STOCKTON SAYS COLUMN - Dick Stockton

The Super Bowl, Belichick, And Like The Super Bowl

04 Feb 2026

Hear it here! The Super Bowl is coming up Sunday. Do you want a prediction? Well, none coming. All it is, is a guess and what is it based on? Who’s the better team? I have no idea. No one knows. All I know is that the winner will be the team that plays better and I would hear a chorus saying, ‘no kidding’. So how does anyone know who will play better? I’ve been around head coaches who admitted they had no clue as to how their team would perform on the day of a game. Maybe they had a good week of practice, maybe they didn’t. It doesn’t matter. We’ll find out. By the way, the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots are the teams involved. In 2015, they played in Glendale, Arizona in Super Bowl XLIX. We were guests of the Carolina Panthers and sitting in...

A Breathtaking Shootout

30 Jan 2026

Hear it here! I think the I saw the Super Bowl last Sunday. I know it’s a week from this coming Sunday and the New England Patriots are back in it, but I really believe I saw the Super Bowl between the Rams and the Seahawks in Seattle. It was a breathtaking shootout between familiar rivals who played one game decided by three points and another one decided by only one during the regular season. This one went to the Seahawks 31-27 who, like the Patriots were as unlikely as anyone to get to the Big Game. But here they are with a date in Santa Clara, the home of the 49ers, to decide NFL’s world champion. But how could that game be any better than the thriller in the Northwest? The critical moment came with five minutes remaining when Seattle, boasting the best defense in the league stopped...

The Final Four And More

21 Jan 2026

Hear it here! The NFL playoffs are down to the final four. In the college ranks there’s just one team standing After all the hullabaloo about rankings, conference representation, strength of schedule, seeding and the usual second-guessing, Indiana left no doubt who was college football’s king of the hill. But the battle between the Hoosiers and Miami Hurricanes was everything a national championship should be. The Big Ten champs rolled out to a 10-0 lead only to find the ‘Canes rally in gritty fashion, never relenting and threatening to win it until a last-minute Hoosier interception finally sealed it for the first major college team to finish a season 16-0. When Indiana blocked a punt inside the 5 and scored a touchdown to regain a 10-point lead in the 3d quarter, Miami came right back early in the 4th to cut it to three. When Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Fernando...

“It’s the Rubik’s Cube of sports.”

14 Jan 2026

Hear it here! Who to hire as your General Manager and coach of your team. How do you go about getting the right combination to make it all work? And while we’re talking, let’s add a franchise quarterback to the mix. The more you think about it, it involves all three. There are a bunch of NFL teams on the lookout for one or the other or all three for that matter. If it were that easy, everybody would do it. But they can’t. As of this writing there could have been a few hirings already made but for most the search goes on. There is no one size fits all to this, but there are certain factors that lead to a better chance of success than others. For one thing, if an owner is looking for a head coach before he hires a GM that’s a major trouble...

A Crescendo

07 Jan 2026

Hear it here! The New Year brought a crescendo of dramatic, often startling developments in both college football and the NFL. The college story doesn’t take a backseat to the pros. It’s only because the NFL was the last act to the week’s often hard-to-believe tales that we lead with them. And it was the very last game of the regular season that punctuated all that transpired. I was thinking, as I viewed the scene in Pittsburgh, with the chilling atmosphere of an intense rivalry about to unfold what it would all mean. A division title and more games to be played for the winner, and a quick exit and a shut down for the loser. That this contest was really the ultimate that the sport can offer. I know the chase is for the Super Bowl, but there was something in this Steelers-Baltimore Ravens showdown that transcended the...

Stories From Along The Way, Part 2

29 Dec 2025

Hear it here! This is the second part of anecdotes involving some interesting people I met along the way, not only in my work, but growing up as well. They are flashbacks of moments that stick in my mind, things that had nothing to do with my career. In 2018 I wrote about my time at summer camp where I was first a camper, then a waiter, and ultimately a counselor. When I was 14, I spent the eight weeks as a waiter at a summer camp in Bellport, Long Island called Washington Lodge. There were six waiters serving 100 campers. I was one, and so was the famed and iconic singer-songwriter Paul Simon, who teamed with Art Garfunkel. He was just beginning his recording career, and the duo were known as ‘Tom and Jerry’. They had a hit single called ‘Hey, Schoolgirl’, which rose to #8 on the...

