Gerard Whateley | Kicked Out Of A Stadium, Best Ever Calls + More | Howie Games Podcast

Hear the full Howie Games episode on LiSTNR 👉 https://www.listnr.com/podcasts/the-howie-games

The countdown to the Olympics is on. And on the eve of heading to Paris to be the lead commentator, broadcaster Gerard Whateley shares his media journey. 

He has mastered his craft, and his insights into journalism, commentary and sport are as good as any broadcaster we have been joined by. 

His attention to detail, literary genius and preparation should not surprise you. 

🎧 The Howie Games is Australia’s #1 Sports Podcast. Where the biggest names in the world of sport go one-on-one with sports journalist Mark Howard. From ultimate highs to tear-jerking lows, Howie lifts the lid on the real stories behind the headlines. He sits down with the biggest names in Australian & world sport, finding out how they started out, what makes them tick, how they deal with the big wins and the big losses, and how they take on sport and life from here.

Stream full Howie Games episodes on LiSTNR 👉 https://www.listnr.com/podcasts/the-howie-games
Stream full Howie Games episodes on Apple Podcasts & Spotify 👉 https://link.chtbl.com/HowieGameslisten

#podcast #thehowiegames #howiegames #gerardwhateley #whateley #commentator #sportscommentator #journalism #sportsjournalist #sportspodcast

[Music] well we don’t very often get men of this caliber or anyone of this caliber wandering into the ho game Studio this man is modest when I texted him to come on the show he’s like what do you want to have me on for but gee I have got that many questions for you I hope you’ve set aside a good two and a half hours mate welcome to the hoe games a treat to have you on here Howie thank you so I got chronic imposter syndrome and that’s I sent that to you privately is some of the people we most love been on this podcast so that’s not lost on me so thank you for inviting me this is your last chance to back out no I’m not backing out um i’ you people have heard it in the intro that um remarkably we haven’t never really worked together we sit with a glass Barry between us at football matches uh cricket games I see you in at Fox but I um you know I’ve learned Jared never to hide these things I’m an enormous fan of your work an enormous fan of your work and I know that can be uncomfortable in a situation with two BLS sitting in a room that know each other socially but I don’t see the point of beating around the bush I’m Bush I’m a tremendous fan of everything you do I’m a uh a listener and a watcher so mate it is a privilege to have you here on the show so that’s very kind Howie and so I want a chance to say this publicly I’ve said it to you privately before I am in huge admiration of what you’ve built in this it’s very difficult in the hustle bustle of media to create an intimate space a space where people come and they clearly feel a level of comfort and trust and I I’ve been a foundation listener but thinking through the James herd episode up to the Meg Lanning episode so you can’t get that in the modern media without creating something like this so at the risk of turning it into a wankfest of the start salute to you thanks because it is unique and I’ve I’ve said this publicly before is I feel like you’re the one to master the podcast for the Australian sporting media well done well no pressure so am I going to be able to bring you to tears is is there deep dark secret we don’t know I’ve had a very sheltered and privileged upbringing I do exactly what I love so I doubt it mate I mentioned in the intro you’re here with Fox you’re here with scen you’re here with nine how you’ve done that like the amount of invoices you’re putting out at the moment is quite extraordinary and congratulations for that before we get to the Olympics Etc this will come out at the start of July and it will have happened a couple of weeks ago the Hall of Fame last night congratulations you’re up there with Legends of the game uh my first sporting hero you’re up there with Jason Dunst you’re up there with danne Swan a lot of this discussion is going to be preparation and how much you do tell me the leading to the night that was last night and congratulations on a wonderfully well done job thank you so it it’s an incredible privilege to do so that’s the starting point of it and my only role is to ensure that the inductees first have a great night you want it to be the culmination of what they’ve experienced in football and you want them to feel comfortable speaking about themselves so so many deflect yes but the spirit of the night is the Hall of Fame members gather to welcome the new class in so it’s sort of having that conversation with each of the inductees to ease the fears about don’t self-deprecate don’t deflect it is this is the moment where everyone wants to hear you tell their story because we’re hoisting you up on shoulders which is what I’m doing with you today so I don’t want any of that self deprecation or depreciation as I heard it described radio the other day so do you speak to Jason and Dane and all these luminaries in the lead up this is what people won’t understand yeah so one of the beautiful parts for me is I we spend 12 minutes on stage together but I get an hour or an hour and a half with them in the leadup to in person uh sometimes in person sometimes on the phone so I had a long time with Jason on a on a Wednesday afternoon which was lovely is I’ve worked in and out with Jason along the way and I lived some of his story but I’ve never spoken to him at length about it and so we did a we did a 16th of what we did privately we did publicly so I get like how lucky am I to have those conversations so yeah it’s trying to find down the essence so all we’re trying to do is give the essence of the story and that requires maybe six trigger points wow origin stories um the Breakthrough the best years Reflections that sort of thing so it’s um it’s Road testing a few different stories as to what what takes us closest to who they are what they feel most comfortable about and then just little ones like it’s when Kelvin Templeton tells the story that he got tipped off that he’ won the brown low you go oh that’s beautiful like the room will eat that up so we definitely want to tell that story and yeah so um there is it’s a it’s a uh it’s it there’s hours involved you would say it’s a long process except it’s the most beautiful enjoyable process and not to do it too far in advance because you want it to be fresh in everyone’s Minds to what we’re going to deliver when we get there and then on the night hopefully there’s a level of comfort they know these are the stories I’ll tell um you work the room and then go back as I often when they go back to the 360 set afterwards there’s sort of this decompress you can you can see it is the onstage part it’s a big deal for them so you want it to be as as beautiful as possible and then they can reflect and know that they’ve enjoyed the night and spend the rest of it with their families so Dan Swan obviously um I can’t can’t picture you at the Rising Sun in his Natural Area having a beer with him but I thought you did beautifully last night when when he he dropped an F bomb in his in his own 30 second he started very hot and I was trying to keep an eye on you because I knew we’d be chatting about today you look pretty cool and you didn’t that’s danne that that is the beautiful thing about danne and a lot of people would if they’ got up there and spoke like that it’s the Billy brownless effect the things Billy will say on the radio if you’re I said holy moly but when Billy Oran says them that’s them that’s okay yeah so that’s his true self and there’s a you know you have to be mindful it is live on air nationally so a little bit careful on that front but yeah so he came in hot and then I I think he he just sort of settled a little bit after that but like he was as risque as the line at the end which I wouldn’t be brave enough to repeat um we’ll play it right here don’t worry’s got up yeah and and that was that was exactly true to his character and you get the next day that the fans respond to it and they go oh we’ve missed him that’s exactly who he was that’s what we don’t have very often on the football landscape so giving him the space to be that as well as just just staying in the bounds of taste just you controlled him well really I’m going to do this a bit differently today um which is something we haven’t done Tommy and I cooked it up you know Tommy you worked with very well and I’m going to play bits of vision and audio to you which I don’t know how uncomfortable that will be for you what do you like or how do you feel um about hearing or watching yourself post because well it must be impossible for you to avoid yourself yes yes I do get home and if they’re watching 360 I which is rare I don’t want it to sound like they are actually that interesting they not get dinner if they haven’t watch 360 when you get I do ask them to turn it off every now and then you get to make up the next day and the replay is on and they say to Lauren I I can’t have that on again um you do get used to it as the years go on don’t you um and some of it like you have to take the time to air check yourself yes how often do you do that uh regularly not in huge chunks as you go along you probably develop an antenna for what’s what works and what doesn’t and then it’s just a matter of sometimes it’s a matter of just oh I’m using that word too often which is if you don’t listen