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Noah Eagle on Getting Clippers Radio Job Out of College: ‘The Stars Can Align’

“People always ask me when I decided I wanted to get into it? I think it was pretty simple in the sense that I had a good relationship with my dad and I saw he enjoyed what he did.”

Ricky Keeler

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You never know when a major opportunity in the sports industry will come knocking at your door. For Noah Eagle, he would never imagine that as a senior at Syracuse, working as the television voice for the Los Angeles Clippers could potentially be an option.

Eagle was a guest on the You Know I’m Right podcast with Nick Durst and Joe Calabrese to talk about his career. He mentioned that the Clippers job was great timing for him, but when the leader of the Sports Media Center at Syracuse asked him to send his basketball reel, he had no idea what it was for.

“It was really awesome timing… The timing, if it’s right, the stars can align,” Eagle said. “I got really lucky. I got really fortunate in particular with the timing of the Clippers job. I was a senior at Syracuse, the longtime voice of the Clippers, Ralph Lawler, it was his 40th and final year with the team. He was retiring at the end of the year.

“I didn’t know this. I wasn’t aware of any of it, but I did get a call from a professor I had. She was the leader of the Sports Media Center at Syracuse at Newhouse, Olivia Stomski. She reached out to me and said ‘Send me your basketball reel, somebody is interested.'”

“I said, can you be more specific? She said, no I can’t. I said, why not? She said, trust me,” Eagle continued. “I put together a basketball reel of all the stuff I had to that point (January-early February 2019). I had decided my senior year, I’m not going to focus too hard on the job stuff until March. I wanted to enjoy my senior year, then I was going to go full-steam ahead with it. That was kind of my mentality going into the year.”

After sending his resume and bio a week later and still not knowing what position he was sending these things for, Eagle was driving to the studio where he hosted a radio show in downtown Syracuse and he got a call from a Los Angeles number. He ended up taking a chance and picked up the call: 

“I answer it and it’s this big, booming voice,” Eagle recalled. “‘This is Nick Davis from FOX Sports West and Prime Ticket. I’m sure you are aware we are looking to replace Ralph Lawler with the Clippers and your name came up. So, we’d like to fly you out and interview you and audition you next week.’ I thought someone was going to pop out from my back seat and slap me across the face. I said, `’Are you sure you got the right guy?'”

After auditioning and having a memorable interview with owner Steve Ballmer, Eagle ended up getting the radio play-by-play job when Brian Sieman moved to television.

Of course, everyone knows Noah Eagle’s dad, Ian. Noah watched his dad in the booth from a very young age and one of the reasons that helped him decide he wanted to be in the same profession was the excitement Ian had for the job he was doing:

“He took me to work with him from a pretty early age,” Eagle explained. “In terms of physically being in the booth, I was probably 3-4 years old. I took a liking to it very early. There was never something that he said, ‘Oh man, I really am praying that my son loves sports.’ It just happened naturally.

“People always ask me when I decided I wanted to get into it? I think it was pretty simple in the sense that I had a good relationship with my dad and I saw he enjoyed what he did… He enjoys it, he gets up, he gets excited for it.

“Sure, could he get stressed out if he had five games in six days in five different cities? Without a doubt. Anybody would. But when he was there, when he came home in the morning, he was excited and he was smiling talking about it. All of those factors certainly helped in my decision-making and it swayed me in that direction. 

“I think once you get to the point where you are perceptive enough and you know enough, you see a TV and understand what’s happening. I would see a TV and go, ‘There’s Dad.’ At the same time, I looked at it as it’s just him going to work. That was the mentality I grew up with. He gets excited for his job. That’s what really stood out to me.” 

During this podcast, Eagle will also explain how he ended up working the 2021 Tokyo Olympics for NBC and why he was so excited to get the play-by-play job for the NFL Wild Card playoff games broadcast on Nickelodeon. 

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Sports Radio News

Jason Puckett Launches PuckSports.com

“I am super motivated right now and I can’t wait. I have probably been busier now than I’ve ever been in the last 48 hours.”

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Logo for PuckSports.com

Jason Puckett, who decided to walk away from a contract offer from iHeartMedia’s KJR in Seattle after finding out his partner Jim Moore had been laid off, has launched a new venture – PuckSports.com. ‘Puck’ has a baseball opening day show posted on the Puck Sports YouTube page and also posted an introductory message about his new venture and what led to creating it.

“I wanted to talk to you guys, the listeners out there, the viewers out there, sorry for all of this,” an emotional Puckett said. “Sorry for what has happened and what has taken place. Thank you for all of the comments and the well-wishes and what you have said about myself and Jim.

“It has been a whirlwind of a last few days, for sure and I do want to say that I feel for the people that we used to work with. “I know it’s not easy to go through that, I have been on that side of it many, many times in this industry when someone is let go and you have to sit there and answer all the questions about them and for them…It’s unfortunate and it shouldn’t be that way, but the reality of this business is it’s like that.”

Puckett then told his fans that PuckSports.com and YouTube are where you will be finding his content along with Moore. “I am going to take what I have learned over the years and apply it to a new age of media,” he said and noted this was a direction he had been thinking about for a while.

