Episode 28: Sports Media, Information, and Broadcasting Through the Years: Part 2.

Welcome back to GenX Classic Sports, the podcast where we rewind the game clock and relive the golden era of sports through the eyes of Generation X. In this episode we’re diving into a topic that every GenX sports fan can appreciate — how the way we get our sports news and info has transformed since the 1970s.

Remember waiting for the morning paper just to see the box scores? Or huddling around the TV for a glimpse of highlights on the 11 o'clock news? Whether it was college football, pro basketball, baseball, or the Friday night fights — the way we followed our favorite teams and athletes was slower, more personal, and often filtered through a handful of trusted voices.

But now? With 24/7 coverage, social media, podcasts, athlete branding, and real-time stats at our fingertips, it's a completely different ballgame.

Welcome back to part two of our discussion about sports media and information and how it's all evolved over the years. 

Joining us on this episode again are Jacob Pumphrey, Assistant Athletics Director for Communications at Stephen F. Austin University in Texas, and his dad who we’ve talked to before, Wayne Pumphrey, a pioneer in the internet-based high school sports broadcasting world in Arkansas. Both of these guys have seen sports media, information, and broadcasting change tremendously due to technology.

In this episode, we’ll take a look back at the analog days — and trace the evolution to today’s digital, on-demand sports world. We’ll talk about how technology has changed not just the way we consume sports, but the way we connect with them.

Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more nostalgia-packed content covering GenX retro sports, and the athletes who defined a generation. 

Production Credits:

Intro and outro music: Mason Enis

Narrator: Haylee Wolf

Copyright @ PineStreetProductions 2025. Any illegal reproduction of this content will result in immediate legal action.

Transcript

Welcome sports fans to Gen X Classic Sports, where we bring the nostalgia of our sportsfilled youth into the present
day. Grab your favorite retro jersey, crack open a cold one, and let's stroll down memory lane together.
Welcome back everybody to Gen X Classic Sports. This will be episode 28 where we
talk about sports information and media with Jacob and Wayne Pumprey. This is part two of that discussion. And as
always, we really appreciate you joining us. And if you like what we do, please subscribe, please give us a like, thumbs
up, and we appreciate you listening. Yeah. I mean, Jacob, I can't imagine how many how many balls you're you're
juggling in the air in the middle of a broadcast or something with a full house at home
and all the things that are happening simultaneously. You're juggling all of that at one. You and your team juggling
all that at once. It just really blows my mind how y'all pull that off, you know, and and I'm sure there's different
demands on the road from at home and but it's like I said in my text, it's not just it's not really what you guys are
providing to the fans too, but y'all are still interacting with the media at large. Also, for example, if a if uh
only certain players are going to get to speak on certain days and college and pros and and and what do we we whether
we let you watch practice or not is a big deal nowadays because of the Bellichs and Nick Savings that swear
that guy that's washing windows in that skyscraper over there is really spying on us. And and and so there are so many
other things to consider now. And thank goodness, you know, you get bigger teams as you go to do this. But what about I
mean, how I can't even imagine the the m the the machine that has to run to pull all this off for an for a given event
and knowing that in the background, you're just keeping the the athletic department alive and running like normal
around the the events you have to have. Exactly. No, I I that you you saying
that right there kind of brings me to two two different um scenarios or kind
of situ good situations uh stressful situations at times that I kind of found myself in in in North Dakota. You know,
we had a guy named uh is a junior junior guard tracing Eagle Staff. And if anybody listening, you know, follows
college basketball at all, you probably saw his name on social media uh throughout the college basketball
season. We hosted Alabama. I won't get into the details as to why Alabama would
come to Grand Forks, North Dakota, but um had a local player that that had a
chance to play back in his home state. But anyway, Trac, long story short, Trac goes for 40 against Alabama. I mean,
we're talking a final four team from the year go from a from the previous year, sixth ranked team in the country. He
goes for 40. And over the next 18 hours, I mean, he was he was talking
to basically the Twin Cities, Minneapolis, St. Paul's version of Good Morning America. Um, he had another Zoom
interview. He had two more papers. Want to come in and talk to him. Um,
personally, because I I I think I developed a pretty good relationship with him. He's a great kid. Um, he kind
of shared with me some insights on his personal social media and how many people from from an agent standpoint,
from an NIL standpoint, whether legal or not legal. I'm not here to talk compliance. I'm just saying what he
told, you know, getting jumping into his Instagram messages and then, you know, congratulations and have you considered
this? What do you think? And I mean this is this is I mean we're less than 36 hours removed from the performance and
you know it's such a it's such an instant impact world. And then you fast forward
kind of talking about how you kind of keep the wheels turning of the athletic department or at least from the comm's
content side of things. You know, fast forward a couple of months and and we're at the Summit League tournament in Sou
Falls, South Dakota, and it's the first round and we're playing South Dakota State. And if you have any kind of idea
of the of the geography of that area, Brooking, South Dakota and Sou Falls are basically bumped up next to each other.
