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Czaban Celebrates 25 Years On-Air

Jason Barrett

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Steve Czaban says it’s an oversight.

The veteran sports broadcaster, celebrating his 25th anniversary in the business, has a lengthy resume that lists work in local markets such as Washington, Chicago, Charlotte and Milwaukee, as well as national gigs with Sporting News Radio and ESPN Radio.

But there’s no mention of Fox Sports Radio, where “Czabe” spent seven years, 2002 through 2009, the last five in the morning drive spot. His contract wasn’t renewed when Fox decided to put Stephen A. Smith in the time slot instead.

“They treated us great at Fox,” Czaban said during a recent phone interview. “They wanted to go in a different direction. That happens in the business.”

He said he was unaware that Fox doesn’t appear on his bio and the omission is unintentional. But he let everyone know his thoughts in a December 2009 blog post.

“This was not my choice, or desire,” he wrote. “My agent wants me to spin it in one of those ‘we decided to mutually part ways’ for anybody who wanted to know. But I’m not good at lying.”

However, he’s great at sports talk, which is why the McLean, Virginia native spent just eight months away from the syndicated airwaves before resuming his national show via Sporting News Radio (now Yahoo! Sports Radio). “The Steve Czaban Show” is heard locally on SportsTalk 570 and he also co-hosts “The Drive” on ESPN 980, meaning he’s on air for nearly eight hours each day.

“I guess I’m lucky that there’s a different focus on the national show,” he said. “There’s a whole bunch of things we can talk about nationally. On the other one, we’re digging into the nuances of what’s important locally. I couldn’t do that many hours of one style of show each day.”

When he graduated from the University of California-Santa Barbara, Czaban dreamed of having a career like local play-by-play legend Steve Buckhantz. But Czaban quickly realized that those jobs are very limited and open infrequently. He was calling basketball games and doing a one-hour talk show on KTMS in Santa Barbara — where fellow UCSB alum Jim Rome began — when homesickness and an appetite for more passion set in. He moved back home in 1994.

“As nice as it was being in California, that side of the country moves in different rhythms,” Czaban said. “The importance of sports and fanaticism is different out there and I never felt truly at home. I didn’t miss winter but I did miss seasonality. To me, the seasons go hand-in-hand with the sports calendar.”

He did some work for WTEM-AM 570 until accepting a job in Chicago, where he spent three years before relocating to Charlotte. His afternoon show was doing fantastic when the general manager decided to give Czaban the morning slot.

Shortly thereafter, Czaban experienced his first taste of the industry’s cruel, bitter side.

“[The GM] let it go for one month exactly and decided it wasn’t working out,” he said. “I was fired summarily and not paid the rest of my contract. My first child was born four weeks prior to that. That was the fun part of the business, but it was a blessing because I started filling in for ESPN Radio after that.”

But he had no desire to relocate to Bristol, Connecticut, so he turned down a full-time offer and returned to WTEM to join “The Sports Reporters” with Andy Pollin in 2000. The two spent more than a decade together until the station paired Czaban with former Washington tight end Chris Cooley and Al Galdi in 2013.

Having grown up and spent most of his professional career in the D.C. market, Czaban said it gets a bum rap among sports towns. While it’s not in the big four of New York, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia, Czaban said D.C. is “right in the mix” with any other major area.

“It’s not our fault that there isn’t a kind of blue-collar industry that some other cities have that breed the beer-and-a-shot sports fan who goes to a little bar with no windows to watch local games, hang out and drink,” he said. “We’re a more professional city. And it’s not our fault that our teams have sucked for so long. I think we’re a very solid sports city and we don’t have anything to apologize for.”

He also has no remorse for the abundance of time spent locally on the NFL and Washington’s franchise. Local critics who claim Czaban & Co. never talk about other area teams are “flat-out wrong,” he said. “I can show them the logs.”

But he said you can’t overdo it with the NFL, particularly with storylines as juicy as that of Robert Griffin III and other burgundy-and-gold dramas.

Yahoo! gave Czaban’s a three-year renewal in October 2013, a few months before ESPN 980 extended his local contract by the same length. “Czabe is integral to the success of our station,” vice president of programming Chuck Sapienza said in a press release. “We look forward to three additional years of Czabe, Cooley and Galdi.”

Czaban never saw this coming 25 years ago.

“Being in this business like being on the run from the law,” he said. “You never take anything for granted beyond the end of your current contract. It’s a deal you have to make peace with in your mind, that ‘Hey, this may not work out and I’ll have to go to Plan B.”

Being bumped by Stephen A. and being canned in Charlotte haven’t stopped Plan A. It’s working out just fine.

Credit to the Washington Post who originally posted this article

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Jason Puckett Launches PuckSports.com

“I am super motivated right now and I can’t wait. I have probably been busier now than I’ve ever been in the last 48 hours.”

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Logo for PuckSports.com

Jason Puckett, who decided to walk away from a contract offer from iHeartMedia’s KJR in Seattle after finding out his partner Jim Moore had been laid off, has launched a new venture – PuckSports.com. ‘Puck’ has a baseball opening day show posted on the Puck Sports YouTube page and also posted an introductory message about his new venture and what led to creating it.

“I wanted to talk to you guys, the listeners out there, the viewers out there, sorry for all of this,” an emotional Puckett said. “Sorry for what has happened and what has taken place. Thank you for all of the comments and the well-wishes and what you have said about myself and Jim.

“It has been a whirlwind of a last few days, for sure and I do want to say that I feel for the people that we used to work with. “I know it’s not easy to go through that, I have been on that side of it many, many times in this industry when someone is let go and you have to sit there and answer all the questions about them and for them…It’s unfortunate and it shouldn’t be that way, but the reality of this business is it’s like that.”

