EAST TEXAS UNFILTERED w/J. Chad Parker: Featuring Bill Coates

East Texas pride runs deep in this episode of East Texas UNFILTERED. J. Chad Parker sits down with Bill Coates, a voice that has been part of Texas radio for decades. Many people may not know his face, but they know his sound. Bill shares how a kid from John Tyler High School chased a dream and made a life in sports broadcasting. From TJC to the University of Texas, his path shows what hard work and small town roots can build.

Bill talks about calling games, covering legends, and watching stars rise from East Texas fields. He has seen legendary athletes like Earl Campbell and Patrick Mahomes before the world knew their names. He explains how radio lets him paint the picture so listeners can feel the game. His story proves that East Texas grows real talent, not just on the field but behind the mic. Be sure to like and subscribe to see more exciting local stories on East Texas UNFILTERED.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You know you're somebody from Tyler when your nickname is the Rose. The Tyler Rose. Oh yeah, and it's name that I'm a fucking coordinator. I'm in negotiation for the city of that chat bullet. Don't get virtual part is no one. I'm trying to figure out which one that we're gonna if we're gonna have to do.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

I think I think it's DGH2. I don't know what do you think if there's a Chad Parker 2, what do you want? Chad Parker, D D H2.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

I don't think I'm gonna have to make that stuff. Welcome to another episode of East Texas Unfilter. Most of his professional life. You may not have seen him or know what he looks like, but when you hear his voice, I know you're gonna know who I'm talking about. Bill Coates, welcome and thanks for being on the show.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

I've been told I have a radio face. That's not a compliment, I don't think, either.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Well, I think when I researched you, Bill, I you've made comments before that uh when your wife first heard you, she thought you were tall and handsome.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Yeah. I told that story here recently. Uh I was fortunate to be inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame, and I told that story. Uh we met in 1991, and uh uh some a friend, a close friend, and his family introduced us. And so before we met in May of that year, she had listened to me on the radio on WBAP, and she told me later that I sounded like I was tall and handsome. Well, not so much, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

But that's okay. I mean, you you have a a very distinctive, you know, uh radio voice, and I guess that's probably why you ended up in radio. That's probably why.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

I started out in television. I actually was a senior at UT, both Longhorns, you and I both Longhorns. And uh I was uh this is the late 70s, and Austin was a town. You remember how cool Austin used to be? Right. You know, 250,000, 300,000 people. It had a small town field. It wasn't crowded. And so uh at that time I'm I'm a senior at UT, uh trying to get a journalism degree, and uh I got an internship at a TV station, the NBC affiliate there in Austin, and uh uh the sports director there and he me and I became close friends, and at that time the market was big but not like it is now. And so they had students who would still work part-time uh that were still in school. And I was probably the last among the last of the Mohicans, so I took an internship there at the station. The next thing I knew, the guy that was doing the weekend sports, six and ten sports, quit. And so I got thrown into the breach and I probably was terrible for but I did that for a couple of years before I got into radio.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Well, I wanted to ask you about your time in Austin. You know, you made mention of it. I I saw you were a journalism major.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Yeah, I was.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

When you went into journalism as a major, did you go in thinking that you were going to be more of a a newspaper reporter or something, or were you always thinking related to sports?

SPEAKER_01 2:56

I I saw pretty early on, and I love sports, Chad. I mean, I played it when I was a kid, but I was never anybody's star athlete. But I just there was something about watching games and the men and women who were actually narrating those games. There was something cool about that to me. I just kind of I just thought that what a neat way to make a living. They actually get paid to go watch games.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

And you heard more radio when you were younger.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

And that, but even on television, I'd sit and my my parents told this story, and I kind of remember doing this. I grew up a cowboy fan, everybody else was, and they were good back in those days, as you well know. And so I would sit at home on Sunday afternoons, turn the TV sound down. I'm just a kid, and I'd kind of try to do the play-by-play a little bit. And my parents, God bless them, they would put up with that stuff. And so I did that off and on, and I just something about it fascinated me. So I kind of knew. I mean, what kid knows at 10 years old what they kind of want to do, but I kind of did. I just thought that was really cool. And I was lucky enough to go off and get a chance to actually do that for a living.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Did you go to Austin specifically for the journalism program? Absolutely. Or was it just that you went there and decided to beat be in it?

SPEAKER_01 4:07

I went there. I went to TJC first. I'm a John Tyler grad, 1975. I was a year I'm a year younger than Earl in that group at one state.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

All right. Were you there when Earl was playing?

