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Inside the Interview: Andrea Kremer on the Moments That Made Sports History · Rosters to Rings Podcast

0:07
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Rosters to Rings. This is the second
0:10
Speaker 1: half of our conversation with Andrea Kramer, the nine time
0:13
Speaker 1: Emmy Award winner, Peabody recipient, Pro Football Hall of Famer,
0:17
Speaker 1: and Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer. In this episode, Andrea
0:21
Speaker 1: takes us behind the scenes of some of her most
0:24
Speaker 1: iconic interviews with the likes of Matt Bush, Jim Ursay,
0:28
Speaker 1: Chris Carter, Kobe Bryant, Barrett Robbins, and Beakroom Chowdering Andrew.
0:34
Speaker 1: I'm just curious as you then moved to ESPN, where
0:37
Speaker 1: you were also the first female correspondent, things changed over
0:41
Speaker 1: time there though during your tenure there. I believe Robin
0:44
Speaker 1: Roberts joined soon after you were there, right around the
0:46
Speaker 1: same time. How did the culture there evolve when such
0:50
Speaker 1: amazing female talents such as Robin Roberts and Leslie Visser
0:54
Speaker 1: and Linda Cohene and Bonnie Bernstein and Holly Row Lisa Salters.
0:59
Speaker 1: I'm just reading off all these people who these people
1:01
Speaker 1: impacted my love of sports. These were the people who
1:04
Speaker 1: informed reported on sports from Ribethe Nowns, Rachel Nichols, so
1:08
Speaker 1: many other I'm sure that I'm forgetting, but those are
1:11
Speaker 1: the ones that I remember from from watching ESPN at
1:13
Speaker 1: the time. How did things change and evolve at ESPN,
1:17
Speaker 1: which before your arrival was very male dominated.
1:21
Speaker 2: Well, I think that in I was hired in ed
1:26
Speaker 2: ESPN in nineteen eighty nine, as you say, is their
1:28
Speaker 2: first female correspondent, and I opened our bureau in Chicago,
1:32
Speaker 2: and at that time, there was a real push to
1:38
Speaker 2: make ESPN the source of sports news. When anything happened
1:46
Speaker 2: in sports, we wanted the audience to turn on ESPN
1:51
Speaker 2: because we were going to tell you what was happening,
1:54
Speaker 2: but what, why, the where? How? We were going to
1:57
Speaker 2: be the definitive news source. And the man who shepherded
2:01
Speaker 2: that was the great John Walsh. And he was in
2:07
Speaker 2: a position where he started to hire journalists, and he
2:14
Speaker 2: was hiring newspaper people and such as Sal pal Antonio
2:21
Speaker 2: and putting them on the air, a Chris Mortensen. He
2:25
Speaker 2: was hiring people that came sort of from the news background,
2:28
Speaker 2: like a Robin Roberts, and so all of a sudden
2:32
Speaker 2: he's building his news team. And to ESPN's credit, kind
2:38
Speaker 2: of like what I said before, they weren't so much
2:42
Speaker 2: worried about your presentation the way you looked they wanted credibility,
2:52
Speaker 2: and that's so the people you know, a lot of
2:54
Speaker 2: the people that you named, they were the ones that
2:57
Speaker 2: were giving the credibility. And it was it was an
3:02
Speaker 2: amazing time to be there. We were really we were
3:06
Speaker 2: allowed to report, we were encouraged to report break news,
3:11
Speaker 2: get exclusive interviews, and it was it was really. I
3:16
Speaker 2: think the Golden Age is forts journalism and I'm thrilled
3:20
Speaker 2: that I could be part of it, along with a
3:23
Speaker 2: lot of the illustrious people that you mentioned. But I
3:29
Speaker 2: did stories back then that you just couldn't do today.
3:33
Speaker 2: I did a story about players beating a drug test,
3:40
Speaker 2: and I found a player who failed a drug test
3:44
Speaker 2: because drummer roll please, he was pregnant. That is correct.
3:50
Speaker 2: He used his girlfriend's urine. He substituted his girlfriend's urine
3:54
Speaker 2: for his and he did not know she was pregnant,
3:57
Speaker 2: but he found out and I got the guy on camera,
4:01
Speaker 2: he talked on camera about it. You probably couldn't get
4:05
Speaker 2: a story like that today. There's just certain things that
4:09
Speaker 2: we were able to do and report on. It's just
4:13
Speaker 2: different today. There's are I think there's a strong emphasis
4:18
Speaker 2: on league partnerships that's just going to change things. I'm
4:22
Speaker 2: not going to say it's going to prevent stories from
4:25
Speaker 2: being told, but it may make the boss's second guess
4:30
Speaker 2: about certain things. So I'm just glad that I was
4:35
Speaker 2: able to hone my journalistic chops with the guidance of
4:39
Speaker 2: people like John Walsh and Steve Anderson and Jim con
4:41
Speaker 2: and Bobby and people that you know, you don't know.
4:44
Speaker 2: The people that you mentioned are phenomenal at what they do,
4:49
Speaker 2: But the people that I mentioned are the ones that
4:51
Speaker 2: were really the backbone of ESPN's journalist journalistic push and
4:58
Speaker 2: the ones that we're going to make make this network
5:02
Speaker 2: really really special and the defining news source not just
5:07
Speaker 2: around the country, but really around the world.
5:09
Speaker 1: I would agree with you wholeheartedly. That's what ESPN was
5:13
Speaker 1: viewed as at that time. It was an exceptional destination
5:17
Speaker 1: every night you wanted to tune in, and then you know,
5:20
Speaker 1: you expand your horizons and you're doing things on outside
5:24
Speaker 1: the lines, up close HBO's Real Sports, which I was
5:27
Speaker 1: so saddened when it stopped airing. But you've been on
5:31
Speaker 1: so many platforms where you have you know, availed yourself
5:35
Speaker 1: as one of the foremost investigative journalists of our era,
5:39
Speaker 1: And I'm just curious what inspired you to shift your
5:42
Speaker 1: attention to some of these real hard hitting stories about
5:45
Speaker 1: sexual assault, domestic violence, mental health, and then your personal tie.
5:49
Speaker 1: They're like your passion for covering drug abuse.
5:53
Speaker 2: Well, you know, you know the great adage sports is
5:59
Speaker 2: microcos society. These issues exist in society, and I've always
6:05
Speaker 2: been fascinated by these sociological issues, if you will. And
6:11
Speaker 2: I loved the fact that I could go cover all
6:16
Speaker 2: six of Jordan's championships and all these Super Bowls. I
6:19
Speaker 2: think this was just my thirty fifth that I covered.
6:22
Speaker 2: I could cover all these games, but then I could
6:25
Speaker 2: also do these truly meaningful stories where and their stories
6:29
Speaker 2: of loss, stories of vulnerability. But for example, you mentioned
6:36
Speaker 2: about the addiction. So back in the day, the NFL
6:43
Speaker 2: had a rookie seminar where they would bring all their
6:49
Speaker 2: rookies together to one place and they would give them
6:52
Speaker 2: education about a number of different topics. And one of
6:56
Speaker 2: the speakers was the director of the Betty Ford Center,
7:02
Speaker 2: which is a place where a very very famous place
7:07
Speaker 2: where they treated ad diction. So I had gotten to
7:12
Speaker 2: know this guy a little bit, and he says, you know,
7:14
Speaker 2: we have this program called Professionals and Residents, and you
7:19
Speaker 2: have to apply for it. It's a very serious program.
7:22
Speaker 2: Not everybody can show up. We've only had a handful
7:25
Speaker 2: of journalists that have ever come. Like general managers of
7:29
Speaker 2: teams would come and college sports athletic directors would go
7:34
Speaker 2: and make a long story short, they ended up having
7:38
Speaker 2: an opening. So I went to betty Ford for a week.
7:43
Speaker 2: So you go there for the for an entire five
7:46
Speaker 2: day week. You stay about five minutes away. You are
7:50
Speaker 2: busted there every day. You spend all day, three meals
7:54
Speaker 2: a day with the patients except when they do their
7:59
Speaker 2: individual one on one counseling. And you have to have
8:03
Speaker 2: this training before you start. Every day they would give
8:07
Speaker 2: you a form that you had to fill out where
8:09
Speaker 2: you had to basically list all the things that you
8:14
Speaker 2: learned and what questions you had. And I'll never forget
8:18
Speaker 2: the first session I ever sat in on. They go
8:21
Speaker 2: around the room and you know, my name is that,
8:24
Speaker 2: and my addiction is. This woman next to me was
8:32
Speaker 2: one of these women. She just looked rich, was like
8:34
Speaker 2: dripping in diamonds. And she says her name, and she says,
8:38
Speaker 2: and I'm a heroin addict, And I would take my
8:42
Speaker 2: chauffeur and I'd have him drive me up to the
8:46
Speaker 2: Bronx and I would I would cop Heroin And then
8:50
Speaker 2: they get to me. I'm like, my name's Andrea, and
8:54
Speaker 2: the only addiction I've probably ever had in my life
8:56
Speaker 2: is to work and guess. And at first they don't
8:59
Speaker 2: accept you because you're an outsider. But then you know what,
9:02
Speaker 2: they realize I got way bigger problems than knowing about her,
9:07
Speaker 2: and they accept you and I learned so much. So
9:11
Speaker 2: the first AA meeting I'm in, I'd never been to
9:15
Speaker 2: anything like this in my life. First Amy, you know,
9:17
Speaker 2: I'm just kind of sitting there quietly, kind of keeping
9:20
Speaker 2: to myself. You don't want to look around, you know.
