Telich Talks

Are the sport of Pickleball was invented in 1965 up in the state of Washington. It was initially intended to be a backyard children’s game, but in recent years, it’s growth has exploded not just here in the United States, but across the world. I talked to a pair of aspiring pros, Katie Allan and Jason McNulty at The Wembley Club in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. Also, a shout out to owner David Barr for his hospitality while I watched a full night of open play at the club.

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George Veras is a 10 time national Sports Emmy award winning writer , producer and director of television live events and documentaries. He began his career at CBS sports producing the NFL Today, pregame shows for the NBA on CBS, MLB, boxing, two Pan Am games and two Winter Olympics. He produced 3 other Olympics for NBC, including the first HD telecasts of the Athens 2004 Summer games. He has produced award winning content for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Cleveland Browns, the New Jersey, Hall of Fame, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, and so much more including Yanni live at the Acropolis. He is the president and Chief Operating officer of Veras Communications Inc. and has been part of the legendary Pollack Films company. He has served as an adjunct professor of sports business at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. His first exposure to working in pro sports was in 1965 when he served as a ball boy for the New York Jets and their rookie quarterback, Joe Namath.

Nate Ulrich is an enterprise, sports reporter and feature writer at the Akron Beacon Journal. He spent a dozen years as the day-to-day beat reporter covering the Cleveland Browns of the NFL. He is a Kent State University graduate, and during the podcast we spoke about the process of defining what is a great story, and then going about the business of getting the interview and then writing the piece. I think this interview can be instructive to young journalists. Among those we discussed were Browns legends Joe Thomas, Nick, Chubb, and fellow sportswriters. Cavs legend Larry Nance Sr and his two sons, Larry Junior, and Pete entered into the discussion as did Akron Buchtel

basketball coach,Rayshon Dent, who detailed how violence impacted his life and how he never gave up , despite being denied the Buchtel coaching job twice. Nate also discussed, how he wrote a feature about Cavaliers star Donovan Mitchell.

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Adam Small is an endurance athlete, who has overcome a shattering experience. About one year ago, he was struck by a car while out, running and suffered a broken leg and a serious head injury. As a result , he had to learn to walk again, and with the injury, he experiences debilitating migraine headache that come on unannounced. But Small has a huge, Unbreakable spirit and , remarkably, he ran five, 100 mile ultra marathons in 2023 while , sometimes having to halt running due to those horrific headaches…. We talked about his fitness journey, which also included years where he was 65 pounds heavier.

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Paul McFadden was a two time Pro Bowl place kicker with the Philadelphia Eagles during his NFL career. He also kicked for the New York Giants and Atlanta Falcons. McFadden, is now the president of the Youngstown State University Foundation. He was NFC Rookie of the year in 1984. He is one of only 4 men to kick his whole career Barefoot. Tony Franklin was the first. The other two were Mike Lansford and Rich Karlis ( Browns fans know him too well). McFadden talked about how he came about kicking barefoot, and about the current trend of kickers. He also talked about his relationship with recently retired YSU president Jim Tressel and the Foundation.

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Andre Knott is a media personality in Cleveland , Ohio. He is the tv baseball analyst for the Guardians , handles commentary on ESPN Cleveland radio, Fox 8 tv and has been co host of the popular A to Z podcast with Zac Jackson. Dre , who was sideline reporter for many years on the Browns radio network ,joined me to discuss, the success of the Browns, Joe Flacco , Kevin Stefanski, Myles Garrett and more. We discussed the Downturn in the Ohio State Buckeyes fortunes,plus the NIL landscape and the transfer portal and what that is doing to college football. We even discussed mega lawyer Tim Misny. Knott was a star running back and baseball player at Akron St. Vincent St. Mary. He is married to Jen Knott, who founded Rec2Connect. She appeared on the podcast this past summer.