So, it's a home game for it's a home game for the Jack Rabbits. And so, you know, there's not much green in the in
the in the building that you can see. A lot of blue and a lot of gold, but not much green. But Trac goes for 51. I
mean, he sets a Summit League record. He's one of three players in the country to score 50 um or two players in the
country to score 50 um this previous year. Goes for 51. And we we upset them
because we were the six. I think they were the three. And so we upset them. And so it's funny because
yeah, the game's over. You know, the fan is going to go to the house or go out to the bar or go to the go get a burger or
do whatever. comm's content. Hey, we're just getting started. I mean, we're we're I mean, I'm
trying to make sure this release is the best ever, but I'm also trying to do it so somebody can read it before it turns
midnight, you know? So, right, I'm trying it out. I've got a I've got one of my content guys.
He's working on three or four different videos, you know, the slap bracket videos where you slap your name when you
advance. He's working on a a highlight video just for Tracing because I mean, he went for 51. I'm trying to send clips
to ESPN because he ended up being on the top 10 and they ended up like focusing on him all to just just him. And so I
say all that to say that yeah, it's just that's that's where it's at. People want to see the they want to see the quick
snippets. They want to see that they feel social media has made the fan in
all of us feel like we are it's more personable to us to be a fan. It's it's
it's more personable for us to follow a team or a player. And yeah, and so that's that's where you
see all these departments going. They're going to make it personable for the fan. That's incredible. Sean, I wanted to piggy back on what he
say. So the next game they're playing, of course, Jacobs, you know, let us know and all. So we get we it's on CBS uh
sports and uh or on CBS Sports Network. So we watch, of course, we're I'm watching it
from the angle of because I got a son involved. What are the guys going to talk about? And all they wanted to talk
about when they come to North Dakota was this guy. That's it. I mean, they were doing all kind of saying stuff, bringing
up numbers and everything. And and I was sitting there thinking a wow, you know, they got that from Jacob and his crew.
You know, they're using stuff that they provided them. But I mean that was their pregame show as far as the North Dakota
part of it was just on him. You would have thought he was the only guy on the court for North Dakota. Of course, you
know how the media plays it up, right? But what gets me or what really opened
my eyes to the impact of the way you can get your message out now in sports. When
we did the state tournament, Jacob was still at uh SAU and he had a
real good guy working with him. Stephen, help me out. Jacob Featherson. Did I say it right? Yeah. Stephen Featherson. He's now the
uh football football contact football media contact for Louisiana Tech. Yes. And he wanted to do he's Jacob
said, "Hey, Stephen wants to do the highlight reels. He's going to watch the game, make a highlight package."
