Colin Cowheard On His Career Journey + Dan Patrick On How He Gets Motivated For Interviews & Being Prepared For The Moment + Jerry Jones On His Journey To Becoming Owner Of The Dallas Cowboys + Rich Eisen On The First 'Big Call' In His Career

00:00:06
Speaker 1: If you listen to this podcast, you know some of my favorite artists, songwriters, music people.

00:00:12
Speaker 2: They love sports like I do.

00:00:14
Speaker 1: And a lot of times that's how we bond during the Bobby Cast is that we'll find something sports related and it kind of allows us to get to other places.

00:00:22
Speaker 2: I mean, heck, it's how I bond with my father in law a lot.

00:00:24
Speaker 1: Like it's like, oh, let's talk football, and the next thing you know, we're crying on each other's shoulder. Well, that part's not true, but I did want to play some of the best most fun sports interviews from twenty five Whistles here now because it's not just sports talk.

00:00:37
Speaker 2: This is life career, These are legends.

00:00:40
Speaker 1: It's the same way that I interview people on any podcast or show that I do. It's much more of their journey to get places and very little All right, we're gonna go thirty two minus three. We're gonna So that's what this is. And I'm super excited to be able to put this together because this, to me, was some of the most fun that I've ever had interviewing people.

00:01:00
Speaker 2: Now.

00:01:00
Speaker 1: First up is Colin Cowherd. He works at Fox Sports Now and Colin Cowherd. I guess I knew him first from ESPN he went to Fox Sports. He's one of those rare people that have been able to be super super successful even when he made a transition from network to network. And as someone who works in the morning radio, I did want to know what Colin's day look like. He's got a massive show. We talked about going from a small town in Washington now he's one of the biggest faces and voices on sports television, radio podcast.

00:01:27
Speaker 2: You know what motivated him growing up?

00:01:29
Speaker 1: And thanks to Colin for being so open to talk about his life, his career journey.

00:01:33
Speaker 2: Here he is Colin Cowherd.

00:01:35
Speaker 1: Hey, Colin, first off, just been a massive fan for I'm just going to start with this then we'll move to the real stuff. But for like fifteen years, like diehard massive fans.

00:01:42
Speaker 3: Oh jeez.

00:01:43
Speaker 1: So to be able to sit and talk with you for just a few minutes, like, it's a real thrill for me.

00:01:47
Speaker 2: So thank you.

00:01:47
Speaker 3: Oh of course, Yeah, your career's exploded. It's just amazing. They're really behind you at the company.

00:01:52
Speaker 2: I think it's great.

00:01:53
Speaker 1: So what I'm curious at how other people do their creative endeavors and before I cause I did want to go back to when you were a kid.

00:02:01
Speaker 2: But I want to know what your day is like.

00:02:03
Speaker 1: Meaning I watch a show and I DVR it, so I do get to watch, or I'll hit the podcast and so I see and I hear. But people don't see the behind the scenes stuff. What how do you get in the daytime? And how many people do you sit with before a show and go over ideas or segments?

00:02:19
Speaker 3: Get up at about five forty, leave my house at about six there at six point fifteen, put the contacts in, walk upstairs, and it's about an hour and a half process. It used to be about two hours. But we've got a really good crew. I would say there are nine people in the room. They've got about ten stories laid out for me. I picked probably four, and then they just keep throwing ideas at me. I usually come in with something to say on one or two. I have kind of a worldview on how I view each story, and then I just like them to pitch ideas and funny lines and argue and anyway can sandpaper it to get the most interesting take, you know, I tell young broadcasters all the time, don't be consumed with being right. It'd be great to be right, but be interesting. Find the most interesting angle on something. And that's what we already strive for just and I've done it long enough Bobby where I can kind of sense like, oh yeah, I haven't heard anybody say that on that story. And I, by the way, I'm always hoping to be right. But what I think is you're probably curious. I think I'm curious. I'm looking for angles on stuff, and I like the the why better than the what, Like why is this happening? I can see what is happening. I think ninety nine percent of sports talk show host tell me what I see. I like to be the one percent that says, this is why you're seeing it. And you know, a lot of times I'm wrong, my theory is wrong, but I think a lot of times that's what we're always seeking, kind of the why why something is happening.

00:03:57
Speaker 1: You know, it sounds to me when you describe what you do there's still a your voice about what you do and to be doing it at such a high level for so long to still have that passion like what is it? What happened in your childhood? With me, it was just growing up a food stamp kid and a welfare kid. But what is it for you that keeps you just driven towards this this success really that no one else has had like you've had it?

00:04:17
Speaker 3: Well, you know, you know I had all the things necessary, probably a childhood divorce, high school acne, girls not dating me. The divorce left me very poor. Always felt loved, but kind of a reluctant. My mom was sort of British, doting, kind of protective.

00:04:44
Speaker 4: You know.

00:04:44
Speaker 3: Dad was a really decent guy, small town doctor, but very career driven. Maybe I felt ignored and wanted people to pay attention to me. I knew what I wanted to do at a very early age, but I also felt, and it's not sad, but I felt I was kind of on my own. Like it's not that my parents weren't there for me. I mean, you know, I never felt never verbal abuse, or I wasn't loved, none of that stuff, but I always kind of felt my dad was a workaholic, my mom was British, didn't really wasn't going to help me a lot in my career, and so I always felt sort of a the word escapes me. I would say, if I needed to be self reliant and if and if I didn't succeed, then I wouldn't succeed if I didn't make my own pass. And I, you know, I tell my kids this all the time, is that I don't I want to raise you, so at twenty years old, you don't need me anymore. Like that's kind of how I was raised. And I think that kind of fight and that sort of Bible mechanism has been really powerful for me. So, you know, I definitely child of divorce a sister that was five and a half six years older. So by the time I was in high school, she was out. You know, we weren't close. No eighteen year old girl wants to hang around at twelve and a half year old boy, right, And so I and I lived. It was rural, so I didn't have this wide social net of friends. I mean every house was you know, a ways away, so you kind of had to make up your own fund. And I would make up batting lineups and a piece of paper and do the play by play and play whipplet ball by myself, and and play basketball sometimes by myself, and shoot baskets. And you know, I was a laker. It's jabbar over to this player, over to that player. Eighteen foot are good? Talk to myself still do a lot, so that independence, self reliance still kind of you know, it thrives in me today.

00:06:59
Speaker 4: You know.

00:06:59
Speaker 2: Rural. That's how I describe where I'm from.

00:07:01
Speaker 1: I'm from a small town in Arkansas, like seven hundred people, and there was nobody to tell me that I couldn't do anything.

00:07:06
Speaker 2: But nobody actually knew you could outside of where you lived. There was a mill.

00:07:09
Speaker 1: It's a saw mill town, and so they weren't saying you can't go and do a TV show or a big radio show, but they definitely weren't saying I could. And the same thing about you, like who told who put.

00:07:20
Speaker 2: It in you?

00:07:20
Speaker 1: Who instilled in you that there were these dreams that no one around you had actually reached out in touch, but that you could do it.

00:07:28
Speaker 3: That's a good question. I think that is a good question who instilled these dreams? I think I always felt like an underdog, Like when I went to college, I always had that chip on my shoulder. Nobody thought I could do it. You know, I didn't have a lot of money. I had to work while I went to school. And I think there's a survival thing. I think. I don't know if anybody told me I could or couldn't do it. I just remember my mom when I was about thirteen years old, twelve or thirteen years old, telling me one day I was reading the paper. She goes, you know, you just can't read the sports section. That just can't be it. And I said, yeah, it can't. I am going to work in sports. I am going to work in sports, and I know it, and I just I just at a very early age, you know, I quarterback my high school team. I was a little taller than some guys, a little more athletic. I always said, you know, I dated like a cheerleader. I always had kind of even though I was kind of goofy, I kind of had this confidence about me. And you know, I can remember when I was, you know, seventeen to twenty seven, you know, and I was in Vegas. I remember, you know, I would date women, are go on dates, and they'd be like, man, you're you are driven, like you you just you are. They're like, you know, you'd be impossible to marry, like you're married to your career. And I would be like, yeah, it's great, it's a great career. It's a great life, you know, and then all of a sudden you have kids, I get married, it's thirties. But I think I think Bobby. I just think I was so driven and that comes from loneliness and you know, just sort of this small town underdog mentality. And I think it's just always been in me. I don't know if it was engineered by anybody. If it was, I don't remember it, but I always knew. I can remember when I was young, just thinking I had no doubt in my mind I was going to be like a network sportscaster. It never And when I went to college and people didn't care as much as I did, I remember thinking this is my competition. And then I went to Vegas and got a job, and the people I worked with didn't care as much as I did. So every step of the way, I was like, man, I am really into this, and other people think it's just the job. And so every market I went to, it was like, man, they just don't love it like I do. They don't think about it, they don't dream about it, they don't plan for it, they don't construct their day around it. So I kept being reminded how much. I loved it and if I worked hard how I could get there. And it was just step after step after step after step, and that passion, that confidence just grew. Is I'd be I'd joined clubs or stations or radio stations or TV stations, and I could just tell it was a job for people and it was more of a mission for me.

