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It’s Time For Michael Jordan To Tell The Truth

“Having covered Michael Jordan’s prime years in Chicago, Jay Mariotti says it’s time for MJ to come clean in ‘The Last Dance’ docuseries.”

Jay Mariotti

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What I experienced for eight years cannot be crammed into 500 minutes. Let’s hope the 10-part documentary series, “The Last Dance,’’ is remembered for more than the usual retro rehash: Michael Jordan’s merciless appetite to conquer flesh and blood, an angle that merely brushes the marrow of the most exhilarating and elaborate sports story ever told. The magnitude and scope of his reign remain immense even now, still hard to wrap the mind around, as if Shakespeare, Scorsese and Fellini collaborated to inject every conceivable dramatic element, with sprinkles of Spike Lee, Dick Ebersol and Bugs Bunny.

Competitive rage. Global overload. Gambling. Murder. In-house treachery. A pop-culture explosion. Celebrity fawning. Corporate exploitation. Political aloofness. Sneaker frenzy. A mysterious baseball interlude. And characters as diverse as ‘90s life itself: a brooding sidekick, a free-love coach, a feather-boa-wearing freak, a grumpy general manager who poisoned the joy instead of embracing it, and an insufferable owner who was stingy with well-deserved financial rewards and couldn’t wait to launch his own dynasty, which has become a travesty. Even a filmmaker as skilled as Jason Hehir wishes he had a wayback machine to tackle a monstrous challenge: The Jordan spectacle, with all its triumphs and tensions and scandals, was best lived and consumed each day to allow for an exact chronicling of grandeur and wildness.

Nor can a film about Jordan and the Bulls dynasty serve any therapeutic purpose, for a country mired in a stupefying medical lockdown, if it dabbles in the worst two words in the ongoing political lexicon: fake news. This narrative always has lacked a complete filling of all the blanks, revelations that make the story whole. Thus, “The Last Dance’’ is thrust as a moratorium on getting at the truth of a man who somehow remains mysterious after a generation of tongue-wagging and slam-dunking through our consciousness. Some would compare Jordan, in a context of baggy shorts and $200 sneakers, to Donald Trump, and just as Americans demand transparency from the President of the United States, particularly during a pandemic, they would appreciate clarity from the most significant basketball player and sports cultural figure ever.

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The audience will be the judge, over the next five weekends, on whether Jordan strikes a more authentic bond beyond his extraordinary legacy. At 57, still mourning the death of his younger friend and disciple Kobe Bryant, he is losing chances to resonate with the masses. He will make progress in “The Last Dance,’’ but likely not enough to lift him from the realm of the enigmatic.

Never has the world hosted an athlete so heavenly and simultaneously devil-like — and if that seems a stretch, consider Jordan won six championships and six Most Valuable Player awards in his six NBA Finals … 666. His genius was his fury, his compulsive need to control every human being and circumstance around him, and that is what fascinates me about the docu-series. As a general rule since his playing career ended, Jordan has been largely reclusive as owner of the nondescript Charlotte Hornets, reticent to reconstruct the Bulls years, an era I covered as a Chicago Sun-Times columnist. He has controlled his image by simply not discussing it and staying out of the mainstream and Twitterverse. That has led to social-media mockery (see: Crying Jordan meme), but isolation served him long before he was advised to shelter at home like the rest of us.

So why come out now, Mike? Why consent to a massive project that drops Sunday night on ESPN and Netflix? Is the renowned control freak just playing us again?

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Or, some 22 years after pushing off Bryon Russell (he did) and delivering his famous final fling with an exquisitely flexed extension of the right wrist, is Jordan finally ready to drop the veneer and tell the entirety of his tale? If so, it would include a dissection of the following subjects, heretofore off-limits: his troubling gambling habits, the unanswered questions about his father’s grisly 1993 murder, his abrupt decision to play minor-league baseball and whether it was attached to an NBA suspension, his well-known loathing of Bulls general manager Jerry Krause and its toxic spread throughout the organization and league, his rebuke of team chairman Jerry Reinsdorf for siding with Krause in his feud with coach Phil Jackson, Jordan’s disgust that ownership dismantled the dynasty before its expiration date, a public sexual affair and the end of his first marriage, his relationship with his children, and an array of friendships that have run the social gamut, from Barack Obama, Tiger Woods and Kobe to the shadowy likes of Richard Esquinas, Slim Bouler and Eddie Dow, a North Carolina bail bondsman found dead with three of Jordan’s checks in his briefcase.