Stories From Along The Way, Part 1

23 Dec 2025

Hear it here! Do I have stories from my career that have nothing to do with the fun and games? You bet I do. Some of the most I recall have had nothing to do with the events I covered. They involved some fascinating people I met along the way when our paths crossed. My first job less than a year after I graduated from Syracuse and served my six months active duty in the Army Reserves, was as the associate producer of a radio interview show called ‘Stan Bernard Contact’ on WINS in New York. My job was to screen calls into the program and welcome the guests as they entered the studio on Columbus Circle. In February of 1965, the guest was Malcolm X, an African American human rights activist who was a controversial and prominent figure during the civil rights movement. When he came into the...

Thoughts On Football

17 Dec 2025

Hear it here! I have thoughts this week on football games, football news, and an admission of being wrong about a football player. Yes, my thoughts are about football and why wouldn’t they be at this time of year? What would you like first? I bet it’s what I feel I was wrong about that might be the most interesting. Okay, here it goes. I was wrong about Aaron Rodgers. If you’ve been following along, you know my thoughts on the veteran quarterback have not been too kindly. I have expressed my misgivings on both the Jets and the Steelers throwing their chips in on a guy that is headed for the Hall of Fame one day, is a Super Bowl champion, and has been a franchise quarterback for two decades. But at 39, when he signed with the Jets, and suffered a season-ending injury on the first series...

The Appetizing Road Ahead

12 Dec 2025

Hear it here! What is more appetizing than what’s ahead in football both college and the NFL? The tournament is set for the collegians while the final four weeks of the NFL regular season are coming up. Those are, finally, the crucial weeks. See, no one really remembers or considers the early games when experts were making judgments and declarations. They meant nothing. Now it does. It’s not even that simple at this stage. The College Football Playoff is all set with the 12 teams who will battle it out to determine the national champion. No one is ever happy with the arrangement. As long as a committee decides on rankings, there is always complaints that a team is rated too high, too low, or should, or should not be seeded as one of the four who get a first round bye. Who’s in, who’s out. It’s exhausting. The...

Lane Kiffin

03 Dec 2025

Hear it here! I’m almost embarrassed to be writing about a college football coach leaving a school for another one before his job is done. It’s become as common as the average person changing their underwear. But this one is almost comical because it involves a coach who has made a habit of this sort of thing and a school who apparently cares less about doing the proper thing. In fact, if the subject is college football, the last thing that sport is about is doing things the sensible way. Lane Kiffin is the subject of this piece. If you’re a keen sports fan, a college football aficionado, or someone who casually peruses the news of the day in sports, you know who he is. I also realize many of our followers have no idea who he is. And many who don’t care. Kiffin is a football coach who...

Thanksgiving Day Football

26 Nov 2025

Hear it here! Eons ago I devoted some words as to what Thanksgiving meant to me as a youngster. It was all about turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie, and the Packers and the Lions. I told how we’d watch the annual game on Turkey Day from Briggs Stadium (later re-named Tiger Stadium) in Detroit, listened to the great tones of Van Patrick on CBS, then go out and play touch football. All this was before enjoying the big feast. A little history. The Lions have played on Thanksgiving every year since 1934, except for a break during World War II. The Packers became the regular foe for the Lions from 1951 to 1963, when Green Bay coach Vince Lombardi brought a halt to the yearly holiday tussle. He probably soured on the annual battle, always played in Detroit, because of the game in 1962 when his undefeated Packers were upset...

Inside A Football Telecast

19 Nov 2025

Hear it here! We’ve watched football telecasts for years. We sit back, see the camera shots record the happenings on the field, and hear the announcers describe and breakdown what is going on. What makes football and all sports different than entertainment and news broadcasts is that it is live and unscripted and while we have no idea what the next play will bring, neither do the guys in the booth. Having done this forever, why not take the viewer backstage to what is actually going on during a broadcast. When you’re sitting on your sofa, it may seem to be an easy exercise. Two broadcasters are standing (rarely sitting) next to each other and talking. It’s as simple as that. Well, it’s not that simple, and while it is not rocket-science, it takes immense concentration and teamwork to make it look easy. The broadcast booth consists of two...

Surprised Or Not Surprised

12 Nov 2025

Hear it here! Surprised? Or not surprised. Like you, I’ve been following the story of the 2025 NFL campaign. Knowing full well what lies ahead could very well tell a totally different tale at the finish. Let’s see where we are at this point. What has surprised me the most is the successful performance of three teams. The Indianapolis Colts, the Seattle Seahawks, and the New England Patriots have already exceeded expectations. No one ever anticipated any of those three to play as consistently as they have and lead their respective divisions. We all know that it takes the coordination of offense, defense, and other aspects that make up a winning team, but I always like to focus on the quarterback because without a good one you have no chance. The QB’s who lead their Colts and Seahawks are veterans who have gotten second and third chances and have...