00:10:18
Speaker 1: I talked to my therapists a lot about balance, because I, like you, have just been consumed with me having this humongous chip, probably much bigger than I should have, but and trying to prove people wrong, and now trying to prove people right. Like I'm at the point of my career where is I go. Okay, I'm going to prove these folks right who have invested in me. And I've done pretty good sin on the old therapist couch, but I've been I'm married now for the first time, I think it, Mary tells forty years old. And balance is a struggle because I have been so consumed with what I do, which was my job.

00:10:51
Speaker 2: How in the world do you.

00:10:53
Speaker 1: Reach the level that you've reached and still achieve any sort of balance.

00:10:57
Speaker 3: Well, I'm I've had some balance, Bobby. What I really try to do, and it's not always easy. Is live very much in the moment. Is that when I'm around my wife or my kids, I really live in the moment. I just this is going to be what I do. I went to Rome with my wife, I went to Italy for a week and just put the phone down. Or I go to Turks and Caicos, take pictures, put the phone down. So try to live in the moment when I have these opportunities. But I think it's a struggle. You know, I said this once to a therapist. I think I wrote about this once in my first book. I said, you know, they there's a lot of things that make people happy. If you googled what makes people happy, they would say animals, giving good friends. You know what? They never say balance. Peyton Manning wasn't balanced. I mean, was Michael Jordan balanced? I think balance. I think it's a little overrated, you know what. I'd rather be wildly passionate about my wife, about my job, about the volume. I think I'm really passionate. And as I've gotten older, I've pruned my tree like that doesn't matter. If that doesn't matter, that doesn't matter. But I don't think balance has ever made me happy? I mean, you tell me I'm happy today?

00:12:28
Speaker 2: Are you happy?

00:12:29
Speaker 4: Yeah?

00:12:29
Speaker 1: I'm happy because I'm at the place now where like all that I've been working for forever is finally coming to fruition, right, Like I've really just in the TV world and the radio world, and it's like I'm finally getting the opportunity to pick what I want to do instead of I get to say no to things.

00:12:47
Speaker 2: Like how cool is that? I know I've never got to say no to.

00:12:49
Speaker 1: Things before, like real things, and I get to say no. And it's a weird thing too, but that to me. And I told my wife because she has a great family, and to her family has always been a bit but I didn't have a dad and have mom, so I've just had my career and so now I'm you know, you're trying to figure I'm trying to figure out, like how in the world do I And balance doesn't mean fifty to fifty, but how in the world do I balance this at all? And I look at someone like you who's able to crush it professionally, and I hear you talk about your wife and even your kids, and it's.

00:13:18
Speaker 2: Like, dang, God, does he do that.

00:13:20
Speaker 1: So I guess if anything else, I'll send you a bill for this therapy session.

00:13:23
Speaker 2: This is over.

00:13:24
Speaker 3: But but you know, you know who never seems happy to me? Ski bum poet, web designer, part time artist, A million things that are not a mile deep on any of them. If you're totally invested in your wife and totally invested in your career, and then you have a really great charity and then you have a couple of kids, what a life do you have when you're into those I mean, balance is one of those sort of like ethereal, sort of nebulous things. It's like, I live a balance life. No, I sleep for seven, I work for six. I nap and listen to music for one. I work out for one, I eat for two. I'm into all of those things. When I'm doing them. I don't sit around worrying about balance. What I worry about is enjoying the time I have in the moment doing what I'm doing, and if it comes out as balance. But there are some days I don't do much work. You know, once the football season ends, I get three day weekends. I don't even think about work. So and then there are other times during the football season I'm you know, my Sundays are a work day. So I think sometimes people it's like fomo fear of missing out. There's this fear of lacking balance will create a new folb fear of lacking balance. I don't think that many people have balance, and I don't think perfect balance makes anybody happy.

00:14:50
Speaker 1: Let's go back to a job that you had early on that at the time seem tough, but you look back and like, dang, I actually learned a lot there.

00:14:57
Speaker 4: You know.

00:14:57
Speaker 1: I did play by play the home games, did played with play for Division two Hinderson State University, and then on the road I had to do play by play in color because we couldn't afford to send two people out in the crew, and that.

00:15:08
Speaker 2: It was really hard.

00:15:09
Speaker 1: But I'll look back and I'm like, man, I really learned a whole lot there in Hot Springs, Arkansas doing radio show.

00:15:13
Speaker 2: I learned a whole lot because I had to do everything.

00:15:15
Speaker 1: When you look back at your career, what was that job or a couple of jobs for you where really difficult, but you're so thankful you had them because of everything that you developed.

00:15:23
Speaker 3: Well, my first job out of college was really doing an inning of play by play for Las Vegas. You say an inning, I did it, just an inning. I had to sell and they would give me one inning of play by play if I so. I was like twenty two, So the guys around me were like thirty eight forty. They were been doing it for years. They probably resented me. And it was hard because I wanted to be on the air more. So I had to do sales all day and then I would do prep and then I would do an inning and save my tapes. And I mean I spent like seven eight years in Vegas a couple of sales, a couple do an inning, than a TV station hired me. Vegas was a grind. It took years off my life. It was really really hard. I didn't have a lot of money for probably the first five six years childhood divorced, so I went into the city broke. I was broke for about five six years, I mean, had no money and was working NonStop inning a play by play, doing sales. Then a local TV station hired me. I did an internship turned into a weekend sports job. But I will tell you this, I needed other people and there were a lot of beer and chicken wing nights with TV people and radio people. And as you and I get more successful, I think we'll just sort of naturally have fortresses around us. Right, you have the agent and you have the bosses, and you don't deal with the day to day because you're going to start. You're making so much money for the company now, and hopefully I am that. You know, we are two of the people at the company that are you know, business is thriving, and so this is where I wanted to be. But those journey years for me, I have such good memories, all the mistakes, all the dollar chicken wings. I was a more social animal then. I'm probably less social now because it's more about family and business. So those years I have very six seven years, very fond Vegas memories. The mob was still in Vegas then it was it was a different town than it's very corporate now. I feel like I got to see the old that was transitioning Old Vegas, like the movie Casino, you know, that was just ending, and then I went to Vegas and it was starting. Instead of like a guy owning at casino. It was the Hilton, it was the MGM, it was you know, so I felt like I was in a transition stage in Vegas, and I feel so lucky that I lived through that.

00:17:47
Speaker 1: I got out on a Southwest flight once and Barry Switzer was on the flight, and I was like, dang, this is crazy. Barry Switzer, who's from Arkansas, near where I'm from. Yeah, obviously coached Oklahoma with cowboys, but he's an Arkansas guy like me, and I flipped out. And I think we're both probably pretty jaded now when it comes to celebrities because we know they just happened to have a skill that culturally we deem a little cooler than the rest. It just so happens their skill is deemed cooler, and so at this point I don't get star strugg by many folks, and I would assume it's the same for you. But who have you met in the last few years where you're just like, this is so freaking cool. I get to meet and talk with you.

00:18:23
Speaker 3: Well, I'm always amazed. A lot of people watch sports shows or see my clips, and I think the funniest story was I was still a Keith Oberman had a show on ESPN years ago, and he took a couple of days off, and so they called me and said would you do Keith's show? It was a TV show in a New York setting. So I drove to New York to day the night and I did the show for a couple of days. And he doesn't like college football much, so they said, hey, we want to put some college football on the show. Conda Lisa Rice is a big fan of college football. I was like, oh, awesome, and so I pre tape the interview with Conda Lisa Rice. Right that you put into the show and it looks live, and you tape it for twelve fifteen minutes. You use eleven o it or ten of it, and so like here we can see each other on a screen and I'm like three two one three two one, And all of a sudden, I hear this the herd and I'm like, I'm like, she goes, oh, I listen to you every morning on the treadmill, and I'm like, you're running the country.

00:19:24
Speaker 4: Stop that.