So, we did the tournament. Everything went great. and Denton Ashcraft who was our
producer. Uh this was like two years later. We're looking through what he called the footprint or
something. He he knew and Jacob may know what he's talking about there. How many people viewed it, consumed it, had the
opportunity, something like that, but I remember folks putting it on uh Facebook
that night. Later that night, KI TV in Jonesboro showed highlight reel
of the Class 2A state basketball tournament. Wow. And on the bottom down there, it had
Judge City, Arkansas. And then I looked over and it had Dragon Sports Network. Of course, I, you know, I'm not freaking
out, but I'm like, wow, that's, you know, they it got out there. Our footprint
was over four million. Yeah. Yeah. When it was all said and done, a class
doubleA basketball tournament in a small town and that many, you know, that many
opport
Yeah, that's one of the things I look at. They're called impressions in the YouTube world is is sort of a bigger
picture of who's possibly interacting with your uh output and stuff. So right
there's a whole world out there of studying that stuff that I'm just trying to learn and it's it's
what it's done is the internet and the speed of the internet has just made the world so much smaller. I mean, you know,
that that's really And yeah, and and Jacob, the when you said that, man, I think about you sometimes
when when there's games and I think about how uh you're on the road or whatever and
you may be riding on the plane coming back or the bus or whatever you're doing because y'all got I'm assuming internal
deadlines you're trying to meet, but like you said, if something big happens, you know, if you do a six overtime thriller, the
media at large is not going to leave you alone. on until daylight the next day. And so y'all are like you said, I would
assume like you said, y'all's day is just getting started and that impacts a lot of what's going on in the, you know,
in the department there. For sure. It it really does. And I think, you know, kind of going back to something
you said earlier, I mean, dad may have said it about like the University of Arkansas press releases or just press releases in general. Um, when you start
seeing more bullet pointed stuff, it's almost a it's almost a I kind of view it as it's almost
self-preservation. And the reason I say that is because are you still getting the information out there? Is it is it
still is it still the the meat and potatoes of what went down or what happened? Yes. It's just presented
differently in a more efficient manner. And the self-prepreservation part of it is because because there's so
many hats that comms and content and marketing and branding wear and how and
how the I guess you can say the vin diagram circles are all kind of just kind of closing in on each other.
You do that in order to have yourself available for when stuff like that happens. So you don't have yourself
caught up trying to, hey, I've got to spend an hour and a half on this recap. That might not move the needle much,
right? But if we, you know, if we, you know, Joe Smith hits a hits a buzzer beater
from 45 feet out and we knock off the top seed in the first round, that's the
news. That is the news. Yeah. Doesn't matter what happened at the 3 minute mark or under at the under eight media in the
first half. Joe Smith just nailed one from 45 and we need to be putting all
effort into promoting that. And so and again all of that goes back to
social media goes back to just and you said it just then the speed of the internet and how quick stuff can be
consumed and and you know kind of like the approach in college athletics is you
know make it as personable as you can for the fan because the fan is who pays the money. The fan is who fills the
stands. The fan is who supports the athletes and at the end of the day it's the fan that makes the that makes the
world go around. the athletes have a big role in it, but uh if there's no fans there, then you you don't have much of
anything. Yeah. And imagine a world where no matter no matter how big the event was,
um the local people might not even know the next morning because you might have missed the print deadline.
Exactly. So, you wake up and there's no one you can call. There's nothing you can look on to find out what actually happened at
the end of that game that that went past the statewide newspapers print deadline.
Yeah. So, you think, oh, maybe this the 7 a.m. that sunrise show they have, maybe they'll mention it and so if
you're lucky, you catch that. But if it gets to be 8 and 9 in the morning, maybe it's on the radio. I mean, that's the
kind of scrambling that a sports fan would have done in the, you know, 70s and 80s and
probably into the 90. It's one of the things that kind of dubtales all the or parallels all this really is when you
said that about instant scoring, instant stats. Uh fantasy football did the same thing. Fantasy football moved at a
snail's pace when it first happened. But when someone figured out how to get the data out there second by second and
update it changed everything about that whole thing and which if it can do it for that then obviously it's doing it
for the real deal. But um it makes me think about the first time I was in Little Rock with with you guys calling a
high school game and I really wasn't there to do anything but eat the free food and um y'all were
most or Dylan Dylan Dylan definitely enjoyed the plates of chocolate chip
cookies cuz I got him in. But but usually y'all were nice enough that at the half I'd let one of y'all have a
break and I'd get on there and run my mouth. But I remember at the end of the first quarter, the door flies open and
somebody I'd never seen before has a stack of papers in his hands and he puts two or three pieces of paper on the desk and turns around and leaves. And I look
down and it's the the recap of the entire first quarter, every stat, every score. And I thought, that's what I used
to sit in the stands when I worked for our hometown newspaper at Dual State. This is the stuff that I used to sit in
the stands and manually keep up with and hope I didn't miss anything. You mean they're paying somebody to do this now?
