The State of Modern Sports Journalism

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Services not available in all areas . Hey everybody, Brian here with a quick note before we get started . When you hear Joel and I talk about CBS News on this episode, you'll hear us talk about Barry Weiss's decision to part ways with 60 Minutes correspondent Sharon Alphonse. Well, while we were recording , Barry Weiss did more than that. She announced she was gonna revamp 60 Minutes entirely. Weiss let another correspondent, Cecilia Vega, go, along with the show's executive producer. And as her new EP, Weiss hired a guy named Nick Bilton, a print reporter and documentarian who has no experience in a proper TV news show, much like Weiss herself . Now, two quick thoughts about that. Number one, Weiss has already tampered with 60 Minutes, which famously carried on as its own fiefdom inside CBS for years. Weiss demanded changes to Alphonse's Seacott story back in December. Weiss gave a major interview to Major Garrett, despite Garrett not being a 60 Minutes correspondent. But this is different. This is Barry Weiss wrapping her arms around 60 Minutes, one of, if not the most successful news shows in TV history, in a way that most news division presidents would never dream of, even as the show continues to do well. This is Barry Weiss insisting on winding the famous 60 minutes clock herself and taking responsibility for the show's success or failure. That's point number one. Point number two comes from a story that Cemaphore's Max Tanney wrote today after interviewing Nick Bilton. Tanney wrote that Bilton, quote, planned to expand the 60 Minutes franchise beyond its one-hour time slot on Sundays. He envisions a more always-on-operation that will publish more investigations and correspondent-driven content online . Some of us remember when 60 Minutes turned into another show called 60 Minutes 2, but besides that, is it a good idea to take an hour of linear television and reimagine it as a digital franchise? Absolutely, it is. Is it a good idea to think about CBS news more broadly? Absolutely , it is. But I keep coming back to the same question. Is Barry Weiss the person to do this? Has Barry Weiss done one thing during her time at CBS News that would lead you to believe she is, that would allow you even to make the argument ? She hasn't. Not yet. And guess what? The uh clock is ticking. Now on with the show. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox Thursday. It's Brian Curtis. It's Joel Anderson. It's producers, Isaiah Blakely and John Romer. Coming up on this year podcast, Ken Paxton won the Republican Senate runoff in Texas. What does that say about the political future of our home state? Plus, Jill Biden thought her husband was having a stroke during his debate against Donald Trump. Surprise! Another reporter is leaving CBS . The continued snubbing of Troy Aikman. And with the Knicks in the finals, we had to call the great Frank Is ola to get some tales from the Knicks locker room. Stay tuned for that. But first, Joel , Tuesday night in Texas, we had some very interesting election results. They weren't surprising though, right? They weren't surprising. The scale might have been. Yeah. The scale is the I don't know what verb you want to go for here. Troun ced. Trou I I think I use trounced in a story. So yeah. Ken Paxton trounced John Cornyn . Sixty-three percent to thirty-six percent . Ken Paxton will be the nominee running against James Telarrico . That's unbelievable. I think that's the thing that it is we've talked about the scale of it because I mean John, Cornyn really up until like, I mean, maybe if you want to be generous and go back to 2000 and 24 or 23, when he when he was saying, I don't know if Trump should run because I think it's time to move on past that. Like maybe that put him in the crosshairs or whatever. But other than that, he's mostly been a Republican in good standing, right? And he's, I mean, been about as close to the foundation of the Texas GLP turnaro und is anybody. And that they just discarded him in such humiliating fashion. And it's not that he lost to somebody that is like just, you know, a firebrand as they would say, right? Like this just you're, you know, a guy that's very MAGA and out there or whatever. Like it's not that it's just like Ken Paxton got impeached by Republicans in Texas. Like, like he's like, you know, he's in fights with Republicans in Texas who call him corrupt and all this other stuff. So it's like the it's not just that he got his ass kicked, but the guy he got his ass kicked by is shocking to me. What did you think? I agree. And throw in the fact that Corny's been in the Senate since it got elected first in 2002. Yeah. I mean, this is not a guy who showed up and had a milked toast term or two and said something about Trump and got kicked out. He's been the Senate for 24 years. Yeah, man. 24 years. Shocking. Yeah. I'm I'm I mean, I covered some of that first uh that that campaign, his first campaign against Ron Kirk, who was the Dallas mayor at the time. And Ron Kirk was is a very charismatic guy. Like you hear him talk, you get in front of him, you just like, oh yeah, like you can you you felt like he had a future. And John Corny kicked his ass. Like John Corner, I think, beat Ron Kirk by about 10 points in the general election. And so, like, yeah, he's been a guy that just the Texas GOP today is not at all what it was in our youth. And I talked about it a little in this piece that should be going up on the ringer at some point. Uh well, maybe by the time you listen to this podcast, it'll probably be up on the ringer. And it's about how the Bush era of Texas is over, basically. But it was like like the the Democ Democrats ran that state up through the early nineties and then George Bush gets in and then John Cornyn comes and he flips the Senate seat. Um and it's just like they were a part of the re Republican revolution that is chang ed the game in so many ways. And then it just wasn't enough at the end. Like there's just no, I, you know, and maybe this is why the Republicans are winning winning in politics right now, because there's a sort of ruthlessness. Like you 're too old, you're too boring, we're gonna get rid of you and replace you with somebody else. So and it's funny, it was one revolution ago. That's why they feel outdated. Yep. I mean we would have said ruthless about Carl Rove when he was ending the Democratic Party as we know it in Texas. Yep. That's right. If people don't know, Texas was, as you say, a largely Democratic state that by the nineties was a Republican state but didn't quite know it yet. Yeah. Along comes Carl Rove, armed with George W. Bush. They basically do a wipeout of state government, including John Court, which John Corn is a part of a couple years later. And then all of a sudden Donald Trump comes along in twenty sixteen. And he's not just, you know, a different kind of Republican. He's explicitly running against George W. Bush and Bushism. Mm-hmm. It's not that Republican party anymore. It's my Republican party. So you're saying Cornyn losing is sort of the last vestige of the old party, at least in Texas. He's literally the la I mean, I guess it depends on what you think of Greg Abbott, because Greg Abbott was in office uhh during the Bus thing. But I think he's sort of his own guy. Like Corny is literally, if you go down and you look at every statewide elected official from Senate to governor to like, you know, um people on the civil district courts or whatever. Like none of them have any ties to Bush anymore. Corneon is the last one. And he got routed. And I mean again, it's just a part, it's part and parcel, and I talk about this in the story, of Trump just humiliating the Bush family at every turn, like Jeb Bush. Like be that remember in 2015, a long time ago, Jeb Bush was the Republican frontrunner, right? And took and Donald Pleasure took such such pleasure. Donald Trump took such pleasure in humiliating him and in you know resigning him to the dustbin of history. And kind of in a way by endorsing Ken Ken Paxson, that's what he did to John Cornyn too. It's like Texas is not just a Republican state. It's a Trump state now. It really is. And don't forget Jeb's son, who ran for statewide office in Texas and lost. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah, man. It's just, it's tough. I mean, do you so do you buy because again, everybody pivots to this and they say, oh, okay, well, you know, Ken Paxton won Corny, but Corny would have been the tougher opponent in the general election. Do you buy that ? Yeah. Cause I think there are enough Texas Republicans out there who are who look at Ken Paston and go, really? But I think there are enough people out there. And if you're the Talo Rico campaign, you're saying those people are either going to vote for us or they're going to stay home. Right. And that's our path to winning. The difference though is Ken Paxton has won statewide in Texas before. Mm-hmm. Donald Trump's put up statewide candidates in other places, Kerry Lake and Blake Masters in Arizona, Herschel Walker in Georgia, oh man, who did not have W's under their belt like that. Ken Paxton has done all of his things and then still won statewide election in Texas. So he just comes in with a totally different track record. And I think that makes him much, much more formidable, much more formidable uh opponent uh than some of these people would have been, some of these pure Trump candidates Sure. No, I I agree. I mean I I I'm I think I think un I look and maybe I shouldn't give it away, but I'm just gonna go ahead and give it away. Until the Republicans lose, I won't believe that they're gonna lose. I want to ask you about that. I think Ken Paxton's gonna win. Yeah. If you had to ask me right now, Oh yeah. I mean, you know, maybe you and I'll be sitting in Austin together on election night and you know, crying and hugging and everything else. But if you ask me right now, is Ken Paxton gonna be the next U.S. Senator from Texas? I would say yes. Right. I mean until proven otherwise. If you if you've just got to think about the state of Texas right now, and um there's a guy that is up for the railroad commissioner named Bo French. And if you're a Fort Worth person, you know Bo French because he