Hall Call Podcast

Sports facilities have been shuttered due to the coronavirus pandemic. Andy Ballard from Eastern Sports Management joins Hall Call to talk about how facility/league operators and tournament coordinators are adapting to this downturn? Eastern Sports Management manages 4 facilities in VA; The Virginia Beach Fieldhouse, The Fredericksburg Fieldhouse, The Jeff Rouse Swim and Sports Center, and The Virginia Beach Sports Center.

Opening Day has a different look and feel this year, with no games on the schedule due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Our friends at the Richmond Flying Squirrels are using this as an opportunity to thank those frontline workers fighting the pandemic. Hear what the team has in store to celebrate “Opening Day 2020”.

Bob Rathbun, lead broadcaster for the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks, joins Hall Call to discuss how the NBA is navigating the work stoppage due to COVID-19, and what he expects a return to play to look like.

2x NCAA D-III National Championship winning coach, Brandon Elliott, joins Hall Call to discuss the disappointment of cancelling a promising season due to COVID-19, and how he still has to manage a nationally recognized program in a remote/virtual atmosphere.

David Wright’ baseball career began in Chesapeake, VA, and it would eventually lead to him becoming one of the all-time greats in New York Mets history. Drafted directly out of high school by the Mets, Wright would quickly his way through the minors, including a stint with his hometown Norfolk Tides, before becoming a 7x All-Star over 14 seasons in Major League Baseball with the Mets.

Wright got the chance to test his skills against major league talent at an early age, playing with and against future major league stars in little league, high school, and AAU. Wright takes great pride in the baseball legacy Virginia has, and his role in cultivating that, as he along with fellow 2020 inductee Mike Cubbage become the 33rd and 34th baseball inductees into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame.

Dennis Carter began his broadcasting career in Danville, VA and over the next four decades Carter became just as popular with sports fans in Central and Western Virginia, as the subjects he covered. Serving as Sports Director at WSET for many of those years, Carter covered local and state sports in the Southside, Valley, and Southwest regions of the state, with a passion that often lead to many long road trips and late nights.

He describes the identity of sports in that region of Virginia as hardworking, and Carter matched that identity with his own work ethic. Over the course his career, he has been honored with numerous accolades from the Virginia Associated Press Broadcasters, Virginia Association of Broadcasters, Lynchburg Area Sports Hall of Fame, Amherst County Sports Hall of Fame, and Danville Community College Sports Hall of Fame. In April, Carter will be inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame as part of its 49th class of inductees.

A gifted athlete from Newport News, Virginia, 2020 Virginia Sports Hall of Fame inductee Al Toon studied animal movements as a child to help him improve his skills as an athlete. That strategy worked, as Toon’s abilities led him to become an All BIG10 performer in both track and football, at the University of Wisconsin, and an All-Pro wide receiver in the NFL with the New York Jets.

Originally cut from his JV football team, Toon began to focus on track where he excelled in the long jump, triple jump, high jump, and hurdles, dreaming of representing the United States in the Olympics. While a hamstring injury put an end to his track career, his professional career was far from over. The 1985 first round NFL draft pick would become one of the most complete wide receivers in the NFL during his 8-year career. One of only two players to catch 500 or more passes in under 110 games, Toon played a violent game with a thinking man’s disposition. Toon joined the Hall Call Podcast to reflect on his career, and career that has brought him to the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame.

2020 Virginia Sports Hall of Fame inductee, Mike Cubbage’s road to the Hall of Fame began in Charlottesville as a 3-sport star for Lane High School, and eventually the starting the quarterback for the University of Virginia as well as the starting second baseman. Since 1971 his focus has been his first love, baseball. In the 49 years Since being drafted by the Washington Senators in 1971, Cubbage has served every role imaginable in professional baseball having been a player, coach, manager, scout, and now special assistant to the World Series Champion Washington Nationals General Manager.

His love for the game is deep, and his memory is even better. Cubbage joined the Hall Call podcast to take a walk down memory lane and reflect upon the moments and the individuals that have helped him become a Virginia Sports Hall of Famer.

Whether you loved him or hated him, one thing was for sure when it came to Kobe Bryant; he elicited a reaction from almost everyone. Unfortunately, on Sunday January 26, that reaction was one of sorrow as Bryant and 8 other individuals, including Bryant’s daughter, lost their lives in a helicopter crash in California. Reactions poured out across the world of sports an entertainment, for one of the greatest basketball players that ever lived.

Here in Virginia, we had the unique opportunity to talk to a native Virginian who knew Kobe very well. Roland Lazenby from Wytheville has written two biographies on Bryant. The two biographies, The NBA Education of Kobe Bryant (2000) and Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant (2016), provide readers unique access to one the greatest basketball players that ever lived, but also one of basketball’s most complicated characters. We had the pleasure of having Lazenby join the Hall Call Podcast to reflect on the life of the one known as the Black Mamba.

The most successful football team in the state of Virginia in the 21st century, may reside in Harrisonburg. The James Madison University Dukes football team, has appeared in 3 FCS Championship games, brining home two national championships. The 2019 football Dukes are continuing that tradition of gridiron excellence, as they have advanced to the semifinals of the 2019 FCS playoffs.

Following what some would consider a disappointing 2018 campaign, new head coach Curt Cignetti has re-energized the program and fan base, as the Dukes are clicking on all cylinders. On this episode of the Hall Call Podcast, Greg Madia from the Daily News Record in Harrisonburg, joins us to talk about JMU football, their chances in the FCS playoffs, and how this program has become one of the models of success in NCAA football.