Puckett then told his fans that PuckSports.com and YouTube are where you will be finding his content along with Moore. “I am going to take what I have learned over the years and apply it to a new age of media,” he said and noted this was a direction he had been thinking about for a while.

As for what took place that led to his decision to not sign his contract and talk away, he said, “I just want to take you briefly back to last week. I don’t want to get too much in the weeds, I’m not here to lay any blame or point any fingers at anybody…there’s too many good people that I have worked with that I don’t want to drag into this. It was a process that was at times handled fine, handled perfectly, and at other times it got to a point where it just went on too long. But that’s corporate media and that’s what happens.”

Continuing on Puckett said, “…I had been without a contract since about January…when I was away from the station that was something that we and the station agreed upon…to see if we could get something done and we were all hopeful that we would…I was only supposed to be gone a couple of days…unfortunately as these things sometimes happen, it just went a little bit longer…We received the deal and it was what we wanted, but unfortunately with that news a few hours later came the news from corporate that Jim had lost his job. Obviously there was a mix of emotions with that from me.

“I wrestled with that and the decision and what I would do. It was hard for me to move forward…I couldn’t fight the perception more than anything that I had received a new deal while at the same time, my partner and good friend, guy I love to death, who I grew up reading…it was a hard reality…The loyalty I have, I couldn’t live with myself even though Jim knew what the truth was.”

Puckett said he was aware Moore was planning to step away from the radio show at the end of the year and was looking forward to the nine months they would have left to work with one another. Then, when iHeartMedia made the decision to make Moore a casualty of their latest round of layoffs, Puckett knew he needed to revisit the idea of starting his own venture.

He said, “It has kind of changed my timeline as far as what I wanted to do and where I felt I was at…I am super motivated right now and I can’t wait. I have probably been busier now than I’ve ever been in the last 48 hours.”

Puckett said several of the show’s regular guests would stay with the show and he thanked several sponsors who he said would remain supporters of the show with the new venture. ‘Puck’ noted that starting next week, “…We get underway in full force…I’m going to continue to try and make people laugh and entertain you and talk about sports…and all of the other things you have become accustomed to with this show.”

As he started to wrap up, Puckett said, “I’m jumping into the deep end of the pool and I am going to see if I can swim or sink.”

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Kirk Minihane: WEEI is “Going to be Andy Gresh and Rich Shertenlieb in Afternoons”

“It’s going to be Andy Gresh and Rich Shertenlieb in the afternoons, which is going to be so awful.”

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Photos of Kirk Minihane and Rich Shertenlieb

As the speculation continues on where Boston sports talker Rich Shertenlieb will end up, one former WEEI host said he has the scoop on what is going to happen. Kirk Minihane, now with Barstool Sports, said, “What I heard was, initially, was they were moving Rich Keefe from nights to middays, moving Adam Jones from afternoons to middays and keeping Fauria there, and moving Andy Gresh to afternoons…But now it appears Rich Shertenlieb is going to do afternoons with Andy Gresh.”

On Wednesday, Boston Globe sports and sports media columnist Chad Finn put out a post on X, saying, “Didn’t think Rich Shertenlieb would end up at WEEI after leaving Sports Hub. I do now, most likely in afternoon drive. Audacy management has been telling people to expect changes.”

Minihane continued commenting on the matter, saying, “It’s going to be Andy Gresh and Rich Shertenlieb in the afternoons, which is going to be so awful. Maybe the two most sensitive c***s in the history of radio. That’s a show we are going to ruin…we haven’t done that in a while, we are going to take that show down…Once that show starts, we are just going to blitz them with phone calls because Gresh can’t handle that.

“What they don’t understand, because they are so dumb, is that…Rich Shertenlieb has no fan base…no fan of [Toucher and Hardy] in the morning is going to be like ‘I’m not going to listen to Felger in the afternoons, I’ll now listen to Andy Gresh and Rich Shertenlieb.’ It’s going to be dreadful.”

Recapping what he has heard the rest of the WEEI lineup will be, Minihane said, “…And then in middays you have Adam Jones, failed afternoons. Rich Keefe who has now failed middays, drivetime, nights and is now going to fail again in middays… and Christian Fauria who has never drawn a rating in his life.”

WEEI has not commented on any of the speculation. BSM will have more as the story unfolds.

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Former 670 The Score Host Tommy Williams Has Died

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Photo of Tommy Williams
Courtesy: Lakeshore Public Media

Tommy Williams, who was heard for a decade on 670 The Score, died on Wednesday at the age of 66.

Williams began his broadcasting career in his hometown of Gary, Indiana in 1982 at WLTH before moving on to The Score. In 2003, Williams became the PA Announcer for the Gary Southshore RailCats of the American Association where he had his signature call to get the attention of the fans, “People, People, People.”

A story in The Times of Northwest Indiana said, “The longtime RailCats public address announcer and Lakeshore Public Media sports journalist was known for broadcasting countless games, interviewing countless athletes and covering Region sports at all levels. The Gary native and co-host of “Prep Sports Report,” “Prep Football Report,” and “Lakeshore PBS Scoreboard” often signed off shows saying, “Gary, Indiana, you know I love you.”

“The cadence he had in his voice echoed across the Region in a way we may never see again. He was widely known and widely loved,” Tom Maloney, vice president of radio operations at Lakeshore Public Media told the paper.

“He’d want to be remembered as the voice of Lakeshore sports,” his Regionally Speaking co-host and producer Dee Dotson told The Times. “Most people will remember him for covering prep sports all the way up to semi-pros. He’ll be remembered for treating each of his subjects like they were world champions. His depth of knowledge of sports at all levels is commendable. He was a walking encyclopedia of stats.” 

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