Obviously, not all of those talking points will be in the show. But the opening episode does include a scene that confirms Jordan’s heartless contempt for Krause. Described as “maniacal’’ by the Washington Post, Jordan approaches the roundish Krause after practice and says, “Are those the pills to keep you short? Or are those diet pills?’’ It’s a symbolic snapshot of the wicked strife between management and the team’s cornerstones — Jordan, Jackson and Scottie Pippen — that led to the tragicomic breakup of a powerhouse capable of winning one or two more titles. It took the presence of rare footage from the final 1997-98 season, christened “The Last Dance’’ by a turmoil-weary Jackson, for the NBA’s entertainment division to kickstart a project centered around the farewell tour, with breakout profiles of the human sides of Jackson, Pippen and Dennis Rodman, assuming Rodman has a human side.

The question to ask throughout the eight-plus hours of air time: Is any new ground being broken? Just because Hehir raves about Jordan’s willingness to answer the most sensitive questions — including those about gambling and his father’s murder — doesn’t mean we’re getting absolute answers from Jordan that settle all doubts.

ESPN - The Last Dance Trailer II on Vimeo

“He never once censored us. He never once policed us. He never once said that any topic was off-limits, so he was a perfect partner for this project,’’’ said Hehir, who sat down with Jordan for three lengthy sessions. “He went pretty deep on the gambling allegations against him in the ‘90s. He went pretty deep about what happened to his father and how that affected him on the court. … He never instructed us to take anything out, and from Day One, he told me that there wasn’t a question I would ask that he would not answer truthfully.’’

Of course, it’s one thing for a director to raise sensitive topics in a one-on-one interview setting — and quite another to pursue penetrating follow-ups, explore the topic with other people and edit the film with an independence that lets the viewers decide. Didn’t Hehir, who grew up mesmerized by the Jordan mystique like the rest of his generation, fear the wrath of Basketball Jesus? Evidently not. Hehir asked the tough questions, and Jordan provided firm responses, but if this is an Oscar-caliber film, it must be balanced and explore all sides of the explosive issues. Watch closely, with a checklist and pen, to see if “The Last Dance’’ is more about presenting Jordan in a favorable light or at last revealing the real-real, regardless of optics. Which delicate topics are confronted and which are short-shrifted, downplayed and ignored? Gambling, for one, is pervasive throughout the series; the NBA camera crew repeatedly shows Jordan making wagers on anything and everything during the final season. Given Hehir’s exhaustive research and interviews with dozens of subjects, the director had the leverage to attack as he chooses. The wealth of material provides an opportunity for an all-time cinematic work, one befitting his stature. Both blessed and haunted, through triumph and tragedy, Jordan deserves an epic Hollywood deep-dive that captures his historical footprint.

But that would happen only with unvarnished truth. And the control freak in Jordan wouldn’t allow total disclosure. Does he reveal how many wagering millions he blew? If he was suspended by the NBA? If he sees a direct link between his gambling and his father’s murder? No, he does not.

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The credits suggest Jordan took typical liberties to protect his portrayal. His Jump 23 enterprise is a principal producer, along with ESPN Films, NBA Entertainment and Mandalay Sports Media, which is chaired by a league owner, the Golden State Warriors’ Peter Guber. Meaning, Jordan and his longtime business representatives, Estee Portnoy and Curtis Polk, have had the entire production of “The Last Dance’’ under their dictatorial thumbs, with Portnoy and Polk listed as executive producers alongside industry veteran Mike Tollin. Team Jordan also is fully supported by a league far more interested in legacy promotion than any raw, damaging truths, as well as a sports network grateful to have something substantial to fill dead air during a pandemic. If he wanted it — and my experiences with him say he would demand it — Jordan is armed with the power to control content as a creative overlord. As Polk told The Athletic, that power was wielded during early moments in the project, perhaps making it more difficult to address the most jarring and sensitive components of Jordan’s joyride with definitive, full-blast treatment.

No doubt “The Last Dance,’’ at its core, succeeds in presenting the Jordan panorama in a 2020 prism: the unprecedented glorification, the rock-star traveling circus, the endless highlight reel, the cut from his high-school team that fueled his inner rage, the title-winning jumper for North Carolina, The Shot, the 63-point game, his personal rivalries and accompanying trash-talking, the postseason dramas that weren’t as easy as they seemed, failures and eventual conquests against the Detroit Bad Boys, the Knicks wars, the legendary “Sick Game,’’ the near-crash against Indiana in the 1998 Eastern Conference finals and, of course, the final shot in Utah that should have been the perfect ending for the perfect career. The docu-series will serve as indisputable evidence to hush stubborn millennials and Gen Zers who insist, with recency bias and ignorance, that LeBron James is the greatest of all, forgetting that Bryant came closest to approaching Jordan’s body of work and pulling off the grand impersonation.

