Latest / Uncommon Impact / Tim Sinclair: Voice of the Bulls & Bears on Passion, Priorities & Choosing Your Own Path

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Tim Sinclair: Voice of the Bulls & Bears on Passion, Priorities & Choosing Your Own Path · Uncommon Impact

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Starting head guard for the Chicago Bulls.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Today's guest is Tim Sinclair, and he does that for every Home Bulls game and Chicago Bears game and Chicago Fire Game and University of Illinois football and men's basketball and women's basketball.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's been such a pleasure to get to know Tim over the last few years, and I hope you enjoy this conversation, a conversation in which we talk about not only the cool things he's been able to do with his public address career, but also how he's come to figure out how to juggle things, how to be a 1099 to 5 kind of guy as an independent contractor and figuring out what things to say yes to, what things to say no to, how to balance the kind of life he's wanted to live.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was an interesting conversation.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoy it.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Tim, thanks so much for joining me on Uncommon Impact.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a pleasure to have you.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: My pleasure.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we've been friends for eight years, something like that.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're actually the second guest I've had who emptied an event where I keynoted.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm always left with this sense of, why is this person not the keynote?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, you certainly fit that bit of bill as well.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're doing all these interesting things.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell me a little bit, though, about you know, it's easy to look and go, well, he's the, of course, he's got the amazing voice.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so somebody spotted that, and you've been the PA guy for all these exciting things forever.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to me a little bit about your journey and how you kind of came to be doing all these neat things.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was a complete accident.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I I thought for sure I was going to be an architect, junior high, high school, college.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: That was my plan.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: I went to architecture school, and it was while I was there that I needed a part-time job.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's literally just, I need money.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: What can I do to make some extra money for gas and food?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: And was at my parents' church and happened to see a guy who's closer to their age than mine, but he worked at a local radio station.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: I went, I wonder if he needs a little help.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I was thinking organizing stuff around the radio station or sweeping or like whatever, like something I could do a few hours a week.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: And he asked me a question that changed my life, and he said, Do you want to be on the air?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I went, Sure.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: And a few weeks later I was, and I was terrible at it, but it it sparked something in me, and it I I found that I loved it.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't any good, but I found that I loved it.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so that began a long, winding, slow journey from finding something that I kind of liked while doing architecture school to hey, maybe this could be an actual career in radio to working for 25 bucks a game and a hot dog at an Illinois softball game.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: And th those were the that was the infancy of what I'm now doing, but it it was the spark, and it was something that was like, hey, maybe not only do you like this, maybe is there's a talent here, uh, maybe it's something you can do as just sort of a fun hobby that you get paid for for the rest of your life.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's you know, way less expensive than golf.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so I kind of did that, and you know, it's easy to say one thing led to another, but literally that's what happened over the course of about 10 or 15 years.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now let me ask you a little bit about the craft.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you said you were terrible.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Was that terrible with the actual on-air stuff?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Was that terrible with thinking through things to say?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Was it when you say, you know, what where was the learning curve?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think all of it.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: I came in very blind.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I come from a family of communicators and uh a lot of pastors in, you know, my dad was a pastor, my uncle, my grandfather.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: So communication is not foreign to me or my heritage.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: However, I was nineteen years old, I'd never really done it, and it was just flying blind.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think when I say I was terrible, I feel like it was the finished product.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you were listening to me at two in the morning that first time they let me on the air, you would go, hmm.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: This guy's never done this before.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was fairly obvious that uh that I was very green and very new.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: But I like to say passion changes priorities.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I I found a passion that day for communicating with my voice, and it changed my priorities.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: All of a sudden, architecture school wasn't all I thought it was going to be.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: All of a sudden, on Saturdays, I didn't want to hang out with my friends.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to spend eleven of twelve straight hours doing on air shifts at local radio stations that nobody was listening to.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of having my evening free once I started in radio, I wanted to go work a softball match or a wrestling meet or swimming and diving, even though I was probably spending more on gas and food to get there and back than I was actually working the event.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: My priorities had changed, and so I wanted to follow that passion.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And ultimately I went from being bad to being okay to eventually developing a little skill.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And part of it is, I mean, obviously, all the reps you put in, all the practice, and then prep.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen you do, you know, you know, you joke about it and you put you put out those clever videos about trying to get the pronunciations right.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not like you roll up to the arena and take a take a glance at the uh at I mean you could do that, right?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: You could look at the roster and whatever, but but I know you don't.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then also, so there's all that prep, I would think, but then there's also one of the things I was surprised with um being around James Brown of TBS Sports.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, JB has done it for so long now, and he can just kind of do it.