SPEAKER_01 4:16

I was there, yeah. Earl and uh his brothers, his twin brothers. We lost him here a few months ago, as a matter of fact, this past year in 2025, the twins. There was a Steve. There's Steve and Tim were twins. They both played it for the Longhorns, too. People forget sometimes that uh his younger brothers were pretty good football players, too.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

You know, that's funny because remember Johnny Lamb, Ham and Jam, John.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Johnny Lam and Yeah, oh yeah. Johnny Lamb, Johnny Ham. All those guys were there at the same time. And they're all brothers. And so no, Ham and Lamb weren't Ham. They weren't? Johnny Ham was from Hamblin. That's the the sports information director at the time at UT, a legend, Jones Ramsey, who once famously said at that period of time there's who sports at the University of Texas, football and spring football. Now that's not the case anymore, but uh he was famous for coming up with names. So they recruited this is after Earl, but they recruited Johnny Lamb. Remember Johnny Lamb Jones? Yes. And he was from Lampasas, Texas, and Johnny Ham was from Hamlin. So they had these two kids named Johnny Jones, and so they needed to figure out a way to distinguish the two of them. And so Jones Ramsey came up with Johnny Lamb and Johnny Ham, and it stuck, particularly Johnny Lamb.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Right. I mean, I thought that was his name.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Oh, yeah. No, it was Johnny Lamb Jones. But yeah, it was so Earl's younger brothers were there, and so I I graduated from John Tyler in 75. Earl's a year older than I am, and many of the best players on that state championship team are guys in my class. I just had my 50th wedding, uh 50th uh high school reunion, and uh we lost Gary, uh we lost um Ronnie Lee here in the last year and a half, but Gary Don Johnson is still alive and well and kicking. And he played for a number of years in the NFL. And there were some dudes on that football team. But anyway, from there I went to TJC and uh was involved there for a couple of years, then went off to Texas. And uh I I went there for journalism to try to be a try to be a sportscaster, Chad.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

What was the uh the college environment like there in the uh in the later 70s when you were there?

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Um man, it was the disco era. I'm older than you are. Vietnam had ended. Had just ended. Had just ended. And um man, I grew up in the in the era when guys were wearing uh leisure suits and bell bottoms and uh platform shoes. Platform shoes.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

And that I don't think you're old enough to remember that, are you? Well, I I think you know, after Saturday Night Fever came out Oh yeah, but it was the Saturday Night Fever era.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

I mean, I rem I remember I had a uh I wanted a white suit for church with platform shoes.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

And I'm sure your mom said not no, but heck no, right? No, I mean she bought it. Did she really and I wore it? I mean Well, I knew I knew your mom I I know your mom and I knew your dad, two wonderful people, by the way, but I can imagine I figured I would I would and your mom actually said yes to that.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yeah, I mean it looked pretty good, but um What about Austin though? Austin, it's the disco era. Uh is the protest In the beginning of Saturday Night Live.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Yeah, that's right. There were protests.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

I mean, was it was it uh UT was an active campus.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

You remember what Guadalupe used to be like, the old days of Austin.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Because I was there in 1986. Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Well it could you still like sit let you use Sixth Street for an example. Could you still actually drive down Sixth Street on Friday night?

SPEAKER_00 7:24

You probably could. You can't anymore. No, right. But when I got there, I think it was after the nineteen eighty-six tax law or something, there was a recession that had started. Because I mean in on Guadeloupe there were empty spaces, commercial spaces, which you'd never find today on the drag.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

They call it the drag. Yeah, absolutely. Now, like Sixth Street is uh and and on the on the east end of the dr of 6th Street, it was you know a little dark down there, man. You could go down there and you didn't know if you were going to there might be somebody lurking around the corner. Now it's like going to the county fair and it's closed down, it's a whole different atmosphere. Austin was quaint at that time. You know, people uh you see these bumper stickers that say keep Austin.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

Austin weird.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

I don't consider Austin as that weird anymore. It's just a big city to me now. It's a great, still a great town. But Austin was weird in those in those era. And when you went there, it was still a weird town. There were still hippies. That's what I was about to say.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

The hippies had migrated to Austin. Yes. They didn't live in Tyler and they didn't live, you know, really.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

There were still people who thought it was the 1960s living on, you know, living in Austin, Texas at that time.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

What about your the journalism school itself? How did it prepare you for radio if it did?

SPEAKER_01 8:38

You know, uh college, my my attitude about college has always been that I wouldn't take for my college degree uh because it forced me to go to school and accomplish something that nobody else could help me with. My parents couldn't do that for me. Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Your homework, the tests.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

I had to go and be my own man. Study. And study and have manage time and do all that stuff. And so I learned things at the University of Texas, but you really I think a lot of people would say that college is something that gets you prepared and teaches you, maybe helps you grow up. But you'd probably tell me this to be a lawyer. You don't really become a lawyer until you become a lawyer. And on a day-to-day basis have to work with people and do what the things. Well, that's the way the broadcasting business is. You can't learn to do play-by-play unless you're doing play-by-play. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

And I think that's why they call it the practice of law is you get an education, but then you have to learn how to put it to practice.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

You learn something I get I'm you I'm sure you learn something every day.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

I mean from all different lawyers. Oh, I see that every day in what I do too. I mean, interviewing people from and doing, you know, the because sports never ch it's always changing. I mean, you can't script the games.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