back you wouldn’t pick it up and you can correct it as soon as you’re aware of it but when you’re not aware of it it just keeps competing so yeah from those points of view and then I mean we’re both the same is your highlights do reverberate on you the whole time in broadcast the next day so it is it’s unavoidable and it does make the ones where you go I wish I’d done that a little bit better they do make you square them a little bit give me a moment give me a moment this show is about positivity and I’m going to spend two hours pumping you up but you are your own harshest critic it’s funny to say that I I said to my wife two weeks ago I did Sydney Jong in and I said you know what I actually need to go back and listen to see how I’m going and she said it was a great call and I went back and listen to it and I used the word drive as any he drives the ball forward four times in a quarter yeah right and I was hating on myself thinking so occasionally you do need to listen what’s a moment where you’ve thought you know what would prefer to have that back um yeah I mean the the beauty of the job is is doing Justice to the moment and then capturing it and then seeing if you can help it to soore so so so there’s a couple of different levels in that so the the final play of the Super Bowl this year I would love to hit that just a little bit sharper okay um it just yeah it was it a player ID thing a moment I don’t think so I don’t think so it was just not quite as crisp and El as as it might have been um it was the you know it’s the walkoff touchdown I find um because it’s all words it’s what do you reach for in the moment right and then some days three days later I’ll be driving along think oh that’s what I should have said that’s what I should have said when when Richmond won their 2017 flag it was about three days later he thought oh that was the essence of it so I I can’t remember what I said but you go oh n i but I vividly recall thinking that’s what it was and it just came to me 3 days later which is completely useless and is is there to torture you isn’t it it does torture you but but so I have I figured out how not to torture yourself with it go so once it’s once it’s done it’s there Y and there’s you can’t have it over you wouldn’t want to have it over um so you you’ve got to be able to live with it and that’s the motivation to get the all to that point and you’ll never get there and that’s the part I most love about it it’ll never be a completed body of work because you’ll never quite know what you’re going to see next but G I have those moments uh so you know when you’re on a high building there’s that psychological thing where you think what would happen if I jump I have that after big sporty moments so I was privileged enough to be at the MCG when the crowd just kept coming for Dustin Martin and the only highlight that was ever going to live from that game was where the DUS and kicked a goal and I got my way through it and if you said to me this is how it’s going to go I’d say yeah I’d take that I’d take that but then you drive home and you think imagine if I’d stumbled on that and that’s the bit that sends me home thinking because there’s that one momentary lapse in a game that’s a 15 goal margin where someone takes Mark of the year and you’re having a sippy of tea or you’re not quite there and that will forever be on the record so the motivator isn’t it I think it is to give yourself the best chance so you can’t guarantee that you’ll meet it but it’s to give yourself the best chance have I done the work that if this presents and you either do or you don’t but did I give myself the best chance to meet that moment so that that’s where that’s where I’ve learned to live with it and rationalize it and it’s also why um I’ll never be underprepared is that’s a I’m a you’ll be shocked to know that I’m a compulsive preparer I’m an over prep chronic over preparer but it just makes me feel more comfortable I can tell that and I can tell that by that’s why I wanted to get you in because I can tell by listening to you how much preparation you must do the average person will just think oh well he just gets up there on wait for 3 hours and I can tell with certain things you do how much preparation before we go back to where all this started this is the first time you’re going to have to put your Hall of Fame advice to the test if I was to say to you what is your because I’ve got a strong idea as a listener what is your greatest strength as a live sports broadcaster what would you say it is as he smiles nervously yeah um so I am largely reluctant to answer that but in the spirit of where we are I like the idea of telling the story in totality so if for me if I’ve called the moment or the game well whatever gets written about it a day after a week after is actually in the call because you know the strands you know what will last you can place it instantly in its in its historic context uh as well as the the actual live moment so that the accuracy is that’s the fundamental and then everything else is the layers but yeah so my hope in these things is to be able to tell you the complete story in the shortest amount of time in the broadcast and then we can all extrapolate and and glow over it in the aftermath and tell stories about it but the essence of that is actually in the call so that that was that’s my aspiration for it I think for me you’re the thing that I listen to and I think my God the man is eloquent in in the moment where people that haven’t done our job won’t understand you do not have time to select adjectives out of a file in your brain and some of the ad adjectives you use which not AB adjectives will that you use which we’ll get to later on the NFL is to me you use words that I think I might have called the same moment and it just has not crossed my mind to use the level of word smithery that you sometimes have the ab not always have the ability to pull from your mind that that’s the bit I love so I would describe um I collect words right read as broadly as possible and just see a word and go oh yeah one day and then so it is a little bit of a you keep a catalog mentally and then you reach for something what do you reach for who’s to say but if you happen to have collected a word along the way and you reach for it in the right moment then that’s that’s the satisfying part to me and in a way that’s the playful part of it as well is yeah can can you can you add something to it or um can you give something that’s distinct so it’s it’s all words for me that the the language is a beautiful and Broad thing I don’t understand why you wouldn’t use it as as as broadly as possible it still has to be accessible but um there there’s all sorts of different ways of playing with those moments so yeah I have a uh I would never have them written down but somewhere in the back of your mind is um you know black caviar’s annihilating stride or the art of misdirection or just something that you will have read and collected over the years that you’ll go that’s what this is I can see it and that’s what matches that so not not shoehorning something in on top of it but going that’s that’s what it is and do you have do you have a you must have a I think everybody that does their job must have some level of the ability to read and store I think you must be above average like were you above average in your um written subjects at school or information to read and then store yes yes it’s probably not a great so English English Lit history essays that yeah that that’s that’s me and I really wanted to be a writer first and the most satisfying thing I’ve got to do is write the black caviar book so yeah it’s it’s all the language and it’s all the words and then in what sort of different ways can you use it yeah that’s the most appealing part of it to me and it’s also the most uh for me it’s the most creative part of it and and I’m really clear on everyone should do it their own way it’ be awful if we all did it the same way have you ever tried to do it someone else’s no no that’s the I however I got to that early on um and then I remember Dennis kedy talking to me once and saying you found your own voice and that sort of that was very reassuring is you don’t want to be a poor imitation of somebody else find your own style and live or die by that and he and that would have been in the oh it’s 10 or 12 years ago and he was very kind to say that and that was sort of really reassuring that okay so uh this will be my way and it’s not for everyone um but maybe it maybe it can find its place first ever recorded episode not the first release first recorded episode was Dennis kitti I went to where they used to say it stay at seven I think it’s the high on a Friday lunch time and he’s now it was seven years ago he’s like what’s a podcast I’m like Dennis I don’t really know he said what’s the CT I said the how he games she said I don’t think that’s going to fly um I he was probably right about that so we we’re talking about Sport and you growing up I want to know about you as a young Sportsman because a lot of people wouldn’t know the great Adam White puts on uh the meteor 11 versus the MCC over there at the Albert one of the great CRI Grands and I’ve had the pleasure of standing at Mid off watching you wheel away for a very economical six or seven over spell of bowling well what were you bowling G straight breaks straight breaks were you a cricketer a footballer a soccer player a basketballer I’m not talking watching I’m talking about playing as a kid I was