Ian Eagle's Playbook for Success: Lessons From Behind The Mic (Part 1)

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the Season 5 premiere of no Wrong Choices, the podcast that explores the career journeys of interesting and accomplished people in pursuit of great stories and actionable insights.

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I'm Larry Samuels, and in just a moment I'll be joined by my co-hosts, tushar Saxena and Larry Shea.

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But before we kick off, we have a small favor to ask.

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If you enjoy what we do, please take a moment to support us by following no Wrong Choices on your favorite podcast platform, such as Spotify, apple Podcasts or YouTube.

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You can also connect with us on LinkedIn, facebook, instagram Threads and X, or by visiting our website at norongchoicescom.

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Your support enables us to keep bringing these great stories to light.

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Now let's get started.

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This episode features one of the most recognizable voices in sports Ian Eagle.

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Ian is best known as the lead play-by-play commentator for the NCAA men's basketball tournament on CBS, his colorful play calling on CBS's number two NFL broadcast team, and as a favorite voice of the NBA on Turner TBS and yes, tushar, as somebody who has known Ian for a long time, I think you've actually had the opportunity to see the overwhelming majority of his journey.

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You are undoubtedly the right person to kick off season five.

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Well, let me tell you this is a great way to kick off this new season.

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Ian and I've known ian for a long time, as you said I got I was working with him many years ago over at wfan, and one thing we all knew, when we were hurt when we heard ian eagle on the air, uh, is that ian eagle was a broadcast prodigy.

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If there was a guy who was ever meant to be on the air, call games or do sports, talk radio, that guy is Ian Eagle, one of the funniest guys you'll ever meet.

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The one impression that I've always taken from Ian over all these years is how genuine of a person he is.

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Right, he is very engaged with you when you talk to him.

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He's very interested in you when you engage him in conversation, very interested in you when you, when you have, when you engage him in conversation, and he's always so willing to help anyone else with advice, uh, career advice at any point, like and it doesn't matter if you haven't seen him in years I and I have reconnected now at my current gig with cbs.

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He's been obviously over there for a long time.

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I started relatively recently, but I am so happy to once again say that Ian Eagle and I are colleagues working together at another media company in New York.

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I think we're going to have a lot of fun.

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Actually, not even that I know we're going to have a lot of fun with Ian Eagle because this is just one of the funniest human beings I have ever met in my life.

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So trust me, you will have a lot of fun listening to Ian.

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Eagle, yeah, and this kind of gets us in the mood for some football and some big games.

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And you know a lot of sportscasters, you know, just do the game and you're like, yeah, great, ian is that special, rare breed of like smart and edgy and sarcastic and witty and quick.

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I love listening to his games.

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You know you're listening to a big game when Ian Eagle is on the call.

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So you know there's a lot of behind the scenes stuff that happens with this podcast.

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You know we do a lot of research, we put a lot into it and I started digging into Ian Eagle's background and his life story and his career journey.

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And just a fascinating dude man You're going to learn a lot about a guy who is not just a face and a voice on television.

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He has a wealth of knowledge about entertaining and you're about to hear, kind of how he's put together.

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And great dude, wonderful to talk to and you guys are all in for a big treat.

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Absolutely.

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I can't wait to dig into his roots and the cat skills, which are going to be undoubtedly a great story.

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So with that, here is Ian Eagle Now joining.

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No Wrong Choices is one of the most recognizable voices in sports play-by-play announcer, ian Eagle.

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Among Ian's many projects, he serves as the lead voice of the ncaa men's basketball tournament on cbs, calls games for the network's number two nfl broadcast team and is a favorite voice within the nba world, highlighted by his work with tnt tbs.

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And, yes, he was also named the 2022 national sportscaster of the year.

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I and thank you so much for joining us.

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Feels like this is your life.

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I feel like my fourth grade teacher, richard Frank, is now going to join us to discuss a bit of my youth.

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No, I appreciate the introduction Great to be with you guys and fun time of year.

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So this is where it all begins.

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And you're getting me on the back end of free time, so I am very serene, I'm zen, but I'm ready for what's to come.

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All right.

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So full disclosure, as I do every once in a while here.

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I've actually known Ian Eagle for what?

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30 years now, almost.

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I don't like to count the numbers per se, sure I?

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I like to keep it fresh.

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It's like we're we're new friends.

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This is like a new relationship, but yeah it.

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It probably has been close to 30 years.

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That's insane.

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To which is an?

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insane thing to say because, uh, I remember, because I actually had the opportunity to uh intern and work at WFAN with Ian many years ago, when, ian, I think at that point you still may have actually been a producer who started doing updates on the weekends over at FAN.

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So it's a long journey, man.

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Yeah, the story behind that.