You know, and so I think about I think about you providing that digitally and in every other way. And and it brings me
to this question because I've noticed this. Is there any and Wayne uh Wayne, I
know you've seen this in the pros, you had to have caught on to this. Is there any competition between the internal
media uh stuff that goes on? Is there anything comp competitive between that
and the media at large? In other words, are you do you have to deal maybe not in the markets you've dealt with yet, but
if have you thought about if if they scoop you on something, so to speak, is there any kind of I've always wondered
how that works. Is there any kind of ethics involved in a reporter for
whatever freakish reason he finds out something about what's going on at the school, scooping the actual information
department on a story? Is there something that happens there that you try to keep some some sense of control
over things like that? Because sometimes it's coordinated. Orville Henry with the Razerbacks was totally coordinated like
right Wayne. Yep. And every pro coach has their favorite writer or two. There used to be stories
about Bill Parcels would drink beer with this certain handful of New York reporters on like Yep. Tuesday nights
and he would he would tell them write this but it's from a it's it's an a
anonymous source. It'd be Bill Parcels anonymous. It was the head coach that told you know Lawrence Taylor had a
rough week in practice because of a whatever. I want you to get him fired up this week. So I want you to say an
anonymous source said the left tackle whipped his butt all week. So that was coordinated. But I know in the Dallas
media, because I listen to their uh radio a lot, there have been times when the when the media at large has kind of
gotten a story out there before the organization intended it. So, can you kind of talk to us common folk that are
just absorbing this stuff as best we can? What might go into some of those kinds of things? Just a little bit.
Yeah. No, you're you're right and and you kind of talk about markets and stuff. You know, we didn't really run into a lot of that at Southern Arkansas.
I mean, we had a we had a pretty good we had a if it originated from our
department, we obviously had a pretty pretty strong grip on being able to
control how we wanted to present it to our constituents, our fan base, university, you know, our kind of our
local media. Um, but I will say, you know, at the University of North Dakota, that was that opportunity kind of really
opened up a lot for me because there was more of an emphasis in my position. And
like I said, there were three other or I guess two other assistant athletic
communication directors and then and then a director that was kind of the the the boss of of us three. Um, but there
was more of an emphasis on building relationships with the media because there was there was a larger media
following whether it was a couple news the WDAY out of Fargo uh Grand Forks
Herald had a paper and had a has a sports department that's really involved in the university. And so,
um, I think back to just this past just this past December where you've got a
situation of, and it wasn't necessarily me directly because I wasn't the football contact. Um, but we got a
situation where, you know, the football coaches, is he going to retire? Is he going to be asked
to retire? Um, how are we going to do this? And then rumors started kind of
floating around and really don't know if if it actually ended up being true or not, but that the department in order to
try to push along uh someone might have reached
out to, you know, sports editor and ask him to put together a piece in which he
reached out to former players in support of moving on from said head coach and
bringing in such and such. or maybe not even bringing in anybody specific, but just we need a change of leadership. We
got to get this program back to where it was. And you know, rumor had it that it w that it come out of some of the some
of the upper administrators and stuff. And so you see you see a situation where
you've got, you know, using kind of media to your advantage. you know, hey, don't necessarily write a
hit piece on us as administrators for not being able to pull the trigger on either letting this guy go or paying his
buyout or whatever, but instead, hey, how about you, we'll we'll create a piece for you. We've got an idea. How
about you go and you garner some, you know, votes or some, you know, right,
support from former players and make a big article about how it needs, you know, and so that was one thing that
kind of stuck out to me. was like, you know, not in Magnolia anymore, you know.