9:23
Speaker 2: I think I went like this, and then I did
9:24
Speaker 2: a double take and I looked behind me. In about
9:26
Speaker 2: four rows behind me on the left is John Daily.
9:31
Speaker 2: And I don't think it was a coincidence that when
9:34
Speaker 2: he got out of betty Ford, the first interview that
9:37
Speaker 2: he did with me. So when you leave betty Ford,
9:44
Speaker 2: whether you're a professional in residence or a patient, they
9:48
Speaker 2: give you a coin. It's like the size of a
9:50
Speaker 2: half dollar. They call it a Serenity coin. And one hand.
9:55
Speaker 2: On one side it's the Betty Ford crest. On the
9:58
Speaker 2: other side is the Serenity prayer. Prayer, God give me
10:00
Speaker 2: the strength to you know, it's got the prayer on it.
10:03
Speaker 2: And the point is you're supposed to keep it in
10:04
Speaker 2: your pocket and that if you have an urge, you're
10:07
Speaker 2: supposed to touch it. And it's supposed to have like
10:08
Speaker 2: a Pavlovian dog effect when you touch this, and you
10:11
Speaker 2: remember the things that you learned at betty Ford. So
10:15
Speaker 2: I'll never forget one time I was in an airport
10:19
Speaker 2: and was and I carried this corner around in my
10:21
Speaker 2: in my in my my little change purse, and I dropped.
10:27
Speaker 2: I dropped it one day and some guy came over
10:30
Speaker 2: and was helping me pick up my coins, and he
10:31
Speaker 2: looks at the coin. I'll never forget his face. He
10:34
Speaker 2: sees Betty Ford, and then he looks at me, and
10:37
Speaker 2: I remember the feeling of judgment that he had, And Wow,
10:41
Speaker 2: that was so enlightening that in that split second that
10:44
Speaker 2: guy looked and saw the name Betty Ford and looked
10:46
Speaker 2: at my face and put the two together like I'm
10:48
Speaker 2: an addict, and he had judgment in his eyes. And
10:53
Speaker 2: that resonated for me so strongly, so when I talked
10:56
Speaker 2: to a John Daly, or when I talked to when
10:58
Speaker 2: I went to prison and I interviewed a Dexter Manly,
11:02
Speaker 2: or the first interview with Barrett Robbins who went a
11:05
Speaker 2: wall from the Super Bowl, or a baseball player that
11:09
Speaker 2: you know very well because he was on your Texas
11:12
Speaker 2: Rangers team named Matt Bush. I felt that I had
11:14
Speaker 2: this training in addiction that I could understand and it
11:18
Speaker 2: would help me be more informed when I was going
11:22
Speaker 2: to sit and interview them and try to It's not
11:26
Speaker 2: a matter of being sympathetic, maybe empathetic, but it would
11:30
Speaker 2: enable me to ask the proper questions that I needed
11:33
Speaker 2: to to understand where they were in their lives at
11:35
Speaker 2: that time.
11:37
Speaker 1: Empathy was the exact word I was thinking of their entry.
11:39
Speaker 1: And I think that one of the things that we
11:42
Speaker 1: are allowed to bring to light is just the humanity
11:45
Speaker 1: of professional athletes. They are exceptionally talented at one thing
11:49
Speaker 1: in their lives. Some of them are gifted in multiple sports,
11:52
Speaker 1: but most of one. They represent the cross section of
11:55
Speaker 1: the rest of us. Our insecurities, our flaws or foibles,
11:58
Speaker 1: and addiction is a real thing it's a disease that
12:03
Speaker 1: is in discriminate and so I think the fact that
12:07
Speaker 1: my experience and I'm really glad you brought up Matt Bush.
12:10
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about him because it was
12:14
Speaker 1: a very dark night on March twenty twelve when Matt Bush,
12:17
Speaker 1: who at the time was with the Tampa Bay Rays,
12:20
Speaker 1: was in the throes of addiction to alcohol and he
12:22
Speaker 1: was very impaired, and he drove a car and ran
12:26
Speaker 1: over a gentleman by the name of Anthony Trufan Tufano
12:29
Speaker 1: and almost killed him. Matt Bush goes to jail. He
12:33
Speaker 1: spends multiple years in jail. He then in twenty sixteen
12:38
Speaker 1: tries out for the Texas Rangers, and not your conventional tryout.
12:42
Speaker 1: We tried him out in the parking lot of a
12:44
Speaker 1: Golden Corral restaurant when he was on work release from
12:47
Speaker 1: the prison. He had an ankle bracelet on at the time,
12:51
Speaker 1: and he threw ninety five miles an hour in that
12:54
Speaker 1: parking lot. We ultimately interviewed him before we ultimately signed him,
12:59
Speaker 1: and he has the chance to come back, and in
13:02
Speaker 1: that moment, one of the things that we had the
13:04
Speaker 1: internal conversation about was there's been a lot of people
13:08
Speaker 1: who have had transgressions in life, and in my opinion,
13:12
Speaker 1: we always have to answer the question to what extent
13:15
Speaker 1: are we prepared to go to win? And I never
13:17
Speaker 1: wanted the answer to be we would go as far
13:20
Speaker 1: as it takes. And so what I wanted to be
13:22
Speaker 1: able to answer was the questions of is the person
13:25
Speaker 1: accountable to the mistakes they made? Are they sincerely contrite
13:29
Speaker 1: about them? And then the last thing was what I
13:31
Speaker 1: called the sixth grade test. Could they stand up in
13:34
Speaker 1: front of a classroom with six graders and tell a
13:36
Speaker 1: redemption story? Is there a story to be told there
13:40
Speaker 1: of Hey, I was in the throes of alcoholism, Be careful,
13:44
Speaker 1: don't over abuse. You know drugs alcohol would have you?
13:48
Speaker 1: And can you tell that story? And if all three
13:50
Speaker 1: of those things are true, people do deserve a second chance,
13:53
Speaker 1: And we felt that Matt Bush did deserve a second
13:56
Speaker 1: chance in that instance. But in your interview you had
13:59
Speaker 1: a verythartic moment with him, if I if memory serves,
14:02
Speaker 1: were you really illustrated to him what the life of
14:06
Speaker 1: Anthony Trufano had been reduced to as a result of
14:09
Speaker 1: that that accident. Do you remember Matt's response to that
14:13
Speaker 1: at that time, what was it?
14:15
Speaker 2: You tell me?
14:15
Speaker 1: I think he was utterly shocked and and you know,
14:19
Speaker 1: crustfallen in that moment, and I thought.
14:21
Speaker 2: We had gone back and found that, you know, and
14:24
Speaker 2: dealt with the true Trufano family. So yeah, I mean,
14:28
Speaker 2: it's just it's something that he should never forget and
14:37
Speaker 2: should always be there as the ultimate cautionary tale. But
14:42
Speaker 2: when actions impeded the life of another and the family
14:48
Speaker 2: of another as as much as they did, you know,
14:53
Speaker 2: a prison sentence is never about just the individual. It's
14:56
Speaker 2: always about the family. Just like an injury of that
14:59
Speaker 2: of that magnitude, it's the same thing. But but as
15:03
Speaker 2: you mentioned earlier, you know, there's there's a lot of
15:06
Speaker 2: humanity that that gets involved, and and so you have
15:11
Speaker 2: to be able to present sort of both sides. And
15:14
Speaker 2: I think that that's that's the goal that we had
15:16
Speaker 2: with with Matt. And it's similar to a story that
15:24
Speaker 2: I did, the only one he's ever done, I believe,
15:26
Speaker 2: with a punter who's now with the Kansas City Chiefs
15:30
Speaker 2: named Matta Riza, who's nicknamed the punt God. In college,
15:34
Speaker 2: and he was wrongfully accused of rape and he was
15:38
Speaker 2: drafted by the Buffalo Bills and they cut him and
15:40
Speaker 2: he couldn't get back in the league. And he maintained
15:44
Speaker 2: his innocence and it was proven correct. But you know,
15:48
Speaker 2: one of the things I always get asked is how
15:51
Speaker 2: do you get these people to talk to you? And
15:54
Speaker 2: Number one, I never misrepresent what we're going to do,
15:58
Speaker 2: what the story that we want to tell, and that
16:00
Speaker 2: we're going to tell your story. But yeah, we're gonna go,
16:02
Speaker 2: We're gonna go find the other side. But I think
16:06
Speaker 2: that it's really important for people's words to tell our
16:11
Speaker 2: own story. And that's something that's been that's been kind
16:17
Speaker 2: of a hallmark of my career. And you can't take
16:21
Speaker 2: sides on things, and you just say you have to
16:24
Speaker 2: be able to and in some cases it's very cathartic
16:30
Speaker 2: for people. I mean, all the stories that I've done
16:31
Speaker 2: on loss, particularly players in their families that have lost children,
16:38
Speaker 2: the hardest story I probably ever did in my career,
16:42
Speaker 2: and to this day, to this day, these folks have
16:46
Speaker 2: never spoken to anybody else. Player who won a Super
16:52
Speaker 2: Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers named joej R. Vicious
16:54
Speaker 2: and he and his wife Megan they lost their first child,
16:57
Speaker 2: their son, at forty days of age, and I interviewed
17:01
Speaker 2: them and it was raw and emotional, and I had
17:06
Speaker 2: a baby at the time.