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So I joined WFAN Radio in May of 1990.

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I had just graduated college, I had interned there the summer before and it is a reminder about, even in this day and age, where we text, we email and oftentimes it is impersonal, our communication At the time it was very personal and it was very intimate and I made a strong enough impression as an intern to get a call right before spring break of my senior year.

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There's a job that's opening up as a producer.

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We know it's not what you want to do ultimately, but we just wanted to see if you'd like to come in and interview, which I did.

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And I ended up meeting with Mark Mason who was the program director at the time.

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It was the 7 and Midnight Shift producer job.

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Eric Spitz was moving on to a different role within the station, leaving that day part, and there was going to be an opening, and I actually asked Eric his opinion.

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Hey, do you think I should interview for this?

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He said yes, great experience.

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You're not going to get the job.

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He didn't make that point.

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There were a couple of candidates internal that were qualified for it, had done their time there.

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So I show up for the job interview during spring break went back to my dad's house in Forest Hills.

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Queens went to Astoria, met with Mark Mason.

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Within two minutes of the meeting I could sense that it was going very well.

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He was laughing at my jokes.

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We had good back and forth and he asked me well, when can you start?

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I was like, oh man.

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That's a hell of an interview, very direct.

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I said, well, I graduated May 10th, I could start May 12th, I need a day to get my life in order and I'd be ready to go.

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He said, great, that would be great and that was it.

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I walked out of there and I said how'd it go?

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I said I think it went really well.

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He's like all right, I'll call you in a few days.

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I get back to my dad's place.

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I'm going to drive back to Syracuse and I was in the driveway like packing up my stuff and my father jogs out I don't want to say runs.

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He jogged out or a brisk, walk out of the house and said hey, there's a phone call for you before you go.

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I said who is it?

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It's Eric Spitz.

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And I pick up the phone and Eric says what the hell did you say to Mark Mason?

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I said I don't know.

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I'm telling you we clicked.

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He wants to offer you the job.

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He's ready to go.

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So I took the job, even though I wanted to be on the air.

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I just thought a chance to get back home and work at the radio station that I wanted to be a part of so badly, and even by osmosis I almost looked at it as graduate school and that's really what it turned out to be.

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But they told me very strong terms Do not take this job if you want to be on the air.

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This is not going to lead to that and I said I get it, I'm going to take the job.

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So I take the job.

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I'm producing on a nightly basis.

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I'm working with Howie Rose.

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It was a crash course on professional radio and high level radio at that.

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Howie is an incredible talent.

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Fast forward, a year goes by, I'm getting antsy and I'm doing my job and I'm trying to do it to the best of my ability.

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But I am feeling the itch and I think to myself maybe I need to make a move and go somewhere else if they're not going to give me my shot.

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I had had a job offer in Buffalo on the air, had a job offer in West Virginia on the air, so I contemplated those before I took the FAN job.

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And, as cliche as it sounds, it is September of 91.

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And there was the sports director at the time, the great Stan Martin, who was a wonderful guy, truly just a joy.

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But he would make the schedule the update schedule.

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I was in my cubicle getting ready for a Friday night show and Stan is on the phone.

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And Stan was very dramatic.

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He came from a bit of an acting background and I have no idea what the phone call is.

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I just hear one end of the phone and it's him saying hello, what?

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No, really, no, no, a lot of that.

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And he hangs up and he turns around.

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He looks at me.

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He says you want to be on the air, don't you?

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Yes, he said I don't want to do the voice or it might affect me.

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He said go make a quick two minute update.

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One take in the back and give me the tape.

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And I said what is this for stan?

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He goes just do it, man, that was it, okay.

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So I go to the back and I had been doing updates on my own just to stay into the mindset of doing it and writing them and using tape.

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At the time we had carts, yep back.

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One take handed him the the update.

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He went to the back and then he came back out.

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He said you're on the schedule.

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Sunday.

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Pat harris has pneumonia, and that was it.

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Wow, harris, never worked again, that's it wasn't, it wasn't quite wally pip blue gary I'm not, I know I know, but I ended up getting another shift the following week and the week after and the week after, and that led to many opportunities on air that were not coming my way until that one fateful day.

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So that is a true reminder of you wake up in the morning, you have no idea if that's the day that's going to change your life or alter it, and that truly was the day where everything really changed, for me at least at WFAN, and it kept me on the right road and on the tracks and ultimately took advantage of all the other things that popped up along the way.

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I just want to say we've been friends for 30 years, but I appreciate everything else.

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I mean, we were going to get it.

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Well, obviously, we were going to get into the FAN days with you as well, but OK, so we'll take it back to the beginning, because I've known you for a long time.

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This was always your dream to do this job that you're doing currently, wasn't it?