You know, that's that's what I've always found unique about Arkansas's deal back in the 60s. And I'm not saying if they were the
only team in the country that had that, but you know, Wayne, correct me if I'm wrong, but that new those two newspapers
were Frank Bro's mouthpieces. Right. Right. Well, especially the Gazette, Sean, I mean, first of all, let me say
this. You had the great Jim Bailey. um those that know uh about his writing,
his coverage, especially Arkansas Travelers stuff, outstanding to read. But the guy that everybody is familiar
with from back in those times is Orville Henry. And even Frank Bros in his book
wrote a part about people accused Orville of being the ma quote unquote
mouthpiece for Frank Brawls. In other words, if Rang wanted to get something out there, kind of what Jacob was
touching on about the coaching situation there at North Dakota,
they said he would go to Orville and it really got bad during the Hatfield era.
Uh if you remember, Sean, you know, the 87 season supposed to be a big season for the Hogs and uh Miami blows them
out. They lose to Texas on the last play of the game and well, how bad was it? It
was October 16th. I'll never forget it. Tony Jones caught the pass. And you talk about a place going from bedum to
silence. Instantly it happened. And it was right after that, you might if you
want to call them hit pieces started coming. Questions about the coaching staff, the players, recruiting,
and Orville was writing it. Uh, did he have a pipeline to it? Bro
said he did. He picked up his phone and called just like any other reporter could do. That's what he said. But there
were a lot of people that will tell you now if he wanted something done,
he went to Orville, you in other words, wanted something out there. Yeah. He had the edge there. He also, you
know, he had channel 7 and he had the coach's show. Yeah. He had multiple outlets for sure, right? So he could he could kind of do
anything nowadays. Uhuh. You can't do that cuz it has changed. You know what that makes me think of?
You know, Jacob didn't use this term, but when he said that, I was thinking somebody saying, "Let's take the
temperature of the fan base." And so, let's write this article that Exactly. And Jacob knows that you could do that
now with a Instagram poll. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
Yeah. Whereas Wal Henry would write an article and and you know that's what we talked about at work or the old saying
that everybody gather around a water cooler talking about what you know what so and so wrote
and when Orville wrote it hey we all thought the same thing broles is telling them this coming from Frank you know but
was really yeah it might have been to a degree I I don't know if I buy into the whole thing because and on on a serious
note he was outstanding writer I love reading his stuff and You could tell he
was a writer that quote unquote did his homework. Yeah. You know, well, that stuff still happens. I mean,
even pro teams, there's pro coaches or organizations that definitely have better relationships with some people in
the outside media than they do with others. And so, um, you know, there's a
lot of examples of that, but, um, I have definitely heard, Jacob, where ESPN or
somebody jumped a story that the Saints were going to release Derek Carr and it
got out there before the Saints intended it to or whatever the case may be. Make up your own. And it really kind of to me
creates this uh, drama between the in-house media and the media out there
in the in the world sometimes. Yeah. And then think about how many times over the last I mean we'll just
say five years over the last five years how many times something's been reported and it and it and it ended up it ended
up either not being true at all or there ended up being significant pieces that were not correct and it was because
simple situation of somebody was just trying to beat somebody else to it. They wanted to be known as the one that had
the scoop for the big news when in all reality there ended up being three or four people with egg on their face because they all had something different
and none of the three or four thoughts about the situation ended up being correct. And so again, I think I
mentioned this to my to my wife the other day. I said, you know, 10 15 years ago, we were in the age of information.
You know, social media is getting cranked up and you know, you you can you can go to Google and you can ask a
question and find out. And now now we're in the age of misinformation. Oh yeah.
Now you're siphon through and figure out what's actually right as opposed to it
just being presented to you when you ask in a search engine or when you go to social media or when you go to the
internet. Now you're actually having to filter through to see, okay, did this actually happen? Did did this person say
this? And I mean, if you want to throw AI in there, then it gets even crazier, but that may be a topic for another day.
