Podcast appearances and mentions of Dick Enberg

True grit? Not the movie or book, but a real live individual. I met Laura Bratton about a month ago and realized that she was a very unique individual. Laura was referred to me by a gentleman who is helping both Laura and me find speaking venue leads through his company. Laura is just ramping up her public speaking career and our mutual colleague, Sam Richter, thought I could be of help. Little did I know at the outset that not only would I gain an excellent podcast guest, but that I would find someone whose life parallelled mine in many ways.   Laura Bratton began losing her eyesight at the age of nine years. Like me, she was one of the lucky ones who had parents who made the choice to encourage their daughter and help her live her life to the fullest. And live it she does. Laura attended public school in South Carolina and then went to Arizona State University to secure her bachelor's degree in Psychology. Why ASU? Wait until you hear Laura tell that story.   After securing her degree in Psychology she moved to the Princeton School of Divinity where she secured a Master's degree in Divinity. She followed up her Master's work by serving in a chaplaincy program in Ohio for a year.   Then, if all that wasn't enough, she became a pastor in the United Methodist Church and took a position in South Carolina. She still works part time as a pastor, but she also has taken some other exciting and positive life turns. As I mentioned earlier, she is now working to build a public speaking career. She also does one-on-one coaching. In 2016 she wrote her first book.   Laura shares many poignant and relevant life lessons she has learned over the years. We talk about courage, gratitude and grit. I asked her to define grit which she does. A very interesting and good definition indeed.   I often get the opportunity to have guests on this podcast who share life and other lessons with all of us. To me, Laura's insights are as relevant as any I have encountered. I hope you will feel the same after listening to our conversation. Please let me know what you think. You can email me at michaelhi@accessibe.com.       About the Guest:   At the age of nine, Laura was diagnosed with an eye disease and faced the difficult reality that she would become blind. Over the next ten years she experienced the traumatic transition of adjusting to life without sight.  Laura adjusted to her new normal and was able to move forward in life as she graduated from Arizona State University with a BA in psychology. She then was the first blind student to receive her Masters of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary.  She is the author of the book, Harnessing Courage. Laura founded Ubi Global, which is an organization that provides speaking and coaching to empower all people to overcome challenges and obstacles with grit and gratitude. Ways to connect with Dr. Laura:   Link for LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/laura-bratton-speaking   Website https://www.laurabratton.com/   Link for coaching page on website https://www.laurabratton.com/coaching  Link for book on website https://www.laurabratton.com/book   Link for speaking page on website https://www.laurabratton.com/speaking   About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Well and a gracious hello to you, wherever you happen to be on our planet today, I am your host, Michael Hinkson, and you are listening to unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet, and we sort of get to tie several of those together today, because my guest, Laura Bratton happens to be blind, so that brings inclusion into it, and we could talk about diversity all day. The experts really tend to make that a challenge, but we can talk about it ourselves, but Laura is blind, and she's going to tell us about that, and I don't know what else, because that's the unexpected part of this, but we're going to have ourselves a lot of fun for the next hour. She knows that the only rule of the podcast is you got to have fun, and you can't do better than that. So Laura, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here.   Laura Bratton ** 02:12 Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. I'm excited.   Michael Hingson ** 02:15 Well, this will be some fun, I'm sure, which is, of course, what it's all about. Well, why don't we start by you telling us kind of about the early Laura, growing up and all that, and anything about that that you think we ought to know that'll help us as we go forward.   Laura Bratton ** 02:31 So the early Laura was,   Michael Hingson ** 02:34 you know, that was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. But yeah,   Laura Bratton ** 02:38 was was fearless. Was involved in so many different activities, and I didn't have any health concerns or vision problems. And then around the age of nine, after the summer, after my second grade school year, my parents started noticing she's just holding books a little bit closer. She's just sitting a little bit closer to the TV than normal, than usually. So my they decided we'll just make a regular pediatric ophthalmology appointment, take her to the doctor, get the doctor to check her out. You know, if you need glasses, that's fine, and we'll just move on with our our summer and prepare for a new school year. So that June, when I had that doctor's appointment, my eyes were dilated. I'd read the the letters on the chart in the room. The doctors had looked in my eyes, and then the doctor just rolled back in his chair and looked at my mom and said, there's a major problem going on, and we need to address this, and I'm going to send you to a retina specialist. There's something major going on with her retinas. So from that appointment that started the rest of the summer and into the fall of just having doctors, different doctors appointments, meeting with specialists, trying to figure out why this 910, year old was all of a sudden having vision problems.   Michael Hingson ** 04:20 So yeah, go ahead that,   Laura Bratton ** 04:22 yeah. So that started the whole vision loss journey,   Michael Hingson ** 04:27 and what was the diagnosis that they finally came up with?   Laura Bratton ** 04:31 So they finally came up with a diagnosis of rare retinal onset disease. So it's not genetic. It wasn't like another accident, physical accident that calls the blindness. It's most similar to macular. So what I was losing first was my central vision. I still had all my peripheral vision, so it's very similar to macular, but not. Not quite macular or star guards. What's happens in children? So that's the diagnosis, just rare retinal disease.   Michael Hingson ** 05:11 Interesting, and they they didn't have any idea that what caused it. Do they have any better idea today? Or is it just so rare that they don't tend to pay a whole lot of attention. Great   Laura Bratton ** 05:23 question, yes and yes. So I've done a lot of genetic testing over the years, and the gene has not been discovered. That is obviously what they are predicting, is that there had to be some kind of gene mutation. But that gene hasn't been discovered. So far, the genes that are identified with vision problems, those have not been the problem for me so far. So the gene, Gene hasn't been discovered. So testing continues, but not exactly sure yet.   Michael Hingson ** 05:59 Yeah. So do you have any eyesight left, or is it all gone?   Laura Bratton ** 06:04 I don't, so to continue kind of that process of of the the early childhood. So I was diagnosed around nine, but I didn't lose any major vision until I was in middle school. So the end of middle school is when I started to lose a significant part of sight. So I went from very quickly from roller print, large print, to braille, and that was a very quick transition. So basically it was normal print to learning Braille and using Braille and textbooks and Braille and audio books and all that. Then through high school, I will throw more a significant amount of vision. So what I have currently is just very limited light perception, no, what I consider no usable vision, just light perception,   Michael Hingson ** 06:55 so you learn braille. So you learn braille in middle school. Then, yes, okay, absolutely. What did you think about that? Because that was certainly a life change for you. How did you deal with all of that?   Laura Bratton ** 07:10 How did I do with the process of learning braille or the emotional process?   07:14 Both,   Laura Bratton ** 07:16 they're kind of related, so both, they're very much related. So learning Braille was incredibly difficult because I was trying to learn it at the same time. Use it with textbooks in middle school level material rather than normal development. Of you learn braille and start out, you know, with with simple books, and slowly move up. I try, you know, I had to make that adjustment from learning Braille and then algebra in Braille or Spanish and Braille. So using the Braille was very difficult, but I was because I was forced to to learn it, because I had to, just to stay in school. You didn't really have a choice. As far as the emotional perspective. My first thoughts was just the denial, oh, it's not that bad, oh, it won't be forever. Oh, it's not going to get much worse than this. Just that denial of the reality. And then I can say more, if it just kind of that whole how that whole process unfolded, that's kind of the whole emotional process. It   Michael Hingson ** 08:34 certainly was a major change for you, yes, but it sounds like by the time all was said and done, and you did have to immerse yourself, like in learning Braille and so on. So it was an immersive kind of thing. You, You did come through it, and you, you seem to be functioning pretty well today, I would gather   Laura Bratton ** 08:55 Yes, because of focusing on the emotional mindset piece. So once that I've sort of began to move out of denial. It was that, okay, well, I can't this is just too hard. And then what I eventually realized and accepted was, yes, it's hard and I can move forward. So just a practical example, is what you were saying about having to be fully immersed in the Braille. Yes, is really hard to jump from learning braille to knowing Braille and algebra. But also choose to move forward. As you said, I choose to immerse myself in this so that I can continue life, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 09:42 and you you have done it. Well, how? How do you view blindness today?   Laura Bratton ** 09:49 That is a great question. So today is the balance of acknowledging. Yes, they're difficult moments. Yes, their stressful moments. Moments, and I have the resources to process that. So now, rather than just being a denial or being stuck in that I can't do this, I can say, okay, yes, this is hard. Yes, I am frustrated. Yes, I am overwhelmed in this moment, but also I can move forward with the gifts and purposes that I have in this world and using that as a strength. So for me, it's that acknowledging the rap the reality, but also moving forward with that belief in myself, trust in myself.   Michael Hingson ** 10:39 So how long did you at the beginning really grieve and view all this in a negative way? Because it sounds like you've evolved from that today.   Laura Bratton ** 10:53 Absolutely. So in my experience, the so I'm going to break the grief and the negative apart, because for me, it was two different experiences. So for me in those middle school, high school days, it was more than negative, and the grief just came along with that. Now even, you know, through college and even now, yes, there are moments that I grieve, but that negativity has turned into the mindset of strength, the mindset of trust, the mindset of okay, I can continue forward Again, living out those purposes, my purpose with those gifts as a source of strength, the source of courage. It's a source of just belief in myself. So my experience now is the mindset of holding both intention, holding space for both when I have those moments that I need to grieve, absolutely, giving myself those space and then at the same time, choosing to move forward with that courage, rather than being stuck in what I was in middle school of that negativity. Does that difference? Does that make us make sense of what I'm trying to separate the two?   Michael Hingson ** 12:19 Well, yeah, they overlap, but I understand what you're saying, Where, where and how were your parents in all of this?   Laura Bratton ** 12:28 So that was the incredible gift, that that was a deep source of strength, that as that middle school child who was in that negative place of denial and I can't, I can't. That was the source of strength. So immediately, when I was diagnosed, even though I didn't have major vision loss, I was diagnosed in elementary school, they wanted to send me to school for the deaf and blind, and so my parents had to fight to keep me in regular school. Again, I wasn't experiencing major vision loss, but just having minor vision loss, the school said, Okay, you're at a public school and going to a different school. So my parents were a source of strength, because they knowledge what was happening, what was going to happen, but also held me to the same standards.   Michael Hingson ** 13:25 And there are some schools, I don't know how much today, but in the past, there were some schools for the blind, and I'm not sure about schools for the deaf and blind, but we'll put them in the same category. But there were some schools that really did have very high standards, and and did do a great job. The Perkins School was one. Tom Sullivan, the actor, went through Perkins and and I know other people who did, but in general, the standards weren't the same, and I had the same issue. I remember my parents. We were in the office of the school principal of Yucca school where I went kindergarten through third grade here in California, okay, and I remember a shouting match between my father and my mother on one side, and Mr. Thompson, the principal on the other. And by the time all was said and done, he decided that it was he was going to acquiesce, because they were not going to let me go to the school for the blind, which would have been like, 400 miles away.   Laura Bratton ** 14:38 Okay, okay, so, so you can relate to that experience.   Michael Hingson ** 14:42 I can absolutely relate to that experience, and I think that it's for kids one of the most important things to hope comes along that parents deal with blindness in a in a positive way. Yes, and don't view it as something that's going to hold you back. I. 100% Yeah, because if they do, then that creates a much more difficult situation. Yes. So it's it's great that you had some parents who really stood up for you and helped as you went   Laura Bratton ** 15:15 Yes, and I was also deeply grateful that they all they held those standards at school, and they also held those standards at home. So they didn't just say, oh, you know, our expectations are lower for you at home, you don't have any more chores. You just kind of do whatever you want, get away with whatever you want. They kept those things standards. I still had chores we just made, you know, the accommodations are adapted if we needed to adapt anything. Yeah, a story that I always, always remember, just like you talking about you vividly remember being in that principal's office. I remember one day my the specific tour was unloading the dishwasher, and I remember thinking, well, oh, I'm not really, I don't really want to unload the dishwasher today. So I just kind of thought, Oh, the blindness will get me out of the situation. So I was like, Mom, I can't unload the dishwasher. I can't see exactly where to put all the silverware in the silverware of her door. And I still, I can still see this in my mind's eye. She was standing in the doorway the kitchen and the hallway, and she just turned around and just said, Laura, unload the dishwasher, put the silverware in the drawer, and just walked away. And that told me she was still holding me to the exact standards. She wasn't saying, Oh, honey, that's okay because of your blindness. Yeah, you don't have to do it. That was such a huge teaching moment for me, because it pulled me I can't use my blindness as an excuse. That was incredible experience and I always think back on and remember,   Michael Hingson ** 17:04 yeah, and I remember growing up, there were chores I did, there were chores My brother did, and there were things that we had to do, but we had, and my brother was cited two years older than I, but okay, but we had very supportive parents for both of us. And one of the things that the doctors told my parents when they discovered that I was blind, was that I was going to take all the love that the family had, even for my older sibling. Oh, my parent and my parents said that is just not so, and they worked really hard to make sure that my brother got all the things that that he needed and all the support that he needed as well. Wow. When he was still in high school, I remember they got him a car, and I don't remember when he got it. Maybe, I don't know whether he was already a senior in high school, but he got a car. And, you know, I didn't want a car. I right. I didn't want that, but, you know, that was okay. I would have driven it around if I got one, but, you know, that's okay, but, but parents are such an important part of the process, yes, and they have to be ready to take the leap, yes, that blindness isn't the problem. It's attitudes. That's really, that tend to really be the problem, right? 100%   Laura Bratton ** 18:24 and thankfully, thankfully, I had that. I had that experience another, another example that I always think of all the time, still such a vivid memory, is as as a family. We were a big sports family, and loved to go to different sporting events, and so we would always go to high school and college football games. And as I was in those middle school, high school years, those first, early days of experiencing difficult vision loss, where obviously I'm sitting in the sands and can't see the field clearly, rather than my parents saying, Oh, you're just going to stay home. Oh, you're not going with us. To be part of this, my dad are really, literally. Remember my dad saying, Here's a radio. I just put new batteries in. Let's go. So I would just sit there and, you know, with with my family, listening to the game on the radio. And that was such a gift, because, again, they didn't say, is what you're saying about the leap. They didn't say, okay, you can do this anymore. They just figured out a way to adapt so that I was still part.   Michael Hingson ** 19:34 Yeah, I've been to a number of baseball games, and the same thing, I've never been I've been to a high school football game, but I've never been to a pro football game, and I've never been to a basketball game, and while I think it would have been fun, I'm a little bit spoiled, and I think that the announcers today aren't as good as the announcers that we used to have, like Dick Enberg doing sports out here, who did. Football chick, Hearn, who did basketball, who could talk as fast as, I mean, he was, he was he taught me how to listen fast. That's great. He he talked as fast as many times books I read talk. He was just incredible. But that's okay. But still, I've been to games, and it is a lot of fun to be able to go and listen. It's even if you're listening on the radio, the point of being at the game is just the sounds and the experience of being at the game and hearing and interacting with all the sounds, because you're not hearing that as much through the radio as you are listening to the fans as they yell, or as the Yes, as the foul balls coming at you. You know, yes 100%   Laura Bratton ** 20:50 and just to feel the energy, you know, and your team's doing well, your team's not doing well, just to feel that energy, and there's to also to be there and have that, that fun experience with your family or friends, or you know, whoever you're with, that is such a fun experience. So yes,   Michael Hingson ** 21:08 so when you went into high school, did, what did you study? Or what did you do there?   Laura Bratton ** 21:15 What were your interests? So in college, when I   Michael Hingson ** 21:18 was thinking high school, but you can do college. So   Laura Bratton ** 21:21 High School, honestly, I didn't have specific professional interests, because it was just so much focused on the blind surviving and all the surviving, just the New Black, because the blindness was literally happening during high school, right? So my only focus was just survival passing because it was all of my energy was focused on the the learning Braille and just completing the assignments. Fast forward to college. My focus was definitely. My major was psychology. My focus was on psychology. A lot because of my personal experience, because of that experience in high school, and just that that not only that desire from my personal experience, but just using that experience to then help and support others from the mindset of of again, moving through that, that negativity to that, that foundation of grit. So it was definitely focused on psychology to be able to support others from a mindset perspective.   Michael Hingson ** 22:36 So how did you bring that into play in college?   Laura Bratton ** 22:40 So that was my focus. My My major was psychology, and then I I spent that, those years in college, figuring out specifically what area of psychology I wanted to focus on, which what, what facet of psychology I wanted my focus to be so that was, that was the purpose of the like psychology and taking different classes within psychology to try to figure out where my strengths within that Major   Michael Hingson ** 23:16 and what did you discover?   Laura Bratton ** 23:20 So what I discovered was I wanted the psychology to the mindset, to support people with to be that holistic perspective of, yes, the psychology, but also the spiritual connection and just our physical well being all connected together, so supporting our healthy mindsets and emotional health was not just psychology. It was the psychology, physical taking care of ourselves and the spiritual taking care of ourselves, all connected, combined together. So that's that's what led me to doing a master of divinity to be able to focus on and learn the spiritual part   Michael Hingson ** 24:15 of the mindset. So what part of psychology Did you eventually settle on   Laura Bratton ** 24:22 the holistic approach. So rather than just focus on specifically the mindset, focusing on us as a whole, being, supporting us through that mental, physical, spiritual connection that the healing, the empowerment came through, through all of that. So in that masters, what I focus on specifically was chaplaincy, so supporting people specifically I was a hospital chaplain, so focusing on helping people within the hospital setting, when they're there for different physical reasons and. Being able to be that spiritual presence focusing on both the spiritual and the emotional.   Michael Hingson ** 25:07 And where did you do your undergraduate study?   Laura Bratton ** 25:11 So I did my undergrad at Arizona State, and I was going to say a large reason, but not just a large reason, pretty much the whole reason I chose ASU was for their disability resources. So a major focus that that they emphasize is their disability resources is not a separate part of the university, but it's completely integrated into the university. So what I mean by that example of that is being a psychology major. I still had all the same classes. I was still in all the same classes as all the other psychology students on campus. I just had the accommodations that I needed. So that would be double time all testing or note takers, if I needed note takers in a class. So they did an incredible job, like they had a whole Braille lab that would print Braille books and provide books in PDF format. So the accommodations that I needed as a person who was blind were integrated in to the whole college experience. So that was incredibly powerful for me as a person who had just become blind and didn't know what resources were available.   Michael Hingson ** 26:37 Did you have any major challenges and major issues in terms of dealing with blindness and so on, while you're at ASU,   Laura Bratton ** 26:44 not at all. I am so grateful for that, because I wasn't the only person on campus who was blind. I wasn't the first blind person. I certainly wasn't the last so because they had so much experience, it was, it was an incredible, again, empowerment for me, because on the emotional perspective, it taught me, and literally practically showed me, yes, I give me a person with a disability and be integrated into the world, because They they showed me the resources that were available. So I was deeply, deeply grateful for what they taught me. Now, where did you grow up? So I grew up in South Carolina,   Michael Hingson ** 27:31 so that is and that's why I wanted to ask that, because we hadn't mentioned that you were from South Carolina before, but that was a major undertaking. Then to go all the way across country to go to ASU, yes. On the other hand, they do have a pretty good football team.   Laura Bratton ** 27:49 Just say Right, right, right   Michael Hingson ** 27:52 now, my I went to University California, Irvine. I don't even know. I'm sure they must have some sort of a football team today, but they do have a pretty good basketball team, and I haven't heard whether they won the Big West, but I haven't Yeah, but I haven't heard that they did. So I'm afraid that that they may not have until going to march madness. Yeah, but whatever,   Laura Bratton ** 28:21 team for March Madness spell your bracket in a different way.   Michael Hingson ** 28:25 Well, they've been in the big dance before they got to the Sweet 16 once, which was pretty cool. Wow, that's impressive. Yeah, that was pretty cool. That's so cool. What did your parents think of you going across country   Laura Bratton ** 28:42 again? Just like you talked about your parents being that taking that leap, they were incredibly supportive, because they knew ASU would provide the resources that I needed. Because again, in those years as I'm losing a major part of my sight, we didn't know other people who are blind. We didn't know what resources were available. Obviously, my parents reach out to people around us, you know, to connect with people who are blind, to learn about that, but we didn't have a lot of experience with that. So what we knew, and what my parents were excited about was ASU would be a place that I can not only have that college experience, but be taught the resources. And one of the major resources was my disability coordinator, so my disability coordinator, who was in charge of of creating all my accommodations, she was also blind, and that was such a healing experience for me, because she became a mentor. She was blind since birth. She. And so obviously we had different experiences, where I was just newly blind. She had been blind, but still, she was an incredibly powerful resource and mentor of just telling me, teaching me, not just telling me through her words, but living through her actions, you still have a full life like you're you're still a few a full human like you. This life still goes on. So she just modeled that in the way that she lived. So she she was, I'm so grateful for her mentorship, because she was very real. She had minimized blindness. But also she told me and taught me and showed me there's still a full, great life ahead,   Michael Hingson ** 30:53 which is really what all of us are trying to get the world to understand. Blindness isn't the end of the world. It's not the problem   Laura Bratton ** 31:02 exactly, exactly, she literally modeled that,   Michael Hingson ** 31:06 yeah, which was pretty cool. Well, then where did you go to get your Masters of divinity?   Laura Bratton ** 31:11 So then I went to get my masters at Princeton Theological Seminary, and that was a completely different experience, because, where as you, was completely set up for people with disabilities in the master's program, they had not had someone come through their program who was blind. So in that experience, I had to advocate and be very, very clear on what my needs were, meaning what the accommodations were that I needed, and then advocate that to the administration, which that wasn't a gift, because ASU had given me the foundation of knowing what I needed, what the accommodations Were then available. And then Princeton gave me the opportunity to become my own advocate, to force me to speak up and say, These are my needs, and these are accommodations I have. With these accommodations, I can be an equal student, so I'm not asking, Hey, give me good grades because I'm blind, but make the accommodation so that I have my books and PDF so I have double time on the test. So that was just as healing and just as powerful, because it gave me the opportunity to advocate and become clear on my needs so that I could communicate those needs. So   Michael Hingson ** 32:38 this is part of Princeton in New Jersey. Yes, so you were were in Jersey for a while, huh? Yes,   Laura Bratton ** 32:45 I went from sunny weather to   Michael Hingson ** 32:50 snowy weather. Well, you had some of that in South Carolina too, though,   Laura Bratton ** 32:53 yes, true, but from undergrad, it was quite the change.   Michael Hingson ** 32:58 Ah. But the real question is, when you were in New Jersey. Did you get to meet any members of the family? You know what I'm saying, the mob, Oh yes, absolutely being bada. Boom. Come on now,   Laura Bratton ** 33:11 definitely, definitely, definitely, absolutely, absolutely, yeah, lot of local restaurants and Oh yes,   Michael Hingson ** 33:21 oh yes. When we were building our home in New Jersey, my wife was in a wheelchair her whole life, and we decided that when we went to New Jersey, because I was going to be working in the city New York, we wanted to build a house, because it's cheaper to build an accessible home for somebody in a wheelchair. My wife then it is to buy a house and modify it so we wanted to build. And it turns out that the person who financed the building, we got a mortgage and all that without any difficulty, but we had to get somebody to build the house. And the realtors had people they worked with, the financier. Part of that was from a guy, well, let's just say his main business was, he was in the garbage business, and his last name was, was Pinto. So, you know, let's just say we know where he got his money. You know,   Laura Bratton ** 34:18 yes, yes. I had several those experiences too. Yeah, the garbage business seems to be big in Jersey. It   Michael Hingson ** 34:25 is big in Jersey, but, but, you know, but they were all, they were all very nice to us good. And so it really worked out well. It did. It all worked out. We had a wonderful home. The only difference between our house and the others around us is we had to include an elevator in the house, okay? Because we couldn't have a ranch style home. There wasn't room, and so we had to have and all the other homes in the development were two story homes, okay, but we had to have an elevator. So that was essentially about a $15,000 An uplift over what the House would have cost otherwise. But right again, you build it in so it's not that huge of a deal,   Laura Bratton ** 35:06 right? That's perfect. So all your neighbors are jealous.   Michael Hingson ** 35:10 Well, they didn't have the elevator. They didn't come and ride it much. So they didn't ask for their their their bigger challenges were, who's giving the biggest party at Christmas or Halloween? So we didn't participate in that, so we weren't we weren't a problem.   35:28 That's great,   Michael Hingson ** 35:30 yeah, so you've talked about grit a couple times, so tell me about grit, because clearly that's important to you,   Laura Bratton ** 35:39 yeah? So it's so important to me, because that was a main source of empowerment. So just as I talked about that negativity in the middle school high school, what grit helped me to do is take the overwhelming future that I was so fearful, I was extremely anxious as I looked at the whole picture everything ahead of me. So the grit came in and taught me. Grit is taking it day by day, moment by moment, step by step. So rather than looking at the whole picture and getting overwhelmed, the power of grit taught me all I need to do is trust myself for this next hour. All I need to do is trust in the support that my parents are giving me this next day. So breaking it down into manageable goals was the strength of the grit. So to break it down, rather than the whole future,   Michael Hingson ** 36:49 I didn't ask, do you did you have any siblings? Do you have any siblings?   Laura Bratton ** 36:53 Yeah, so I have one older brother. Okay, so   Michael Hingson ** 36:57 how was he with you being that you were blind. Was he a good older protective brother who never let anybody near his sister?   Laura Bratton ** 37:06 He was a good older protective brother in that he did exactly what my parents did in not having different expectations. Yeah, he so he's five years older. So when I'm 14, losing a significant amount of vision, or 15, losing a certain amount of division. He, you know, was 1920 doing great in college. So a perfect example of this connects with the grit he, he taught me, and again, not in word, not so much in words, but again, in those actions of we will figure this out. We don't know the resources that are available. We don't know exactly what the future looks like, but we as a family will figure this out. Me, as your older brother, our parents being our parents, we will figure it out day by day, step by step. And I remember a lot of people would ask my parents, what's her future, and then even ask my brother, what's her future? What's she gonna do? And they would honestly answer, we don't know, but as a family, we'll figure it out, and we'll provide the strength that she needs, and that's what I mean by the grit. So it wasn't, this is her future, and they just, you know, named it for being home with us, right? But it was, I don't know, but day by day, we'll have the grit to figure it out. So I'm glad you asked about my siblings, because that's a perfect example of how that grit came into play and was such a powerful source of strength.   Michael Hingson ** 38:54 So what did you do after you got your master's degree?   Laura Bratton ** 38:58 So after I got my master's degree, I then did a residency, just like I was talking about the chaplaincy. I did a residency specifically in chaplaincy to to complete that process of being a chaplain. So in that that was a year long process, and in that process, that was an incredible experience, because, again, it taught me, you are a complete human with gifts and talents. You just happen to be blind and need specific accommodations because of the blindness. So what I mean by that is, just as ASU gave me the resources regarding blindness, and just as Princeton gave me the gift to advocate for those resources, the experience in the chaplaincy taught me when I walked into a high. Hospital room and introduced myself as the chaplain on the unit. The patient didn't know, or didn't care how long I had been blind, or how did I make it on the unit? Or how did I know they wanted chaplain? They didn't care. They were just thankful and glad that I was there to serve them and be in that Chaplain role. So it was that's why it was empowering of healing to me, because it taught me not to focus so much on the blindness, but to view myself as that whole person, especially in that professional experience, so I can give endless examples of specifically how that, how, just the patient reaction taught me so much.   Michael Hingson ** 40:49 Where did you do your chaplaincy?   Laura Bratton ** 40:52 I did it at the Clinton clinic in Ohio. Oh,   Michael Hingson ** 40:56 my goodness, you did move around. Now. What got you there? Speaking of snow in the winter, yeah,   Laura Bratton ** 41:02 literally, I Yes, I can talk about that. And a lot of experiences there with snow, like effect snow is real. So they were very strong in their chaplaincy program and developing Kaplan's and also their Kaplan Z training was a focus that I wanted that holistic mind, body, spirit. It wasn't just spiritual or wasn't just psychological, it was the holistic experience of a whole person. So how wanting that to be my focus moving forward, that's where I chose to go to be able to focus on that. So again, it was such an incredible source of of healing through just through those patient interactions.   Michael Hingson ** 41:58 Well, one of the things that is clear about you is you're not bitter about any of the things that have happened, and that, in reality, you are a person who appreciates and understands the concept of gratitude.   Laura Bratton ** 42:11 Yes, yes. And specifically, let me go back to those high school days, and then I'll come back to the chaplain days, the way of the gratitude my focus started was not because I wanted gratitude, not because I chose to woke up, wake up one day and say, Oh, I'm so grateful for this blindness. But it all came through a mentor who said to me in those high school days, Laura, I want you to start writing down three things that you are grateful for each day and every day, I want you to write down three things that you're grateful for. So in my mind, my immediate reaction as a teenager, high schooler, was that's not good advice. I'm not sure you're a good mentor. I'm experiencing a major change in life, permanent life event. I don't know that there's a lot to be grateful for. So in my stubbornness, I said, Okay, I'm going to prove her wrong. So I started to think of the three things each day I was grateful for. And over the weeks that I did this, I then realized what she was teaching me, she was showing me. She wasn't asking me to be grateful for the blindness. She was asking me to recognize the gifts that the support that I had within the blindness. So, for example, the supportive parents, the older brother, who didn't make accommodations, or I mean, did make accommodations. Didn't lower expectations because of the blindness. So fast forward to the chaplaincy. I was incredibly grateful for all those patient experiences, because, again, it taught me to view myself as the whole person, not so hyper focused on the blindness. So one specific example that sticks out and was so clear to me is one day I had a patient request that one to see a chaplain, and I went in to this specific unit, and the so I walked in, my walked into the room, the patient took a look at my guide dog and me, and said, You're blind, like completely with this question or voice. And my thought was, well, I think so. I mean, that was this morning when I woke up, and so I said, Yes. And she said, Okay, then I'll, I'll share honestly with you how I'm doing and what I had learned, what I learned after my visit with her is she would not open up to the doctors, the nurses, the social workers, anyone who walked in the room. When I walked in the room and she didn't feel like she was being judged on her physical appearance, she was willing to open up and honestly share how she was feeling emotionally with her physical diagnosis. So that led that one conversation led to multiple visits where she could move forward in her healing emotionally because she was willing to open up and share and be honest with me as the chaplain. So that was an incredible situation of gratitude, because it taught me, yes, this is hard, yes, this is stressful. Yes, there are moments of being overwhelmed, and also their deep, deep moments that I am incredibly grateful for, that other people who are side sighted don't have that opportunity.   Michael Hingson ** 46:36 One of the things that I talk about and think about as life goes on, is we've talked about all the accommodations and the things that you needed to get in order to be able to function. What we and most everyone, takes for granted is it's the same for sighted people. You know, we invented the electric light bulb for sighted people. We invented windows so they can look out. Yes, we invent so many things, and we provide them so that sighted people can function right. And that's why I say, in large part, blindness isn't the problem, because the reality is, we can make accommodations. We can create and do create alternatives to what people who can see right choose, and that's important for, I think, everyone to learn. So what did you do after your year of chaplaincy?   Laura Bratton ** 47:39 So after my year of chaplaincy, after that incredible experience of just offering the patient care, I completed the part of the well after assorted in the master's program. But then after that, also completed my ordination in the Methodist Church. So I was appointed. I went to the process the ordination process, and then I was appointed to a local church back here in South Carolina. And again, with my focus on chaplaincy, my focus on patient care, I was appointed to that church for because what they needed most in the pastor the leader, was that emphasis on the pastoral care the mind, body, spirit connection. So as I became pastor, I was able to continue that role of what I was doing in the Kaplan see, of using both my professional experience as well as my personal experience of providing spiritual care to the members. So that was an incredible way. And again, that gratitude, it just I was so grateful that I could use those gifts of pastoral care, of chaplaincy to benefit others, to be a strength to others. Again, is that that whole person that that we   Michael Hingson ** 49:13 are now? Are you still doing that today? Or what are you doing   Laura Bratton ** 49:16 now? So I'm still I'm still there part time, okay,   Michael Hingson ** 49:21 and when you're not there, what are you doing?   Laura Bratton ** 49:23 I'm doing professional speaking, and it's all centered around my passion for that again, came when I was at Princeton, when I was doing the focus on chaplaincy, I became so passionate about the speaking to share my personal experience of the change I experienced, and also to empower others as they experience change, so not to be stuck in that. Negativity like we talked about in those middle school, high school days, but rather that everybody, regardless of the situation, could experience change, acknowledge it, and move forward with that balance of grit and gratitude. So that's my deep passion for and the reason for the speaking is to share that grit gratitude, as we all experience change.   Michael Hingson ** 50:26 So what made you decide to begin to do public speaking that what? What was the sort of the moment or the the inspiration that brought that about,   Laura Bratton ** 50:40 just that deep desire to share the resource that I'd experienced. So as I received so much support from family and community, is I had received that support of learning how to use the grit in the change, and then as I received the sport support of how to use the gratitude in the change, the reason for this, speaking and what made me so passionate, was to be able to empower others to also use this resource. So I didn't just want to say, okay, it worked for me, and so I'll just keep this to myself, but rather to use that as a source and empowerment and say, Hey, this has been really, really difficult, and here's how I can use the difficulty to empower others to support others.   Michael Hingson ** 51:31 So how's that working for you?   Laura Bratton ** 51:34 Great. I love, love, love supporting others as they go through that change. Because again, it comes back to the blindness. Is not not all we focus on, it's not all we think about, it's not all we talk about, it's not all we do, but being able to use that as a shrink to empower others. So just speaking to different organizations as they're going through change, and working with them speaking on that. How can they specifically apply the grit, the gratitude? How does that? What does that look like, practically, in their organization, in their situation? So I love it, because it takes the most difficult thing that I've been through, and turns it around to empower others.   Michael Hingson ** 52:24 What do you think about the concept that so many people talk about regarding public speaking, that, Oh, I couldn't be a public speaker. I don't want to be up in front of people. I'm afraid of it, and it's one of the top fears that we constantly hear people in society have that is being a public speaker. What do you think about that?   Laura Bratton ** 52:47 So two, two perspectives have helped me to process that fault, because you're right. People literally say that to me every day. How do you do that? I could never do that. I hear that every single day, all day, and what I've learned is when I focus on, yes, maybe it is the large audience, but focusing on I'm speaking to each person individually, and I'm speaking. I'm not just speaking to them, but I was speaking to serve them, to help again, that empowerment, to provide empowerment. So what I think about that is I don't focus on, oh my gosh. What are they going to think of me? I'm scared up here. Rather to have that mindset of, I'm here to share my life experiences so that they can be served and empowered to continue forward. So just shifting the mindset from fear to support fear to strength, that's that's how I view that concept of I could never do that, or that's my worst fear.   Michael Hingson ** 54:01 So a lot of people would say it takes a lot of courage to do what you do, what? How do you define courageous or being courageous?   Laura Bratton ** 54:08 Great question. That's a working, work in progress. So far, what I've learned over the years and again, this is a process. Not there wasn't just one moment where I said, Okay, now I'm courageous, and I'm courageous forever, or this is the moment that made me courageous, but how I understand it and how I process it now is for me and my experience courage is accepting and acknowledging the reality and then choosing to move forward with the grit, choosing to move forward with the gratitude. So holding both intention, both can be true, both I can acknowledge. Okay, this is difficult. Cult, and also I can also believe and know. I can have the grit moment by moment by moment. I can have the gratitude moment by moment by moment. So for me, courage is holding both intention the reality and what I mean by both is the reality of the blindness and reality of the frustration of people's faults, judgments. You know all that you can't do this. How can you do that without sight holding all of that at the same time as I have the support I need to move forward? So for me, Courage looks like acknowledging why I'm overwhelmed and then choosing at that same time to move forward with the support that I have. Mm, hmm. So again, that's what I mean by it's not just like one moment that, oh yeah, I'm gonna be courageous now forever, there's certainly a moment so I don't feel courageous, and that's okay. That's part of garbage. Just acknowledging that frustration and also choosing to move forward. So it's doing both it at the same time.   Michael Hingson ** 56:10 We live in a world today where there is a lot of change going on, yes, and some for the good, some not for the good, and and all sorts of things. Actually, I was reading an article this morning about Michael Connolly, the mystery writer who, for four decades, has written mystery books. He's lived in Los Angeles. He had a wonderful house, and everything changed when the fires hit and he lost his home and all that. But he continues to to move forward. But what advice would you give? What kinds of things do you say to people who are undergoing change or experiencing change?   Laura Bratton ** 56:52 I'm so glad you asked that, because I I didn't mention this in the grit so much of the grit that I experienced. So the advice I would give, or practically, what I do with someone that just what I did right before our we connected, was being being that grit for someone going through change. So in that, for example, in that speaking when I'm speaking to a group about the change they're experiencing, acknowledging, for them to acknowledge, let me be your grit. You might be overwhelmed. You might be incredibly fearful and overwhelmed by the future, by the task in front of you. So let me be the example of grit to to show you that there is support, there is courage, there is that foundation to be able to move forward. So that's my first advice, is just allowing others to be your grit when you don't feel like you had it, because, again, in those high school days and and even now days when I don't feel like I have any grit, any courage, and yet, I'll lean on the courage, the strength, the grit, of those around me so once they acknowledge and allow me to be their grit, and they their support through that change, then allowing them to slowly have that grit for themselves, and again reminding them, it's not an instant process. It's not an instant do these three steps and you'll have grit forever. But it's a continual process of grit and gratitude that leads us through the change, through the difficulty.   Michael Hingson ** 58:46 Have you used the technique that that person that you talked about earlier in high school used when she asked you to write down every day three things that you were grateful for?   Laura Bratton ** 58:56 Yes, absolutely, and the the funny part of that, what that makes me laugh is a lot of people have the exact same reaction I had when I present it to them. They immediately say, I'm not going to do that. That's no Why would I do that? They immediately think that is a horrible piece of advice. And how can I recommend? And I just, I don't say, Oh, well, just try it anyway. I just say, Well, okay, just try it and see. Just, just prove me wrong. And just like my experience, they try it and then a week or two days like, oh, that actually worked. I didn't think that would so, yeah, I'm so glad you said that, because that happens a lot. People said that is that doesn't make sense. Why are you telling me to be grateful in the midst of this overwhelming situation? So yes, great, great perspective that happens all the time.   Michael Hingson ** 59:55 Well, we've been doing this now for about an hour, but before we wrap up, do you. Have any other advice that you want to pass on for people who are dealing with change or fearing change in their lives right now,   Laura Bratton ** 1:00:08 the advice would be, take it step by step, moment by moment, rather than trying to navigate through the whole change at one time that's overwhelming, and that that's not the process that is most healing. So to trust in yourself, to trust that grit around you, and then just like, like you were saying, and ask me, and it doesn't seem like it'll work, but try the gratitude, try that three things every day you're grateful for, and just see what happens as you navigate through the change. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:52 And it really does work, which is the point?   Laura Bratton ** 1:00:54 Which is the point? Right? Right? We don't think it's going to but it, it totally does   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:59 well. Laura, I want to thank you for being with us. This has been absolutely wonderful and fun, and I hope that people who listen got and who watch it got a lot out of it. And you, you provided a lot of good expectation setting for people. And you, you've certainly lived a full life. We didn't mention we got us before you we we sign off. You're also an author,   Laura Bratton ** 1:01:24 yes. So I wrote harnessing courage again, just like the reason I speak, I was so passionate about taking the grit and the gratitude that I use that was such a source of Empower for me, I wanted to tell my story and tell it through the perspective of grit and gratitude so that other people could also use it as a resource. So the book tells my story of becoming blind and adapting and moving forward, but through the complete expected perspective of the gratitude, how I didn't believe the gratitude would work, how I struggled with thinking, Oh, the gratitude is ridiculous. That's never going to be source of empowerment. Yet it was so. The purpose of the book, my hope, my goal for the book, is that people can read it and take away those resources as they face their own change their own challenges.   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:30 And when did you write it? So I wrote   Laura Bratton ** 1:02:33 it in it was published in 2016 Okay, so it that that definitely was, was my goal and passion, and that just writing the book was incredibly healing. Was like a great source of strength. Cool,   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:50 well, I hope people will get it. Do you do any coaching today or   Laura Bratton ** 1:02:54 Yes, so I do coaching as well as the speaking so the the one on one coaching, as people are experiencing difficult, difficult or just navigating through change, I do the one on one coaching as well as the speaking,   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:11 which is certainly a good thing that chaplaincy taught you. Yes, 100% Well, thank you again for being here, and I want to thank all of you for being with us today, wherever you are. We would appreciate it. I would definitely appreciate it. If when you can, you go to wherever you're listening to or watching the podcast and give us a five star review. We absolutely value your reviews. I'd love to hear your thoughts about this, and I'm sure Laura would. So you're welcome to email me at Michael, M, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I, at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, love to hear your thoughts. And also, of course, as I said, we'd love your your five star reviews, wherever you're listening. Also, if any of you, Laura, including you, have any thoughts of others who we ought to have on this podcast, we're always looking for more guests, and we really would appreciate it if you'd let anyone know who might be a good guest in your mind, that they can reach out or email me, and I'll reach out, but we really would appreciate that. But again, Laura, I just want to thank you one more time for being here and for taking all this time with us today.   Laura Bratton ** 1:04:27 Thank you for the opportunity, and thank you for hosting this podcast. Incredibly powerful and we all need to be reminded   **Michael Hingson ** 1:04:37 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