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It was as far back as eight years old.

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This was a legitimate objective and goal and told my parents such at that age.

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My parents were entertainers.

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Dad was a standup comedian, actor, trumpet player.

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My mom was an actress, a singer.

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So I grew up in a household that had no boundaries as to what you could do, and that was very empowering in that I was encouraged to look outside the box.

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So when I told them that I wanted to be a sportscaster, they both told me that that's what I would do.

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And when you're eight years old, that's all you need to hear to believe it.

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So back then we're talking about the seventies, all you need to hear to believe it.

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So you know, back then we're talking about the seventies.

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There was no place to do it.

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I didn't go to a high school that that had the facilities to do it, other than performances.

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Here and there there were opportunities to show that.

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I was more than willing to go front and center and I was open to the idea of a microphone or a camera.

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None of that intimidated me and I think there was just an inner belief that I could do this and I went to college at Syracuse with that belief.

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And then you get rocked a little bit when you realize that there are a bunch of other people that are also confident and have ability and an aptitude for it.

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And then that's where the next step begins of trying to polish your craft and work at it and truly become a student of it, of it.

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And other than a freshman year where I was still balancing the idea of what college was supposed to be partying and being very social and joining a fraternity and doing all the things that I envisioned I got very serious about it.

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The start of sophomore year, to the point where I truly committed to it, caught a couple of breaks along the way.

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I was at a high school football game covering it for one of the college radio stations, and on the sideline is a new sports anchor in town.

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Although he was still a student at the school, he was a senior and he had gotten the weekend job at the CBS affiliate in Syracuse.

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He was a senior and he had gotten the weekend job at the CBS affiliate in Syracuse.

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And the guy that I went to the football game with another radio guy- said is that Mike Tirico there?

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Look at that.

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I said, yeah, yeah, I think it is.

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He said, well, we should introduce ourselves.

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I said why?

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He said he'd love to meet us.

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This guy's doing weekend sports, he wants to get out into the community.

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Right, I went, okay, that was enough for me.

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So we went over, introduced ourselves.

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He was very happy to meet us.

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What's your background?

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Oh, I'm from Queens.

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I'm from Queens, so really he's from Bayside.

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So, boom, instantly you feel a connection.

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And he also happened to be incredibly affable and gracious and everything that you see today is what he was back in 1987.

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So at the end of it he said hey, if you guys want to come check out the TV station, love to have you.

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He didn't have to do that.

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I followed up.

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I went, I became his intern, I later became his producer.

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I later became a radio producer for him because he started his own show my senior year and then, when he couldn't do it, he would have me host the show.

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So these are small snippets that I look back on and think to myself it could go one way or the other and things lined up because I was open to it, I said, yes, a lot.

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I went in with a really good attitude, no matter what the situation was, I brought positivity and I made sure that I introduced myself to people, knew their names, learned their background, took an actual interest in them as a human being, actual interest in them as a human being.

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And, tushar, I can tell you without any pause that I know our experience was a good one when you were at FAN Radio, because I just didn't know any other way.

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I treated people with respect and that has been a common thread throughout my life and throughout my career.

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You are giving amazing career journey lessons to people out there about being personable and being open and ready and willing.

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And in doing my research, I really want to follow up on the beginning of your family life too, because I do feel that they played a major part in you being able to present yourself to the world in the way that you do on a day-to-day basis today.

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I learned that you were put on stage right At the age of six and you realized hey, no big deal, I could do this.

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From your mom you're learning the show must go on, because her voice would be shot.

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I mean, these are life lessons that you're carrying on to today.

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Talk a little bit more about your mom, your dad, just your upbringing, because I really think that affected a lot.

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Yeah, guys, I didn't know any different.

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It was not normal by any stretch.

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But you don't know what you don't know.

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I recognize that it didn't feel the same as my friend's family situation, but I never looked at it as odd or woe is me.

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My parents were on the road a great deal.

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They took me on the road with them until a certain age when I had my own stuff going on and I couldn't just take off of school for three straight days.

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So by about eight years old I got into a more normal routine.

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My parents had put me in a school we lived in Rego Park, so not quite Forest Hills, it was right on the edge of Forest Hills and they put me in Montessori School, which was a progressive school.

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It was a melting pot.

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The teachers were not traditional in any way, the classes were not traditional and I think because of that it did open up my brain a bit to the idea that it doesn't have to be conventional and even your views are not necessarily conventional.

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They were open to all sorts of opinions and not just raising your hand to speak, but informally it was a very open dialogue.

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So we moved to Forest Hills in 1977.

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And I remember this very vividly.