So, I just spent a semester dealing with AI because that's the easy way to handle
it, you know. And Yep. When I first started teaching college, I had a great boss and he told me,
he said, now this was in 2004, which is what makes this so interesting. He said, "Students need to know
how to find information with whatever technologies at their disposal. More
importantly, they need to be able to find the correct information, the supported information, the truth, the
right information, and then let's teach them how to write about it and communicate it." But those first two
have to be taken care of. And I think about that every time I see a post on social media about sports that I know is
complete BS. They're not going to trade that guy. They're not going to cut that guy. They're not going to do this or
that. Whatever the and people are just, you know, looking for clicks, I realize, but sometimes you get the heavy hitters
at the four-letter uh station up there that uh they jump the gun on something
and they're totally wrong about it, like you said, and it seems like, boy, they get swept under the rug pretty fast. let's just move on cuz you know the NFL
guy that's been doing this for 30 years totally blew that one. Let's just go on to something else. So it's really fascinating to me how all this has
changed over the years. Exactly. No, you're exactly right. It's it's a it's a different it's a
I mean again I I go back to the thing that I that I kind of just lean on when I try when I kind of think about this at
large is just of of the aspect of how everything can be so personable to
people. I mean, anybody can be a blogger. You got a Twitter account, you got a WordPress page, hey, you can blog
about the Indie Indy500, blog about the Seattle Sounders, you can blog about
the, you know, offense, whoever. Like, you can And does that make what you say
true? Does it make it right? I I don't know. Does it, you know, like it? So, you you there's a lot of you got to
filter a lot of stuff. You got to filter a lot of stuff to figure out. Um I guess
that's the bad with the good of how everything's at our fingertips. That's the bad of the fact that well some of
the stuff at our fingertips is is incorrect. It's not right. It's false. Yeah. And we're getting close to
wrapping up Pipper. But one of the other things that kind of irritates me about whether it's college or pro, it seems
like we've gotten greatly into the tabloid era of of that's invaded sports.
And I'm not saying so much at the universities for the pro sports especially as someone in the business.
I'm curious what you think about that because you know I knew I was out and Wayne will agree. I knew I was out when
they were reviewing the fashion that the NFL players were wearing as they walked into the stadium every Sunday. I knew I
was out at that moment right there. Yeah. But that's part of what you said about that's what a certain demographic
wants and I understand that. But I'm sure not that demographic. and you both have said it at at different at
different points tonight is is it all goes back to, you know, that mid to late 2000s when marketing specific players
started becoming really the big thing to do and and we see it all the time and and I'm I'm on the standpoint of, you
know, th that four-letter th those four those four-letter words up in up in Bristol. Um, you know, I grew up
watching Sports Center on Loop. You know, I wasn't I was I wasn't smart
enough to to know how to to know how to work the remote. So, dad, bless his heart, he'd get in at 5:30 and by 6 he
was back up turning it on ESPN for me. And I'd watch the same highlight clip for four hours.
Yeah. See, I was in college when that was going on and it ran all day long like you said. Can't can't do that today because
there's so many different different areas where that those clips are being put. Now, you'll turn on ESPN and you'll
have Pitbull giving you his top five point guards of all time as if anybody cares.
But you're not going to be able to see a twominute section, a twominute, you know, um, highlight clip on if the
Astros were able to beat the Orioles the night before. You know, drives me crazy because there's so many different
mediums and forms to be able to get that information out. And again, well, the cross the crossover
the crossover stuff. We got to merge fashion into sports and we got to merge music into sports and we got
Oh, the pop culture invasion. Yeah, it's it's it's Yeah, absolutely. And you know, when you were watching
those highlights, I guarantee you as a kid, because I was running them in college and Wayne was watching them, it
was the facts, ma'am. Nothing but the facts. You know, it was here's the highlights. Here's who won. Here's who
lost. We're not going to drag 15 different ex players. We're not going to fire all the journalists, by the way,
which is what's happening now. We're going to fire, that's a whole other thing that fires me up. Let's fire all the journalists. Let's bring in 15 ex
players that didn't even know the own defense they played on back in the day. They were just exceptional athletes. And
let's let them maybe not even in the sport they were good at. I don't care what some middle linebacker that retired
15 years ago thinks about what happened in the all-star game for Major League Baseball last night. I just really
don't. And so we've really got it sort of crosspollinated now to the point where, you know, I I know dudes like
Wayne and myself are out on most of that. And it's not being a hater. It's just I'm there to see analysis of the
the strategy that's going on, who's hurt, who, why, and then who won. And I don't need all that other that's just
that's fluff. But I understand that's what people typically want for the demographics, you know, that are
involved with it. Well, the four-letter word in Bristol to me has fallen so far that
it's really it's unbelievable. And and what gets me,
well, we'll hire these ex players. They know the game. They may know their position, but if you go back to the
movie Moneyball, what does it say at the beginning? Mickey Manel quote about how little he
knew about the game he played. And that's what burns me up is when this
guy's sitting here talking, they either want to drag politics into it
or they want to uh I tell you where I fell out with the NFL Network was when they started the fashion thing. This is
what they're wearing to the And I'm like really? I want to know why Tampa Bay
can't stop Cincinnati from running the ball. Whatever. And I used to enjoy the
in-depth discussions they have and now it's more like y'all said fluff. But that's the way it's presented.