a cricketer but that is really overstating right so my I was quite lucky is when we would play our cricket they were still small bats and every Park cricketer thinks they can hit the ball for six and very few could correct I suspect with the new bats they can all do it and so I would come on to bowl and You’ put long off long on deep backward square and deep midwicket all out all out and then and in our funny little media games you’d win the bowling because everyone thinks they can hit the ball for six but they can’t and so that that was what I traded on no so I was a really stodgy opening batsman I tell me your best day tell me your best day with bat in hand no time for modesty I I don’t think there is a best be my most memorable day was probably I was as well set as I’d ever been playing Cricket but it was better loosen Up’s Cox plate day oh no and dad had promised to take me and I had to be out at a certain time right and without a word of a li I know friends will tell you this story I jumped down the Pitch hit the offs spinner straight up in the air got caught walked off grabbed my gear got straight in the car and went and people went oh jeez really cracky sads there that was the time I had to be out to be able to get to Mooney Valley it’s Balo that was the probably the first horse I ever loved and I wasn’t missing that for anything so that tells you something about my dedication to my career did you play footy only no only in um uh probably not after primary school I was just too small and too scared right too small and too scared I’ve played a few social games which have been super fun and we had a season playing indoor footy out just over the Westgate bridge I used to play that with hat and Adam White great so as a stay at home full forward when no one else would stay at home full forward it’s just amazing how many goals you could get so as a stay at home full forward now this might be a stretch of the of the of the footballers you’ve caught big four fours in your time who’s the nearest comparison to G whle deep fora little forward Pockets squibs who just want to count goals are you going to name any of those I’m not sure there’s ever been one there you could never in any but we we strategically worked out that no one would stay at home and defend so we would play Revolution we would play one short at the contest as soon as we got a forward it would be a goal and then I rolled my ankle and did all the ligaments in it one day and that was it I am not playing to get injured how we’re here to talk about the Olympics at some point I had my nose broken in a semifinal out at Alona and people that played out there will know how fun this game was 2 days before getting on the plane to Athens and the pain I experienced from Melbourne to Singapore with a broken nose was not a good leading get asked to play a social game these days and you have to recognize where you are I’m nearly 50 you go I can feel my achilles grumbling already I’m not I’m not well did a horrible thing to his ankle a couple years ago years M so I never had any delusions I only ever wanted to call Sport not place and did you want to do that as a kid y you did y why um well I can I can pin it down to a day sitting at the footy and I was young very young and dad said to me imagine if they paid you to be here and that is the that’s the seed of an idea um and then we grew up in an area where um Peter the Grand and Clark Hansen were both in our Parish area and they were doing it so it wasn’t this abstract idea of um that guy on the Telly or that guy on the radio is there were these two guys who I would see regularly who were doing it so yeah um and then you know pursued that uh along the way I didn’t I probably thought I would be a newspaper journal and writer and then opportunities opened up that I knew I wanted um and sort of work relentlessly to be ready for it were you because you would be the same as me you get um which is it warms my heart and it’s very kind and I think well I’m not sure I can help you here but you would have a lot of youngsters email you message you text you um Etc about how they could get into sports broadcasting were you Ray W Ray Ray Warren came on this show and he was talking about commentating marbles down his hallway out in the sticks in uh country New South Wales did you were you practicing I did exactly that what have you got for me what so what were you calling first so this was the age of green was stylish century black was Dr Grace red was vro green would have been better loosen up white was superimposed so they were they were actually little billiard balls I must have had a mini pool table and and so you would line them up and roll them down and call them through so yeah as I I’ve heard Ray tell that storying I was doing the same thing did you out no oh gee now that would be a how games exclusive if you could have got those fours so it it it was on your mind but as you said um you got into um the writing paper and reading a bit and you’ve worked with Tommy a lot so he told me a few things I’m very keen to explore your early writing days and your non sports writing and some of the stuff you were doing so did you get one of the old school Cadet ships I did straight out of year 12 so how old are you 18 uh 18 didn’t have a license started at the herald son in the first week of January near in the old building on flers Street what’s your first memories of your first day rolling in did you have your mom would have bought your tie or where’ you go with yes I think I had um I might it might have been the age of the cartoon characters on ties I reckon you didn’t R I re I might had might have had a Mickey Mouse tie or something like that this is right at the start of the 90s so maybe um and it was it’s it was a terrific program at the herald son because you would spend the first 18 months moving through different departments and so you do uh I worked on the weekly times for a six weeks Cattle Sales after to the cattle sales what would have been the first thing that you wrote that was in the paper uh it was a lost dog story it was the classic picture story this is a dog that’s been found go and right about that and when you saw your name yeah in the paper no it’s a big moment when your first byy line is published and then I recall hang on Cattle Sales I want to know what you know about something tell me something about a cow that I won’t know from your Cattle sales department so out to the auctions top prices what could you tell so Ed Ganon who it might still be the editor of the weekly times he took me out and showed me the ropes um police rounds so there’s a couple of really strong memories early on police rounds you would work as the cadet the midnight till dawn shift there the PM edition of the paper how does that work what’s you’d have the office was on S Road you would have a police scanner which would rotate through all the different police frequencies and it was stop it would stop when there was action on one of the frequencies sounds exciting so then you would listen and go what’s going on here so there was a night where outside the old glass house yeah a petrol tanker rolled and exploded and SEC Road was right there so I beat the emergency services to the scene and the the whole side of the glass house was blown out the truck was on fire the road was on fire the petrol was running down into the era so the bank and the river itself were on fire and so sort of stand and observe that for a couple of hours and talk to everyone Witnesses and um police and fies and then file for the PM edition of The Herald son which so front page story uh and then it gets developed on from there but you you get that moment and did you get what cuz I’ve never I’ve worked in a news room but I was more you cat up the tree or um UFO story so did did you get this feeling that journalists talk about when you are around a big story an adrenaline rush definitely and you want to be as close as you can to it to observe and to document you’re pretty close you duck tie on fire I remember uh there was a a Siege an overnight Siege in a house in a suburb and racing to the scene and getting inside the before the police cordoned off the area being inside that Precinct and thinking what the hell am I doing here but once you’re in you’re in right and to sit there and observe it all night as with a view of the house and a view of the police activity around it and watch it develop knowing that you’re going to write about it the next morning I remember working um one night there was a this is imprecise but an escaped was in forner park and the photographer and I prison escap yep the prison and the um photographer and I are there and she found him she found the escap and we directed the police over to where he was um so you in those instances and particularly working midnight till dawn um you were very close yes to it and wrote the story about the herald son photographer who found who the police were looking for and did you have days mornings when you’re going back home where you like it must be a very police spend a lot of time with police I think because they have experiences a lot of us can’t relate to as a Young Man were you having experiences or seeing things that took a while to wash away from you yeah so I was on the banks of the marabon when a body got dragged out that had been bowling balled so 1 two three through the temple and that was the work of alons ganitano bowling ball bowling ball right um and being there when it was pulled out talking to the police