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We go to the local public school in between what is second grade for me and what my next school year is going to be and we go and meet with the principal and I'm told to bring my work, my latest work, and the principal was Dr Charles Bechtold, tall man, very nice guy.

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We sit down in his office and he's going through what it's going to look like next year, going to start the school year in September, and now he takes a look at my book and he's looking through the paper and he stops and looks at my dad and says he's done all the work for third grade and my dad said okay, so what are the options?

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And he said, well, we can put them in fourth grade.

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And my dad turns to me and says do you want to be in fourth grade, ian?

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I said yeah, that's fine, that sounds good, new York City public education.

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And Dr Bechtolt said okay, great, and that was it.

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There was no paperwork, there was nothing.

00:20:21.191 --> 00:20:45.465
I show up the next year and I'm in fourth grade and I have this whole new world of new people, new teachers, new dynamic, much more conventional, very different, but I do remember bringing with me the mentality of a different sort of angle on how all of this stuff works.

00:20:45.465 --> 00:21:02.874
So my parents were very much grinders in how they went about their business and their work and my father really didn't have the kind of success that he dreamed of until he was 50 years old.

00:21:02.874 --> 00:21:11.173
That was the first real taste of financial success and public reaction to what he was doing.

00:21:11.173 --> 00:21:19.015
He was a comic and a trumpet player, played in big bands, played with the likes of Buddy Rich, dropped out of high school at the age of 16.

00:21:19.015 --> 00:21:31.108
Wow, in Brooklyn Erasmus Hall I have photos that my father's wife his widow sent me that I had never seen before.

00:21:31.430 --> 00:21:40.577
She sent them to me about three months ago and I'm just blown away by how young he was and what he was doing.

00:21:40.577 --> 00:21:49.573
He was on the road at 16 years old making a living and then eventually Buddy Hackett convinced him.

00:21:49.573 --> 00:21:53.813
Hey, you're funny, you should be doing stand-up.

00:21:54.134 --> 00:21:54.335
No.

00:21:56.106 --> 00:21:56.327
Buddy.

00:21:56.367 --> 00:22:05.529
Hackett says that when Buddy Hackett tells you you're funny, or the way my dad said it, Buddy said, hey, you're funny, you should be out there.

00:22:05.529 --> 00:22:15.236
And that was the impetus for him to do it and to break away from the band and be front and center.

00:22:15.236 --> 00:22:18.736
My mom was a child star in Chicago.

00:22:18.736 --> 00:22:23.224
I have photos of her at six on the radio singing.

00:22:23.224 --> 00:22:35.217
She was considered well beyond her years at the time and how that manifested itself and she dropped out of high school at the age of 16.

00:22:35.217 --> 00:22:38.233
They were 19 years apart in age.

00:22:38.233 --> 00:22:43.471
So the fact that it was congruous in that way that they somehow met.

00:22:43.471 --> 00:22:49.101
They met because my mother opened for my father at the Playboy Club in Chicago.

00:22:52.294 --> 00:22:54.078
That's how they meet in life Wow.

00:22:56.904 --> 00:22:57.666
It's a different era, so good.

00:22:57.666 --> 00:23:00.772
The late 60s produced some really interesting stories, so there's a lot there.

00:23:00.772 --> 00:23:07.493
There's a lot of meat on the bone and, yes, larry, it did shape me in ways that I didn't even imagine.

00:23:07.493 --> 00:23:18.887
I knew that it was different, that it was different, but I never led on to anybody else that it was different.

00:23:18.887 --> 00:23:22.094
I acclimated and adjusted based on my circumstances and even skipping a grade.

00:23:22.094 --> 00:23:26.469
I wasn't leading with that when I showed up for fourth grade.

00:23:26.469 --> 00:24:04.365
Hey, you know, I'm supposed to be in third grade here no-transcript.

00:24:04.424 --> 00:24:08.518
we did our research was becoming Dominic the Xerox guy.

00:24:08.518 --> 00:24:09.540
Is that right?

00:24:09.540 --> 00:24:11.690
I vividly remember that character.

00:24:12.192 --> 00:24:14.707
Oh yeah, yeah, no that was a huge commercial at the time.

00:24:14.707 --> 00:24:15.670
It was for xerox.

00:24:15.670 --> 00:24:25.026
As you mentioned, it was the first commercial that ever used a religious figure, so this was not one of those he was a monk in that he was a monk this was not one of those.

00:24:25.086 --> 00:24:29.965
Hey, we'll just kind of go with the same thing that the other, that the other brands are doing.

00:24:29.965 --> 00:24:31.848
They, they really were creative.

00:24:31.848 --> 00:24:45.258
A gentleman who just recently passed away by the name of Alan Kay, who was a brilliant ad man he was the one that that came up with the idea and another claim to fame for for Alan Kay, just to give him his due.