As for what took place that led to his decision to not sign his contract and talk away, he said, “I just want to take you briefly back to last week. I don’t want to get too much in the weeds, I’m not here to lay any blame or point any fingers at anybody…there’s too many good people that I have worked with that I don’t want to drag into this. It was a process that was at times handled fine, handled perfectly, and at other times it got to a point where it just went on too long. But that’s corporate media and that’s what happens.”

Continuing on Puckett said, “…I had been without a contract since about January…when I was away from the station that was something that we and the station agreed upon…to see if we could get something done and we were all hopeful that we would…I was only supposed to be gone a couple of days…unfortunately as these things sometimes happen, it just went a little bit longer…We received the deal and it was what we wanted, but unfortunately with that news a few hours later came the news from corporate that Jim had lost his job. Obviously there was a mix of emotions with that from me.

“I wrestled with that and the decision and what I would do. It was hard for me to move forward…I couldn’t fight the perception more than anything that I had received a new deal while at the same time, my partner and good friend, guy I love to death, who I grew up reading…it was a hard reality…The loyalty I have, I couldn’t live with myself even though Jim knew what the truth was.”

Puckett said he was aware Moore was planning to step away from the radio show at the end of the year and was looking forward to the nine months they would have left to work with one another. Then, when iHeartMedia made the decision to make Moore a casualty of their latest round of layoffs, Puckett knew he needed to revisit the idea of starting his own venture.

He said, “It has kind of changed my timeline as far as what I wanted to do and where I felt I was at…I am super motivated right now and I can’t wait. I have probably been busier now than I’ve ever been in the last 48 hours.”

Puckett said several of the show’s regular guests would stay with the show and he thanked several sponsors who he said would remain supporters of the show with the new venture. ‘Puck’ noted that starting next week, “…We get underway in full force…I’m going to continue to try and make people laugh and entertain you and talk about sports…and all of the other things you have become accustomed to with this show.”

As he started to wrap up, Puckett said, “I’m jumping into the deep end of the pool and I am going to see if I can swim or sink.”

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Sports Radio News

Kirk Minihane: WEEI is “Going to be Andy Gresh and Rich Shertenlieb in Afternoons”

“It’s going to be Andy Gresh and Rich Shertenlieb in the afternoons, which is going to be so awful.”

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Photos of Kirk Minihane and Rich Shertenlieb

As the speculation continues on where Boston sports talker Rich Shertenlieb will end up, one former WEEI host said he has the scoop on what is going to happen. Kirk Minihane, now with Barstool Sports, said, “What I heard was, initially, was they were moving Rich Keefe from nights to middays, moving Adam Jones from afternoons to middays and keeping Fauria there, and moving Andy Gresh to afternoons…But now it appears Rich Shertenlieb is going to do afternoons with Andy Gresh.”

On Wednesday, Boston Globe sports and sports media columnist Chad Finn put out a post on X, saying, “Didn’t think Rich Shertenlieb would end up at WEEI after leaving Sports Hub. I do now, most likely in afternoon drive. Audacy management has been telling people to expect changes.”

Minihane continued commenting on the matter, saying, “It’s going to be Andy Gresh and Rich Shertenlieb in the afternoons, which is going to be so awful. Maybe the two most sensitive c***s in the history of radio. That’s a show we are going to ruin…we haven’t done that in a while, we are going to take that show down…Once that show starts, we are just going to blitz them with phone calls because Gresh can’t handle that.

“What they don’t understand, because they are so dumb, is that…Rich Shertenlieb has no fan base…no fan of [Toucher and Hardy] in the morning is going to be like ‘I’m not going to listen to Felger in the afternoons, I’ll now listen to Andy Gresh and Rich Shertenlieb.’ It’s going to be dreadful.”

Recapping what he has heard the rest of the WEEI lineup will be, Minihane said, “…And then in middays you have Adam Jones, failed afternoons. Rich Keefe who has now failed middays, drivetime, nights and is now going to fail again in middays… and Christian Fauria who has never drawn a rating in his life.”

WEEI has not commented on any of the speculation. BSM will have more as the story unfolds.

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Sports Radio News

Former 670 The Score Host Tommy Williams Has Died

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Photo of Tommy Williams
Courtesy: Lakeshore Public Media

Tommy Williams, who was heard for a decade on 670 The Score, died on Wednesday at the age of 66.

Williams began his broadcasting career in his hometown of Gary, Indiana in 1982 at WLTH before moving on to The Score. In 2003, Williams became the PA Announcer for the Gary Southshore RailCats of the American Association where he had his signature call to get the attention of the fans, “People, People, People.”

A story in The Times of Northwest Indiana said, “The longtime RailCats public address announcer and Lakeshore Public Media sports journalist was known for broadcasting countless games, interviewing countless athletes and covering Region sports at all levels. The Gary native and co-host of “Prep Sports Report,” “Prep Football Report,” and “Lakeshore PBS Scoreboard” often signed off shows saying, “Gary, Indiana, you know I love you.”

“The cadence he had in his voice echoed across the Region in a way we may never see again. He was widely known and widely loved,” Tom Maloney, vice president of radio operations at Lakeshore Public Media told the paper.

“He’d want to be remembered as the voice of Lakeshore sports,” his Regionally Speaking co-host and producer Dee Dotson told The Times. “Most people will remember him for covering prep sports all the way up to semi-pros. He’ll be remembered for treating each of his subjects like they were world champions. His depth of knowledge of sports at all levels is commendable. He was a walking encyclopedia of stats.” 

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