there was so you’re seeing the dead body yeah there was a bale Justice who was there who in time it turned out was sort of tied into the ganitano story that was the peak of the the Gangland Wars and just having that the slightest glimpse into that so yeah that that was the first dead body that I saw and and because of the way you would do the job is once it was on the police scanner what was going on you could be there in a Flash uh and observing what was going on before really anyone else knew what was happening so yeah that that was the that was the job it was I I’d never intended that to be my profession so I was only moving through that I’m probably talking about a 12 week period where so much would happen yeah and your morning your the last job of your morning was to ring every police station in Victoria there was a in the police rounds building there was a list of every police station in every town with the number and your job was to do the ring around and ask every office what’s happened overnight and th things have changed so much now it’s all sanitized through liaison offices and that but you would directly ring the station and you would they would know who you were they would know when your call was coming and they would tell you this has happened in our region overnight and it was either newsworthy or not and then and you the last job was to complete the ring around and Tope it all up and send it to the chief of staff he a great story and people will listen to you and watch you now think wow I had no idea who did this so so you you did your Cal sales cattle I think I’m getting C wrong cattle s you police rounds what else did you because you got into entertainment which want to talk to you about and I did movies now now this this because when we get to the player profile I’ll ask you about your favorite movies so what’s the key G to writing a good movie review and what what were the ones that you saw that made an imp so this is the differentiating factor I wasn’t the reviewer I was the writer so I would do the interviews um with directors and stars and then you know I say with big stars big stars yeah was this the day when they put you on a plane or over to interview Steven Spielberg oh here we go here’s a nice couple of name drops yeah so this is my this is my name drop segment right keep the only time I’ll do it no no we mate I love a name drop so you fly to La flight to La h no so that was London Saving Private Ryan which was Spielberg’s passion project and it was his chance at his Oscar he’d made the movie for his father I was the chief movie writer at the herald son biggest newspaper in the southern hemisphere so when Australia got access to Steven Spielberg it was a it it was then passed on to the Harald son to do and that was my position to do it so how long do you get with him you fly to London an hour an hour in a hotel room in London just there that’s a long time um I was a child of Spielberg all of his movies ET that’s my vintage um and everyone’s got a lot invested in so the movie company this is their one go at Spielberg in Australia it’s been years in the making for them it’s a huge badge of honor that they get this interview and then you get the responsibility of doing it and the hope is that you produce something that people will then read and go and see the movie are they in the room no it was an incredibly intimate experience um and that was particularly as a newspaper Journal rather than any setup with cameras or so you would record but not with radio gear is you would get the the genuine one-on-one time so you would get 45 minutes with Jack Nicholson um unfettered uh yeah so it was how was Jack he was Jack so I couldn’t tell you what Jack Nicholson is really like but Jack Nicholson playing Jack Nicholson it was it was an incredible show to witness it was a great copy to be able to work with is my memory and right I was so satisfying to see so my memory of it is I’m getting a little bit old I say um he wore this black shirt with uh flames and so the effect was you would sit at him and his head was coming out of these massive Flames it was an amazing visual effect um and then again if You’ done the research and knew what you wanted to um what you wanted to explore so I would guess that they would do sort of 5 minute television blocks and you would get exactly the same five minutes because it you just have to get the quotes that go on the Today’s Show this is what we need to tell you about the movie but doing a newspaper piece allowed you to explore a whole lot of different stuff so you’d need the nuts and Bows but then the challenge was to find all this other material to be able to write an interesting piece and that was if you did it right you would engage the subject because they weren’t getting that from anywhere else they were just getting the same conversation over and over and they know they they totally understand what it is it’s to feed the beast to get people to go and see the movie buy the tickets and but if you could give them a different conversation and then you would have richer material to work with to try to write a good piece and that’s so my memory of the Spielberg setup was I spent a lot of time talking about his father and his relationship with his father and the most recent movie he’s made is very much about that indeed it is um so to see that was sort of to go back to that moment and and with um with Nicholson my memory is having read somebody talk about about the way that he created each character um and if you could engage them in a in an interesting conversation and something that they were creatively up for you could actually get some really good stuff so that that was always the the benefit of getting a long period of time and being a writer was that opportunity and that that was the most satisfying part of it and you obviously had your eye on sport yeah still so where do you first what your first spy is it the radio or when you moved into the no so it was at the paper so um I wanted a broad um base of Journalism I do feel like is when people ask you I feel like that is that is such a good way to approach it not just to know Sports journalism but to know journalism and as sport has evolved is everything in um in general journalism is in sport there’s crime there’s politics there’s courts it’s all there so if you did have a a sound base that you could brings something other than the locker room mentality to it particularly as people who haven’t played then that was the best grounding I found so I would work a sixth shift at the herald Sun for the Sunday Herald sun which they are very generous to let me do so I would cover Saturday Football Saturday races um Cricket in the cricket season and get to write what amounted to a column on Sunday which was as I say incredibly generous that I was able to do that as a probably just out of my Cadet ship so I always had an eye towards sport but I wasn’t in a rush to get there full time so this is now when we enter the first bit of vision I have here so when you speak to people that been in the industry for a while Timmy hoders of the world Tommy Tommy wasn’t aware of this clip young Tommy you will know what the clip is as we get to it but this clip we’re about to show it was very hard to get hold of very hard to get a hold of I spoke to the cameraman that shot this Jared Pinder and you’ll in the side of shot Johnny K Johnny car was the audio Guru I rang quarters he said I’ve seen it but I don’t know where it is but we got hold of it so you found it we’ve I found this and this it’s not in chronological order what I’m going to play to you I don’t know how long it is since you’ve seen this but this as a young man that had been working overseas on Formula 1 came home around the Olympic time this is my first memory of Jared Whitley so you need to you can give me the backstory because Penny gave it to me but this this is uh April 2000 there’s a lot of controversy about Colonial Stadium I think Hatchi had called it Death Valley he nearly lost his job with Mr Stokes you’re on channel 10 news and you’re Crossing back to the great Steven quartermain and you are rudely interrupted roll the videotape Tommy the issues with the turf and the poor Public Image at Colonial so it’s been uh long awaited here we’re about to be thrown off here if you can believe this quarters the two issues which have been uh resolved here today are the best seats in the house will now be uh uh sold first by Ticket Master and UHA will be asked to address their ticking issues quarters I can’t believe this the we are hoping the clubs will leave happier here today that was Ian Collin’s suggestion and uh I suppose the whole issue is that we are better for the fans why Ki why is he kicking you out apparent we have been here all afternoon quarters have been guarded by security guards on level three all day and we’re now being thrown off okay well Jared looks like the problems with colonal aren’t over yet so make sure you get that guy’s name and number leave you good on you Jared Whitley out there at Colonial stadium that was Johnny K popping up what’s it like to look back and what are your memories of that that is that is classic tell you can take your headphones off now that that’s classic TV channel 10 style yeah so that was very odd I’ve got lots of different memories that so that’s really early on that might be week three on the job I re at Channel 10 you’ve got your big break so I’ve started at the beginning of the footy season so that’s 99 yes yeah and that’s