Just how far does the documentary dare to reach? I’d like to know if the late David Stern, who presided as NBA commissioner during the Jordan era, fully investigated the relentless flurry of his gambling. Didn’t the league have much to lose if Stern publicly benched his Golden Goose? Jordan didn’t even try to hide his itch for the action — an off-night trip to Atlantic City during a playoff series in New York, his massive golfing losses to an opportunist (and book author) such as Esquinas, his Las Vegas rampages with Woods and Charles Barkley. Was it merely coincidence that Jordan escaped to baseball and missed almost two NBA seasons? We don’t get those answers. During that period, I wrote a column explaining why Jordan was exposing himself to potential extortion — say, a scumbag on an 18th green asking him to fix an over-under in a Bulls game. The Sun-Times’ managing editor, who didn’t last in the job much longer, warned me, “This is the most important column you’ll ever write.’’ The piece ran in some form, but not before an editing workover that seemed to involve outside meddling. Such was the influence of Jordan.

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In the doc, Jordan does pile on Krause, whose 2017 death makes the scene look worse. He won’t be so cruel to Reinsdorf, now a fellow NBA team owner and a man Jordan fears to some degree. “The Last Dance’’ should include the all-encompassing quote of the final season, when Krause, already settled on Iowa State’s Tim Floyd as the next coach of a so-called new Bulls dynasty, sat down with Jackson and said, “You can go 82 and (bleeping) oh and you’re not coming back. This is it for you and the Chicago Bulls’’ — prompting Jackson and the players to declare war on the front office. Also worthy of pitiful detail: the subsequent two-decade implosion of the Bulls. Now an abysmal franchise that wasted the most potent resource in sports history — the pomp and glory of Jordan — the Bulls allowed the very icon they’ve immortalized with a United Center statue to finish his career with the Washington Wizards, all because Jordan was seething about how Chicago ended and needed to control the last scene, sad and dubious as it was in D.C.

No Jordan series is complete without Reinsdorf, now 84 yet still a power player in sports, and how he extracted mega-fortunes for himself and Bulls investors yet never rushed to reward Jordan, Jackson and Pippen. Reinsdorf demanded Jordan play out an eight-year, $24-million contract that became laughably obsolete, particularly after Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Patrick Ewing received new, fatter deals amid an NBA boom. Jackson would win title after title, then be insulted each summer with a Scrooge offer that led him to sign one-year deals — the breaking point in his rift with management. Pippen was grossly underpaid for years, demanded a trade and had to leave in free agency to hit a jackpot commensurate with his Hall of Fame credentials. Reinsdorf, as he has done once or twice, could make that story line vanish in the ESPN project with one call to the Disney Co. hierarchy.

There was the anger of Jim Brown and other black activists who called Jordan a coward for his social indifference, such as his flip comment that “Republicans buy sneakers, too,’’ which Jordan says was taken out of context. And don’t forget how Jordan and Pippen turned the 1992 Barcelona Olympics into the humiliation of Krause’s Euro-pet, Croatia’s Toni Kukoc. In an NBA documentary about the Dream Team, Jordan said, “We weren’t playing against Toni Kukoc. We were playing against Jerry Krause in a Croatia uniform.” Does he now think the stance was a bit petty? Especially after Kukoc famously bailed out PIppen by hitting a game-winning playoff shot after Pippen pulled himself from the game, upset Jackson didn’t draw up the play for him. Pippen should be painted as an agitated soul during Jordan’s baseball escape, not dealing well with lead-dog pressure and referring to Chicago fans as racist around the time a gun was found in his vehicle outside a restaurant. How about the 1993 NBA Finals, won in Phoenix by John Paxson’s dagger and lost when Barkley spent too many off-nights partying at an Irish pub in Scottsdale? And what of Jordan’s faltering relationship with Barkley? Speaking of alcohol, Jordan threatened to ruin Rodman’s life when the party animal routinely showed up hungover at practice, a necessary form of pressure that sobered up Rodman long enough to contribute to three titles and cement his Hall of Fame induction. The bullying side of Jordan is front and center — the haymaker he threw at a feisty Steve Kerr in practice and his ruthless criticism of end-of-the-roster patsies, if only to toughen them for the postseason grind. I once saw Jordan try to gouge Reggie Miller’s eyeball, and he wasn’t apologetic, telling a magazine, “Playing Reggie drives me nuts. It’s like chicken-fighting with a woman.’’

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Say what? Jordan should thank the lords, every day, that he played before social media and TMZ. That goes for all facets of a life that would be 10 times crazier and more scandalous had he had born in 1993, not 1963.