For the past three decades, Don Dahler has been a fixture on national network news covering the world's biggest stories-global wars, presidential elections, school shootings, natural disasters. Now, drawn from the journals he kept for most of his life, Don charts his unlikely rise from a teenage runaway to an award-winning correspondent and anchor in SOUVENIRS FROM AN ABSURD LIFE (Post Hill Press, February 25, 2025). As a young man, chance encounters with baseball idol Mickey Mantle and legendary sports broadcaster Dick Enberg changed the trajectory of Don's life. Rejecting the prospects of a dim, boring, unfulfilling future, he set out to tell stories that mattered. He worked his way up from local TV stations in Texas and North Carolina and went on to cover the most important stories of the times for Fox News, CNBC, ABC News, and CBS News, reporting from more than 120 countries and often living abroad for months at a time. Don was the first network correspondent to report live from the scene on 9/11 and reported extensively from Afghanistan and Iraq in the months and years that followed. As a documentary filmmaker he traveled to Calcutta, Johannesburg, Taipei, and thousands of places in between. He's interviewed Nobel Prize recipients, future presidents, Olympic champions, and countless movie stars. He's been shot (twice), had lions stalk outside his tent in Africa, tamed a wild fruit bat, and flown in an ultralight airplane over the heads of elephants. These and more incredible adventures are collected in SOUVENIRS FROM AN ABSURD LIFE, a memoir that is full of humor, heart, and grit-and also nine-lives-level luck and good timing. Don's insider's account of the highly competitive world of network news also revisits a bygone era of broadcast journalism-one with robust budgets and an appetite for foreign reporting. And he reveals which stars aren't who they pretend to be, how his reporting on 9/11 was co-opted by conspiracy theorists, and what goes on behind the scenes of the country's powerful media channels.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-unplugged-totally-uncut--994165/support.

For the past three decades, Don Dahler has been a fixture on national network news covering the world's biggest stories-global wars, presidential elections, school shootings, natural disasters. Now, drawn from the journals he kept for most of his life, Don charts his unlikely rise from a teenage runaway to an award-winning correspondent and anchor in SOUVENIRS FROM AN ABSURD LIFE (Post Hill Press, February 25, 2025). As a young man, chance encounters with baseball idol Mickey Mantle and legendary sports broadcaster Dick Enberg changed the trajectory of Don's life. Rejecting the prospects of a dim, boring, unfulfilling future, he set out to tell stories that mattered. He worked his way up from local TV stations in Texas and North Carolina and went on to cover the most important stories of the times for Fox News, CNBC, ABC News, and CBS News, reporting from more than 120 countries and often living abroad for months at a time. Don was the first network correspondent to report live from the scene on 9/11 and reported extensively from Afghanistan and Iraq in the months and years that followed. As a documentary filmmaker he traveled to Calcutta, Johannesburg, Taipei, and thousands of places in between. He's interviewed Nobel Prize recipients, future presidents, Olympic champions, and countless movie stars. He's been shot (twice), had lions stalk outside his tent in Africa, tamed a wild fruit bat, and flown in an ultralight airplane over the heads of elephants. These and more incredible adventures are collected in SOUVENIRS FROM AN ABSURD LIFE, a memoir that is full of humor, heart, and grit-and also nine-lives-level luck and good timing. Don's insider's account of the highly competitive world of network news also revisits a bygone era of broadcast journalism-one with robust budgets and an appetite for foreign reporting. And he reveals which stars aren't who they pretend to be, how his reporting on 9/11 was co-opted by conspiracy theorists, and what goes on behind the scenes of the country's powerful media channels.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-like-it-s-live--4113802/support.

It's finally Super bowl week and we're ready to talk a lot about it and all  the interesting names who called many of the games, plus, other sports media news, etc. on the "Last Word on Sports Media Podcast!"Host T.J. Rives returns with his takes on Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs going for "3 peat" historyin the "Big Game" Sunday in NOLA against the Eagles. And, it will have Kevin Burkhardt calling the game with the winningest Super bowl QB ever, Tom Brady, on Fox Sports.T.J. also welcomes Phil de Montmollin from the "Announcer Schedules Podcast" and Twitter/X feed to reminisce about the legendary Super bowl broadasters like Pat Summerall and John Madden, along with the likes of Al Michaels, Dick Enberg, the team of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman + Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth, too.There's also news on the return of 85 year old Dick Vitale to ESPN's college hoop coverage after a second battle with cancer. He will debut calling, whoelse, Duke playing Clemson this weekend. And, longtime NBA TV analyst and former coach Hubie Brown gets set to sign off at 91 years old and over 45 years as an NBA broadcaster with one final game to call on ABC Sunday between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Philadelphia 76ers.Get it all on the "Last Word on Sports Media Podcast" and make sure to follow/subscribe on Apple/Spreaker/Spotify, etc.!

It's finally Super bowl week and we're ready to talk a lot about it and all  the interesting names who called many of the games, plus, other sports media news, etc. on the "Last Word on Sports Media Podcast!"Host T.J. Rives returns with his takes on Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs going for "3 peat" historyin the "Big Game" Sunday in NOLA against the Eagles. And, it will have Kevin Burkhardt calling the game with the winningest Super bowl QB ever, Tom Brady, on Fox Sports.T.J. also welcomes Phil de Montmollin from the "Announcer Schedules Podcast" and Twitter/X feed to reminisce about the legendary Super bowl broadasters like Pat Summerall and John Madden, along with the likes of Al Michaels, Dick Enberg, the team of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman + Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth, too.There's also news on the return of 85 year old Dick Vitale to ESPN's college hoop coverage after a second battle with cancer. He will debut calling, whoelse, Duke playing Clemson this weekend. And, longtime NBA TV analyst and former coach Hubie Brown gets set to sign off at 91 years old and over 45 years as an NBA broadcaster with one final game to call on ABC Sunday between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Philadelphia 76ers.Get it all on the "Last Word on Sports Media Podcast" and make sure to follow/subscribe on Apple/Spreaker/Spotify, etc.!