week three I reckon so they had all sorts of problems getting people into Colonial with all the new ticking that was done and you couldn’t do walk UPS and it was really a disaster Colonial being Marvel for those young listeners tuning in now they had involving everybody and I and Collins was in charge and we’d been there covering the summit all day and there wasn’t a hint that we shouldn’t have been there we absolutely should have been there and we’d been right to be there all day and then I can vividly recall I started the cross and I’m new to that and there’s a lot going I can see I can see this security guard getting really edgy and I’m thinking oh this is about to unravel badly so I’m trying to concentrate and you didn’t miss a Beat by the way you did not miss a beat and then and then he intervenes and you go so it’s a confusing moment so he so for those we’ll put this out on socials but for those that obviously can’t see it he walks directly in front of shot a bit like what happened at the uh Chinese premier’s operation the other day in camera they were blocking you out of shot so sounding the knowledge that we weren’t where we shouldn’t have been so we there were no risks being taken here there no Liberties being taken we’d been there Ian Collins fully knew we were there we’d been serviced throughout the day on a media front very so very unusual and so a few different things happened one I thought at the end of it all I thought oh this security and our guard one day we’ll we’ll both look back at this and laugh and then I saw him again at the Olympics at the soccer olyp the the soccer that was in Melbourne we didn’t laugh about it when we saw each other again well what happened all I remember is we didn’t laugh at that my wife was overseas at the stage at that stage presenting at a medical conference and she couldn’t grasp what was going on so the next morning I’m the lead item on the radio news when the alarm goes off that’s really weird my memory is doing a whole sequence of interviews as the next day unfolded on on FM radio Eddie invited me in on the Footy Show and Mike Shen rang me straight afterwards probably in the hour after so here are my two memories and I’m pretty sure they’re right okay it’s 25 years ago Mike rang me and said that’s the best thing that could have happened to you everyone in footy will now know who you are and the second was I can’t remember whether I tell this in G or whether it’s real but I think it’s real Tony Jones rang Anthony mithan they were the 19 and said to him why didn’t that happen to you I love what you do on weightly um but you need to talk some Formula 1 I told you at the start of the year there’s going to be another Aussie so you’re going to have Ricardo and piastri and you haven’t got your Formula 1 correspondent yet and unfortunately I probably know more as much about Formula 1 as you do about horse racing and it frustrates that contractually I can’t come on and tell you about what happened in Montreal or Monza or Miami or Monaco but I’m going to use a Formula One analogy for you so you are a abbc national broadcaster if you’re calling sport on the radio Cricket or footy you have a national audience and not is it just the capital cities the thing I love about when I listen to the ABC it’s a bloke driving his tractor in out the back of the Maly somewhere or bloke on his Harvester in Northern South Australia I love that about the ABC so you’re there so you are Lewis Hamilton at McLaren and then a BL called Toto wolf in your world Craig Hutcherson Rings you and says right I’ve got this new operation it’s called Mercedes we’ve got we haven’t got much we’re not flying on the track but come here and I can turn this into something incredible so Lewis made that I want to know what hatch’s pitch was to get you out of an iconic media operation into scn at the time is not what SC is now so hatch’s been on this show he can sell more than anyone I know what what was his pitch G yeah so there there’s a there’s a bit that goes into that uh and my time at the Abc was incredible for me um but the signs of them uh drawing back on their Sports coverage were really clear internally and they were externally as well and that was everything from Olympic Games down strange decision so you are in a you’re in a you’re at a point of time where um the the best years of your career are going to marry up with a time where sport has being just drawn back in but the truth is I should have been under contract at the Abc so I was left out of contract which was clumsy and Hatchi came to me in did he know that no no is when he bought he came to me in November yeah well there was an intermediary who came to me intermediary he sent people and I and I said well actually I am out of contract at the end of December I shouldn’t be but I am so that was 6 weeks away so it was a really odd time to be you know coming to an end of a contract and not being and I would have I I should have signed a contract in June or July which would have been three more years but I’d had conversations with Claire that would have been my last contract at the Abc I would have moved I would have looked to do something else in the aftermath of that rather than stay forever after another three years so that was in my mind I wasn’t going to be a laugher there uh and that was just my choice a lot of people wanted to second guess that you go that’s just my choice and um second guess it in what way uh is why would you leave or all this um idea that you’re betrothed there no it’s a it’s a profession um so anyway so it was it was interesting to me but I knocked him back twice in 3 weeks is I just couldn’t figure out how it would work but the there were two aspects to it one was to be able to do something under my own name very modestly named show whitle and your song You’re The Voice did you choose this none of that is me you sure so uses that against me but none of that is my choice okay um and uh the second part he said to me so I was at that time going what would I like to do what would I still like to do and one of my things was I’d really like to go to a Super Bowl um and Hatchi said to me how would you like to call the Super Bowl and go oh yeah yeah that’s he knows what buttons to press a bigy he does he does and then we tell this story privately I don’t know whether we tell it publicly but what we about to uh he didn’t have the rights to call the Super Bowl SC she fingerprints all over so uh we found out a way we figured out a way to make it work um shows and um sports broadcasting and the Super Bowl and then once he had me secure he then used that with the NFL to go well I’ve got this guy to call the Super Bowl how about we do a right deal and he’s working with a Runway of about maybe six weeks to get rights to the Super Bowl for me to go and call genius uh and got it all to line up and so we each knew parts of that story and then we’ve swapped notes um in the aftermath to to Great mirth um yeah so I moved over I did the boxing day test of an Ash’s series at the ABC and then had started on air maybe the last week of January at SC and my second week the Monday of my second week was the Super Bowl so we talk about the Super Bowl I’m going to play some Super Bowl commentary um how much just tell me briefly again we’re coming back to touch on Preparation so anyone that wants to get into sports broadcasting listen to what Jared’s doing to be able to do what he does how much of the NFL season are you watching a lot so I love the sport okay so it’s not that’s not a chore it’s not foreign to me I know it and I understand it but I’ve never thought about what it is to call it okay and I’ve never heard it on radio no as a starting point then when I start to listen to it on radio you go oh my God this sounds so great because it’s a beautifully set up sport it’s a March up and down the field it’s very accessible so for as complicated as it can seem it’s very accessible up and down the field in small chunks and you’re trying to so I started to listen to the playoffs and you go oh I know exactly how to go about doing this which is different to being able to do it but I know how to go about doing this it makes sense to me so I Listen to I watched every game of that playoff series but listen to it on the radio rather than listen to the TV commentary and when you get in the box at the Super Bowl I tell myself some dayss might be Friday footy I got to drive up to do it on Triple and I’m like oh I’m going to sit on the west gate it’s a game that’s not enthusing me and I think hang on you’re getting paid to go and sit with what I would call four or five really close friends and you’re talking about football you don’t want to lose that perspective so I sit there in the World Cup final commentary box sitting thinking how on Earth are they letting me do this like honestly how on Earth are they letting me do this does that hit you prior to a Super Bowl call like you’re a dude from Melbourne yeah yeah no it does is so I don’t have any trouble with that I know it’s the best job in the world uh and even on a game that doesn’t look like it’s going to enthus you it could surprise the hell out of you and there’s nowhere I would rather be I would be there as a fan but as Dad said imagine if they paid you to be there so that’s the like I can’t get enough of sport my day off I’ll go to I’ll go and see something else take the kids to the netball to the basketball go and Siege along playing the footy is and you go how do you watch it all you go I’d be watching it