Said Hehir: “He went very deep into how he is perceived, how his intensity is perceived, how his competitiveness is perceived and his ambivalence about that. He has a certain pride in how competitive he is and how he’s a win-at-all-costs kind of guy, but also he’s a human being.’’ But the Jordan-rage angle is well-worn, because everyone was subjected to his wrath at some point, myself included. There was the day he warned, “I keep your articles on my refrigerator door,’’ and the time he tossed an ice cube toward my head — missing like, well, a batter whiffing on a curveball — when I stopped by a golf course to ask about the gambling probe. I remember arriving in Memphis to see his oldest son, Jeff, play one of his first AAU games, only to have the coach instruct me which questions to ask — as ordered by Jordan over the phone. When the Sun-Times displayed the column on the front page, with a large photo of Jeff, Jordan was outraged, even as I explained I don’t make placement decisions. And when he couldn’t personally scold and admonish, his tentacles were deep. Broadcaster Ahmad Rashad, his friend and media protector, would take personal shots. And Jordan’s father, not long before he was murdered, engaged me and other media people in a spirited discussion, concluding that his son’s gambling urges were the product of “a competition problem.’’

For years, I navigated Jordan’s attempts to control the media.

Now, in 2020, Jordan is part of the media.

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It’s vital to ESPN’s editorial integrity that “The Last Dance’’ not be a puff piece. Buried until further notice in a coronavirus black hole, the network desperately needs oxygen without live sports, which has caused considerable ratings slippage and revenue bleeding along with continued cord-cutting that is killing the cable industry. With journalism in Bristol giving way to business relationships with leagues and athletes, ESPN cannot afford watered-down storytelling for “The Last Dance’’ — the one story that should be maximized and dramatized for full effect.

The clamor for an unconditional, consummate Jordan documentary has been intense for years, increasing amid America’s collective quarantine. LeBron himself tweeted, like a schoolboy: “April 19th can’t come fast enough. I CAN NOT WAIT!!’’ We will be entertained and educated, occasionally gobsmacked and slack-jawed, and that is cool, because I no longer can binge on “Ozark’’ without wanting to body-slam Marty Byrde. But if you’re looking for long-lost revelations that will rock the world, well, remember the operative rule about Michael Jordan: No matter the game, he is in control.

Always.

Jay Mariotti, called “the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ is the host of “Unmuted,’’ a frequent podcast about sports and life (Apple, Podbean, etc.). He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and radio host. As a Los Angeles resident, he gravitated by osmosis to movie projects. He appears Wednesday nights on The Dino Costa Show, a segment billed as “The Rawest Hour in Sports Broadcasting.’’

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Kim Mulkey Now Has Everyone Anticipating Washington Post Story

I can’t imagine what headline, under normal circumstances, the Washington Post would have to put on a Kim Mulkey story to make me want to read it.

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photo of LSU women's college basketball coach Kim Mulkey
Credit: Dailymail.co.uk

The Washington Post, you might’ve heard, has a story coming out about controversial LSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey. The reason you might’ve heard is because Kim Mulkey told you. The Tigers coach read a fiery prepared statement just before her team started the Women’s NCAA Tournament. In the statement, Mulkey threatened to sue The Post for defamation before the first word was even published.

Now, I’ve never run a public relations firm but that did not seem like a good idea. The Washington Post story on Mulkey is one of the bigger stories in sports right now and nobody even knows what’s in it. The reason the story, apparently unflattering to Mulkey, is even on anyone’s radar screen is Mulkey herself.

It all started with an innocuous social media post by Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde right in the middle of the most anticipated two days in sports, the NCAA Tournament Round of 64. On his X account, Forde posted: “Hearing some buzz about a big Washington Post story in the works on LSU women’s hoops coach Kim Mulkey, potentially next week. Wagons being circled, etc.”

You know what generally will go unnoticed at 4:00 on the first Friday of the NCAA Tournament? A post on X about a women’s basketball coach. But don’t tell Mulkey, she saw Forde’s post and decided to fight fire with nuclear weaponry. The result: the average person like me now is really interested in what has Mulkey so incensed. By “average person like me” I mean that I can’t imagine what headline, under normal circumstances, the Washington Post would have to put on a Kim Mulkey story to make me want to read it. Maybe:

“LSU Women’s Coach Discovers Ark of the Covenant”

Or:

“Mulkey Reveals True JFK Assassin(s)”

Perhaps:

“Famed Women’s Basketball Coach Reveals the Mystery Behind Slow Drivers in the Left Lane”

Literally any of those catch my attention more than whatever will likely be the Washington Post headline about Mulkey. But now Mulkey is “Mad as Hell and is not going to take this anymore” so I now have an interest I would never before have had in this story. It has been fascinating to watch the online speculation about the subject of the article and all we really know, as of now, is that it will be written by Kent Babb. This is a dream come true for Babb; he writes an article that is, presumably, not flattering about Kim Mulkey and, before it is even published, she gives the article the greatest commercial anyone could give it. Babb couldn’t have entered into a business agreement with Mulkey and had this turn out better for him.