00:19:25
Speaker 3: That's stop that right now. Don't do that. And we sat and talked about things for about ten minutes, and that was like one of those this is really really cool. That's one that really jumps out to me that I've had these conversations with Jimmy Johnson off the air in the green room when I used to do the Sunday Show for Fox, and I would just pepper him with questions and Bobby would tell me the hurricane days and the Dan Marino stories and the Dallas stuff that you can't say on the air. That to me is when I'm just jaw dropping in awe of what I do for a living. I'm like, nobody's this is the coolest thing in the world right now talking to Jimmy Johnson about the Miami hurricane days. And I can't tell any of these stories.

00:20:11
Speaker 1: On there's Those are the best stories. I get those a lot too, where I'm like, one day I'll be able to share this. And because you know, in this industry here, there's a lot of shady stuff that goes down that's very interesting and very entertaining, but it's also the shady stuff that you can't share.

00:20:26
Speaker 3: And so I know, you know, Bobby, when I when I when I started in this business, I tell people this. In my twenties and early thirties, if I had information, I wanted to make sure everybody knew I had information. Now I'm in my fifties, I have to bury information because I've built up all these sources through the years and they tell me stuff and I can't let it out, and so I'll never write a book on it. I'm not going to do a ghialdo and write a book, you know, at the end of my career. So I find that early in my career, I was like, Hey, I got information I want to tell you now, Like you, you have sourcing, you want to be close to people, you want to be trusted, and I don't say stuff. I got a lot of information that I can kind of use on the air as a direction or or starting point on a story. But I'm so glad there are people out there that trust me, like gms, you know, players, and they know I'm not going to burn them. But that's the part of my job. Like you, you and I will have this closet, this little black book of stories that will never get out. But that is one of the great things about our job, that information and that proximity to people that they trust us. And I really appreciate that.

00:21:45
Speaker 1: Who was the first person that actually expressed to you and you believe them that you could be great?

00:21:55
Speaker 3: So I was. I had worked in Vegas seven years and then I got a job in Tampa doing weekends and to supplement my income. A local Rob Wineingartener I think is his name, Rob Winegarden. He was a program director at a sports talk radio station in Tampa and he had seen me on TV and he said, I got this old guy, Hubert Mizell. He was a sports writer, the late Hubert Misella. Good friend. He goes, I want to couple you with him in the mornings.

00:22:32
Speaker 2: I said it'd be awesome.

00:22:34
Speaker 3: So we did it. And I'd been doing it for about six months and one day Rob came in and Rob said, hey, you have a phone call. I want you to call this guy back after the show. He's a sports talk radio consultant. His name is Rick Scott, Seattle based. So I did the show with Hubert. Hubert was very funny. We got along great, and the show was overnight. I called this guy back and Rick Scott was in town. I think you he was, you know at that time, Bobby and still is, there was like two or three sports radio stations in town. And he had seen me the night before on TV and he said, you don't know who I am. He says, quit television. You are going to be the Rush Limbov sports talk radio host. And I went, what do you mean, and he said, I've heard everybody in the country. He goes, quit television. He goes, I'm going to call you in about three months, four months, keep working at it, and blah blah blah blah blah. A while later, a few months later. So that was the first person that ever said anything. And I was just like, you know, because I didn't listen. I didn't listen to everybody else. I didn't know what everybody else sounded like. Except the people in Tampa. They were fine. And then a few months later I was sending out TV tapes and another guy called me. Bruce Arena ran a state in Portland, and he said, I got a call from Rick Scott and I was told hire you. He goes, I've never heard of you, and I've never heard your tape, but I trust Rick, so you want to be my sports afternoon host. So that was my big break. But that was the first time I thought, you know, I Hugh Bobby. I thought it was a hard worker, and I was talented, and I cared about it and I was invested in it. But nobody had ever said, hey, you could do this, and it really inspired me. It was really inspiring to me. It was just like wow, I almost felt like, Okay, this guy knows this industry way better than I do. I don't want to disappoint him. So it made me work harder. You know, before sports Talk Ready, when I first started was I was a TV guy and I just liked talking and Hubert Mysell was very funny and he had this sort of southern charm and I just liked him well, liked the same stuff. We laughed a lot. But it didn't pay at all back then, and and and it just wasn't as formidable like with iHeart as it is now. It just it just wasn't I think Rome was Jim Rome was just starting and it just wasn't that. It wasn't the industry that it is now. So that was it. That was the first time somebody said, but you could potentially be something pretty cool.

00:25:12
Speaker 1: Well, this is one of those moments for me that I mentioned earlier where it's just freaking cool to be able to hang out. So thanks for being so generous with your time. Been a massive fan forever, and I'll just continue to be a massive fan. And that's it, so thanks Colin, and hopefully one day I'll see in real life.

00:25:28
Speaker 3: Bobby, you are beloved at the company. Your career is on fire for a reason. Musically gifted, verbally gifted, you have earned all of it, and you're one of the easiest guys in our business to root for. So I'm really happy for you.

00:25:41
Speaker 2: Thanks Colin.

00:25:42
Speaker 5: I hope you have a great day. Thanks for the time, Buddy, hang ty the Bobby Cast. We'll be right back, and we're back on the Bobby Cast. Thanks again to Colin for being so open and great when he came on. Now let's go to Dan Patrick. This one was crazy to do.

00:26:06
Speaker 1: Dan worked as a radio and TV sports anchor host for years with ESPN. Like he was Sports Center. Dan Patrick's one of the coolest people that I had never met. Now that I had spent some time with him, at least on an interview, like, I'm even happier that I adored what he did, Like he was one of those guys that really got Sports Center in ESPN and kicked it off to being a major pop culture phenomenon. Now you can listen to Dan on Peacock on Premiere Radio Networks. Dan and I talked about his years of interviews how he can still get motivated to do them many years later, even after being so jaded and knowing that, you know, how trivial is this whole thing.

00:26:43
Speaker 2: Anyway.

00:26:44
Speaker 1: Dan also told me about being on the right place at the right time, and how being overly prepared for the moment led to him and his career to where it is today.

00:26:51
Speaker 2: Here he is Dan Patrick, whoa Dan, good to talk to you.

00:26:56
Speaker 1: I'm young, massive fan, just a massive, massive fan, so so you know, when they said you would actually spend a few minutes with me, I was shocked first of all and elated, So just humble thank you before we start.

00:27:08
Speaker 6: Great, great glad to help.

00:27:11
Speaker 1: You know, whenever I'm doing an interview in one capacity or the other, I do them all the day, all the time, either on the radio show or on a TV show. But it starts to just be a wheel and you're just doing them as they come, and you rarely get excited. Sometimes you're a little more up for one because you know the value of a bit. At this point in your career, do you still get pumped about interviews?

00:27:33
Speaker 2: And with who especially?

00:27:34
Speaker 7: I think if you have somebody who's going to be honest with you, because you want to make sure you're not wasting the time of your audience. And I always want to make sure if I have somebody on, maybe you don't know who they are, but I'm going to bring out something in them that you would be interested in. I like the challenge of doing that. But it's the person who's going to be honest or most honest that I find interesting. It's the person who tries to dodge what you're asking, doesn't give you much, wants to be very vanilla.

00:28:01
Speaker 6: Then that's where it gets really tedious.

00:28:03
Speaker 1: Give me an example, somebody who's great that you know, all right, we're gonna do it and they're gonna be awesome.

00:28:08
Speaker 7: Charles Barkley's always great. Reggie Miller is always great. I find that if you know my guests know if they come on the show, that this is what we're asking them to do. Don't come on the show unless you're ready to really give something, reveals something. But it's up to me sometimes to kind of extract thumb that from these guys. They get interviewed more than anybody. When you think about it, athletes are interviewed more than anybody.

00:28:35
Speaker 6: You know, where they are.

00:28:36
Speaker 7: You know every day at practice, you know before a game, after a game with the NBA, you have to have an approach that is refreshing to them and their competitors. And I find I got to compete with you to get an answer out of you. John McEnroe said you got to work harder to get a better answer out of me, and he was right. This is early in my career, and I never forgot that sometimes you got to work harder to get a better answer out of somebody.

00:29:03
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you're a better interviewe because you interview so many people?