00:24:45.258 --> 00:24:49.914
He came up with the slogan If you see something, say something.

00:24:49.914 --> 00:24:51.397
That was him.

00:24:52.828 --> 00:24:54.054
Wow, which we still use today.

00:24:54.384 --> 00:25:02.577
Yeah, give you a little insight into his fertile mind, and if you go on YouTube it's a quick search Brother Dominic Xerox.

00:25:02.577 --> 00:25:10.987
It really was a beautiful commercial and it spurred a number of commercials for Xerox and for him.

00:25:10.987 --> 00:25:14.776
It opened up this door that had not existed.

00:25:14.776 --> 00:25:26.368
He ended up doing about 50 different commercials for various companies Fleischmann's Margarine, gillette, coppertone, noodles, soup, you name it.

00:25:26.368 --> 00:25:31.653
He would sell it and he got really hot in that area and he got really hot in that area.

00:25:31.653 --> 00:25:33.494
Anything he went up for.

00:25:33.595 --> 00:25:40.541
They were looking for a cherubic gentleman with a fun face and great facial reactions.

00:25:40.541 --> 00:25:42.226
He was the guy.

00:25:42.226 --> 00:25:46.076
In addition, he then dabbled in Hollywood.

00:25:46.076 --> 00:26:00.916
He was on three different pilots that aired on network television back at a time where we only had CBS, nbc, abc and then you know a couple of independent channels and PBS, and none of them got picked up.

00:26:00.916 --> 00:26:15.757
They all aired and none of them were at a level that the networks were going to go with it and that would have changed his life and probably would have changed my life, because we would have moved to LA and then who knows if Syracuse is in the mix for me.

00:26:15.757 --> 00:26:25.325
So I do think of things sometimes and that sliding doors theory of how life can be different based on your circumstances.

00:26:26.006 --> 00:26:26.487
For sure.

00:26:26.487 --> 00:26:36.228
So the window between this is going to sound, I don't know, a little hokey, but the window between fourth grade and 12th grade.

00:26:36.228 --> 00:26:52.230
You know what are you doing to prepare yourself to get into the best broadcasting university in the country at Newhouse and Syracuse.

00:26:52.250 --> 00:26:53.390
Well right, I get it, I get it.

00:26:53.390 --> 00:26:54.971
It's like a West Side Story.

00:26:54.971 --> 00:26:57.152
Sorry, tujo, it's not a problem.

00:26:57.811 --> 00:27:02.034
I didn't even know I was doing it at the time because it was very natural.

00:27:02.034 --> 00:27:14.078
I was completely immersing myself in sports in general, so anything that I could get my hands on, baseball was my number one sport by far.

00:27:14.078 --> 00:27:16.319
But it didn't end there.

00:27:16.319 --> 00:27:21.762
I was a huge football fan and basketball fan and hockey fan and the Olympics.

00:27:21.762 --> 00:27:22.942
I couldn't get enough.

00:27:22.942 --> 00:27:48.391
So little do you know as a kid that you're building this dossier of knowledge and a base that is going to serve you well your cataloging memories and you're doing it in a manner that is not, for any other reason, no agenda other than I just had pure love for it.

00:27:49.011 --> 00:27:52.596
And running parallel with that was the broadcasting side.

00:27:52.596 --> 00:27:59.736
The curiosity we would go to Shea Stadium grew up 10 minutes from there and the Mets were not very good.

00:27:59.736 --> 00:28:08.606
This was when Joe Torre was managing the squad and my dad, because of whatever minor celebrity it had brought to him, as the monk.

00:28:08.606 --> 00:28:19.753
There were companies and teams and various groups that wanted him to appear in a monk outfit, including the Mets.

00:28:19.753 --> 00:28:25.258
So in 1978, he brings me along and he's there to bless the team.

00:28:25.258 --> 00:28:29.175
They lost 100 games that year, so it didn't work, so it didn't help.

00:28:30.365 --> 00:28:41.214
Bruce Beauclair didn't all of a sudden become a 325 hitter, but it did afford me the opportunity to go behind the scenes.

00:28:41.214 --> 00:28:44.617
I got a bat from Lenny Randall, I got a helmet from Lee Mazzilli.

00:28:44.617 --> 00:28:57.919
This just intensified my love of sports, of sports, and even at the game I'm staring at Bob Murphy and Ralph Kiner and Lindsay Nelson in the broadcast booth.

00:28:57.919 --> 00:29:06.230
I'm just tantalized by the idea that this is a way that you can make a buck.

00:29:06.230 --> 00:29:12.000
Yeah, be around the ballpark, talk to the athletes, describe what you see.

00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:13.884
And that never escaped me.