What if you could discover the essence of authenticity in sports broadcasting from a seasoned expert? Join us as we sit down with Rob King at Burn by Rocky Patel, near PNC Park, and light up a Rocky Patel Special Edition cigar. With candid discussions about Rob's career, influences from legends like Mike Lang and Dick Enberg, and his time as an adjunct professor at the Newhouse School, listeners will gain invaluable insights on letting one's personality shine through on air.Ever wondered how iconic broadcasters like Marv Albert have shaped the industry? Tune in to learn about the evolution of sports broadcasting, the art of concise and effective writing for television, and the balancing act of making complex sports statistics accessible and engaging. Through personal stories and expert advice, Rob shares how early criticism and mentorship have crafted his distinctive style, offering a goldmine of tips for aspiring broadcasters and writers.Experience the thrill and chaos of producing postgame shows during high-stakes baseball games. Rob's passion for baseball is palpable as we explore its timeless appeal, historical significance, and the magic of underdog victories and emerging stars like O'Neal Cruz. From the nostalgia of summer games to the romance and dreaming inherent in every pitch, this episode is a heartfelt tribute to America's pastime. Join us for memorable anecdotes and celebrate the enduring beauty of the sport.THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!!!!www.holdmycutter.com

As the four-time NL batting champion, Bill Madlock has an impressive reputation as a hitter. It's even more impressive when you realise he is one of only three right-handed hitters to lift multiple NL batting titles since 1960. The other two are Roberto Clemente and Tommy Davis. He finished his playing career over the .300 and 2000 mark, with a .305 batting average and 2,008 hits in total, 3 All-Star appearances, and one World Series Ring from 1979. For today's classic game, we're going right back to the beginning. It is September 1973, and Madlock debuted in the MLB at the start of the month. In the dog days of the Rangers' season, he's finding his footing in The Show. As his team visit the Angels, Madlock is covering third base, and is seventh in the batting order. Don Drysdale and Dick Enberg take you through the game. You can find the boxscore here: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CAL/CAL197309250.shtml This game was played on September 25, 1973. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/classicbaseballradio/message

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I love trivia. And I've always loved watching sports trivia shows on TV. The first show I remember is Sports Challenge starring Dick Enberg back in the 1970s. Over the weekend, I was reminded of another one of my faves from the early 2000s. The show was called Stump The Schwab. ESPN's Stuart Scott was the host, and it featured one of their top researchers, Howie Schwab. Players competed against one another, and in the grand prize round, they had to go head-to-head with Schwab. The contestants rarely won... Click Here To Subscribe Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon MusicGoogle PodcastsTuneIniHeartRadioPandoraDeezerBlubrryBullhornCastBoxCastrofyyd.deGaanaiVooxListen NotesmyTuner RadioOvercastOwlTailPlayer.fmPocketCastsPodbayPodbeanPodcast AddictPodcast IndexPodcast RepublicPodchaserPodfanPodtailRadio PublicRadio.comReason.fmRSSRadioVurblWe.foYandex jQuery(document).ready(function($) { 'use strict'; $('#podcast-subscribe-button-13292 .podcast-subscribe-button.modal-662b950f3056c').on("click", function() { $("#secondline-psb-subs-modal.modal-662b950f3056c.modal.secondline-modal-662b950f3056c").modal({ fadeDuration: 250, closeText: '', }); return false; }); });

Victor Rojas, Geoff Stoddart and Chuck Richter talk about the Angels all around game to date on episode 34.  Praise for Detmers, Anderson and most recently, Sandoval.  Trout, Ward, Rendon and O'Hoppe are looking good. Don't sleep on Sano.  What the Angels should do in this Tampa series.  Victor Rojas' favorite announcers and stories about the late great Dick Enberg.  Mailbag questions and a visit from Victor's wife, Kim Rojas. 

Hour two The Valvanos look at an impressive rebounding performance in the NCAA.  Bob ponders why he thinks he ticked Dick Enberg off once and  why Jim Nantz is annoyed with him.  We do a spontaneous parlay and talk about some topics du-jour in sports. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

ALCS - Royals vs. Yankees For the second consecutive year, the Kansas City Royals (102 - 60) and the New York Yankees (100 - 62) will face off with the AL pennant on the line. Last year, the series went the distance, with one of the most iconic endings in playoff history, a Chris Chambliss walk off home run to send the Yanks to the World Series. This year, the series will once again go five games, with a dramatic finish in the final inning. Since he was hired as full time manager after an interim stint in 1975, all Royals manager Whitey Herzog has done is lead Kansas City to their first two playoff appearances in their relatively short history. They may have come up short in the 1976 ALCS, but this team is more than ready for a second chance. These Royals and their young core have established themselves as perennial AL contenders. Leading the was is star third baseman George Brett (22 HR 88 RBI 142 OPS+), who has cemented himself as one of the top players in the game in just his age 24 season. Bolstering the heart of this powerful lineup are Hal McRae (21 HR 92 RBI 136 OPS+) and Al Cowens (23 HR 112 RBI 137 OPS+), both of whom received MVP votes but were surprisingly not All-Stars in the '77 season. Dennis Leonard (20 - 12 3.04 ERA 292 IP) and Paul Splittorff (16 - 6 3.69 ERA 229 IP) led the way for the starters, and Herzog could deploy a bevy of reliable, but unspectacular arms to cover the late innings or spot starts. Despite the magical finish to the previous year's ALCS, the Yankees disappointed in the World Series, getting swept by the Big Red Machine. Still, expectations were sky high for manager Billy Martin, who had already taken 3 different teams to the playoffs to this point in his career. The Boss, owner George Steinbrenner, demands results; therefore, it's not enough to have the reigning MVP in catcher Thurman Munson, bring in superstar Reggie Jackson on the biggest contract ever awarded to a player. The rotation was strong with former A's All-Stars Catfish Hunter and Ken Holtzman. Let's sign Don Gullet, who just beat us in last year. With all these new faces, it is no surprise that this team got off to a slow start, but they were just too talented to let that spoil the season. The Yankees went absolutely nuclear with a 50 - 20 second half record. Munson (18 HR 100 RBI 121 OPS +) and Jackson (32 HR 100 RBI 150 OPS+) were their typical MVP-caliber-selves, while Graig Nettles (37 HR 107 RBI 124 OPS+) put together one of the best seasons of his underrated career. The pitching staff delivered, but it wasn't the stars that got it done. Gullet was solid in his first year as a Yankee, but Hunter and Holtzman were disasters. Figueroa and Torrez carried much of the load, but it was the unexpected breakout of lefty Ron Guidry (16 - 7 2.82 ERA 210 IP) that really elevated the NYY rotation. Perhaps the savior of the season was the duo out of the bullpen, Dick Tidrow (11 - 4 5 SV 3.16 ERA 151 IP) and Sparky Lyle (13 - 5 26 SV 2.17 ERA 137 IP), the latter taking home the AL Cy Young. If the Yankees want another pennant, they will need their stars to perform, especially on the road. Game 1 @ NYY: LHP Don Gullet (14 - 4 3.58 ERA 158 IP) vs. LHP Paul Splittorff Game 2 @ NYY: LHP Ron Guidry vs. LHP Andy Hassler (9 - 6 4.20 ERA 156 IP) Game 3 @ KCR: RHP Dennis Leonard vs. RHP Mike Torrez (17 - 13 3.88 ERA 243 IP) Game 4 @ KCR: LHP Larry Gura (8 - 5 10 SV 3.13 ERA 106 IP) vs. RHP Ed Figueroa (16 - 11 3.57 ERA 239 IP) Game 5 @ KCR: LHP Paul Splittorff vs. LHP Ron Guidry Audio clips from Youtube, links to specific games below  1976 ALCS GM 5 - ABC by Keith Jackson, Howard Cosell, and Reggie Jackson Game 2 - NBC by Dick Enberg and Don Drysdale Game 4 - WPIX by Frank Messer, Phil Rizzuto, and Bill White NBC by Joe Garagiola and Tony Kubek Game 5 - WPIX  As always, shout out to Baseball Reference and SABR for statistics, boxscores, background information, and much, much more. Catch you next time, P.C.O.

1977 NLCS Meeting up for the first of two consecutive NLCS battles in 1977 and 1978, the Philadelphia Phillies (101-61) and the Los Angeles Dodgers (98-64) face off with games one and two at Dodger Stadium, and the final three (if necessary) at Veterans Stadium in Philly. The Phillies captured their second of three consecutive NL East titles behind the stewardship of Danny Ozark. The Fightin's had the best lineup in the NL, and they were stacked at nearly every position. Michael Jack Schmidt was his typical outstanding self (38 HR 101 RBI .274/.393/.574 151 OPS+), but it was Greg ‘the Bull' Luzinski (39 HR 130 RBI .309/.394/.594 156 OPS+) who finished runner-up in MVP voting. The mid-season trade for former Cardinals OF Bake McBride bolstered are already strong outfield core with Garry Maddox and the Bull. Larry Bowa and Bob Boone provided excellent defense and timely hits, while platoon hitters like Jay Johnstone, Tim McCarver, and Davey Johnson crushed their opportunities. ‘Lefty' Steve Carlton picked up his second career Cy Young by leading the NL in wins, but the rest of the rotation left a lot to be desired. These Phillies were able to win over a 100 games because Danny Ozark could turn to a dominant bullpen, with 4 guys (Gene Garber, Ron Reed, Tug McGraw, and Warren Brusstar) sporting ERAs in the 2s. With a high-powered offense, a true ace, and a lights-out bullpen, this is a modern team to be reckoned with. In his first full year as manager of the Dodgers, Tommy Lasorda led this storied franchise back to the playoffs. His lineup packs a punch to rival the Phillies, with four 30+ home run hitters (Steve Garvey, Ron Cey, Dusty Baker, and Reggie Smith). The corner infielders (Garvey and Cey) both drove in 110+ runs, while the corner outfielders (Baker and Smith) provided more in on-base and slugging, with Smith leading the NL in OPS+ and finishing fourth in MVP voting. Where the Dodgers had the greatest edge over the league was with their pitching staff, who collectively had a 3.22 ERA, 20% better than league average. All 5 of their starters pitched over 200 innings with above average ERAs and double digit wins. Tommy John led the way with 20 wins and a 2.78 ERA. The bullpen was not as reliable as Philadelphia's, but that is partially because they weren't relied on as frequently. The pitching matchups will be as follows: Game 1 @ LAD - LHP Tommy John (20 - 7 2.78 ERA 220 IP) vs. LHP Steve Carlton (23 - 10 2.64 ERA 283 IP) Game 2 @ LAD - RHP Don Sutton (14 - 8 3.18 ERA 240 IP) vs. Jim Lonborg (11 - 4 4.11 ERA 157 IP) Game 3 @ PHI - RHP Larry Christenson (19 - 6 4.06 ERA 219 IP) vs. Burt Hooton (12 - 7 2.62 ERA 223 IP) Game 4 @ PHI - LHP Steve Carlton vs. LHP Tommy John Audio clips from Youtube linked below Game 1 - Vin Scully on KTTV Game 2 - Russ Porter and Jerry Doggett on KTTV Game 3 - Harry Kalas, Richie Ashburn, and Andy Musser on WPHL-TV Game 4 - Dick Enberg and Don Drysdale on NBC (plus Kalas on WPHL-TV) As always, shout out to Baseball Reference and SABR for statistics, boxscores, background information, and much, much more. Catch you next time, P.C.O.

Let's take another game to appreciate the legendary Nolan Ryan. A Hall of Famer who played in the major leagues for 27 years, Ryan laid claim to be one of the greatest pitchers of all time. A lifetime .526 record, a record 5714 strikeouts, a record seven career no-hitters, a joint-record 12 one-hitters, and appearances in four separate decades. Yet he never won a Cy Young Award… perhaps another record he holds (most career walks by a pitcher, at 2795) played a part in that. His career took off when the California Angels picked him regularly as a starting pitcher after the Mets traded him in late 1971. We'll jump forward a few years to the end of the 1973 season… a season with Ryan throwing two no-hitters and setting a high-water mark of 383 strikeouts.  Ryan is on the mound and facing divisional rivals, the Minnesota Twins, in a final four-game series of the year. It's a dead rubber in the AL West, but the series will determine who finishes third in the league. The teams have a 7-7 record against each other, but the Angels are four games back. Four wins, and the Twins are overhauled. The pressure of pride is on. Dick Enberg and Dave Niehaus are behind the microphone. You can find the boxscore here. https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CAL/CAL197309270.shtml This game was played on September 27, 1973. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/classicbaseballradio/message

Bill Singer picked up the first ever save for the Dodgers in their game against the Reds on April 7th 1969. Four more pitchers joined Singer on April 8th; the Red Sox's Juan Pizarro, the Expos' Carroll Sembera, the Pirates' Chuck Hartenstein, and the Pilots' Jack Aker. It's to the Seattle Pilots' game we head to this week. Not only is it one of the first games to have a saving pitchers, it's also the very first game for the Pilots in their one and only season. To keep the league numbers balanced, the team's introduction was brought forwards to bring them into America's game alongside Kansas City Royals. This caused significant problems on and off the field for the Pilots. The team would be declared bankrupt seven days before the 1970 season, a financial move which allowed the team to be acquired from the courts by a certain Bud Sellig; he relocated the team to Milwaukee, and renamed them the Brewers.  That's for the future. Right now the Pilots are opening up the season against the California Angels, and while we're missing the third and fourth innings, let's head over to the booth with Dick Enberg, Don Wells and Buddy Blattner.  You can find the boxscore here, https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CAL/CAL196904080.shtml This game was played on April 8th, 1969. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/classicbaseballradio/message

7/8/1971 MLB Regular Season- Metropolitan Stadium.- Starting Lineups- California Angels1 - 2B - Sandy Alomar2 - CF - Mickey Rivers3 - LF - Tony Gonzalez4 - C - John Stephenson5 - 3B - Ken McMullen6 - 1B - Jim Spencer7 - RF - Tony Conigliaro8 - SS - Syd O'Brien9 - P - Tom Murphy.- Minnesota Twins1 - 2B - Steve Braun2 - RF - Cesar Tovar3 - 1B - Rich Reese4 - SS - Leo Cardenas5 - CF - Jim Holt6 - LF - Brant Alyea7 - C - George Mitterwald8 - 3B - George Thomas9 - P - Steve Luebber.- Radio Announcers- Dick Enberg- Don Wells- Dave Niehaus- Jerry Coleman