It's it's anal it's analysis paralysis or whichever way that those two words
they're overanalyzing it to the point where you tune it out is what Yeah. I I don't need to watch pregame
shows no more. I'll just put it on for my own opinion. But Sean, like we talk about how media
has changed. One of the things that I enjoyed doing when I was helping David Carpenter,
uh, I you might say I was his media guy. I did quotes for him, get him the Robert Yates or whoever, you know, but some
things we did at state finals one year. I think I can't remember it was in 130 or when he got his 200th win. It was in
the finals and I went ahead and made Jacob, you may remember we put together like a five
page, six page thing on him and I did a little bit of a story. I did bullet
points and I got it from and I still love doing this. We'll go to a game or like uh we used to
go to New Orleans B stuff. We would come back with all these press guides and releases and I would just sit there and
flip through them and I would take that and use it to present junction city football information.
Yeah. You know, I was sitting here before I talked to y'all this evening going through uh updating the record book,
making a new one and I was looking at stuff I had from downloading from other
colleges, how they did stuff, just getting ideas and I want to present it. I want to present it right. And nowadays
it's more of the Watergate effect. Can I get something out there real quick and take this coach down because he screwed
up. This is a mistake, right? It's not necessarily that coach screwed up, made a mistake, but they think he
did. And like you said, if you want to stir the pot now, put a poll out on Instagram
and you get a couple hundred people vote and it becomes a news article. Yeah, that's true. The fan base has turned on uh you know,
whoever coach. Yeah, you can watch two minutes of fine bomb and figure out for sure that there's such a negative that
immediate. It's such a negative thing that can happen as much as positive. You know, I'm in it for the positive. I want
to hear the good memories and the nostalgia and all that, but yeah, seems like we're overrun with what's wrong
with it all. I was going to say earlier when when Jacob was talking about the the the the graphic guys and stuff. It's
it's kind of like I heard Nick Sabin say that um you know the first time the one
of the things that made him retire was the first player that he recruited that came in and sat down at the table and
his first question was how much are you going to pay me? That's when Nick said he called his wife and said we're done
after that that recruiting visit with that kid. And then the second one I think of is I've heard the pro the pro
guys lately uh scouts I'm I'm not gonna tell you what channel I was listening to, but I heard a scout say that it
turns him off tremendously when a player coming out of college
says, "Let's talk about my brand." before they have anything else they want to discuss about his fit with that team
if they draft him. Let's talk about my brand. And it's like that makes me think of of Jacob saying, you know, the
players have their own social media and you know, maybe you guys have to dovetail with that and and not not veer
off brand for the school or the kid and make all that be coordinated and stuff.
So yeah. Yeah. You you could take you could take when
rules were made to protect quarterbacks, which some of them were needed. I'm not saying they wouldn't, but when it got to
the point, and I really I guess I didn't I should have finished it earlier when I said it. My whole point on that was
people go to the games now to see the player. Yeah. Not to see the team. That's what it
seems like anyway. I got to go see uh Michael Vic back in the day or I got to go see Emtt Smith,
whatever. It became that. They became the brand. They just happened to play for the
Cowboys or the Falcons or whatever. Yeah, there's probably truth to that. Free agent. Free agency has a lot to do
with that, too. Yeah. And that's the other thing. Free agency. Stabler. Yeah. He ended up with three teams, but he got traded. He
didn't ask for it. He got traded and then he went to New Orleans. But Stabler's a Raider.