The 2025 World Series

04 Nov 2025

Hear it here! Rating sports events has never been my thing, but after this latest World Series, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything that had more. Now, I’ve been watching baseball for 74 years so, to borrow a phrase, I think I might know a thing or two because I’ve seen a thing or two. It ended with a one-run victory by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 11th inning of the 7th and deciding game. For the Dodgers it capped back-to-back titles, the first team to accomplish that since the Yankees won three in a row back in 1998-2000. But if there were ever a groundswell of sentiment, and heartbreak for the losing team it was for the Toronto Blue Jays who didn’t spend anything like the mighty Dodgers, and took the world of baseball by storm playing the game like it used to be played, armed...

Greed, Indeed

30 Oct 2025

Hear it here! Can we trust sports anymore? That has to be the big question after an FBI gambling scandal revealed some disheartening truths about sports betting. We have seen scandals before in sports throughout history. We have always regarded them as the rare exception to the non-negotiable honesty and integrity that must be sacred to the believability that competition on all levels in all leagues, college and pro, is all about individuals and teams trying to do their very best to win. Now we are rocked by the latest, frightening scandal involving top and legendary names in the NBA who have allegedly done dishonest things. Terry Rozier, a current star is accused of illegally manipulating what is known as prop bets, where bettors can put money down on individual statistics, and situations that come up in games. Chauncey Billups, an NBA Hall of Famer, and currently head coach...

50 Years Ago Today

21 Oct 2025

Hear it here! It was six years ago that I wrote about the moment that stands at the top of a sportscasting career that spanned over five decades. It was the legendary home run hit by Carlton Fisk of the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park in Boston that sent the 1975 World Series to a seventh and deciding game against the eventual champions, the Cincinnati Reds. It was more than simply a dramatic shot that extended baseball’s Fall Classic. There have been a few of those, but it served as milestone for baseball which had fallen off in popularity, leading to concern for its standing as America’s national pastime. I was blessed to play a role in the drama as the announcer who called the home run for NBC in prime time. To be clear, I was in the right time at the right place and isn’t...

Sports Potpourri, October 2025

16 Oct 2025

Hear it here! Where do I begin? Actually, these are the columns I relish writing. The ones where so many thoughts cross my mind after a weekend of sports activity. I’m not sure how important any of them are, but they provoked an opinion, so here goes. Again, where do I begin? Let’s start with the craziness of college football. First of all, let’s do away with the preseason rankings which look so foolish today. Texas was ranked #1, followed by Ohio State, Penn State, and Clemson. Ohio State is 6-0, but the other three are a combined 10-8. Why were the Longhorns ranked first in the first place? We all know why, they were a good team yes, but their quarterback was named Manning, Arch Manning, and he was going to be magic. But Arch Manning had never been a starter, and his resume was thin, to be...

It’s The Way Of The World

07 Oct 2025

Hear it here! One of the toughest aspects of my profession as an on-air sportscaster is when you decide to step away. It’s not an easy thing since the work is so enjoyable and why not do it for as long as you can? But there are issues we all have faced that make it a dilemma that’s not easy to solve. Of course, no one wants to be told he’s through by his superiors. We all want to go out on our own terms. I have never forgotten the lyrics from a song in a Broadway show titled, “Promises, Promises. It was highly successful, by one of the renowned playwrights, Neil Simon and was based on the award-winning film, The Apartment, starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. The music was written by the legendary duo of Burt Bacharach and Hal David. One of the songs was titled, “Knowing...

The Ryder Cup: Not So Fast, Sailor!

02 Oct 2025

Hear it here! What makes the Ryder Cup the most unique competition in sports is that it’s a team event in a sport that is really not about team. Golf is an individual game. You go solo. You play for yourself. Yes, you’re competing against opponents, but it’s basically you against the golf course. That is, except for those few instances when nations are matched up against each other. The most notable by far is the Ryder Cup, the US against Europe, played every two years alternating courses across the pond. This year it was played on the famed and difficult Bethpage Black course in Farmingdale Long Island. In other words, it was virtually a New York City venue. For the record, the European team defeated the Americans. The final tally was 15-13. Those are the basics, but there is far more to the story of what transpired...