Our guest on this episode is Lawrence Eichen. Among other things, he is a self-employed attorney, a speaker, and a coach. While he has been successful he endured internal conflicts he will discuss with us. He has over 25 years courtroom experience dealing with civil and criminal matters. He also is quite skilled at conflict resolution as you will discover. Wait until he tells us about his negotiation formula, E=MC5. We learn that Lawrence became plagued by Imposter Syndrome. He tells us why he came to have this syndrome in his life as well as how he came to overcome it. As he explains, Imposter Syndrome is not a mental disorder, but rather it is truly a phenomenon. He will discuss why he would describe this condition as a rash and he talks about the “ointment” he created to address it. Overall, I very much loved my time with Lawrence. I hope you will find this episode relevant and interesting as well. About the Guest: Lawrence D. Eichen, Esq. (Pronounced “Eye-ken”) Lawrence Eichen is a self-employed Attorney, Professional Speaker, and Coach. He has over 25 years of courtroom experience handling a wide range of civil and criminal matters. Mr. Eichen is also a highly skilled Mediator adept at conflict resolution. Mr. Eichen's litigation and mediation experience led him to develop a winning negotiation formula E=MC5 , which is a proven method to obtain excellent negotiation results. He has resolved well-over 1,000 cases during his career. Lawrence's resultoriented approach to success, stems from his experience inside and outside of the courtroom, including his own journey of self-discovery. Although he had substantial outward success practicing law, internally, Lawrence often found himself experiencing Imposter Syndrome (a phenomenon whereby one fears being exposed as an “Imposter” for not being as competent or qualified as others think). By addressing chronic doubt and rethinking internal messaging, he developed the ability to defeat imposter syndrome. As a result, he became a more confident attorney, a better business owner, and a more peaceful person. He now engages audiences by delivering inspirational speech presentations, which include providing practical advice and techniques on the topics of Mastering the Art of Negotiating and Defeating Imposter Syndrome . In addition, as a certified Rethinking Impostor Syndrome™ coach, he provides individual and group coaching to professionals, executives, and small business owners. Mr. Eichen is a licensed Attorney in New Jersey and a member of the New Jersey State Bar Association, New Jersey Association of Professional Mediators, National Speakers Association; and Association & Society Speakers Community. He is also certified in EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) and a member of the Association of EFT Professionals. A lifelong all-around competitive athlete, in his spare time “Ike” (as his sports buddies call him) can be found playing golf, tennis, or ice hockey. Ways to connect with Lawrence: My website is www.FirstClassSpeaking.com LinkedIn profile is ,https://www.linkedin.com/in/lawrenceeichen/. About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes **Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. **Michael Hingson ** 01:25 Thanks for joining us today, we get to talk to Lawrence Eichen. And he's got a great story. He's an attorney. And we will say away from the lawyer jokes I mostly promise. But but you never know. You know, if you want to tell some you can, Lawrence , I'll leave that to you. But he's got a great story. He's a negotiator. He's a speaker. And we get to talk about a lot of things including imposter syndrome, which is something that I find pretty fascinating to to learn more about. So we'll get to that. But Lawrence, welcome to unstoppable mindset. Thanks for being here. Lawrence Eichen 02:00 Oh, my pleasure, Michael. And I'm really looking forward to our conversation. **Michael Hingson ** 02:04 Well, so let's start. And as I love to ask people to do why don't we start by you maybe just telling us a little bit about you growing up and in all the things that younger Lawrence was? **Lawrence Eichen ** 02:15 Okay. Well, let's see, I grew up, I'm the youngest of four children. So I have three older sisters. I grew up in Rockland County, New York. So um, you know, still feel like a New Yorker more than somebody from New Jersey, even though I've lived in New Jersey probably for over 30 years now. And I grew up, basically, I guess, typical stuff that you did as a kid back then was, you know, you go to school, you come home, you put your books down, and you go outside, and you play sports. And that's really what we did growing up. And I was lucky to grow up in a neighborhood where there was about eight of us. And we played everything, you know, every every day and on the weekends, really, whatever sport, you know, season was, was going on, we did it and we made up our own games like Well, kids do. And basically, you know, that my childhood was, you know, was a little bit stressful at times, because there was some real dysfunction in my family growing up. But, you know, for the most part, I'd say it was a typical, like, you know, middle class, suburban, family upbringing, you know, school and sports was really what I what I did as a kid growing up. **Michael Hingson ** 03:33 As a kid, did you get to spend much time in the city? Did you guys go there very much. Did you go any games or just spend any time in the city? **Lawrence Eichen ** 03:42 No, I really didn't get into the city as a kid, really. Our family didn't do stuff like that. I didn't get into see too many games. You know, I grew up was a Knicks fan, and a Rangers. Rangers fan. I'm still a Rangers fan. Very much these days. I try not to be a Knicks fan. It's hard to watch the Knicks. But actually, they're doing halfway decent this year. And I was a Mets fan. But I didn't really get into too much into the city as a kid growing up at all. So I was really more relegated to the television, watching sports. And just as a family, we never really went into New York City. So it wasn't until later on in my life, you know, more college years and post college years that I took advantage of the city because we were only about you know, 45 minute drive, you know, without traffic. And you can get into New York City, which was you know, a phenomenal experience once I did eventually get into this city. **Michael Hingson ** 04:44 Did you take the train in? **Lawrence Eichen ** 04:47 Often I would take the train in. I actually eventually was working in the city at 1.1 port one port early in my free law career and used to commute by Train into the city, which is not a fun experience for anybody who's a commuter into New York City knows that. **Michael Hingson ** 05:07 Yeah, it can be a challenge. Although I'm amazed that when we lived back in New Jersey, and I would go into the World Trade Center and into the city, I would often meet people who came everyday from Bucks County, a lot of the financial folks and so on would come from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and they had two hour train trips. And either they had discussion groups or cliques that that communicated and spent all their time on the trains together, or people were in working groups, and they did things on the train. But it was a way of life and they didn't seem to be bothered by two hours on the train each way at all. **Lawrence Eichen ** 05:44 You know, it's funny, you do get into a routine, so I can identify with that, because you become numb to it after a while. And back when I was doing it, and I'm sure a lot of people that you were talking about doing it, you know, there were no, you know, iPhones and iPods and things that are so convenient now to take advantage of listening to a podcast and all this other stuff, you basically read the newspaper, or you read a book. And you did as you say, you know, you get acclimated to it, and I kind of think of it as just becoming numb to it. But looking back, you know, for me, it was sometime when I first commuted in, it was door to door about an hour and 45 minutes. And both ways. And it really does take a toll after a while on you because you realize, you know, you really spending a lot of time and energy commuting. And I didn't have like a group of people that I was commuting in maybe maybe I would have enjoyed it more. I was just like your typical commute or just taking a seat and trying to make the best of it. So for me, I don't miss it at all. I don't miss the commute into the city by train at **Michael Hingson ** 06:59 all. Yeah, I can understand that. I know. For me, it was about an hour and 20 minutes door to door unless there was a train delay. But I took a car from where we lived on trails in court and Westfield to the New Jersey Transit Station, which was part of the Raritan Valley line, then we went into Newark, to the past station then took the PATH train in. So it was broken up a little bit. But for me, again, as you said, iPhones, were starting to exist a little bit, but not a lot. So I really didn't have access to a cell phone a lot when I was traveling into the city. So I did read a lot, and spent a lot of time doing that. And I enjoyed it. But still, it it was a lot of time that you couldn't spend doing other things. But with the fact that for me, it was broken up with a couple of trains that everything else, I guess, you know, I survived it pretty well and can't complain a whole lot. **Lawrence Eichen ** 08:01 You know, you're reminded me I can remember muting in 1986. And the Mets were in the World Series and being on the train. And when I took the New Jersey Transit, there was no Midtown direct from where I was taking it from, you had to go down to Hoboken and then catch the PATH train to the World Trade Center. And I can remember being on those commutes when the Mets were playing. And you could just somebody had a radio, you know, somebody on the commute had a transistor radio. And that would be the only way that you knew what was happening in the game. And like he could almost, you know, overhear those what was going on by somebody else's radio. But it was it was just so interesting. Looking back now how limited access was to immediate information that we take for granted today. You know, there was no Internet, there was no as I said, No iPhones No, none of the stuff that exists today. But you know, like anything else, you just kind of you didn't know what you were missing? Because you were just living it at the moment. **Michael Hingson ** 09:06 Yeah, and of course, the real question is, was that a blessing or a curse? And I'm not convinced. Either way on that because we are so much into information and so much immediate gratification. Is that a good thing? And I think there are challenges with that too. **Lawrence Eichen ** 09:21 Yeah, I would agree with that too. Not to mention, it's very difficult to have a conversation with certainly with younger people that are glued to their phones like 99% of the time. It's like if you get somebody make eye contact with you. It's almost like a moral victory sometimes. So I agree with you that the access to information can you know get out of whack and out of balance and I think there is a real loss certainly in interpersonal communication with people that are just looking at their phones down, you know, they're looking down you see pictures all the time. If you see photos or just the even videos on the internet, you'll see a group of kids, you know, walking home from school together, and there's like 20 kids all walking together. But every single kid is just looking down at their phone, there's no interaction between them, or they're even at a sporting event, right. And you see people like looking at their phones and not even watching the live sporting event that they're at. So **Michael Hingson ** 10:21 go figure. And, you know, for me, I, I like to interact, although when I was traveling into the city, you know, I just had a seat and my guide dog was there. And I read a lot. We weren't part of a group. But if anyone would ever wanted to carry on a conversation, I was glad to do that as well. But I, I'm amazed, and I actually said it to somebody on one of our episodes of unstoppable mindset. I said, I was amazed at how kids in the back of a car would be texting each other rather than carrying on a conversation. And this person said, Well, the reason is, is they don't want their parents to know what they're talking about. Yeah, that itself is scary. You know? **Lawrence Eichen ** 11:06 I can understand that. And it's kind of funny. And texting, you know, look, people text right in the house, right? You take somebody else has downstairs, you know, there was a lot I will say texting, there are some really amazing benefits of texting. There are no it's not, I'm not against technology and the advancement of technology. It's just, you know, in the right place in the right time. It's, **Michael Hingson ** 11:28 it's it's communication. And that's an issue to deal with. Well, so where did you go to college? **Lawrence Eichen ** 11:36 I went to college, SUNY Albany, in the beautiful town of Albany, New York, which is really known for cold winters. So I can still remember walking home from the bars back then, you know, the drinking age back then was 18. So when you went into college, you know, you were it was legal to drink. And the bars would stay open till four in the morning. And I can remember walking home when I lived off campus, you know, at four o'clock in the morning, and literally just the inside of your nose freezing, the mucous lining of your nose would raise on the way home, it was that cold and windy. So yeah, that would I don't miss those cold winters. But College is a whole different store. **Michael Hingson ** 12:25 Well, yeah, there's a lot to be said for college. I've spent time up in Albany, we visited Lockheed Martin up there and some of the military facilities where we sold tape backup products. And I remember being at one facility, and we were talking about security. And the guy we were talking to reach behind him and he pulled this hard disk drive off of a shelf, and there was a hole in it. And I and say said, Let's see this hole. He said, This is how we make sure that people can't read discs, we take discs that have died or that we want to get rid of all the data on and we take them out in the in the back of the building, and we use them for target practice. And the trick is to get the bullet to go through the whole dry. That's funny. Yeah, the things people do for entertainment. I'll tell you, Well, what, what did you do after college? I gather you didn't go straight into law. **Lawrence Eichen ** 13:24 No, I didn't actually I started out as a computer programmer, because my degree was in computer science. So I worked as a programmer for a few years. And then, you know, long story short is made, made some stupid decisions, quit my job when I really shouldn't have and then did some other jobs in the computer field, like selling computer software. But I wasn't very happy doing that. And ultimately, that's when I decided to go back to school full time and go to law school. So I worked for about four years after college before I went back to law school. **Michael Hingson ** 14:07 Why law? **Lawrence Eichen ** 14:10 Hey, hey, I'm still asking myself that question. Why? Well, there you go. No, really, it's one of those things for me it was my one of my older sisters is an attorney. So I think there was that connection to law. And my aunt was a judge in New York In New Jersey also. So there were some family, you know, connections. I probably had some other cousins that were attorneys also but I think I honestly for me, it was like I really didn't know what to do with myself. A friend of mine was studying to take the LSAT, which is the entrance exam to get into law school. And no, I think I just thought to myself, You know what, maybe if I go to law school, I can sort of like salvage my career. I really didn't know what to do with myself. And, um, you know, I came to find out that many people that end up in law school really are ending up there because they don't know what else to do it themselves. I'm not that person that went to law school, like with this dream from childhood to be a lawyer and all that. It was more like, I don't know what else to do. And it was a way for me to rationalize, well, maybe I can do something and still salvage a career. And so I just took the exam with the idea that well, let me see how I do. If I do well on that, you know, then I guess I'll apply. And if I apply, I'll see if I get in. So you know, one thing led to another, I did do well on the exam. And once I did well, on the exam, I was kind of guaranteed to get into law school based on my score on the entrance entry exam. And so I applied to a couple places got in and then you know, that I ended up going to law school. Where did you go, I went to Rutgers law school in New Jersey. And the reason it worked out for me was that by that time, I had moved to New Jersey. And the reason I moved coming and really coming full circle had to do with the commute that I was doing into New York City, which was so long that I had decided, even before I was going into law school, I had decided to move closer down the train line, so it wouldn't take me an hour and 45 minutes to get into the city. So I moved into New Jersey and my commute into the city was like less than an hour at that point. And the fact that I was a resident of New Jersey allowed me to go to records, which was a very good law school, but it was a state school. So you could get a very good tuition, and a good bang for your buck. And so that's why I chose Rutgers. **Michael Hingson ** 16:46 And besides you wanted to root for the Scarlet Knights, right. **Lawrence Eichen ** 16:51 Well, I can't say that I was thinking that at the time I it's funny because I you know, I think of it as like, you know, the devils came into the I think a bit more like the devils came into the New Jersey and started to win and won a Stanley Cup even before the Rangers Did you it was really hard to swallow that pill. And when I mean when the Rangers did, I mean, the Rangers hadn't won a cup and like 50 some odd years, but then the devils come in as an expansion team. And then I think they won three cups before the Rangers finally won a cup in 1994. But I was still even though a New Jersey person. I was still always rooting for New York teams. **Michael Hingson ** 17:31 Well, yeah, and I rooted for the Knights just because they usually were doing so poorly. They needed all the support that they could get. Yeah. And I understood that but one year, they did pretty well. But there they definitely have their challenges. And you mentioned the Knicks. And of course we are are always rooting for the Lakers out here and I'm spoiled i i liked the sports teams. I like for a weird reason. And it's the announcers. I learned baseball from Vince Kelly and the Dodgers. And I still think that Vinnie is the best that ever was in the business of basketball. I learned from Chick Hearn out here because he could describe so well and he really spoke fast. Other people like Johnny most and some of the other announcers in the basketball world, but chick was in a, in a world by him by itself in a lot of ways. And so they they both spoiled me. And then we had Dick Enberg, who did the angels for a while and also did football. So I'm spoiled by announcers, although I do listen to some of the other announcers I listen to occasionally. Bob Euchre, who, you know is still doing baseball, Chris, I got to know him with the miller lite commercials. That was a lot of fun, but still, I'm spoiled by announcers. And so I've I've gotten loyal to some of the teams because of the announcers they've had and learned a lot about the game because the announcers that I kind of like to listen to really would help you learn the game if you spent time listening to them, which was always great. **Lawrence Eichen ** 19:07 Yeah, you've rattled off some real legends of the announcing world. I certainly Dick Enberg you know even in the in the east coast with New York and New Jersey. He got a lot of thick Enver just because he was a national guy, but I grew up really to me. So you say? I think you said Vin Scully. You thought it was the best in the business? To me more of Albert was the best in the business because I grew up with him doing Ranger games doing NIC games. He was the voice of the Knicks and the Rangers right and he was just great. And he you know, his voice is great. And so to me, he was like the the guy you know, everybody always tried to imitate **Michael Hingson ** 19:46 motivate dude. And I remember listening to Marv Albert nationally and he is good and it was a good announcer no question about it. Vinnie was was a different kind of an announcer because one of the things that I really enjoyed about him was when he and originally was Vin Scully and Jerry Daga. And then Jerry died and some other people Don Drysdale for well then partner with me. But when Vinnie was doing a game, he did the first, the second, the fourth, fifth and sixth, the eighth and the ninth innings. And then he was spelled by whoever is his co host was, if you will, but he did all of the announcing it wasn't this constant byplay. So they really focused on the game. And I've always enjoyed that. It's amazing to listen to TV football announcers today, because they're all yammering back and forth and plays can go by before they say anything about the game. **Lawrence Eichen ** 20:42 Yeah, there's a real art to that. And the chemistry for sure, when you get a really good team and a really good broadcaster, actually, what's coming to mind is, I forgot his last name. He just he retired maybe three or four years ago from hockey. He was like the voice of they call them doc. I forgot. I forgot. Yeah, I **Michael Hingson ** 21:00 know who you mean, I don't remember his. **Lawrence Eichen ** 21:02 Yeah, I forgot his name. But when he would do a hockey game, and you notice, I'm always bringing things back to hockey because hockey is like my favorite sport. But when he would do a hockey game, and he would only get him like it was a national game. It was such a difference in the game, because he was the best in the business just the best. When he retired, if, you know, like I said, maybe three, four years ago, I guess it's been it was like a real hole, you know, in the in the, in the announcing business, not that the other guys aren't good also, but he was just so great at it. **Michael Hingson ** 21:39 Yeah, well, they're always those few. And it's pretty amazing. Ah, the fun one has, but even so, there's still nothing like going to a game and I would take a radio when I go to a game or now I probably would use an iPhone and listen to it on some channel, but still listening to the announcer. And also being at the game, there's just nothing like that. **Lawrence Eichen ** 22:05 Oh, yeah, by the way, here's the beauty of technology when we were talking about technology, right? There's never a reason I always say this, there's never a reason for two people to have a conversation where you stop not remembering anything anymore. Right? Because what you know, while you're talking, I'm just Googling who that announcer wasn't It's Doc Emrick. His last name right? It was Mike, Doc Emrick Mike doc being his nickname. And, you know, that's where that's where that's where technology's great, right? Because this is the way you know, usually when I get done playing, I play tennis during the winter. And we after we play, we usually have a beer or sit around. And invariably the conversation turns to sports and you start talking about stuff. And nobody can remember anything, you know, for 9070 or 80. Or 90, you know, it's like who won this, who was the most valuable player? And like, you know, usually you sort of like kinda like say, I know, I can't remember then somebody remembers to look at their phone. And then next thing, you know, the conversation continues because the information has been supplied. whereas years ago, you just sort of had to leave the conversation. Like that was the way it is like everything was left in the air. Nobody could remember. Now this is no no excuse for that. **Michael Hingson ** 23:13 Yeah, absolutely. It's it's kind of amazing the way the way it goes, I'm when I go to family gatherings, there are always people looking at stuff on their phones. And there's discussion going on. And the bottom line is that people are talking about one thing or another and somebody's verifying it or getting more information. And I can't complain about that. So that that works out pretty well. And it's good to kind of have that well for you after going to college and going to Rutgers and so on. What kind of law did you decide to practice since there are many different ones? **Lawrence Eichen ** 23:49 Yeah, when I first came out of law school, I went into personal injury law. I took a job as a defense attorney. It was known as being in house counsel for an insurance company. And the reason I took that job is I always felt when I eventually went to law school, my mindset was, I envisioned myself as being somebody who would go into court. So there's when you come out of law school, there's really a couple of different positions that you can get, we can get very good experience early on in your legal career. So for me, it was either going to a prosecutor's office, you know, somewhere and prosecuting or being a defense attorney and working as an in house counsel for an insurance company, because there's just a volume of litigation in either way. I chose to go the route of the defense insurance position. I just didn't see mice. I just never visioned myself as a prosecutor for some reason, so I just never even explored that. So for me, it was really just a couple of choices and that's the one that I It shows and it gave me the opportunity to just defend cases where if somebody will either got into a car accident and you were sued by the other driver, you know, as part of your insurance policy, you were entitled to a lawyer who would defend you. And so I was that guy that would take on the defense of cases where other people were being sued as a result of car accidents, or slip and falls that might occur on a commercial property. I was also involved in those type of cases. And so let's say you were a contractor or something, and you were sued for some kind of negligent condition on some property somewhere, somebody fell, got injured, they sue everybody, then your insurance entitled you to have an attorney, defend, and I would do that as well. So that's really what I started out doing. **Michael Hingson ** 25:57 So that is a, you know, the whole issue of Defense's fascinating course, what did your aunt the judge, think of you going into defense? Or did you? Did you ever get to talk with her about it? **Lawrence Eichen ** 26:10 No, actually, you know, here's the thing is, I really probably would have went a totally different direction in my career is that when I was in law school, I had a chance to work with a very prominent New Jersey defense attorney, criminal defense attorney. And I could have worked as his law clerk or intern, I can't remember it while I was still in law school. But the problem was, he appeared regularly in front of my judge, my judge, my aunt, who was so there was this apparent conflict of interest, not that I would, you know, not that anything improper would occur. But my aunt was very concerned that how can she be in a courtroom deciding cases? Even if I wasn't in the courtroom, and he was the one in the courtroom, I was at his office? How could it happen? You know, if somebody ever found out that I worked in his office, then there's this appearance of a conflict. So I couldn't take the position with him. And I really wanted to because at that time, I found criminal defense. Very interesting, because criminal law in itself is very interesting, the issues, evidence and criminal procedure and all that stuff. So to answer your question, or about what am I and say, it really was, like, not even a discussion about it, you know, just something that I chose to do and just went a totally different direction. **Michael Hingson ** 27:48 I'm fascinated by what, what's going on now with Clarence Thomas, in the Supreme Court. Are you keeping up with that whole thing? **Lawrence Eichen ** 27:58 Actually, I just read an article on that yesterday. So yes, and interesting, absolutely disgusted about what's going on, even before that article came out, that talks about a conflict of interest. I mean, here there's **Michael Hingson ** 28:14 no there's no ethical guideline, apparently, for the the Supreme Court Justice is like there is even for lower federal judges or federal, federal people. **Lawrence Eichen ** 28:24 Yeah. But you know, Michael, here's the thing. That doesn't need to be in that particular there. What I'm what I'm saying is, yes, it would be better if there was some real, strict enforceable guidelines. I'm not against that. What I'm saying is, the judge himself should recognize just how ridiculously inappropriate that is. That's why even without actual laws, the judge himself ethically should be thinking, You know what, this probably doesn't look too good that I'm going on luxury, all paid vacations with one of the largest donors, who's, you know, a conservative minded individual. And now I'm ruling on cases that ostensibly might be certain areas of the law that are very favorable to these positions. Maybe I shouldn't be doing things like this, because it looks like a conflict of interest. And that's the thing about the legal profession, that doesn't have to be an actual conflict of interest. It just has to be the appearance of a conflict of interest, and then it becomes unethical and inappropriate. So even if nothing nefarious was going on, because there's no proof of that, right. Nobody has any proof that it would definitely happen. It doesn't even have to reach that level. It just has to reach the level of this doesn't look right. And for doing this for 20 yours, right? Is that what I think I heard are in the article for 20 years. Yeah. It's disgusting. It's absolutely disgusting. **Michael Hingson ** 30:08 Well, what seems to me is even more interesting is he never reported it. And that's where I think it becomes even more of a striking dichotomy or paradox, if you will, because even if there's not a conflict of interest, even if he wanted to do it, why wouldn't he report it? **Lawrence Eichen ** 30:26 Well, that's the that's, that's, that's what makes it even more revolt, revolting and disgusting. Yeah, he's sweeping it under the carpet. And why would you be sweeping it under the carpet? Like, what are you afraid to disclose? **Michael Hingson ** 30:39 I have grown up, especially as an adult, with a great respect for the law. I've been blind and a member of the National Federation of the Blind, which is the largest organization of blind consumers in the country. And the founder was a blind constitutional law scholar Jacobus tenBroek, who was very famous in the 50s and 60s for being an innovator with tort law and other kinds of things. And I've read a lot of his writings. And the law always fascinated me. And then I've been involved in actually in working with Congress and working with state legislatures, when, for example, we were trying to get insurance companies to insure blind and other persons with disabilities, because back in as late as the early 1980s, insurance companies wouldn't insure us. They said, We're high risk, where we have a greater and a higher mortality rate. And somebody finally asked the question, where's your evidence? Because you do everything based on actuarial statistics and evidentiary data. And they were told, well, it exists, can we see it Sure. never appeared. Why? Because it never existed. They weren't doing decisions on persons with disabilities based on evidence and statistics. They were doing it based on prejudice. And so we did get to work with state and and then and well, not so much the Congress I'll but state legislatures, and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, and finally, now there's a law in every state, you can't discriminate, but it's just the it always has fascinated me to be involved in the law in one way or the other. And I've done it in other kinds of places as well. And thoroughly enjoy it. But it is very frustrating when something comes along like this, where somebody's playing games that they don't need to play. **Lawrence Eichen ** 32:36 Yeah, that's, you know, there's just that's why the whole that's why honestly, you know, without getting too much political conversation, because we could go down a rattle. Yeah, we **Michael Hingson ** 32:46 don't want to do that. Yeah, I'll **Lawrence Eichen ** 32:48 just say that. That's why people get so outraged when they see things that clearly show something's unfair, right, or something is just inappropriate, it touches everybody's inner sense of what's right and what's wrong. Yeah. And when things look clearly inappropriate, clearly unfair. You know, everybody gets incensed about it, or should get incensed about it, because we're all trying to live, we all seem to live with an internal compass of what's right, what's fair, you're born with that, you know, they they did a study, I remember reading about this years and years ago, and I will butcher this a little bit, but I seem to recall, there was a study on like, I'm gonna say, one year old, or two year old, something like that. And maybe it was even younger, I don't remember, but it was very infant or toddler type study. And all they were doing was like giving one infant or toddler like three balls, and then giving another one too. And then or they both start with three, and then they take one away from the other one. And the whole study was just showing that even these babies or infants or toddlers who can't speak, they knew they had the sense of something was not fair. You know, and that's what the conclusion was. And again, I don't remember the study. But the idea is that it's just that it comes with each of us. It's like part of you the hardware that you're wired with is a sense of fairness, and justice, even at the earliest parts of your existence. And that's why when we see things as adults that are so unfair or inappropriate, it just triggers a natural reaction with us. of you know, something should be done about this. This isn't right. And so that's where I'm coming from. **Michael Hingson ** 34:51 Well for you, you did personal injury, Injury, love and how long did you do that? And then what did you do? **Lawrence Eichen ** 34:58 I did that. Probably We are at that particular place for about two or three years, after a while you're like a hamster in a hamster wheel, because you have so many cases to handle at one time. And like I remember a friend of mine once telling me like, the good for you, like when you win a case, as a defense attorney in that situation, you know, it's not like you make any money for yourself, right? You're a salaried employees. So it's not like you, you know, you, you feel good that you won the case. But a friend of mine, I'll never forget, he said to me, the good feeling only lasts until the time you get to your car in the parking lot. And then you close the door and get into your car to drive back to the office, you start realizing about how many other cases you have to do tomorrow and the next day. And so you're like a hamster in a hamster wheel. Because even if you resolve a case, or settle a case, you get a couple of more, the next day to replace the volume of cases that you have to always have. So it's sort of a little bit of a burnout, or canvio. For at least for me it was and so I went on to I switch sides and went to a plaintiff's firm, and did personal injury from the plaintiff side, and also did some workers compensation, and then got into some other areas like municipal court or minor criminal matters. So I did all that probably for about, you know, I'm guessing, you know, looking back maybe 10 years in those areas of the law. **Michael Hingson ** 36:29 And what did you do? **Lawrence Eichen ** 36:32 Oh, yeah, what did I do after that? Well, **Michael Hingson ** 36:34 I took let's see, I took a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. **Lawrence Eichen ** 36:38 Yeah, I have an interesting story. Because I took a little turn. After I did, I worked in a firm for a lot of years, I really became disenchanted with practicing law, and I decided to try something completely different. And it's a long story. So I won't waste the time how I got into it. But I did end up becoming a financial advisor. While I while I had my attorneys license, and became a financial adviser, and I worked for a couple of financial firms, one happens to be one of the largest ones, that you would recognize their name. And I did that altogether, probably for about, I'm gonna say maybe four or five years. And I you know, even though I was relatively successful at that, a really became like, clear to me, after not, not even that long, I realized, like, this isn't really for me, but I was trying something different to see if I would just enjoy it more than practicing law. And so I didn't eventually, then that's when I went and just decided to practice for myself and opened up a shingle and went back to practicing law. **Michael Hingson ** 37:54 For me, was that more rewarding? Because you are now doing it for yourself? I would think so. **Lawrence Eichen ** 37:59 Yeah, it was it was a that was something somebody had suggested to me that I should try that before I totally give up on the practice of law. So and I would say that it is a lot better working for myself as an attorney than working for other attorneys that I will definitely tell you is much better, because it's the feeling that whatever you do is going to go into your own pocket, and being able to control your own time and all that stuff. I mean, there's added other stresses that come with working for yourself, for sure that aren't there when you work for a firm or company. But the trade off for me was I didn't have to worry about anybody else telling me what to do. And I'll just figure it out and do it myself. And so it was sort of more of an entrepreneurial endeavor working for yourself than working for a firm or company. And I **Michael Hingson ** 38:53 think you told me that you you practice in Morristown. I do practice in Morristown? New Jersey. Yes. So did any of the dogs from the seeing eye ever come and say we want to see we want to sue our trainers or anything like that? **Lawrence Eichen ** 39:06 No, but I did I do. I do see those dogs routinely walking around. And in fact, there's as if I don't know if you've been there since they put up this statue. I've heard about it. Yeah, there's a there's a statue like right in the green the center of town of, of a seeing eye dog with somebody leading, you know, the **Michael Hingson ** 39:28 dog leading buddy and the original CEO, original seeing eye dog. Yeah. **Lawrence Eichen ** 39:33 Yeah. It's a great, it's a great it's a really nice, nice statue. And it's it's definitely symbolic of that institution that is, you know, world renowned and has done really great things with their **Michael Hingson ** 39:44 own hands. Oh, absolutely. It's the oldest guide dog school in the United States. Alright, did not know that. It's been around since 1929. I think it is. So it's been? Yeah, it's getting closer to 100 years old. **Lawrence Eichen ** 40:00 Yeah, I've met people over the years when I used to have a Labradoodle. And we used to take it to a dog park in Morristown, and there have been times, I'd say, I've probably met three or four people over the years, that had labs that they owned, that had failed out of the Seeing Eye Institute, you know, so you know, not every dog that goes to become a seeing eye dog makes it makes the cut. And eventually, these dogs, they're still phenomenal. The thing about the person that ends up getting that dog, you know, gets a phenomenal pet, because dog is probably better trained than any other dog around. But for some reason, it didn't make the cut as a seeing eye dog. But I've met several other owners with their dogs, that were what we used to say, you know, the ones that didn't get make the cut, but they were really beautiful dogs and very friendly. And **Michael Hingson ** 40:56 I don't know, I don't know where the concept was created. But what I think we've all learned over the years is that the dogs that don't make it don't fail, because just not every dog is cut out to be a guide dog, or in specific case of seeing is seeing eye dog, the the generic term is guide dog and seeing eye dogs are seeing eye because that's the brand of that school, but they're they don't fail. What what they do is they get what people now call career change, which is appropriate, because it's just not every dog is going to make it as a guide dog. In fact, the percentage is only about 50% Make it because the reality is there's a lot that goes into it. And it's an incredibly grueling and demanding process. So the ones that that don't succeed it that oftentimes go find other jobs are there, other jobs are found for them. Some become breeders, but some go on to do other things as well, which is, which is great. But you're right. Any of those dogs are phenomenally well trained, and are a great addition wherever they go. **Lawrence Eichen ** 42:06 Yeah, and I like the way I'm gonna think of that from now on going forward, and it's career change for them. It's good. **Michael Hingson ** 42:13 So what kind of law did you start to practice? And do you practice now? **Lawrence Eichen ** 42:19 Well, I started to get more into initially, when I went into practice for myself, I did a lot more Municipal Court type cases, and Special Civil Part type cases municipal court, meaning, you know, minor, anything from like traffic tickets to DWIs, those are all handled in the municipal courts in New Jersey. So that could also be like simple assaults, harassments, some temporary restraining orders, things of that nature, and special civil court cases or more like, you know, matters that are like, typically, people might know that as small claims court matters that were traditionally $15,000 or less, now they've raised the limit. But those are quicker cases, you know, so you can get more volume, the idea for that, for me was I could get, get my hands on a lot of cases, get some experience, doing some new things. And get, you know, I was never somebody who liked to have cases that lingered for years and years. And so I came from having a lot of cases that were in the file cabinet for two, three years. And it'd be like, I can't take looking at these cases anymore. So for me, I like, you know, if I had a case, I have it for a couple of months, and it's done. And then there's something fresh and new. So that just appealed to me. And Municipal Court work. What was nice about that is a whole different feel of that to where you're just kind of going in, you're negotiating most of those cases are just resolved through negotiating. And so I was always a pretty good negotiator. And the idea was, you know, what, it's, it's sort of like a personality or, you know, just just being able to develop a good relationship with a prosecutor, let's say, or the municipal court system. And so they're all different to that. The other thing about municipal court, which is probably shouldn't be this way, but the reality is, you know, every municipal court and in each town right, every town basically has their own Municipal Court for the most part until there was a lot of consolidation. But generally speaking in New Jersey, most towns have their own Municipal Court, but you go into one town, it's a whole different field and if you go to another town and so kind of kept things fresh, in a way it was it was like always new and different. The cases were always being new, relatively speaking, because they're turning over a lot. So that's what I did for the most part, and then I got myself over the years into some other stuff, some commercial litigation matters. A couple of matrimonial things, and guardianship matters and a bunch of other stuff I'm probably forgetting. But for the most part, I was doing mostly Municipal Court work and Special Civil War work. **Michael Hingson ** 45:13 But you got involved somewhere along the line and resolution conflict and doing a lot more negotiating, which is a little bit outside regular law practice, but still a fascinating thing to get into. **Lawrence Eichen ** 45:24 Yeah, I did, I did some work as a mediator. And I still volunteer, actually, as a mediator for Morris County. Most of those cases that I would handle these days, on a volunteer basis is handling disputes that come out of the municipal court system, where sometimes you get these crazy fact patterns between neighbors give you a classic example, there'll be a lot of, you know, the dog is barking, or the neighbors, one neighbors parking in the spot of some other neighbor, or there's ex girlfriends with the same boyfriend, and everybody's fighting, and there's harassment. And there's all sorts of crazy stuff that comes out of municipal court. And some of these cases, you know, they kind of farm it out to mediation, and say, maybe this can be resolved through mediation and avoid going on to the main calendar. And so they give it a chance to resolve through mediation. And so I've done a lot of volunteer work in that regard, and just trying to help people resolve it amicably and be done with, done with whatever the dispute is, and draft up some paperwork to make everybody stay accountable. And so that's sort of like a give back that I've done, you know, for the community, so to speak. And it's been rewarding in the sense that a lot of these disputes, even though they seem minor, from, you know, from the outside, if you think about it, and I think we've all been there, you know, where you have a neighbor, or a tenant or roommate, then it's not going well. And it's incredibly stressful to live through those times when you got to come home every day. And it's either your roommate, or your, your immediate neighbor, upstairs, downstairs, or even across the street, or whatever the case may be. It's incredibly stressful to have to live through issues that are unresolved that get on your nerves every day, right? It's hard enough to live your life working and raising kids and all that stuff that most people are doing, and then to have those added disputes lingering out there. So they may seem minor in nature, but when they're resolved, every single person feels a sigh of relief in those situations as they can just get on with their life, **Michael Hingson ** 47:47 do you find that you're able to be pretty successful at getting people to move on? And so you negotiate and you come to an agreement? And do people generally tend to stick with it? Or do you find that some people are just too obnoxious to do that? **Lawrence Eichen ** 48:03 Oh, actually, I've actually been very successful on that, at least the case is, I can't speak for anybody else's doing it. But from my experience, I had been very successful. In fact, they used to refer the hardest cases to me, because I had the reputation of being able to resolve these things. And so yeah, I would say, my track record in those disputes, I'd say was very high to get people to resolve only a couple of times I can remember, you know, where it was just like, there was just no way this thing is gonna get resolved, then we gave it our best shot. And they were going to have to go into court and just try to get it resolved that way. But most of the time, you know, over 90% of the time, they would actually resolve it. And what I would do is I would really make, I would take the extra time to make it known to them that they're signing a document, you know, that we're going to draft up that is going to hold them accountable. Now, I you know, I think there was only one time that I had them sign off on a document that later on one of the parties violated it. And it had to come back to court for some other reason, you know, for that reason, but most of the time, once they really go through the process and recognize that it's in their best interest to resolve it. It gets resolved, they sign off on it. And that whole process seems to work because they don't really break that promise. At least. I never became aware of more than one case since I was doing it. I did it, you know, for 20 years. So it's a lot of times that I've done mediations and I think there was only one case that came back after we resolve it. **Michael Hingson ** 49:49 You developed a process I think you call it E equals MC five. **Lawrence Eichen ** 49:55 Yes, my formula for negotiation excellence. Yes. **Michael Hingson ** 49:57 What is that? **Lawrence Eichen ** 50:00 Actually, that is a formula that I came up with several years ago really based on my experience negotiating. And I designed it and modeled it after Einstein's theory of relativity, right, which is equal MC squared, you physics **Michael Hingson ** 50:15 guy, you **Lawrence Eichen ** 50:16 know, I'm not a Pinterest guy, I'm not, I wasn't, I did like, Man, I did like math, for sure. And that's why I went into computer science actually, probably because it's the same logic, you know, and solving problems. But physics, even though it's interesting was never my thing. But I did remember that formula did stick in my head for some reason. And when I used to talk about negotiating, and just, you know, talking to other people about a client's other attorneys, whatever you get into these conversations, I realized that I had a lot of the same initials as the Einstein formula. And so I thought, You know what, I think I can make this work by coming up with something simple, to say to that's memorable. And so equal MC to the fifth is really, it stands, the E stands for excellence, with the idea in order to get the results where we're shooting for, right, we're shooting for excellence. Okay, so that's the thing we're shooting for getting excellent results. But we're shooting to get excellent results on a consistent basis. Because the idea is anybody can show up and get an excellent result once in a while. And I've done that many times, I'll show up into court, I get an excellent result. It's not because I was doing anything fantastic. It's just the happen to ask for something. And you know, the prosecutor or the other attorney, or the judge, granted, whatever I was asking for, it wasn't because of anything great I did, or any kind of great negotiating I did. So you can get excellent results. Once in a while anybody can do that. It's about getting it on a consistent basis. And that's what the formula is really designed for, because the M in the formula stands for mastering. And we're going to master the five c, core components. And those five C's stand for commitment, confidence, courage, compassion, and calmness. And those five core components, all starting with the letter C, if you can master those five, you will get exponential results. That's the idea of having it to the fifth power, you get extra exponential negotiating results. Because if you think about it, if you're negotiating in front of somebody, and you sit down at a table, or conference room, or wherever the hallway or on the phone, and if you have a mindset where you are committed to your position, right, you're confident, you have the courage to ask for what you need to ask. And sometimes it does take courage to ask for things. And you have compassion, meaning whoever you're negotiating with, right, they can say whatever they want, they can be obnoxious to you, they can be insulting, it doesn't matter, you're going to stay in a position of compassion. And you can be calm, as you're handling objections, and push back. If you have all five of those things working for you. Just imagine your mindset when you're negotiating, you're gonna get excellent negotiating results. And so that formula is something that I talk about when I give presentations on mastering the art of negotiating. And I apply that formula, I go through each of those components, obviously in more detail and give examples and strategies and tips how to improve in each of those particular areas. And again, the concept is by mastering them. And you don't even have to master all five to see dramatic results. If you just, you know, master one or two of those and improve a little bit on the other ones, you'll see tremendous, tremendous results. So it doesn't you don't have to master all five. But the goal would be to be mastering all five of those and then you really see excellent results on a consistent basis. That's where their formulas **Michael Hingson ** 54:20 and I would think to a large degree calmness, as you point out, is not only one of those, but would probably in a sense be the most important to get some of the emotions to die down and get to really look at what's going on. **Lawrence Eichen ** 54:37 Yeah, I mean, that's a very good point. And you know, I I fluctuate between which one is the most important but the reality is, you know, they're all important. Yeah. being calm. Absolutely. There's times in a negotiating situation where calmness is so effective because as especially when you're negotiating, and you know, you don't want the other side to, you know, see you getting all anxious and nervous and stressed out, right, you want to be calm, just because you don't want to tip your own hand necessarily. But also, you don't want to fuel a potentially explosive, a volatile situation, depending on what you're negotiating about, right? Because we negotiate about all different things. And we could be negotiating, as I was talking about earlier about disputes between neighbors, those are certainly highly charged, very emotional. There's a lot of resentment and bitterness and anger and a lot of those types of disputes. Or you could just be negotiating on a very, you know, straightforward contract dispute, that may be so emotionally charged, but there's a lot of money involved and you want to be calm. When somebody's saying no or giving objections, you might be thinking internally, oh, my God, I really need this. To settle I need this deal. You know, I need to close this deal, I but you don't want to let that on, you want to be able to sort of like playing poker, right? You know, when you have a great hand, you don't want to let it on. When you don't have a great hand, you don't want to tip your hand either. You need to be calm at all times. And so to your point, yes, calm this is very effective. I like to think of calmness as a trait of leadership, right? Because when you're calm when you're negotiating, I always like to say that, often times, whether you're negotiating with a client, or customer or your spouse, business owner, anybody that you're negotiating with many times during a negotiation, the other side needs to be led to the conclusion that you want them to reach. So being calm is a position of leadership. And if you have very good points to make, and you have a lot of good reasons why whatever they're objecting to your position meets those objections. When you're calm, you're going to be way more effective in presenting your side, and you're going to simultaneously allay their fears and their concerns that they're raising with their objections, by your calmness, it's an energy, that if they see you not being all stressed out and bent out of shape, about their position, and you're really calm and effective in presenting yours, it can help persuade them into arriving at the conclusion where you're already at. So it's it's leadership, you're you know, that's why objections are really an opportunity for you to be a leader, it's an opportunity for you to lead that person back to where you want them to go. And, you know, it's like sports, right? Who do you want taking the the last shot of the game? You want the guy who's going to be calm under pressure, not the person who's going to be reacting and stressing out so much. **Michael Hingson ** 58:17 One of the things that you talk about I know and you've, you mentioned, to me is the whole idea and the whole issue of imposter syndrome. Can you talk a little bit about that? **Lawrence Eichen ** 58:27 Yeah, sure. Yeah, imposter syndrome is a very interesting issue. I definitely relate to it personally, because I felt impostor syndrome for so many years, in my legal career. And first of all, what it is if anybody who's listening or watching is not familiar with it, it's basically this fear of being exposed, that you're a fraud or you're an imposter. And a hand in hand with that is usually this fear that you're going to be found out to be not as competent or not as qualified as other people think you are. So that's where this this this concept of being an imposter, right? And a lot of what goes with impostor syndrome. So for somebody who's experiencing it, is that they tend to attribute their successes, their achievements to external factors, rather than owning their own achievements. And what do I mean by that, like external factors, that could be like luck, or chance, you know, somebody might get a great result. And they might just attribute that success to Well, I just happen to be in the right place at the right time, or I just had the right connection. I knew the right person. And when they say they say things like that to themselves, they're really disowning their own skills, their own qualifications, and they're attributing this success to something external from themselves. And that external factor is not just luck or chance, it could also be, you know, their personality, their charm. You know, for me, I can even share an example when I used to go into court and get a great result. Sometimes driving home in the car, or driving back to the office, I should say, I'm replaying what went on. And I'm thinking, you know, I got the result, because I was personable, I was making the judge laugh a little bit that day, I was, you know, I was diminishing my own skill, or my own competency. And I was kind of thinking, the reason I got the result was probably because he liked me more than the preparation, I did more than the arguments that I made. And that's a classic example of like diminishing your own skills, and attributing your success to that personality or charm. And you can extend that to gender, race, ethnicity, age, even even handicap, you know, why? Why is somebody in the position they are in? Why did they get the results? Well, maybe it's because let's say for women, very common, women might think, Well, I only got this high profile position, because there's no other women in the company that are in these high profile positions. So even though the woman might be completely qualified and skilled and competent, she might be thinking to herself if she's dealing with impostor syndrome type issues. So you might be thinking, the only reason I got it was because I'm a female, I'm a woman, and had nothing to do with my skills and competencies. And so again, it's externalizing our own successes, and attributing them to external factors. That's just what it is. That's sort of the definition of impostor syndrome. **Michael Hingson ** 1:01:48 So it sounds like you've had to deal with some because you just talked about it when you're driving back from trial and so on. So is it something that you have had to contend with? **Lawrence Eichen ** 1:01:58 Yeah, many times. It started with me, honestly, when I was in law school, I didn't have a here's the thing I didn't know it's called impostor syndrome. So I only found that out, maybe I don't remember when, maybe 510 years ago, I'm guessing. But I never heard of that. But I had the symptoms of this stuff without knowing what it was. But when I was in law school, the first way I used to feel like an imposter was because I was a computer programmer. Right? So I was really a programmer. And now I was in law school with all these law students who in my mind chose to be there. Because they wanted to be lawyers. I'm in here thinking I didn't know what else to do with myself. I'm really a programmer. I'm not really a person who reads books and studies like that. I'm a programmer. So I started to feel that in law school, and then when I was practicing law, even having graduated from law school and passing the bar and being qualified to be a lawyer, would now when I was in court very early on in my career, I'm worried when I'm in front of a judge, like, he's gonna ask me questions, and I don't know the answers to them. And I'm going to look foolish and stupid and not smart enough. And it was like kind of bringing back childhood stuff, because my father used to make me feel that way. And it was like, oh my god, now I'm in front of all these older men that are going to be quizzing me and making me feel like I don't know anything. So there was that fear, like I was going to be found out. You know, that's that feeling like, Oh, my God, I'm fooling everybody that's part of imposter syndrome is like, you're you feel like you're fooling everybody. And so I was always believing I was getting away with it. When I would go to court, even though I got good results. Those results weren't being owned by me the way I was describing earlier, they were really being attributed to external factors. So I'm just going along all the time believing that I'm this, you know, impostor, I'm not really a lawyer. So like, when I would be negotiating with prosecutors and other attorneys that have more experienced than me, I'm on guard thinking, Oh, my God, I'm gonna look so foolish. And somebody's gonna finally go, ah, we are not really a lawyer. What are you doing here? You're a programmer, you know, or something like that. And like, of course, that would never happen. But I'm thinking in my head, like, there's this feeling like I'm going to be exposed. So yeah, to answer your question definitely experienced it a long time without knowing what it really was. **Michael Hingson ** 1:04:28 He regarded as a

