk through it. Right. And also if you're if you're if you have a good ear, you can pick up on what people care about. And I hear sometimes writers and they'll say, oh, I don't like to do radio, or I don't want to I don't make the time to

do radio. And my argument is radio is basically an opportunity for you to advertise your audience and and create people who care what you think, whether it's written or spoken. And you've always done radio quite a bit, and I think there is a certain element of writers who sometimes look down on radio. I've always argued you should use radio to lift your writing up even higher. Yeah, same with like you know, I mean people make fun of like around the Horn and stuff like that or some

of those goos. But it's like they're they're almost always really good on topic. Like I watch I don't watch a lot of TVs. It's not the live events that it's don't but sometimes and I'll watch, um, whatever Stephen as at First Take or whatever Stephen A. Smith show is on, Like they get right into their topics, like and they get right to it, and it's a good the A Smith was a good called sports columnists to tell you that, Um, I don't think anyone like I

don't know how many people even remember. I guess he reminds people every once a while, but he was a good sports column. Um my first metim was coming Temple basketball. Remember being like I'm gonna I'm gonna do this this and this is like he did at all Um, but

that's a guy that worked hard. And but they get right on their voice really quick, and they get right they don't they don't do topics that you don't need to do, and so it's there's there's a trick to it, and and a lot of those shows are very good at it in big ways that maybe people don't. I don't. I mean, I don't know how many journals and students listen to this thing, but there's a people will look down on that. Like Stephen A. Smith is loud and

I'm highly entertaining. He's very very smart to get to right to the point and the point people listen to the point. So what are we arguing about? Like, I can't be Stephen A. Smith, but what he does is really good. Yeah, look, I think what you just hit on his key. I mean it's all about the story, right, Like you have to find the stories that people care about, and then you have to have an opinion that people

care about. So I'll give an example, and I've known you for I don't know a long time now, and I think, honestly, you reached out to me for the first time when I was writing at CBS Sports. I think you'd already gone to Yahoo and you're like, hey, would you want to talk to Yahoo? And this has probably been calve thirteen years ago now. In fact, I remember because it was when tennis Tennessee was playing. It was when Dixie Land Delight was coming out, uh, And

I went out and talk to Yahoo. And we'll get to that in a minute, but I remember we were talking at the Alabama Notre Dame game and Katherine Webb. Alabama just blows out Notre Dame, right, and Katherine Webb goes up on the screen and immediately becomes the story of the game. You know, good looking girlfriend of of the quarterback who was uh, who's an aim is escaping me now, which is ridiculous because a J. McCarry Yes, a J. Mccarroen, yeah. And so the game ends, everybody's swarming,

Nick Sabe and everybody's swarming. Everybody's swarming, and you rush over to try to find Katherine Webb because you're like the thing that people are gonna want to read about in the column is what it was like for Katherine Webb to become an overnight sensation, right, like some people would have looked down on it and said, oh, you're there to cover the game. You were there to cover

what you thought was the biggest story. And so you interviewed her, right, yeah, well Musburger remember Musburger was like kind of yes, so but you have to like I remember seeing you, like you were climbing up into the stands almost to try like everybody else. But I waved her down. She came down. Yeah. I waited for Karen and he went over because he's gonna go like Hucker

or whatever. Yeah. Right, so yeah, so I was like I got the interviews Captaine Webb, and it was she said, like she she added eight Twitter followers like her phone blew up, right, yeah she could like Lebron James started following her, like I mean, it was it was a huge story. Yeah, And and she got an email every she had, like a notification she said to work. She got an email every time a Twitter follower because she

had like whatever, she's not any Twitter followers were going on. So, like you know, Jenny from so theology classes now far okay, right, Well, she's got so many emails. Her battery just died, so then they're trying to get word. She didn't quite know what it happened. She knew she'd been on TV, and I mean, look, she's like the beauty queen. She was not and this is not naive. Um it was funny. It was like three weeks later she was covering the

Super Bowl for like extras. She got to the Super Bowl quick, like you heard me the interviewed just three weeks ago. No one to hear you. Well, I just remember I just remember A. J. Mccarren's face when I said, like in the locker room matters. I'm like, you know, Lebron James is following your girlfriend now, and he's like, he doesn't follow me, and yes, yeah, that's right, yes, And so I don't. So I get this tether webs nice, she's got these nice talents. So I go down. I

talked to mccaren. Well, unfortunately the locker rooms open. It's the only game in college football you can actually talk to the players. College like college sports, tries to hide all their athletes. Terrible. These guys are great stories and there it's like good talk to the players. You know, uh that these three questions in front of the it's

access of college football stinks. And then she has let these kids be kids because they're great and you and I are in there, but all the questions are always going to be the same at these things, like it's just gonna be about the game, and I'm like, I want to ask him about his girlfriend becoming like globally like famous. He has no idea. He just won the title.

And you were there and it was great because we were both asking them about it, and then we could bounce back and forth and they couldn't break in with third and four. Did you think? Yeah? You know? You you you know. I was like, god, they do they want fifty to zero or something? The game? It is horrible, but again everyone's got a job to do. But yeah, we both and you you go. Lebron James following companies like what. He was very naive. He had no idea.

And I remember his other funny line, well, I think we're gonna go. They were saying at the font with Blue Hotel and Miami goes um, I'm hungry. I hope they saw food or the place is still open back of the Yeah, yeah they never they never closed at the Fountain Blue. They haven't live nightclub is open to like six am. Yeah. Uh, the South to be Don worry about it. So yeah, yeah, that was a big story the interview with But that's what you learned, right.

You get the trust of like screw and I'm not covering the game and game stinks, you go wherever the story is. I remember you saying something. A couple of other examples, Uh, Jay Cutler. One of the first times that social media really starts to influence a game. Cutler pulls himself out of the game because of his knee injury the NFC Championship game. I think where they're playing, like the Packers. I can't even remember who they were

playing now. Uh, And he's injured on the sideline and all the NFL players start mouthing off about how he can't be that injured, and it turns into a story. And remember you saying afterwards what social media did was it turns what used to be the second or third day story into the first day. In other words, it accelerates the cycle. So you go and talk to Jay Cutler.

I remember in the post game and you say, hey, did you see what guys are saying about you pulling yourself out of the game, And it was like Cutler had no idea because he'd been on the sideline and that's your story. It's not about what happened in the game. It's about Cutler coming out and the way people respond to it, right, And I remember that one, Like, like until social media, they'd be like, what would you have

to rank? First of you have to be able to get their numbers or have their numbers, and you have to randomly call up these athletes and be like, hey, if you have an opinion on on Jay Cutler right now? Like yes, you know some random cornerbacks for the jab Jabards or something that. No. So plus, if you call up and go, hey, I want to interview about what you think, they won't say anything. But they're like drinking beers on their couch and they're firing off on social media.