For those who don’t follow Babb, he is a former NFL reporter who now is an award-winning writer for the Washington Post. In his 14 years with The Post, he has written sports features and authored a couple of books. One of those sports features stories was a deep dive into what he viewed as a large inequity in the level of pay for LSU head football coach Brian Kelly and his LSU players. It is this piece Mulkey described as a “hit piece” and, based on that piece, referred to Babb as a “sleazy reporter.” Babb, and many others, resented the fact his story was labeled as a hit piece. In fact, Babb essentially confirmed he was the author Mulkey was referencing when he shared the original article on X with the comment: “Hit piece?”

Whether a printed piece or a recorded interview, I can’t imagine a better promotion for it than the subject of the interview threatening a libel/slander lawsuit, especially before it is even released. That simply screams “This piece is salacious!!” Also, libel and slander suits get settled all the time, right? Of course they don’t, they seem to never even get filed. That little thing called discovery is a scary thing for most public figures.

The NCAA Tournament has been very entertaining, and I think the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight will be terrific. For only the fifth time ever, the top two seeds have advanced to the third round which sets up for a remarkable weekend. For me, I guess it will now include a Washington Post article, not a sentence I’d normally say.

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Ian Eagle Crushing It for CBS As Replacement for Jim Nantz

Eagle continues to be a shining example of what a network play-by-play announcer should be.

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Photo of Ian Eagle and the CBS Sports logo

I’ll admit, it’s been a little strange not hearing Jim Nantz during this year’s NCAA Tournament. Nantz stepped aside to concentrate on golf and the NFL after a long run covering the Final Four. Change is sometimes hard to accept, we are all creatures of habit, and I’m sure it’s a little weird for Nantz himself this time of year. But change doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. When it comes to Ian Eagle, not that I’m surprised, so far, so good.

Eagle is no stranger to CBS viewers. He’s been with the network since 1998 calling college basketball games and the NFL through the years. That certainly made the transition a little easier for everyone involved. CBS, the viewers and Eagle himself. Familiarity in these cases doesn’t breed content, it breeds a more comfortable broadcast and an easier handle on the change itself.

For Eagle, one of the other benefits for him was working with familiar folks, Bill Raftery, Grant Hill and Tracy Wolfson. Eagle estimates that he and Raftery have called 600 basketball games together, because they were longtime partners on the NBA’s Nets broadcasts. Eagle has also previously worked with Hill in college basketball, the same for Wolfson.

“To do this with Bill, Grant, and Tracy, it really is going to feel very seamless. In many ways, it will feel like we’ve been doing it together for many years,” says Eagle on a conference call before the Big Dance.

It sounds seamless too. It’s not underrated to have a good rapport with the folks that you’re working with. Everyone is trying to get used to a new voice and the idiosyncrasies of a new announcer. It’s much less of a chore, when you know and have worked with your co-workers and partners before.  You know what to expect from them, and they know what to expect from you. That’s good.

I think Eagle is killing it in his new role. You could even tell during the Big Ten Tournament that led up to the “Big Dance” that he was not only ready, he was ready to roll. It’s easy to hear how much he loves doing what he’s doing. That’s the case in all of the sports he calls.

Eagle continues to be a shining example of what a network play-by-play announcer should be. He has the ability to combine his talent with some personality, but never at the expense of the action he’s calling. His broadcasts always hit the mark, as he rises to the occasion when the moment calls for it.

What do I mean by personality? He manages to make us laugh, even in some tense moments of a game. He also manages to articulate our thoughts in some situations, like this example from the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. 

Sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson had a report during the UConn/Northwestern game about the superstitions of Huskies’ coach Dan Hurley. He wears the same red dragon underwear and suit as he did last year. Wolfson said Hurley’s wife travels with a portable washing machine to make sure his clothes stay clean. Leading Eagle to ask the question on all our minds:

“Who has a portable washing machine?! I didn’t even know that existed!”

Also in that game, Eagle had a couple of other great moments. UConn big man Donovan Clingan had a couple of swats on one play.

“Denied! Clingan! Denied! Two for the price of one!” Quick thinking and entertaining at the same time. Later when a ball got pinned between the basket and the backboard, Eagle said, “Oooh! A Brooklyn wedgie!”

Great stuff. None of his ‘ad-libs’ sound like they are forced. It’s within the flow of the action and just seem to come to him. It’s pretty amazing to be that quick on your feet, when you’re trying to make sure to get the call correct above all else. I’m sure we’re all in for many more treats like that along the way from Eagle.

In general, when fans are watching a tournament game, they probably aren’t thinking about the preparation that goes into a broadcast. Especially for a play-by-play announcer. The first weekend network announcers calling a couple of games in the same day. There’s also only a day in between the first and second rounds to prep for teams that you may or may not have seen during the college season.  The turnaround is quick and demanding.  

“It feels like an information avalanche in many ways,” Eagle said recently on 670 The Score. “The fact that I’ve done it for so long would make you think, ‘oh, he’s got it down, he has the system, he found the secret sauce.’ No, it feels the same way every year.”