The Angels staved off elimination in walk off fashion in game three, but they have their work cut out for them if they want to force a game five. The Orioles send their number four starter to the hill, but lefty Scott McGregor (13 - 6 3.35 ERA 174 IP) would be a number two on most staffs. The LA born workhorse doesn't have a reputation as a big-game pitcher, but this start would begin a string of postseason excellence. Opposing him for the Angels is righty Chris Knapp (5 - 5 5.51 ERA 98 IP), who struggled with injuries this season, but was 10 - 1 at Anaheim Stadium in his career. The Angels won the AL West with their high-powered offense, but their pitching leaves a lot to be desired. With a win today, the Orioles would reach their fourth World Series in the past ten years. Tune in to the conclusion of an exhilarating series. Audio clips from joeydbball Youtube. NBC Broadcast w/ Dick Enberg, Wes Parker, and Sparky Anderson. As always, shout out to Baseball Reference and SABR for statistics, boxscores, background information and much, much more. Catch you next time, P.C.O.

Rich reacts to the shocking news that not only are the PGA Tour and LIV Tour mending fences but also merging golf tours. Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti and Rich discuss the intricacies of incorporating UCLA and USC into the conference, if further expansion is on the horizon, and shares his favorite memories of working with legendary sportscasters like Keith Jackson and Dick Enberg. Rich predicts (complains??) that Michigan will get stuck in the same Big Ten conference as USC, and the guy's debate if Urban Meyer could still be a highly successful coach if he returned to college football.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dan Dierdorf grew up a mile and change from the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. He went to the groundbreaking in 1962. What he never would have guessed on that day was that 34 years later, after a stellar career both at Michigan and then with the St Louis Cardinals, he himself would be putting on a gold jacket and finding his place among the immortals of the game. Beyond that, all he did was spend 30 years in the broadcast booth alongside the likes of Bob Costas, Verne Lundquist, Dick Enberg, and Greg Gumbel. Oh, and 12 years on Monday Night Football with Al Michaels. Great stories from a legend.

Doc listens to Los Angeles' beloved Dick Enberg's thoughts and troubles with calling games.

Doc discusses criticism without a bias in sports, arts and medicine. We hear from Dick Enberg and Pauline Kael discussing how or if you should remain neutral in reporting. The Weekend Warrior clinic is open and Peter talks about his swollen knee. Let's make some breakfast; how about a Klapper Egg McMuffin?

While I was at spring training in Arizona, I was able to meet sports writer & author, Kirk McKnight, in the press box of a San Francisco Giants game. Kirk is the author of ‘The Voices of Baseball: The Game's Greatest Broadcasters Reflect on America's Pastime' that features interviews with 50 of Major League Baseball's most beloved broadcasters.Interviews with legends like Vin Scully, Dick Enberg, Bob Costas, Jon Miller, Ken Korach & more are featured in ‘The Voices of Baseball.' Kirk McKnight is a nationally published author specializing in sports journalism. He has interviewed over 75 play by play broadcasters from both Major League Baseball and the NHL. Kirk's books not only discuss the game today, but he also takes the countless years of experience of these broadcasters to reach back into eras, players, venues, and broadcasters of the past, providing readers a very comprehensive history of first hand experiences.To purchase & receive THIRTY PERCENT OFF of ‘The Voices of Baseball: The Game's Greatest Broadcasters Reflect on America's Pastime' please visit: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538177013/The-Voices-of-Baseball-The-Game's-Greatest-Broadcasters-Reflect-on-America's-Pastime-Updated-Editionuse CODE: RLFANDF30 for 30% off!

Until you find a groove getting hired for narrative projects, most directors make their money in the non-scripted world. How can you make the most from your time doing non-scripted work? How can you help your interview subjects feel at ease? How do you know what b-roll to film? How can you keep your set running smoothly? And how does all of that translate to your narrative film work? We'll talk about all that and more with TV director Steve Abramson on this episode of the working director podcast. (Episode 40) Hosted by Director/Producer⁠⁠ Jenn Page.⁠⁠ To join our private FB group for directors, or to learn about The Working Director course that helps emerging filmmakers become working directors faster, visit ⁠⁠TheWorkingDirector.Pro⁠⁠. More on Steve: Steve Abramson a multiple award-winning Television Director for over four decades.  For 16 seasons, he directed at Dr. Phil, including two episodes on location in New Orleans examining the one-year aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  He also directed hundreds of segments, telling the stories of countless guests. He has a wealth of experience directing, writing, and producing for many acclaimed television shows for NBC,CBS, Fox, A&E, Disney Channel, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, FoodNetwork, and SyFy.  His A&E Biography of the Amistad revolt leader, “Cinque: Freedom Fighter,” was nominated for the prestigious NAACP Image Award. Other credits include Sightings, A&E Top 10, Disney's American Teacher Awards, CBS Morning News, The Christopher Lowell Show, Name Your Adventure, and Calling All Cooks.  He's earned one Emmy nomination along the way. He's been an active member of the DGA for 30+ years and the PGA for 20+ years.  He's also been a member of the Television Academy for over 30 years, where he served on the Directors Peer Group Executive Committee and the Primetime Awards Committee for nearly 10 years.  He's also moderated the "Directing For Television" panel for the annual TV Academy Faculty Seminar, and judged candidates for the Academy Foundation's esteemed Intern program. Steve is most proud and fortunate to have interviewed nearly 80 television pioneers for the TV Academy's prestigious oral history project, The Interviews, including Steve Binder, Pat Boone, Mark Burnett, Jonathan Murray, Richard Chamberlain, Dick Enberg, Tom Freston, Louis J. Horvitz, Arthur Hiller, Cliff Robertson, William Shatner, Nichelle Nichols, Suzanne Somers, Adam West, Patty Duke and Larry King. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theworkingdirector/message

Romo/Olsen/Brady talk; Super Bowl; Rest in Peace Billy Packer; NBA News; Chip Carey to Cardinals This week on Episode 34 of the Announcer Schedules Podcast, Mike Gill and Phil de Montmollin continue discussing Tony Romo and Greg Olsen along with Tom Brady's retirement and the broadcasting implications. A tribute to the legacy of Billy Packer as well as the latest announcer news from the NBA, MLB and college hoops. Throughout the show, 77 different announcers from past and present are mentioned with an array of topics discussed including: · NFC and AFC Championship Games Review · Super Bowl Preview · Tony Romo · Greg Olsen and Tom Brady at FOX · The Legacy of Billy Packer · Big 12 Now on ESPN+ · All-Female Production Crew · Upcoming NBA Action · Coverage of Lebron's Record Chase · Throw it Down with Bill Walton · Chip Carey to Cardinals · Atlanta Braves Opening · Pat McCarthy to Mets · Stephen Nelson to Dodgers · Chris "The Bear" Fallica to FOX Sports Announcer Mentions: Kevin Burkhardt, Greg Olsen, Jim Nantz, Tony Romo, Kevin Harlan, Kurt Warner, Ian Eagle, Ross Tucker, Tracy Wolfson, Jay Feely, Pat McAfee, Tom Brady, Terry Bradshaw, Rob Gronkowski, Michael Strahan, Howie Long, Drew Brees, Phil Simms, Billy Packer, Erin Andrews, Tom Rinaldi, Mike Pereira, Gene Steratore, Mike Golic, Laura Okmin, T.J. Rives, Tim Brando, Brent Musburger, Dick Enberg, Gary Bender, Curt Gowdy, Al McGuire, Jay Bilas, Boog Sciambi, Kris Budden, Mark Neely, Sloane Martin, Kim Adams, Meghan Caffrey, Chuckie Kempf, King McClure, Chris Spatola, Marc Kestecher, P.J. Carlesimo, Kevin Harlan, Reggie Miller, Stephanie Ready, Brian Anderson, Stan Van Gundy, Jared Greenberg, Ryan Ruocco, Richard Jefferson, JJ Redick, Monica McNutt, Bill Walton, Dave Pasch, Roxy Bernstein, Jason Benetti, Vin Scully, Charles Barkley, Chip Carey, Skip Caray, Harry Caray, Jack Buck, Joe Buck, Tom Hart, Ben Ingram, Rich Waltz, Wayne Randazzo, Pat McCarthy, Tom McCarthy, Scott Franzke, Howie Rose, Stephen Nelson, Joe Davis, Chris Fallica, Stanford Steve Hear it all on the latest "Announcer Schedules Podcast" and make sure to that you are subscribing to the SportsMediaWatch.com podcast feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, etc.!! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Romo/Olsen/Brady talk; Super Bowl; Rest in Peace Billy Packer; NBA News; Chip Carey to Cardinals This week on Episode 34 of the Announcer Schedules Podcast, Mike Gill and Phil de Montmollin continue discussing Tony Romo and Greg Olsen along with Tom Brady's retirement and the broadcasting implications. A tribute to the legacy of Billy Packer as well as the latest announcer news from the NBA, MLB and college hoops. Throughout the show, 77 different announcers from past and present are mentioned with an array of topics discussed including: · NFC and AFC Championship Games Review · Super Bowl Preview · Tony Romo · Greg Olsen and Tom Brady at FOX · The Legacy of Billy Packer · Big 12 Now on ESPN+ · All-Female Production Crew · Upcoming NBA Action · Coverage of Lebron's Record Chase · Throw it Down with Bill Walton · Chip Carey to Cardinals · Atlanta Braves Opening · Pat McCarthy to Mets · Stephen Nelson to Dodgers · Chris "The Bear" Fallica to FOX Sports Announcer Mentions: Kevin Burkhardt, Greg Olsen, Jim Nantz, Tony Romo, Kevin Harlan, Kurt Warner, Ian Eagle, Ross Tucker, Tracy Wolfson, Jay Feely, Pat McAfee, Tom Brady, Terry Bradshaw, Rob Gronkowski, Michael Strahan, Howie Long, Drew Brees, Phil Simms, Billy Packer, Erin Andrews, Tom Rinaldi, Mike Pereira, Gene Steratore, Mike Golic, Laura Okmin, T.J. Rives, Tim Brando, Brent Musburger, Dick Enberg, Gary Bender, Curt Gowdy, Al McGuire, Jay Bilas, Boog Sciambi, Kris Budden, Mark Neely, Sloane Martin, Kim Adams, Meghan Caffrey, Chuckie Kempf, King McClure, Chris Spatola, Marc Kestecher, P.J. Carlesimo, Kevin Harlan, Reggie Miller, Stephanie Ready, Brian Anderson, Stan Van Gundy, Jared Greenberg, Ryan Ruocco, Richard Jefferson, JJ Redick, Monica McNutt, Bill Walton, Dave Pasch, Roxy Bernstein, Jason Benetti, Vin Scully, Charles Barkley, Chip Carey, Skip Caray, Harry Caray, Jack Buck, Joe Buck, Tom Hart, Ben Ingram, Rich Waltz, Wayne Randazzo, Pat McCarthy, Tom McCarthy, Scott Franzke, Howie Rose, Stephen Nelson, Joe Davis, Chris Fallica, Stanford Steve Hear it all on the latest "Announcer Schedules Podcast" and make sure to that you are subscribing to the SportsMediaWatch.com podcast feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, etc.!! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

PASSED BALL SHOW #64 1/24/2013 Part 1 WITH MARK GRANT; I start out the program by mentioning the simple thing I want to see the New York Mets do, which would be just enough to make me want to go to more games this season. Remembering the legend of Stan Musial in lieu of his passing as well as Hall of Fame manager Earl Weaver. Mark Grant calls in to talk about his playing career, being part of a trade that involved a Cy Young Award Winner and MVP in the same season and what it is like to work next to a legend like Dick Enberg

Jim Nantz, the three-time Emmy Award winner and five-time National Sportscaster of the Year, joined the CBS Television Network in 1985.  He currently serves as the lead play-by-play announcer for THE NFL ON CBS, including the Super Bowl and Thursday Night Football games; the lead anchor of CBS's golf coverage, including the PGA Tour, Masters, and the PGA Championship; and lead play-by-play announcer for college basketball, including the NCAA Men's Final Four. In 2007, 2010, and 2013, Nantz completed a rare broadcasting triple by becoming the first commentator in history to broadcast the Super Bowl, NCAA Men's Final Four, and the Masters, all in the same year. He will once again repeat this trifecta in 2016.In August 2011, Nantz received the Pro Football Hall of Fame Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award.  He is the youngest recipient ever of this award. Nantz also was honored by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as its youngest recipient of the Curt Gowdy Media Award in 2002. Nantz joins Dick Enberg and Curt Gowdy as the only broadcasters to receive both Pro Football and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame honors.ABOUT THE PODCASTA riveting podcast combining the worlds of sport and parenting with thought-provoking interviews. Delivered to you by diverse voices with unique perspectives—unafraid of honest questioning and impassioned storytelling—for parents, athletes, coaches, and fans.HOSTSMike Smith, Marty Haws, and Maddy RasmusenMike Smith, Emmy award-winning Los Angeles Clippers broadcaster and first-round draft pick of the Boston Celtics, teams up with his former college point guard—the father of two All-Americans who just so happens to be an All-American himself—Marty Haws. Join these blue-chip dads and Maddy Rasmusen in their opening season as they interview some of the biggest names in sports and break down the blood, sweat, fears, and sometimes tears of sports parenting.EXECUTIVE PRODUCERMaddy RasmusenCREATIVE PRODUCER & EDITORJim DetjenORIGINAL MUSIC & SOUND DESIGNLisle MooreJax SmithBuilt Bar Sports Parenting just got more delicious! Season 1 is recorded in the official Built Bar Studio.Built Bar Sports Parenting just got more delicious! Season 1 is recorded in the official Built Bar Studio.