It's public. And now we cover social media all the time like it's it's this is it's a second world. Do you remember when that evolution happened from I'm in the game to write about what happens in the game too, I've got to already kind of take the conversation beyond where what happened in the game to the next conversation that people are gonna have because everybody's watching the game,

and with social media, everybody's talking about the game. So your column has to be something different than what you just watched, or the takeaway has to be something larger. I think I've always been like, especially like a Super Bowl or any of it's always been like, well, why am I here? Right? What access do I have? Um So, if I'm at the super Bowl, like a hundred and thirty million people watch the super Bowl and they have HDTV,

They've got all the replays, I might not. Yeah, like I'm at the press box, which is great, but it's used to like the worst seats in the whole stadium you don't have, like you just don't they know better, and like they know their teams better, Like just so, what can I do? Well? I can do something behind the scenes, where was it, like this happened? Or you may be zoom in on one play and then ask all the people what happened on the play? Or like

you have to use your access. So I think I've always kind of had that where It's like I have to give them something other than just hey, uh yoh wow man, Tom Brady is great. They want of those Super Bowl like you know of course they did, or just just like I'm here to find a story, not just necessarily just be at the game. I think that's the biggest thing. Like I don't like I never really care what happens in the game. Nobody ever, people don't believe that, But I don't care. I don't like something

will happen. That's that's all it is. I don't care. Winds Uh, I don't really even care if it's close or not. Sometimes you do, but like, as long as there's something I can find on all right, be sure to catch live editions about Kicked the Coverage with Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern three am Pacific. I'll give you an example to you just mentioned Brady. I remember two of your columns that were so well done from the Super Bowl, and we're talking to Dan

what's so Yahoo Sports National columnists. I'm Clay Travis. You're listening to the Winds and Lost his podcast. You wrote a column about Giselle's reaction. I think when Brady lost, right, Um, and about just the humanity of that's just a guy who happens to have a girlfriend and they happened to be world famous, but how upset she was about just by what you could see in the tunnels underneath the stadium. Uh over that loss. And another one was Brady after they win. I guess this is the a f C

championship game. But after Brady, I think it was beats Patrick Mahomes, like he kind of snuck in the back do word to go talk to Ma Homes after the game, to kind of walk through after that overtime game. And I don't think I don't, at least I don't remember anybody else writing those. That's an example of taking advantage of being there, but also finding a way to find something that nobody else has, right, right, so I have

the access, so use it. Right. So what happens on the field everybody saw, So that doesn't mean I don't sometimes write about what happened in the field, But like I can't add to that conversation really that well. And I don't pretend I don't ever say I'm like an expert on the sports. Um like football is a very complicated game, and so for me to be like, oh

he overthrew that receiver. Maybe the receiver random rob. I mean, there's so many things happened football, particularly, but so like, yeah, I followed Tom Brady after a Super Bowl offs like he was devastated, devastated, Like every one of those losses just guts those guys. I don't care how much money you got, beautifully, I says all that stuff like if you're a competitor, you are gutted. And he was gutted

in that one and the Woolen balls. I was just stand there and he he said something to the security guy, and all of a sudden, this goes in the back doors his cheeks, and I'm like, what's up at that? And he comes out and I go in the locker room and I'm just and I asked the security guard. He said he wanted to know where the Holmes was. Um security guys not allowed to talk, right, So then, uh, I just got the security guard in trouble, um random random person. And but anyway, I go up to us,

did you go talk to my homes? And what you say? And he just gave me like one line where he was kind of surprised. I do but at least that you know, he's just like, guess I wanted to, you know, tell him I didn't see him on the field or whatever. So yeah, like what can you get that? And then that was I thought it was a good column because it was like, you know, this young kid had played so well and it was like the old guy held

him back. But it was like, I'm gonna go acknowledge that I know how much pain you're in, that you're really a hell of a player. And so yeah, like if you have to pay nine and you have to try to use your access the best the best to possibly can. Now what part of the job too, Like that's the fun part to me, Like like finding stuff, finding a story that nobody else has told. Now, we think one thing that you I think have been on

the vanguard of. I mean we've talked about the fact that you're on the vanguard of building Yahoo Sports and and making the decision to write online and all of those things. But you also will allow data and analytics to inform you an either confirming that you're on the right track in terms of writing about what people care about. Uh and and so I'm curious on that. Let me give it a little bit of a background for people

out there. Story goes up on the front page of Yahoo Sports, it's read by millions and millions of people. Right um, you know, there's a little tab for sports for people who are not familiar haven't spent a lot of time there, and those stories they'll rotate them through based on algorithm. They're the things that they think people are going to click on the most, right. The goal with everything on those pages is to write things that

are clickable. And sometimes it will be a basic news story and I know you guys sometime times have a pee wires and stuff, but I'm always stunned by the number of writers who don't pay attention to what is read that they write. I've always been an analytics guy, especially once I started out kicked. I'm gonna write about things that people care about. And sometimes I'll sit around and say, Okay, I could write that, but it's gonna be a tiny audience. And sometimes you make that decision

because it's something that matters to you. But ultimately, if you are a sportswriter, to me, you're in the business of being read and you can use that data and that analytics to help either confirm you that people care about something or that they don't. And so I'm curious, when did you start paying attention to those numbers and start using them in some way to help guide you as to what the nation cared about? Really early, I mean because we had access to them. So I was like,

I want to know. And my job is to bring people to Yahoo or keep them at Yahoo. That's my job. However I do that, so it's not I'm here to cover a game, it's not here to win an award, it's not here to be friends with this. My job is to find people to bring the boyagra or keep them on there. And so what are they most interested in? Now, look, there is a there's a tipping point on that where

we just become just nonsense. Right, So there you don't you have to balance that, but very quickly you probably doesn't need analytics. But you realize a lot more people are interested in Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings. Right, So it better be a hell of a story with the Sacramental King, dreight. Now I'm not I'm not right now covering the NBA because soccer. But let's take women's soccer. I'm gonna write about the Netherlands team, like they got

a star player on the Netherlands. What I'm right about Alex Morton a be crazy? Like so you know, those are the extremes. But if you really sense it and you see all the different stuff, you kind of figure out, uh some of it. So some of it is just like right, this are I mean, these are not in the general purposes, They're not not surprising, but there is times when people kind of seem to forget you, like, that's an interesting topic choice there, I'm gonna go with.

I'm gonna go with the low hanging fruit. It's hard to get people to read. You get harder. Has there been a time where you've talk radio stuff too? Like you want to talk about talk radio or the ESPN the Fox sports shows like US one shows like they don't They're trying to keep people watching and that's why they go the same topic over and over, and I get why. I'm like listeners viewers get upset and like

he's got always talking about Lebron James. But it's like, wow, not everyone watches for five hours a day, and so you know that's this is who they're interested in. It's it's interesting that you mentioned, you know, like your your job, your job. Can you say that again? Because I think it's interesting how many people have jobs and they don't

ever really dissect what their job is. And it's interesting that you worked in construction where you know it's relatively easy, Like you have a screen job your day to your job today is to dig this ditch, right, like that's what you're supposed to do. Um and yeah, and and you know like even you know you said you you trained to be a card dealer, right, Your job at at blackjack is to deal the cards and not screw up and pay out things correctly. Same thing if you're

playing craps. A lot of people I feel like they don't let anyone, don't let anybody steal the money, like they don't really know what their job is. It's amazing to me how many people have jobs and they have these amorphous jobs and like what do you do? Well, I kind of do this if you can't distill your job down and you just distilled that you said your job is to either get people to come to the

site or get them to stay longer. That really, I mean, that kind of sums up the internet, right, That sums up the all media. It's all media. That's it. What what am I doing? And what is the differentiator? So think about like a really good broadcaster, okay and you go okay, So take um Bon Skull his bond Scully with the great who's the great Dodger guy? Then no something, who's the guy that's retiring? I don't know. Let's pickup Monday Night Football or something like that. John what did