used to be the chair, the former chair of the Tarrant County GOP. And he was too extreme for even those folks. But he's he emerged in his runoff, uh, the Republican primary runoff for Texas Railroad Commissioner, which doesn't actually deal with railroads, but whatever. It's it's complicated. It's a statewide office. Statewide office. Bo French, man. Uh let me he if you just follow him on Twitter, man. Maybe or maybe don't like don't follow him, just go to his Twitter account and see the slurs that he uses. A guy who says, you know, maybe we should just embrace Islamophobia. Like that's a thing that I think is good. And you know, I don't want it uh Muslims in Texas. And so we should do that. Like that guy is up and is probably going to win if I had to guess. He's probably going to win statewide office because he he's a Republican. And that they they already start with the advantage there. So like Texas is like I said man Texas is the deep south now. Like East Texas was always the deep south but Texas as a whole now is the deep south I feel like. Beau French for the uninitiated. This is the guy that was tweeting about Rhodes ia. Oh man, that's right. Oh god. Rhod esia? Yeah, man. Deep cuts. Yeah. So the deep south and then there's Rhodesesiaia.. Rhod Okay. Uh, I also wanted to get what you make of the early attacks on James Talarico. So Paxton winning the primary is the official start of the general election. Here are some of the things Republicans have said about Talarico, the Democratic nominee. Stephen Miller called him, quote, transgender . I mean, you know, it's just interesting. I'm not obviously people can tell my political, you know, uh biases from this, but it's just kind of funny to me that a guy that looks like Stephen Miller is talking about somebody's looks. Like I just usually you have to have some sort of self-awareness about that. Like, I'm not going to talk about Denzel Washington in 1994 as looks. Like, it's just because I'm like, what I I cannot sit in judgment of that person. I'm just surprised that Stephen Miller thinks he looks good enough to call somebody. Uh well, it to use what he presumes to be an insult to comment on somebody's appearance. That's well said. Uh Ken Paxton's ad that he tweeted out yesterday called Talarico Low T . Yeah. I not really heard that term other than sports radio hosts talking about low T centers and why their listeners need to get themselves there if they're not feeling like the man they used to feel like. Don't you think it's a call back to the Trump insult of Jeb, which is low energy, but just, you know, in the parlance of talk radio? This it's cause I think low energy to me, I that was always the implication to me. Well it's 10 years later, low energy just doesn't resonate. Like shocking once upon a time. You gotta accelerate things. During his uh victory speech Tuesday night, Paxton also said this. And finally, he's a threat to our very way of life and our values . I mean he's a vegan who thinks God is non-binary and that there's actually six biological sexes. It's hard to imagine someone more radical than that. He's a vegan who's running in Texas ? I just I mean, look, some of this is like disturbing . It reminds me of the way I used to hear people talk when I was in school.. Ye Yeahah. It reminds me of bigotry I heard growing up in Texas. And then some of this is just ludicrous. Like he's a vegan and therefore he should not be the senator from the great state of Texas. Like, are we serious with this stuff? It's it's so lazy and uninspired, but I think the thing that's kind of scary is that it can work. And I was talking to the great Cal Gilson over at uh SMU. He's um a professor there, and he's you know done a lot of political analysis and he said, yeah man, Tal Rico's gonna have to respond to that. It may see seem silly, but that stuff kind of adds up. I remember when Trump uh went and worked at McDonald's during the presidential campaign to make fun of Kamala . And I knew I was like, oh, that's brilliant. Like it just seems goofy and stupid, but like that resonates with a lot of people, man. Some people will actually latch onto that. So whereas I don't find that to be a particularly persuasive political argument. No. It might work. It's going it's going to work with a lot more people than people may think. Oh yeah. And the Democrats will make a mistake here if they think that's just stupid. Yeah. There's no way voters will vote for Ken Paxton, right? Oh yeah, they will. Oh they have before. And let me tell you the video you saw the video they have of Talarico where he's talking about how his campaign needs to have less meat consumption. This is a previous campaign. Yeah. And the coup de gras, he's wearing a mask while he's doing it, a covet mask. And you're just like, this is just hitting all the erogenous zones of the modern Republican Party. See, if I was Van, I well, I'm gonna say this in the voice of Van, so you have to give me absolution. Um they're trying to just call him a pussy without saying it in public . Like that's what they want to call in. And they basically are saying it. Yeah, they are. I mean we read the Stephen we re we read what Stephen Miller tweeted, right? Like that's right. We that's what they're saying. We've got a few a lot more months. They may get there. They may get there. Because nobody's gonna hold them accountable for that. Like nobody there's nothing that is be there is um until somebody proves otherwise, there's really nothing that's beyond the pill anymore in campaigning now, which is scary,. But um so yeah, I I expect to hear it all going forward. I hate that we're this fatalistic about it . I really do. We just have to look at the state of the world, man. I know. I know. And there's much more to say about this campaign. Again, this is the if if Talarico got to pick his opponent, he would have picked Ken Paxton. That's right. Democrats got to pick that. This is the guy they wanted. This is the matchup they wanted because he said as reluctant as Texas has been to vote for a Democrat since 1998, we think we can beat this Republican . We think we can do it. We think we have the candidate who's really good, who's gonna who's raised a lot of money, who will probably outraise Ken Paxton. We think Paxton is flawed enough that there just enough Republicans, even in a state that Donald Trump won big time in 2024, there just enough Republicans we can peel off or we'll stay home . We'll see. Tech Texas Texas will let you down every time, man. You know what I'm saying? Texas will let you down every time. And uh I would get Hillary Clinton wanted Trump. I mean she wanted Trump. That was the that was her preferred candidate, man. And uh sometimes people will vote for the guy that you don't think they're gonna vote for. No. And and look, yeah, I'm I'm like so excited to talk about this race with you for the next several months. It's gonna be fascinating. Oh, yeah. It's going to be a truly interesting Texas general election campaign, which we have had only in dribs and drives over the last 25 plus years. But we'll see. We'll see . Jill Biden . Back again. She's got a new book out on Tuesday. Okay. If you put in your Amazon pre-order. I I do have some Kindle points, some credits, so I mean you never know I might you might you might be reading View from the East Wing. You know the thing is any memoir or any biography is always I I found in my life 30% more interesting than you think it's gonna be. Okay. Because usually by the time a person has gotten to it, you're gonna hear something. I don't know how true it'll be or you know how slanted it'll be, but usually it's interesting. Yeah, and the expectations here are frankly pretty low. Pretty low. So it probably is going to be better than you think. But she got on CBS, man. That's pretty I mean I guess she did. And she made some news. She was talking about Joe Biden's disastrous debate against Donald Trump. Here's what she had to say on CBS Sunday morning. Were you horrified as you saw it unfold? I wasn't horrified, I was frightened. Because I had never ever seen Joe like that before or since? Never. Or since. Yes. Or since. Never seen him. Never. No. What happened? I don't know what happened. I mean, when I as I watched it, I thought, oh my God, he's having a stroke. And it scared me to death. So it's not ideal that the spouse of a presidential candidate thought her husband was having a stroke during a debate, especially a debate against Donald Trump. What does Joe think happened? Well, I don't know. And this this does feel I mean, that's a very, very um dramatic way to say what the Bidens have been saying all along. Which is this was a bad night. Right. It was not y he wasn't suffering a longer decline and we were keeping it from people. One hundred percent. Right. That's that's what that's what this is, right? It's an amazing quote. It's all over the internet today. Yeah. Aggregated like crazy, but it's kind of what the line has been from team Biden starting five minutes after that debate ended. I haven't been on the internet the last couple days. So are they buying Jill Biden's story? I think they're just retweeting it and aggregating it okay i don't know how much like i don't know what you're buying here that she was shocked when she saw it she probably was to an extent to an extent maybe she thought joe biden was a game time player. Yeah. Well that's the thing. She probably was like, even like let's just say that they're obscuring some of the truth and that Joe was getting old, but they didn't really notice it. And then he's in the then he's in the crosshairs out there on stage and, they're like, Oh, like you might actually have a problem. Like we didn't, I just thought you could rally that maybe you're just old and tired, but not that you were in decline. Or that it would just show up in this way. Yeah. The Atlantic got their hands on a copy of the book, and this is the language from the book. I felt like we were watching an AI hologram of the man we knew, and the hologram was glitching. Has he been drugged? Also interesting about this is that Sunday morning interview was with CBS's Rita Braver. Okay. Remember the whole mini controversy national conversation about BB Netanyahu getting to choose his CBS interviewer on 60 Minutes. Uh-huh. Rita Braver retired last March . So either CBS said, you know who's the one person we want to interview Joe Biden? It's Rita Braver who we're gonna make a call to the bullpen to get her to come back to the network. Or Joe Biden had some say in who was interviewing her about this book. Right. I mean and again I don,' I don'tt forgive that so much, but there was something out there at the time that said this you may think this is bad, the stage managing of who gets to interview and giving the subject something, but it's just kind of for the worse, I think, yeah, normal practice in television news. Where do you think the line is? Because I like Jill Biden is famous, right? But I don't uh you know, pardon me if I'm wrong, I'm surprised that she if that is a call that sh if that is a call that is within her purview, I'm surprised that she's the person she can make it. So like how far down the list of celebrity or prominence do you have to get before it's like okay okay, you you're not gonna be able to pick your interviewer. We don't need that interview. Ooh, that's a good question. Try to think politically. I mean there's there's some there's some politicians that are thirstier than others right now. Right. And would take anybody. Oh yeah. They'll go anywhere. They're not asking for Major Garrett. You know, they're just like, uh, Leslie Stahl, Major Garrett , Rita Braver's back, like we're we're good with Jane Paulie, or we're good with any whoever you want us to talk to. We're absolutely fine with that. I didn't I think most presidential candidates right now , most prospective Democratic presidential candidates don't have the juice to pick their interviewer. Ooh. Okay. Yep. It's just think about that. There's like, you know, it's go down the list. Like are you know, I don't know, JB Pritzker? Is he being like, I will, I will only do a CBS interview with Ed Over. Yeah, I mean do you think Kamala can pick I guess if if Jill Biden Kamala can Kamala yes I think so okay I think she would have some say and would have opinions about that. Oh of course yeah now also she's they've these people have been through wars with the media in the way that the governor of fill in the blank state has not. Right. Right. So there's that. Uh speaking of speaking of CBS, I almost said 60 minutes, but we're going there too. Uh Sharon Alphonse will not have her contract renewed by that network. Which isn't totally surprising when her story about Seacot got held by Barry Weiss back in December. She wrote an email, did Sharon Alphonse that we all read, in which she said Weiss pulling the story was quote not an editorial decision, it is a political one. Mm-hmm . Well, when her contract wasn't , she wrote another memo, and boy, this was interesting. I'll read to you a few paragraphs here. Okay. Sharon Alfonzi writes In the coming days, network leadership may attempt to hide behind corporate euphemisms like modernization and restructuring. To explain away my departure, don't be misled. This was not a routine corporate transition. It was a del iberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting, and it sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom. She continues, fearless independent reporting has always been the defining standard at 60 Minutes. Today CBS management is abandoning that mission, choosing access journalism over accountability, and protecting power rather than scrutinizing it. The wall between editorial independence and corporate interest at CBS is being methodically torn down. Journalists willing to challenge authority are being pushed aside in favor of those who will not. If this continues, the result will be a broadcast that looks like sixty minutes, but lacks the courage and character to produce journalism that matters . You know, respect to Sharon. That's the dream. If you get laid off to just be able to talk that kind of shit and to have the argument be so clearly on your side, right? Like I mean, I would love to uh you know, I've had to sign a grievance. I was like, I can't wait to hear how this sentence ends. Yeah, right, yeah, I would love, I would love to be able to let loose on somebody like that. And the fact that she was able to do it. And like I I don't know, you know, what her plans are for the rest of her career. I don't think she'll probably have to worry about finding work again at some point. But yeah, that's what you that's what you dream of if it's going to go down that way. Um I mean there's no other way to read it than that way, right? Or or am I being naive? Is that I mean I don't know. Are there people that think that this is in not insubordinate because it shouldn't work there anymore, but it's unfair to Barry or cause I know there's a lot of Barry White's defenders out there. I don't think so. I haven't I haven't read a good a good case about it. And the thing is even if it's even if somehow you convince yourself it was unfair, yeah. There have been so many things that have happened in the Barry Weiss era already. Yeah. I mean at some point this is about appearance too. Right. Surely. It's about appearance. Surely at some point. Again, I keep saying this and maybe I'm just completely wrong, but surely at some point David Ellison's like, this isn't good . Well so that's that's sort of my thing because uh you know I've come around on Barry Weiss and why this has happened because you tell so I'm just going to give you a scenario. Yeah, you know, that and all the years. Here you go . Uh , if somebody comes to you and says , I'm going to give you $150 million and you get to run CBS. If they came to you and asked you that question, Brian, you can't turn that down, right? I would say my loyalty is to the ringer.com. Yeah, that's you keep your hundred and fifty million dollars. Yes, yes, and a hypothetical yes. I let's go. I'm at CBS tomorrow. You can't say no to that. That is life-changing money, even if you don't know anything about it. Now, what I would have done under those circumstances is like hired a bunch of really great deputies or leaned very heavily on the people around me so that it wasn't so clearly my fault , but that's Barry's decision. I um to what you said about David Ellison, man, like you're looking around and this is really bad. You're the guy that made this decision. You like why should I trust that you know what you're doing? You know, I mean you're you're you are the son of Larry Ellison, right? And I mean, obviously, like I think he has what um uh Sundance, right? So that that's that's done pretty well. But I I mean, you're the guy that that did this. You didn't have to hire somebody that had absolutely no TV experience to run one of the premier broadcast networks in the coun try. So I would have to investigate, and we think we know, we think that because of ideological reasons, but could you have hired an ideologue that it worked in TV before? Like I don't, I the more I think about this, the less I blame Barry and more I put the blame on David Ellison. Reminds me of what you said about Jeff Bezos last week. Yep. Yeah. Why aren't you taking responsibility for this? Why isn't this your fault? You're the billionaire genius. Why isn't it showing up yet? In a related story, I want to introduce you to a young reporter named Santiago Campos. He's a high school senior in Washington, D.C. Compost has been recognized for a story about deportations. One of the feels like one of those high school kids is just doing stuff, winning awards. Yeah. Is on the track to being a big deal in the journalism profession. Absolutely. Well, on Wednesday he won the Mike Wallace Memorial Scholarship . And at the News and Documentary Emmys, which I confess I was not watching live, Santiago Campos had a message for Mike's old network. And while I wanna thank CBS News for funding this generous gift towards my education, I wanna also acknowledge how the recent direction of the outlet stains the legacy of Mike Wallace, the namesake of this scholarship. As corporate elites take hold over the very pipes through which our information flows, journalism that serves the people becomes incre asingly harder to come by, yet ever more crucial. And what the people want is the truth. So if at any time you hesitate to utter the word genocide or remain silent in the face of blatant lies. Remember to ask yourself who is this for I hope you choose us very brave of him very mature of him just ve I would have felt um at that age, I would have not had the courage to talk like that in front of a room full of journalists and everybody else, right? Hell no. Yeah. Like to make a a a a demand and to be that clear that you know, that clear and where they're coming from. So yeah, I mean I've you know, that's how you end up being the guy that wins the Mike Wallace Memorial Scholarship, I suppose. It is. You know, it's funny because in a previous age I would have said this will hurt him with his future prospects. Now I'm not so sure. Yeah. I think the world's changed in an interesting way. His name is out there now. Like he's sort of I mean like the part of you know being in media now, you know, whether we like it or not is trading on your name and like your brand. And like now he's got the attention of a lot of people and then some people are gonna follow him. So yeah, it I think it I and the in at the end of the day I think it'll probably help him. But I think there'll be some rooms he won't be able to go into, at least at first. Before we bring uh Frank I Solon , I've got another story for you about a lesser Emmys . Okay. A sub Emmys , if you will. These are the sports Emmys which were also hand ed out earlier earlier this week. And which once again I will confess I was also not watching live. I thought you were serious about your job, man. Come on . The sports Emmys were actually on YouTube this year. Usually this is just something that happens in a room and then people start tweeting. And again, I'm not I'm not waiting with bated breath, but there's always an interesting story or two within all of this. Yeah. And the interesting story this year was they gave out an award for outstanding sports personality colon event analyst. That means a color analyst who's calling a game. And the nominees were Troy Aikman, Tom Brady, Chris Collinsworth, Greg Olson, and Bill Raff tree. All right. Production magic. A lot of football. A lot of football. But