00:29:13.884 --> 00:29:19.859
I just always had that interest and curiosity.

00:29:19.859 --> 00:29:22.023
Same with a Nick game or a Ranger game.

00:29:22.023 --> 00:29:28.722
The game would be going on and I would just lock in on Marv Albert and watch him do his thing.

00:29:28.722 --> 00:29:33.521
And I do think it plants seeds in you and it resonates with you in some way.

00:29:33.521 --> 00:29:36.594
And for me that's never gone away.

00:29:36.594 --> 00:29:47.958
That almost youthful exuberance of this job and this vocation has stuck with me for all these years.

00:29:47.978 --> 00:29:50.003
Obviously, you're building yourself to become the broadcaster that you are at a very young age.

00:29:50.003 --> 00:29:58.733
You know you're building yourself to become the broadcaster, that you are at a very young age, which means that you've got to get some kind of teaching and that's going to come from your parents.

00:29:58.733 --> 00:30:14.395
So I'm going to assume and I'm going to touch on Syracuse after in just a second, but I'm going to assume that at some point, like your parents are in showbiz, so you have the greatest, essentially, encyclopedia of knowledge in front of you where your parents can give you pointers.

00:30:14.395 --> 00:30:14.737
Was that?

00:30:14.737 --> 00:30:16.040
What was happening?

00:30:16.040 --> 00:30:18.295
Is that you know, dad, what does this sound like?

00:30:18.295 --> 00:30:22.838
Or your father was saying hey, look, if you want to, if you really want to make it in this industry, this is what you have to do.

00:30:22.838 --> 00:30:26.833
Your mom saying the same thing yeah, yeah, it's really interesting.

00:30:27.333 --> 00:30:30.655
I lost my mom when I was 19.

00:30:30.655 --> 00:30:33.018
She died of lung cancer.

00:30:33.018 --> 00:30:41.625
Two-pack-a-day smoker which for a gifted singer, just makes no sense that that would be a habit.

00:30:41.625 --> 00:30:43.606
She was alcoholic.

00:30:43.606 --> 00:30:44.647
She was anorexic.

00:30:44.647 --> 00:30:46.376
There were a lot of challenges there.

00:30:46.376 --> 00:30:48.116
She was really brilliant.

00:30:48.116 --> 00:30:50.236
She did not graduate high school.

00:30:50.236 --> 00:30:51.476
As I mentioned, she dropped out.

00:30:51.476 --> 00:30:56.828
She completed the New York Times crossword puzzle every Sunday, every Sunday.

00:30:57.028 --> 00:31:09.236
Wow, she must have been a voracious reader, yes, blown away by her intellect and her IQ, but, with that said, then did irrational things in her life, things that made no sense.

00:31:09.236 --> 00:31:20.770
That's what's so amazing about the human condition and so perplexing as well that someone is consciously hurting themselves while they're doing this.

00:31:20.770 --> 00:31:29.068
They got divorced, so that created a very large gap Geographically.

00:31:29.068 --> 00:31:30.472
She was living on the West Coast.

00:31:30.472 --> 00:31:31.897
My father was East Coast.

00:31:31.897 --> 00:31:33.151
I stayed with my father.

00:31:33.151 --> 00:31:34.354
That's where my life was.

00:31:34.354 --> 00:31:39.223
My mother needed to go and do some things on her own.

00:31:39.304 --> 00:31:45.630
She eventually enjoyed her greatest success in Las Vegas, playing Judy Garland in a show called Legends.

00:31:45.630 --> 00:31:46.171
She was amazing.

00:31:46.171 --> 00:31:47.571
It was probably the role that she needed to play her whole life.

00:31:47.571 --> 00:31:51.233
It was probably the role that she needed to play her whole life.

00:31:51.233 --> 00:31:54.736
She completely lost herself in that role.

00:31:54.736 --> 00:31:58.098
She became Judy Garland in many ways.

00:31:58.098 --> 00:32:07.644
There's a documentary that was done on the show and it's pretty wild how much she immersed herself in this.

00:32:07.644 --> 00:32:11.647
You know to the point where you think, whoa, you've probably gone a little too far.

00:32:11.647 --> 00:32:15.993
And she did so performance wise.

00:32:15.993 --> 00:32:20.259
I was just starting out doing college radio.

00:32:20.259 --> 00:32:26.786
She never really got a chance to hear me or see me do any of this.

00:32:26.786 --> 00:32:37.375
She had nothing but confidence in me and believed that I was going to be very successful and would say it over and over again.

00:32:37.375 --> 00:32:51.277
So, amidst whatever she was going through personally, she still had the wherewithal and the instincts to tell her son that you're going to do really well in life, and that's something that can build confidence.