John Good? So, okay, I'm gonna watch great game, right, Packers Packers and the and the Bears are playing, and I want to watch the game. And then well the game's out of hand, but mad is entertaining me, so I stick through another quarter. That's John Madden, right, who's funny. That guy's funny. I'm gonna keep watching um or I don't know who's playing, but John maddens on Right. There was a time when Dick five cow was really that, Like it was a big basketball game, Dick five cows

yelling he's got a college I watched this. What's going on? It's got go crazy? Right, I'm gonna watch that thing. So like if you just think what kets you to stay one more segment and or what draws you and now it's harder to draw him in. But when they're there, how do you keep them? So whatever that is, and that also that can be like don't be annoying or don't make someone. There's a lot goes into that, but

that's that's media. But yeah, I would. I would always say to anyone who has a job and figure out what your job really is and even ask your boss like why am I here? Like what? And it's at risky now because if you don't know why you're here, I'm gonna fire you. But it is. It is remarkable to me how many people have jobs and don't understand the basic question that you have to answer is why am I here? How do I make my job boss more money? And you know, like how do I do that?

Like just basic blocking and tackling, I would say, of the show element of the job, then you better figure out every day did I do that? But because if that seats in the back of your head and so whatever your job is, it's like you know, I think like some of them are obvious, right, like shales. Right. For my job, I'm a car deal. My job is to sell a car. Okay, so did you do that today? But there's also other parts, right, So I don't know.

I don't I don't know how to sell cars. So try it will help you do better at your job. If you know why you're here, and even your boss hasn't thought about it, you'll probably do the job really well. And so that's that's my job. So I don't always sit there and go almost My job is to write do this. It's not much. This is what I'm supposed to do. I don't know how how example that works. I don't know, but every day I gotta try to do that. Now, the concept of the podcast is wins

and losses. And I mentioned earlier that you reached out. We met each other like eleven, twelve years ago, thirteen, whatever it was. I went out to interview at Yahoo. And so I'm trying to make a living as a writer online. I'm having some success at CBS UH, and you get me set up with an interview. I come out to Santa Monica to the Yahoo offices. I spend all day there. I think it goes pretty well. I'm like, you know what, I'd love to get this gig. I

think it would be pretty good. They give me some freedom, I'd get a you know, salary increase, the audience would be outstanding, and I don't get the job offer, right, I go out there and then they just kind of leave me hanging for a couple of months, and and I didn't get the job offer. And so I sometimes wonder what would have happened with my career where it would have gone, because at the time I wasn't I

don't think doing radio yet, I hadn't certainly done television. Um, what would have happened if I had taken that Yahoo job? And sometimes, like you may know, the answer of why I didn't get the job, I haven't even asked. Its potentially good. I forgot you. I had forgot You've got out there. Yeah, I didn't know what to do with you. Yeah, I I went spent the entire spent the entire day talking to everybody at the Yahoo main offices in Santa Monica.

I thought you had reached out, and you've been like, hey, we haven't really hired anybody who's kind of in the you know, zany irreverent. You know, at the time, I was writing hopefully humorous columns at CBS, like, I think we could find somebody in that. I think it makes sense because you you were instrumental and I don't think you've even mentioned this, but you were the first hire

at yeah Who. You've talked about how you laid out the different uh, the different roles, but you also were incredibly instrumental in bringing in those early voices at Yahoo. I mean in many ways you helped to build it. Yeah, yeah, definitely, including a lot of people and and and the voice that exists for yeah Who Sports is in many ways, Uh, your ideas of whose good voices that could be, whether

it's Woad, whether it's Pat forty. I mean you have been Pete Damil over the years, very instrumental in the guys who have invest want to investigations. You want to be unencumbered. We wanted to tell we want to right right tough to tough columns like you know, we weren't just we'ren't afraid all the different things we've tried. We could tons and tons of investigations for a long time. We still do. Um, yeah, like we're going to cover

all the uncomfortable things. Yeah, And I don't have the you don't have the encumbrances of their relationships at the time. And so you talked about what your job is. You also sometimes look your Yahoo Sports. You talked about the difficulty that you guys had sometimes getting credentialed, and a lot of times I think in life people focus on the advantages they don't have, right, They focus on the disadvantages.

They sit around and say, well, we can't do that because we don't have X, Y or Z. Do you remember like a moment where you thought, well, hey, we can be the independent voice the guys who are willing to write stories that others might not, and this gives us an advantage because there's a market out here for the style of writing that we would do, for investigative pieces or whatnot. Did you have that as a lightbulb moment?

Was it something gradual that happened. Were you cognizant of thinking about it even back in two thousand three when you went to Yahoo. No, we always I always knew that we would. I wanted to be a part of something like that. I didn't want to. The other thing is that, I mean it was good branding. If you want to get into that, I mean, can't you can't make investigative journalism and anything other than investigated journalism and just get the stories wrong. Um, like you can never

be a crusade. It can never be like act because you're it'll be wrong because you'll miss, you'll be blinded, you'll walk into blind spot. So you can't do that. But you know, in a in a broader thing, like we have to become impossible to ignore. So you have these huge stories that no one else has, and particularly early on, like you know, so Nevin Shapiro or um, I don't know some of the other things stories, and we're gonna cover Aaron Hernandez and no one else is.

We're gonna do stuff that and all the leagues. I mean, like the pr guy I used to get along pretty much at all, but at the beginning, it's like when they were paying a knack and like, you know, they joke and like, you know, like you guys are like a prince of darkness. Nobody you never call for any good God, that's not what we're gonna be. But you they know who you are, you know, So it's just

the way it is. Like I just like incredible, like fotball relationship with college sports, Like I love college sports, right and I actually love the scandals of college but I think the scandals of college sports are part of the fun of college sports. Like I do never think like, oh my god, everything's painted because it's a scandal. It's like,

this is the funny part. I I used to always pay I have used an example sometimes, but when as a kid I watched I love the Boston Pars, love watching hockey, and they'd be a fight on at the game and and you know, to be awesome, and then I'd run to and then I get the next day like in the paper or the at the oh this game was marred by a bench clearing brown. And then I'd run the school and be like sixth grade and be like check see the parl at night right, Like,

like dude, the Nevi and Saverio stories hysterical. The story was so entertaining, like it was nuts. It was completely nut, just like a billionaire ponte Steamer like funding the team, like totally crazy story, Like yeah, it stinks for Miami, but whatever they got back. None of these stuff ever sticks. But you know it's a bad story, like Larry Nasser, that's a bad story. There's nothing good at that. But you know, some of these scandal stories, they're just funny.