17:07
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
17:08
Speaker 2: It was really hard. It was really really hard. But
17:12
Speaker 2: it was cathartic for them and for them to talk
17:15
Speaker 2: and for them to see if for them to show
17:17
Speaker 2: that if there were other couples out there who had
17:20
Speaker 2: suffered similar losses, how you have to work through things
17:24
Speaker 2: and how you can. But it was raw and emotional
17:28
Speaker 2: and difficult. And but I take a lot of pride
17:33
Speaker 2: in those kinds of stories.
17:35
Speaker 1: What Andrey You've become known for those, and that's why
17:39
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why you're in multiple Hall of Fames.
17:42
Speaker 1: It seems to me like it is part of the
17:44
Speaker 1: healing process that you're offering, because it's offering them a
17:47
Speaker 1: platform to be accountable and to reconcile for the transgression
17:51
Speaker 1: that they had and until you do that, you really
17:54
Speaker 1: can't come back from those moments. And so you're giving
17:56
Speaker 1: them a platform to do that, which seems to me,
17:58
Speaker 1: while hard hitting in the moment, is an incredible gift
18:01
Speaker 1: to give. And it brings me to one another interview,
18:05
Speaker 1: which really stood out to me. I heard an interview
18:07
Speaker 1: with you about this interview, about the Jim Irsay interview,
18:11
Speaker 1: and you referenced that you had pursued that interview for
18:14
Speaker 1: a number of years before you ultimately landed it. And
18:17
Speaker 1: I'm just curious, what was it about the Jim Ursay
18:20
Speaker 1: story that made it so worthy of your pursuit for
18:23
Speaker 1: so long.
18:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was actually twelve years in the making. And
18:28
Speaker 2: here's how I know that, because prior to the last
18:32
Speaker 2: episode of Real Sports, Brian Gumbel had reached out to
18:36
Speaker 2: the Correspondence and said, give me a list of your
18:39
Speaker 2: top eight or ten stories over your seventeen years in
18:43
Speaker 2: my case, and I went through my file and I
18:46
Speaker 2: found the first email that I sent to the Indianapolis
18:51
Speaker 2: Colts about interest in Jim Irsay. And it was twelve
18:53
Speaker 2: years prior to that. I was just always I had
18:57
Speaker 2: known Jim. I was always fascinated by him. He was
19:01
Speaker 2: the extremely rare owner in any sport that spoke his mind,
19:08
Speaker 2: and that showed vulnerability. And he sure showed a lot
19:12
Speaker 2: of vulnerability between getting arrested and and his very open
19:18
Speaker 2: issues with a dick again addiction. And he finally said
19:24
Speaker 2: yes and and he was all in. He gave us
19:28
Speaker 2: tremendous cooperation and access and there we made a lot
19:35
Speaker 2: of news with some of the things that he said,
19:37
Speaker 2: which again were unvarnished and and and open and honest.
19:42
Speaker 2: And it was when he talked about his addiction and
19:47
Speaker 2: the time that he actually coded and you know, his
19:51
Speaker 2: heart stopped and doctor said, there's you know, you have
19:56
Speaker 2: no business even being alive. These things were very It
20:01
Speaker 2: was very prescient for how is life ended, which was
20:04
Speaker 2: just a tragic end at you know what, age sixty
20:08
Speaker 2: five or so, and I it was really important for
20:12
Speaker 2: me to tell that story. And again it was the
20:15
Speaker 2: only time that he had done any kind of long
20:18
Speaker 2: term TV news magazine stories like that, and I think
20:22
Speaker 2: we showed the entire man. Did a profile of Mark Davis,
20:28
Speaker 2: the owner for the for the Raiders, who again never
20:31
Speaker 2: had done long firm TV news magazine. I just think
20:34
Speaker 2: that that that genre really enables you to show who
20:40
Speaker 2: people are and the audience makes its determination. It's not
20:45
Speaker 2: for me to determine they're good. They're nobody not Nobody
20:48
Speaker 2: is just one thing. We're all We're all a mixture,
20:51
Speaker 2: and you want to be able to show as many
20:53
Speaker 2: different sides of people. Uh, and be as revelatory to
20:57
Speaker 2: the audience as you possibly can be. But those stories
21:00
Speaker 2: are very very meaningful to me, very important. And it's responsibility,
21:04
Speaker 2: it's real responsibility. And I learned that. I learned that firsthand.
21:09
Speaker 1: Andrew. I'm curious you developed personal relationships with some of
21:13
Speaker 1: these people, professional and personal relationships. And it sounds like
21:16
Speaker 1: from everything I've read, you really had an affinity for
21:18
Speaker 1: Jim Mersay and a connection with him. When you have
21:22
Speaker 1: a moment in an interview where he says such things,
21:25
Speaker 1: is that he kind of dismissed the DEI a little
21:27
Speaker 1: bit with the phrase that he was a rich white
21:29
Speaker 1: billionaire and targeted a little bit for that. And you
21:32
Speaker 1: referenced earlier that you sometimes in your interview style, you
21:35
Speaker 1: ask a question twice just to make sure somebody can
21:38
Speaker 1: reframe if they want to. What sounds like you asked
21:41
Speaker 1: him twice. Is that truly what you want to go
21:43
Speaker 1: on the record as saying, And he did in that
21:46
Speaker 1: moment to him.
21:47
Speaker 2: What I said to him was so so just just
21:50
Speaker 2: really really quickly, if I can interrupt you. There are
21:55
Speaker 2: times when somebody will say something controversial and then you
22:00
Speaker 2: repeat it back to them and they hear it and
22:03
Speaker 2: they go, oh wait, that's not what I meant. When
22:06
Speaker 2: Jim said what he did about being a rich white billionaire,
22:09
Speaker 2: what I said to him was, do you understand how
22:12
Speaker 2: that's going to come off? Do you understand how that's
22:14
Speaker 2: going to sound? And he doubled down. I don't care
22:19
Speaker 2: how it sounds. I know what happened. There you go, yeah,
22:25
Speaker 2: there you go. That's that's kind of what you need.
22:28
Speaker 2: That's what you you know, he wasn't he wasn't backing
22:31
Speaker 2: off on on what he believed.
22:34
Speaker 1: But but but what grace you offered him in that
22:36
Speaker 1: moment to recalibrate understand how it was going to be perceived,
22:41
Speaker 1: and you gave him a chance to reframe it. He
22:43
Speaker 1: chose to double down, which at that point you have
22:46
Speaker 1: a journalistic integrity to report what you're hearing.
22:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I I don't, I don't, I don't know.
22:52
Speaker 2: I don't view it as being generous or whatever the
22:54
Speaker 2: adjectivity just used. Well, I just feel like that's that's
22:58
Speaker 2: our role is to in some cases, you know, if
23:04
Speaker 2: it's going to be doubling down on something controversial. Somebody said,
23:07
Speaker 2: I mean I had this. I lived through this with
23:11
Speaker 2: probably the biggest story that I ever did for Real Sports,
23:13
Speaker 2: which was on sexual assault in Beakram yoga, and we
23:18
Speaker 2: interviewed Bikram. That's right, there is a Beagram childry. We
23:23
Speaker 2: went to India where he was conducting a teaching camp
23:28
Speaker 2: and he was We talked about a lot of different things,
23:35
Speaker 2: and his ego and narcissistic personality were quite on display,
23:41
Speaker 2: and then we started, you know, I started to direct
23:44
Speaker 2: the conversation towards the allegations of sexual assault and rape,
23:49
Speaker 2: and he says, kind of out of nowhere, why do
23:56
Speaker 2: I need to rape someone or sexually assault them? Women
24:02
Speaker 2: pay one million dollars for one drop of my sperm?
24:07
Speaker 2: And it's the one time, I mean, I'm like really
24:12
Speaker 2: focused on my subject, my producers standing there, and I
24:16
Speaker 2: look off camera to her with the iBasis, saying did
24:20
Speaker 2: you just freaking hear what I just heard? Or what
24:22
Speaker 2: are we? What are we? And then without me saying anything,
24:29
Speaker 2: he repeats himself as though I didn't understand him. And again,
24:36
Speaker 2: I hate to use this analogy, but I even tell
24:41
Speaker 2: to young journalists when someone's going to hang themselves, just
24:45
Speaker 2: keep passing them the rope. You didn't say anything. The
24:48
Speaker 2: important thing in that interview was keeping my composure, and
24:53
Speaker 2: so many people pointed that out to me after the
24:55
Speaker 2: fact that I hadn't focused on that. I wasn't focusing
24:58
Speaker 2: on me. I was focusing on the subject. But in
25:01
Speaker 2: those moments, you remain calm, you remain even toned. You
25:07
Speaker 2: don't get defensive, you don't try to you know, nothing
25:10
Speaker 2: like that. You just let somebody talk. You ask neutral
25:15
Speaker 2: follow ups, and then let somebody say what they're going
25:19
Speaker 2: to say, and let the audience make it make its
25:21
Speaker 2: determination about what the subject is is saying, or how
25:26
Speaker 2: he might be how he might be burying himself.