00:29:08
Speaker 7: No, because you know what I'll do is all critique your questions while you're asking them, and it's not fair to you. But I've given so much thought to interviewing. When I was at ESPN, I did a seminar that was five days, eight hours each day on interviewing. It was the best thing that ever happened to me in my career. But it's the worst thing when you start to listen to radio or you listen to somebody on TV doing interviews, because you're listening for the things that they're not doing what you were told to do to bring out a good interview, open ended questions, short question. You know that first question, what are you setting up for the next question? For your last question, what are you trying to get at? Like there's a strategy to it. And I wouldn't have known this until I took this class. It was a guy named John Swatsky out of Canada. He was the master of the interview and I was fascinated by it. I don't know who else, if anybody else was at ESPN. They were mad at me because I wanted to bring this guy in to teach us how to interview, because I saw an article and people were like kicking and screaming going to this seminar, and they didn't realize that I'm the reason why they were going there, because I wanted this guy to come in and help us.

00:30:25
Speaker 1: You know, when you talk about the ESPN stuff, and I didn't have a lot of questions about that, and I still don't, but it makes me think about, you know, my whole lifetime of watching you on ESPN and even Rock and Roll Jeopardy, which I was a big Jeopardy guy and a music guy obviously, and then you know, watching on Sunday nights and I would come home from the radio show and watch your radio show, you and all the dan ET's like just a massive fan. But you know, I've started to realize that I, as a public figure, people think they know me at times more than they actually do, and they'll come up and so, you know, one of the things that I'm most curious about is like if you go to your house and I feel like I know you, but I obviously don't on a personal level, Like in your house, what is your favorite picture in your house?

00:31:06
Speaker 2: Which if I just asked that question, what is it, Who's in it.

00:31:08
Speaker 7: I'm a big fan of the artist Wolf Con he passed away. I think he was just over the age of ninety. And you can't be in a bad mood when you look at a painting of wolfcan now pictures. There's a picture of my daughter in the library where she's in Galway, and she's in a mud puddle and she's probably eleven years of age, and she's got mud all over her. She's thrown mud in the air and she got the biggest smile and it's one of those moments that you just go that person is having a great day. So I tend to gravitate towards you feel better after you you see that picture and you see a painting from Wolfcan.

00:31:51
Speaker 1: What about if I ask about sports, what personal sports picture do you have. Either you're somewhere with someone that you look at and it's not it doesn't mean as much because obviously that's your daughter, but it's like, man, that was a great moment, either in sports life or my life.

00:32:05
Speaker 6: I was in a boxing ring.

00:32:07
Speaker 7: It was a fight night in Arizona, and I was the host and we were honoring Muhammad Ali and we were going to give him this ring. And Muhammad Ali is standing next to me waiting for me to give him this ring. And I'm describing to the audience what this ring signifies, and I'm going to hand this to Muhammad Ali. And this was probably twenty years ago, but you know, Parkinson's the onset of Parkinson had started there, and I just remember in the moment, I'm thinking, I'm going to give a ring to Muhammad Ali, and I sort of fanboyed that. I was like, I got to get this out of my head because I sometimes that's the problem. I have too many things I'm thinking of when I'm doing something that I shouldn't be thinking about but that moment where I look and I go, who would have thought that a kid came from a small town in Ohio is there with Muhammad Ali honoring Muhammad Ali? And it's never lost on me where I came from and growing up in a big family, that I came a long way, but that you can come from a small town where you never would have thought you've gotten there. So it brings out a lot of different thoughts memories there of you're still this kid who's from Mason, Ohio, but you got here.

00:33:32
Speaker 6: Don't forget where you came.

00:33:33
Speaker 1: From from Mountain Pine, Arkansas, population seven hundred, So similar instances, you know, growing up and there wasn't a lot of resource where I came from. So how what showed you and who showed you that there was actually a path too greater even though you couldn't quite define greater.

00:33:53
Speaker 7: I think I was too naive or stupid to let reality sink in that you can't do this. I didn't have a plan B So when people said, oh, if you weren't going to be a sportscaster, what would you be?

00:34:05
Speaker 6: And I'd be like, I don't, I don't know.

00:34:07
Speaker 7: I'm guessing bartender, but I didn't know, and I had been rejected in quite a few places. I lost a job, a local job in Dayton, Ohio, and I was distraught. So I'm I'm twenty six, twenty seven. I don't have a full time job in sports, and that's old in this business to get started, and I thought I'm never going to get in. I was doing morning drive radio rock and roll station, and I thought, this is what I'm going to be doing. And an next girlfriend said, just come down to Atlanta. I said, I don't want to go to Atlanta. She goes, no, just come down here. CNN's hiring.

00:34:46
Speaker 2: I go.

00:34:46
Speaker 7: I just I'd lost out on a job in Dayton, Ohio. I'm not going to get a job at CNN. So I go down there, lo and behold.

00:34:54
Speaker 6: I go in there.

00:34:55
Speaker 7: Last day I'm in Atlanta. Give him my resume. Tape guy says, when can you start? So if I don't go to Atlanta, I'm not here. I mean I'm somewhere, but I'm not here because CNN. I was there for five years, and after that I went to ESPN for eighteen. So I always tell people right place, right time, but you better be right about what you have to know, like you have to know it if you get that opportunity. And I'm sure that at some point somebody wanted to see if you knew exactly what you needed to know, and you did, or you wouldn't be seated there. Like we get those moments, but be ready for the moment. And that was something that stayed with me, stays with me. I tell that to my kids all the time. Be prepared, be over prepared, even if you don't get it, you'll still show that that person you show them respect by being prepared.

00:35:51
Speaker 2: You mentioned eighteen years at ESPN, and.

00:35:54
Speaker 1: I worked on American Idol for four seasons, and I would talk to some of the old contestants from back when Idol was so big, but they said they didn't know it, they couldn't feel it because they were in it.

00:36:03
Speaker 3: Now.

00:36:04
Speaker 2: ESPN was a culture, especially for me.

00:36:07
Speaker 1: Was that situation similar because you guys were changing culture? Did you know it and could you feel it then? Or was it its own bubble?

00:36:15
Speaker 7: We were cordoned off, absolutely, and I think that's by design by management. They didn't want us to be bigger than those four letters. Not that we could be, but they didn't want us coloring outside the lines. Management even told me on one occasion, we don't want another Chris Berman, because Berman is the most important person in the history of ESPN. But he was sort of a hot air balloon that was higher than everybody else but still tethered, and they didn't want that. They didn't want that to happen to me or Keith Oberman or Stuart Scott or whoever you want to throw in there. So they didn't want you to be a personality. So I think that that was kind of eye opening that we were getting honored. Mentioned people came up to us when we saw them when we were out at events, but we weren't in New York or LA. We were in Bristol, Connecticut. We didn't run into anybody, but when we did, then you heard the impact that we were having, and you kind of juxtapose that to management. We never knew our ratings. They never told us. They didn't They didn't want to empower you and say, you guys are really kicking ass here. It was like, yeah, you guys, solid and improving, you know, kind of doing a good job there. You're like, damn, I thought I thought we were good, but that was that was eye opening there that management wanted to kind of keep us under their thumb.

00:37:48
Speaker 1: Final question about the ESPN days and as far as who is would you say as your BFF now from those days if you had to pick one, Oh.

00:37:58
Speaker 7: I would say that I core spawn with Rich eyes and more than anybody else. The people I really enjoyed were producers, associate producers, the makeup people, camera people. Those are the people I always enjoyed being around. Nobody wants to be around talent because all we do is talk about ourselves. I wanted to be around the people who were just normal or as normal as possible in our business, and those are the people I'm still in touch with, more the producers than the talent there, but probably Rich Eyesen.

00:38:35
Speaker 1: How hard is it to have a source that's telling you something but you can't say it, and you almost have to act like you don't know it.

00:38:40
Speaker 7: For the most part, I don't want to know if I can't use it. I say that to and I'm fortunate having been in this business for almost forty years. You meet people that you trust because you can go back to them or they'll they'll let you know if you're right or wrong.

00:38:55
Speaker 6: On something.

00:38:55
Speaker 7: But I don't want to know something that I can't even hint because then I'm not being Then it's gossip, ye, and I don't want to do that, but it is a tough situation to be in sometimes when somebody goes, hey, you can't use it, don't tell me because I don't want to know. But when they're like, you didn't get it from me, which is different, but sources can be tricky.

00:39:19
Speaker 1: Last question, and this has really been a treat for me, way more for so for you, because I'm sure you've rated this and given it a low grade. You do, And as soon as you said that, I was like, god, dang, And now I'm going to actually feel like a a critique during the interview.

00:39:32
Speaker 2: I didn't feel like that going in.

00:39:33
Speaker 1: But final question is, uh, you know I'm about to go through a big contract negotiation here with a ooh right, so okay, you know and it's it's it's it's quite the monster. I'm not going to lie to you. What what's the what am I? What am I not knowing to ask for?