Bradley Akubuiro's parents raised him to have a deep and strong work ethic. His father came to the United States from Nigeria at the age of 17 and worked to put himself through school. As Bradley describes, both about his father as well as about many people in extremely impoverished parts of the world, such individuals develop a strong resilience and wonderful spirit.   Bradley has led media relations and/or public affairs for Fortune 50 companies including Boeing as it returned the grounded 737 MAX to service and United Technologies through a series of mergers that resulted in the creation of Raytheon Technologies. He also served as an advisor to Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. and to the Republic of Liberia post-civil war. Today Bradley is a partner at Bully Pulpit Interactive, an advisory firm founded by leaders of the Obama-Biden campaign.   As you will see, Bradley is a wonderful and engaging storyteller. He weaves into his stories for us lessons about leadership and good corporate communications. His spirit is refreshing in our world today where we see so much controversy and unnecessary bickering.   I look forward to your comments on this episode.   About the Guest: Bradley is a partner at Bully Pulpit Interactive, an advisory firm founded by leaders of the Obama-Biden campaign. He focuses on corporate reputation, executive communications, and high visibility crisis management and media relations efforts, as well as equity, diversity, and inclusion matters for clients. Bradley has led media relations and/or public affairs for Fortune 50 companies including Boeing as it returned the grounded 737 MAX to service and United Technologies through a series of mergers that resulted in the creation of Raytheon Technologies and has also served as an advisor to Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. and to the Republic of Liberia post-civil war. A nationally recognized expert in his field, Bradley has been quoted by outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, and The Washington Post, and his columns have been featured in Business Insider, Forbes, and Inc. Magazine, where he is a regular contributor. Bradley is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where he currently sits on the Board of Advisers and serves as an adjunct member of the faculty.   About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:21 Well, hi, everybody. Thank you for joining us on unstoppable mindset today, we have Bradley Akubuiro with us. Bradley is a partner in bully pulpit International. He'll tell us about that. But he's been involved in a variety of things dealing with corporate communications, and has had a lot of adventures. He deals with diversity, equity and inclusion. But most of all, before we started this, he had one question for me. And that is, how much fun are we going to have on this podcast? Well, that really is up to Bradley. So Bradley has some fun.   Bradley Akubuiro  01:56 Michael, thank you so much for having me is is going to be a ton of fun. I'm really excited. Thanks for having me   Michael Hingson  02:01 on. Well, you're you're absolutely welcome. And we're glad that you're here had a chance to learn about you. And we've had a chance to chat some. So why don't we start as often and Lewis Carroll would say at the beginning, and maybe tell me about you growing up and those kinds of things.   Bradley Akubuiro  02:18 Yeah, I'd be happy to do that. And, you know, I think it would be remiss if I didn't start off talking about my parents a little bit before I talked about myself. My dad grew up in the Biafran war in Nigeria, Civil War, Nigeria. And you know, while he was going through school, they were bombing schools, and it wasn't safe for adults to be out. And so, you know, he was the guy in his family at six years old, who was taking crops from their plantation. They grew up maybe about six hours outside of Lagos, Nigeria, and was moving, you know, some of these crops two miles away, to sell in the marketplace. And you know, at a very early age was learning responsibility, not just for himself, but for the family.   Michael Hingson  03:02 Wow. Which is something that more people should do. So what what all did he do? Or how did all that work out?   Bradley Akubuiro  03:09 Yeah. Well, you know, this was a really interesting time in Nigeria's History, where you had a lot of folks who were in this circumstance, and my dad was a really hard worker, his parents were hard workers before him, his father was a pastor. And so he had a certain level of discipline and support in his household. But, you know, he knew that he had this kind of onus on him. So grew up at a time then where not only do you have this responsibility, but a big family, brothers and sisters to take care of. He was the guy who was chosen later, you know, flash forward a few years, to come to the United States, to be able to find an opportunity here in this country, and to be able to always hopefully, give back to his family.   Michael Hingson  03:59 So he came, and How old was he? When he came here?   Bradley Akubuiro  04:03 When he got to the States, he was about 17. So came to New York City, not a lot going on there. And, you know, he had to put himself through   Michael Hingson  04:15 school. Did he know anyone? Or Was anyone sponsoring him? Or how did all that work? He had a little   Bradley Akubuiro  04:20 bit of family here, but he had to find his own way, get a full time job at a gas station, and work to figure out what this country was all about, but also how to be successful here.   Michael Hingson  04:32 Where did he stay when he got here then   Bradley Akubuiro  04:36 got a little apartment up on the kind of Washington Heights Harlem area of New York, little hole in the wall and, you know, continue to work to pay that off while he was trying to pay off school. So not easy, but at the same time, you know, a really, really great opportunity for him to kind of start fresh and create some opportunity for himself and family.   Michael Hingson  04:58 So did he tell him at least With a little bit of money, how did all that work? It's funny, he   Bradley Akubuiro  05:04 asked that question. He did come with some, but it wasn't a lot. Let's start off there. But you know, what's interesting about that is, you know, he put himself through undergrad, put himself through a master's program, you know, and was doing a PhD program over at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. And at Penn, he blew through his entire life savings and one semester. And so, you know, was on a great path. You studying engineering, and, you know, a semester and he's like, Oh, what am I going to do ended up going across the street to Drexel, where they were able to bring him in and give him a scholarship, as long as he was one a TA, which he really enjoyed doing. And he was able to put himself through the PhD.   Michael Hingson  05:50 Wow. So he started there as a freshman then   Bradley Akubuiro  05:55 started, so he went to several different schools started in New York. Yep, sorry, started in New York at Hunter College, did a master's program at Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, and then came up to do his PhD at Penn. And then went to Drexel, and went to Drexel.   Michael Hingson  06:12 He moved around how, how come? What, what took him to Atlanta, for example? Do you know?   Bradley Akubuiro  06:18 Yeah, well, it was the opportunity. You know, one of the things that he had learned and had been instilled in him growing up, which he's passed on to me is, you follow the opportunity where it's and as long as you're not afraid to take that risk and take a chance on yourself and your future that will ultimately more often than not pay off in the end. And so he followed scholarship dollars, he followed the programs that would have an opportunity for him. And he went exactly where it took,   Michael Hingson  06:45 and what were his degrees in.   Bradley Akubuiro  06:47 So his master's degree was in chemistry, his PhD was chemical engineering. Wow. Yeah. What did he What did he do with that? So well, you know, the world was his oyster, I suppose, in some ways, but you know, he ended up you know, going into a couple of different companies started with Calgon, carbon and Pittsburgh, and spent a number of years there and on later on to Lucent Technologies, and fiber optics. And so, you know, he's moved on to a number of different companies, engineering roles, eventually got his MBA and has been, you know, employed a number of different places and continued over his career to work in a number of different geographies as well, whether it's like going to Pittsburgh, New Jersey, Atlanta, Massachusetts. They're now living in Rochester, New York, which I've never lived in. But it's a very charming place. It's, yeah.   Michael Hingson  07:44 It is. It is a nice place. I've been there many times. Yeah. And for customers and so on, it's a fun place to go. Well, he obviously learned in a lot of ways, some might say the hard way, but he learned to value what was going on with him, because it was the only way he was going to be successful. So nothing was handed to him at all, was   Bradley Akubuiro  08:10 it? That's right. He had a very strong family foundation. And he definitely learned a lot from his parents and from his family, and they were very close. So I think that he would say that's what was handed to him, but he certainly didn't give any get any leg up.   Michael Hingson  08:26 Right. Well, that's a good thing to have handed to you, I guess. Well, how did he meet somebody from Gary, Indiana, which is a whole different culture.   Bradley Akubuiro  08:36 Well, this becomes a love story pretty quickly. That's an article.   Michael Hingson  08:42 You can embellish how you want.   Bradley Akubuiro  08:46 Oh, my parents actually met somewhat serendipitously. They were at two different schools. My mom was going to school in Alabama, Alabama a&m. My dad was going to school at the time and Clark, Atlanta and Atlanta. So about four hours apart, Huntsville, Atlanta. My mom's roommate was dating my dad's roommate. And so my mom agreed to come with her roommate to go and visit her boyfriend at the time. She happened to meet this strapping young Nigerian man in Atlanta, and they ended up hitting it off and as fate would have it, the other two their respective movements didn't make the distance but they had a budding romance that ended up lasting now at this point several decades.   Michael Hingson  09:37 Wow. So they're, they're still with us.   Bradley Akubuiro  09:41 They're both still with us   Michael Hingson  09:42 both going strong. That is, that is really cool. So what do you think you learn from them?   Bradley Akubuiro  09:48 I learned a number of things. You know, I learned first of all, and you heard my father's story, resilience. He has learned to take whatever is thrown at been thrown at him. Be able to not only take it in stride, which I think is good, but more importantly, to turn it around and channel it and to use it to his advantage, no matter what that might be. And he's instilled that in me and my two sisters, two sisters, ones, older ones younger. And that's, that's really been important. You know, when it comes to my two parents, the things that they value a ton are education, family. And when you think about the world around you, how are you leaving it in a better place than you found it. And if you can really focus on those handful of things, then you are going to have a very fulfilling and successful life. And that's how he measured success. I've taken that away from them.   Michael Hingson  10:41 He doesn't get better than that. And if you can, if you can say that I want to make a difference. And that I hope I've made at least a little difference. It doesn't get better than that does it?   Bradley Akubuiro  10:53 That's exactly right. So then   Michael Hingson  10:55 you came along. And we won't we won't put any value judgment on that.   Bradley Akubuiro  11:02 Thank you for that we   Michael Hingson  11:03 could have for Yeah, exactly. But actually, before I go to that, have they been back to visit Nigeria at all?   Bradley Akubuiro  11:11 Yeah, absolutely. And unfortunately, the most recent time that my parents took a trip back was the passing of my grandmother, a handful of years ago. And so that brought them back. But, you know, one of the things that I'm hoping to do, and I haven't done it yet, is just spend some real time out there. I've got plenty of family that's still there. So go in and spend a little time in Nigeria that's longer than a quick in and out trip. I spent some time and we've talked about this before Michael, but in West Africa, generally in Liberia. And that was a great experience. But there's not quite like going back to where it all began with your family.   Michael Hingson  11:49 No, it's still not home. Right. Well, so you you came along. And so what was it like growing up in that household and going to high school and all that?   Bradley Akubuiro  12:03 Well, there's a couple ways to answer that. Go ahead. Well, let's put it this way, I we have a very close family bond. And so you know, when you think about the folks who have finished your senses, who laugh at your jokes, because they think it's funny, and if you hadn't told that joke, first, they probably would have told that joke, the kind of family we have. It's a great, great dynamic. And so I was very fortunate to have grown up in that household with parents who truly, truly embraced that that side. You know, it was also a tough household. You know, my parents were very strict, my father, especially coming from this immigrant mindset, and this Nigerian culture, I mentioned the value of education. What I didn't mention quite, but might have been a little bit implied, and I'll say it more explicitly is anything less than an A was entirely unacceptable. There were a number of times where I found myself on the wrong side of that. And, you know, we grew up in different times, as my parents were trying to provide the best life they could for us, and a number of different urban settings. And, you know, one, one period of life for me was particularly studying in high school, where, you know, the school district of Springfield, Massachusetts at a time graduated about 54% of the students that went through that system. And so you're thinking about one in two kids who don't make it out of high school, much less make it the college, much less have a successful and fulfilling career in life. And my father, especially, but of course, both my parents want us to do absolutely everything in their power to ensure that those would not be our statistics that we would be my sisters, and I would be able to have every tool at our disposal to be successful. And they work hard at that, despite the circumstances.   Michael Hingson  14:08 So how were they when I'm sure it happened? It was discovered that maybe you had some gifts, but there were some things that you weren't necessarily as strong as other things. How did that work out for you?   Bradley Akubuiro  14:21 I want to be very clear, the list of things that I wasn't quite as good at, especially in those days, was long enough to stun you. So you know, it we we work through it together, right? I think one of the things that I admire most about my parents now that I maybe didn't appreciate enough growing up was just the amount that they leaned in, and we're willing to be hands on and helping with our education. And so my father would give us times tables when we were in elementary school and make sure that we worked through them. And if we didn't get them quite right, we would do them again, and we do them again, and we do them again. And And I remember a time when I was in the fifth grade where my father had me up until 1am, doing math problems. And, you know, I was thinking to myself, I cannot imagine doing this with my kids, when I was at that age, and then I swore at that time that I never would, I'll tell you what my blood now I swear that I definitely will maybe not till 1am, I think there's probably a more reasonable time. But to be able to invest that level of effort into making sure that your kid has everything they need to be successful. I just have I admire the heck out of it.   Michael Hingson  15:36 I remember a couple of times, I think one when I was oh seven or eight, when we were living in California, and going back to visit relatives in Chicago, or driving somewhere. And my dad said to me, and my brother who was two years older, you guys have to learn the times tables. And we spent time driving, just going through the times tables. And it took me a little while. And a couple of times, I tried a shortcut that messed me up. But eventually I got it all figured out. And he said, when you say the times tables correctly, we'll give you 50 cents. And they did when I got the time two times tables, right? They did. And also, I was learning algebra from him. My dad was an electronics engineer. And so he really worked because I didn't have books in braille early on until I was in the fourth grade, I had to study with them to a large degree. So he taught me a lot more than the schools were teaching little kids as it were. So I learned algebra early, and I learned to do it in my head, and still do. And in high school, it got me in trouble in my freshman year, because my math teacher said, Now whenever you're doing things, you have to show your work. Well, you know, I kept trying to tell her that, for me, showing my work in Braille isn't going to do you any good. I can tell you what I do and how I do it. And she wouldn't accept that and she was going to fail me literally fail me in math. Until one day I wrote out, I think one of the problems and I think just in case she took it and went somewhere where she could find somebody to read Braille. I wrote it out correctly. But I got to see an algebra one because of that one thing. By the way, after that, I never got below an A in math. She was insistent that you had to show your work, and wasn't flexible enough to recognize that there are a lot of ways to show your work. Oh,   Bradley Akubuiro  17:35 yeah. Well, that's part of the challenge, and not to make this an entire commentary on our education system. But there are so many different ways to your point to get to the right answer. And I don't think there's nearly enough flexibility in our system in many cases, except for those who really, truly tried to find it and create that environment for their students. But at a at a you know, broader look, there isn't nearly enough flexibility to appreciate that we're going to have many different ways to get these answers.   Michael Hingson  18:04 I think that really good teachers, and there are a lot of good teachers. But I think the really good teachers make that leap and allow for flexibility in what they do. Because they recognize everyone learns differently. But the big issue is, can you learn and can you demonstrate that you learned?   Bradley Akubuiro  18:24 Yeah, well, that's what we're all striving for.   Michael Hingson  18:27 It is I was pretty blessed going through school, especially in high school, a lot of the times, I would stay after school and extra period to study in the library because again, not everything was available so that we actually had people who would read material to me or give me information that was written on boards that I didn't get any other way. And usually, the teachers would come in, we would set up days and they would come in and give me tests. And what was fun about that was we would go through the tests fairly quickly and spend most of the hour chatting and I got to know a number of my teachers that way and that was so valuable for me. One of them especially Dick herbal Shimer, I still know and you know, he's going to be what 85 I think it is this year, and he will be at five I think August 28. We still keep in touch, he came to our wedding. And he tells me that I'm getting to be closer in age to him and I point out that I'll never be as old as he is. And he tries to convince me that mathematically I'm getting closer and I say 13 years is still 13 years.   Bradley Akubuiro  19:35 Hmm, yeah, don't let them don't let them try to get you. That's   Michael Hingson  19:39 right. It's not gonna work.   Bradley Akubuiro  19:42 was gonna ask you if you had a favorite teacher because I feel like teachers, if you put together this for many years have such an incredible impact on you and how you see yourself.   Michael Hingson  19:52 I remember a lot of things from a number of my teachers and I can tell you the names of most all of my teachers. I remember in my freshman year English, our teacher was a Mr. Wilson has actually Woodrow Wilson was his name was an older gentleman. And one day we were sitting in class and he was just talking about philosophy. And he's talking about people's ethics. And he said, and I remember it that, you know, a good example is, if you need to borrow a quarter from somebody, be sure you pay that quarterback, where does that come in English? But nevertheless, those are the kinds of things that he said, and other teachers said various things, and they stick with you.   Bradley Akubuiro  20:36 Yeah, no, it's so true. I mean, for me, my favorite teacher was Darlene Kaffee. She was my fourth grade teacher, taught all kinds of, I mean, touch everything you learned in fourth grade. But the most important thing for me was, she gave me confidence in my writing ability. You know, I had always enjoyed writing, but I never really thought of myself as someone who could potentially be a writer. And she was the first person who sat me down and said, Hey, look, you submitted this assignment. And it's really good. You could be a writer one day, and you know, she had me write poems, you had me write a number of different things that weren't class assignments. But there were things that she was like, Hey, if you want to do this, then you got to practice it. And I learned so much from her. But the most important thing I took away was that confidence in my ability to do these things.   Michael Hingson  21:27 Yeah, yeah. And that's one of the most important things that good teachers can bring to us and not tear you down, because you don't necessarily do something exactly the way they do or want. But if you can demonstrate you learn that is so cool.   Bradley Akubuiro  21:42 Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. So,   Michael Hingson  21:47 as I said, I keep in touch with declarable Shimer won his 80th birthday, I flew to Nebraska where they live and surprise him for his birthday, which was nice. That's awesome. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. And hopefully, we'll get back there one of these days soon. Meanwhile, I'll just give him a hard time on the phone.   Bradley Akubuiro  22:08 Cathy's out here listening when I'm not going to surprise you don't listen to Michael. But if I show up, then I'll have a cake or something.   Michael Hingson  22:17 Yeah, exactly. Well, so. So what was high school like for you? I think you said there were some things that happened in high school.   Bradley Akubuiro  22:26 Yeah, high school was a I mean, when you think about formative man, this was a formative experience for me. So it was between my sophomore and junior year of high school, when one of my very best friends a guy who I consider to be like an older brother to me, was shot and killed in the drive by shooting. It was devastating. You know, I had a period over a few months, where not only was he killed, and I found out about it, 45 minutes after I'd left town to take my older sister, with my family to college and 22 hours away. So this wasn't something he did every night. And I likely had been with him had we not been on that trip. But you know, he unfortunately passed that night with a 45 caliber bullet hole in his heart. You know, my experience with school with with life that I mean, it really took a turn at that point. Because not only had I lost somebody who was very close to me, but the police didn't catch the guy who did it. In fact, they caught a guy who was a friend of ours that had absolutely nothing to do with it, and put him through absolute hell, only to find out that he wasn't responsible for this, any of us could have told you that right up front. You know, that was a terrible time. You know, a couple of months later, Michael, we had another one of our close friends who was shot and killed. And the girl who was with her at the time was shot in the leg trying to get away. And you know, and another month and a half after that another one of our good friends was you know, shot in his own driveway trying to get into his car and head to the grocery store. And it wasn't safe for us. And it was a really, really challenging time, just to exist, much less to try to focus on school and to focus on other things that are going on. How could you do that? When you didn't know if when you left in the morning, you were going to be able to make it home at night?   Michael Hingson  24:32 Why was there so much crime? Well, that's   Bradley Akubuiro  24:36 a million dollar question. You know, there's so many factors that go into it. And since then, I've spent a lot of time thinking more about the kind of, you know, macro factors, but it's a very specific on the ground situation at that time was there was a gang war between two rival gangs, street gangs in the city. And my engineer who I just referred to lived right in the heart of Eastern Avenue, which is the home of the app and Springfield became there. And across State Street was Sycamore and a number of different folks and rivalries had kind of established then. And so, you know, this was not that there's ever, you know, really sensical reasons that, you know, these things happen. But this was as nonsensical as it could be, you know, people who are killing each other and dying for reasons that if you were to ask those who survived now, why they would ever pull a trigger and situation like this, they probably couldn't really tell you or maybe even remember.   Michael Hingson  25:38 So it wasn't race or anything like that. It was just the whole gang environment, mostly.   Bradley Akubuiro  25:45 Yeah, that's right. And at the time, you know, you think about the economic factors that go into this. And I talked about this in the context of Chicago all the time, because that's where I live now. And the situation is just as salient here. But if you were to be on the west side of Chicago, Northwestern most neighborhood within the city limits of Austin, you would be in one of the poorest and one of the most dangerous zip codes in the industrialized world. If you were to go two miles over to Oak Park, one of the suburbs just outside of the city. It's one of the wealthiest in the region, and it is an amazing neighborhood, and the infrastructure across the board when it comes to the education system, and the amount of money per pupil. If you were to look at the crime statistics, if you were to look at the policing, if you were to look at any measure of quality of life, it is night and day different, but it's separated by a couple of streets. And that to me is unfathomable.   Michael Hingson  26:52 It is crazy. Chris, you also have some really serious gangs back in Chicago. You know, the notorious was the cubs in the Sox, for example.   Bradley Akubuiro  27:03 That's right. And you know what the competition? beaters? You don't get in the middle of those two sets of fans?   Michael Hingson  27:09 Ah, no way. and never the twain shall meet, period. That's right. That's very many people who will say they're fans of both.   Bradley Akubuiro  27:20 I don't think that's legal, actually. Ah,   Michael Hingson  27:23 that would explain it. I'll tell you sports fans are really tough. I remember when I lived in Winthrop, mass right outside of Boston. And every year, I would on opening day, I'd be somewhere in Boston. And if the Red Sox lost immediately, basically everybody on the news and everyone else just said wait till next year. Yeah, they were done. It was no faith at all. It was amazing. And and I remember living back there when Steve Grogan was booed off out of the Patriots game one year and just I'll tell you, they're, they're amazing.   Bradley Akubuiro  28:04 Well look at the dynasties they've gotten now. Unbelievable. Although, you know, I live with a die hard. Tom Brady fan. My fiance has been a Patriots fan since the beginning. And it's been a complete complete nightmare trying to figure out are we watching the Patriots? Are we are we watching the Buccaneers? And are we Tom Brady fans are Patriots fans? You know, it's a little bit of everything in that house. But I can't ever say that I'm not happy. I am a fully dedicated supporter of all things. Somebody in SNAP, otherwise, I'm in a   Michael Hingson  28:39 lot of trouble. It is safer that way. Well, I have gained a lot of respect for Tom Brady, especially after he left the Patriots. And not because I disliked the Patriots, but because of all the scandals and the deflated footballs and all that sort of stuff. But he came back and he proved Hey, you know, it's not what you think at all. I really am good. And he continues to be good.   Bradley Akubuiro  29:03 Yeah, it's 100%. Right. Well, and that to make this, you know, given a broader topic about Tom Brady, he gets plenty of press. But you know, the fact that he was able to say, All right, you have decided that I'm done in this sport. You've decided I'm too old to play this sport, but I have not run to the end of my capability. And in fact, I've got a lot more to offer this game. And he went and he took it with someone who would respect that and the Buccaneers and he won another championship. I mean, you can't you can't make this up.   Michael Hingson  29:38 No, absolutely. You can't. And so we'll see what the Rams do this year. I liked the Rams. I grew up with the Rams, Chris, I'm really prejudiced when it comes to sports and probably a number of things because we've been blessed out here in California with great sports announcers. I mean, of course, Vin Scully, the best of all time in baseball, and I will argue that with anyone But then Dick Enberg did a lot of football and he did the rams and he did the angels. And of course we had Chick Hearn who did the Lakers, their descriptions and the way they did it, especially Vinnie just drew you in. And I've listened and listened to announcers all over the country and never got the kinds of pictures and announced me announcing and announcements that I got by listening to people in California, so I'm a little prejudiced that way.   Bradley Akubuiro  30:31 Well, and you shouldn't be you absolutely should be. And I will say this, the power of storytelling that these folks that you just described are able to wield is phenomenal. And it's a skill that I actually wish more folks had and more different industries. Because if you can tell a strong compelling story, you can make it visual, you can bring people and like that the power it has to bring people together, and to motivate them to act is just unbelievable.   Michael Hingson  31:01 Johnny most was a was a good announcer a pretty great announcer in basketball, but not really so much into the storytelling, but he had a personality that drew you in as well. Well, that counts for a lot. It does. I remember living back there when the Celts were playing the rockets for the championship. And the Celtics lost the first two games. And Johnny most was having a field day picking on the rockets and so on. But Moses Malone, Malone was criticizing the Celtics and said, You know, I can go get for high school people. And we could beat these guys. Wrong thing to say, because then the Celts came back and won the next for Johnny most really had a field day with that. That's what happens. Yeah, you don't open your mouth. Alright, so you went to Northwestern, that's a whole different environment.   Bradley Akubuiro  31:59 Totally different environment. And, you know, I gotta tell you, I owe a ton to Northwestern. The exposure, it gave me two more global mindsets, people come to that university from all over the world, all kinds of different socioeconomic backgrounds, and looking to do so many different things, the academic rigor of the institution, and the resources that were at our disposal, were so incredible that it completely changed my experience. And frankly, the outlook I had for my own self and career. How so? Well, I'll put his way I went to school, for example, at the same time, as you know, students who had some similar backgrounds to the one I did, to being in school at the same time, as you know, Howard Buffett is the grandson of Warren Buffett, and you know, Bill polti, you know, whose grandson of, you know, the polti, you know, the namesake of Pulte Homes, and you know, literally billionaire families. And so you start to realize, if you can sit in a classroom with folks like this, and with all of the opportunities that they've had, the education, they've had private schools, things along those lines, and these are good friends, by the way, you know, when you can do that, and then realize, hey, you know what, I can keep up, I can do this. And then you know, you are receiving, you know, grades professors who support you opportunities, in terms of internships, all of these things, and realms that you never even considered possible even just a year or two earlier. It truly broadens your horizons in ways that I don't even think I could have appreciated before I was into it.   Michael Hingson  33:44 Wow. And that makes a lot of sense, though. We're all we're all people. And we all have our own gifts. And the fact that you could compete is probably not necessarily the best word because it implies that there are things that we don't need to have, but you are all able to work together and that you can all succeed. That's as good as it gets.   Bradley Akubuiro  34:05 That's exactly right. And I do find compared to a lot of places, Northwestern have a very collaborative culture. I found that, you know, from faculty, the staff to students, everybody was very interested in seeing everybody succeed. And you know, we believed truthfully, that all of us could there's enough room on the boat for all of us.   Michael Hingson  34:29 What was your major journalism? No surprise being Northwestern?   Bradley Akubuiro  34:36 Yeah, I was I was a big, big, big proponent of the journalism school and actually still remain affiliated. I'm on the faculty over there and sit on the board of the journalism school and have loved every second of my time, wearing the purple t shirt.   Michael Hingson  34:52 There you go. Is my recollection. Correct? Wasn't Charlton Heston, a graduate of Northwestern?   Bradley Akubuiro  34:57 You know, I don't know the answer to that but I will wouldn't be surprised if it really seems,   Michael Hingson  35:02 it seems to me, I heard that he was doing something where he was he was doing something for Northwestern, as I recall. But that just strikes my memory.   Bradley Akubuiro  35:12 Yeah, there's some very remarkable graduates from that organization.   Michael Hingson  35:16 So you were involved, as I recall, in our conversations about and about such things in dealing with minority enrollment, and so on, and you met some pretty interesting people during your time there. Tell me about that, if you would?   Bradley Akubuiro  35:32 Yeah, no, absolutely. So my freshman year, we will actually, this was my sophomore year, we actually only brought in 81 black freshmen. And that was the lowest number in terms of black enrollment in a given year at Northwestern since the 1960s. And so, you know, the university was looking around and trying to figure out what what is it that we're doing? And where are we missing the mark? And how do we not only attract black applicants, because we were able to get folks to apply? The challenge was to actually get them to choose to matriculate. And where are we losing folks in the process. And so, you know, I had been really, really interested in participating in some of the work around minority recruitment enrollment, from the time that Northwestern had recruited me, because I recognized my background wasn't necessarily what you would consider to be orthodox for the folks that got into schools like this. But they took a real hard look at me and said, We think this guy can be successful here. And I wanted to encourage others who might not necessarily think of Northwestern as an option that was attainable to them, and I don't even know about it, to really start to understand the opportunities that could be available to them. And so I was, you know, flying to different schools, not only in the Chicago area, but back in places that looked a lot like where I grew up, and telling, you know, folks, Northwestern wants you, and you should really give it a shot. And so that was a fascinating time for me, and my own development, that space.   Michael Hingson  37:11 So what did you do for the school and dealing with the whole issue of minorities in that time?   Bradley Akubuiro  37:19 Yeah, there were a handful of things. You know, there's there's one was how do you create programs that channel some of the frustration that a lot of students who look like me had, and so a number of folks, actually, this is the spirit of college students, gotten together, you know, put up signs and decided to kind of protest. And so instead of going through, and just kind of registering our anger, what I did was work with the admissions office. And I did actually formally work as a work study student and worked on some of the stuff, it wasn't just volunteer, but take this energy that the students had, and create programs like a pen pal program, like a fly in programs, some volunteer initiatives that we can have, that would allow students who are upset about the outcomes, to help change those outcomes by direct engagement with those who might come to Northwestern, and really improve our metrics for the following year. And we were able to do that, both in the African American and Latino communities. What did   Michael Hingson  38:23 you discover? Or what did the university discover about why people might apply, but then didn't matriculate. And then how did you turn that around?   Bradley Akubuiro  38:32 Yeah, there were a couple of things. So one was, for students who are getting into places like Northwestern, very commonly, we saw that they were getting into places like University of Pennsylvania, Stanford, Harvard, a number of other universities at the same time, particularly if you were to think about the minority students who are applying and getting in, and what those schools had, that Northwestern didn't quite have, was full need blind admissions processes, which Northwestern did adopt. But the short version of this is, if you got into one of those schools, you are probably going to be able to get if this if your circumstances required a full ride. And so, you know, the economic opportunity was really significant. And you were at a disadvantage. If you were a student who was interested in going to Northwestern, or any of these other schools that was really good, but couldn't you couldn't afford to go and you're gonna go to the place that you could afford to go and maybe that's your local school, or maybe that's one of these other schools, but we had to really do something to create the funding to ensure that these folks could go to the school and do it at a at a rate that wasn't going to break the bag.   Michael Hingson  39:49 And you found ways to do that. Well, I   Bradley Akubuiro  39:52 certainly didn't do it alone, but the university   39:55 there see University found ways to do that. Yes, that's right.   40:00 We started up a commission. So a number of students, myself included, foreign petition at the time, Marty Shapiro, who was the President of University took this issue very seriously as a economic scholar, and genuinely his background is in the economics of higher education. And he started at the school as president, while I was in again, my sophomore year, as a lot of these things were kind of taking shape and taking hold. And as one of the most successful leaders that I've met, invited us in students, the leaders in the university who are focused on this, and we had asked for a taskforce to focus on this. And he set one up, and he chaired it. And it was focused on how do we create opportunities for access, particularly for this community that had need, but wanted to be here. And, you know, one of the things that he did pretty early on in his tenure, was to establish a fund that was going to be dedicated to programs to financial need to a number of different things that would directly address this community. And we built on it from there.   41:14 Wow, that's, it's great that you had a strong champion who was willing to be farsighted enough to help with that, isn't it?   Bradley Akubuiro  41:22 Absolutely. It would not have been possible without that.   Michael Hingson  41:25 So you met as I recall you saying Jesse Jackson, somewhere along the way? in that arena, especially since you're in the Chicago area? That makes a lot of sense.   Bradley Akubuiro  41:35 Yeah, you know what I'm starting to put together thanks to you hear that this was a pretty big year for me.   Michael Hingson  41:41 To see, I'm getting impressed. So I did about yourself.   Bradley Akubuiro  41:50 You know, it's funny. But yeah, there was a convergence of things. And so in this particular year, I did meet Reverend Jesse Jackson. And this started a relationship that's been incredible and life changing that remains to this day. But the way that it happened, Michael, is that there was a woman Roxana Saberi, who had been taken political prisoner by Iran, and she worked for the BBC. She had been a former Northwestern middle student. So a number of us who are part of the journalism program, Adele had decided that we were going to get together and as college students are wanting to do, we decided to protest and hopes that we would, on our campus in Evanston, get the State Department to pay more attention to this particular issue. And hopefully, it takes negotiating for her really seriously. And while I have no idea whether, at the time Secretary Clinton saw anything we were doing, my guess, is probably not Reverend Jackson, who to your point was just on the other side of Chicago did. And the connection there is Roxanne's buried, did her first interview with the BBC as a professional reporter with Reverend Jesse Jackson. And he was committed to advocating for her release. And so he actually reached out to us, via the university asked a few of us to come down and join a press conference with him, where he intended to go and negotiate for her release on humanitarian grounds. And I participated in that with another student. And it was absolutely phenomenal and led to so many doors being opened for me.   Michael Hingson  43:35 Wow, what your were you in school at the time?   Bradley Akubuiro  43:38 So this was my sophomore year. Great, great. Again, still part of the great sophomore year. Yeah, and I continue to work with Reverend Jackson, throughout the remainder of my time in college and for some period after college. But there were a number of things, but it all tied back together, because the issue that Reverend Jackson was advocating for at the time that spoke most deeply to me, was this issue of college affordability and access, and you have this program called reduce the rate, which was all about reducing the interest rate on student education loans, because we had bailed out banks. And you know, the autos and so many others, rates of zero to 1% and said, Hey, you're in trouble pass back when you're ready. We'll make it cheap and affordable for you to do that. But we never granted that level of grace to students who are supposed to be our future. And instead, we were breaking their backs was, you know, interest rates of six to in some cases, as high as 18%. Without any, you know, kind of recourse you get stuck with these things for life.   Michael Hingson  44:47 And people wonder why we keep talking about eliminating the loans today or lowering the interest rate and the reality is, as you said, students are our future and we should be doing all we can to say point that that's absolutely   Bradley Akubuiro  45:01 right. I still firmly believe that and, you know, our loan system, and frankly, the cost of education is just crippling. It's, it's, it's crazy. And this is for multiple generations. And I'm sad for what the future will look like if we can't figure this situation out.   Michael Hingson  45:23 Yeah, we've got to do something different than we're doing. And it's just kind of crazy the way it is. It's extremely unfortunate. Well, so you got a bachelor's? Did you go get any advanced degree or?   Bradley Akubuiro  45:36 Well, I did actually attend Northwestern. For a good portion, I masters that integrated the integrated marketing communications program over there. And that dovetails really well into where my career ultimately went and where it currently resides. But you know, Northwestern was the educator of choice for me.   Michael Hingson  45:57 So, career wise, so what did you then go off and do? Since you opened the door? Yeah.   Bradley Akubuiro  46:03 So you know, it's been a number of different things. And this will sound disparate, but it all comes together. I went, after working with Reverend Jackson to Liberia, and I spent time in Liberia working for the president of Liberia on postwar kind of reestablishment of a democracy, which was a big thing. And frankly, way above my paygrade, I got an opportunity to work on it, because I had spent time working with Reverend Jesse Jackson, and that will come back in a second. But there was a student who was doing his PhD program at Northwestern, who had been who is I should say, the grandson of a former president of Liberia, who had been killed in a coup in October. And I had been friends with him, I knew that I wanted to get to West Africa to do some work, particularly around education and social programs. And he connected me with his mother who had been deputy minister of education. And I had been fortunate enough to create an arrangement that I was really excited about to go to Monrovia, and Liberia, the capital city, and to spend some time working on programs out there. And when she found out that I worked with Reverend Jesse Jackson, she called the president and said, This could be a great opportunity. And they cooked up a program where I would actually champion and work on establishing a program and policy around leadership development, and capacity building for the country post Civil War, which was, again, an absolutely amazing and life changing experience, really hard.   Michael Hingson  47:45 What was the world like over there? And what was it like for you being from a completely different culture as it were than over in Liberia?   Bradley Akubuiro  47:53 Well, the first thing I'll say is, if you live in the United States, and you believe, you know, poverty, you ain't seen nothing yet. Because, you know, one of the things that you will find in countries like Liberia, and some of the places and post war, Eastern Europe and the 90s, and different kinds of places is, there is a level of resilience and a level of spirit that is built into society that comes almost entirely from experience with incredible hardship, just absolutely incredible hardship. And Liberia at the time that I was over there was amongst the, you know, five poorest countries in the world, after what had been 14 years of concrete civil war and 30 years of civil unrest. But the people that I met could not have been better spirited, and just nicer, more optimistic and incredible people.   Michael Hingson  48:52 So how long were you over there?   48:54 I was over there for less than a year and spent some time doing consulting, even after I came back to DC, but was on the ground for less than a year.   49:03 And when you came back from Liberia, what did you go off and do?   49:07 When I came back from Liberia and I want to, you know, couch this and my rationale, I had worked for Reverend Jesse Jackson on these big kind of global programs that that presidents and heads of state and you know, business leaders and all these different folks went over to Liberia and got this chance to work on, you know, kind of reinstituting a democracy and meaningful ways with the president who later on became a Nobel Prize, Peace Prize Laureate. And you know, what I came to realize, Michael, was that my opportunities were quickly outpacing my experience. And so what I said is, let's now try to find a place where I can get some of the fundamentals some of the framework for a lot of the work that I had the opportunity to do. And the place that I chose to go is Booz Allen Hamilton is a management consulting firm and you One of the largest public sector practices in the world. And so I went in with the intention of really being able to shore up my skills. And what happened? Well, hopefully they'll tell you that I was successful.   Michael Hingson  50:11 Okay, good.   Bradley Akubuiro  50:16 It was a really fascinating time to be there. You know, Booz Allen, had a lot of significant contracts. This was the time of the Affordable Care Act's passage. And so, you know, at the time that I went over, I got to work almost exclusively on ACA, and a lot is talked about in terms of the legislative kind of process to get that accomplished. But what is talked a lot less about is the actual opera operationalization of it, and what that looks like to stand up state health exchanges, and different states to actually entice somebody coming from, you know, a psychiatry program at top medical school, that choose to put on a uniform and go to a base at, you know, an Air Force base or an army base, and provide clinical care for those who are returning from war in Iraq and Afghanistan. And all of these were provisions of the bill. But actually implementing those things, was a very tall order. And so I got an opportunity to really kind of roll up my sleeves and work on a lot of that work. And that was incredibly formative work.   Michael Hingson  51:22 So it was a real challenge, of course, to get the Affordable Care Act passed. I remember in 2009, I was speaking at a an event for a companies whose hospital boards and leaders of the staffs of the hospitals in the network, were getting together and I went to, to speak, and talk about some of my experiences and talk about disabilities and so on. The person right before me, was a medical expert. He was, it was a person who talked about the whole concept of how we needed to change our whole idea and environment of medical care, and what we really needed to do as a country and so on. And he had been involved in every president's investigation of how to change the medical synth system. Ever since I think he went this was 2009, I think he went back to Nixon, Oh, wow. He, he said it all came down to the same thing. And he said The best example is, he was doing this as part of the team for Bill Clinton. And they talked about what needed to be done, how to change the medical system, and everybody bought into it, and so on, until it got down to specifics of saying what it was going to cost. And that they needed to deal with some of the provisions that eventually went into the Affordable Care Act. And he said, As soon as the politicians got a hold of it, and said, This is a horrible thing, you're gonna cause too much controversy, the President's would all run. And that's why no one ever got anything accomplished. And he also said that Obama was probably going to get something passed. And he actually predicted almost to a tee, if you will, what was going to pass. And that's exactly what passed and what didn't pass. And he said, later, we'll actually start to worry about the cost of, of medical coverage in this country, but they're not really willing to face that issue yet. And he predicted we would be able to do something by 2015. Well, that hasn't really happened yet, either. And now we're maybe making a little bit of a dent. But it was very fascinating to listen to him predict, based on so many years of expertise, what was going to happen.   Bradley Akubuiro  53:46 Yeah, I mean, that's incredible. And I will say, a lot of times the policy takes a backseat to the politics on these things. And it takes so much, you know, Will and kind of moral fortitude to get in there and drive these things, particularly when there's interests on the other side of it. But you know, I'm with you. We're not quite where I think you predicted we'd be in 2015. But driving towards it now. And hopefully we'll make more progress.   Michael Hingson  54:16 Yeah, we're slowly getting there. So what did you do after Booz Allen Hamilton?   Bradley Akubuiro  54:21 Yeah, so the things that I really love the most about that work during that time that the the change in a lot of that kind of management strategy was the change communications aspects of it. And so I knew that I wanted to get more fully into communications. And so the next few jobs for me, were discretely corporate communications, if you will. And so I got an opportunity to follow a mentor to a company called Pratt and Whitney jet engine company, you know, builds jet engines from from fighter jets to, you know, the big commercial airplanes that we fly in, and love that experience. It's moved to kind of the corporate side of that company to United Technologies in time and worked on a number of different mergers and acquisitions, including the spin offs of Otis, the big Elevator Company to carry air conditioning both of these which spun off into fortune 200 publicly traded companies their own, to ultimately what became you know, the merger with Raytheon. Raytheon? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It most recently produced Raytheon technologies. And so a really, really fascinating set of experiences for me there. And then   Michael Hingson  55:35 you along the way, also, I guess, we're part of the formation of bully pulpit international with the Obama Biden administration.   Bradley Akubuiro  55:44 You know, I wasn't part of the founding, this all kind of happened in parallel with folks who I have a ton of respect for who I now work with bully pulpit, interact was formed in 2009, with a number of folks who came out of that Obama campaign, and then White House. And it started in the kind of digital marketing, digital persuasion space, and all of the kind of, you know, really amazing tactics and strategies that they learned on that campaign, particularly, as social media was starting to become more popularized and more mass adopted, they said, how do we start to apply some of that stuff, as you think about not only other campaigns, but to foundations and advocacy groups into corporations? And you know, you flash forward 1213 years now, and this is a fully operational 250 person agency, where we're focused on, you know, how do you help organizations of all types, you know, really express their values and find their voices on these really key important issues. But also, how do leaders make really tough decisions on things like, you know, Roe v. Wade, and what that means for their employee base, and what they're going to do policy wise, and how they're going to communicate around that afterwards? On through gun reform, and what folks do if you know, you are operating, and buffalo or in Texas, when you know, some of the massacres that happened earlier this year happen. And this has been, you know, really fascinating. And I came over here after being chief spokesperson for Boeing. And it's been really fun to reunite with some old friends and folks who have been doing this kind of work for a really long time now.   Michael Hingson  57:37 So Boeing, so when did you leave Boeing   Bradley Akubuiro  57:41 left Boeing, a year, just shy of a year and a half go   Michael Hingson  57:45 around during the whole 737 Max thing?   Bradley Akubuiro  57:49 Well, you know, interestingly, you bring this up, I was brought over to Boeing, in response to the 737. Max, you know, I was asked to come over and to really think about what does a world class Media Relations organization look like? That is going to be transparent, accountable, and 24/7? Around the globe? And more than anything, after you've had, you know, two accidents on the scale that they had, you know, how do we really become more human and how we interact with all of our stakeholders, internal and external on a lot of this stuff? And that was a really, really, really challenging, but rewarding process to be part of and to help lead?   Michael Hingson  58:33 How do you advise people? Or what do you advise people in those kinds of situations, you had a major crisis? And clearly, there's an issue? What do you what do you tell corporate executives to do? And how hard was it to get them to do it?   Bradley Akubuiro  58:49 Yeah. So on the first part of that question, it really comes down to being human, you got to put yourself in the shoes of the people that you're trying to communicate with, and to, if you are a person who lost a loved one, on a plane that went down outside of, you know, Addis Ababa, and Ethiopia, if you if you were, you know, one of the people who lost your, your spouse or your kid, you know, the last thing you want to hear from a company is, you know, we did things right, from an engineering standpoint, what you want to hear from that company, is, we are so sorry that this happened. And we're going to do absolutely everything in our power to ensure it can never happen again. And here are the steps we're taking and here's what we're going to do to try to make things right and you can never completely make things right. In that circumstance. You can at least be understanding.   Michael Hingson  59:48 I remember 1982 When we had the Tylenol cyanide incident, you know about that. Yeah. And if For us, and what was the most impressive thing about that was within two days, the president of company was out in front of it. And as you said, being human, that's a corporate lesson that more people really should learn.   Bradley Akubuiro  1:00:18 Yeah, it's a difficult thing to do. Because I think, and this isn't just lawyers, but it's easy to blame it on lawyers, the natural reaction is to immediately think, well, what's my liability going to be? What are people going to think if they think that I actually did make this mistake? And how do I cover it up? And how do I try to diffuse responsibility? And that is exactly the opposite of what you should do. And this isn't just good communications. This is good leadership.   Michael Hingson  1:00:44 Good leadership. Yeah,   Bradley Akubuiro  1:00:45 that's right. And we need more people to really understand that to your point.   Michael Hingson  1:00:50 Well, and with with Boeing, it sounds like if I recall, all of the stuff that least that we saw on the news, which may or may not have been totally accurate, there were some issues. And it took a while to deal with some of that to get people to, to face what occurred that necessarily things weren't going exactly the way they really should have in terms of what people were communicating and what people knew and didn't know.   Bradley Akubuiro  1:01:15 Yeah, well, then you ask the question, how difficult was it to get the senior executives to get on board with the new approach. And what I would say is, and this goes back to some of we were talking about earlier, the top down kind of approach to this, and what's happening and the most senior role matters the most. And the CEO who came in this was after the former CEO was was like, you know, the chief legal officer, the head of that business, and a number of different executives, you keep going on, had exited the company, the new CEO, who came in they've Calhoun, currently is still the CEO, they're brought in this new wave, this refreshing new approach and culture, and was all about how do we ensure that we are being accountable, and that we're being transparent, because that is what matters in this circumstance. And so with that license to operate, it was a lot easier to come in and convince folks Well, this is how we should approach this from a media perspective, from a communications staff perspective, and across the board, with our customers with regulators, cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Because everybody was on board that this is what we needed to do. And frankly, it's the only way to not only repair our reputation, because this is 100 year old company has been at the first of so many different things historically, from an aviation standpoint, and helped truly invent modern flight. So how do you create a reputation that people expect coming out of that, but also to respect again, those who trusted the company, because when you step on a fly, you know, you know, as Michael, when you stop on a flight, you don't want to think about whether it's gonna make it to the other side or not. You want to trust that it's gonna make it to the other side and focus on what you got to do when you get there and everything else in your life. And people had for a brief period of time lost that faith. And that is what we were really trying to restore.   Michael Hingson  1:03:15 Do you think you were pretty successful at getting faith and confidence restored,   Bradley Akubuiro  1:03:20 I think we've made a good start at bone still remains a client. And I would say that the work that is ongoing is going to take time, because it takes five seconds to lose your reputation. It takes a long time to rebuild it and to regain trust. And I think the company is committed to what it needs to do to do that. But it is a journey.   Michael Hingson  1:03:44 What do you advise people today you do a lot of consulting, and you're in

