In this episode we're joined by University of Alabama at Birmingham Hall of Fame broadcaster, Gary Sanders. Born in Decatur, IN, Gary was bitten by the sports radio bug at an early age, admiring the work of Bill Stern and Hilliard Gates. Gary's family eventually moved to Tennessee where he became active in the radio business and, ultimately, wound up doing Auburn University football games for 11 season. Among the most famous of his calls during his time on The Plains was the 1972 Iron Bowl played at Birmingham's Legion Field. Ninth-ranked Auburn trailed the unbeaten and second-ranked Crimson Tide 16-0 with under 10 minutes to go but a field goal and a pair of blocked punts returned for touchdowns by David Langner propelled the Tigers to the improbable win. 

Another notable event Gary was on the mike for was as a Marty Brennaman's color analyst for CBS Radio's call of the 1992 NCAA Men's Basketball East Regional Championship aka The Christian Laettner Shot Game (unfortunately, try as we might, we can't find the Brennaman & Sanders call).

Gary also joined UAB when the school began its intercollegiate athletics program in 1979 working closing with athletic director and men's basketball coach, Gene Bartow (the man who succeeded John Wooden as UCLA coach). 

Along the way we hear from Gary about the Adolph Rupp, Pat Sullivan, Terry Beasley, Shug Jordan, and Pete Maravich. 

Here is the YouTube played in today's outro featuring Gary's fourth quarter calls of the 1972 Iron Bowl. 

In this episode we're joined by longtime friend, fellow educator, and President of the Michigan Education Association, Paula Herbart. Our chat with Paula reminds us that not everyone is an avid sports fan and that sometimes the best part of sports and sports spectating is the camaraderie it creates. Paula recollects growing up in her family of seven and how finding things to do is what kids did growing up in the 1960s and 1970s. That included ice skating on any patch of ice she could find in their Fraser, MI, neighborhood and spending plenty of time in the pool at the YMCA.

Paula's mother and father (both educators themselves) relocated to southeast Michigan in 1952 following completion of their degrees at Clarion (PA) College. Without any family there, Paula's mother fell hard for the Detroit Tigers from the family home in Fraser. So much so, in fact, that when the Tigers won the 1984 World Series, Paula said her mom loaded those still living at home up in the car to head downtown to celebrate. And, no, not even a well-intentioned police officer could dissuade Mrs. Salerno from celebrating. Paula also recollects a close-encounter with Tigers' great Mickey Lolich at their opthamologist and her mom fan-girling out.

Paula attended the University of Michigan, where she studied music education and attended athletic events - shall we say - sporadically.

As life proceeded, Paula took up golf and she recollected on how much she despised watching it on Sunday's at her grandparents' place in Pennsylvania, but now regrets not having taken the sport up earlier in life to have had the opportunity to play with her grandfather, himself a scratch golfer. 

We conclude our time with Paula by talking about another one of her grandfather's (and parents') loves: bridge. As author and fellow podcaster Malcolm Gladwell might say, we "descend into the particular" on bridge ... and euchre ... and pinochle ... and cribbage. All of which - if poker and cornhole can get airtime on ESPN! - should be considered spectator competitions as well.

Generously speaking, your host is a casual NASCAR viewer. By that I mean I'll tune in and watch a few laps here or there and will check the results to see how  local product Brad Keselowski finished. 

With the "Super Bowl of Stock Car Racing" - aka the Daytona 500 - set to go green this Sunday afternoon and with it the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series kicking off, it seemed a perfect time to work on become something more than a viewer. In this special episode we're joined by friends and fellow educators Frank Burger and Kevin Hickerson to talk all things NASCAR and how best to become engaged in the spectacle. Our conversation today takes us through the basics of being a fan: 

All in all, it was time well spent for this novice. Now to pick my driver? Or will it be team? Or maybe manufacturer? Decisions, decisions!

In this episode we're joined by longtime member of the University of Michigan's Athletics Department, Bruce Madej. A Dearborn, MI, native, Bruce was into sports from an early age ... and by sports we mean all sports. He makes reference to watching - in person - baseball, hockey, football, basketball, unlimited hydroplane racing, offshore powerboat racing, lacrosse, curling, track and field, and horse racing within about the first 20 minutes of our conversation. 