00:39:49
Speaker 4: What is it you don't have?

00:39:51
Speaker 2: I don't know, I'm no pretty good Dan.

00:39:52
Speaker 6: Yes, I always look at it this way.

00:39:55
Speaker 7: I love for fifteen years being at ESPN, and I could have gotten jobs out outside of it, but I loved what I was doing. But you can't tell them that you love it so much that you don't factor in what you're worth outside of what you're doing. If that makes sense that, hey, on the open market, what would I be worth? Take care of me here? And I always took less, but I didn't have any I didn't want to.

00:40:20
Speaker 6: Do anything else. So do what you love.

00:40:23
Speaker 7: And it's really hard to find that because if you let money be the carrot that's in front of you, you'll always chase it and you'll never be satisfied. But if you have people you like you got, you know, they make sure that the people who are surrounding you are good people, fun people. I love seeing my guys every single day.

00:40:45
Speaker 6: We just laugh.

00:40:46
Speaker 7: I mean, you're serious when you need to be, but we have fun. I enjoy them. And it's twenty years for some of these guys. But I think that's the moment you know that you got to kind of go. And if you say to your wife, what do you think? Because sometimes my wife is the smartest person, and you know, you get somebody on the outside kind of looking at all this because we get too close to the sun and you don't want to be Icarus here and you know, go down and flame. So do what you love as long as you can do it, or you can just take a load of money and then run with it.

00:41:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was hoping for that, like airplane.

00:41:24
Speaker 1: Hey, I'm just a massive fan, just massive, And thank you for your time, and you know that's all. And I know you've got a busy day ahead, so thank you very much. And one day, hopefully I hope I can touch you soon.

00:41:36
Speaker 7: You know I would. Uh, yeah, I hope we cross paths. Congratulations on all your success, and I think that it's not by accident, you know, but I think that that's important as you move move forward, don't forget the kid from a small town in Arkansas, because staying humble, because this business will bite you in the ass quickly.

00:41:56
Speaker 2: Thank you, Dan, have a good day.

00:41:58
Speaker 8: Thank you, Bobby. The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the Bobby Cast.

00:42:13
Speaker 1: That's Dan Patrick. That was super cool. Let's talk about another one that was just insane. Jerry Jones. I sat down with Cowboys, a legendary owner. Jerry Jones We went to Dallas and we hung out with the whole Jones family.

00:42:29
Speaker 2: It was kind of insane.

00:42:31
Speaker 1: Mister Jones hosted me, my wife, Eddie, Mike d We went into suite, watched the game an Arkansas native and that's really what got me in because I just emailed randomly to the website and so we talked and Jerry hung out with us forever. We talked about his upbringing, whether or not a legendary story about him was true, so much more here he is Jerry Jones. Mister Jones. Have heard people call you many things since we've been here. The last hour, I've heard mister Jones they referred to as Jerry. Someone called you uncle Jerry a minute ago. You have a lot of names here as you walk around.

00:43:02
Speaker 9: Well, I do prefer especially from you, Jerry.

00:43:07
Speaker 1: Is that really what I feel like? I can call you Jerry because that means we're friends.

00:43:10
Speaker 9: Now, of course we are friends, and but mainly you've got that Arkansas blood, isn't you, which qualifies us both to have a little fun my cousins and why not can be I've got a lot of Joneses running around out here. Just get in line.

00:43:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, A story that I've rarely shared, and there's zero percent chance that you would remember this, and don't expect you to. But as probably fifteen or so years ago, you were in Hot Springs. You were sitting in a section of a restaurant and I think it was Oakland. Oakland was I was at the races. You were sitting in a section between the restaurant and the bar, waiting on somebody. And I saw you sitting there and I thought, Jerry Jones from Arkansas.

00:43:50
Speaker 2: I'm from Arkansas. Why can I not go up and say hello?

00:43:52
Speaker 1: And so I approached you and I said hello, And I sat beside John's waiting on people too, and you and I talked for like ten to fifteen minutes, and I kind of just told you my story. You talked to me for a while, and I remember thinking, I can't believe Jerry Jones is a normal, like nice person, because we always see big Jerry Jones, you know, the guy that's running the Cowboys, But you are such a normal person. And at the end of the conversation, you literally gave me your cell phone number and said, if you ever need anything, call me.

00:44:14
Speaker 2: I never called you.

00:44:15
Speaker 1: I actually needed a few things, but I never called you, but I left that going like Jerry Jones is like a like a for real caring guy, like a guy who seemingly cares about relationships a lot.

00:44:27
Speaker 2: Is that probably?

00:44:28
Speaker 1: Would you say that as the key to your success here has been relationships.

00:44:31
Speaker 9: Well, let me say this, My life is spent with my one on one relationships. What is a little confusing about this thing is that more visibility you have and frankly, being associated with the Cowboys. I don't ever confuse the interest in Jerry Jones with what the real deal is, and that's the interest in the Dallas Cowboys. I'll say this seriously. Yes, I did have a marvelous young life growing up in Arkansas, and I was coached up real good in life, not necessarily football, but life, great parents, entrepreneurs, always struggling but wonderful around the kitchen table, osmosis. But I certainly got a great appreciation for the kinds of lives that make up Arkansas. For sure, there's no question that my affinity is there. I continue to have things there, continue to have all the relationships I've had. But having said that, when I got involved with the Cowboys, I knew it was going to be tough because the Cowboys were losing a million a month in cash flow, and I bought part of them from the government they had been foreclosed on and football was not going strong then not pro football at the time. As a matter of fact, I don't never have heard of anybody that ever made a positive dollar in sports on a team period, football or otherwise. Where I'm going with this, But I was proud. I was really proud to my master's thesis at Arkansas when I got to play on our national championship team. But I was also going to school. My master's thesis was the role of marketing in modern day football. I dreamed of somehow being a part of a life that had something to do with football. But this is my point to everyone, go to your passion. Because I just thought that I had accomplished a little something that I could be proud of when I bought the Cowboys. What I didn't realize was that every day, inspired by getting to be a part of the future, getting to be a part of the fans, getting to be a part of the game, it just caused me to try things I would have never done and caused things to happen that would have never happened, And so the facts are I really was just getting started the Cowboy inspired me way beyond just the touchdowns are any financial game.

00:47:07
Speaker 1: I wrote a book called fail until you Don't, which is and I had Governor Hutchson in Arkansas and Chris Stapleton. A lot of guys that we know is super successful artists or in business talk about their biggest failure but how that actually led them to their biggest successes. And we see you as just an eternal success story because we see you on TV or we hear you. Was there a certain failure early on that actually taught you so much that allowed all of this success later on?

00:47:34
Speaker 9: Well, when we were first married, my wife Jeane and I, they came to the house when she stepped out one day and took her purse and grabbed all the credit cards out and cut them into About fifteen years before I bought the Cowboys, I came to Dallas, and after I bought the Cowboys, a writer asked when we didn't win but one game our first year, which was a little downer, but when we didn't he said, these have got to be some of the roughest days of your life. And I said no, not even here. In Dallas. About fifteen years ago, I landed at Love Feel, took my card up to rent a car from I think Hurts, and they looked down a list and cut my card into and said, young man in front of you, you need to learn how to pay your bills. Now. That's a hard day in Dallas. Not necessarily a one loss record with the Cowboys.

00:48:26
Speaker 2: So much Salvation Army.

00:48:29
Speaker 1: I feel like people know about it now because of what you guys do as far as starting that campaign.

00:48:34
Speaker 2: Why is that so important to you?

00:48:35
Speaker 1: Guys have the cattle and Salvation Army is not only part of the Cowboys, but just to be a part of that brand all over the country.

00:48:42
Speaker 9: Again, the thing that's surprised, I'm never surprised at the interest in the team. But what does surprise me is when I travel, and I travel a lot, I have as many people come up and say thanks for what you do for the Salvation Army and the Red kettlest say go Cowboys. It probably is the most meaningful or notable thing for me about having been associated with pro sports or the Dallas Cowboys. We have three million volunteers in this country on red Cattle time, in the Christmas time, while people are having meetings or board meetings about how to help people. They've got Santa Claus under a tree, They've got shoes on somebody here, they got food their stomach before they can even have a board meeting in other organizations. And they get it there with most of the dollar that you put in that kettle going right where you'd love to see it go. That's why I'm such a fantom. We could play football as good as the people that Salvation Army do their job, would be world champs every year.

00:49:49
Speaker 2: Do you get nervous before games? Very still?

