Bulls fans, I thought I’d change things up this time. Honestly, it’s hard to come up with new thoughts on the Bulls as they’re stuck in a rut of beating bad teams and losing to good ones.
Remember the scene in The Lion King when Mufasa gets trampled by a herd of wildebeest? And later, much like the ghost of Hamlet’s father appears to his son, Mufasa emerges from the clouds and shows himself to a now older Simba. Unlike the Ghost in Hamlet, Mufasa doesn’t return to instruct his son to seek revenge. (Although he probably should have, Scar was an a**hole. Scar is Claudius, by the way. Shakespeare essentially wrote The Lion King.) No. Mufasa returned simply to remind Simba of who he was. “You have forgotten who you are, and so forgotten me.”
I bring this up because it’s where my mind wandered after experiencing a frustrating and enlightening day in my life as an “outsider” who’s both excitedly and warily becoming more of an “insider” in the world of Chicago sports media.
Stick with me. It’s the Pecking Order.
During one of his regular appearances on the Waddle & Silvy radio show, Chicago broadcasting legend Mark Giangreco mentioned Bulls Outsiders in a less than flattering light. He questioned if NBC Sports Chicago even pays us to do the show (they do), adding that the network green-lit the show “…in lieu of hiring people with actual talent.”
The following day, after Big Dave, John and myself gave Giangreco some friendly comebacks and due respect on Outsiders, he went back on Waddle & Silvy to accept our olive branch and explain why he didn’t originally love our show.
“Just the concept pissed me off because I’m the old guard,” he said. “I’m trying to protect people who’ve been in the business for a long time.”
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I completely understand why Mark was pissed. A trio of random fans were given their own show on a sports network when real broadcasting talents – his friends – who deserve jobs were out of work. In a very real way, that may come across to those dedicated to the business as obtuse and disrespectful.
But you know what? Even though I haven’t yet earned respect from Mark directly, his disrespect of me and my team pissed me off, too.
I know that as I type this, I’m nowhere close to significant in this city’s unparalleled sports media landscape. We’re a tiny blip on the radar. But just becoming the tiniest blip on that radar took six long years of hard work, often for little or no pay to without even a sliver of hope that it would lead to something real.
But I stuck with it. I kept working. And I earned my way onto Outsiders. None of it was given to me. Nor was it given to my co-hosts.
Does Mark Giangreco have the extensive comedy training and experience that John Sabine has? In any duel of sports-related humor and quick wit, my money’s on Sabine every time. Go see him perform with his sketch group at Second City, or Improv Shakespeare at iO. He slays, and he makes something very difficult look easy. That’s called talent. It’s the same talent that makes him perfect for our show. As a Chicago transplant, he also brings a true outsider’s perspective to a sports city that can sometimes swallow itself.
Does Mark Giangreco, or anyone else in the Chicago sports media world for that matter, have what Big Dave has? He’s from a family of multi-generational Chicago sports fans that’s uniquely his. The most positive person I’ve ever met, who comes to any conversation – sports or otherwise – with a smile and an appreciation for you being you, before you complain to him about whatever you think warrants complaining. When you think about the often-overpowering negativity of sports fandom, especially in today’s hateful and filter-free Twitterverse, Dave is so refreshingly original. He’s also been producing and hosting multiple podcasts about Chicago sports for years, showcasing his passion and knowledge for the subjects. That’s called talent.
When they brought the three of us together during screen tests, it clicked. We had concept, chemistry and unbridled enthusiasm. We couldn’t wait to share it with our fellow fans.
So yeah, it bugged me to hear Mark say that we didn’t deserve this show. Does he watch every minute of every Bulls game like we do? Has he been co-hosting a Bulls podcast that does five episodes a week for the past three years, including offseason months? Did his Bulls podcast get well over a million downloads last year? Or was that the work of me and my dedicated Locked On Bulls co-host Jordan Maly? Jordan’s incredible production work on that podcast landed him a job as a producer at 670 The Score. That podcast is what got NBC’s attention to bring me in for Outsiders.
We all started as fans, yes. Now we’re more than that.
Does that piss certain people off? Do younger, eager-to-work professionals getting opportunities in a rapidly changing but always competitive sports media world piss people off? Are we upsetting some pre-existing balance that required the proper broadcasting or journalism degrees to walk the one and only path to working in this in industry? Are we changing the definition of “professional” with our blogs and podcasts and Twitter threads? Is the old way of sports reporting being aggressively phased out?