Now retired from U-M, Bruce currently serves as a communications consultant with ROSSETTI, a Detroit-based architecture firm that specializes in sports venues. We get Bruce's take on how these plans have evolved through the years and his thoughts on which southeast Michigan venues are among his favorites. In addition to his work for ROSSETTI, Bruce continues to lend support to the efforts to get an H1 Unlimited Hydroplane race back to the Detroit River. We also talk LPGA (he was was part of the team that worked the Volvik Championship during its three years at Ann Arbor's Travis Pointe Country Club) and the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame (of which Bruce serves in his final year as co-chair). 

And, of course, we talk about some of his most memorable moments spent at the University of Michigan. Among those are the renewal of the Michigan-Notre Dame football rivalry on September 23, 1978 featuring Rick Leach and Joe Montana at quarterback; the October 17, 1979 John Wangler to Anthony Carter walk-off 45-yard TD reception that defeated Indiana; the 1989 men's basketball run to the NCAA Title following the pre-tournament departure of Coach Bill Frieder; the 1998 Rose Bowl Championship team that secured a share of the National Championship; and the 2005 Women's College World Series between Michigan and U-M which gave Wolverines' Coach Carol Hutchins an elusive national title. 

We're delighted to be joined in this episode by Chesterfield, England's, Antony Fitzpatrick. Antony is among the founders of the website, podcast, and blog "Roar of the Lions UK." Antony is not Michigan ex-pat or a college student living abroad. Nope, in fact he's a bonafide Detroit Lions' fan by choice. How he came to choose the Lions is among the myriad recollections Antony shares during our time together. He also traced his sports fan roots back to the 1997 FA Cup Semifinals when, as a 7-year-old, his family sprang for the pay-per-view at his aunt's home to watch their hometown's lower division club - Chesterfield FC - advanced to the semifinals and had favored Middlesbrough FC on the ropes before yielding a controversial late score that forced a replay nine days later which Middlesbrough won, 3-0. 

Antony provides insights on the tribal nature of fans' football club rooting interests, the inequities between the various divisions of soccer in England, and how both of those have made him appreciate American football and, in small part, led him to the Lions and his ardent support of them. Spoiler Alert: He loves the salary cap concept.

Through his love of the Detroit Lions, Antony has also developed an affection for college football and podcasts about it regularly throughout the year as well.  

Please enjoy today's episode and give Antony and the rest of the crew a look and listen over at "Roar of the Lions UK."

This week's guest, Dr. Channon Washington, may well be the busiest sports fan we've ever spoken with. The wife of University of Michigan men's Assistant Basketball Coach Saddi, mother of University of Pittsburgh sophomore gymnast Sidney, and mother of Caleb, a Saline High School freshman 3-sport athlete (football, basketball, and track & field), Channon is one busy - and nervous! - spectator.

We start our conversation during Channon's youth and the summer of 1984 when her family in Detroit was captivated by the the magical run the Tigers were on as well as the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Channon was a big fan of USA gymnast Mary Lou Retton. Channon also provides some wonderful context on the University of Michigan's Fab Five and the outsized impact those five had not just on basketball but all aspects of American culture. 

Channon pulls the curtain back on how she and Saddi first met as undergraduates at Western Michigan University (Hint: Think breakfast food) as well as their experience as new parents in France while Saddi played professionally for JL Bourg. She also shares what it's like being a "gym mom" to Sidney, how her son has a completely different personality than his sister and as well as sports proclivities, and how watching one of the first U-M B1G road games Saddi coached in sent  her to the emergency room later that night. 

It's no wonder there's a support community for coaching wives that Channon's proud to be a part of. 

In this week's episode we enjoy a lovely discussion with an fellow educator and fellow former caddy, Kevin Marvin. Kevin looped at Red Run Golf Club for most of his teenage years in Royal Oak, MI, and earned a prestigious Chick Evans' Caddy Scholarship to Michigan State University. Yep, that thing Danny Noonan was gunning for in Caddyshack really exists and Kevin talks about how he earned it as well as name dropping a few of the more famous bags he toted. He also touches on how $40 got him a spot as a charter member of the Breslin Center's now famous IZZONE. 

COVID years aside, Kevin's seen at least one NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament game in-person every year since 1998. He also counts among his in-person highlights as seeing a Formula 1 Race at the Hockenheimring in Hockenheim, Germany (see a Michael Schumacher qualifying lap here) and taking in a Yomiuri Giants game in the Tokyo Dome during the Nippon Baseball Central League season. 

Kevin also spills the tea about that moment when he was in Bloomington, IN, for a MSU football game in 1995 and he happened into Assembly Hall, opened a random door, and discovered Coach Bob Knight addressing members of the Hoosiers men's basketball team. 

There's quite a lot more ground we cover with Kevin and we hope you enjoy all of it. 