“It’s Tom Brady, and that’s all you need to know.”

24 Sep 2025

Hear it here! It’s been a couple of years since Tom Brady retired from his fabulous playing career, establishing himself as the best quarterback ever to play to this point. But he remains front and center in the sporting public’s attention ranging from what his personal life looks like to what he’s doing in the world of football. We’ll deal with the football side of things. Sorry to some of you. We know he’s in his second season as the lead expert-analyst on Fox Sports NFL coverage having already worked a Super Bowl, something he knew well from his days as a player when he won seven of them. We also know he is a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders. As a broadcaster in his first year, he was a marked man from the start. After beating every team so many times and winning as much as...

Hopefully A Real Turning Point

17 Sep 2025

Hear it here! This week we pause from the subjects we usually deal with to reflect on the unthinkable, tragic, and mind-numbing assassination of Charlie Kirk. The news hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s been several days since he was murdered but it still resonates as much as it did on the day it happened and likely won’t fade as time moves on. Charlie Kirk left us at 31, the leader of Turning Point USA, which was about discourse, debate, and decency centered around the youth of America. He was rich in his faith, reasonable in dealing with those who didn’t agree, and extremely likable as someone who came across as just a regular guy. By now you know he was shot and killed at a rally with multitudes on hand at a university in Utah. He promoted debate of the issues, an art that has been...

The US Open 2025

10 Sep 2025

Hear it here! Who would have ever guessed that a spectacular and memorable era in the world of tennis would be immediately followed by another. But that’s the case with the fading out of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic and the arrival of the remarkable rivalry of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. The kids have replaced the vets and it’s a beautiful thing to watch. The fourth and final Grand Slam of the season, the US Open, concluded last weekend with another chapter written in what should be a phenomenal back-and-forth between the 22-year-old Alcaraz and Sinner, who turned 24 last month. They now have played each other 15 times, with Alcaraz on top 10-5. This time, the younger Spaniard prevailed over the Italian capping his second Grand Slam triumph in 2025, the other two won by the lanky redhead from Italy. Alcaraz regained his status as...

The Best Time Of The Sporting Year

04 Sep 2025

Hear it here! A huge trade by the Dallas Cowboys gave the start of the new NFL season a major boost it didn’t really need. Anytime a new year gets underway there is more than enough of a groundswell of excitement and anticipation, but this particular deal really spiced things up. The Cowboys, who haven’t been America’s Team as they’ve been labeled forever, sent one of league’s finest players and best pass rusher to the Green Bay Packers. In exchange, the Cowboys received Green Bay’s #1 drafts pick the next two years and Kenny Clark, a superior defensive lineman superb as a run stopper. Micah Parsons, only 26, now takes his immense talents at getting to the enemy quarterback to the Packers after a tense and lengthy contract dispute. Jerry Jones, the owner and caller of all the shots in Big D pulled the trigger on the deal after...

Tommy Fleetwood

28 Aug 2025

Hear it here! Just when you think the 2025 golf campaign had it all with the drama of the four major championships in the books, underscored by the clear dominance of Scottie Scheffler, the heart-warming human story of the year stormed to the forefront at the final tournament of the season. In sports, it’s never over till….well, you know the rest. Tommy Fleetwood, a full-haired, 34-year old Englishman had become a fan favorite not for his victories, but for his defeats, most of them after coming oh-so-close too many times and somehow finding a way to never sealing the deal. He’d be up there on the leader board as consistently as any golfer and you figured he was ready to pounce on first prize. But it never happened. Time after time, Tommy Fleetwood would be right there. But never was he THERE at the finish. Up to this past...

Pre-Season Football: Here’s The Reality

20 Aug 2025

Hear it here! There are two ways to look at the NFL with two weeks to go before it all gets underway for real. One is the impatient, quick-to-judge style on everything good and not so good. Understandable considering fans have been salivating since the end of the last season for action on the field. The other is to realize it’s all a process that actually won’t be sorted out for several weeks, maybe half the year. Many if not most of the fans and especially the media don’t want to hear about the second choice. They want to draw definitive conclusions right now. That’s laughable. The truth is pre-season indicates very little. I know because I was part of it for years during my broadcasting career. Over the course of time, I was in the booth for the Steelers, Patriots, Colts, Redskins, Ravens, Rams, Bears for one game,...

Basketball In The Summer?