This week on Episode Ten of the Announcer Schedules Podcast, Mike Gill and Phil de Montmollin provide part two of a tribute to the late Vin Scully with more clips displaying the iconic style of an American treasure.In addition, the podcast previews the upcoming NFL season and discusses the implications of the new college football broadcast rights deals.  Throughout the show, a total of 79 different announcers from past and present are mentioned with an array of topics discussed including: -          More on Vin Scully's greatest calls -          Scully, the soundtrack of Los Angeles -          Longevity of Scully, Hearn & Miller -          Scully's impact on other announcers-          NFL on FOX broadcaster roster-          Week One of NFL regular season announcer pairings-          NFL Preseason announcers-          More hires for Amazon Prime Thursday Night NFL -          Implications of Big Ten television deals-          Eli Gold of Alabama Crimson Tide Radio-          New hire for ESPN College Football Gameday-          MLB Field of Dreams Game-          Dennis Eckersley retiring from booth-          Nick Faldo sign off from CBS-          Bill Walton 30-for-30-          Roxy Bernstein preview-          Keith Hernandez and the Phillies  Episode 10 announcer mentions: Vin Scully, Chick Hearn, Bob Miller, Charley Steiner, Sean McDonough, Tim McCarver, Johnny Bench, Curt Schilling, John Kruk, Craig Sager, Jack Buck, Tom McGinnis, Dick Enberg, Keith Jackson, Jon Miller, Joe Davis, Brent Musburger, Jerry Coleman, Bob Costas, Al Michaels, Marv Albert, Joe Buck, Jason Benetti, Harry Kalas, George Ofman, Wayne Larrivee, Kevin Burkhardt, Greg Olsen, Erin Andrews, Tom Rinaldi, Tom Brady, Daryl Johnston, Pam Oliver, Adam Amin, Mark Schlereth, Kristina Pink, Kenny Albert, Jonathan Vilma, Shannon Spake, Kevin Kugler, Mark Sanchez, Laura Okmin, Chris Myers, Robert Smith, Jen Hale, Troy Aikman, Mike Tirico, Bob Papa, Dan Hellie, Charles Davis, Justin Kutcher, Brandon Gaudin, Dave Pasch, Ian Eagle, Anthony Becht, Scott Graham, Ross Tucker, Kevin Harlan, Greg Papa, Taylor Rooks, Michael Smith, Gino Torretta, T.J. Rives, Jess Sims, Eli Gold, Chris Stewart, John Smoltz, Ken Rosenthal, Tom Verducci, Dennis Eckersley, Nick Faldo, Jim Nantz, Trevor Immelman, Bill Walton, Roxy Bernstein, Jay Bilas, Keith Hernandez, Tom McCarthy, Gary Cohen Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week on Episode Ten of the Announcer Schedules Podcast, Mike Gill and Phil de Montmollin provide part two of a tribute to the late Vin Scully with more clips displaying the iconic style of an American treasure.In addition, the podcast previews the upcoming NFL season and discusses the implications of the new college football broadcast rights deals.  Throughout the show, a total of 79 different announcers from past and present are mentioned with an array of topics discussed including: -          More on Vin Scully's greatest calls -          Scully, the soundtrack of Los Angeles -          Longevity of Scully, Hearn & Miller -          Scully's impact on other announcers-          NFL on FOX broadcaster roster-          Week One of NFL regular season announcer pairings-          NFL Preseason announcers-          More hires for Amazon Prime Thursday Night NFL -          Implications of Big Ten television deals-          Eli Gold of Alabama Crimson Tide Radio-          New hire for ESPN College Football Gameday-          MLB Field of Dreams Game-          Dennis Eckersley retiring from booth-          Nick Faldo sign off from CBS-          Bill Walton 30-for-30-          Roxy Bernstein preview-          Keith Hernandez and the Phillies  Episode 10 announcer mentions: Vin Scully, Chick Hearn, Bob Miller, Charley Steiner, Sean McDonough, Tim McCarver, Johnny Bench, Curt Schilling, John Kruk, Craig Sager, Jack Buck, Tom McGinnis, Dick Enberg, Keith Jackson, Jon Miller, Joe Davis, Brent Musburger, Jerry Coleman, Bob Costas, Al Michaels, Marv Albert, Joe Buck, Jason Benetti, Harry Kalas, George Ofman, Wayne Larrivee, Kevin Burkhardt, Greg Olsen, Erin Andrews, Tom Rinaldi, Tom Brady, Daryl Johnston, Pam Oliver, Adam Amin, Mark Schlereth, Kristina Pink, Kenny Albert, Jonathan Vilma, Shannon Spake, Kevin Kugler, Mark Sanchez, Laura Okmin, Chris Myers, Robert Smith, Jen Hale, Troy Aikman, Mike Tirico, Bob Papa, Dan Hellie, Charles Davis, Justin Kutcher, Brandon Gaudin, Dave Pasch, Ian Eagle, Anthony Becht, Scott Graham, Ross Tucker, Kevin Harlan, Greg Papa, Taylor Rooks, Michael Smith, Gino Torretta, T.J. Rives, Jess Sims, Eli Gold, Chris Stewart, John Smoltz, Ken Rosenthal, Tom Verducci, Dennis Eckersley, Nick Faldo, Jim Nantz, Trevor Immelman, Bill Walton, Roxy Bernstein, Jay Bilas, Keith Hernandez, Tom McCarthy, Gary Cohen Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On this episode of Locked On UCLA, Zach Anderson-Yoxsimer switches gears as he discusses the passing of broadcasting icon Vin Scully at the age of 94. Rather than repeat Vin's legendary calls, the episode takes a look at some of Scully's connections with UCLA legends John Wooden & Jackie Robinson. Also, a look into how great the broadcasting has been in Los Angeles with names like Chick Hearn, Bob Miller, and Dick Enberg to go along with Vin Scully over the years.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedInLinkedIn jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at Linkedin.com/lockedoncollege Terms and conditions apply.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you'll get 15% off your next order.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this episode of Locked On UCLA, Zach Anderson-Yoxsimer switches gears as he discusses the passing of broadcasting icon Vin Scully at the age of 94. Rather than repeat Vin's legendary calls, the episode takes a look at some of Scully's connections with UCLA legends John Wooden & Jackie Robinson. Also, a look into how great the broadcasting has been in Los Angeles with names like Chick Hearn, Bob Miller, and Dick Enberg to go along with Vin Scully over the years. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! LinkedIn LinkedIn jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at Linkedin.com/lockedoncollege Terms and conditions apply. Built Bar Built Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you'll get 15% off your next order. BetOnline BetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Actor Tony Crivello & Barbara Enberg joins Homer & Tony to discuss the opening of the play 'McGuire' at the Next Act Theater in Milwaukee and share plenty of Al McGuire and Dick Enberg stories.