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: But when I was sitting there with him in his office one day in his home studio, and he had to do a some sort of voiceover or PR thing or whatever it was, and he spent five minutes doing voice exercises and other things, and I thought, You've been doing this forever, can't you just fall out of bed?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and he said, You know, every time I do this, I I have certain things I walk through and whatever before I get ready to.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Is there something like that, or you also just have that voice that just seems like a gift?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I get asked the question a lot, and I kind of feel bad that I don't have a better answer.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um but to me the voice is a muscle, and so the more you use it, the stronger it gets.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so by and large, I I don't warm up, I don't do vocal stretching, if that's what you want to call it.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: I just start.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now, early in the morning, it's harder to just start than it is later in the day, because sometimes I'll walk into a studio or I'll be hosting a morning event, and I haven't talked to anybody yet.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: I've literally not said any words to another human, and you've just got to jump in, and and that does take some time to warm up, so I probably in those cases should warm up a bit better.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: But in general, most of my events are in the afternoon or evening, and I've had time to just live my life, and through that that warms up my voice enough that I can jump in and ladies and gentlemen, welcome to you know, you just all of a sudden you're in it and and you're off and running.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a favorite couple of names?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the most complicated, I think, still to date, was a uh women's basketball player at Illinois.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: I did uh women's basketball for ten years.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: She was from Greece, and her first name was Anastasia, not not that hard.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: She went by Nancy, so that made it even easier.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: But when you hear her last name's plural, uh you'll understand why they shortened the first name.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: So her name was Nancy Panagatopulu and Drittopulu.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that all wouldn't fit on a jersey.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: So she just went by Nancy Panagatopulu and lots of uh lots of letters, lots of syllables, and you just memorize it.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Don't don't look at it ever, because that'll mess you up.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Just memorize it, and that is that is my all-time favorite name so far.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, good.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, which one um so which one of these gigs came first?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: You're doing fire, you're doing bears, you're doing bulls.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: You had done pacers at one point.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: You've done Illinois sports.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: How did you what of the big kind of big ones you're doing now was was there a foot in the door like you kept working your way up through things, and all of a sudden one of them said, would you talk to us?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: So my Illinois was really the foot in the door.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: I've never done done high school except for the state championships now.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: I've never I didn't wasn't doing like junior high and high school events to work my way, and I just got a chance at the University of Illinois to do a baseball game.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that was my foot in the door.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: I would say my first big opportunity was with the Chicago Fire.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm in year thirteen with them now, and that was really the first professional gig that I was was able to do.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: A few years later, uh Illinois basketball, I'd been doing women's basketball, a bunch of other sports, they brought me on.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then the Pacers were silly enough to hire me for a few years, and I thought that was gonna be it.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: That was my end all be all.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'd made the NBA, that was bucket list, I'm done, I'll be here when you drag me out.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it just so happened.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm from Illinois, I live in Illinois, I was working in Chicago and Champaign, but I was driving to Indianapolis to do Pacers games, but I didn't care.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: My family lived there, and I was I was alright with it.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: But then the Bulls and the Bears jobs both came open in the same year.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: And the odds of getting one of them are next to nil.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the odds of getting both of them are insane.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: I thought this is impossible.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: But uh one thing led to another, and in 2020 I was named the the voice for both teams.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh here we are, it's year seven now with the Bulls and Bears, 13 with a fire, 12 with the University of Illinois, and uh I couldn't be happier.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty amazing.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I do love the idea of you know, one thing is is is risk and deciding to not follow the degree, right?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And go out in this other area.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, one of my one of my close friends with the Buccaneers, he was the head of scouting, and and for him it was similar but different, where he was like, hey, if if I get if I get fired and can't find another football job, the only thing I did was college radio.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and he looked at it as, you know, there's no in some ways there's no safety net, right?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're doing these things, you're cobbling together a living.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um I love it.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: I find it fascinating um what you do and and how you're doing it.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: I call it 1099 to five.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we look at.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: 1099 to five.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and your wife must be good with it knowing that you can put all this together?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: She is, yeah.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the bills get paid, and um the the freedom is amazing.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I love working for myself.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't had a real job in uh 15 years, and I love that part about it.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yes, you work a lot of nights and weekends in sports, as you know, you've lived that life.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I also get a lot of opportunities that other parents don't and other spouses don't.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: I can drop my wife off at work like I did this morning, or go read to the girls at school with their class, and I'm the only dad there.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um those those things are special um that most don't get to do when you have a nine to five.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: So there are trade-offs, but uh it's been one that I'm more than willing to make.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, um, well, I'm just impressed by the courage and and the uh being willing to do the 1099 to five.