13 Aug 2025

Hear it here! You’ve got to be kidding. But I’m not. That’s not to say hoops aren’t played this time of year. They are. The WNBA is playing. Kids play ball all year long. There have been great summer league games for as long as you can remember. Back in the day, the famed Rucker League in New York’s Harlem was a legendary proving ground for those who were hopeful college and professional players. Listing some of the greats who played there would be endless. Okay, here are a few: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Kobe Bryant, Julius Erving, Kevin Durant, Earl ‘the Pearl’ Monroe… I never thought of writing about basketball until I got a call from someone I met during my years at Syracuse. I haven’t had any contact with him since then, but when he told me his name I immediately knew who he was. His name is...

What Goes Around Comes Around

06 Aug 2025

Hear it here! If you watch sports long enough you see how the basic way of playing the fundamental game seems to always return. The basics may appear to disappear, but sooner or later the way games were meant to be played come back. There have been new ideas galore on how to win, most of them frankly have added a sense of excitement and added show biz to try to draw bigger audiences, but we’ve witnessed a turn back of the clock. The latest involves baseball, which has turned me off in recent years. It’s the sport I grew up with. The national pastime and all that. It used to be #1, with the others merely fillers until spring training returned. That all changed. Baseball has had to climb back to compete with the other sports and while they’re not there yet, by a long shot, there is...

Navigating Network Sports

30 Jul 2025

Hear it here! When you work for one company for 27 years and another for 23, you learn how your business works. The good and the not so good. What makes one special and the other one, perhaps, to put it delicately, ‘corporate’. I wound up my wonderful career after 27 years with Fox Sports. Believe me, if I hadn’t decided it was time, I would have gone on. That’s how I felt about them. Fortunately, that’s how they felt about me. When I called CEO and Executive Producer Eric Shanks in 2021 to tell him I decided to retire, he tried to talk me out of it. But I knew I was ready. Fifty-plus years is a long time to do anything, even the joyous job of being an on-air broadcaster. Especially spending practically all of it in sports, which only meant everything to me. When I left...

“What’s the point?”

24 Jul 2025

Hear it here! Viewing the final major golf championship of the year brought back memories of our visit to Royal Portrush in Ireland six years ago, the last time until last week the Open was played on that course. We attended the third round of the tournament as part of a golfing week in both Scotland and Ireland. The big story at the Open in 2019 was both the sudden and quick collapse country favorite Rory McIlroy, along with the eventual champion, like Rory, a native of Ireland. McIlroy’s first tee shot on the first day flew out of bounds en route to a horrific 79, eight over par. McIlroy didn’t make the cut and was gone after two rounds. But Shane Lowry made the fans forget McIlroy’s rapid demise and won his first major. On a rainy final round Sunday, we had played another Irish course, Portmarnock, and...

Wimbledon 2025

16 Jul 2025

Hear it here! If there was any question concerning the state of tennis and its future outlook, they were answered emphatically in the just completed Wimbledon championships. There is no need to wonder where the men’s competition is heading as the decades-old dominance of the Big 3 fades to a close. What kind of letdown would there be with the terrific triumvirate of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic becoming a thing of the past? The answer is none. Of course, the injury factor and overall health of the stars always comes into play when looking into a crystal ball, but all things being equal, the upcoming years offer tremendous excitement and memorable clashes. You can thank Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz for that. While the 38-year old Djokovic continues to amaze and challenge deep into the major tournaments, the two younger prodigies have stolen the show. Time...

This Very Column

09 Jul 2025

Hear it here! How long has it been since I started writing Stockton Says for the Thousand Islands Sun? I had to ask the owner, who accepted my offer to write a column each week a long time ago. It was October 12, 2016 to be precise. It all started when Jamie suggested I ask Craig Snow if I could submit something for his weekly newspaper. He said yes and off we went. It’s hard to believe it’ll be 9 years this October. I knew I would find it enjoyable, but never to the extent it’s become. It has been well chronicled that I first set out to become a sportswriter long before I evolved into a broadcaster. I wrote a monthly column for my high school paper, and attended Syracuse University to study journalism. The famed Newhouse School of Communications wasn’t even built until after I moved on...