00:32:51.277 --> 00:32:52.157
No doubt about it.

00:32:52.157 --> 00:33:02.124
My dad, at the time that we're talking, was traveling somewhere in the neighborhood of 245 days a year.

00:33:02.124 --> 00:33:03.836
Wow, wow, wow.

00:33:03.836 --> 00:33:12.084
So this was not one of those typical sit at the dinner table chat about your day.

00:33:13.510 --> 00:33:18.001
What happened with Xerox was incredible for him.

00:33:18.001 --> 00:33:30.778
What they quickly realized was that he was a secret weapon for them and they would send him on the road to appear at openings of Kinko's.

00:33:30.778 --> 00:33:37.795
Or if Ford Motor Company brought in Xerox copiers to their main offices, he would show up.

00:33:37.795 --> 00:33:51.500
And it was personal appearances and because of his standup comedy background and because of his humanity, he's just an incredible off the charts people person.

00:33:51.500 --> 00:33:59.557
The combination of those skills led him to be very successful for Xerox and they just kept booking him.

00:34:00.170 --> 00:34:10.440
You got to go to Lexington, you got to go to Akron, we need you in Vegas, then we need you to go to Orlando and then from there, austin, you name it.

00:34:10.440 --> 00:34:19.657
He was in every city in the country in the monk outfit doing his thing, but it did take him away from New York.

00:34:19.657 --> 00:34:28.425
So I grew up basically with a housekeeper that lived in the home and I was highly independent from a very young age.

00:34:28.425 --> 00:34:41.543
I was doing my homework on my own, I was waking up on my own, I was going to bed on my own I'm talking about from the age of nine on Wow, wow, wow.

00:34:41.543 --> 00:34:45.452
So when this is all you know, it doesn't seem odd.

00:34:45.452 --> 00:34:45.891
You?

00:34:45.952 --> 00:34:46.911
figure it out or you don't.

00:34:47.273 --> 00:34:48.172
Figure it out or you don't.

00:34:48.172 --> 00:34:51.094
So back to your question, tushar.

00:34:51.094 --> 00:34:59.179
My father never really sat down and criticized my work or gave me specific pointers.

00:34:59.179 --> 00:35:03.121
He was not a huge sports fan before I started doing this.

00:35:03.121 --> 00:35:15.820
When I showed an interest in sports he opened up part of his brain to it, but it really wasn't until I started doing this for a living that he then committed as a sports fan.

00:35:15.820 --> 00:35:19.572
So there was nothing from a sports knowledge standpoint that he could share with me.

00:35:19.713 --> 00:35:28.375
And then broadcasting was not their thing, so technically there was not much that they could do in that area.

00:35:28.375 --> 00:35:46.092
What they could do was provide me with a blueprint for work ethic, which was insane both of theirs and then performance, which I just saw with my own eyes watching them on stage or watching them on TV.

00:35:46.092 --> 00:36:06.974
My mom was in a few soap operas as well, so I think that was inspirational in many ways and was a North star for me in recognizing that you've got to sometimes summon something within yourself in order to do this job and do it well and be consistent at it.

00:36:06.974 --> 00:36:22.684
That's been a big part for me that I wanted to get to that place where I was consistently good at this, not a good call here, or a nice moment or a phrase that caught people's attention.

00:36:22.684 --> 00:36:27.882
Can you consistently deliver, doing game after game after game after game?

00:36:28.309 --> 00:36:34.240
Was Syracuse always the choice for you, or did you have a number of different schools that had solid broadcasting backgrounds?

00:36:34.440 --> 00:36:35.483
I got turned down at Fordham.

00:36:35.483 --> 00:36:41.637
So that was no, I didn't, I had you.

00:36:41.637 --> 00:36:46.063
There was a moment like damn right, you did we only want good people at.

00:36:47.449 --> 00:36:48.210
Fordham.

00:36:49.052 --> 00:36:57.434
No, syracuse was the number one choice and, and honestly it was because there was an article in sports illustrated.

00:36:57.454 --> 00:37:14.465
We all remember when sports illustrated had a very serious impact on sure absolutely magazine yes, stacking the magazines and keeping them and reading back issues and being blown away by the work that they did.

00:37:14.465 --> 00:37:24.039
There was an article in Sports Illustrated a broadcaster by the name of Greg Papa who is the voice of the San Francisco 49ers.

00:37:24.039 --> 00:37:25.329
He did the Warriors for many years.

00:37:25.329 --> 00:37:39.221
He was the feature, he was a senior at Syracuse and it was called the Cradle of Sportscasters and that caught my eye and I believe the year was 84.

00:37:39.221 --> 00:37:56.487
So I'm a sophomore in high school and I thought to myself they listed the lineage from Marty Glickman to Dick Stockton to Marv to Andy Musser to Len Berman, on and on and on.