25:30
Speaker 1: You know, I had written down the question about that,
25:32
Speaker 1: and you used the sperm line.
25:35
Speaker 2: I was.
25:35
Speaker 1: I tempered it a little bit because another thing he
25:37
Speaker 1: said is but he seemed to mock the women who
25:40
Speaker 1: accused him, claiming that he was too famous, too and
25:43
Speaker 1: too beautiful to ever need to harass anyone, and that
25:46
Speaker 1: they were trash. And I just was thinking in the moment,
25:50
Speaker 1: you know, can't it we whether you're a woman or not,
25:52
Speaker 1: that those types of brazen, exceptionally offensive remarks. It is
25:56
Speaker 1: absolutely remarkable that you maintain composure because that is disgusting
26:00
Speaker 1: to hear that in the moment, and you know, since
26:03
Speaker 1: that time he's been convicted on a lot of those issues.
26:07
Speaker 2: It again, what benefit? So, you know the thing, the
26:12
Speaker 2: thing that I can often find troubling today about journalistic
26:17
Speaker 2: interviews is that the journalists make it about themselves. It's
26:21
Speaker 2: not about themselves. You're serving the audience. You should be
26:24
Speaker 2: asking the questions that the audience wants to hear, or
26:27
Speaker 2: the follow ups that are going to gain more information
26:30
Speaker 2: from what somebody's saying. So what benefit is there if
26:33
Speaker 2: he says, you know, you and those other women are trash?
26:38
Speaker 2: Why should I get defensive about that? You're making yourself
26:41
Speaker 2: look like a dirt bag yourself, dude, not me. I'm
26:45
Speaker 2: not accusing you of anything. You're looking terrible on things,
26:49
Speaker 2: and I'm just remaining calm and I'm not looking cynical.
26:52
Speaker 2: I'm just keeping straight neutral. I'm paying attention to what
26:55
Speaker 2: you have to say. I'm listening to what you have
26:57
Speaker 2: to say. I'm asking the appropriate follow ups when necessary,
27:01
Speaker 2: I'll say, let me make sure I understand what you're saying.
27:04
Speaker 2: And you know, one of the really, one of the
27:10
Speaker 2: really dramatic moments in that interview. Is what it basically
27:15
Speaker 2: happened was I had read, Oh my god, I read
27:19
Speaker 2: so much going to that interview, every legal pleading that
27:22
Speaker 2: I could find. And he realized that I had read everything,
27:26
Speaker 2: and I kind of knew something, and that's why he
27:31
Speaker 2: started getting very agitated, and he walks out of the interview.
27:35
Speaker 2: So you always instruct your crew, never stop rolling the camera,
27:43
Speaker 2: always roll the camera. So he gets up, he walks
27:48
Speaker 2: this way and goes up these stairs to bedroom in
27:53
Speaker 2: this palatial estate in which he was staying. So my
27:58
Speaker 2: producer and I kind of go over and we're standing
28:01
Speaker 2: in the foyer in the bottom of the stairs and
28:04
Speaker 2: our associate producers off camera and she's shooting an iPhone.
28:09
Speaker 2: She's shooting him on the iPhone. He comes back out
28:12
Speaker 2: to the balcony. We jokingly call it the balcony scene,
28:16
Speaker 2: and he basically just starts us sailing us. Well, my
28:21
Speaker 2: cameraman's rolling on me, my associate producer's rolling on him,
28:27
Speaker 2: and we captured this incredible moment of him just having
28:31
Speaker 2: a total meltdown. And let's just say, without without getting
28:37
Speaker 2: into more detail that might bore you, let's just say
28:40
Speaker 2: that in four years or so of being in this business,
28:42
Speaker 2: it's the only shoot that my husband said he was
28:44
Speaker 2: worried about me on. It was it was it was
28:48
Speaker 2: a very daunting shoot. We're in the middle of nowhere,
28:51
Speaker 2: about two hours outside of Mumbai, in the mountains during
28:55
Speaker 2: the monsoon season. It was a little dicey wow.
28:58
Speaker 1: Well, and you're putting yourself in both verbal and physical
29:02
Speaker 1: harm's way to pursue a story that is unfolding right
29:05
Speaker 1: in front of you.
29:06
Speaker 2: When we ended up leaving the property, which was surrounded
29:12
Speaker 2: by armed guards, we had a lot of trouble getting
29:15
Speaker 2: out for a variety of reasons. And it just so
29:18
Speaker 2: happened that my whole crew, my producer, my social producer
29:21
Speaker 2: were both women, and we had we had male crews.
29:25
Speaker 2: We finally are getting ready to get out, and we're
29:28
Speaker 2: stopped by the last line of defense, which is these
29:30
Speaker 2: armed guards, and we have all our hard drives, which
29:32
Speaker 2: is where all our footage is, and my associate producer
29:36
Speaker 2: turns around to me and hands them to me, and
29:38
Speaker 2: I take them and I shove them down my pants
29:41
Speaker 2: because if they are going to make us get out
29:43
Speaker 2: of the car, and you're gonna put your hands down
29:45
Speaker 2: my pants. We got way bigger issues than anything because
29:50
Speaker 2: we didn't know. And then they delayed us, delayed us,
29:54
Speaker 2: delayed us, and finally they let us out of the
29:56
Speaker 2: compound and we couldn't get out quickly enough. Needless to say,
30:00
Speaker 2: we couldn't even make it back to Mumbai. The weather
30:03
Speaker 2: was so horrific. But we found a great place and
30:06
Speaker 2: it was just man, oh man. It was a huge
30:10
Speaker 2: relief to get out of there, because you know, Bigram,
30:17
Speaker 2: he spouted a lot of things, but when he has
30:20
Speaker 2: things like I have the Prime Minister of India and
30:22
Speaker 2: speed dial, you think he's full of you know what,
30:24
Speaker 2: but you don't.
30:25
Speaker 1: Know, not a bluff you want to call exactly, Dad, exactly.
30:38
Speaker 1: Let's talk about another interview where there was more accountability.
30:42
Speaker 1: When you were talking to Kobe Bryant, you took some
30:44
Speaker 1: very bold moves, I thought, in really confronting him, not
30:49
Speaker 1: your words, but the words you had researched of descriptions
30:52
Speaker 1: of him. And his response I thought was equally as
30:57
Speaker 1: revealing and honorable. Honestly, in the moment where he kind
31:00
Speaker 1: of he revealed to you that the whole Black Mamba
31:03
Speaker 1: persona was a bit of an image that he had
31:05
Speaker 1: put forth, and then he also revealed to you of
31:08
Speaker 1: some real troubling relationships with his parents growing up. And
31:12
Speaker 1: how did you feel that shaped him? And how did
31:14
Speaker 1: your opinion of him, as much as your opinion of
31:17
Speaker 1: Buker I'm sure wasn't positive going in, but it certainly
31:20
Speaker 1: was maligned by the interview. How did your impression of
31:23
Speaker 1: Kobe change over the course of your conversation with him?
31:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, it was interesting because this was the year
31:30
Speaker 2: that Kobe retired, and this was the only interview, the
31:33
Speaker 2: only suit interview that he did the entire season until
31:39
Speaker 2: you know, his until he retired in June. And we
31:44
Speaker 2: always make it clear, We made it always clear with
31:46
Speaker 2: real sports. For anybody we have to ask, you don't
31:50
Speaker 2: have to answer. So if you're going to tell me
31:53
Speaker 2: that certain topics are off limits, we're not going to
31:56
Speaker 2: do the interview, no matter how badly we want you.
31:59
Speaker 2: And so I had told his folks as people that
32:04
Speaker 2: I had to ask about what happened in Colorado. If
32:07
Speaker 2: he didn't want to answer, that's his prerogative, but I had,
32:10
Speaker 2: but I had to. I had to ask. They were
32:13
Speaker 2: not happy about it. I think that he gave as
32:18
Speaker 2: honest an answer as he possibly could, but he this
32:25
Speaker 2: was a profile of him where he wasn't going to
32:29
Speaker 2: mince words about what he was really like, and he
32:34
Speaker 2: was like Michael Jordan, ruthless, ruthless, ruthless competitor. What was
32:44
Speaker 2: absolutely eerie and highly disturbing is we did our interview
32:54
Speaker 2: in a couple of different places, but one of them was
32:56
Speaker 2: in Newport Beach on the day he had a game,
33:00
Speaker 2: and he would get to the game the helicopter, so
33:04
Speaker 2: we wanted to go with him in the helicopter, but
33:07
Speaker 2: as it turns out, they couldn't make it work from
33:10
Speaker 2: a liability standpoint, So we rented a helicopter to shoot
33:16
Speaker 2: him in his helicopter, and I met him on the
33:19
Speaker 2: helipad on the other end, and the shot of him
33:25
Speaker 2: getting off the helicopter and me saying to him basically
33:29
Speaker 2: like why do you do this? And he goes because
33:31
Speaker 2: I want to spend as much time with my kids
33:32
Speaker 2: as possible. This lets me go to their games while
33:35
Speaker 2: also making it in time for my game. And how
33:40
Speaker 2: prophetic that turned out to be, I mean, just incredibly,
33:46
Speaker 2: incredibly disturbing. But listen, I give Kobe credit for allowing
33:54
Speaker 2: us to shoot what we did, because I just think
33:59
Speaker 2: it made him look like he's a complicated person and
34:03
Speaker 2: what he went through with his parents and which shaped
34:06
Speaker 2: him in a lot of ways, particularly his dad. I
34:11
Speaker 2: think it contributed certainly to one of the reasons was
34:15
Speaker 2: he himself was such a great dad because he didn't
34:18
Speaker 2: have that relationship with Joe. But yeah, that was a
34:24
Speaker 2: very meaningful profile. Again, what's the goal. Your goal is
34:28
Speaker 2: to show people sides of these athletes that they may
34:31
Speaker 2: not know, and then the audience makes its own determination
34:35
Speaker 2: about him or her.