Cooper Flagg / Caitlin Clark

02 Jul 2025

Hear it here! The drafting of Duke’s Cooper Flagg last week brought together the craziness of what sports has become, the arrival of the next true NBA superstar, the true reason why teams win championships in any sport, and the ongoing puzzle of why the darling of women’s basketball remains a target of her own league. Remember the name Cooper Flagg, if you don’t already know who he is, because he is the genuine article of what could be a legendary career. We have to couch the hoopla for this young man because the ability of him to stay injury-free is always the asterisk when looking ahead. Flagg played one year for Duke, did not win a national championship as anticipated, and will begin his professional career next fall playing for a team no one expected him to join. Before we get to all of that, what would you...

June Roundup

25 Jun 2025

Hear it here! It may be summertime, but the two major winter sports, NHL and NBA just completed their playoff seasons in the past week or so. The two champions come from Ft.Lauderdale and Oklahoma City. That makes sense. Don’t you think of those cities when you think of the hotbed towns of hockey and pro basketball? Not really. But there you have it. The Florida Panthers won the Stanley Cup for the second straight season, beating the Edmonton Oilers both times. The Panthers were wonderful to watch. They played textbook defense, had a sensational goaltender in Sergei Bobrovsky, and were known for their toughness. Critics called them ‘dirtbags’, and maybe that’s a compliment. But it’s also a cheap shot when you think of it. They were an aggressive, hard checking team that didn’t meet a penalty they didn’t like. They were the best at killing off the million...

The 125th U.S. Open

18 Jun 2025

Hear it here! After the first round of the 125th U.S. Open Golf championship last week, the leader was a 34-year old Los Angeles native, J.J. Spaun, who had only one PGA Tour win and had lost his Tour status after dropping outside the top 500 in the world back in 2021. Nothing unusual. In any tournament, even the majors, there is an early leader who plays well enough to jump ahead of everyone, before the cream rises to the top. But it became apparent early on, that the fabled Oakmont Country Club just outside Pittsburgh, hosting the Open for a record 10th time, was going to be a monster to handle, even for the stars on the Tour. Who wouldn’t have picked Scottie Scheffler to win it all? A knee-jerk selection if there ever was one and rightly so, having won three of his last four tournaments including...

French Open 2025: A Duel For The Ages

11 Jun 2025

Hear it here! It has been called everything from an epic tennis match, to a championship duel for the ages, to the best Grand Slam ever played, to one of the greatest championship matches in the history of the sport. All of these descriptions and more may just be right on the mark. The war staged on the red clay at Roland Garros in Paris for the French Open crown actually defies words of what it all meant. It was that remarkable. I’ve always shied away from the current practice of always rating players, games, whatever, as to where everything stacks up in history. The Greatest Of All Time only stands till the next thing comes along. And it always does. But you had to have the unmistakable feeling that what you saw in the five and a half hour exhausting, mano-a-mano struggle between the top two men’s tennis...

Three Distinct Moments In Sports

04 Jun 2025

Hear it here! It’s funny how events that occur in the daily comings and goings in sports evokes memories of the treasure chest of stories and experiences that came my way throughout my rich and blessed life as a broadcaster. I’ve told people for years that for the most part, the games and happenings on the field always took a back seat to the often brief stories of the people involved, both the ones I covered and the ones I worked with. This past week there were three of those events, each one having nothing to do with the other, that brought back those thoughts. The first involved versatile and consistent play-by-play man Kenny Albert who moved past his celebrated father Marv, into second place on the all-time list of games broadcast of the four major sports, baseball, football, basketball and hockey. I met Kenny for the second time...

Aaron Rodgers / The Most Unattractive Play In The Sport

28 May 2025

Hear it here! Are we still talking about Aaron Rodgers? And what’s my opinion about the ‘tush push’? Boy, do I dislike that term. Let’s start with Rodgers the Ridiculous. The guy still hasn’t made up his mind whether he wants to hang ‘em up and retire or still play football. Methinks he still wants to toss the ball and if it’s for anyone, it’ll be with the Pittsburgh Steelers which rubs me the wrong way. I know he’s said that there are serious health issues with some of those close to him and we all have to commiserate on that score, but how long does it really take to make a DECISION. Of course, it may be that he knows and the Steelers know he’s headed their way. Maybe both sides have known this for quite some time. Maybe it’ll all be revealed very soon, like before these...

A Time For Reflection

14 May 2025

Hear it here! In the never ending cauldron of sports activity ranging from the playing of games to the off-field stories that grab our attention, there is always time for reflection. This is one of those times. It’s been four years since my retirement and after over 50 years of being in the center of things, I’m going to pull back and tell the story of how I got my very first on-air job. Everyone has to start somewhere and it wasn’t a slam dunk when it happened for me. The Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, or Group W as it was known, owned various radio and TV stations throughout the country. The television outlets were affiliated with one of the three networks at the time: CBS, NBC and ABC. In many of the cities, Group W owned both radio and TV stations. For example, they ran a radio outlet in...