you know we live in a football country. True. The award was won by Greg Olson . And one commentator jumped on that story and said , Oh, here's what's interesting: Greg Olson, Fox's number two NFL comment ator. He won over Fox's number one NFL commentator, Tom Brady . Now, I will not mention the name of that blogger who is Mike Florio , but I will point out that I think he missed the truly interesting story here, which is that Troy Ekman lost that award . Troy Eichmann has never won outstanding sports personality event analyst in his career. Troy Eggman has been the lead analyst on NFL games since 200 2. Two thousand and two. Yeah, man. And for whatever reason , the sports Emmys have snubbed Troy Aikman one more time. Yeah. It's really weird. I don't know if it's because his style is not the kind of showy give this man a trophy style, but the fact that he has never won is something that I know from personal experience is mystifying to people at multiple networks. There there's no chance that there's any beef that undergirds this, right? That there's that he's a that he's out of favor with the sort of people that could make those sort of decisions. I don't think so. I think if you go back to 200 2, you could say, okay, when he first gets a job at Fox, John Mann is still walking the earth. Remember, this is not just a football award, but John Mann's the big dog and would be until he retired. Right. When he leaves, Chris Collinsworth replaces him at NBC. And it Chris Collinsworth won this award basically every year for the better part of a decade. Because Chris Collinsworth, in a way, was the model for Greg Olson. He was doing it differently, he was talking about the game differently. He was great, still is great. But he was kind of the flavor of the month. Right. And then Tony Romo comes in in 2017 and he's America's sweetheart. Right. And you know, the just Troy, you could argue that Troy was just never , never the focus was never just the guy people thought about as the football announcer. Yeah. But since 2017, 18, I don't know, whenever you you date the troyes , when he suddenly got real comfortable and real comfortable just saying what was on his mind. He has been one of, if not the best analyst in the NFL and in sports television full stop . So now we're talking about a decade-ish when he continues not to win this award. Man, you know what? He just I'm sorry, he just has to settle for being six foot four blonde super bolt, three times super bolt champ, Hall Framer, you know th Yeah, that's right. Prayers up for Trey. All right, Joel. Now it's time for our special guest. This episode is brought to you by the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited two percent cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game or grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited two percent cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me. The active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. Be a two percenter. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms apply. Let's talk about Peyroni's disease, or PD. It's not widely talked about, and some men may feel reluctant to bring it up, but it's more common than you'd think. PD can happen when scar tissue builds up under the skin of the penis, causing a curve with a bump during an erection that for some men may lead to pain during intimacy and impact mental health. A trusted urology specialist can help diagnose PD and walk you through your options, including non-surgical treatment. Visit talkaboutpd. com . Let's talk about Peyroni's disease, or PD. It's not widely talked about, and some men may feel reluctant to bring it up, but it's more common than you'd think. PD can happen when scar tissue builds up under the skin of the penis, causing a curve with a bump during an erection that for some men may lead to pain during intimacy and impact mental health. A trusted urology specialist can help diagnose PD and walk you through your options, including non-surgical treatment. Visit talkaboutpd. com. All right, Joel, let's bring in our special guest. You've seen Frank Is ola on ESPN . You've heard Frank Is ola every morning on Sirius XM's NBA radio. But with New York in the finals for the first time since 1999 , we wanted to talk to Aisola about the 22 years he spent covering the Knicks for the New York Daily News, filing copy about some of the coolest people in the sports world, and also James D olan. So fun to have him here. Frank, welcome to the press box. Gentlemen, what's up? Thanks for having me. Frank, what do you remember about your first days on the mixed beat in the fall of 1995? You know, I was coming off. I was covering back then. I had covered the Mets for a couple of years, and I got to believe it or not do the 94 World Cup. I covered the U.S.'s three uh group stage games. That was part of my agreement to go from the post to the daily news. And I think I was doing stuff on the Nets. And then I got a call. It was the night before Thanksgiving or two nights before. They told me I have to go to Cleveland because I got to cover the Knicks the next night on that Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, they played uh the Cleveland Cavaliers. So I went into the locker room. I mean, obviously I'd covered I'd been at some games riding sidebars and obviously growing up in New York, I knew who all the players were and I dealt with maybe a couple of them, but you know, not really anything serious. I walk into the locker room that day and there's, you know, there's Derek Harper, obviously Patrick Ewing, Charles Oakley, Monty Williams was a young player back then, Charlie Ward. They had, you know, it was uh uh you know, Anthony Mason, John Stark, so it was names that everyone was familiar with. And, you know, I didn't go around introducing myself to everyone because I didn't know how long I was gonna be on it for. And then as you said, next thing I know, I ended up staying around for uh 22 years. I'm always fascinated by how territorial beat riders are inside a locker room. So when you get on the beat permanently, how did you establish yourself in there uh that that that's a really good question and also you know so i always had a a thing where especially if they were acquired a new player everyone goes up even people that aren't on the beat go up and they're introducing themselves how is the player going to remember them. So I would always try to take it pretty easy with the players early on. I never called a player by his nickname like Charles Oakley to me. I always called him Charles. I never called him Oak. And I also would do something when the locker rooms opens up back then, you know, 45 minutes before the game or 90 minutes before the game, and you have that locker room access for 45 minutes. I didn't like really mingling with the other reporters. I would say, you know, maybe we like a quick conversation , but I hated when the locker room looked like it was a media cocktail party. Cause then the players don't really want to be in there. And on the road, it's a lot easier to get to know the players because obviously, less people are traveling. There's less media on the road. That's really when you get to know them. But it was competitive. You know, Mike Wise was working at the New York Times. You had Kevin Kernan at the post and then Mark Berman. I was at the Daily News. You know, Newsday was traveling back then , the Newark Star Ledger was traveling back then, Westchester Paper was traveling. You know, I remember living in Brooklyn, and you'd wake up in the morning, obviously pre-internet, pre-Twitter. And if you woke up and went to get a coffee and there on the back page of the New York Post was a story you didn't have, that was like the worst feeling in the world. The the feeling of getting a story that nobody else had is good, but the feeling of not having a story that somebody else had is the worst feeling. And as you guys know, it took 24 hours to recover from that. If somebody breaks a story right now that, you know, so and so is out for the rest of the playoffs with an ankle injury, within two minutes, everyone's gonna have the story. Back then it was 24 hours of pain and suffering before you could catch up . That's right. So for you were 28, uh, I guess it's about that time, when you got this beat. Did you think you were ready for a position that important? Because that's people spend their whole careers hoping to end up at that job, but they did back then, right? Yeah. And and so you were 28. What did they it must have not been hard for you to feel like you've already made it? Well, yeah, I guess in a way. So, you know, I had started out as a clerk. In fact, when I was a clerk at the New York Post as a summer intern, Michael K was also a clerk. So I used to do all of Mike's work. So Mike would be writing stories and that's you know he came up and next thing you know he's on the Met and the Yankee beat. Back then they used to split the beats half the half the season. So then I did high schools, which covering high school in New York is great. Yeah, the football is so so the baseball's interesting. You have a couple of guys that make the major leagues, but the basketball is phenomenal. So once you cover high school basketball in New York, there is a connection , there's a close connection between high school, college, and the NBA. And then there was, you know, a labor issue at the New York Post. And when I was working there, that always seemed to be something like that. And everyone from the a lot of people from the post left and went to the daily news. The daily news was uh plucking them one by one. So I had done high school, I'd done the nets for like a half a year, and they said you got to go to spring training to cover the Mets. And I wasn't ready to do baseball, but I was lucky enough that you know Joe Sexton from the New York Times, who has gone on to be part of teams that have won Pulitzer Prize awards at the New York Times, was an unbelievable writer and reporter. He kind of took me under his wing. And I would tell every young reporter, cover baseball for a year. I don't know how these guys do it for 20, 30 years. It's insane, but you'll become a much better writer and reporter because you're doing it every day and it's a grind and it is it's like real work. Like the NFL is