The week of one of the most wonderful times of the year is here in the opening games of the NCAA Tournament, but we won’t be talking about it (at least not quite yet). Instead, one of my favorite sports writers, Jeff Pearlman, took some time to chat about his career. That’ll do pig, that’ll do.
Before we get into Episode 103, as a reminder, The Bridge is broadcast as a one-hour radio show Monday through Friday on Sports Radio America at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT. A brand new show airs on Wednesdays, then is released as a podcast on iTunes and on this website immediately following the episode. You can listen to the show live on Wednesday night on Sports Radio America here or through the TuneIn app. Additional bonus content, including a weekly gambling segment, can be found exclusively on this podcast.
- “Sports News Read Like Real News” told the tale Sean McDonough’s departure from Monday Night Football and flashed back to an earlier SNRLRN to pay homage to his most valuable attribute – his voice (2:16).
- The Bridge Question of the Week is: Who is your favorite broadcaster, and why? Leave a voicemail or text in your answer to 929-BRIDGE7, that’s 929-274-3437, and you’ll make it on the next show.
- “Twas the Night Before Madness” — A flashback to last year’s ode to the start of March Madness, as written as a parody to everyone’s favorite Christmas poem (10:06).
- This week’s guest is Jeff Pearlman, a New York Times best-selling author of seven books who you might also remember from Sports Illustrated, ESPN.com, and The (Nashville) Tennessean. Jeff can now be found in The Athletic and contributing for several other places as well, and also has a podcast and blog. Based on that intro, there’s a good chance you’ve seen or heard one of Jeff’s works. I certainly fall into that category, and can’t help by recommend all seven of his books if you’re a sports fan, and especially a fan of the subject. But this interview wasn’t to chat about those books (at least, not yet), but how he got into sports writing in the first place. From reading just about all the sports books in the library or stealing Sports Illustrated from the neighbor’s trash, to eventually living his dream of writing for SI, Jeff worked his ass off to get to where he is today and certainly learned a lot along the way as well. We’ll chat about falling in love with sports writing, getting to Sports Illustrated, writing at SI, leaving SI, advice to aspiring writers and more.
- Follow Jeff on Twitter -> @jeffpearlman. The interview starts at the 14:24 mark.
– In the interview, we discuss:
How he fell in love with sports writing (15:03), stealing Sports Illustrated from his neighbor’s trash (16:44), predicting to his mother that he would one day write for SI (17:37), the importance of his time writing for his college newspaper (19:16), walking-on to become a Division 1 track and field athlete with Delaware (21:38), lessons learned from writing for the Tennessean (22:41), the story that got him hired with Sports Illustrated (25:06), how he found stories at SI to get noticed (27:48), the John Rocker story aftermath (30:37), learning from his co-workers while at SI (33:38), how long it took to find the confidence in his writing (36:35), knowing it was time to leave SI (40:23), the hardest part of transitioning to book writing (42:04), a story he wish he got to write (43:12), the reasons and curiosity for doing his podcast and The Quaz (44:59), how marriage and fatherhood has changed his life (47:45), advice to the aspiring journalist (50:17) and when his new book on the USFL hits the shelves (52:36).
- “Five Minutes in the Film Room” with Joe Baress, former star of the prestigious John and Joe Sports Show, gives out the biggest takeaways from the 2018 Oscars (54:09). You can follow Joe on Twitter @dukemich and read his movie reviews, previews and ratings at cupof-joe.com.
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Show music: ‘Actionable’ and ‘Epic,’ courtesy of www.bensound.com.
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