The answer to all those questions is yes. But here’s the rub: change doesn’t mean forgetting the past. It just means a new way of doing things.
Outsiders is a fresh idea, but also an obvious one. Give “fans” who are also somewhat “professionals” a platform to interact with other fans and, most importantly, give fans at home the opportunity to voice their opinions in real time via social media. That’s the world we live in now. That’s what sports fans want. Connectivity.
When I was a child of the ‘90s, I watched my Bulls every night in standard definition on a 30-inch tube TV, and then watched the best 20 highlights of the day on SportsCenter hosted by Robin Roberts and Bob Ley. I’d read the newspaper columns by Sam Smith and Melissa Isaacson analyzing yesterday’s games every morning before school. Because that’s what we had.
We have access to more now. A lot more. Shouldn’t a sports fan’s desires, and the media system that feeds them those desires, change accordingly? I think it should.
But I don’t think it should erase the history of how we got here. I’ve read countless books about the evolution of sports reporting and broadcasting from the people who dedicated their lives to the craft. I watch film of broadcasters I admire and read every column of the journalists who motivate me to write. I have the utmost respect for those who laid the foundation for the complex world of sports media, and those who followed in their footsteps.
Many of the men and women I watched and read covering my favorite teams as a kid are still working today, some still here in Chicago. The storytellers. And they are my heroes. They’re a huge part of the reason I fell in love with sports. It took me a while to figure it out, but that’s what I wanted to be a part of and I couldn’t possibly have achieved any of the meager things I have thus far without the endless inspiration of their stories.
Some may be nearing the latter chapters of their storied careers finding it bitterly hard to believe how much their industry has changed in just the last few years. Just maybe, they might think about what it looked like when they first started or when they were the kids reading and watching. Typewriters in newsrooms, sports fans huddled around radios, athletes smoking cigarettes in dugouts and locker rooms. Times change. The ways change. It’s natural. But every generation creates and influences the next. The circle of life, if you will.
The changing of the media guard in a great sports city like ours has absolutely nothing derisive about it. Us younger folks are not Scars, guiltlessly throwing Mufasas into the gorge while meticulously planning our takeover of a kingdom with hyena lackeys in tow. We’re just the wildebeest stampeding through the gorge. We don’t know where we’re going, or who’s leading the charge. Some casualties may occur. Because like a stampede of wildebeest, today’s fresh faces of sports media are occasionally confused but always aggressive and eager to get somewhere. Blame us if you want to, we’re just trying to keep our momentum to not be trampled ourselves.
But perhaps more fittingly, there’s a part of us that is more Simba than wildebeest. Lost in the wilderness, lacking direction. Carelessly tweeting “Hakuna Matata” to our warthog and meerkat friends, but secretly yearning for the leadership and guidance of the all-knowing figures who explain the universe to us in a way that makes sense. Crying out to a slowly disappearing ghost, “No, please, don’t leave me!”
I’m not trying to kill Mufasa. I’m just a young wildebeest who might inadvertently trample him. Maybe I’m Simba, too. Scared as hell to take the mantle of the predecessors who created, explained and ruled the world in which I grew.
If someone takes a shot at me or my people, I’m going to stand my ground and fight for my tribe. And if somebody takes that shot from a position of ignorance, opting to learn nothing about me and my tribe before firing it, you better believe I’m throwing some salt on the ground that lies between my tribe and theirs.. But I understand that that instinct of mine is the instinct that lives within all of us: to protect what we hold dear. It’s the same instinct that caused somebody older and much more accomplished than me to say what they said. That instinct never goes away, it only grows and intensifies. The longer and harder you’ve worked for something, the farther you’re willing to go to protect it. I understand that too. And I’m not that far along compared to many.
All I can do is promise to try my best with every opportunity I’m given. I can wait to be king. I don’t even know if I want to be king. But if I ever get there, it won’t be without remembering the lessons of the sports media royalty who came before me.
If I get there, it will be because of everything they taught me, and everything they did for me, along with my own hard work. And I’ll pay it forward to those who are ready to take my place someday. I’ll try to appreciate the passion behind their hard work instead of resisting the stampeding change.
I’m sure it won’t be easy for me either. Nonetheless, the circle keeps spinning. A steady but always evolving group of storytellers for a kingdom that appreciates its rich history. That’s what we must always provide. Because that’s what Chicago sports fans deserve.
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