Yeah. Still my favorite player all time. He's a Raider. But now you look at some of these guys and go, "Well, if they go in
the Hall of Fame, who who who they going in as? An Eagle, a Cowboy, a Giants?
What?" You know, but it's all about gotta make the money now. It's all about
gotta make the money and take care of like Jake called my brand. Yeah.
You know, you just gave me an idea for a podcast topic. Players that retired in the wrong uniform.
You Yeah, I could think of Tony Tony Dorset going out with a darn Broncos uniform on it. Even though I
kind of like the Broncos. They're probably my favorite AFC team. uh Tony Dorset playing his final year there and
Emtt Smith as a Cardinal and just going around the lid there. Uh Joe Nameoth as a Ram I think you know just stuff like
that. That's that's a that's a great what Jacob I said I've got a couple
oh I couldn't think I couldn't think of a player you'd want to talk about like that. Jacob was one of them JS
Jets Jets Jets and also Mike. Yeah. More importantly, he or unfortunately more unfortunately he was
a sk which always always add an o on the end of that last s in his case ko a l as in
dipping. Right. Absolutely. All right guys. Well look I've I've gotten y'all for an hour and 20 and it
it's been fantastic. Is there anything y'all have you want to add while we're on these loosely connected topics here?
It's been great because I love the territory we've covered tonight. Y'all got anything else you want to say?
I'll say this. Um, you know, if anybody's out there listening, they not they may not be a sports fan or they may
not have really an interest in anything, man. Now more than ever, it's the
easiest time to become one. Like, like just, you know, use your social media platforms. Look, look up look up player.
I mean, it's it's all at your fingertips. And hey, sports, even even though we've kind of talked about some
of the aspects of how sports media can kind of be on the negative side of things, sports in its sports in its its
truest form, regardless of how it's covered, is is a great thing. And um you
know, it doesn't matter doesn't matter you if you man or woman, black, green,
white, yellow, blue, orange, it don't matter when you were born or who you follow. Sports is a great thing. So, uh
get out there and get out there and get that fandom started. That's that's great to say, Jacob, because I'm like you, you
know, I don't care if you're a minor league baseball, if your favorite minor league teams in North Carolina and you
live down here, you can follow anybody you want to follow nowadays because of the people like you that work at the
teams that are pros and work at the universities and get the information out there. Uh my only challenge with this
really has been that it's it's an intended older audience and and the
older audience I say older meaning really for as far as consuming media 40s
and 50s and 60s is an older audience and those are the folks that I'm trying to
get used to using the media that they have in their hand every day. You know, I've had people my age tell me, "I don't
even know what a podcast is, dude." And I'm like, "Well, it's real easy to get a hold of one, man. just your phone. You
got it smart TV now. You could pull up YouTube. You we just added the Pandora the other day and same way with the
podcast world and stuff. You can you can go learn anything you want to learn about any topic you can dream up in your
head. And you can also do the same to learn about the teams that you follow and their histories and so forth.
There's no excuse not to consume. I just think the whole reason I had you guys on
here tonight was to talk about that because Wayne and I grew up with books and newspapers and magazines and we're
not there anymore. I mean, we partly are, but Wayne and I have had many conversations about how that's changed
over time, but I'm okay with it. I mean, I'm glad, Jacob, that you get to do what you do
and with the technology. I think it's fascinating. And um for people like my
son who's a massive sports fans that y'all are serving up exactly what he
wants. And and me and me too to you know not everybody my age is into technology.
So I feel fortunate that I've had to work with it all these years and I can still hang with it. And just
to echo what you said, as long as you're not rooting for the Skins or Eagles or Giants, I say go out there and find a
team and support them. Absolutely. That's right.
All right, I'm gonna kill the recording, guys. I appreciate it so much. Uh I really do. And I'm gonna uh I'm gonna
kill the recording right here. And uh y'all hang on for just a second. Okay, sounds good.
All right, thanks guys. Thank you for joining us on Gen X Classic Sports, where nostalgia meets
the thrill of the game. Tune in next time for more insightful discussions and memorable moments brought to you by Pine
Street Productions. Until then, stay passionate about sports and keep the memories alive.