Eagle says even veteran announcers like himself have to manage stress levels and work efficiently once they know which games they’ll call. “The two or three days leading up to the tournament, I must admit, are probably the most angst-riddled of the year because it’s a little bit out of your control.” Eagle told 670 The Score.

Yes, the stress level is great on the broadcasters, but how about what Clark Kellogg continues to do at the NCAA Tournament and the Final Four? For the 8th year, he’ll join Kevin Kugler and Jim Jackson on Westwood One’s broadcast of the Final Four and Championship Game on radio. At the same time, Kellogg will be a studio analyst for the television coverage. How does he pull it off? Following the pregame show broadcast on TV, Kellogg will make his way courtside to the radio broadcast position to join Kugler and Jackson. Then, he will rejoin TV for halftime before repeating the process in the second half and postgame. 

Working this tournament isn’t easy for these broadcasters. It’s a big stage for sure, but as you’ve read, there’s big pressure that goes along with it. The audience is usually huge, and announcers are constantly put under the microscope. Fans want to make sure that you know their team, pronunciations and all. Stories. Bios. All of it. Cut these folks a little slack, information gathering with little time to do it, isn’t exactly simple. They do a damn good job.

Eagle himself, is doing a tremendous job. The 3-man booth works so well because of his ability to keep it all together. He can set up either Raftery or Hill with a serious basketball question, or deliver a great ‘straight line’ to bring out their personalities. It’s a gift. Eagle has that knack for knowing when to go ‘rogue’ and go for that entertaining line, that seems to fit in perfectly. Speaking of fitting fine, those rather large shoes he had to fill, they’re becoming the perfect size.

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Andrew Salciunas Aims to Thrive in Morning Drive on 97.5 The Fanatic

“We are two radio guys that kind of know what we’re doing.”

Derek Futterman

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Andrew Salciunas
Courtesy: Beasley Media Group

When 97.5 The Fanatic midday host Anthony Gargano agreed to a deal to contribute to PHLY Sports, a local digital venture within ALLCITY Network, he was promptly suspended by Beasley Media Group and subsequently sued for breach of contract. Although the two sides eventually reached a settlement and officially parted ways, the future of the daypart was still in question. In the interim time period, the station granted Andrew Salciunas the opportunity to lead a four-hour solo program with producer Ray Dunne. Salciunas had served as Gargano’s producer in the midday slot and still has a strong relationship with the sports media personality today despite no longer working together.

The onerous aspect of the situation, however, was in recognizing that Salciunas was being afforded a chance to prove himself as a host in the marketplace. In the past, he had filled in when Gargano took vacations, but it was not for an extended period of time. Although he was familiar with the flow of a midday program, achieving a successful, yet sudden assimilation into a regular timeslot without a partner was an invigorating circumstance.

“I knew that it was going to be a learning experience because it’s one thing to host a show on Saturday or it’s one thing to host a weekly podcast and you have a week’s worth of content at your disposal,” Salciunas said. “It’s another thing to [be] hosting every single day and needing to come up with new ideas and new angles and new twists on things, so it was a challenge knowing that I was going to have to do that for however long the process was going to be.”

Salciunas received help from program director Scott Masteller, a sports radio veteran who has helped elevate brands and nurture budding talent. Several months later, Masteller asked Salciunas how he would feel about working with morning program host John Kincade. Salciunas replied by saying that it was something he would be interested in doing, and he later added that he already wakes up early and could easily work in morning drive. Salciunas was somewhat nonplussed when he discovered that Masteller’s intention was to have him anchor the program rather than Kincade, who has been hosting in the daypart since January 2021.

In the weeks and months ensuing, Salciunas and Kincade were involved in meetings to plan the new program, which officially made its debut on 97.5 The Fanatic last week and is titled Kincade & Salciunas. Both hosts knew about the program for roughly two months, and Salciunas is surprised that it was kept a secret for as long as it was. Outside of their scheduled meetings, Salciunas was able to speak with Kincade between their shows since they occurred after the other as well. From the onset, he wanted to make his thoughts about the program clear to ensure a smooth transition amid a quest to inform and entertain the audience.

“The first thing I told John when they told us that this was the plan moving forward was that, ‘This is going to be our show,’” Salciunas recalled. “Yes, I might be the guy running the ins and outs out of commercial breaks. I’m the guy that brings on the guests; I’m the guy that brings on the callers, but this is our show. We both have ideas, we’re both passionate about Philadelphia sports teams, we’re both high-energy people, we’re both opinionated and we’re also respectful of each other.”

While there is natural disagreement between Salciunas and Kincade on a variety of sports topics, they make sure not to fabricate their discussions and engender debate for the sake of the show. Instead of feigning their contrarian discourse, there is a legitimate willingness to be genuine with their audience while continuing to put radio first. Salciunas, Kincade and show producer Connor Thomas all contribute ideas for the program to appeal to the audience and continue building the show as a whole. Thomas also had familiarity in working with Kincade since he served as an associate producer on his previous morning program.