34:38
Speaker 1: And that's exactly one of our goals on rosters to rings,
34:41
Speaker 1: which is all of these guys are revered for what
34:43
Speaker 1: they've done or what they can do, but they aren't
34:46
Speaker 1: as relatable until you revealed the human side. And you
34:50
Speaker 1: made all of these guys relatable to generations of sports fans.
34:54
Speaker 1: And that was a tremendous gift you gave. I read
34:58
Speaker 1: an interview with Chris Carter, Hall of Famer Chris Carter,
35:02
Speaker 1: and he paid you a compliment. And this compliment was
35:05
Speaker 1: very simple. He said you were his favorite reporter. But
35:08
Speaker 1: more than that, to me, the most profound thing he
35:11
Speaker 1: did to reflect how much he respected you and how
35:15
Speaker 1: much of a safe environment you created for him. This
35:18
Speaker 1: he revealed a personal truth to you that he was
35:21
Speaker 1: not prepared to reveal to anybody else. What a this
35:25
Speaker 1: is a career accomplishment. I would think that stand is
35:28
Speaker 1: very supreme for you, Like what a profound moment in
35:32
Speaker 1: his life and for you.
35:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, So basically, I'm with the ESPN and that week
35:40
Speaker 2: we're going out to Minnesota and I'm going to profile
35:43
Speaker 2: I need a Viking story and we're going to interview
35:46
Speaker 2: Chris Carter. And he agreed to the interview, and time
35:50
Speaker 2: is all set and everything like that. And you know,
35:52
Speaker 2: I mean, my goal, no matter how long I've been
35:55
Speaker 2: in this business, my goal is always the same. What
35:57
Speaker 2: can I try to bring to the audience that's different.
35:59
Speaker 2: So so you know, I've got my questions and I'm
36:03
Speaker 2: ready to go, and we sit down for the interview,
36:07
Speaker 2: and we start the interview, and I don't to this day,
36:11
Speaker 2: I don't remember what I asked him. But he had decided,
36:18
Speaker 2: along with his wife Melanie, that morning that he was
36:22
Speaker 2: going to address publicly for the first time his drug
36:25
Speaker 2: and alcohol addiction. And there'd always been rumors you know
36:30
Speaker 2: Buddy Ryan, Buddy Ryan's famous line about Chris Carter, all
36:34
Speaker 2: he does is catch touchdowns, Buddy kut him because of
36:37
Speaker 2: his addiction. But nobody ever said anything. And again there
36:43
Speaker 2: was always speculation, but no one knew, and no one
36:47
Speaker 2: should have speculated openly because they didn't know. And Chris
36:51
Speaker 2: starts talking about this and talking about the therapy that
36:54
Speaker 2: he's getting. Actually gave me permission to speak to his therapist.
36:59
Speaker 2: But let me tell you that you came into this
37:03
Speaker 2: interview with a bunch of questions. Imagine going in an
37:06
Speaker 2: interview with a bunch of questions, and before you know it,
37:09
Speaker 2: not only has that line of questioning blown up, but
37:14
Speaker 2: you're going somewhere that you were not anticipating. And now
37:17
Speaker 2: you're just working on natural curiosity and just whatever kind
37:22
Speaker 2: of background information you can think of. But it was
37:26
Speaker 2: the first time that he had discussed his drug and
37:30
Speaker 2: alcohol addiction. And I never forget. ESPN would run a
37:38
Speaker 2: teaser SoundBite on Thursdays promoting the show on Sunday, and
37:47
Speaker 2: I and they just they would just pick a bite
37:49
Speaker 2: from an interview, and I said to them, do not
37:54
Speaker 2: take that bite out of context. Do not do that
37:57
Speaker 2: to him because I felt this incredible responsibility that he
38:02
Speaker 2: had trusted me and I wasn't good. I did not
38:05
Speaker 2: want to sensationalize this in any way that was hugely
38:08
Speaker 2: important to me. Did not want to sensationalize it because
38:12
Speaker 2: he was always going to have what I called the comma,
38:16
Speaker 2: Chris Carter comma, who admitted to drug and alcohol addiction,
38:20
Speaker 2: comma he had. He was going to have the comma.
38:25
Speaker 2: And ESPN respected me on that. And when the piece ran,
38:28
Speaker 2: it ran, you know, extensively. It gave Chris his opportunity
38:33
Speaker 2: to really tell his story. So Monday, So the story
38:37
Speaker 2: airs on Sunday, Monday. I'm sitting in my office. My
38:41
Speaker 2: phone rings and six one two number Minnesota, as you
38:44
Speaker 2: will know, and uh, and my heartbeats start beating a
38:49
Speaker 2: little bit, because listen, we don't do stories to make
38:53
Speaker 2: our subjects happy with them. You want the subject to say,
38:57
Speaker 2: all right, you know what. It was kind of tough
38:59
Speaker 2: to watch fair. She was fair. So I get on
39:03
Speaker 2: the phone with Chris, and of course he hadn't seen
39:06
Speaker 2: the story that you know, when it ran, because he
39:09
Speaker 2: was playing. So he goes, I just want you to
39:11
Speaker 2: know that, Melie, I watched the story today and we
39:17
Speaker 2: made the right decision with the right person. And I
39:21
Speaker 2: got to tell you that meant the world to me.
39:24
Speaker 2: And now, because if he had said, you know, you
39:27
Speaker 2: screwed me, you know, I can't believe that you I
39:32
Speaker 2: would have said, I'm sorry that you feel that way,
39:35
Speaker 2: but I wouldn't have apologized for doing my job if
39:38
Speaker 2: that's the way he took it. But for him to
39:39
Speaker 2: say we did the story at the right time, at
39:42
Speaker 2: the right person was extremely, extremely meaningful to me.
39:48
Speaker 1: What a full circle moment in a world of judgment
39:52
Speaker 1: and looking down at people, and you had that moment
39:54
Speaker 1: when you dropped your serenity coin and that person looked
39:57
Speaker 1: at you with your derision and judgment and you weren't
40:00
Speaker 1: even an addict, And in this moment you had what
40:03
Speaker 1: is such an incredible heart connection with a person that
40:06
Speaker 1: you provided a safe space for him to reveal his
40:09
Speaker 1: most inner truth. Is just has to be so exceptionally
40:13
Speaker 1: heartwarming for you. And yes, you were prepared for the
40:15
Speaker 1: other side of that call, but I imagine you were elated
40:19
Speaker 1: and emotionally touched when he placed that call and you
40:22
Speaker 1: realized that you landed that exactly the way it should be,
40:25
Speaker 1: and you handled it with the appropriate amount of professionalism
40:28
Speaker 1: and grace.
40:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again, thank you very much for those those
40:32
Speaker 2: kind words and that kind of feedback. Again, you can't
40:36
Speaker 2: do a story you'd liked the person to like it,
40:41
Speaker 2: but I can't control that. I have to tell the
40:45
Speaker 2: best story, and sometimes that means, you know, using somebody's
40:50
Speaker 2: words or doing some reporting that that may not put
40:54
Speaker 2: the person in the best light. But you're trying to
40:56
Speaker 2: be as fair as possible, again to both sides of things.
41:00
Speaker 2: So I think that that's that's that's really important. And
41:04
Speaker 2: then if you do get the positive feedback, you just
41:08
Speaker 2: want the person to feel that it was a fair story.
41:12
Speaker 1: I think, Andrea, I would say yes, yes, and there
41:15
Speaker 1: because you intentionally didn't allow the story to be sensationalized
41:19
Speaker 1: by taking it out of context. No, So you you
41:22
Speaker 1: understood the gravity of what he shared with you, and
41:24
Speaker 1: you wanted to keep the integrity of the story intact
41:27
Speaker 1: rather than allowing it to be parsed out for sensationalist reasons.
41:30
Speaker 1: So I think you deserve a ton of credit for that.