Who Expected This?

06 May 2025

Hear it here! Raise your hand if you think Bill Belichick’s image has changed? Okay, you can put them down now. Wow! Every hand went up! Once upon a time, not that long ago, the former Patriots head football coaching great, winner of six Super Bowls, was a no nonsense, stern, serious leader whose mantra was, ‘do your job’, nothing more nothing less. Of course away from the eyes and ears of the media he had no use for, he was much looser, even with a sense of humor most never knew he possessed. But since his departure from the Patriots he has gone the full 180, perhaps minus the sense of humor. He’s a different guy in so many respects, even alarmingly, that folks are outright shocked at the new Bill Belichick. It started with his going from a media hater to a media darling, working on as...

Shedeur Sanders

30 Apr 2025

Hear it here! No one really had an idea. No one had an answer. No one could figure out why. Everyone had opinions. Some of them could have made sense. One was so absurd it made you shake your head. I reached out to some professionals who might know, but no one could put their finger on it. Why was Shedeur Sanders, one of the very top quarterback prospects ignored until the fifth round of the NFL draft when he easily could have been one of the first three players chosen in the very first round? What Sanders went through, waiting painfully so long before he was finally picked, created a bizarre story that dominated the annual draft of college players. Added to the mix were a couple of prank phone calls including one coming from the son of another team’s assistant coach. Sanders had been the quarterback at...

Quarterback Musical Chairs

23 Apr 2025

Hear it here! Have you ever played musical chairs? That’s when there are a bunch of chairs and one more person than the number of chairs. The music starts to play and everyone keeps moving until the music stops. Then the people stop and have to find a chair quickly and sit down. But for one person there is no chair. That person is out of luck. The NFL draft of collegians is this week, but the game of musical chairs involving quarterbacks, the most critical position on any football team, has been going on for a couple of months. I have a feeling the one left standing is named Aaron Rodgers, but I’ll get back to that. There already have been a ton of blockbuster moves and plenty of cash being thrown around to players of all positions during this free agent season. But in football, it’s all...

Mastering The Masters

14 Apr 2025

Hear it here! I’ve never seen more raw emotion than when Rory McIlroy, 11 years chasing a dream and falling short, finally won the Masters golf championship. It had built up for over a decade. Year after year something would happen so that it wouldn’t happen. And then it did. It did on a final round with more twists and turns than a tornado. When it was over, after a birdie on the first playoff hole against Britain’s Justin Rose, the 35-year old from Northern Ireland became only the sixth golfer in history to win golf’s grand slam: The Open (British), the PGA, the US Open, and now the Masters. The others are named Nicklaus, Woods, Player, Hogan, and Sarazen. First it looked like it wasn’t in the cards once again for McIlroy, then it appeared he would break through, possibly in a runaway. Then things tightened up again,...

March Madness: April Edition

09 Apr 2025

Hear it here! March Madness was strictly ho-hum for the first two weeks. The usual array of upsets and dramatic game-winning baskets at the buzzer were nowhere to be seen. When the Final Four arrived, the four top-seeded teams representing each region were left standing. So, what kind of surprises could emerge? That’s what makes March Madness so special. There’s always something lurking that no one expected and that proved to be the case when the top rated schools got together in San Antonio to fight it out for the national championship. Of the quartet that remained, Duke was the odds-on favorite to win another title. They had an amazing group of young stars, led by their big guy Cooper Flagg, an air-tight defense, and a swagger that reminded observers of the best of the Blue Devils championship teams of the past. But it didn’t happen for them. Instead,...

A View Of College Basketball Above And Below The Surface

02 Apr 2025

Hear it here! When we see it looking up we see a Final Four that features all the top-seeded teams. Bettors call it “chalk”. The favorites have ruled the roost in this year’s edition of March Madness. To be honest, this year’s tournament has lacked the excitement of unheralded upsets, and thrilling buzzer-beaters, meaning last second shots that decide games. What we’ve seen are the best teams playing the best. Every year is different, and this year is no exception. When was the last time we’ve seen this? It was in 2008, when Kansas, UCLA, North Carolina and Memphis, all #1 seeds, reached the final four with Kansas prevailing. That’s 17 years between this particular phenomenon. That year, the Final Four was played in San Antonio. This year it is also in San Antonio, so there’s the coincidence. Duke, Houston, Auburn and Florida will compete for the national championship...