00:49:52
Speaker 9: And I'm nervous right now, very nervous I always have, but really almost sick. Nervous.

00:50:00
Speaker 1: This many games into owning such a big franchise and you're nervous. Why do you think the nerves are in you still today?

00:50:07
Speaker 9: Well, you look at what might be the possibility of coming out playing good, if we can get through this thing without serious injuries, all of the things. I think like anything, really, but you need to be positive to play football. I played football for the Razorbacks and I had to call on it. Boy, it hurt me to play football. I love baseball so one time, my trainer said, Jones, he's had a Virginia brogue. And he said, Jones, You've got to have the lowest tolerance for pain of any kid we've ever had with the Razorbacks. And I said, damn it, Groundie, it hurts me more than it does everybody else. I said, hell, their toes are hanging off, and I said, it hurts me to get kicked. I deserve an honor. Figure up an honor for me. I'm brave to be out there. It hurts more than they do.

00:51:01
Speaker 1: You played running back in high school and then offensive line for the sixty four championship team.

00:51:05
Speaker 2: Right? Is my accurate? There?

00:51:06
Speaker 9: Correct? It's done your homework.

00:51:07
Speaker 2: Boy, that way I live. I live.

00:51:09
Speaker 1: I'm die hard. You know I'm die hard razorback, diehard Jerry Jones. So, if what's that transition? And did you not want to play running back in college or did they say you should now play offensive line.

00:51:21
Speaker 9: One of the toughest things I ever had the stomach was my junior year. I was the starting fullback for the Razorbacks. I was so proud. I replayed almost everything that was going to happen for the year we came to school and I started the first three or four games. I pulled a ham and we had some other fullbacks, good ones, Bobby Nick's, Charles Daniels, people that we all could remember back. But we lost all of our guards. And I had played guard my first year at the Razorbacks, so they moved me to guard. I went over to talk to coach Brawl's to tell him my heart wasn't it. I couldn't move to guard. I wanted to carry the ball. I wanted to catch passes, and so he said, fine, Jerry. Well, another coach came back to my locker and he went around the room and he named guys that had never been on the field. Fred Marshall, who became the great quarterback that led us to our national championship team, Kenny Dean, a great running back, never been on the field. There were all kinds, handfuls that had never been on the field. And my coach looked at me and said, Jerry, I told you mother and daddy when to offer you the scholarship. I'd take care of you. He says. Coach Brawls will sit you down and you may never see a field again. You can make this move that he's asking you to do, and you can have a hell of a career and be a starter. Don't you see the handwriting on the wall? Well, I did, thought I did, like he did. I was mad about having done it. Then I'm mad about it at eighty years old today, I'm still mad about it. I should have been carrying ball and catching passes.

00:52:58
Speaker 2: Whatever player says that to you.

00:53:00
Speaker 1: What if they're like, I don't you know, I don't want to move, I don't want to return points. You know, I'm the what kind of conversation would you have with them?

00:53:06
Speaker 9: Well, first of all, because really, as much as anything that story I would have, I mean this, I would have grace. I've had it said to me in different ways, not necessarily the same situation about a position, but I've had it to me with other men and women. And when I see somebody buck, when I see them stop and come in and it's hard. I know it's hard, and tell me, look, I respect you. I'm not trying to be awkward, but I want to go this way. I respect that, and I remember that story and I go there I've had I'm a cat that's had eight lives out of nine, and so I'm a life of giver. I hope and do show grace when somebody has some real mindset as to where they will go with their life.

00:53:57
Speaker 2: Got three questions of life.

00:53:58
Speaker 1: Now, this is an urban life that I've heard about you that when you were and you can tell me if this is false, but I want to get the whole story out. And you've had such an instrumental part designing this facility, which is still a plus. And you know we were talking earlier. After fourteen years, people still treated like it's brand new and they have you seen it yet?

00:54:15
Speaker 2: But the story is that.

00:54:16
Speaker 1: There was a tile that you wanted and you flew to another country to say, I'd like to have this tile.

00:54:21
Speaker 2: They said, we don't have. It's on back order.

00:54:23
Speaker 1: So you said, you bought the whole place, then you got the tile, then you sold the place and made money off the selling of the business.

00:54:29
Speaker 2: Is that story true?

00:54:30
Speaker 9: Well, let me say this, I don't know that I've made money when I sold it back. So that's what I was creative in getting the tile. Now you have a little problem when you want a foot of tile and a place like this, you're talking about four million square feet five million square feet so if tile is three dollars and twenty cents, then multiply that time through a four million. Well, in this particular case, I was trying to get my wife Jeans to find the perfect tile for the right price, which was a lot less, but she found it. And one of the other things she did is she took and took granted and they chopped the granted up and then they aggregated it back as a solid and it's most beautiful thing you've ever seen, and we have it on our bartops all around. But yeah, you bought this place, this place, Yes, yes, this place did have the benefit of us all getting in and looking at every countertop and looking at every corner that was out there, and it was a labor of love. While we're talking about it, and I know we're talking too much about Arkansas, but Coach Brawl's was such an inspiration for me here and he really gave me a lot of keep going and a lot of confidence, if you will on it. He took us to the Astronaut when I was nineteen. We were down there to get ready to play Nebraska and the Cotton Bowl here in Dallas, and he took us away from the fans. He took us out there. There'd never been a game played in the astrodome, but it was ready to go. Godly, it looked like Mars. How could you think about playing a game? And all I know is that from that point forward I read everything I could talk to everybody I could about it. Roll the clock forward thirty years later, I was thinking about this place at and T Now show you how kicking in for young people happens. I didn't know where I was gonna get all the money, but I knew one thing a man could do it, because I had been in one that a man did, the astrodome. Well, guess what happens when you're young, When you get a chance to do it, you go. You can put five of those damn astrodomes in here today, so you always if you get inspired, then you can make it go.

00:56:53
Speaker 1: Question two, talking about music for a second, any free time, who do you listen to? And then the ACMs are coming here like you're super instrumental in that. Why do you feel like country music is so on brand with what you're doing?

00:57:06
Speaker 2: And then also who do you listen to?

00:57:08
Speaker 9: Well, first of all, it comes natural. When my father had his store grocery store. My sister and I lived above it. But in the middle of the store he built a bandstand and he brought in a great marketer announcer in Little Rock called Brother how And he brought Brother how in from Forest City, Arkansas. And Brother Howll did live amateur talent contest and he basically made and produced and produced shows right out of the middle of the store. And it was a big stand right in the middle of the store. And so I just grew up. I was around it all the time. I was around the store constantly. Right across the street there was a great if you will, honky Tonk and some of the greatest names of a country Hank Williams, those kind of guys, and I got to see it because of my age evove up through. I was a couple of years older than me. But my point is I have lived the great mainstream of country and if you will, a little of the rock and roll that we all look back on today, well I live that. And my dad would just frankly in his own way and doctorated, and he had a band called the Pat Supermarketeers. His name was Pat, was called Pat's exactly Pats, and he would take that band, and he'd be out late and having a good time where the country music rolling, and boy, he'd bring that band in and here it would go, and he'd only let his friend stay in, but everybody was his friend, so they'd have a big time and keep it over.

00:58:47
Speaker 1: Who'd you listen to this morning? Just give me a couple of artists you likes to.

00:58:50
Speaker 9: I like Stapleton, of course, and not of course, but I like Stapleton, and I stop in my tracks when any of those great ones come in. But I'm a great Roy Orbison fan, uh, and he'll stop me in my tracks when I see some of his great music, and I can't move when dream comes on, Dreams.

00:59:15
Speaker 1: Sing a little bit, dream Dream Dreams.

00:59:19
Speaker 2: That's pretty good. Huh, Roy, You're right on. Yeah, all right.

00:59:22
Speaker 1: Final question for you, mister Jones, Sorry, Jerry, final question. I know that so much of what you do is giving back to not only this community, but also you can drive on the campus of Fabel the football complex. You guys have done so much there, but now there's a museum being built right outside of the stadium.

00:59:38
Speaker 2: Can you tell me about that?

00:59:39
Speaker 9: Well, we're extraordinarily privileged to get to use this forum, if you will. The Cowboys the visibility and the National Medal of Honor winners, not winners, but recipients, decided to let us help fund and build the Nation Medal of Honor Museum. And in conjunction with that, the same monument is not the same one, but a monument is being built in Washington to recognize the great stories as patriots of what men and women have done for this country. And I think it's so big right now where the Cowboys want to do something special is it's like this stadium. This stadium was not built for the one hundred thousand that come to the game. It's a great place, but it was built for thirty five million. It was built for thirty million. That's who our Michaels is talking to. That's who John Madden was talking to. Well, we want to take the stories of the Medal of Honor recipients and we want those to not only be recognized through a tangible thing close by, but somehow we want those stories to get involved, somehow mixed in. Wonder how we're going to do that. We've got a plan and mixed in and so that when thirty million people are watching these games, they can hear about what these medal of honors did for them to get to sit there with the freedom to watch the game.