And so it's like whatever. That's part of the part of the charm of the whole thing. So I'm curious when you have one of these big investigative pieces and you have worked I mean, for instance, Nevin Shapiro case, I mean, there's no telling how many hours, like you guys put in I think it's you and Charles Robinson back in the Charles the most of it. Ton how

much nervousness? Yeah, okay, So how much nervousness is there in the minute before you click publish and you know it's going to go out and everybody's about to see it. Because let me let me yeah, let me preference that again, because you know, the era that we're in and have been in for a long time is a lot of times now people don't try and go after the whole story. They try to find one little mistake and say, well, if this is not accurate, then maybe that means the

whole thing is not accurate. Right, And it's almost impossible if you write five, six, seven thousand words about anything that every little detail is going to be ironed out perfectly, no matter how long you work on it. Right, So when I heard this cover? Yeah, when when when am I nervous, like for a week at least, leaping up to it like Samach is like terrified, have trouble sleep, terrified and what what are we missing? And we try to report backwards on the story report the other side.

There's two things about what you want to do on any story. You want to be accurate and you want to be fair, because those are two different things. And you can be accurate and unfair. Um, and you can be I guess you can always be just inaccurate, so but you want to be fair awful. So it's like

what am I missing? Like is it like you've got to write this story and be like you guys did this and then they go, yeah, we did this because of that, and you're like, oh, right, right, So you don't want to I don't know, you just you you just you just spend so much time on it. So it's a meat grinder's just a meeting people and the problem is you're you're right. Like I've heard a prosecutors say this one time and I thought it was very

good in a trial. I was like, this case is like a rope if one threat of the rope phrase and you don't believe one threat if the rope is still strong. It is not changed. Okay, so one little part of the defense makes sense. Doesn't mean there are two dead bodies over here or something like that, right, So it's like and so yeah, they'll try to find one little thing. And then there's really in nowadays, like

there's basically state run media. There's these organizations that just are like the websites are just and like there's always one there's always one guy who's either got a blog or a page or whatever. It's just like all he's there to do. His whole business is to defend the school. So like, no matter what the story is, they're just gonna be like it's not true, it's overblown. And where they're you know, defend. And then there's the attack. He who's kind of gotta that part you has got to

deal with um. But like our track records phenomenal because we take it very, very seriously. But you have to be I've seen people do not know how to do investigative journalism. I've watched so many good reports blow up on dumb mistakes at a lot of the outlets, and it's really really hard to do and you have to be really really into it. Any good editors, you need cotent dedication. And half of them don't work because they aren't done right, even though they actually they actually are true.

A lot of them are true. There's poorly done or they're not fair. Those are there's a lot, there's a lot there. So you've written a lot of stories over the years about quote unquote improper benefits or pay for play things like that. Do you have less of an appetite for writing those stories now than you might have a decade ago. Well, we nevern't really cared about I could write them. We could have done a million, like you know, point Guard somewhere gets the money. We were

never into that. We decided at one point was the n p A was really pretending that there were white hats and black hats, and they were using it to justify not paying the players and amateurism and avoiding taxes and stuff. So in other words, that there's guys who cheat and there's eyes who don't cheat, and there's a strong difference between the two. Yeah, Park is terrible. The rest of the guys are good, right, And it's like, give me a break, right, and I covered a I mean,

I just forget it. Like this is just ridiculous. So we didn't have a stretch when he said we're just gonna blow everybody up like we're and we're gonna go big schools. We're not doing small schools like we're going we're gonna find stuff about whatever come up. But Ohio State and Oregon and you know, we went after Yukon and whatever. We had link care. But it was done with a purpose. It wasn't done to like we really almost never tried to get a player in trouble. It

was to get the coach or the system in trouble. Now, there was some um, obviously there's some you know, players would get get in trouble or something like that, but it was like we've shown how bad it was and they did get rattled. They ended up passing the stipend rule. After the whole chaos that we had enough stuff that they convened a big thing and they ended up that excite them. So all these players did, they didn't create something, but we don't. As we're getting criticized like, were you

guys just trying to do the MCS work? But no, Anally hates us. We're blowing them apart because we're showing they're not doing anything, and they ended up changing and so there was there was like a grander motivation to it and just if I if we just want to go find out all Baskett player got something that doesn't. That's not that hard. You can do that, um, but we never wanted to be like but it's not about like we didn't want on Yukon basketball and like we didn't.

It was not about like the poor kid that got some money, he deserves the money. It was like Jim Calhoun had his former manager student manager was now and he's used him to funnel the thing. Like like it was you know clear how they were doing it. And it's like this is how sophisticated the cheating in for like the whole college basketball scandal, which the said's bots, but it showed how sophisticated it was. It's not just now so let's all focus on the one kid that

got a thousand bocks. It's like you gotta do this. The Nike likes funneling bads of cash tow players and the coach is going up to do it so surely exposed trying to expose what the whole system really is, which nobody wants to do. They want to just catch a bunch of speeders and ignore all the other things. What would you change if you if they came to you tomorrow and they said, Dan Wetzo, you're now in charge of the n C double A. How would you change it? I just would let the players you get

their name, image and likeness. I just I like, I'm a free market person. I just let the market go. If you can, if you can make some extra money, you get sponsored. People will said, I don't, it's gonna screw up concruding. I don't think it really will. I don't actually don't actually did a level of playing field. This is actually yeah, but right right now it's all about the school keeping all the booster money. But I don't know, it's kind of complicated. But it was actually

not complicated. This is what they did in the Olympics. They just if you can, if you can get a commercial, or if someone wants to pay you to go to a school, someone wants to let me sign autographs, uh for thousand bucks or fox or whatever they want to do, go ahead and get it. Um, just get out of the way, let the kids make their money, and then uh, you know, the school isn't paying, But you're just you're no longer getting in the way of them. They're amateurs.

Got to be able to make their money some other way. So I was I do, and I think you saw them with all the problems. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox Sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart Radio app search f s R to listen live. We're talking to Dan Whatso Yahoo Sports national columnists. Another thing you've done in addition to being a national columnist.

We mentioned that you have the new books that are out the biographies for UH for middle school students, and that's called the Epic Athletes series. Al Morgan, Steph Curry, Tom Brady, Serena Williams U those that be the first four. But you also wrote a book called Death of the BCS. Um. What how would you compare the writing of a book process to the writing of a column and which do you prefer more? A column you get done quick? Yeah, a long time. Death with BCS is very reporting heavy,

a lot of documents. Um, you know, we I think we just wanted to show how all of the excuses were such nonsense. What a what a ridiculous entity the Bowl system is and the fact that they allow this thing, like you talk about ridiculous, like the n c A, Like you know, if a player gets you know, five dollars, Uh, there's a threat to amateurism. But if the head of the Sugar Bowl makes seven grand, it's like gouts our buddy, It's great, right, Like it's so I mean, it's so ridiculous.