basically semi-retirement. Covering like covering baseball is the real deal. So I was getting ready to, I think probably cover either baseball again or maybe go on the Nets and then they threw me on to the Knicks. But to your point, the Knicks were it still is. It was like a huge deal to cover the Knicks. I was excited. That was the job that I always kind of wanted. But again, there was no guarantee that I was gonna stay on it uh for a while. So it was exciting, but like the future was kind of uncertain. I mentioned ninety-nine. It's a strange lockout shortened season. The Knicks were kind of an unlikely finals team . What do you remember about covering that next team? So it was great because in ninety-eight, the the uh winter of ninety-eight, we all fly, I think the lock had it ended. Michael Jordan's gonna retire for a second time. So, you know back, then the newspapers, you know, there's they're sending all of us to Chicago to cover Michael Jordan's retirement press conference, even though we know he came back another time. He played for uh Washington. But while we were there, Peter Vesey had the story that the Knicks are interested in trading for Latrell Sprewell. So we all got Snowden in Chicago. And then now we're trying to cover not only Michael Jordan, but the Latrell Sprewell story. And remember back then, like Spreewell was a pariah in sports. And he showed up in New York, and the fans loved him right away. The Knicks played, it was great. The Knicks played two exhibition games against the Nets. The first one at Madison Square Garden. They introduced him to the crowd. You could see all the months of sitting out. He was like bouncing. He had so much energy for a preseason game, and he played really well. Meanwhile, Patrick Ewing involved in the negotiations. I remember writing that he was all uh th umbs and love handles. Like he looked like he had gained weight and you know he couldn't catch the ball. And no, I'm like I felt so bad because he killed me the next time he saw me for uh writing that. But like Sprewell was a big deal, and they had made the controversial trade for Marcus Campbell, you know, trading Charles Oakley, an immensely popular player. And then with uh, you know, Jeff as the coach, and it got off to a really slow start. So the right away it was is Jeff going to get fired. Sprewell's not really working out. He and Jeff aren't getting along. And then right toward the end, they you know they just got into the playoffs by winning their last couple of games during the regular season. And then there was all this speculation about Jeff Van Gundy. Maybe he'll lose his job. And then of course Alan Houston hit the famous shot, Miami, you know, the front of the rim, the backboard, and then in. And that kind of changes the course of history for a lot of people , including Jeff Fan Gundy, including Tom Thibodeau as well, who was an assistant coach on the team back then . I gotta ask you this. What was the atmosphere like in Madison Square Garden with Pat Raleigh and the Heat would come to Oh, so the first so I loved Pat Riley. Like I like I grew up a Nick fan, and I remember when Pat Riley was doing NB, you know, the NBA on NBC. I think he was one of the first people that they hired when they did it. And like it to me, was like Pat Riley should be doing TV. He should be working. And when the Knicks hired him, I couldn't believe that Pat Riley was coming to coach the Knicks. And he completely transformed them right away. First of all, he convinced Patrick Ewing to stay. I think the guy did a remarkable job. He set the whole thing up. He kept Jeff Van Gundy on the staff, who had been with a couple of coaches, including John McLeod. They told him, because Jeff was going to go , I think he was maybe they were gonna use him as a scout, but Pat Riley wanted to keep him. And you know, Jeff obviously learned at the the the feet of the master, but the when that was my think my first year covering the Knicks is when Pat Riley came back for the first time. It was so intense. I mean, it was the buildup to that game was nuts. Every once in a while, they'll still show the clip of him walking through the tunnel, which by the way, they never should have gotten rid of. He walks on the court, the crowd's going nuts, and I'm sitting courtside because if you guys know, back then the print media used to actually matter to the point where we got those really good uh courtside seats. But I love Pat Riley, but those playoff series, you have to remember if you go back to 97, 98, 99 , and 2000, and back then the first round was best three out of five. So they played what were that 10 or they played 2 4 playoff games over four straight years. I was lucky enough to sit courtside for all uh 24 of those games. That was as intense as you can get. And it was an event when Pat Riley came to town. He looked like a million bucks. His team resembled the Knicks in terms of how they were tough. They wanted to fight you. They even had a big center from Georgetown. So the two teams had a lot in common. That was a lot of fun covering that. In your 22 years on the beat, who was the Knicks player you most looked forward to interviewing? I would probably say it was Charles Oakley because Charles would say anything. I ended up writing a book with Charles from a couple of years ago. Thanks for plugging that, guys. The last enforcer. But Charles, you know, this is what I loved about Charles. So the Knicks make a lot of big moves in the summer of 96, and they add a lot of veteran players. One of the first games of the season, he doesn't play, he doesn't play like the last 10 minutes of the fourth quarter. The Knicks win the game. We go to Charles and he's kind of complaining about the fact not being in there. So of course it's a story. Now he won't talk to us for two weeks because we wrote that. We're like, Charles, we had our recorders out you were you know you know that we were gonna write it he got mad because the players all got on him and he ended up apologizing to the players because it was a real together group and Charles a lot of times would just vent, but instead of saying, you know what, I probably shouldn't said that, he you know, he he did say it and he was fun to talk to. Plus, you know, he and Charles Barkley butted heads a lot. So they got in a preseason fight. So it was was al alwaysways there something going on with the two of them. And he he was a lot of fun to talk to. Frank was please so can you just force can you settle that? What happened with Charles Barkley and Oak? Because they each tell different versions, like Charles Barkley's like Charles Oakley never slapped me, but Oakley insists. So can you break the tie here? Like what actually happened? All right, now I'm I'm gonna tell you again to get the book. It's the first chapter, it's the first paragraph of the book., anyway Okay. So the I'll give you the background. So and this is what's great about the N you know, about the NBA. During the lockout , and stories were coming out, and the players were not doing a good job in terms of public relations. Kenny Anderson, God bless his soul, was interviewed by Mike Wise of the New York Times and he said, Times are getting tough. I may have to sell one of my Mercedes bands. Right? It's like that. They weren't winning. You were never going to win the public relations war with David Stern because David Stern knew I'm going to win this battle. And then when it's over and the dust settles, I'll build the players back up. But he won the public relations war. The players decide to have a game, a charity game in Atlantic City. And it might have been Patrick, but one of the players said, yes, we're having a game to help out the needy players. So that that didn't go over well. The meaty players. So we drive down to um I went with Mike Wise. We sit wherever they were playing down Atlantic City. Like they're letting us go on the court before the game and after the game to interview players. The Knicks had traded Charles Oakley. So we said to Barkley, what do you make of that trade? Remember now they had been in a fight. Maybe it was the preseason before. He starts crushing Charles Oakley. He's killing him. Oak gets wind of it. So now remember, guys, that's in December. So they have this charity game. The lockout ends, it was either late January. I think it was, yeah, it was late January. So according to Charles Oakley, he got off the elevator. He walked right up to Barclay. The players association was having a meeting in New York, I think, for the to vote on the contract. And according to Charles Oakley, he went up and just slapped uh Charles Barclay in the face. And that was the end of it. According to that's that's the one Charles version. You gotta get the other version. I was gonna say, why does Barclay deny that then? I mean, I I just I don't could I mean it's just it's such a clear thing, you know? Yeah, and you know what? And I like both of them. And , you know, I told I keep telling Charles Oakley, like, just go over and it's so many years ago, just go over and talk and talk to him. He's a you know, Charles Barkley is a great guy. And to Charles Oakley's credit, you ask him, he'll always say he was one of the toughest guys for me to guard. Like he Charles Oakley loves Larry Bird. He loved he loved Larry Bird as a player, loved competing against him, but he said that Barkley was one of the toughest guys to play against. But other players who were there witnessed it. They said that he got hit. You know, so um I don't think Charles Oak would make that up. They wouldn't make that up. If uh Oak was the player you most look forward to interviewing, which Knicks player was the one you least look forward to interviewing. I knew you were going there. The whole time I'm talking about I'm trying to uh that that's a that's a tough one. Uh some guys were a little could be a little intimidating. Clarence Weatherspoon , like if you asked the wrong question or the wrong word, he like jumped all over you. But I would probably say it would be Stefan Marbury because I think for him it was really difficult. You know, he was a legend in New York as a high school kid. You know, he has the, you know, the the great, you know, he had a good quick career at Georgia Tech. He was great in Minnesota. Comes to New Jersey. He was good in New