01:01:04
Speaker 1: Jerry, I appreciate the time, thank you very much, massive fan, and can't wait to come back for the ACMs, which they're thinking about letting me host. I think a call from Jerry Jones saying Bobby Bones is my guy, I would really kick that door in.

01:01:16
Speaker 9: Well, Bobby, I'm a great fan of yours, I really really am. And let's don't make this the last time that we have a visit. So you've got a passion between them. Just generally, you're what you think is important, and music is a big part of it. Music is a big part of the Cowboys. We play it hard every day during practice just to have the kind of replicating the noise that they'll be seeing. And I was down here in the dressing room. I wish I'd have taken you down, but you couldn't have heard yourself talk in that dressing room. And the biggest fights that come on in a dressing room. So whether we're gonna pay country, we're gonna play some soul, and then every now and one will step up and say, guys, I'm tired of this argain. We're gonna have little church music he can hear before we go the field.

01:02:01
Speaker 1: And maybe little Roy Orberson dream. Jerry Jones, everybody, Jerry, thank you for making Bobby.

01:02:07
Speaker 10: Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor. Welcome back to the Bobby Cast.

01:02:21
Speaker 1: That was Jerry Jones again. Absurd that we got to do that. We flell in his helicopter with him. It was just me, my wife, Eddie, Mike d Jerry and his son and the helicopter. I was a pilot, That's how crazy it was.

01:02:34
Speaker 2: No, I wasn't. But still.

01:02:35
Speaker 1: Now let's move on to one of the coolest guys in sports entertainment now, which is Rich Eisen.

01:02:40
Speaker 2: I listened to his podcast almost every single day.

01:02:42
Speaker 1: I filled in for Rich Eisen, which other than this interview, I've never met Rich in person, but I did go and fill him for a show for a couple of days, which was a highlight for me career wise. Rich worked for ESPN for a year, same kind of Dan Patrick vibe, where he's one of the guys that really made ESPN a pop culture phenomenon. And you know, he does a radio show He's NFL Network NFL Combined. Rich also runs the forty yard Dash every year to raise money for Saint Jude and anybody that is consistent and raises money for Saint Jude.

01:03:10
Speaker 2: Obviously, I love Rich Eisen.

01:03:13
Speaker 1: We talked about his first big call in his career and then all kinds of good career talk here.

01:03:18
Speaker 2: He is Rich Eisen massive fan and have been for a whole long time. And I watch you.

01:03:23
Speaker 1: If I listen to your podcast, each hour is loaded separately, so I try to I'm a big fan. If you can't tell I know all the nuances of the Rich Eisen Show, but I have the Roku app that I can watch you guys on You've had to transition a bit with all the new technologies. You know, you have an eleven year old son too, Does he help you stay on to what's fourteen?

01:03:43
Speaker 11: And eleven and and a nine? And they are It's amazing because back when I was a kid, you know, back when I was a kid, it would.

01:03:56
Speaker 4: Be what's on channels two, four and seven.

01:03:59
Speaker 11: Right now they know what's on an app and they get pissed at me when I when I go to try and search for anything on the old Roku device. They're like, Dad, that's on Paramount plus Dad that's on that's on Disney like and they and and they say it with such scorn. I don't understand it, but that's you know, I take it, I absorb it, and I try to get better every day. That's why I have this sign on my desk every day. I don't know if anybody's ever going to try to take this away from me, the best at ever, but you know that's I'm in my hopefully fourteenth consecutive year of that title run that I'm on.

01:04:37
Speaker 2: I want to talk about getting the call, like the big call, and.

01:04:40
Speaker 1: You know, I just knowing your history, you know, just being you know, a sports anchor and reporterback at a local station, but moving up to ESPN. When you got the call that we want you at ESPN, Where were you and what what was actually said on the call?

01:04:54
Speaker 11: So I was in Reading, California at the ABC local affiliate KRCR Television, and I send a tape to a headhunter, three of them across the United States. I was twenty five years old. This was nineteen ninety five, and I'm like, you know, I was there for a year I'm like, what does it matter, It's just first class postage.

01:05:15
Speaker 4: I'll send these tapes out.

01:05:17
Speaker 11: So they send the tapes out to a headhunter, and I get a phone call at home from a headhunter who says to me, I've got a very interesting bite.

01:05:29
Speaker 4: A big time shop is interested in more of your work.

01:05:31
Speaker 11: Send the best written material, another tape, Send another tape.

01:05:35
Speaker 4: And then I go to work one day and.

01:05:40
Speaker 11: It's a phone where it would ring once, one loud ring if it was a local call, and a ring ring if it was outside of the area code. I mean, again, this is nineteen ninety five, and whenever it would ring ring, it would it would be my parents or my brother, because I'm from New York City and they lived in New Jersey and my brother was in southern California. So it never would ring ring twice, and it ring ring, and I pick up the phone and it was an agent named Henry Reich from the William Morris Talent Agency, saying he wanted my reel immediately because I was the hottest up and coming sportscaster in America according to him and what he had been hearing. And I'm like, all right, because I'm about to go drive fifty miles into the Shasta Mountain Range to try and cover a local high school volleyball game with my three quarter inch camera connected with a coaxial cable to the deck with a huge, you know, strap over my other shoulder, one man banding the whole thing. And so I'm not feeling very hot. He goes send me to take great, hang up the phone, call my brother up, and I'm like, You'll never guess what just happened. And I tell him. He goes, get out of here, no kidding. I'm like, yeah, this's just tappened. Hanging a phone up, ring, ring, and another one, and I'm this is in five minutes of each other. And I'm like, watch, I am such hot. That's ESPN on the phone. And sure enough, it was a guy named Al Jaffy from ESPN, their headhunter, who I had sent multiple unsolicited tapes and resumes to over the previous five year period. And it was him telling me that he had gotten my tape. They really like it and they want to set up an interview in an audition. And I thought it was my brother telling all of my friends back home, call Rich, say you're Al Chaffie all that, and I thought it was all my friends trying to motherly, you know, and it was not.

01:07:32
Speaker 4: It was the real deal guy.

01:07:33
Speaker 11: And I almost cursed him out, thinking it was a friend, like who are you? But it was really him, and I flew down to Los Angeles a few weeks later to interview. I did with a whole bunch of executives that were there for the Cable Ace Awards, which no longer exist. And then a few weeks later I auditioned for the gig on a Monday after by the way, a snowstorm prevented me from getting half across the country in the initial time of auditioning, So it was a long wait, a lot of ups and downs, but I got the gig after auditioning with Al Jaffe. And that's my story.

01:08:11
Speaker 1: Did you ever have impostor syndrome or at any time did you have imposter syndrome while you were there, especially the early days.

01:08:16
Speaker 4: What do you mean, Like.

01:08:17
Speaker 1: You're like, Okay, I'm probably not at the level do they think I am.

01:08:20
Speaker 2: I'm about to do this and I'm not really that good.

01:08:23
Speaker 4: Oh. My first Sports Center with Larry Beial was the Sports Center anchor.

01:08:28
Speaker 11: He's now out in northern California, and it was this was before ESPN News, so I was the last guy that they hired that they threw directly on Sports Center, and so ESPN News is what they would put guys and gals on to get their teeth cut and get up to speed. So I just remember it was a half hour Sports Center on the round of thirty two day, I believe, or it was a sweet sixteen. It was the middle of March, so it's probably a round to thirty two day. And I had eleven highlights. I'd only seen one of them, so they were going to hand me ten paperwork shot sheets with it where you could follow along what's written there to know what the highlights were.

01:09:14
Speaker 4: And I would have to add lib the whole damn thing.

01:09:16
Speaker 11: And I remember walking downstairs and saying to myself, I have two choices. I can either pee down my leg or I could just suck it up and say I'm ready for this. And I think I did both, and it was wild. And I just looked around and the people that were in the news room were all the anchors who I had emulated or wanted to emulate, or had watched for years.

01:09:40
Speaker 4: And what made me.