41:33
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. I am. When I was teaching a
41:35
Speaker 2: tuugh grad school for twelve years in at the journalism
41:40
Speaker 2: program at Boston University, and and I would owe one
41:45
Speaker 2: of the one of the things I always told my
41:47
Speaker 2: students because I lived this is it's our story, but
41:53
Speaker 2: it's somebody's life. We're telling a story, but it's that
41:58
Speaker 2: person's life. And you've got to respect and you do
42:01
Speaker 2: have to earn their trust, and you have to understand
42:05
Speaker 2: that what you the story that you tell can impact
42:10
Speaker 2: them in a lot of ways, and you've got to
42:13
Speaker 2: just respect that. And I'll just tell you very very
42:15
Speaker 2: quickly why that resonates for me so much because I
42:22
Speaker 2: gave birth three thousand miles away from home at the
42:25
Speaker 2: super Bowl in Atlanta, and I'm in labor in Atlanta
42:31
Speaker 2: and page two of the USA US Today's Sports section,
42:36
Speaker 2: big headline, you know Kramer, you know Cramer and labor
42:41
Speaker 2: or whatever it was. I have the headline somewhere, and hey,
42:45
Speaker 2: I know what a good story is. And ESPN and
42:49
Speaker 2: the hospital started getting all of these requests because it's
42:52
Speaker 2: a great story. Right the lead reporter in the NFL
42:56
Speaker 2: is giving birth to the Super Bowl and I experienced
43:00
Speaker 2: it firsthand. Fed my life was a great story for
43:05
Speaker 2: other people. And to ESPN's credit, to the hospital's credit.
43:09
Speaker 2: They limited the amount of you know, attention that it
43:17
Speaker 2: got and my phone wasn't ringing off the hook or
43:20
Speaker 2: anything like that. But I live that, and once you've
43:23
Speaker 2: experienced something yourself, it does give you an entirely different
43:28
Speaker 2: perspective when you have to then use those skills with
43:32
Speaker 2: somebody else. So yeah, that's I call that. That's my
43:36
Speaker 2: Oprah moment. My baby was born at the super Bowl, So.
43:39
Speaker 1: What an incredible what an incredible story. I'm also happy
43:42
Speaker 1: that it was for the most part, kept personal to
43:45
Speaker 1: you and your family, you know. I think to reflect
43:48
Speaker 1: on my career, I always aspired to lead with integrity
43:51
Speaker 1: and empathy, you know, and that showed up a lot
43:55
Speaker 1: when negotiating with other people. People would always ask the question,
43:58
Speaker 1: or I would often get offers proposed to me, and
44:01
Speaker 1: people say, well, it didn't hurt to ask, And I said,
44:03
Speaker 1: provided that you don't care about your integrity, it didn't
44:05
Speaker 1: hurt to ask, because if I said yes to that,
44:07
Speaker 1: I probably would have lost my job. And then just
44:09
Speaker 1: the empathetic side is I just try to live my
44:12
Speaker 1: life assuming everyone else is trying their best. It doesn't
44:15
Speaker 1: mean their best is good enough. All the time, but
44:17
Speaker 1: they are trying their best. I'm not here to parse
44:19
Speaker 1: out whether you're trying your best or not, but I
44:21
Speaker 1: would like to approach everything just with some integrity and
44:24
Speaker 1: with some empathy. And that leads me to another story
44:27
Speaker 1: here that you covered. You referenced it earlier about Barrett Robbins,
44:30
Speaker 1: and I'm just curious your experience with professional sports. How
44:35
Speaker 1: much has our appreciation for mental health evolved over time
44:41
Speaker 1: in your estimation, and then I could also share my
44:43
Speaker 1: perception of that from my perspective.
44:45
Speaker 2: Well, And it's a great point because we've been we
44:51
Speaker 2: talked quite a bit about addiction and mental health is
44:54
Speaker 2: sort of a cousin there, right. There's listen, there's no
45:00
Speaker 2: doubt that the issues of mental health and the views
45:06
Speaker 2: towards mental health have changed dramatically in the decades since
45:10
Speaker 2: I've been covering sports. That being said, there is still
45:15
Speaker 2: a mentality that if it's not breaking through the skin,
45:19
Speaker 2: the bones not protruding out, it must not be a
45:22
Speaker 2: real injury. And you know, we recently saw at the
45:29
Speaker 2: Olympics with Iliam Melanin who whatever you want to call it.
45:34
Speaker 2: In baseball, it's the yips, right, whatever you want to
45:36
Speaker 2: call it. His mental health literally knocked him to the ice,
45:43
Speaker 2: and we see examples of this all the time. I always,
45:49
Speaker 2: I think one of the most fascinating things in all
45:52
Speaker 2: of sports has always been what enables a player to
45:56
Speaker 2: play his best when it counts the most on the
46:00
Speaker 2: biggest stage. I found that fascinating. It's not about you know,
46:06
Speaker 2: reading the ball and bat speed and and uh, you know,
46:12
Speaker 2: finding the receiver running a post pad. It's it's a
46:15
Speaker 2: whole different level up here, and that's there's much more
46:21
Speaker 2: training for that, much more counseling for that. But I
46:28
Speaker 2: think what you're also referring to are the mental health
46:31
Speaker 2: issues that can preclude a player from uh from performing
46:37
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways, and a lot teams I
46:40
Speaker 2: don't know about the teams that that that you were with,
46:44
Speaker 2: but having mental health professionals out there and making those
46:48
Speaker 2: services available to players and making players trust it, you know,
46:53
Speaker 2: because in the past it used to be, well, I'm
46:55
Speaker 2: not going to go to the team psychologists because the
46:57
Speaker 2: team psychologists is going to report to the head coach.
46:59
Speaker 2: The head coach is going to think I'm a nutcase.
47:00
Speaker 2: He's not going to let play me. You know. Again,
47:03
Speaker 2: these are all things that are that are out there.
47:06
Speaker 2: But I think that the best teams are the ones
47:11
Speaker 2: that do understand that mental health is an equal pie
47:17
Speaker 2: with physical health in terms of being able to UH
47:21
Speaker 2: produce best on the field, on the court, on the ice,
47:26
Speaker 2: in the on the diamond, whatever it is. I think
47:29
Speaker 2: it's I think it's a huge, huge component UH in
47:33
Speaker 2: sports today and I'm glad that there's a British spotlight
47:37
Speaker 2: that's being being shown on it.
47:39
Speaker 1: It's desperately needed. I you know, when I started my career,
47:43
Speaker 1: it was everything you just represented. It was done in
47:45
Speaker 1: the in the shadows. It was a source of shame.
47:48
Speaker 1: It was tantamount to beaten, called soft or weak or
47:51
Speaker 1: things of that nature. I know Barrett Robins used that
47:54
Speaker 1: language in your interview with him, and that was everything
47:56
Speaker 1: I witnessed. It was usually marginalized by the coaching staff
48:00
Speaker 1: and it's certainly not endorsed. And now I will say,
48:03
Speaker 1: I'm so proud that things have changed so dramatically for
48:06
Speaker 1: the positive. Now the teams I've worked for, it's interwoven
48:09
Speaker 1: into the coaching staff. These people are on the field available,
48:12
Speaker 1: They're not in the shadows anymore. And what's more, Andrea.
48:15
Speaker 1: In a sport like baseball where thirty three percent of
48:18
Speaker 1: our players hail from Latin American countries, heretofore we never
48:21
Speaker 1: had a Spanish speaking resource for them. We now buy
48:25
Speaker 1: and large all do have that as well. And so
48:28
Speaker 1: in in a culture where it's even less accepted than
48:30
Speaker 1: in the United States, we are now bringing at least
48:33
Speaker 1: to the table somebody who can speak their language such
48:35
Speaker 1: that when they have challenges, they can try to overcome them.
48:38
Speaker 1: Because as you illuminated, you're fascinated by the concept of
48:43
Speaker 1: how do the best players perform in the most heated moments?
48:45
Speaker 1: I would add to that level, typically when they're not
48:47
Speaker 1: feeling their best. You know, I talked to so many
48:50
Speaker 1: baseball players and they say they feel great on opening Day.
48:53
Speaker 1: Every day from that day forth they feel slightly worse.
48:55
Speaker 1: And so think of that when you now fast forward
48:58
Speaker 1: to September and October, when you're playing the most important games,
49:01
Speaker 1: you're on the biggest stage. The expectations are so monumental,
49:05
Speaker 1: they're so daunting to these guys. And oh, by the way,
49:07
Speaker 1: they don't feel their best when they're out there, and
49:09
Speaker 1: how do you perform in those moments? And I think
49:12
Speaker 1: having these mental skills coaches as resources for them is
49:17
Speaker 1: just the start of the conversation. But it's just made
49:20
Speaker 1: such a transformation in my career, which I'm very happy
49:23
Speaker 1: to see because that's the facts. It was embarrassing how
49:27
Speaker 1: we handled that as recently as ten years ago.
49:30
Speaker 2: And the other thing that I commend you for not
49:34
Speaker 2: only for just those general attitudes, but also you said
49:38
Speaker 2: a key thing which is understanding culturally because there's so
49:45
Speaker 2: many you know's, there's you know, I'm not going to
49:48
Speaker 2: stereotype Hispanic culture, but it's the machismo aspect of it.
49:53
Speaker 2: Mental health is weak and it's and if you're going
49:57
Speaker 2: to go see a doctor, you're showing weakness and that
50:00
Speaker 2: and that's uh. But I I think that that can
50:03
Speaker 2: also that can also steep into the African American culture
50:07
Speaker 2: as well. So I think that, uh, you, the best
50:12
Speaker 2: teams are the ones that that truly bring out, in
50:17
Speaker 2: my opinion, that bring out the best in their players
50:20
Speaker 2: because they understand that each player is an individual. He
50:24
Speaker 2: has a different story that brought him to where he is.