Jersey. Phoenix, he was really good. I don't think you ever want to leave Phoenix. Then you come to New York, you're under a lot of pressure. The team isn't winning. And I think all like the weight of that was tough on him. And by then they were losing. And as you guys know, when the team is losing, not playing well, they're going to get criticized. And when you're the star player on the team, go ask Patrick Ewing going to get criticized. And it got real contentious between the two of us. And you know, I had a relationship with him going back to when he was a kid, because I covered his brother, Norman Marbury. So when uh Stefan Marbury was a uh young kid, he was connected with a guy, Rob Johnson, who back then they called him street agents, you know, which Rob used that used to drive Rob crazy that he was referred to as that and so I had known Steph and I'll tell you a great story. We were at Madison Square. You could check the date. It was when the Knicks played the Chicago Bulls on Valentine's Day. I'm not on the beat yet, so it's pre ninety-five. I don't know if it was ninety two, ninety three, or maybe even ninety-four, but st or maybe even ninety-one. But st I walk in the locker room and I know Stefan Marber, he's in the locker room, and he's serving as a ball boy. I go, how the heck did you get in here? Because I kind of snuck in. I know some people. So he was in the locker room, just like wandering around. And after the game, I saw him in the locker room wandering around. The game ends. Back then, the uh press room was on the sixth floor. You have to take, you know, the walk up or take the elevator up. And Stefan Marbury's hanging around with Rob Johnson. And I'm gonna give Rob a ride home to I think Rob was in Queens, because I was going to go up to Connecticut where my girlfriend now wife was living and I said I go Rob how's he getting home he goes he thinks you're gonna drive I I Rob I'm not driving to Coney Island I'm not uh not doing that so I asked Steph how are you gonna get home he goes would you drive me? And I'm like, I was like, all right, listen, this is what I'll do. I'll drive you. Like I, you know, I was born in Brooklyn. My wife is from there. We lived there for a while, but I'm not thinking Conell. I said, I'll drive you to the base of the Brooklyn Bridge and I'll pay for a cab. And he's like, all right. We get there. And now he's getting upset in the car. Like he's scared. I'm like, you know what? I got no way I'm going to put this kid in a cab. So I drive to Coney Island and we get to Coney Island. It was funny. Then he's all excited when he knew I was driving him home. I pull up to his house and he gets out of the car and he walks up and he keeps turning around. He's looking at me. And he comes out and he goes, What are you waiting for? I said, Well, I'm gonna make sure you get inside he goes all right he goes but frank he was a young kid he was funny he said frank do not stop at any lights which i thought and i and this is true story he another, you know my, first day on the beat was in Cleveland. His first game with the New York Knicks, it's a crazy coincidence, happens to be in Cleveland. That's where he's going to have his press conference. And Mike Vicaro at the post asked him what's your earliest memory of Madison Square Garden. And I kid you not, he said, Go ask Frank Is ola, he'll tell you. Wow. Yeah. So and then I felt bad because you know, like to this day he he has no use for me like he doesn't you know he'll any chance he gets he kind of badmouths me calls me a hater and all that stuff I felt bad because it just wasn't it was a really tough time from New York there's a lot of pressure. And I always felt I, gotta be honest with you, the guys that struggled the most in New York, I always felt were a lot of the local guys. You know, Kenny Anderson struggled with it. Um Stefan Marbray struggled with it. You remember, you know, Willis Reed is from Louisiana. Wolf Frazier is from Atlanta. Patrick Ewing's from Jamaica via Boston. Like this idea that yeah, oh the New Yorkers, they get it. It's not necessarily the case. There's a lot of pressure that comes with being a New Yorker and playing at Madison Square. You know, Jalen Brunson is Chicago slash, I guess Philadelphia. You know, it's just different . Um what can you say or what what can you tell us about the Isaiah Thomas era of the New York Knicks. It it's kind of similar to Stephon Marbury, because I liked Isaiah a lot. I still like him to this day, but we butted heads on a lot of things because , you know, they were struggling at the time. And I think some listen, Isaiah is the most charming guy. If he showed up on this podcast today, within two minutes, he would have you convinced that the three of us are the most important people in the world. He is incredible. And I I loved him as a player. I loved his competitive fire. For some reason, I was rooting for those Detroit teams to beat the Lakers because I looked at Magic Johnson 6'9. Look at like poor little Isaiah Thomas here, who's got to go up against him. But it was tough because I think the thing with Isaiah was the Knicks needed an infusion of they you know, you're past the Patrick Ewing era, Latrell Spreeball's gone. They don't really have a a player that the fans can really get behind. And you know, he just constantly kept swinging for the fences, whether it was Stephon Marbury, Eddie Curry. Now his draft picks weren't bad. He did a pretty good job in the you know, he drafted Trevor Reason in the second round, who turned out to be a a really good player. So with the draft picks, I actually thought he, you know, he drafted David Lee, the last pick of the first round. So he did pretty well with the draft, but it was tough for him to cut I don't I thought he struggled a little bit with the whole thing in New York as well. I uh you know, I think he always felt any criticism was a personal attack on him. I still remember to this day, you guys were like this. So he shows up, and one of the first things he did was traded Keith Van Horn. Now, Keith Van Horn was being represented by David Falk. David Falk represents Michael Jordan. Who's Isaiah Thomas's archnemesis? Michael Jordan. He thinks that Michael Jordan kept him off the dream team, which by the way, it's ridiculous that Isaiah Thomas was not on that team. He 100% should have been on that team. Absolutely deserved it. And I still blame, to be fair, Chuck Daly, who won two titles with him. Chuck Daly should have said, hang on a second, guys, I cannot coach the team unless Isaiah's on it. Anyway, so there's a history there with Michael and um with uh Michael Jordan and Isaiah. Matumbo's on the team. I said uh to Matumbo, I said, You think there's a chance you you how do you think this is gonna work out? Matumbo, also represented by David Falk. He said, My agent told me I could get traded to be prepared. You know, but to Kemba was a great guy. I see David Falk at the all-star game in uh in February in LA. I'm sitting there, I look up, and there he is. So I go up, and David Falk was not the E most success accessible guy. I go up, I say hello to him. I mentioned Isaiah Thomas in the tra des, and he just starts going off. I told all my clients he's gonna trade them, he's going on, he's killing Isaiah, and I got my recorder out. I'm just standing there, and no other New York writers around me. And the way it was back then was I will be saving this story for a day and I will write it the following day because this story will stand alone. It'll be a big deal. So of course the next day I have David Falk killing Isaiah. When Isaiah Thomas saw me at the the garden, very next game, he had steam coming out of his ears. He could not believe that I gave uh David Falk, I said David Falk, right? David Falk a platform like that. And I'm like, well, I didn't say it. I mean, he is the agent of players that are on the team. He is the agent of Michael Jordan, who you have a history with. I mean, I say I'm just trying to do my job here. He was, he was mad at me for that one for uh for a long time. But listen, I mean there's nothing I'm just doing my job. And it is nothing personal. But you you guys tell me, is that a story, yes or no? It's a story. And you're like, why'd you give him a platform? What do NBA reporters do now? All they do is give agents platforms. This this was an agent saying, I told all my clients that are on the Knicks, get ready, he's gonna trade you because he he doesn't like me and doesn't like Michael Jordan. That was basically that was basically the tone of it. Oh, and by the way, and he he was on the record. It wasn't, you know, according to a source close to, you know, the Kimbe Matumbo, it was David Falk on the record saying it. Of course, if you're a reporterter, you bet write that story. Doesn't make it pleasant. Doesn't make you mean your next interaction with Isaiah Thomas, who's as competitive as they come, is going to be pleasant, but you have to write it. Let me ask a question then. So did you did you uh try to get comment from Isaiah for that story, or was he just totally surprised that you'd even gone that far to do that story? Yeah, I I think I did get a I think I might have gotten a comment from him, but that that's a that's a fair point though, if I didn't but yeah I mean what am I gonna do? It's yeah he you know he I think he kind of knew that the story was coming. I think somebody probably gave him a a heads up yep that that it was coming. But you know he listened he showed up in New York. He wanted to change things up and he he did the best that he could. I I like the guy. I think the guy has good intentions. And I think the other thing which bothered him a little bit, and it's probably the case of Eddie Curry, Isaiah has this confidence in him where he says, Eddie Curry's from Chicago. You guys don't realize I'm from Chicago. These Chicago guys love me. I can get them to play. I'll turn this guy into a Broad Street bully. They're not like he's built differently. Isaiah, that was the one thing with Isaiah. He he took for granted that everybody has his mentality. Like Isaiah Thomas looks like a million bucks. That guy is like a street fighter. And I think he thought that every player would be like him. Don't work like that. Doesn't. He's he's pretty unique. Not a lot of guys have his