So that was the thought that was, like you we you know, everybody wanted the BCS gone or everyone nobody everyone hated the BCS. And I'm Josh Peter who worked in USA today now and I just will talking on the phone. I'm like, let's find out, like why this thing really exists? And like you know, no, no favors, no, like you know, the Bull directors all hated. Everybody hated me while it's writing that book, I mean everybody, we're in everyone's toys and everything and bonuses, and like why

does this really exist? Because nobody quite knew. There was no much spoken god, and we want to do all They wrote a bunch of stories. Anybody's turned into a book because it's easier to read in one spot. And I remember the very end of the book process. I flew down to Birmingham and I saw it Mike Slive if the SEC office is and I had all my information and I'm like going through this stuff like well why do you allow this? And why that? And He's

sitting there going, well, what is this? What's you find out about this? Like like different stuff. He was a stunned about and I'm like, holy cow, like we really

have a good book here. I remember he was. It was like I found some clause and like the fiestable contract where you're like like you had to buy certain rooms at a hotel, and then we found the fiesta bo was kicking the money back to the hotel and somebody had like a free wedding at a hotel that was in the Like there's so much graph going on and people just be like, I can't I didn't even know all this stuff, and it's like yeah, no, like

literally nobody knows what's going on. Just it's all happening. So that was just a long and a long reporting process of a few years, and unfortunately I'm in the BCS. I don't think the problem is that people designed this playoff didn't want a playoff, so it's not really a very good playoff. Eventually, they'll get it right. We're talking to Dann what So, YEAHO sports national columnist. You. We were talking about different stories and the way they came about.

You were in the room when I asked Tim Tebow if he was saving himself for marriage, and I think you turned it into a question Yahoo call him? But what do you remember about that? And some people listening to this right now, it's been a it's been a decade now, they may not even know that I was the person who asked. I mean, they kind of have a vague recollection of the Tim Tebow is a virgin story.

But the reason why that became a story was because I asked Tim Tebow if he was saving himself for marriage, and it blew up into a huge story that's probably been what a decade ago. And you know, you'd go to the SEC media days and Tim Tebow was as close to a rock star as you could find back in the day. They were coming off of a national championship, he was a rising senior, and so I asked that question, and it's like, I mean, a neutron bomb goes off

right now. Partly it's because it's July and there's not a lot of stories. And you know this, you were talking about how you're at the Super Bowl and there's nothing to write. Well, there's a thousand media members or whatever it is at the SEC media days and most of them are doing notes columns, you know, like, oh, you know Nick Saban said that he thinks his defensive tackle depth is gonna be better this year than it was last year. Are the l s U wide receiver

is gonna be able to make play? Like really things that are very uh not very big stories, right, and then this thing goes and it goes off like a neutron bomb. And I remember it was right after I started Twitter, um, so that was one of the first times I saw social media really take off. So I think it was like, oh nine, like a decade ago. What do you remember about that all time great questions? All time whether the all time great questions? You wrote

a column asking the questions. Apparently you said you were going to ask the questions. So then we were down there and You're like, I'm gonna ask the questions. So I'm about missing this right, this is gonna be great. So like it's a great question, it's a great question. And I always I'm literally on a different thing I'm dealing with, like right now, like I want to ask one question. I always I hate asking questions at press conferences. And that's the problem. You have to ask you that

a press conference because it's uncomfortable for everybody. But this is probably trying to limit you. And there's so many times like I don't need an exclusive interview to sit down. The people who sit down for interviews, the interviews are terrible. They always twenty five minutes on crap. Like all I need is one question. I have one question, answer that we're done. Um. If I could do that on every assignment would be good. I got and I've done it

with people. I remember doing one with Mick Saban once after SEC title game. I asked, um, I asked him. I'm like, I just always want to ask this one question to him. They're like, all right, go bring him over. It was great. Um, but on that one, I remember, so you're gonna do it. So it wasn't the main room, like I don't think they gave it a mike. It was like a side room and you asked. But here's the thing, everyone ripped you. I mean you got torched. Yes, yes,

for like the whole week. Whole week. Yeah, still I still get I still get rid of like a million. I remember like Dennis Dodd was like, are you gonna ask? I don't remember. I don't remember, And later we talked about it, so I like Dennis, but it was like,

are you gonna ask? You know, like it was something like you canna ask Les Miles if he has an STD And I remember thinking, like, the really funny thing and I might be it might not have been that exact line, but that was in his column something like that, and I remember thinking like, hey, I'm thinking the net today.

It would have been amazing to stand up and be like, hey, Les Miles, Clay Travis, Dennis Dodd wanted me to ask you if you have her pies, you know, like just to see the room, just like erupt him, like because you get if you've ever been in those rooms that, yeah,

if you've ever been in those rooms. Most of the questions are not very interesting and most people don't care about the answer the answers right, so almost immediately right and by the way, everybody was so upset about me asking the question, what did everybody write their whole next day call ups about it was all about whether Tim Deebo is a virgin or not. Right, So here's the thing. People will put this on the record because there's got to be a video. But as I recall it, Tebow

everyone laughed and people goes, it's nothing. I get that. I get asked that every time I talked to kids. Yeah, he said something like that, like every time I speak, I put up and they go, do you have any questions? And someone goes, are you like, what's up with this? Like are you really a virgin or something like that, and he had no. He's the most unflappable, like he's a fantastic guy, and you know it's like he yeah, he had no problem with it. He was like happy

to answer it. Oh and looks like ten years later, people are still like, Jim is a virgin. I'm like that a question was a long time ago. I don't know, he's still yeah. You know what was interesting too, was, um, I maybe felt more comfortable with the question because growing up in the South, if you were saving yourself for marriage, it was something that you would brag about, right, like you would wear a promise ring if you were really serious.

Like at that point in time, it was something that in the evangelical faith was a very common point of discussion, the promise keepers, like all this different stuff surrounding it.

So I didn't think he would be bothered by the question, But I also thought it helped to define who he was, Right, this is this guy who's on an SEC campus that probably gets swarmed by girls, not probably, certainly gets swarmed by girls everywhere he goes, and he is so religious that he's still, you know, abstaining from having sex, which ninety nine point nine percent of men I would imagine in that situation probably do not make that decision, right,

So I thought it defined him in a really interesting way. But I remember that feeling of like that story blowing up, and look, it's happened to me a two or three different times since then, but that was the first. Oh my god, like, this is the number one story in the of the day, and it wouldn't be, uh, you know, it wouldn't exist without me having been involved in some way.

And the same thing happened obviously with CNN with you know, First Amendment and boobs, except on an even bigger scale, because that wasn't just a sport that wasn't just a sports story, right, But you kind of get comfortable. And then I had the DeMarcus Cousins like He'll get arrested in five years tweet that was like a decade or

or five years old or whatever. And so at some point, like you kind of just get used to, Yeah, when the social media age, like are you know you just kind of get used to suddenly, Like I go into Twitter and I've got, you know, a billion messages and