50:27
Speaker 2: He different upbringing, which is going to in some cases,
50:32
Speaker 2: and we're talking about mental health, it's going to make
50:34
Speaker 2: him more or less accepting of of those kinds of
50:38
Speaker 2: services that might be available to him. But no player
50:43
Speaker 2: should hopefully feel like he has to he has to
50:45
Speaker 2: do it alone. But listen, the competition is is it's
50:53
Speaker 2: germane to the success of building teams, and not everybody
50:58
Speaker 2: can handle it as well as others. It's just that simple,
51:02
Speaker 2: and that's part of it.
51:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd certainly winness that throughout my career, the evolution
51:08
Speaker 1: of which you just spoke. When I started, there was
51:10
Speaker 1: the New York Yankee way of playing, or the Oakland
51:12
Speaker 1: Athletic way or the Minnesota twin and if you didn't
51:15
Speaker 1: conform to that, you were traded or released. Now we
51:18
Speaker 1: are really in tune with creating environments where you could
51:22
Speaker 1: be the best version of yourself or dare I say,
51:24
Speaker 1: even better than the best version you ever anticipated. And
51:27
Speaker 1: if you can't do that as a head coach in baseball,
51:30
Speaker 1: as a manager, you're not going to survive. Like there's
51:33
Speaker 1: no longer are the days where that person just pounds
51:36
Speaker 1: this chests and says everyone has to conform to my
51:38
Speaker 1: way of coaching. You have to have this amazing art
51:41
Speaker 1: form of being able to connect to the hearts and
51:43
Speaker 1: heads of all your players.
51:45
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean, look, look in the NFL, you've
51:47
Speaker 2: got the Patriot Way, and the Patriot Way yielded six
51:52
Speaker 2: Super Bowl titles. But there's players that are going to
51:56
Speaker 2: tell you that they spent a lot of their careers
51:59
Speaker 2: there miserable. It just felt miserable. And there's as Mike
52:06
Speaker 2: Rabel proved this year getting into the cusp of obviously
52:09
Speaker 2: the seventh championship, there's different ways to do things, and
52:13
Speaker 2: I think that there is, again all things leagues, everything's
52:18
Speaker 2: a copycat league, right, it's a copycat league. So if
52:22
Speaker 2: there's a certain coaching styles, some are going to try
52:25
Speaker 2: to emulate it there. But I think, listen, I think
52:27
Speaker 2: there's a reason that the Belichick coaching tree has not
52:32
Speaker 2: been successful. You can argue that the most successful person
52:36
Speaker 2: is Mike Rabel, but he played for Bill. He didn't,
52:39
Speaker 2: you know, he didn't coach with Bill. You can't nobody
52:43
Speaker 2: should go in, Nobody could ever, ever ever go in
52:46
Speaker 2: and try to emulate and be Bill Belichick. You can't
52:49
Speaker 2: do it. But I think that there's there's so many
52:53
Speaker 2: other coaches out there who do understand a lot of
52:57
Speaker 2: these issues, understand and are just simply younger and they
53:01
Speaker 2: just get it. There's more of there's more of a
53:04
Speaker 2: relationship that they can build with with their players. And
53:09
Speaker 2: gone to the days where you just tell a player
53:11
Speaker 2: what to do. Players want to know the why. You
53:15
Speaker 2: give them the why, and and if they have the
53:19
Speaker 2: question and they throw it back to you, you give them
53:21
Speaker 2: the answer. But you know, going in the days where
53:24
Speaker 2: players want to feel like they're indentured servants, that's that's
53:28
Speaker 2: that's a by gone era era.
53:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, the reality is the manager no longer is the
53:34
Speaker 1: most powerful person in the clubhouse, buy and large, he
53:36
Speaker 1: may be the least compared to the players. And it's
53:39
Speaker 1: a lot easier to flip out your manager. And that
53:41
Speaker 1: that actually segues into the next question, which is getting
53:44
Speaker 1: to today's NFL. I looked up into the research in
53:48
Speaker 1: the NBA, the NFL, in Major League Baseball over the
53:51
Speaker 1: last two years, there's been approximately a fifty percent turnover
53:54
Speaker 1: at the head coach maniager position. It's really remarkable. But
53:57
Speaker 1: what's even more remarkable and unfortunate is that each league
54:01
Speaker 1: has their equivalent of the Rooney rule. But yet we
54:03
Speaker 1: fall will continue to fall short of the execution of that, Andrew,
54:08
Speaker 1: do you have any insights into that? Why? Why is
54:10
Speaker 1: the NFL And it's not just the NFL, it's Major
54:11
Speaker 1: League Baseball as well. I think NBA is doing better
54:14
Speaker 1: than the other two leagues, but not great. But why
54:17
Speaker 1: do we continue to fall so short of our goal
54:20
Speaker 1: of diversifying what general managers in head coaches look like
54:24
Speaker 1: in professional sports?
54:26
Speaker 2: Can you note that I just gave a big sigh?
54:29
Speaker 2: Should I do it again? Look? I still believe sadly
54:37
Speaker 2: that at the end of the day, the owners want
54:40
Speaker 2: people that look like them. They want people that they
54:47
Speaker 2: feel like they can relate to, and that's oftentimes not
54:54
Speaker 2: going to be a minority, any kind of minority. It
54:59
Speaker 2: could be, it's just it's a different I think that
55:02
Speaker 2: that that's it, the genesis of it. I think that
55:10
Speaker 2: it is reprehensible that, certainly in a league where you've
55:15
Speaker 2: close to seventy percent of your players that are black,
55:20
Speaker 2: and we have even fewer black head coaches now, and
55:29
Speaker 2: there's always the pipeline, right, I mean, you had a
55:34
Speaker 2: defensive minded head coach who won this year, so get
55:39
Speaker 2: sit there and go, well, that might be better for
55:42
Speaker 2: candidates of color because there's typically more defensive coordinators that
55:46
Speaker 2: are black than offense coordinators that are black. But then again,
55:52
Speaker 2: the formula seems to be everybody wants to find. Everybody's
55:54
Speaker 2: still looking for the Nick Sean McVay. It's just that simple,
55:57
Speaker 2: and the Nick Sean McVay is young, white, offensive minded,
56:02
Speaker 2: and a lot of those offensive minded coaches are very
56:06
Speaker 2: simply right. So until we can get more black head
56:13
Speaker 2: coaches in as offense coordinators and in his quarterback coaches,
56:18
Speaker 2: then it's just it's gonna it's simply going to be difficult.
56:22
Speaker 2: It's just that simple. But I I think that the
56:27
Speaker 2: league has tried to do what it can do uh
56:30
Speaker 2: with the Rooney roll, and UH they didn't have it
56:33
Speaker 2: last year where they have the the UH Symposium where
56:37
Speaker 2: they bring in young black candidates and just get them
56:40
Speaker 2: to meet and talk with the owners and then get
56:44
Speaker 2: get a a you know, trying to build a rapport.
56:48
Speaker 2: But you know, one of the most heinous things that
56:52
Speaker 2: you say, I mean it was said for years with
56:55
Speaker 2: Tony Dungee, well you know he doesn't interview, Well, well,
56:59
Speaker 2: what's that code for? What is that code for? We're
57:02
Speaker 2: not comfortable with the black head coach. I mean, really
57:06
Speaker 2: what because he wasn't gonna you know, be fire and
57:08
Speaker 2: brimstone and say he's going to sleep in his office
57:11
Speaker 2: you know, uh, for three hours a night. No, everybody
57:15
Speaker 2: does things differently and that has to be that has
57:18
Speaker 2: to be respected. So you know, all you can do
57:21
Speaker 2: is just is just hope that that the black head
57:25
Speaker 2: coaches that that have succeeded the Mike tomlins and and
57:30
Speaker 2: the Tony Dungee's, and that they will continue to, you know,
57:36
Speaker 2: try to find the next versions of those guys. But
57:38
Speaker 2: they're they're out of the league now. So you know,
57:41
Speaker 2: do you needed to make Damika Ryan's to win? Yeah,
57:43
Speaker 2: that would probably help. But it's uh, it's it's it's
57:48
Speaker 2: it's it's heinous. I I really do, And I think
57:52
Speaker 2: that it's racist and and I I don't think it's
57:56
Speaker 2: good for the game.
57:58
Speaker 1: I think it's a whole other show. But I think
58:01
Speaker 1: listeners would be unpleasantly surprised as to how unsophisticated the
58:06
Speaker 1: processes when owners hire general managers and general managers hire
58:11
Speaker 1: head coaches, and it is so riddled with flaws. And
58:15
Speaker 1: speaking of flawed processes, I've got to ask about the
58:18
Speaker 1: NFL Hall of Fame. We see this in baseball. But
58:23
Speaker 1: I've got to be honest, and I think you you
58:25
Speaker 1: spoke to maybe some of the flaws of Bill Belichick.
58:27
Speaker 1: Maybe he doesn't have the legacy some other guys have
58:29
Speaker 1: of the family tree of coaches. But the facts are
58:32
Speaker 1: the facts. He is six Super Bowl rings, so does
58:35
Speaker 1: Robert Kraft, the most by a head coach and an owner.
58:37
Speaker 1: Neither of them are in the Hall of Fame. What
58:40
Speaker 1: do you make of the NFL Hall of Fame voting process?