In today's episode we're joined by longtime friend Tom McClary. Tom was raised in St. Clair Shores, MI, where he was one of the stars of his high school basketball team. His body of work as a high school player afforded him to play collegiately at Eastern Wyoming College. His proclivity for basketball aside, Tom grew up in a baseball household and recalls lots of dialogue in the house about the Detroit Tigers' 1968 World Series Championship. He had his own baseball moment in 1973 when the Tigers and Oakland A's went to a deciding fifth game at Tiger Stadium and Tom's teacher indicated there would be no lessons that day and pulled out a radio.  

During our conversation, we discuss the Tigers, the Detroit Pistons and their 1970s home - Cobo Arena - as well as the University of Detroit Titans and its home barn - Calihan Hall. He recollects on what sports was like for a Michigander during his time in Torrington, WY, and how Magic Johnson's 1979 Michigan State Spartans had an impact on his high school basketball experience. He also touches on his two most memorable events, the first being a 1988 Detroit Red Wings-Edmonton Oilers Conference Final and the other being 1987 Indianapolis 500 that he attended on a whim with a buddy. 

We wind down our conversation with Tom by discussing how he's enjoyed watching his 7th grade daughter play basketball and his thoughts on the women's college game; including a trip last summer to University of South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley's basketball camp. 

In this episode we're joined by Jovan Mrvos, who along with his family, was considered one of the over 5 million displaced persons following the conclusion of World War II. Yugoslavian by birth, Mrvos, his parents, and brother were sponsored refugees who arrived in the United States on Valentine's Day 1952. They found their way to Gary, IN, and ultimately settled a few blocks from Wrigley Field in Chicago where the family, feeling the need to culturize, fell hard for the Cubs and Bears who played nearby. The Blackhawks of that era were also a natural, Jovan notes, because his father was able to catch on to the game quickly due to the similarities with soccer.

During our time with Jovan we cover it all: What necessitated the family's departure from Europe, the experience of his first Cubs game (September 29, 1956 against the Cincinnati Redlegs), sneaking into the 1959 NFL Championship Game at Wrigley between the Bears and Giants, his disdain for the New York Yankees but tolerance of the cross-town White Sox, his 30-plus years working in the music industry first as an on-air talent and later as an artist and repetoire for music labels, comparisons of old-school arenas, how his taste in sports these days leans more toward the English Premier League (he's an Arsenal Gunner through and through, by the way), and his thoughts on the recently concluded Men's World Cup, the passing of soccer legend, Pele, and the the FX series, Welcome to Wrexham (that soccer side project by Hollywood's Rob McElhenny and Ryan Reynolds).

Finally, we conclude with Jovan discussing a passion project in his current home of Decatur, IN, where he helped acquire a low-power FM broadcasting license form the FCC several years ago for the local high school, Bellmont, where he's in his final year serving as station manager (103.5 WDBF-Lower Power FM, the "Voice of Bellmont High School"). 

Please enjoy this eclectic discussion of sports, music, and just about everything in between. 

We are honored to be joined in this episode by the 45-year voice of Indiana University's Simon Skjodt's Assembly Hall, Chuck Crabb. A native of Brazil, IN, Crabb was virtually born a sports fan. His father was a 3-sport star in high school and later became a referee and his mother was a high school cheerleader. His grandfather was also fond of taking young Chuck to see uncle Larry play one of his three sports as well. 

During our time together with Chuck he runs the gamut on his entire career which began while he was still in high school. Heck, he even shares how he bought himself a Christmas of an 8-day trip to Pasadena, CA, for $312.50 to see the Indiana Hoosiers play the University of Southern California Trojans in IU's most-recent Rose Bowl appearance, January 1, 1968 (won by USC, 14-3). 

To say Chuck's recollections get better from there would be a gross understatement. He discusses how he was and was not and then was again going to replace his predecessor Bert Laws who was on the job for 40 years. And then, how a moment of excitement over the microphone nearly ended his PA career at the beginning. Along the way he recollects some of the magical moments he witnessed in Assembly Hall, some of the personalities of coaches he had a front row seat to view, the opportunities afforded him to also work at Olympic Games, Pan-American Games, U.S. Olympic Festivals, the first basketball event ever at the RCA Hoosier Dome between an NBA All-Star Team and the 1984 U.S. Olympic Team coached by IU's Bob Knight and led by Michael Jordan, and the evolution of women's athletics at IU post-Title IX. 

Here's hoping you enjoy listening in on our conversation with Chuck as much as we did having it.