characteristics. Frank, uh, Patrick Ewing will not be mistaken for Charles Barkley behind a microphone. How did you develop a relationship with Big Pat? All right. So I'm glad you brought up the name Charles Barclay. So the guys that covered Charles Barclay, especially in Houston and before that, Phoenix, they had to sit in his lap all preg ame because he was always going to talk and he's going to say something outrageous. Patrick was great to cover. He basically spoke after every game. He could have the worst game ever, the best game ever. Patrick waited for the locker room to open. He'd sit there with that blue terry cloth robe. He'd have ice on both knees. He'd have his feet in a bucket of ice. And he'd wait for everyone to get there and he'd do it one time. And then come through, he'd answer all the questions, and that was it. And Patrick was done. And then maybe once a week, we'd have to like, you know, we asked him every day, but it would be like once a week he would talk. So from that standpoint, I kind of liked having the low maintenance superstar. I don't want to have to worry every two minutes, oh shoot, I can't leave the locker room because some reporters might be talking to Charles Barkley. And and remember, there's no Twitter, so whatever quotes they get, I'm not going to hear about it or read about it until the next day in the paper. So from that standpoint, it was great. And Patrick was terrific because once he felt like he could trust you, then that's how like the relationship got a l got a lot bet ter. I always tell the story how after Don Nelson was uh couple it was like a year after he was uh fired by the Knicks, he gets hired by Dallas and we're standing in the locker room and I hear a voice saying, Frank , Frank. And I'm ignor- I know it's Patrick, but I'm ignoring it because I don't think he knows who I am yet. And then he walks, he taps me on the shoulder. He goes, Isn't your name Frank? I said, Yeah. He goes, Well, I'm calling you. I said, Oh, I'm sorry. And then he he had was asking me a question about Don Nelson. But it it took a while to gain his trust. But in terms of athletes that I admire who I covered, he would be at the top of the list because he played hurt all the time . He took more crap than anybody. Didn't get enough credit when they won. Took all the blame when they lost. He was, I mean, I know it gets thrown around a lot, but he is an absolute warrior. And it got to the point where he trusted you enough he would be really good. So after the in ninety-nine, they beat Miami as their up um three games to none on Atlanta, and the crowd is chanting Jeff Van Gundy's name at the final seconds of the game three. The story has already come out that the Knicks are romancing Phil Jackson. So Patrick does his thing, gets up and takes a shower. I'm milling around the locker room. Mike Wise was at the New York Times at the time who had broken the story about Phil Jackson and the Knicks. And Patrick comes back and Patrick's getting dressed. I said uh I go what do you think about Phil Jackson? He goes, what are you talking about? I said, well there's a report out that the Knicks are talking to Phil Jackson. He goes, why? I said, I don't know. What do you think about that? He said, tell Phil Jackson to take his ass back to Chicago. I said, can I quote you on that? He goes, yeah. And that was another one where he said, gonna wait a day. That's not gonna get that's not gonna get thrown into all the game coverage and waited a day with that one. Like cause when Patrick as you guys know, it's not like Patrick doesn't have hot takes. And for Patrick to say something like that, it was a big deal. And I think he trusted who he was telling it to because by then you know we had you know I had covered him for basically five years. I I loved covering the guy. I was down there when he coached his first game at Georgetown. I could tell that he uh I I was working it but I could tell I was working the game. I could tell that he appreciated I love I love the guy. Like he's uh I got a lot of respect for Patrick. That's the back page. Get his ass back to Chicago. Oh yeah. Come on now. Exactly. Let me let me take you back in time for a second, Frank. It's the summer of 2010. The top free agent maybe ever in NBA history is LeBron James, and he wants to go to the Knicks. What happened? And because I mean the the thing that I keep hearing in the visage I have from that whole time is Donnie Walsh in a wheelchair all bandaged up and like like and that, that was the presentation he got. So what happened that summer? Yeah. All right. So the year before on July 1st, I told my office, I said we should do a countdown to LeBron's free agency, like a little graphic. And it was like a little thing in the paper. We did that all year long. We had the uh countdown. Because I listen, a lot of people knew it was going to be a big story. I don't think people really understood how big of a deal that was going to be. And it was pretty obvious that the Knicks were going to make a big play. It's New York. That's obviously a franchise changing moment. Now, Charles Oakley has since told me that he's from Ohio, and so was LeBron, and that through an intermediary, he was asked to tell Pat Riley, get ready because he's coming to Miami. So Charles Oakland claimed, he knew in you know September or October that he was going to go to Miami. How true that is, I don't know. But the Knicks, everything that they did in terms of the salary cap, and then of course in terms of recruiting them, but you know, Pablo Torre has since had that video where it's like all these like older kind of celebrities, you know, not really like the you know, older white celebrities, including Donald Trump at the time, was even in the video. And I think the Knicks thought we could just use Madison Square Guard, and that's what will get them here. And when they went to that meeting, poor Don nie had had surgery. He was in a wheelchair. Jim Dolan wanted to lead the meeting. I heard that he was reading kind of off cue cards. So don't the meeting didn't go as well as planned, which is why they sent Isaiah back a few days later to talk to some of LeBron's people. But I I think by then he already knew. I think he probably knew that the Knicks didn't really, you know, were the Knicks going to be able to sign both Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosch and do you really think Pat Riley was going to lose Dwayne Wade, who was still in the prime of his career? He's going to lose Dwayne Wade to the Knicks. I was never buying that. So I think the Knicks were probably doomed from the start. To their credit, they did everything they could. But I think what you've heard about, you know, the meeting, I don't I don't think the meeting went well. If they had knocked it out of the park, could that have changed things? I'm still not so sure about it. Looking back all these years later with uh you know with the way LeBron has kind of handled things. That must have been a big letdown for you too because I mean obviously your career has gone the way it's gonna go but the I'm imagining as the Knicks beat writer you, probably were very much looking forward to the opportunity to cover LeBron. It must have been a huge letdown. Oh, it would, I mean, you know, you think about, like, think about what it's done for the guys in Cleveland. Chris Haynes, Brian Winhorst, right? Dave McManenem . You know, everyone's kind of riding that, you know, LeBron train. Covering him, that's like you become almost part of the story in a way. Joe Varden, the same thing. So it would have definitely been a game changer. I had heard that if he came to New York, they were going to have the press conference, whether or not this is true, they were going to have the press conference in Times Square in the middle of Times Square. Which I think would have been appropriate. That's how big of a deal. I mean, you guys remember that's how big of a deal it was that he was going and like he played the villain in Miami for that first year. You could tell he was uncomfortable with it. Can you imagine him coming to New York? How much of a villain he would have been? He would have been beloved in New York, but it was certainly Yeah, it was weird. Like when he first came on, he was more behind the scenes. And the gentleman named Mark Mark Lusgartner, who um died from pancreatic cancer that the Lusgartner Foundation, he was more involved in the day-to-day stuff. And then when he passed and Jim James Dolan moved up, he kind of took over. You know, it was it was interesting. When he first took over , he every once in a while would meet with the media. It really wouldn't go that well. Like I'll give you one example. The Knicks were in San Antonio. Now by now Jeff Van Gundy's gone. He had uh stepped down as coach. And the Knicks are starting to head south a bit, which it's only natural. The talent level wasn't there. Guys aged out. So they're struggling. So we went in San Antonio. He shows up at like the shoot around, and they're gonna make him available to the media. He was heading out to an electronics convention in Las Vegas because at the time he owned that they owned that electronics store. Remember called Nobody Beats the Whiz ? That store. So as we were asking questions about the Knicks, he kept referenced somehow. He referenced it back to Nobody Beats the Whiz. It was I was like, what is going on here about this silly electronics or and I still remember the next day I wrote James Dolan seems to care more about nobody beats the whiz than why everybody beats the Knicks. And it's like like he provided a lot of good content, but I think he took it the wrong way and he hated seeing his picture on the back page. Hated it. That was a bit if you notice, they very rarely show him on TV. His picture is very rarely like, you know, a lot of times he'd be slumped in his chair because the Knicks weren't playing well. So he, you know, that drove him crazy and he just did not want to be in the newspaper. I had heard the story that he wanted to ban all the columnists from showing up. He just wanted beat writers there because to him, he didn't want anybody showing up who can give their opinion about him and the team. So it was this whole thing really about protecting him. And then , you know, I'm just trying to do the