00:37:56.487 --> 00:38:02.382
And I said to myself that's where I have to go and that was my number one choice.

00:38:02.382 --> 00:38:04.233
I did apply to a bunch of schools.

00:38:04.233 --> 00:38:10.853
I was fortunate enough to get into a bunch of schools, but Syracuse was always the top choice, yeah.

00:38:11.195 --> 00:38:17.981
I love how you've set this up for us, because there's a real entertainment aspect of the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

00:38:17.981 --> 00:38:19.070
We hear it in your calls.

00:38:19.070 --> 00:38:23.623
You know anytime you're doing a game, and now you've set the path to Syracuse.

00:38:23.623 --> 00:38:26.074
Where are you honing those chops?

00:38:26.074 --> 00:38:31.934
Do you learn to do the stuff at Syracuse, or did it start way earlier than then?

00:38:31.934 --> 00:38:35.836
You know just in your room calling the game when you're watching TV.

00:38:35.836 --> 00:38:37.230
Where does it begin?

00:38:37.230 --> 00:38:38.956
Where you're starting to hone your craft?

00:38:39.577 --> 00:38:48.862
All of the above Growing up in New York with the surplus of teams in the area.

00:38:48.862 --> 00:39:00.215
If you turn your radio on, you were going to get a game, and it could have been John Sterling doing the Islanders, it could have been Marv Albert doing the Rangers, Could have been Marv Albert doing the Knicks.

00:39:00.215 --> 00:39:11.601
Eventually, when the Nets rolled around, that was another option Marty Glickman, originally the Giants, then the Jets Giants, then the Jets and then the Yankees, the Mets.

00:39:11.601 --> 00:39:15.344
They were all there and all available.

00:39:15.344 --> 00:39:26.471
So it really began there.

00:39:26.471 --> 00:39:43.143
And then, yes, doing play-by-play in your bedroom, setting up your bed like a baseball field and literally calling the plays as you go, getting in the shower and working with the space, great acoustics, play-by-play of whatever comes to mind.

00:39:43.143 --> 00:39:46.460
That was always part of the mindset.

00:39:46.460 --> 00:39:59.391
And then playing pickup basketball with your friends and calling play-by-play and your friends wanting to punch you in the face of course they don't want to hear play-by-play I know that too, I know that feeling too.

00:40:00.152 --> 00:40:09.514
So all of the above and then get to syracuse, and there is a very specific path that you need to follow.

00:40:09.514 --> 00:40:25.804
So there are two radio stations there college radio stations, waer, which all of the people that I mentioned earlier worked, bob Costas, who I didn't mention earlier, but was really the one that captured my imagination when I got to college.

00:40:25.804 --> 00:40:27.739
That was the one that I truly tried to emulate.

00:40:27.739 --> 00:40:29.469
I just your style is very similar that I truly tried to emulate.

00:40:30.349 --> 00:40:46.762
I just your style is very similar, really respected Very similar, respected his intellect, respected occasional sarcasm and the fact that he could do any role that you asked of him.

00:40:46.762 --> 00:40:48.315
You want him to host he could do it.

00:40:48.315 --> 00:40:49.554
You want him to do play-by-play?

00:40:49.554 --> 00:40:50.398
He could do it.

00:40:50.398 --> 00:40:51.215
You want him to interview someone?

00:40:51.215 --> 00:40:51.389
He could do it.

00:40:51.389 --> 00:40:52.221
You want him to do play-by-play?

00:40:52.221 --> 00:40:52.295
He could do it.

00:40:52.295 --> 00:40:52.702
You want him to interview someone, he could do it.

00:40:53.331 --> 00:41:00.710
And that show that he did on NBC later with Bob Costas, I thought was brilliant, and the variety of guests, I think.

00:41:00.710 --> 00:41:17.050
Back he had one particular episode with Mary Lou Henner of Taxi fame, and it was one of the best episodes of television I had ever seen, one of the best interviews I had ever said, would you say to yourself like, oh yeah, I want to check out mary lou henner and what she's got going on.

00:41:17.050 --> 00:41:18.715
She's really interesting.

00:41:18.715 --> 00:41:26.693
By the way, she has a photographic memory and has very specific memories of every day of her life.

00:41:26.693 --> 00:41:32.949
And then bob threw out a, a random day, and that happened to be the day that she lost her virginity and that brought oh geez.

00:41:34.235 --> 00:41:34.980
Oh, you can Wait.

00:41:34.980 --> 00:41:35.865
What is this episode?

00:41:35.865 --> 00:41:36.449

Ian Eagle's Playbook for Success: Lessons From Behind The Mic (Part 1)

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