“I’m not a former journalist; he’s not a former professional athlete,” Salciunas said. “We are two radio guys that kind of know what we’re doing. Even though our opinions might differ on sports-related stuff, we see doing radio in a similar way.”

Upon Kincade officially joining 97.5 The Fanatic, he demonstrated his magnanimity and commitment to his colleagues by offering to take all of them out to lunch individually to learn more about them. It was a gesture that surprised Salciunas and something that stuck with him, ultimately helping familiarize themselves with one another and subsequently creating a viable on-air product.

“He’s one of those guys who likes getting to know people, and I think that’s helped a lot,” Salciunas said. “We already had that sort of knowledge of one another [and] we already had that relationship, and because we’re just both so bought in and both so hungry, that’s made it so much easier that we’re willing to do whatever it takes to make the show work.”

Before arriving at 97.5 The Fanatic, Kincade had worked at sports radio both at the local and national levels while also hosting a podcast with Hall of Fame center and Inside the NBA studio analyst Shaquille O’Neal. Bringing him back to his home marketplace and realizing success in the morning daypart was valuable as the sports media ecosystem underwent stretches of change. Transitioning to the new morning show iteration without colleagues Bob Cooney and Pat Egan presented its challenges, but Salciunas has had no qualms that Kincade was invested to win. As a result, the transition has been relatively simple in terms of building palpable chemistry among the on-air team.

“He believes in anybody that he works with,” Salciunas said of Kincade, “and knowing that somebody has worked that long as long as he has in sports radio that he values the young person’s opinion, not just in sports but in terms of radio, that goes a long way.”

There is constant communication between the morning show team leading up to a program outside of typical pre-show meetings and twice-weekly conversations with their boss. Salciunas arrives at the station well before the start of the program and compiles ideas from the previous day into a document, along with ideas from others that come during their commutes. Additionally, they continuously monitor the news cycle and determine what to address on the air while also interviewing special guests throughout the week.

Effectuating a fully prepared show rundown by 6 a.m. EST has been marginally difficult, along with the fact that it can be difficult to book guests on short notice before sunrise. Because of this, the program frequently outlines its guests early in the week and makes adjustments as necessary while maintaining fealty towards conveying their true, authentic personalities.

“I’m a little bit more energetic on the radio because I understand the entertainment portion of doing what we do and having to properly express myself,” Salciunas said. “I’m probably not going to scream at a bar, but when I converse with callers; when I converse with John [or] producers… that’s who I am as a person. There’s just a microphone in front of me.”

When he first started working at 97.5 The Fanatic as an intern, Salciunas did not have a goal of eventually becoming an on-air talent. He was content with his role as a producer, which was borne out of an internship where he worked with Jon Marks and Steve Vassalotti. Both station members served as mentors that he utilized to gain information and advice, a fortuitous outcome after Salciunas impetuously applied for the opening.

While Salciunas was matriculating at Temple University, he needed at least three internship credits in order to qualify for graduation. Reflecting back on his education days, he does not regard himself as the best student and recognized that he needed to intern with the radio station to set himself apart. Honing his focus in sports media took time since he had varied interests in areas such as reporting, podcasting and play-by-play announcing, but he ultimately gravitated towards the sports radio format during his time in Philadelphia.

Salciunas made a favorable impression on those with 97.5 The Fanatic and ended up being hired as an associate producer where he learned more about the format and its programming. Eric Camille, a former executive producer at the station, is someone Salciunas regards as seminal to his professional development.

“He was the guy that hired me out of my internship, and then once I started working, he really helped me,” Salciunas said. “He kind of took me under his wing and helped me out a lot.”

Once Salciunas was hired as a full-time producer, he began to work with Mike Missanelli on his midday program, providing an invaluable learning experience to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the sports media industry. As a veteran host who has captivated Philadelphia sports fans and media consumers at large, Salciunas noticed that collaborating on Missanelli’s program was a different experience than the other shows he had done. Whereas a morning drive show is oftentimes one of the first points of reaction on a given day, Missanelli knew that he would need to approach his daypart differently and adopted a paradigmatic style implementing second-level topics.

“It’s not just going on the air and reacting to an Eagles loss,” Salciunas explained. “It’s reacting to a storyline within an Eagles loss or reacting to a storyline within an Eagles win that may generate conversation. Trying to figure out topics that generate conversation but are not just the, ‘Oh wow, I’m angry they lost today,’ and give out the phone number. It’s [trying] to find topics that make people think and make yourself think and make the audience think.”