job. I'm not out to get anybody, but the Knicks were terrible. And they're everything that they're touching is turning to crap. So when they got rid of Larry Brown, which was a crazy year, their big thing was, oh, we've changed, oh, it's we're going to be good with the media. And then I had heard a story about how he showed up at Madison Square Garden. They had a he had a rule. Everyone has to show your ID. And when he showed up, I guess I had like a new person working for security and they wouldn't let him through because he didn't have his ID badge. And I and I heard apparently he lost it . So I wrote a story of you know kind of like a season preview as oh, the Knicks are saying things have changed, but really have they? And I mentioned that. The next time they had a home game, I'm in the locker room and I see two Knicks security guards, I could see them looking at each other and kind of like looking, like nodding up, like there he is, there he is, looking at me. Like, what the heck is going on? So I walked, I told one of the writers, I said, if I walk out of the locker room, I think these two guys are going to follow me. So it's, you know, the cocktail parties happening in the locker room. I walk out, I stand there. Sure enough, the two guys come out. So I walk back in the locker room. Then I walk out and I start walking up the stairs. And there's a lot of the uh ushers and people that sell food that would always ask me nick questions. So I stopped, I'm talking to a couple of them, and then Andy Miller, the agent who would show up at a lot of nicknames, was there and we're talking. I said, you see these two guys coming up the steps? I said, I'm pretty sure they're following me. And he said, you're crazy. I said, no, no, they're following me. And then he he noticed and he says, I I I think you're right. So I talked to Andy for a minute . And then it was like the De Niro scene from Goodfellas. Remember he knocks on the windshield or the window of the car with the two FBI agents? He goes, Come on, get up. We're gonna go. I walked over to the two guys. I kind of felt kind of bad for them because they laughed when I said it. I said, listen, I'm going to go to the press room. I'm going to get a quick meal and I'll be back out here in like 20 minutes. And they both laughed. Like they both laughed at the absurdity of it. They were kind of like, yeah, you know, you're right this is is this so dumb like their whole thing was they were gonna see who I talked to and who like who tells me stuff so whenever I had a story I would always make sure I spoke to like 10 people And he like, you know, came after me. He came after the daily news, probably made me a better reporter for it. And if you look now, I mean, he's kind of won the media war. It's really only the New York Post that covers them on a on a day-to-day basis. They're probably in business on some level together. He doesn't I mean now he doesn't he shouldn't be criticized. They're doing, they're doing really well. But that was the big thing. I always used to say they like we're only like when I first got on the beat, they were winning all the time. They were going to the files, and we held them to a high standard, but the coverage was based on the results. That's what we're doing now. Like you're winning 25 games. What do you want us to write? Like our job is n't to be an extension of the PR department. Yeah, there's a there's a part where like if they have a good young player, P the fans want to read things like that. But in heart of hearts, you know it's headed in the wrong direction. I'm not supposed to write that. That's that's the part I didn't understand. Like the and eventually the fans didn't stand that too, because once Twitter started up, once people could comment on your stories, remember that whole thing started, I was blown away by how many people took it personal and how many people thought you were just making things up. Like we're not making it, like we're here all the time. Like if and first of all, if I'm gonna make up a story, it'll be a doozy. It won't be something as boring as this stuff. Come on . Let's be real. Speaking of uh surveillance in the garden, I wanted to ask you about this. I saw a reference in New York magazine. I think you might have reported that the Knicks had a hot microphone somewhere near the scorers table, the idea was that to record conversations that uh you or another beat writer was having with a with a coach. Did I did I go to the case? So yeah, so a lot of times if you if you go to really one of the best times to go to a game to get information to see people are is before the game, you know, when the say two hours before tip-off, because then you get a lot of agents come through, a lot of people in the organization might be on the court milling around. This is before fans come in. And then even when the fans start tricking in, a lot of those people stay on the court. And it's a much more relaxed, casual atmosphere. So a lot of times you'd be sitting on the the scores table and you know just chatting it up with a guy a lot of times it's about nothing you're just talking about basketball nobody's not every not every time you have a conversation it's deep throat and it's watergate it's not, it's really not it's at the end of the day, it's only basketball, right? And then one of the players, uh, one of the coaches, assistant coaches, who used to be a player, said you better be careful because he goes, they're there, they have a microphone on the court. And they and I heard there was a room and they had the you know, obviously cameras in the building. So they were like recording all that stuff. They were they went to great lengths to try to find out who was leaking stuff. And the funny thing, of course, is no one leaks more stuff than the Knicks themselves. Do you understand what I mean? Like when they want stories out, they're the ones leaking things. They just didn't want the stories that didn't reflect well on them. That's what they were trying to find. Our leaks, not somebody else's leaks. That's what we want in the newspaper. Exactly. Um so I know Frank you're familiar with uh Dan Levit ard. Uh and and awful announcing. So but and the headline out of a recent uh Dan LeBotard segment was sports journalism is dead, and it was related to obviously the back and forth between Stephen A. Smith and Jalen Brown or whatever. But he came to the idea that sports journalism itself is dead. Do you agree? I think I so I I said this to the producer of uh PTI, like Pablo wouldn't the Pulitzer. I said he absolutely deserves it. I said unfortunately he's got no competition. Like nobody else is really trying to get to the story. And I think that there's a lot of things at play. I think because the players have direct access to respond to you, whether it's you know Jalen Brown going on Twitch, obviously on social media . And I think for younger reporters, they don't really want to deal with the backlash that comes from that, especially from fans. Like any you the story could be a hundred percent fair, but you're getting all the oh, you hate the team, you're you're just trying to stir things up. And a lot of times for younger reporters, they don't really want to put up with that. Even asking questions at press conference, where you know things, you know, things tend to go viral if it's kind of embarrassing for you. So I don't really think tough questions get asked. I'll give you a perfect example. Shegelus Alexander, after that game two, they lose game one, game two. He has a great game. The first question was this like confusing analytic question. Just ask the guy, did you feel like you had to have one of your A plus games in order for you to win? Like everyone try, it's it's not enough like direct questions that are asked to the players. And I think the agents being involved because now everyone admits that they're getting the stuff from the agent. You know, so and so, you know, the Knicks are signing some anonymous player to a two-way contract, and here's the eight agents that help makeed the deal possible. Like that's not really what the job should be about. I'm not saying that's part of it. But when Dan said that that's to me that kind of resonated a little bit. I mean Jalen Brown is getting upset at Stephen A for just saying, really? Like the day after you guys lose a 3-1 series lead, you're saying this was maybe your favorite year when your n when your teammate who was recovering from Achilles surgery, a potential career -ending injury. He's trying to make a comeback, and you're basically saying it was your most enjoyable year because essentially he wasn't there. So that that that whole thing, that whole thing was odd. All right. Frank Is ola, he's keeping journalism alive mornings on NBA radio and Sirius XM. This is so much fun. Frank, thanks for coming on the Press Box. Thanks. Thanks for having me, guys. Keep up the good work . That's the Press Box. He's Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Isaiah Blakely and John Romer. Thank you all. Uh for your efforts on this here media podcast. Let me tell you what's coming up next week, Joel, on the press box. Okay. The May issue. We're getting it out under the wire. Okay. Sunday, May 31st. That issue will be up. Shoemaker and I recorded it uh this week. Shoem akers cover will be on Instagram this weekend if you want to see what the May issue is all about. Check that out. And then next Thursday, you are holding down this podcast. Yeah, man. Who even knowss? I mean, there' I'm I'm gonna pull a rabbit out of a hat as it's as it goes right now. You don't want to even reveal all the things I mean, this is so much stuff, man. I gotta juggle, you know, and get approval from uh corporate and everything. So yeah, many people have confirmed you just need to turn several of them down because there's a lot of yeah, I got a c you know, cut cut the list, man. I can't wait to hear it. And then you and I got a very special guest in politic from the world of politics the week after that. Oh man, that's gonna be a bit. We had actually June. We already got a couple ones lined up that I'm really looking forward to. We're gonna have a big June here on the press box, just like we had a big May. Uh can't wait to see what more qualm takes about the media. Looking forward to it, buddy .