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking of freedom, you can, for instance, go in July and hang out in Mexico, uh, like you did this year.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, was that like a bucket list item, or was that never on your radar and all of a sudden it falls into your lap and and you're like, okay, yeah, this is now a bucket list item.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Feels like it to me anyway.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: Since I've started Public Address, it has become a bucket list item.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like early in my life, I didn't have any idea any of this was possible, so I it was never a bucket list.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: But once I started down this career path, it's been uh World Cup, Olympics, Super Bowl.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the three that I haven't done that I would love to do.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and as you mentioned, this summer I spent a month in Guadalajara, Mexico calling four World Cup matches, and so I can check that one off the list, and it was an incredible experience for so many reasons.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I bet.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And was that one where you had to did you have you would have had time between the matches to do enough prep, I would think, because I would think that would have been uh a challenge, at least for for me native English speech speaker, to make sure I was getting things right.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we had uh Korea Republic, Czechia, Mexico, Colombia, so a lot of different types of names to have to say.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: And they provided us with not only documentation but actual audio of people saying the names, which is far more efficient, I think, when it comes to pronunciations, because people write phonetically differently.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people write it incorrectly, and they essentially teach you how to say the name wrong.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: So for me to be able to hear it and then write it down as I would naturally read it was fantastic.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: So some of the time was spent doing that.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh some of the time was spent rehearsing in in the stadium.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was all if you saw the World Cup, you know, the flags coming out, the timing of everything, the welcoming, you know, please welcome Korea Republic in Mexico or whatever.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so all that was very highly structured.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but then there were times we had six, seven days off in a row, and we could just go be tourists in Mexico, which was amazing.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I got a little bit of vacation, a little bit of work, and uh a once-in-a-lifetime, maybe once-in-a-lifetime experience.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you get to see, you know, you worked the NBA bubble, um, right?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: You you got to uh you've done a variety of things.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one more technical question before I pivot.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um you talk about not needing to do voice exercises type things.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Are there certain events that wear you out more than others where you have to do more commentating and the events three hours?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Or are there ones where you and you have to pay attention?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Am I drinking water here?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Am I drinking tea?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: What are what are some of those things you've you've picked up?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Football is the most strenuous on the voice because you've got three or four hours non-stop talking.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Pass complete two, tackle made by gain of the on the play, second and seven, you know, all you're doing this a hundred and twenty times a game for four hours.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that can be more taxing.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and when, you know, the the Bears, for example, in my team, when they're on third down a lot, we growl a little bit, not actual growls, but you use more uh energy in your voice, and that can tire out.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: I the only times I truly get tired is if I'm working multiple events in the same day.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: The Illinois High School State Championships, for example, there are six games the first two days, and so you're doing not only are you doing six teams you don't know, or twelve teams, I guess in that case, you don't know, because I'm not familiar with most of them, but you're also just doing so much of it, you know, after six games you get tired.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then we do have some doubleheader days.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a few coming up where you've got, you know, Bears at noon, bulls at six, and so you've just done a football game and you drive across the city and you hop in a new arena and then you have to bring it all again for an NBA game.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the ones where you start tiring out sometimes a little bit by the end.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I'm I've gotten to know Scott Hansen, um, who does NFL Red Zone.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: He was a Tampa broadcaster forever ago, lived in Tampa.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: We knew him when I was at the Bucks.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he always talks about, you know, having to figure out his bathroom breaks and planning them well in advance.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I would think it would be the same for you know, the rest of us don't pay attention, but you know you kind of have to map out things throughout the day, I would think.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: One of the hardest parts about being a I I say part of my job is saying the right thing at the right time in the right way.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good part of it.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other part is drinking just enough to not be thirsty, but not so much that you have to pee.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like those that's that's a big deal.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um because once I sit down at 11 o'clock to do a noon NFL game, I can't get up until it's over at 3 or 3 30 or whatever that is.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: So four, four and a half hours um talking the whole time, wanting to be drinking a lot, I yeah, I've pretty much figured out exactly what I could have to not be incredibly uncomfortable, and uh so far so good.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, good, but let me pivot just a tad.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: You've been in these settings, you've seen some interesting things.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, when it comes to impact and it comes to leadership, have there been things where you've had a and it could be a team where you thought they punched above their weight or something unique you saw either on court or on the field?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Or have there been situations like that where you've kind of had this, you know, you're sitting there doing a job, but then along the way you're also like, huh, this is kind of interesting.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I hadn't hadn't thought about that.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Anything like that you've picked up?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I feel like I I see that a lot, although I I I do try to stay in my lane.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think early on in my media career, my goal was always the next big opportunity, the next job with more responsibility or more money or a bigger title or a bigger market.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that was it's kind of what we're groomed as at least Americans to to go after.