I'm like, what happened? You know? Like and I remember having this conversation with with Cow heard about like, uh, you know, Debo Sweeney comes out and he's like calling Cow wouldn't know he didn't even know his name, Like I hope he learned something by the way our team performed. And people are like, oh, Devo, you know he really

got on cow Herd. And I'm like, in our business, the coach of a postgame press conference who just won a national championship calling you out by name is the greatest thing that could ever happen to your career, right, Like people are like, oh my god, how are you ever going to recover from this? I'm like, are you

kidding me? It? Reminds me remember back in the day with Michael Moore did the Fahrenheit nine eleven and they like showed him on the JumboTron at at the Republican National Convention and like he waves everybody and he turns to the guy next to him and he says, I just made another million dollars because they're all booing him, and it's like the greatest advertisement he could have ever had for his UH, for his UH, for his documentary. And that's in some ways what we do. But you

you saw it. I mean it was like, you know, like pure bedlam in the in the in the aftermath. But it's the thing you you you deal list great information, which is your job. Stories. It's one of the most famous things known about Tim Tebow, and it may be the most famous question ever asked at SEC media days. I'm not sure that there's a clause the fairer way, but you're encumbered because you're like, I want to ask him one question. Yeah, And this is my one of

my problem medias. They won't let you talk to them directly, but then they have they do sit down for interviews that are almost all terrible. Like the interviews aren't any good. So it's like, but that's sometimes you see really good stuff like, um, one of my colleagues of Yahoo, Chris Haynes, does a podcast with NBA players, Like it's it's great. They really talked to him and he gets great information from them, um because he just he has a great

rapport with him. It's a really good podcast. And sometimes you can just get like just you know, I just thought that was just a tremendous Uh. It was. It was a great question. Um, I'm trying to think of another one. I was just gonna say I wanted to ask or I asked once. Oh it was yeah, actually not that get a story. It was just like the old Michigan State bas football coach John L. Smith came

on our radio show at Detroit. I asked him like, hey, this guy's got this wednsite fire John L. Smith dot com or something like don't like having a guy at a website saying like fucking He got so mad and everyone got mad at me for asking in the Michigan State and I'm like I was wondering, like I didn't say you should be fired, but like it's got to be kind of odd, right, But like they don't want real questions, and so it's just as weird. It's just weird.

I've probably always have been weird the media. But like, we know lots about the athletes through filter of Instagram, but you can't actually ask him anything. And it's a tough thing. Was it's a tough question to asking a press office to tebow. The t Bow handled it perfectly. Most players would have struggled with that. T Bow is just amazing. Yeah, I mean, I think Tibo will eventually run for political office. I mean that's been my prediction.

He'll go down to Florida and he'll get elected governor or senator if he decides he wants to do it, and it went, I mean, he'll win running away. I think I imagine he'll run as a Republican. I don't really know a lot about his politics, but I don't know. I think he's one of those guys that it doesn't really matter what party he runs for, Like he will

have a ton of response. So one thing that you you have always done well and I think it gets underrated and I keep hit hammering on this, and I know you've got a couple of young daughters, but I've got you know, the Three Boys, and I focus a ton on trying to praise their effort more than their more than the results. And and that's sometimes for a lot of people out there listening. I think there's a

big difference. Like, you can't control, uh, your talent. You can't control necessarily what skills you have in any particular universe. What you can control is your effort. And what I have admired about you for a long time is your effort is insanely high. You write more words and more columns than almost anybody out there. Do you attribute that

to just a work ethic? Um? You know, I think there's two different kinds of people in in in in our industry at large, right, I think there's people who think, like, oh, I need a stroke of brilliance. I'll say writers. You know, there's the writer out there who's like, I need a stroke of brilliance. I need something to motivate me in order to write something. And then there's other people. And I would put myself in this category of what I

do is produce words, right, That's my job. So if I'm not doing that, then I'm not doing my job. I don't feel good about it. You could easily write a lot less columns than you do. What do you attribute your work ethic to, not the work result, but your work ethic to being up there and grinding as much as you do? UM, well, thank you. This is like the nicest podcast, like UM trying to get there it wasn't easy. Then when you get a good job,

I don't want to give it up. I've always we're alwayn fighting like the yahoos, ton advantagers and things like that, but we didn't always, And then you're still trying to stay on top. People want your job. There's too much to lose. And I got the family and a mortgage and all that, all of them. But pride is basic

pride and and uh and and liking it. It's funny how you said it, like I put out words like I said this to the journalism class recently, like you know, some of you guys like my favorite I like to write in the early evening with a you know, a half calf mocachina. I'm like, no, right, there's the deal. System is writer's block. I'm a writer. Like when I when I dug ditches, there's no dig ditching ditch digging. There's lots of mythologizing of writing. It's a job. Do it.

It's a job. You go. If you're gonna do it as a job, you better do it. There's no like I just can't. I don't not believe me. I struggle at times. It's not easy. But the number I tell people to the number one skill in writing is concentration. Like I can really concentrate, and I don't know how, and I don't want to know how I can do it, but I can concentrate. And if you can concentrate, can write really quickly. I mean, get all this stuff out, because I have written stories in subway cars, on top

of garbage cans and see on busses, point whatever. Right, Like you'll, I'm a journalist. You can't just be like I'll now retired to the coffee shop and get my box together. That's not the kind of journalist I am. Like you know, I was covering the French in the world cover of friends, like a hundred twelve degrees. It's like a sweating I mean, it's just miserable, like it doesn't matter write the story. So um, there's sort of this an element of that too, and I kind of agree,

like you can't. You can't go on your radio show and be like you can't speak right now. I just can't. Like, no, this is what I do. I signed up for this job. You better do it. So I don't like the works, though I like the challenge of finding stories and writing stories and reporting stories, thinking stories, doing it the whole thing. I mean, I still really enjoy it. So Bill that in like, I got a great job. I'm not gonna let I'm not gonna give it out because I just

like I'm easy, good God to be stupid. One thing nothing else I can do. One thing you've also done is we talked about how to know where the story is? What are things are people going to care about? You have covered more, I think than anybody else in sports trials, whether it's the Aaron Hernandez murder trial, whether it is I mean like you know, like it can be a high school you know, like a rape case. It can be the you know, the the Larry Nasser awfulness that happened,

the Joe Paterno situation. What is it about those stories which are certainly sports related, but they're also in a courtroom that you think you have gravitated towards well they usually I mean the usually big serious subjects which i'm I don't like, I'm I don't. I think I said a few times like I don't care if I'm at a game, like I never sometimes I don't end up at a game like I've covered like every great game, but like I didn't. I don't think I went to

the National Football Championship this year. Um say, I'm sure I'm didn't. Right. No, I don't like people you miss No, don't miss it at all, Like I don't like I don't leave it there. I'm not there, be fine if I'm not there. Um So, But a trial, So a trial is dramatic. It's a big story. Like I like big serious stories more than just I was at some game or at some stadium. Um. Sports to me is more about like just the backdrop of all these different

all the different mayhem that it creates. So the trials are good. Covering a trial is always interesting, and they just you know, I mean, the stuff that gets said, the things that happened are usually very dramatic. Um. And then there's definitely an audience because there's a true crime element where people follow these things like I just did telling Winslow that they don't, but they aren't into the

sports part. So you get a sports audience, and then you also get the true crime and true crime audiences like herding out there. Because you know, if you you can remember a day before Donald Trump renowned for president, like CNN, Fox, MS, they used to cover trials and I'm not just talking like Nancy Grace, like Bill O'Reilly

and all those guys. Like it was like uh, Scott, Lacy Peterson and and and Jodi Arius and all these like random like some random person would get murdered and it would become a big national trial, would be on all the TV networks every single night. And so there was this huge audience for these trials. And then all of a sudden, all those networks and now one politics, they don't cover anything other than politics and the maybe like an occasional hurricane, so where bodies go, there's not