When Missanelli left the station, Salciunas began his stint working with Anthony Gargano where he began occasionally hosting select programs. The rationale behind his decision to go behind the microphone was that when the Eagles won a Super Bowl championship, the station needed someone to host from 2 to 5 a.m. Salciunas decided to volunteer for the program, presuming that it sounded fun. From that shift on, he continued his work as a producer while also refining his craft behind the microphone in a major market. It deviated from a philosophy perpetuated by former program director Matt Nahigian of limiting the amount of time producers were on the air, assuming that consumers listened to hear the hosts.

“Now you have to be a producer,” Salciunas affirmed. “You look at both radio stations in Philadelphia – a lot of the hosts now were former producers, and so you learn so much of the craft and then you figure out your own role. You figure out how you handle yourself as a host, so I think producing first before becoming a talk show host should be the way to go moving forward.”

Beasley Media Group’s 97.5 The Fanatic shares the Philadelphia marketplace with Audacy-owned SportsRadio 94WIP, and both stations have had intense battles in the ratings over the years. Salciunas shared that most people between the two stations have worked with their competitors at some point in their careers, and there is an evident respect that exists between the two entities. With both outlets introducing new morning shows within the last two years though, Salciunas understands there is a chance to gain ground on the WIP Morning Show, which finished ahead in the four Nielsen XTrends quarterly ratings books last year.

“Clearly if somebody’s behind a microphone in Philadelphia, everybody’s talented, and we’re going to do whatever we can to try to bridge that gap a little bit, and we’re seeing some good strides already,” Salciunas said. “I think having a new show is a big part of that trying to grab that initial audience, but then it’s holding on to that initial audience.”

Being able to achieve this outcome, however, requires a commitment to showcasing talent and different personalities. Salciunas referenced how there was a point in John Kincade’s stint hosting mornings in the daypart’s previous iteration where he gained ground on his crosstown competitor Angelo Cataldi with WIP. Kincade, of course, used to work with Cataldi’s show as a contributor and received a chance to take the air while with the outlet.

“I’ve seen the turn of tides of ratings over the years for every show [and] every time slot, so there’s always an opportunity, but that means we always have to be on our game; that means we always have to be doing the best show possible,” Salciunas said. “We can’t go in the next day and say, ‘Wow, that show was really good yesterday. Let’s have some fun today; let’s make this a lighthearted show.’ No, we always have to be thinking about, ‘Alright, what can we do next to put on another great entertaining four-hour radio show?’”

Over the last several years, there have been several leadership changes at 97.5 The Fanatic responsible for overseeing the slate of programming and station operations. Scott Masteller currently leads the outlet, someone in whom Salciunas has confidence that he can continue to elevate the standing of the station. In his earlier years working with 97.5 The Fanatic, Salciunas had an innovative spirit but was discouraged from taking steps to align with the multimedia evolution. For example, when he offered to do a podcast several years ago, someone at the station questioned his judgment and the reasoning behind the idea.

“I was told by someone, ‘What’s the point in doing that? We’re a radio station,’ and I knew back then that that was a mistake to say,” Salciunas explained. “You shouldn’t say, ‘We’re a radio station;’ that was years ago, so seeing that bosses and market managers and hosts and producers all realizing, ‘Alright, we have to adapt,’ that excites me.”

Possessing the background as a producer lends shrewd and calculated judgment on how to include members of the audience into the program. While there are still open phone lines for callers to chime in, the program has introduced a text line and also engages with the audience through the live chat functionality of YouTube. Having Thomas as a producer of the show has helped in this area as well, with Salciunas sharing that he has a strong understanding of how to create and optimize content for various platforms of dissemination.

“We have a great YouTube audience where they basically have their own community all of a sudden,” Salciunas said. “They’re constantly talking about the show, and sometimes we grab what they’re saying on that YouTube feed because that’s another area of today’s new media where you have another avenue to communicate with people.”

As Salciunas grows accustomed to the early start on 97.5 The Fanatic and his new colleagues in morning drive, he is filled with enthusiasm and the prospect of possibility. The radio station has been the only outlet by which he has been employed since the start of his media career, and he hopes to work there for as long as possible. National radio and television intrigue him going forward, but his priority centers on thriving in the new role.

“I want to try to get 97.5 The Fanatic – because it starts in the morning – back up in the map; back in the top five of the ratings books – and that’s going to take some time,” Salciunas said. “We’re a new show – we’re going to have to figure each other out.”

Salciunas expressed that the last year-and-a-half has been “hectic” in the midday daypart, but there has also been excitement surrounding the ephemerality as well. Taking the microphone in a major market with a dedicated sports fanbase such as Philadelphia is a privilege he does not take for granted, and he aspires to continue excelling in the marketplace for years to come.

“I just started, so I’m not thinking about the next step just yet,” Salciunas said. “I want this to last for a long time – for a very long time. If I never have to leave, that would be great.”

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