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: More responsibility, more money, bigger title, whatever.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: But it didn't take me too long to realize that I don't want that.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: I d I don't want to be the person that gets the phone call when the radio station goes off the air.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Or when someone needs to get fired, I'm the one who has to go in and give them the bad news.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Or sit in three hours of required meetings three times a week because that's what a person in that position does.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: I got to some of those and realized very quickly that I I don't I don't want that.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um some people do, and they love it, and they thrive in those situations, and that's great.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad there are people like that, so I don't have to do it.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so I I think what I've I've learned in watching the goings-on in a a lot of these organizations is that the the 1099 to 5 that we joked about is worth it because I get to step away from all that other stuff.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not glued to my laptop, I'm not glued to a 9-5, I don't have to hop in on Zoom calls, I I just show up and I do my job and that's what I that's the part I'm passionate about and the other stuff I'm not.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so some of what I've learned is it's okay to not want the next quote unquote big thing, that that responsibility, that title, that paycheck, because if you're not happy doing it, then it's not worth doing.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so that's kind of how I've lived my life uh for 15 or 20 years now.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um I certainly spent the early part of my career not living that way.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: But the more I see other people have to deal with hierarchy and bosses, and well, this is I don't I'm not interested.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so I don't know if that answered your question, but that's certainly something I've learned along the way that I definitely do not want.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's better than whatever I was asking.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because well, and what I love about that is the the these golden handcuffs that so many of us get, right?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: That I'm the next step, the next step, the next step, and and um, you know, kind of it wasn't exactly his point, but my buddy, when we were in Tampa and things were going sideways, he was like, I've got to find like the next thing, right?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: I can't, I I don't have wherever it is I have, you know, and and we weren't enjoying parts of what were going on, and we thought, okay, this isn't great and this is stressful, and I'm working, you know, whatever, and you can never turn your cell phone off or whatever it may be.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and not having the ability to go, wait, wait, I went down this path because I was supposed to, not because I wanted to.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's powerful.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's powerful to be able to stop and say, okay, I I like this, these parts of it and not that part.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Let me see if I can follow this.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and that's yeah, and it's something that you you can't usually do when you're 20 or 25.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: You've you've got to put in work, you've got to put in time, you've got to learn things, or so much you don't know.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: But eventually that's what all that time and energy affords you is the ability to start picking and choosing more specifically.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I found that uh it used to be I would take whatever was offered to me because I thought I had to, and now not so much.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let me talk a little bit about the team because it's just you on the air, and it's just you making the magic happen.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I know that's not true.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember getting on either going in into the box.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: At Bucks games or being on the flight when they would bring who I thought it was going to be the color commentator and the play-by-play guy.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it was.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then it was the eight people behind them as well who made everything work.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: What's that like in getting everybody to function together?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Is that an easy thing?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Is that challenging?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Does everybody know where they're supposed to go and what they're supposed to do at this point?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: You'd think, and most of the time they do.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember when I first stepped into some of these bigger roles at teams that I'd only looked at from afar.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I can't think of too many bigger two-team combos in one city than the Bulls and the Bears.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Those two just legacy franchises with deep histories.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you still walk in and you realize everybody's just like me.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: I came in thinking this is gonna be like just highfalutin.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's excellent.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: They do things with excellence, but they're still just all people doing their jobs.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: They just are doing them at a high level, and they're fun and they get sad and they have bad days, and they have good days, and and and that was a bit of an eye-opening experience to me of everybody's just like me.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, I have bad days, but so do they, and so let's try to figure out how we can all do this together.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And and the good news is on this level, most everybody knows how to figure that out.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um can can set other things aside and and make things happen.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: But there's a large team.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh at the Bulls, for example, yeah, I I'm the voice everybody hears and the face most people know.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I've got a director sitting next to me, we've got a director up in our video booth, we have people running sound, sound effects, video, camera, mixing the camera, people who are getting people on and off the court at the right time, uh, people who are handling those who are doing the national anthem, and those who are uh the the flags and the cheerleaders, and there's a million people, and I hear them all in my headset, which is actually kind of fun, uh, to sort of know what's happening and when it's happening.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it takes an army to pull off any game like that when most people only see or remember bits and pieces of it, to make it look that way takes a ton of people.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: And do you have a spotter as well?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: For football, I do.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: For football, yeah.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: For the other sports I don't, but I have one spotter for football who, for those who don't know what a spotter is, he's basically helping me pick out players on the field because it's really hard to see 22 people at the same time.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: So he does defense for me, uh, I handle offense, and then we work together on down and distance.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: So he's telling you number eight on the tackle, correct?