01:09:41
Speaker 11: Want to be a sports center anchor. And they were automatically my colleagues. And it was overwhelming, no question about it. Keith Olberman and Dan Patrick and Kilbourne and you know, Robin Roberts and Dave, you know, Charlie Steiner, Bob Lee. I mean, my god, these were all the people that I was now colleagues with. It was overwhelming, but you know, I was age twenty six, but it was time in my life seven years met my wife there. My children are ESPN babies because of that, technically and unbelievable, what a run.

01:10:13
Speaker 1: I watch a lot of your work with the Draft, and I wonder with people being a big fan of you, people admiring what you do, do you sometimes get a lot of inside information that you can't share. Like there's a fine line of things you know and things you can actually say.

01:10:27
Speaker 4: Yeah.

01:10:28
Speaker 11: I mean yeah, But I mean I don't think I'm I do this thing to break news, you know, And I say that having a journalism degree from Northwestern, I know that that's not something you want to say. I think I'm here to just kind of guide everyone through what I'm hearing and understand what I can say, what I don't say, you know, I'm not chefter. I muddy in rapaport, my colleague get the NFL network. That's not what I'm doing. If I hear something that can break something, I will do that. But you know, a great for instance is it. But prior to the twenty eighteen draft, all I heard this is the draft in Dallas that it went Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold, Josh Allen, Josh Rosen, and then Lamar Jackson was the last quarterback. That was the quarterback draft of twenty eighteen. We had heard quite a bit on this show from people who we spoke to off camera and what I heard at the combine leading up, we heard a lot that Russell Wilson was in play. We're like, you get out of here, like what the hell really? And you know, we didn't say anything, which is good because Russell didn't get traded. But now we found out literally in the week before his home opener in Seattle, as a member of the Broncos, he let it be known they did try to trade him prior to twenty eighteen.

01:11:46
Speaker 4: So what we.

01:11:47
Speaker 11: Heard was actually accurate. But had we said it, we would have created this huge stir.

01:11:54
Speaker 9: Or.

01:11:55
Speaker 11: I shouldn't say that what I say creates a huge stir. I shouldn't say that. I would just say that we would have definitely put something out there that might have gained attention potentially significantly, that would have been inaccurate, even though it was accurate, And I don't like the traffic in those waters.

01:12:12
Speaker 4: I would just.

01:12:13
Speaker 11: Prefer to kind of make you smarter by by talking about the things that I think are going to happen, not what I'm hearing could happen like that.

01:12:22
Speaker 4: That is not what I like to traffic in.

01:12:24
Speaker 1: You've been running that the forty for a bunch of years. Now, are you ever going to hit a time where you're like, all right, I gotta stop doing it. If you hit like a seven seven seconds, are you going to go like, I need to pass this down and let my son do it now?

01:12:34
Speaker 11: No, Bobby, If I if I need a walker, that's when I'll stop. Okay, I had actual help, you know, doing that. But to be very straightforward with you again, yeah, there is like at some point, I don't think people want to watch some guy run, you know, with a limp and do something particularly bad. My wife wants me to train for it and and I don't know. I mean, I go back and forth like should I really really train for it? Like it was sort of like an everyman approach where just like it's just anybody coming off the couch and running it. But now maybe as again I'm fifty three, perhaps me training for it.

01:13:15
Speaker 4: Could be.

01:13:18
Speaker 11: Could be, I guess, an example to people who are advancing to stay in shape. And maybe that's another aspect of it that I need to focus on, because the reason why I do it now and don't want to give it up is because of the fundraising aspect for Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital.

01:13:38
Speaker 4: But it has been, you know, amazing.

01:13:40
Speaker 11: It's the as you could see here the logo of my show and what so many people do associate me with. And it was born, like many things in television, out of complete boredom waiting.

01:13:51
Speaker 4: To shoot a television show.

01:13:54
Speaker 11: As I was sitting next to Terrell Davis under the buzz of the old RCAA dome which got blown to smithereens for the News Stadium in Indianapolis, where he said, I said, how fast do you think I can run the forty?

01:14:05
Speaker 4: He laughed at me. I cursed at him and went down and ran.

01:14:08
Speaker 11: It had no idea that the NFL Network crew on a break was actually recording it.

01:14:13
Speaker 4: They played it back as.

01:14:15
Speaker 11: A surprise to me on live TV and it kind of got a life of its own that still lives today.

01:14:20
Speaker 2: Well, Rich, I appreciate the time.

01:14:21
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan, like again, and if you guys have Roku a Roku channel, which I have the Roku app, and I'm able to catch Rich on al listening on podcast as well.

01:14:30
Speaker 2: One of the interviews that I.

01:14:32
Speaker 1: Really enjoyed was when you talk to the guys that do the town halls, the Chad Kroger, the you know when you went and you were like, hey, cause they go into these town hall meetings and like propose water towers named after Britney Spear. I thought that was such a funny interview. And I'll end with this, because you are interviewing celebrities and athletes, have you had to change your style or research a bit more because your interviews are a bit different now.

01:14:54
Speaker 11: Well, you know, I've got a great production team that's stuck with me and this show through the pandemic and through many different partners. Hopefully the Roku channel is the last switch that I make and I appreciate that you you got a Roku device just to keep watching. That's pretty cool. But we we we dig in to see if there is a celebrity sports cross section, because that's the idea of this show is, you know, uh that sports is a touchdown of pop culture just as much as movies and television. The greatest sporting event that the that the American sports scene puts on in exports, the super Bowl is stopped in the middle for a rock concert and nobody bats an eyelash anymore.

01:15:43
Speaker 4: So it it. It really is.

01:15:45
Speaker 11: Something that I love to put together and I'm thrilled that the folks at Roku and the Roku channel are into it too. So whenever a celebrity comes on, we see, you know, did they play sports or if they're a diehard fan of the team, happy to dive and let them be a pundit and give opinions, because I think when a celebrity who's into that comes in to promote his or her movie or television show or music or album, they prefer to talk about that rather than the funny story from their vacation. And then there are some celebrities who don't know sports very well, and are deathly afraid that if they come on, it'll be like if you saw the movie Diner, where you know, one of the characters won't get married to his fiance unless she passes a quiz on the Baltimore Cult successfully. They feel like that's what I'm going to do with them or to them, which is the worst thing for a host to do. So I try to make it comfortable and just talk about their movie or TV history. And so we've got to, as I said, a terrific crew that we put together here and we all, you know, I think, really like each other. That we come up with a segment called Celebrity True or fall or we just go through their history about well, this story was on the internet, this story was on your IMDb page.

01:17:06
Speaker 4: Is it true or false? About your TV show or about your movies?

01:17:11
Speaker 11: And it's just a great way and fans eat it up, thank goodness. I mean, we had Henry Winkler on the other month and we talked about Jump the Shark. We had you know, Gerald McCraney here the other day, from so many terrific shows. We asked them about Major Dad. And that's what I love to do, just having people from across a pop culture landscape talk about their movies and TV. So yes, my long winded answer is yes, there is a lot more research that goes into it, but you put up a production construct to place it in. And not only is it something enjoyable to watch and listen to live, it's very consumable on an on demand podcast or YouTube or YouTube page, YouTube dot com slash Richeisenshow has twenty eight thousand videos from our near eight here history on it, And so yeah, I do love having celebrities on, and it does require a little bit more help. Certainly if you mentioned Chat and TJ, they come on and drop the word paraneum for the first time in my show's history.

01:18:15
Speaker 2: Well listen, big fan.

01:18:16
Speaker 1: You guys follow at Rich Eisen at Rich Eisen Show, Roku as you say, now you'll be announcing a serious channel really soon radio Like, I'm a total fan boy, you know. I'll admit it now that it's over, and I've admitted it six times during But just keep doing it and I'll be listening every day and hopefully I'll meet you in real life sometime soon.

01:18:34
Speaker 2: Rich, thanks a lot.

01:18:35
Speaker 11: When you're back here in Los Angeles after waking up at one in the morning and you're done with your show.

01:18:39
Speaker 4: You come in here and sit next to me. We'll have a chat, all.

01:18:41
Speaker 2: Right, buddy, Thank you, Sealtter. I really hope you enjoyed this episode.

01:18:47
Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of a crossover episode with the sports show twenty five Whistles. But if you listen to this, I'm sure you listen to a lot of people that maybe you weren't a fan of until you actually heard the interview. So and these weren't super sports related and I thought you guys man joy them altogether. If you did enjoy these conversations, there are plenty more like this. Just go over to twenty five Whistles and subscribe or don't. I still wanted you to hear them anyway, Thanks again for listening, and thanks to all the guests that joined me.

01:19:12
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.