all anyway is I can’t you know I’m I’m watching Prime watching the T20 World Cup I love it whether I’m going to be talking about it or not I would be watching it so I would have to work another job while trying to fit all of this to my passion whack the can on so this we talked about um your eloquence so you are going to use an adjective and you’ll as soon as I say this you’ll know what I’m talking about um this is the 2018 Super Bowl um so the famous New England Patriots are playing with Tom Brady I’m not a massive afficianado of American sport but I I know the basics there’s an adjective you use here that Tommy tells me ends up being printed on t-shirts yep amonda to the left wider out his door set Brady stands ball knocked out of his hands Eagles recover the Eagles get the ball back the script is flipped Tom Brady bed on the turf it has literally been ripped from his grasp the eagles with a five-point lead with 29 left on the clock and that was not what any sports fan around the world expected that has got me up I need to go back and have a look at the highlights so the word bereft what did one adjective do for you and your brand and credibility and an Australian calling an American sport so it’s just funny how something might connect yes um so subsequently when we went back for the next so there’s a couple of different layers to it of you know and I couldn’t say them out loud without sounding like a braggot but so went back the next year to the Super Bowl and that’s when I became aware so stuff would Ripple around on social media and that would come back to every six weeks or so from a Philly radio station or TV or a fan base and it would just revolve B mention yeah bere on the field yes and then when we we got to the next Super Bowl Brian Curtis from the ringer who’s become a great friend um he showed me that the Eagles fans had had the silhouette of Brady printed on the T-shirt with the words bft on the field and this was one of their their fan t-shirts for so that’s cool and then I became aware that the New York Times was delineating one portion of Brady’s career by bere on the field so that finished that and then starts the next sequence you go wow so that’s how the ripple effect of something if you if you frame it in a way that it connects to people so like that’s incredibly gratifying that people would take that to heart and go so that’s in an eagles Fan’s life that might be one of the five Great Moments in sport that they’ve seen and in their mind they’re going that’s the bft on the field moment and you’re the one who’s given them that phrase like that’s in a way that’s the essence of it isn’t it yes everyone just wants one moment or one line that they get it right that truly connects to the and so it’s about them like they love this moment so much and then there’s a phrase that they can attach to it and that’s what they talk to each other about you know so that’s very like that’s cool your radio show um if people aren’t aware you can listen to it on the scn app you can listen to it from 9: to 12 Monday to Thursday on scn I love your guests I love Barat suer popping up and I I loved him when he came on this podcast I love Peter Lawler popping up from New York I love Nathan Buckley and the coaches view Luke hod and and the captain’s view I love crash ktic every Monday but and I’ve told kingy this my favorite hour of radio every week and it tells me everything I need to know about the football is the Monday means test I think it’s radio Brilliance and I’ve told kingy this and I’ve even seen him a photo um I listened to that on a Monday G in my board shorts but in my SAA and I get the Bluetooth going and I get about 25 minutes in before it’s just too hot and I have to get out of the SAA but I love that radio and you I start I I I spoke at the start about how I’m an enormous fan of what you do you’re to be congratulated by the hour and I can understand it comes back to the preparation you’re not just going in there and asking KY some random questions you are going in there tremendously prepared to deliver the best hour of football content I think there is week in week out it’s outstanding that’s very kind thank you it’s going to be a hard image to shake on a Monday from now on all right I got bodies on DG I want you to think of that next time you say that I’m sitting there in morder so it’s the Monday is the best day yes for all the action that happens the chance to then disseminate and distill it understand it Monday’s the best day in sport radio everywhere around the world yes it really is so how to how to bring it all together with the in almost descending order as to what matters what did we learn and how does it relate to from where we were last week so you know you build categories and just Snappy stuff that you go okay that helps you understand exactly why this is what we saw that’s why they they’re in the pressure index and they’re going to have to fight their way out of the pressure anyway it’s just a it’s a mechanism of radio that I think makes it really really Snappy and then the modern world of podcasting is great so we would dump the whole hour on you but now we’ve got much clever of going well if you want to hear about coling with there in the pressure index here’s your four minutes so but you know you cannot give people enough choice in Modern Life so you can have the whole hour with us but if you want to hear about those two teams here’s this one and here’s this one take it for what it’s worth so how much on your typical radio show on a Monday which is your big day because You’ you’ve got your Monday means test there then you’ve got crash so you need to be across I was I was listening the other day on the podcast I do it catchup and you were describing the last five holes that Rory maroy had played now I watched the last three holes of the golf as a fan after I walked the kids to school I know what happened in the golf I wouldn’t have had the amount of research you had up your sleeve to describe Rory’s last five holes and the lipped out Bogey and then something about uh you know that’s putts within a meter he hit 465 in a row so this is what comes to the essence I can listen and understand the amount of preparation that is going into that 3 hours when does that 3 hour like how many games how much of the football are you watching if if if there’s nine games and 100% is every game in its entirety what percentage of football are you watching I’m seeing six at 100% and six games at 100% and three in a different way okay where that’s flicking through it at speed whether it’s watching the mini or whether it’s just understanding what the stories are and then going to those bits and pieces plus you got to be across the Australian swimming trials you got to be across the US Open part of the footy is yes there’s the action but then there’s the like the coach’s press conference I I find them mesmerizing so you watch them so if I’m driving around all all I’m listening to is coaches press conferences just to try to get so what did he say about that and what and that sometimes gives you the thread so you could watch the 2 and a half hours of the game but you go I don’t know it’s about that where do you get time for the howy games man yes you got a lot on your I use my driving time well I use my time on my treadmill well but we’re getting an insight into the level of preparation required and that’s for radio and sometimes you don’t get to something and it nags at me I I I really wanted to hear Luke beverage and I’ve I’ve run out of time um that’s the stuff that will get me out of bed at 2 in the morning to go I’ll just go and listen to that because then I’ll feel better once I’ve heard it and there might be nothing there for me but it was going to nag at me so you could do that you could wake up and go and yeah I just go and satisfy myself that at least now I’ve heard it and then yeah but this is where I’m like the I found the swimming absolutely riveting um so we’d get off 360 and come upstairs and and they seem to have scheduled the main race for 7:32 most nights you know Bang there it is so there’s Molly and Arian striving for the wall together and well I’ve got to understand that and I’ve been deep in um European Athletics Championships so the two- screen strategy I swimming here in athletics on the laptop and yeah so but you can be what was Sunday um uh Australia and Scotland I couldn’t I couldn’t look away from that so North Melbourne and Collingwood starts and I’m going I’ll catch up with that once this is finished because it looks like austral you screening it or what you doing so this was my mistake and so I’m just letting North and Collingwood go and I get a text message and go oh what’s going on here and it’s eight go to one I should have just had the second screen going so then you’re recing it and this is where 7 minutes time anyway yeah yeah so but there’s there’s no substitute for watching it no so you can read about it and you can be told about it but if you live it especially if you live the emotional journey of it well you can’t that actually allows you to be able to convey it you can’t watch the last three minutes of Collingwood North Melbourne and have full perspective on the way North Melbourne played in the first half you had to hear say oh to be a North Melbourne so oh to be a shin boner today to know that at the end you’re going oh to be a shin boner today you want and you want to live that and that’s what um that’s the richest radio material I think is if you can connect with people