What Goes Around Comes Around

29 Mar 2025

Hear it here! When I was a kid I got to see the Giants play baseball because a family member had season tickets. Now that’s I’m older, I can still see the Giants play baseball because an another family member has season tickets. Let me explain. Growing up, my father, Joe, had tickets for the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds. So, I got to go. Now, my wife Jamie has tickets to the San Francisco Giants for their spring Cactus League games at Scottsdale Stadium. And I get to go. How’s that for completing the circle? There’s a kind of throwback to a more innocent and joyful time when you attend an exhibition baseball game in the spring. It not only signals the end of what could have been a harsh winter to welcoming the start of a warmer, brighter, happier time, with the summer sport of...

March Madness Is Upon Us

20 Mar 2025

Hear it here! It all started with the traditional Selection Sunday when the 68-team field was revealed. Who made it. Who didn’t. Who are the #1 seeded teams. Who plays whom and where do they play? It begins with a pair of play-in games Tuesday and Wednesday before the action involving 64 schools begins Thursday, capped with the Final Four in the first week of April. The Sunday show featured analysis, over-analysis, intense questions over why some teams like North Carolina got in, and some, such as West Virginia did not. It’s the same every year, but it’s different because they’re always talking about different schools. This year, the number one seeds are Auburn, Duke, Houston and Florida. No one has a problem with that. It’s all pretty exciting, and it’s a wonderful time of the year in sports. Many of those who watch have their own group of...

Behind The Scenes Of Televised Sports

11 Mar 2025

Hear it here! For all those out there who watch televised sports of any kind, I wonder if they realize how those pictures appear on screen and who decides what they see? We take for granted that the action shown will give us the best possible view, including the reaction shots that follow. I spent my entire TV career either upstairs in a broadcast booth, or in the case of basketball, at a table court side. But the real action takes place inside a production truck located outside the stadium or arena. That’s where the folks who actually put the broadcast on the air do their thing. There is a producer, director, technical director, audio man, and countless others in charge of video taping possible replays that follow the live action that is initially shown. We’re going to only deal with the director here because he is the one...

Idioms and Hubie Brown

06 Mar 2025

Hear it here! Time for a little fun. There are sayings and phrases that you hear every day that everyone knows what you’re talking about. But when you really examine what they are, and look at them in a purely literal way, well, you may wonder what they REALLY mean. Let’s examine a bunch of them. IT IS WHAT IT IS. But, what IS it, anyway? TO MAKE A LONG STORY SHORT. Most of the time that means it’s a story that goes on a lot longer. THAT’S ON MY BUCKET LIST. We all know it comes from the 2007 film The Bucket List. It’s about a list of things to do before you “kick the bucket”. I don’t think there’s a line from a movie that’s used more than that? WE’LL TAKE A RAIN CHECK. We know it’s a baseball term but what if the weather has nothing...

Multi-Sport Potpourri

25 Feb 2025

Hear it here! Kudos to the National Hockey League for reviving the dying tradition of the All-Star Game. It was once a mid-season gem that saw memorable moments performed by memorable stars who were proud to be selected and proud to actually play. That all went away. It began with baseball. At one time, players wearing their team uniforms on the field together were out to try to win for their league. The Home Run Derby, invented by ESPN and held the day before the game became more popular than the contest itself and as it turned out, also changed the way baseball has largely been played. It’s all about the home run……or as we now witness, all about strikeouts and pathetically low batting averages. But this season, the NHL launched a tournament named 4 Nations Face-Off. It proved to be a fiercely competitive and riveting round-robin. The...

Tom Brady – Year One

18 Feb 2025

Hear it here! I’ve never seen someone more scrutinized than Tom Brady has been in his first year in the broadcast booth. No surprise considering who he is and what he accomplished as a player. From day one, practically everyone from social media critics, to ex-players in similar roles, to the average viewer, took his temperature on a week-to-week basis, analyzing and often over-analyzing how Tom did on yesterday’s Fox broadcast. More often than not, those who voiced their opinions, particularly those who were negative, many times extremely so, carried with them an agenda. I know this to be true. This column is not about a defense of Brady’s first season in a new role. He doesn’t need that. As a matter of fact, I believe he doesn’t warrant anyone to defend him. Tom Brady, in my view, had a remarkably successful debut in his a totally new career...

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