Sports media's two biggest rights deals that are available at the moment – one for the Big Ten and the other for the UEFA Champions League – are the first two topics on this week's podcast. Andrew Marchand and John Ourand provide updates on what viewers can expect once these deals get signed.   The two also look at Matthew Berry's decision to leave ESPN after a 15-year run. Marchand and Ourand talk about where he's headed and why it makes sense. They also look at who will replace Berry as the face of ESPN's fantasy sports business. Other topics include a new on-air role at ESPN for Robert Griffin III and the latest on the NFL's Sunday Ticket negotiations.   Mentioned this week: Danny Sillman, Robert Griffin III, Randy Moss, David Jacoby, Ja Morant, Eric Rydholm, Ben Strauss, Adam Schefter, Armando Benitez, Chris Mason, Acie Wyatt, Abe Madkour, Mark Sanchez, Matthew Berry, Field Yates, Stephania Bell, Mike Clay, Pete Sampras, Roger Goodell, Brian Rolapp, Nick Kyrgios, Novak Djokovic, Chris Fowler, John McEnroe, Patrick McEnroe, Renaud Lichtenstein, Bud Collins, Dick Enberg. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on Episode Seven of the Announcer Schedules Podcast, Mike Gill and Phil de Montmollin welcome NASCAR on NBC lead race announcer Rick Allen to discuss his career and life as one of motorsports' preeminent announcers. Allen includes a fascinating reflection on his first-ever Cup Series broadcast on NBC and much more in a compelling conversation.Throughout the show, a total of 62 announcers are mentioned with an array of topics discussed including:·         A tribute to legendary NFL and Horse Racing prognosticator Hank Goldberg·         One month until start of NFL Preseason·         USFL Championship Game on FOX·         Implications of college football re-alignment ·         New pairing for Learfield's National Game of the Week with Sloane Martin and Mike Golic Jr. ·         No announcers in the booth for Royals-Tigers·         Kevin Connors in for Michael Kay·         Padres Hall of Fame Induction, San Diego broadcasters·         Wimbledon on ESPN·         NASCAR on NBC Episode 7 announcer mentions:Rick Allen, Kevin Kugler, John Forslund, Larry Collmus, Bob Wischusen, George Ofman, T.J. Rives, Hank Goldberg, Rick Weaver, Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder, Jon “Boog” Sciambi, Stugotz, Sonny Hirsch, Chris McKendry, Mike Tirico, Cris Collinsworth, Al Michaels, Melissa Stark, Kevin Harlan, Kurt Warner, Rebecca Lowe, Michele Tafoya, Ahmad Rashad, Curt Menefee, Joel Klatt, Brock Huard, Jason Garrett, Gino Torretta, Mike Golic, Kate Scott, Mike Golic Jr., Sloane Martin, Tom McGinnis, Lisa Byington, Ahmed Fareed, Britney Eurton, Craig Monroe, Kirk Herbstreit, Michael Kay, Alex Rodriguez, Kevin Connors, Ted Leitner, Jesse Agler, Tony Gwynn Jr., Don Orsillo, Mark Grant, Matt Vasgersian, Dick Enberg, Chris Fowler, John McEnroe, Patrick McEnroe, Mary Jo Fernandez, Pam Shriver, Darrell Waltrip, Phil Parsons, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton, Steve Letarte, Marty Snider, Dave Burns, Parker Kligerman, Marc Kestecher   It's all part of the "Announcer Schedules Podcast" and make sure to follow/subscribe to this Sports Media Watch feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, etc. to hear more great episodes with Mike and Phil!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week on Episode Seven of the Announcer Schedules Podcast, Mike Gill and Phil de Montmollin welcome NASCAR on NBC lead race announcer Rick Allen to discuss his career and life as one of motorsports' preeminent announcers. Allen includes a fascinating reflection on his first-ever Cup Series broadcast on NBC and much more in a compelling conversation.Throughout the show, a total of 62 announcers are mentioned with an array of topics discussed including:·         A tribute to legendary NFL and Horse Racing prognosticator Hank Goldberg·         One month until start of NFL Preseason·         USFL Championship Game on FOX·         Implications of college football re-alignment ·         New pairing for Learfield's National Game of the Week with Sloane Martin and Mike Golic Jr. ·         No announcers in the booth for Royals-Tigers·         Kevin Connors in for Michael Kay·         Padres Hall of Fame Induction, San Diego broadcasters·         Wimbledon on ESPN·         NASCAR on NBC Episode 7 announcer mentions:Rick Allen, Kevin Kugler, John Forslund, Larry Collmus, Bob Wischusen, George Ofman, T.J. Rives, Hank Goldberg, Rick Weaver, Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder, Jon “Boog” Sciambi, Stugotz, Sonny Hirsch, Chris McKendry, Mike Tirico, Cris Collinsworth, Al Michaels, Melissa Stark, Kevin Harlan, Kurt Warner, Rebecca Lowe, Michele Tafoya, Ahmad Rashad, Curt Menefee, Joel Klatt, Brock Huard, Jason Garrett, Gino Torretta, Mike Golic, Kate Scott, Mike Golic Jr., Sloane Martin, Tom McGinnis, Lisa Byington, Ahmed Fareed, Britney Eurton, Craig Monroe, Kirk Herbstreit, Michael Kay, Alex Rodriguez, Kevin Connors, Ted Leitner, Jesse Agler, Tony Gwynn Jr., Don Orsillo, Mark Grant, Matt Vasgersian, Dick Enberg, Chris Fowler, John McEnroe, Patrick McEnroe, Mary Jo Fernandez, Pam Shriver, Darrell Waltrip, Phil Parsons, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton, Steve Letarte, Marty Snider, Dave Burns, Parker Kligerman, Marc Kestecher   It's all part of the "Announcer Schedules Podcast" and make sure to follow/subscribe to this Sports Media Watch feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, etc. to hear more great episodes with Mike and Phil!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week on Episode Six of the Announcers Schedules Podcast, Mike Gill and Phil de Montmollin welcome in Kevin Kugler of FOX Sports, BTN and Westwood One to discuss his career and life as one of the nation's busiest announcers. Kugler tells stories ranging from the Final Four and The Masters, to the NFL and the recently concluded Men's College World Series.Throughout the show, a grand total of 79 different announcers are mentioned along with an array of topics discussed including:· Charissa Thompson officially named studio host with Amazon Prime, more names for Thursday Night NFL · Luke Kuechly new Carolina Panthers radio analyst · NHL Stanley Cup complete, championship calls from ABC, Sports USA and Avalanche Radio · MLB on Peacock; a top crew on TBS· Nick Faldo comments regarding LIV Golf · USFL Championship; future of the league · NASCAR season debut on NBC · Men's College World Series on TV and radioPlus a tribute to the late Tony Siragusa and a look back at his unique broadcasting career.And our Announcer Schedules Episode 6 Mentions:Kevin Kugler, Debbie Antonelli, Sean Farnham, Ted Enberg, Dick Enberg, Brent Musburger, Larry Collmus, John Forslund, Bob Wischusen, George Ofman, John Rooney, T.J. Rives, Lindsay Czarniak, Charissa Thompson, Kirk Herbstreit, Al Michaels, Tony Gonzalez, Richard Sherman, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Aqib Talib, Andrew Whitworth, Colin Thompson, Luke Kuechly, Anish Shroff, Paul Finebaum, Marc Zumoff, Kate Scott, Tom McGinnis, Sean McDonough, Ray Ferraro, Emily Kaplan, John Ahlers, Joe Micheletti, Conor McGahey, Peter McNab, Jason Benetti, Tommy Hutton, Ron Darling, Keith Hernandez, Cliff Floyd, Ahmed Fareed, Don Orsillo, Brian Anderson, Bob Costas, Nick Faldo, Dan Patrick, Jim Nantz, Andrew Catalon, Curt Menefee, Joel Klatt, Brock Huard, James Brown, Rick Allen, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Steve Letarte, Jeff Burton, Marty Snider, Dave Burns, Parker Kligerman, Michael Bourn, Pete Thompson, Neil Nelkin, Tony Roberts, Tim Brando, John Thompson, Bill Raftery, Bill Russell, Robbie Hummel, Chris Spielman, Stephen Bardo, Dick Jerardi, John Sterling, Harry Kalas, Tony Siragusa, Dick Stockton, Daryl Johnston, Kenny Albert, Thom Brennaman, Charles Davis Hear them all on the "Announcer Schedules Podcast" and make sure to follow/subscribe to the Sports Media Watch podcast feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, etc.!! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week on Episode Six of the Announcers Schedules Podcast, Mike Gill and Phil de Montmollin welcome in Kevin Kugler of FOX Sports, BTN and Westwood One to discuss his career and life as one of the nation's busiest announcers. Kugler tells stories ranging from the Final Four and The Masters, to the NFL and the recently concluded Men's College World Series.Throughout the show, a grand total of 79 different announcers are mentioned along with an array of topics discussed including:· Charissa Thompson officially named studio host with Amazon Prime, more names for Thursday Night NFL · Luke Kuechly new Carolina Panthers radio analyst · NHL Stanley Cup complete, championship calls from ABC, Sports USA and Avalanche Radio · MLB on Peacock; a top crew on TBS· Nick Faldo comments regarding LIV Golf · USFL Championship; future of the league · NASCAR season debut on NBC · Men's College World Series on TV and radioPlus a tribute to the late Tony Siragusa and a look back at his unique broadcasting career.And our Announcer Schedules Episode 6 Mentions:Kevin Kugler, Debbie Antonelli, Sean Farnham, Ted Enberg, Dick Enberg, Brent Musburger, Larry Collmus, John Forslund, Bob Wischusen, George Ofman, John Rooney, T.J. Rives, Lindsay Czarniak, Charissa Thompson, Kirk Herbstreit, Al Michaels, Tony Gonzalez, Richard Sherman, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Aqib Talib, Andrew Whitworth, Colin Thompson, Luke Kuechly, Anish Shroff, Paul Finebaum, Marc Zumoff, Kate Scott, Tom McGinnis, Sean McDonough, Ray Ferraro, Emily Kaplan, John Ahlers, Joe Micheletti, Conor McGahey, Peter McNab, Jason Benetti, Tommy Hutton, Ron Darling, Keith Hernandez, Cliff Floyd, Ahmed Fareed, Don Orsillo, Brian Anderson, Bob Costas, Nick Faldo, Dan Patrick, Jim Nantz, Andrew Catalon, Curt Menefee, Joel Klatt, Brock Huard, James Brown, Rick Allen, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Steve Letarte, Jeff Burton, Marty Snider, Dave Burns, Parker Kligerman, Michael Bourn, Pete Thompson, Neil Nelkin, Tony Roberts, Tim Brando, John Thompson, Bill Raftery, Bill Russell, Robbie Hummel, Chris Spielman, Stephen Bardo, Dick Jerardi, John Sterling, Harry Kalas, Tony Siragusa, Dick Stockton, Daryl Johnston, Kenny Albert, Thom Brennaman, Charles Davis Hear them all on the "Announcer Schedules Podcast" and make sure to follow/subscribe to the Sports Media Watch podcast feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, etc.!! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

News of Apple's all-encompassing Major League Soccer deal broke just before Andrew Marchand and John Ourand taped this week's podcast. The two go in-depth on deal terms and what Apple's involvement means for the rest of the business. Marchand and Ourand also analyze what Luis Silberwasser's surprise appointment as chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery Sports means for the sports media business and what changes to expect at Turner Sports.   Chris Solomon, host of the golf podcast No Laying Up, joins this week as The Big Get. Speaking from the US Open, Solomon talked about the future of LIV Golf and the PGA Tour and what to expect from both. As always, the two pick who's up (Peyton Manning and Don Garber) and who's down (Bob Chapek and Jay Monahan), as well as the Call of the Week from Mike Breen. Mentions this week: Rory McIroy, Greg Norman, Don Garber, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Pat McAfee, Dan Le Batard, Tom Brady, Bob Chapek, Jay Monahan, Jim Nantz, Michael Jordan, Taylor Twellman, Chris LaPlaca, David Zaslav, Chris Mason, Lenny Daniels, Jimmy Pitaro, Jeff Zucker, David Levy, Karen Brodkin, Hillary Mandel, Sean McDonough, Al Michaels, Joe Buck, Jack Buck, Dick Enberg, Curt Gowdy, Dick Stockton, Charissa Thompson, Kay Adams, Nate Burleson, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Richard Sherman, Tony Gonzalez, Marshawn Lynch, Kirk Herbstreit, Patrick Reed, Dustin Johnson, Charles Schwartzel, Phil Mickelson, Mark Cuban, Elon Musk, Talor Gooch, Tiger Woods, Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Mohammad bin Salman, Jordan Poole, Mike Breen, Marv Albert, Ian Eagle, Eddy Cue. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bill Walton and Lesley still disagree. After watching him play in college and covering him in the NBA, Lesley got to work with him for about five years when Bill, Dick Enberg and her did March Madness together for CBS. One night, on their way to an NCAA Regional semifinal, Bill started talking about who sweated the most in the history of the NBA. Lesley said Patrick Ewing, he said Moses Malone. Lesley said Kevin Garnett and he said Ken Kesey. Who? Yes, the legendary author who took LSD with his fellow Merry Pranksters.

Timestamps - * (:33) - Charles McNeil's childhood. * (1:37) - Inspiration from meeting Marv Albert at a Knicks game. * (3:22) - Idols (Dick Schaap, Dick Enberg, Keith Jackson). * (4:26) - College, 1st job in radio, high school play-by-play in Charles County, began working with Sports News Network and BET. * (8:20) - Legendary “voice of HBCU sports” Charlie Neal gets McNeil to cover boxing for Sports News Network/BET. * (10:28) - Being asking by legendary college basketball coach John Thompson to do play-by-play at Georgetown games. * (15:31) - What did it mean to be asked by such a legend to take the Georgetown job? * (17:23) - Diversity Barrie's Charles McNeil broke. * (18:22) - Reaction to John Thompson's death. * (20:21) - Favorite moments as play-by-play man for Georgetown basketball. * (25:55) - Covered NBA games with Michael Jordan's Bulls, Reggie Miller's Pacers, Alonzo Mourning's Hornets. * (33:49) - Do you keep in touch with the celebrities you've come across during your journey? * (34:46) - Did you come across Steph Curry during your years covering the Hornets. * (36:32) - What did it mean for you to work with “voice of HBCU sports” Charlie Neal? * (41:41) - What makes a good color commentating partner? * (49:48) - Do you prefer radio or tv broadcasting? Working with Mike Tyson and Tony Delk. * (53:19) - Has social media making high school players celebrities affected your job? * (56:57) - Has the NIL and college players being allowed to be paid tainted college sports? * (58:57) - Final thoughts.

It's time to "Swing Hard" with Coach Denny Barrett! Coach Denny has been coaching at the high school and collegiate level for almost thirty years. He has also recruited and coached some of the top collegiate and professional athletes. Throughout his career, Denny has also been involved in all aspects of the athletics programs including recruiting, coordinating programs, budgeting, staffing and maintenance. And, with his successful BATRS program, he and his staff provide preparation for young players to succeed at the high school level and beyond! This week on episode 36, Denny talks to National Fox Sports Anchor Bryan Fenley about great broadcasters like Dick Enberg, Vin Scully and Bob Costas. Plus, they cover Volleyball, Tennis, Baseball, Football, Bruins Basketball and Golf. If you are a sports lover, you'll love “Swing Hard” in case you hit it. 

The regal voice of the late Hall of Fame sports broadcaster Dick Enberg made a profound impact on TV and radio audiences for decades. Join him for a return to his roots—a college classroom—as he discusses his extraordinary career and offers life lessons with his trademark style and grace in tribute to perhaps the most versatile of the great sports announcers and storytellers, truly a man for all seasons.

Doc listens to Los Angeles' beloved Dick Enberg's thoughts and troubles with calling games...

Doc discusses criticism & loyalty in sports, arts and medicine. We hear from Dick Enberg, Jerry Lewis and Patrica Kael discussing how or if you should remain neutral in reporting.