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you're able to say tackle by whatever.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, no, that's to me, that's really hard.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: I remember again seeing James Brown on the set.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, something would happen, they'd do a game break, they'd cut in, and and Coward or whoever Dan Reno would do the, you know, and you'll see the Titans score here, and somebody comes running onto the set, hunched down, passes a piece of paper up, and it's some stats person who like and and you know, Coward goes, that's only the 14th time in the last 37 years.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you're watching, you're like, how does this guy on the side of the room even know to look for that stat?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: And how do they find it that fast?
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: And anyway, to me that was fascinating to realize I'm seeing the face, but there's all these different voices and people and sheets of paper being passed, and um a lot going on.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Or speaking in your ear while you're speaking other things.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I sometimes I'll have two or three voices saying things to me or not me in my ears while I'm saying other things to 60,000 fans uh or a national TV audience at some point.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: So it's um it's a skill you learn.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I love it.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's beautiful chaos to me.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: But for those who either don't know it exists or aren't ready for it, it uh it could be eye-opening.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I I had a chance to hear JB's audio feed one time, and it's director talking to him, and it's stat person talking to somebody else, and it's and they're giving him a little bit of the game to to hear as he's about to cut over to whatever game it is.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought it's all I can do to talk to you, Tim, right here now, and not be confused.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so how you all do that is is amazing to me.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the other thing, when you talked about all these different people, um I I gave a talk a number of years ago, a couple years ago, to the uh um otolyngology team at at a university.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's all these people who do ear, nose and throat and talk about having to learn I had to learn how to say autolaryngology.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: You did.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so learned it very well.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was great.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And my wife was cracking up because I don't know anything about science and medicine and whatever, but I'm giving this talk.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: And but the the dean of the school brought me in and he said, what these residents and other doctors don't understand is they're gonna be on a team.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: They think I'm the person, I'm gonna be calling the shots, I'll decide what happens.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: But whether it's in the office, in an operating room, whatever it is, there's going to be a whole host of people.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if they don't start to see themselves as a part of a team, it's gonna be dysfunctional.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems like it would be easy to maybe not for you, but for others to go, oh yeah, Tim just bowls in, he does his thing.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's a whole bunch of people that that go into making that all work.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it it's you know, I'm the face andor the voice, but I'm I'm definitely not the one in in charge.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and like I said, I like that, uh, quite honestly.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Someone's in my ear telling me we need to do this now or this is next, or we don't have time for this, we're gonna flip this and this.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: These this is when the game's not happening.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: When the game's happening, I've got the freedom to call the game as I need to call the game, but uh most of the work is happening when the game's not being played.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so you got someone in your I was just I did the the President's Cup was the official starter for the President's Cup recently, and NBC was carrying all of my introductions for every golfer when they went.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so I had a person in my ear telling me, okay, go in three, two, one, next golfer, and I had to read that.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: But occasionally, uh, NBC wasn't ready, or they were going to skip this one and because they had something else going on another hole.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so it wasn't like I was just, hey, I see golfers, I get to start saying stuff.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: No, we've got TV talking to our producer, talking to me, talking to fans, and talking to the network TV audience all at the same time, and it's just this this dance of we're not quite ready, we need an extra three seconds, and so someone's in my ear going, pause, pause, pause, go.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then that's just kind of how those work.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it looks like a solo job, but it is anything but.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: Two final questions for you.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of playing off that the the what are there whether it was President's Cup, I are is there an event where you've been sitting there and you're like, I can't believe I'm sitting here?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: Or is that every is that just like Tuesday for you?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, most of them, I do feel that way.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I do think constantly, gosh, who did I trick to get this job?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I really pulled the wool over someone's eyes and they keep letting me come back.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think the the President's Cup was a big one, um, partly because the president was standing twenty feet from me, and so that's weird.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um and very it's just it feels different.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: The job's the same, but when the Secret Service is four feet from you and you know, it just feels a little different.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the other one would have been 2022 NBA All-Star in Cleveland.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: That was the NBA 75th, where we recognized the seventy-five greatest players of all time.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: And not only did I thought I was just gonna be introducing them to people in the arena, but TNT or TBS, whoever was carrying it, used me for the entire broadcast.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I was on national television introducing Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman and Magic Johnson and Steph Curry and LeBron, like the whole the whole crew.