58:43
Speaker 2: It sucks, It's terrible. It must be changed because you've
58:49
Speaker 2: got you've got you got two parallel courses here, right
58:53
Speaker 2: that You've got the process as you mentioned, and then
58:57
Speaker 2: you have the qualifications who in their right mind, I
59:01
Speaker 2: mean when when being a little facetious here, but when
59:06
Speaker 2: it would come down to the voting room and the presentation,
59:10
Speaker 2: because obviously each candidate needs to have a presenter. Here's
59:14
Speaker 2: where the presenter should be. Bill Belichick, Tom Brady. That's it.
59:20
Speaker 2: It's just that simple. Now, I'm gonna be I will
59:22
Speaker 2: be brutally honest with you. When I learned that Belichick
59:29
Speaker 2: was going in after what was eligible after just one
59:32
Speaker 2: year because they changed changed the rules again. It used
59:35
Speaker 2: to be a foggier waiting period for players and coaches.
59:37
Speaker 2: Now it's just for players. I had a feeling he
59:40
Speaker 2: wasn't going to go in first ballot because I had
59:44
Speaker 2: a feeling that some of them were gonna make him pay.
59:48
Speaker 2: They were gonna make him pay. And it's not fair
59:50
Speaker 2: and it's wrong. But you have to understand one thing.
59:53
Speaker 2: It's not just about Bill. Last year, Mike Congrin didn't
59:56
Speaker 2: get in. They they put up one head coaching candidate.
1:00:00
Speaker 2: It's almost rubber stamped. When he didn't get in. I
1:00:04
Speaker 2: was appalled because look at the backlog you have right now,
1:00:09
Speaker 2: in my opinion, my opinion, you got hong Gren, you
1:00:12
Speaker 2: got Coughlan, you got Shanahan, and now you've got Bill.
1:00:16
Speaker 2: So you had four guys who all should be in
1:00:19
Speaker 2: the Hall of Fame. What are you waiting for now?
1:00:23
Speaker 2: If you were going to take the tech with Belichick
1:00:27
Speaker 2: that maybe you do with Parcels and Mighty come back,
1:00:30
Speaker 2: he comes back, we don't want to put him in yet.
1:00:32
Speaker 2: We're gonna wait. They did that with Parcels, right. But
1:00:37
Speaker 2: I just think that the process, which I don't think
1:00:40
Speaker 2: a lot of people understand and how difficult it is,
1:00:42
Speaker 2: and they keep changing it. It's just it's terrible. And truthfully,
1:00:49
Speaker 2: I said to the commissioner when I saw him at
1:00:52
Speaker 2: the Super Bowl, I said, listen, anytime you've got people
1:00:57
Speaker 2: talking about the process and not talking about the people,
1:01:01
Speaker 2: you got a problem. You got a real problem. And
1:01:06
Speaker 2: that's that's what you have. And the other thing that is,
1:01:10
Speaker 2: you cannot absolutely, unequivocally cannot conflate the careers of a
1:01:17
Speaker 2: head coach, a player, and an owner, totally different bodies
1:01:22
Speaker 2: of work. How do you compare them? Can compare them?
1:01:26
Speaker 2: So I just I'm sick about the process. I'm absolutely
1:01:31
Speaker 2: sick about the process. And I hate that more people
1:01:35
Speaker 2: were talking about who didn't get in than well Roger
1:01:37
Speaker 2: Craig finally made it in. I feel vhemently that Robert
1:01:46
Speaker 2: Craft should be in there. I want to. I'd like
1:01:48
Speaker 2: to see him get in before he dies, because I've
1:01:50
Speaker 2: been to enough of these Hall of Fames where the
1:01:53
Speaker 2: people players go in posthumously. Reggie White Junior Sale, it's brutal.
1:01:58
Speaker 2: It's brutal for the families. They have to relive everything,
1:02:02
Speaker 2: and you know, Craft belongs in the Hall of Fame.
1:02:05
Speaker 2: Absolutely for not just it's beyond just to you know,
1:02:10
Speaker 2: the six Super Bowls. It's what he created. Mean, he
1:02:12
Speaker 2: created Patriot Place, you know, predated Jerry World, if you will.
1:02:18
Speaker 2: As you can tell, I kind of get fired up
1:02:20
Speaker 2: about it because I find it reprehensible that we're talking
1:02:24
Speaker 2: about the process and these are surefire Hall of Famers
1:02:28
Speaker 2: and you know what, you make them wait a year.
1:02:31
Speaker 2: I mean, I've told enough guys who have been rejected
1:02:36
Speaker 2: in some cases for years and years and years. Believe me,
1:02:39
Speaker 2: when you get in, you're not getting in with an
1:02:42
Speaker 2: extra little ribbon that says, first ballot either you're a
1:02:44
Speaker 2: Hall of Famer or you're not. You're going to get in.
1:02:47
Speaker 2: But this whole process of of you know, which makes
1:02:51
Speaker 2: them wait. I think it is terrible.
1:02:55
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree with you more. I feel as if,
1:02:58
Speaker 1: as sports has evolved so dramatically in terms of the
1:03:01
Speaker 1: amount of data and analytics sweep applied to determining who
1:03:05
Speaker 1: players are performing, which players are performing well, this is
1:03:09
Speaker 1: the last bastion of incredible subjectivity, and we just have
1:03:12
Speaker 1: no idea why people do or do not vote for
1:03:15
Speaker 1: people in this notion. I've never understood that I'm going
1:03:18
Speaker 1: to vote from them as a second ballot or a
1:03:20
Speaker 1: third ballot, but I'm just not doing it as a
1:03:21
Speaker 1: first It's never made sense to me. They're either a
1:03:24
Speaker 1: Hall of Famer or they're not a Hall of Famer.
1:03:27
Speaker 1: And to say that the people who have the most
1:03:29
Speaker 1: rings as an owner and the most rings as a
1:03:31
Speaker 1: head coach are not a Hall of Famer, let alone
1:03:33
Speaker 1: first ballot hall of Famer, seems to really muddy the
1:03:36
Speaker 1: whole waters from me.
1:03:37
Speaker 2: Right, But again, it gets back to the process, because
1:03:39
Speaker 2: the idea that the process would lead you to say, well, look,
1:03:43
Speaker 2: I know Belichick's going to get in at some point.
1:03:45
Speaker 2: I know he's going to get in, But Roger Craig
1:03:48
Speaker 2: could be Elsie Greenwood, he could be on his last legs.
1:03:51
Speaker 2: I bet that's a flawed process. That is an absolutely
1:03:54
Speaker 2: flawed process.
1:03:56
Speaker 1: Well, and Andrew, you talked about the posthumius part of it,
1:03:59
Speaker 1: but it's also and these people become so less relevant,
1:04:02
Speaker 1: like people don't remember these guys quite as well, and
1:04:05
Speaker 1: why not celebrate them when they're still the most relevant
1:04:07
Speaker 1: in the fans' minds. Roger Craig hasn't done anything in
1:04:10
Speaker 1: the last ten seasons to enhance his candidacy. He was
1:04:13
Speaker 1: a Hall of Famer when he left the game. Let's
1:04:15
Speaker 1: celebrate them when he's still at his most relevant and
1:04:18
Speaker 1: is most vibrant.
1:04:21
Speaker 2: Again, I think it's I think it's it's very difficult.
1:04:23
Speaker 2: And the thing that kind of irks me, and again
1:04:25
Speaker 2: I sort of said this to the commissioner. I said,
1:04:28
Speaker 2: one of the rules they change, one of the reasons
1:04:30
Speaker 2: that they change the rules is because Dan Sanders, who's
1:04:33
Speaker 2: obviously got a very strong voice, you know, indicated to
1:04:37
Speaker 2: the Hall. They said, I think it's becoming the Hall
1:04:39
Speaker 2: of Very Good. So I would argue that the process
1:04:44
Speaker 2: is not good. So you want the Hall of Very Good,
1:04:48
Speaker 2: you want to, you want to, you want to want
1:04:50
Speaker 2: to bad, flawed process. I think it's I just think
1:04:54
Speaker 2: it's very very unfortunate. And I'm thrilled with this class.
1:04:59
Speaker 2: They're all just all five guys. But that's the other
1:05:03
Speaker 2: problem is with the backlog you have. You got two
1:05:07
Speaker 2: years in a row where you've had these small classes,
1:05:10
Speaker 2: and it's just not sustainable. It just isn't. And I
1:05:15
Speaker 2: think it really, I think it diminishes. I think it diminishes,
1:05:20
Speaker 2: you know, the incredible accomplishment that it takes to be
1:05:24
Speaker 2: a profitable Hall of Famer.
1:05:26
Speaker 1: I think very well said, and it's very applicable in
1:05:28
Speaker 1: baseball as well, and I'm sure across all Hall of
1:05:31
Speaker 1: Fame platforms. Andrea, I want to thank you for your
1:05:34
Speaker 1: exceptional generosity today, for your enlightening and educational conversation. I
1:05:39
Speaker 1: feel as if we have a lot of stuff on
1:05:40
Speaker 1: the cutting room, Flore. I hope you come back at
1:05:42
Speaker 1: some point. I'd love to have another conversation. I've learned
1:05:44
Speaker 1: so much. Thank you so much. Please join us this
1:05:47
Speaker 1: Thursday and every Thursday on Rosters to Rings. Please join
1:05:54
Speaker 1: me host that Levine for Roster sy Rings on Apple, Spotify,
1:06:00
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.