who lived that journey and then they connect with you so this is you know the first thing of Mondays is just give me a raw response to what you saw well talk about just as raw as it can be talking about the raw response I need to and hat you be happy because I’m going to plugy sponsor The Temper text machine yeah yeah now now this fascinates me because I I I sometimes I’m thinking about getting rid of Twitter yes okay so when I retire one of the great liberators is going to be the first thing I will do will be cancel that I won’t need the source of information anymore no and I won’t need to promote the podcast so that will be me done because I’m not I’m not a natural social media person but it delivers negativity in real time to your doorstep if you allow it to yeah so The Temper text machine again I’m in my car so you know I’m a a listener and you’re talking about umpires on the Monday means test and then you come out of the break and you say now KY The Temper text machine what what’s the what do you have to what’s the number 043 98116 haty I’m giving you that many I’ll never shake that as I’ve never texted into the tber text machine you’re reading one line one message saying whenever you guys talk about umpires it bores me what’s the point they’re not going to change their decision then you read the next message why aren’t you guys talking about the umpiring it was a disgrace over the weekend and and it gave me it gives me an Insight what is it like having realtime feedback into the passions of not just Melbourne in Australia because you’re National now due to well you’re International due to streaming and how do you deal I can tell from kingy because I can tell it must have an effect on him because he’ll say I know ESS and people are going to hate me saying this got that direct feedback in front of him how do you go with direct feedback and you do an amazing job but the job we in I I don’t I haven’t seen the text machine so I don’t know the negativity you get like it’s an absolute phenomenon you could sell subscriptions to the temp of text because it is right to the heart of the way people follow sport rationally and irrationally like it is as pure as it can be so you can get everything from so I can say it’s a beautiful sunny day in Melbourne and someone will text in well that’s just rubbish it’s raining or how can you talk about the sunshine when it causes cancer like this and why are you talking about Melbourne when what’s the the weather in Brisbane is just so much better so I can say I’m 49 and someone will text her and go you’re not 49 this much I’m pretty sure I know so it is an it’s an incredible cross-section of the community have you had to develop a hard shell no so this is where so everyone’s got a different relationship with it so I’ll only talk about mine yes I knew coming into what it was and I was going to be on really good terms with it it amuses me endlessly and I feel like I know when to use it at the right time and I also think there’s a playful aspect to it is when I’ve annoyed people they will call me Gerald I sort of feel like that’s how winking a nod at each other so I don’t know you but if you’ve text through Gerald then I’ve really annoyed you in it yeah yeah and so people are on to that and now then someone will ring and say Gerald and you that’s a bit rude but on the text you go ah respect so that’s that’s one part of it um you you have to be cognizant that people follow sport in a different way that they follow everything else so your Club Allegiance is likely to override if you find the right abusive one in the right tone at the right time it’s I reckon it’s just it’s laugh out loud m so you don’t get me wrong I know you passionately believe this but that’s just making me laugh um you can get some super intelligent stuff so what I’m most interested are those who want to engage in the debate don’t be scared of the debate I’m not asking you to agree with me I’m staging the debate do you want to make a contribution to it don’t be scared of it so the ones I don’t I can’t have the people who go I’m flicking off now and you go well go if you’re not if you’re too challenged by having the debate around holding the ball then this is not the forum for you but inevitably those people they’re still there the next day going I told you yesterday I was going to turn off ah you didn’t turn off back again yeah the Jake fras mger was a great one for that there somebody who just if you talk about Jake fras and mcer I’m gone you’re still talking about Jake fras mger ah you’re still there you’re still there you’re still there yeah so uh it doesn’t put me off but you can’t broadcast to it because I don’t know about you but I’ve never called a radio station in my life I would never call a radio station in my life and I’ve never texted a radio and I would never text a radio station about that’s not me but I’m part of the community yes I’m I’m deeply engaged in the community so that is not representative of everyone it’s representative of very specific people and you can get a really great cross-section but you can’t broadcast to it so the my favorite ones are when you’ll talk about um you’ll talk about Jake fras mcer right and you’ll get it’s the the number of texts is overwhelming they they’re about 16 on a screen at a time and when you’re in full flow on a Monday you won’t even get a chance to look at a screen before they’re gone and so you have to scroll down through them so you get literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and someone will text her you never read my texts and perversely those are the ones I like to read but I just didn’t see a text um so you try to just you’re snatching it I need six that give me the all the different views of this across they go and they’re the ones that you read but there’s just constant flow I’m amazed when you said you said something earlier on that it could be a show in itself I’m amazed that hchi hasn’t managed to to like if you put up a feed on your sen app of the messages coming through somehow I’m just spitballing with you here G it sounds quite captivating how you be listening to this there a dollar sign in it somewhere he’ll figure out a way to do it people don’t realize that their phone number comes through with it okay and quite often the N once the nam’s attached to a number in a computer system the name will come through as well so you aren’t nearly as Anonymous as think you are when you’re sending that through you go I’m not sure I’d be send I’m not sure I’d be publishing that if I were you and then you get that you know the ones who I was going to say is in the Jake phras of MKS up where people you’d get 400 messages in 8 minutes and You’ get one person saying no one’s interested in this boring go I reckon you’re I reckon you’re the one and I totally get that you’re not interested in it but don’t miss the fact that we are so deeply and that’s and so I’ve got the real time evidence I’ve got 400 people who been so mov to participate in this one way or another and one person who’s going no one’s interested in this and I did the um the stats on Thursday night footy the actual facts says published by Channel 7 and somebody texts through and goes 90% of my mates hate Thursday night footy you should get the facts and you go I’m pretty sure those published numbers that measure the audience outweigh your idea that 90% of people hate it so I’m going to say those are the facts that yours isn’t but you passionately believe that with all your heart that’s why you’ve texted through so that’s where it’s it is reflective of sum and the sum is real it is not it’s not all so I can’t broadcast to that one person and stop talking about Jake fras mcer when it’s such a captivating debate across the sporting landscape and you go if I’m not talking about that and it’s one of the three most important well what the hell am I talking about yeah I mate it’s um I I loved that Jake Fraser M discussion full stop to be honest that the way it’s going as we’re going this to air I think your man Andrew McDon who I love on your show had a very good reading of the pitches in the Caribbean and so far David Warner is doing an outstanding job anyway so there’s one there’s one pitch in this tournament that would be totally set up for Jake fras right time Darren Sam was yesterday wasn’t it yes yep you know that’s the one where you’d want him but the rest of it has looked like what crash calls heavy duty World Cup cricket and I love when he talks about that with heavy duty cricketers he was big on keeping marus in the fifth J World Cup he was big on keeping Steve Smith in there but it doesn’t mean we can’t debate no oh no the fun of it and they shouldn’t take us too seriously like you want I’ve said to this to them at the time I you want the whole nation talking about who’s going to play in this T20 World Cup this is a great thing for Cricket as opposed to it being just off Broadway on a streaming service that we don’t really have and we’re not that interested like we were so passionate engaged in the build out to this tournament this is where you don’t have to agree with this and you don’t have to uh you certainly shouldn’t select the team we the way we tell you to because we’ change our mind six times in the next four weeks but I think with coaches right if you let us if you let the football public run coaches you would sack three coaches within the season and the coach that started would actually be Rebellion stated by the end of the year you don’t want to govern to satisfy