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a room, like I was in the bathroom beforehand, and I I I turned around, I was like, there was Bill Walton, John Stockton, Hakeem Elijah on, and like three or four other like Hall of Famers, all just because that's what the room was made up of was just Hall of Famers left and right.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: So that was one where I'm like, I I'm not supposed to be here, but somehow, somehow I am.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing, amazing.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: But it does sound like day to day.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: I I heard Al Michael say one time, he said, I'm 80, and every time I go into an event, I'm like, you know, as a kid, I would have dreamt of buying a ticket to come to this.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: And instead, I work it and I'm invited, and and it just it has that feel.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um when I percent that.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: When I see you pause or you talk, let me ask you one final thing.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: Then we met at a terrible event.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: How do you balance?
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, talk about making an impact, doing things.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: How do you balance?
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: You've got you're you're going to different things, you're cobbling together this livelihood, doing other things, right?
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because you've got the kind of voice where if you were anywhere near me, I'd be asking you to work every event um gratis, right?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I know you do some.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: How do you figure out, like, here are the things that make sense, here's where I think that I should be giving back.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: How do you how do you do all that and navigate that because I know you do?
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's hard to know.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I don't think there is a perfect formula, but there is one that that has worked for me.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a couple of events every year I I do for free.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um one is the Coaches versus Cancer event that's held here.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's the largest one in the country.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Brad Underwood, the the coach at Illinois, puts it on every year, and so I I host that, and um obviously everybody's impacted by cancer.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's I I have been, my family has been, and so it's one that's close to my heart, and I I don't mind donating my time that night for that.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a few others.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was just asked to do the Mike Ditka um charity event last week, and he like he died six days later.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: We had no idea.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that was one where they asked, quite honestly, for uh a donation.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I was giving up time, it was my one free night that week.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: I had given up time with my boys, with my wife and the girls, and I was gonna have to drive to Chicago from my home.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I just said, Look, I I want to help.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: I will give you a steeply discounted rate, but because it's going gonna cost me some money, but two, gonna cost me some time uh with my one open night this week.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um I need a little something.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was we worked out a way to try to make it make sense for them and for me.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and that's kind of the method I usually use.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's there's no easy way to do it, and I I hate asking for money.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's my least favorite thing ever.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: But also 1099 to 5, you have to.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, it's really hard to it for me, it made me acutely aware of of time, right?
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: That there was always something else I could say yes to.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: There still is, right?
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it's always and nobody ever usually nobody asks you to be a part of something that's lousy or hurts people, or right?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's always and it's all something near and dear to their hearts, right?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's I'm involved in this thing, can you do it?
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and it it gets really hard, but you have if over time you realize time is really all I've got, that that I'm trading here and I gotta figure out how do I value that.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this is a good way to circle back to what we said at the very, very beginning was passion changes priorities.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're passionate about something, you're willing to do other things that fit that passion for free, or for a little money, or that they don't make sense.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: You drive farther than you should, you make less than you should, you give up more time than you should because you're passionate about something.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so to answer this question with a passion for something, I am willing to give up time or a little bit of money or or whatever in order to make that happen.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's kind of the gauge that I use when I have to give an answer to somebody.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: If if the passion resonates with me, then I'm I'm willing to change my priorities to make it happen.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: Totally makes sense, and a great way to do it.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Tim, thanks so much for your time.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate you squeezing me in between a line I things and and the bulls are getting started and the bears are so and the fire.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's everybody's going right now, huh?
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's crossover season.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's some there's a stretch here in about a week and a half where I have in four days all five of my teams back to back to back to back.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: So um it'll be uh it'll be a fun stretch.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, good.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: We'll keep sipping water.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh good luck getting through that.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: Will do, appreciate it.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: All right, thanks so much.