People stopped being interested in murders podcast. I mean, obviously some people would say they're listening to, you know, the podcast, true true crime podcast, but yeah, you're right, it used to be. It used to be a obsession because you have the natural drama, you have the certainty, you have the competing stories. I mean, it is an intense level of dramatic conflict and not very much in the world of sports. Do I think they get covered? No, almost

nobody goes. Almost nobody goes. And so yeah, I mean that's another one, like how can I make an impact at my job? Right? Like what's my value over the other guy? And so it's like, yeah, I'm here, and we get massive traffic on those trials, like huge, Um, it will be dramatic if they're very challenging. You're there like eight hours, you um complicated. So and then it speaks to the difficulty, like the skill of being able to figure out because in an eight hour trial day,

what was the story of the day? Right? You have to trust your instincts in order to write the story that makes sense of eight hours when you have to distill it down to I don't know, a thousand of words,

you might pull out four quotes, right, Yeah. And really being um a columnist I think is the best way to cover trial because a lot of the trial coverage is just so the defense said this, and the prosecution said this, and then there was the judgment on evidentiary ruling on this, and it's like like there was a day of her name, this child and he became a

famous photo. But where his his fiance brought his daughter to the trial and for the last five minutes when they brought Aaron back in and he saw made up and waving at her and just really amazing scene. And I talked to her after, just like you know, um, and she granted his permission. That's you know I did. That's a bait. You know, you don't really know what

then can't bring someone in the open court. We're I'm gonna say, like the TV wanted to show her and she's like, no, it's fine, and it was all this thing and it was just like this, it was a great moment. And I just wrote about that and I don't even know what happened because I think they might have been deliberating part of it or something. But it's like, this is the moment. And then it would be literally crazy because it's like five days later he killed himself

and basically last time he saw a daughter. We didn't know that at the time, but um, I wonder if he did. And so this is sometimes like again trusting what the story is. It's like, Okay, this is the biggest thing. Like again, if you about walking home and my wife called me and she goes, what happened today? I like, oh my god, they brought the daby that the little girl so keyte they brought of the trial and it's like, you know, should she up or whatever?

And they don't. And your columns about Snefidencia are ruling like you missed the story. Be sure to catch live editions about Kicked the coverage with Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern three am Pacific. There's lots of people out there listening right now and again the podcast called Wins and Losses. I'm Clay Travis, Dan what's so Yahoo Sports National columnists? So this you bring up the daughter there and you've got two daughters. I've got three sons.

This is something we've talked about. How do you balance when you work as much as you do? How do you balance out family life with your work life? Um, and especially when you have a job where you might be on the road for a week covering a trial, or you might be for like you are in France right now covering into World Club, Like how do you multiple weeks maybe a month? I remember you were over in wherever it was, I think Korea, South Korea covering

the Olympics over there. How do you balance out work and family life? I mean to me, that's the number one challenge for literally every parent who's every working there. Yeah, everybody struggles with it. Um, everybody wants more family time and but you also have to you know, one of the things you have to do is provide for your family. So that is a challenge. I just think everybody grappled with. You know, the benefit this is, at least how I just fi it is. You know, when I'm home, I'm home.

I got I'm not commuting to an office. Um, you know there's a lot of time when I can when I'm home and I'm trying to really be this is the date, the minute by minute challenge. But being engaged with your kids when you're there, Yeah, you would be there and it's not paying attention to you them. Um. I'm a very early on pushing one of my kids on, my older daughter on a swing and while I'm looking at the telephone and I'm like, what am I doing?

Like like whatever that hell, I can still remember the swing, you know, Like what are you doing? Put the phone down, like it's not bad. Whatever is on whatever, text messages or whatever, I get it your way. Like I'm literally at the park with with like two year old, Like this is way more important. But I think that's just a struggle everybody has, whether you travel for work or you have long community, you can't be home for this or that. Um and then how do you end work

and start family time as fast as possible? Because I've heard like Mark Cuban's is like times the most precious thing you have, Like it's the one thing you can't buy. It's the one thing you can't buy. He's like, um and and you know, being a parent, man, it's slow and fast exact same time. Um. So, I don't know. I wish I had the I said that one, but it's well in particular, I think you're you're mentioning like you right from home. I do much of my work.

I got a home radio, home television, you know, I I write and in my office. Like the flip switch between I'm you know, Dad at work versus I'm Dad at home is I think particularly challenging for people. I don't think it's just us, but I think if you have a job where it's it's it's hard to escape

from it's hard to have those delionated hours. Like I remember talking to my dad recently, and when we would go on family vacation, he would take two weeks and he wouldn't talk to anybody at his office, right, like he would be unreachable, and like we were just as a family out on our own. And on some level, I envy that so much, like that ability to just escape from all contact for a couple of weeks. And I don't know that as a society we're ever going

to have that. Oh, there's no way we'll ever have that. They just don't. I mean two weeks and be I mean times of a job, I guess you have. But um, you're always you were always too connected now with everything. But yeah, that would have been that would be great. But you know, I look at that and go he offer like working at home or working around like I am. You know, I can get the kids off to school and then start work or like you know, see there's no commute, man, It's not a lot of people commute.

Um when they got to work two jobs, I worked two jobs. But it's a little more flexible, So I don't know, man, I mean it's just I just think it's something everybody fights every day because you want to do I've had things like, you know, I've had opportunities like well, come come here for a week, be on the TV show, or go go do this, and I just do like or you know you gonna if you do this, you gotta be on the road like the

next six Saturday nights. And looks like if it's not for y'all, or I mean, I write books, try to do my second jobs with like books, some things that like sit into that I'm just like, I'm not giving up all those weekends. Like and I know it's just maybe not the smartest career thing, but I really want to be a parent. And so like sometimes you just say, now, you know, I think I was a lot of the guys that do really well on TV they don't have

that they aren't married. Yeah, it is true that there it seems like there's a lot of people who don't have families or they aren't married. And you know, basically you can just have your career and when you're young, you can do that. And you were talking earlier about you know, you can make five working for the basketball times or whatever it is, because you don't have those obligations.

And I do think for to the extent people are listening out there, when you're young and you're not married, or even if you're married and you don't have kids and your wife's working or your husband's working, you have a lot more flexibility. Take advantage of it. Um. And that's the last question I want to ask you. And then I'm Clay Travis. We've been talking with Dan Wetts, so we do a weekly podcast here called Wins and Losses.