us but what you do want is if the whole nation is talking about Jake fasen mcer that is a great thing for Cricket absolutely it is absolutely um I’ve taken up a lot of your time the Olympics you’ve called the swimming for the ABC before famously called Kyle Charmers we’ll put that in here Tommy we don’t need to revisit at that moment you get the opportunity to call the Athletics for the nine Network in Paris you’re coming you do it your way but you’re coming off a Bruce mcavan era who has no peer how much work is going in to preparing to call all those athletic events in Paris now now there’s a focus on the Australians but the great thing about Bruce was he would know all the international stories as well and I know your level of professionalism you want to do the same I can’t comprehend the amount of work that will be going into something like this because you’re not watching it day in day out prior to being asked to do this gig you’re not not tuning in I wouldn’t imagine to the diamond League no no I have a working knowledge of it from Big International meetings but uh at the start not more than that um there’s a lot of work going there’s a lot of Athletics playing in our house so I feel like you probably quiz my kids on ATS and they they’d be able to get pretty close on cast and it’s an enormous like AIT and yeah so it feels enormous um but then when they get to the blocks it’s a race and there’s either eight of them in Lanes or there’s 16 of them on the stting line or 22 or so um I will feel more comfortable talking about this in hindsight than I will going in I understand that I hope um so uh learn it know it and then figure out the mechanics of it and then go and do it my way so I I couldn’t I couldn’t do it like Bruce if I tried and I would be mad to try it be disaster too so uh I’m developing the grasp of how I’m going to do it um yeah but I I will I’ve got I’ve got charts everywhere um I’ve watched what do you mean everywhere like stuck on the wall type material in my office um I carry stuff around with me and if I have a spare five minutes waiting to pick one of the girls up from dance just read it just absorb it watch so I’m watching probably the funniest tick I’ve developed is any 100 meter race from any eura from any venue kids race professional race that comes up I’ll watch it they go how quickly can I see who the winner is going to be you’ve got 10 seconds to get him less than 10 seconds to get him from the blocks of the line how quickly can you see the pattern of it where’s your eye going have you practiced calling them uh so I’m not going to answer those questions just yet but I’ll be fully ready to do it it’s been a such an so my favorite part is the research okay this has been the best project I’ve undertaken in years but then you have to deliver against it it would have to be the favorite part because I don’t think you could embark on a project of this breadth and scale and not feel good about the preparation to drop and you’re not on your own that’s the so I’m going into a really wellestablished team yes um tamon and Dave colber have been doing this together for years uh and they I know exactly what they bring to it as a list as a listener as a viewer I love David so I’m I know what my place in that will be when we get together when you’re doing that are you calling the field events as well no no so Dave the field events so he’s going to call the I love his descriptions of when the big Ukrainian Hammer thrower comes out and and and the way the way he can roll into that whole equation so he’s going to call Australian Gold yes um I think it would be a surprise if I ended up calling an Australian Gold yeah so knowing the levels of achievement and success is what would it represent for this Runner to get to a semi-final or a final what’s the history of that in finals and a medal would be just phenomenal for you know a handful of them but also the most exciting part of Athletics is what this team’s going to look like in LA and then specifically what it’s going to look like in Brisbane that’s right the young members of this team are the they they’re the ones so you’re going to get to know Tory Lewis and then you’re going to have a blue chip investment in her cloudy Hollingsworth is wait till you see what’s going to happen here as a down payment for LA and then maybe the full fruition in Brisbane the these thing build across games as Sy Pearson was that Story Kathy Freeman’s that story so I feel like this is in all likelihood the foundation games for the glories that to come on the track that would be my read at the moment I can’t wait to hear you call whack these on for one final time Tommy we need to go to the Andy M special here um Caron coling the MCG August 2022 um if you haven’t seen this check out the scn clip just for our man Andy Mah so I’ve got a question off the back of this but this is G calling incredible magp win over carton I love that and from a commentary perspective the pauses that you had to allow the crowd surge is what you’re trying to do it to pack the MCG take these off now it’s a symphony isn’t it where the crowd’s going and that’s like the MCG we are so blessed that that’s our ground so the Symphony of the crowd is don’t fight the symphony work out how to work work it in now this question I don’t know about your contractual situation so if this hits The Cutting Room FL G 100% I I listen to the way you call that I see the way you call the cricket both on the wireless the obvious question is why am I not seeing you call AFL football on the television or cricket on the television when you work for media companies that have the rights to those events it’s probably not a question for me to answer like you can’t put yourself into these things okay um whenever I’ve met resistance from or bitterness from people as to why I’ve got opportunities you go it’s you can’t you don’t Forge your way into these things and claim them for yourself you have to be entrusted with them and then you have to be rostered to them so that that that’s the easiest answer is uh I haven’t been asked to so it’s not from a lack of want uh no I would like to call Sport on the Telly as time goes on y but that hasn’t been my place okay uh where I’ve worked and um yeah that’s the easiest answer and it’s what I get to do is so fulfilling like I will um you you wait a lifetime for a show like 360 that gets you take to take you through 13 14 15 years so my word and then the theater of the Mind in radio I I I love that yeah so if if the opportunity arose my my position on this has always been the same if the opportunity arose I would love to do it but um that’s that’s for others to choose what do you reckon Tommy should a man be calling on the Telly it’s a big thumbs up from Tommy well I’m not sure we hold much sway here G in the uh television executive landscape but I think it would be a natural thing to happen G we always finish this the same way and I could have gone for another 3 hours but I know you’ve got more Athletics research to do for those young listeners out there that want to achieve success you’ve achieved tremendous success to this point in your career and there’s a lot ahead of you and good luck in Paris I really look forward to listening to you and Dave and Tams and you’ll be a nice quirky combo it would be fantastic what advice would you give to the youngsters out there that are trying to achieve success in their field yeah find what you want and work relentlessly towards it and it’s it’s on you so don’t fear the work embrace the work Don’t Fear The Grind embrace the grind the best part of it is the work and then there’s nothing more satisfying when the work delivers you to what you what you hope to the opportunity um of being at these Great Moments so yeah that that idea of find the job you want and work relentlessly to give yourself the best chance to get it um that that appeals to me and we’ve had in recent times we’ve had last week we’ve had Roger federa and Tom Brady sort of give those insights into are you prepared to work harder than the other people who are striving for it um and when my days are done I’ll know the answer to that for me personally was yes so how much do you want it do you just say you want it or do you really want it so that’s the and that that’s on you so don’t don’t worry about what other people think and say is if you want it go and make it so so I want to come on your show and talk for one so I don’t know who we need to speak to my boss here my uh your boss my producer your producer I want it I’m not just saying it J yeah no and it is a hole there’s a hole you used to have Jeff Harris on back in the day yeah yeah so I’ve thought about this a lot what do you come up with um the races right now are too boring for a weekly slot so we have to break the mon it has to be starting toen I agree Ferrar and then Oscar P’s first Podium you go so that’s the front end of it is if if Oscar is going to be a winning chance six times a year then you want to be well set for the days where that happens well maybe it just if there’s a big event just if there’s a big performance just ring me G just send me a text we’ll come up with some contractual situation and we’ll bring F1 to weightly always ask for forgiveness not permission corre oh I shouldn’t done that should I sorry correct just say Mark how’s on courtesy of the howy games that they’ll be fine G treat to chat with you m travel safely to Paris look forward to the call thanks for joining me on an honor thank you hie good man well done