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10 Questions with ... John Fricke
December 12, 2006
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NAME:John FrickeTITLE:Weekend HostNETWORK:Fox Sports RadioCOMPANY:Premiere Radio Networks
BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:
CNN, XTRA Sports 690/San Diego, KLZ/Denver, Fox Sports Net, Fox Sports Radio
1. How did you get into radio? Why radio?
why radio? Because Hunter S. Thompson was right when he said that the television business is a dark hole where good people go to die. Aside from that... 10 years back, I got the chance to get out of full time TV and into sports talk at the (then-) best station in the nation. XTRA Sports 690 was killer. I immediately fell in love with talk radio.... what? you're going to pay me money to spout off every day? OK!
2. What are you passionate about?
That's a little personal for this early in the interview... right? College football and politics. Seriously. Which makes the BS- oh, darn, made that mistake again- the BCS so much fun.
3. You've done local sports talk in places like Los Angeles, San Diego and Denver, and national sports talk for Fox. Is there a difference in how you approach local (e.g., nothing-but-Chargers-talk) vs. national sports talk? (And what differences have you found in the kind of fans and callers you've gotten in each of the markets where you've worked?)
Big difference. Lots of them. Fans in Southern California are MUCH more passionate than anyone gives them credit for. Fans in Denver are strong but myopic... they resist calling out their local teams when it's called for. Local is more direct, focused and thus passionately personal to the listeners. National is broad scope but a challenge to hit the right notes to engage the largest audience.
4. If you hadn't gone into sportscasting, what would you be doing today?
I just stumbled into the biz... never really thought about it, just happened to be in Atlanta the summer of 1980 when some crazy wealthy backwater boy decided to start a 24-hour all cable tv network. I got offered a job as a producer at CNN for a whopping $6 per hour... and since I was naive, broke and desperate... which is to say I would probably have ended up going to law school (which is where I was tracking before falling into CNN) and would have made a much more admirable living as an ambulance chaser.
5. What's your best sports memory ever? Best radio moment?
Sports memory.. as in.. you were there? Sticking a mike straight into Sid Bream's face as he was still lying on the ground atop home plate at Fulton County Stadium (sorry, Pirates fans). I've been lucky to have seen Gordie Howe, Pele, Clemente, Sayers at Wrigley, etc.... which is why I tell fans to try to appreciate what they are seeing in person when they were watching a Gretzky live, or Shaq in person. Oh- I met O.J. (kinda) outside his house not long after the murders. I actually went there! Worse- I went to the condo on Bundy - walked under the police tape and peered down the walkway where the blood drops still were- God, I'm insane! (well, OK, when I was standing next to OJ, maybe I was the slightly less insane one of the two).
Best radio moment? Wildest was doing p-b-p of the Clemson-Wake Forest basketball game in 1990 when my engineer got stuck in a snowstorm with the gear. That made for a fun 2 hours of p-b-p on the phone from courtside.
6. Who are your mentors or inspirations?
I was 9 years old at Wrigley Field one day when I looked up towards the booth and pointed out Jack Brickhouse to my brother Mark and said "how great would it be to get paid to come to a game!" Had the chance to meet him months before he passed- great man. But I learned an awful lot from Nick Charles, Fred Hickman, Jim Huber... not so much Keith Olbermann (just kidding, KO). Learned a ton from Lou Dobbs in all the hours we spent in the smoking lounge (well, except that we should probably have not been smoking butts). Dobbs was the single smartest guy I worked with.
7. Of what are you most proud?
In the biz? Oddly it's not CNN or Fox Sports Net or FSR, all wonderful places to have worked. It was meeting a golf instructor named AJ Bonar and writing a little radio ad for him that exploded into his video line, which i hosted and which became the best selling golf video series ever.
8. What do you do for fun?
Well, I play a lot of that 4-letter game... that, plus I am a movie freak.
9. Fill in the blank: I can't make it through the day without _____________.
...Fox News Channel, CNN, the op-ed page of 2-3 newspapers. Oh, yeah, I'm a news freak too.
10. What's the best advice you've ever gotten? The worst?
Best: Bill Pugh, the pd at the Mighty 1090 came into the studio before 1090's initial PBP broadcast of a San Diego State football game and said "just don't suck".... which became Coach Kentera's and my little battle cry... I still say it before shows at FSR with some of my co-hosts.
The worst? Easily, being talked out of going to Fox News Channel when it launched because I bought the line from somoneone I trusted that "they can't compete with CNN." Obviously not.. no... not unless 'lapping' doesn't count.
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