What advice would you give someone out there right now who is listening and they're thinking, I want to one day make a living writing in the world of sports. What would you tell them to do right now? Uh? I mean, I just I don't know. I learn how to report and learn how to concentrate. I guess those are the two days. Don't don't worry about what you're covering, um early on. I mean, it's you know, like I

just it's just not that important. Everybody wants to cover the super Bowl and the super Bowl, and there's a ton of people at the super Bowl don't know how to cover it. So it's like they're like there's lots of people. They're just sort of kind of in the media, but they don't they don't really ever preach anything substance. And so it's like you just really have to learn how to do the job. Uh. I think there's too much. There's just too many. You're not you're not gonna laugh

unless you know how to. I say that, and I hope I keep lasted. But um, you just you have to learn how to give the job. It's it's it's a job. It's not where am I at? Um? And if you can figure out how to think on your feet and they give you all sorts of different people and do all these different things and right really quickly and write a lot and get it right all the different things you have to do. Um, then you have the skills and then you'll get to go to wherever

you want to go. But just because it's like a big event, that's not the best stuff you do. I guess that's probably the biggest thing. Everyone was like, all you got to go to that. I'm like, you know, like that's yes and no, like you always get to remember,

like how fortunately are being it? It was it was a covered daytona five hunter all time and the Masters and Jay Bugsby and Jay Hartsdag to work with and we always would take time to get the day five d on like the Thursday night they do like a shootout that they at race and we always still out in this grandstands and have a beer and just like remind us of like how often this is, Like yours a third number likes how great it is to be at some place and bring passion to a game, But

like just being at the game is not. My job is not to go to the game. So it's like just because the game is going on and it's a cool game, that's and I just think there's so much sports media. It's just like I get to go to the game. Like, you're probably not going to produce something that's going to keep getting you to go back to the game. So learn how to do that and you probably will be able to do this job for a

long time in whatever shape formed this job is. I know I said last question, but I want to go back to the very beginning. Now, you said when you first started covering U Mass in college that John Calipari years that you'd be like, oh, this is a really big game. If Bob Bryan's there. Um, have you had the experience yet, and I'm sure you have of people coming up to you and they're like, oh Wow, Dan Wetzel,

I can't believe you're here. You know, the young guy version of you, who a college level kid now who is like kind of oh my god, it's a it's a really big event because Dan wessels here. And what does that path feel like to have gone from being the kid who's at the event thinking, oh my god, I can't believe Bob Ryan's here too. Now maybe occasionally hearing from people I can't believe Dan Wessel's here. Yeah, it's it's definitely weird. Um, I I'm not on TV a ton um, so like I don't get that, like

just random fan. They don't easily. I don't know me. My wife always jokes like your groupies are all like everybody, Like everybody I know who's like a thirty to forty nine year old man knows exactly who you are. Like No, I'm like, yeah, that's your wheel. Oh the guys, that's my real house, right, is right? I'm like, yeah, I got the worst groupies, like I have know, like hot

twenty year old girup. Now they don't know who I am, but they're like two year old guy mowing his lawn, chatting mew to Tennessee listening to the podcast it was in my people. Um, yeah, the young writers. Yeah, it's I don't even it's really unnerving. I don't it's not unnerving. I just don't even know what to say because I'm really annoy I have a very interesting job, but I have a really normal person. I mowed my lawn, I drink bush light, I have a bad golfer. Like there's

nothing vaccinating about my life other than the job. That's it, Like you know, and so I always just kind of people a little pop off. So I don't know, like I get it. So I'm sure you get the same thing. I mean, just sort of like I'm not famous, right so and I don't try to be famous, so it's a sort of a little odd I don't know. I guess I never I don't really know what to say, except you know, I'm encouraging and flattering, I guess, but like, okay, but I'm here to work and you're here to work

or um. I've done Ohio University this year and with lunch with a couple of kids, like listen, I mis knew everything about all journalism is kind of funny, and I don't know, it is interesting you mentioned that. But what I always try to think is you you talked

about your your upbringing. I think the advantage that you have and that I have in some sense, and that I worry about, honestly my kids having, whether they're gonna be is I was raised so middle class and so middle of the road, so middle ordinary that I feel like I understand who the audience is for sports, right.

I remember hearing and this is the quote that I that I've always loved, Like, um, there's lots of people who worry about writing for quote unquote the elites, right, Like I'm trying to write for the people who live in New York City and live on the Upper East Side. Or I'm trying to write for the people who yeah right, in the same same thing, like yeah right, like and so and and I think you know from where I

came from. I'm writing about SEC football. Initially, my audience is like literally the the middle part of America, right, those are the people who love college football, the people who are opening up a beer and kicking back on their couch to to watch a game. And I think that there is and and I'm not saying that being elite is in any way a bad thing, but I think that speaks to you saying, like I know what

people are going to care about. I remember a great quote about Jerry Bruckheimer, right, Like Jerry Bruckheimer makes movies that everybody is gonna want to watch, right, like his Goal, you know, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean. Like he's making movies that are gonna appeal yeah, right, and so yeah, well you may Gloria. Right, So that's a great example. Yeah, Like he's trying to speak to the masses. And he said, like, so you gotta ask a question. Once he said, somebody said, um,

how do you know what moves the needle? Right, It's one of the best all time quotes I've ever heard. And he said, I am the needle. And I love that responsive, really cocky answer, right, But it speaks to it on two different levels. One like, I know what people are going to respond to, so I can move the needle as I need two. Right. That's one way to take that answer. The other way to take it

is I am Middle America. I know what people are going to respond to because I am my audience and I always like to focus on it more on the second part, knowing your audience. And when you just said, you know, I drink push light, I mowed my own law and you know I go to my I go to my daughter soccer games. Like that is the Yahoo audience right that my weekend. Yeah, and we were doing our college we're doing our college football podcast top forty

and damn when I do it. Um, now, when you listen to two hours of this podcast, you should listen to that one started again. But there was a night when I think it was like, um, Tom Herman and Mike Van Gandi almost got in a fight, like during the game was last year. It's like some moment they were yelling at each other like it was gonna be a fight. And I remember there was some notes came out from one of our like a producer like this is what we need to talk I'm like, no, we're

talking about who win the fight? Yeah, like you know, like you know, do you get an advantage because you got got the mullet? You know, Like this is what we're gonna talk about our podcast. Like I'm great on the podcast, They're like, now we're doing this, this this because I'm like, you're sitting at home and I wonder who would win that fight. You know what, here, that's a shame. This is sort of shame many to find

these coaches for acting up who kids homes? Fine, Um, it was funny, like I think Tom Herman would win, you know, I think Gundy. Gundy's got a bobby knife on him all that. You know. Like, I just atomic completely different than what they want, whatever pretty Ture would want us to do. And I feel like, yeah, that's right, we're doing this. Don't worry. This is what they're talking about. Nobody wants to hear about this. I'm not gonna faint

outrage at two millionaires almost fight. Let him fight, That's be great. And then it became actually a big thing. I remember they would have Leech Leech talking about who would win the fight in the fact twelves and kind of started to become a thing. So yeah, I feel very confident in knowing what I grew up in these coasts, so I don't feel foreign to these coasts. It's not in California, but I mean I live in the middle

of the country. And you know, I'm feel pretty confident what what my audience is interested in and and and what they're not interested in. And sometimes you gotta write about stuff they're not but in a way that's not like driving them crazy, you know. So um, it's so, I guess I'm just comfortable with it. I don't and

I'll do this like I don't care about it. I've never care about a ward, like advised to speak at the like I don't want to go to any of that stuff, Like I'm much sure how to be home, like speak on this panel, like no, thanks God, no outstanding stuff. Dan Wetzel go follow him on Twitter at Dan Wetzel. If you've listened to the whole podcast, as I hope you guys have, you definitely need to buy Epic Athletes for one of your kids. Their sports biographies

for middle school ers. Alex Morgan, Steph Curry, Tom Brady, and Serena Williams are going to be out soon. This has been the Wins and Wastses podcast. I'm Clay travi Us, He's Dan Wetzel. Thanks for hanging with us. We'll talk to you next week. M