No, no, you have to research and be prepared, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Absolutely. Yeah, you be prepared, but at the same time, you got to be prepared for being something that happens that's totally unexpected. You can't you can't script the game. Right. I mean, a high school football game on Friday night in East Texas, you can't script that. I mean, when Jake and Patrick were playing for the Wildcats, you didn't know what you were gonna get. You thought you were gonna get a lot of points on a game.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

A lot of wide open offense.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

A lot of but still you didn't know what was gonna come. And that's the that's one of the things I love about doing ball games, is because it's you know totally unscripted. You can prepare for what you're about to see, but then you have to go, man, I didn't expect that.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

It's like picking a jury for a lawyer. Yeah, okay. I don't know what the the panel, the individuals are gonna say to me.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

And I have to be prepared to respond based on what they're saying real time. You can't script that. That's right. Now, you get this job from the journalism school. Is journalism a uh financially beneficial, you know, major at that time? Are you thinking, hey, I'm gonna make some money being a journal journalist major?

SPEAKER_01 10:48

No, I want it I w uh I did it because I wanted to do it. The typical way that I think I tell people all the time that ask me, how do you want to how do you get into this business? I say, well, there is no clear cut route for people who are successful on ESPN or in TV. There's no clear-cut route. Like for an attorney, there's kind of a clear-cut path to the city.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Well, you could go to school, you could get a job with a firm. Go to law school, you've got to do that.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

There's nearly no clear-cut path to doing this. You ha I I tell people I said, well, you know, you going to college is great. You don't have to do that. But you have to get a chance. But you've got to get a chance in a lot of cases, and in my case, my case back in the 70s, I knocked on enough doors that I hit it off with a sports director at the NBC affiliate, and he gave me an internship while I'm still in school.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Aaron Powell, what did that look like day one as before you became the I was a gopher.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

I was uh I did what was needed to do. I helped edit. I would uh do reports for him and different things like that, and just but whatever my my friend Steve Fallon asked me to do. He was the sports director, and that could mean anything from editing to go get scores uh, you know, from ball games so he could include it in his ten o'clock sports cast. But in the meantime, he would let me do it. Did they do their own sports back then?

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Oh, yeah. Like I you know, I've done some interviews where uh Michael Coleman was one of the podcasts we've done, and he he he went to places where they had outsourced their sports to another company.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Not at that time in Austin. I mean all three of the stations at that time you had an NBC, ABC, and CBS affiliate. I was on the NBC affiliate and we did sports casts every night of the week that we produced. And uh, you know, on Saturday nights, I mean, during the football season when Texas was playing, I you know, I got nearly seven minutes on the 10 o'clock new a 30-minute newscast because that was a big deal in Austin. We're in Austin, Texas. Right. It's the long horns. So when they were playing a game, that was the biggest story in Austin that day, period.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

And this was TV. This was TV. And how long was it that you were there as an intern before uh the sports editor quit and you had to step up and get on camera?

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Three or four months.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

All right. I mean it happened quick.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

And you had never yourself done any public speaking or I'd done some public speaking, but there's nothing that can prepares you for being live on a on on a newscast when you're looking at the city. We're about to count you in.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

One, two, three, watch the green light.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Just like we did when we started this podcast. They're sitting there and you're coming out of a commercial break, and uh you're about to go on for the first time. And was I nervous? Heck yes. I was nervous. Oh yeah. I mean, because A, think about think about the times. This was the early days of Saturday Night Live, okay? I'm the sports anchor at about 1025 on the NBC affiliate in Austin, and they're about to go on to Saturday Night Live. We had a big audience. You're leading into Saturday Night Live. Yeah. And we had a big audience. And I knew that, and I'm thinking, oh my goodness, there are a lot of people, you know, are gonna be watching this. So yeah, that yeah, I had to sober up, not sober up like that, but I had to get I had to get focused pretty quick and learn pretty quick not to be terrible on the on TV.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Well, I mean, how long do you think how long did you do that for Austin where you were on television as the weekend sports?

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Oh, a year and a half.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

All right.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

I got into radio in 1980. A man named Ron Rogers at Kvet in Austin came to me and uh he said, Hey, how would you like to do radio? We need a sports director, and um uh here's what we do. We and so I On radio. On radio.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Okay, and so you had kind of worked your way in TV for a year and a half. I thought I was pretty good by that two years in.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

I thought I was pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Developed a routine, were you prepared?

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Yeah, I was I was I think I'd like to think I was a lot better two years later.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

The way you were gonna dress?

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Yeah, the way I dressed, everything uh, you know, and uh I was smoother. I mean, as the years went on, I think I got smoother. But there was something about radio because that went back to my roots. I always wanted to do play by play. How did this person know you or reach out to you to get for you to get in radio? I just I met him one day. We were at a Texas Longhorn football practice or something. His name is Ron Rogers. He just passed away here in the last few days. Uh he was the uh general manager of Kvet Radio. In Austin. In Austin. There was a country station, but they did a lot of news and they were had a big sports presence, and they did a live locker room show after every Texas football and basketball game. And so the chance to do that and to do some play-by-play was more than I could say no to. And so after I took that job, I did daily sports casts on the radio, and I got to do a live locker room show after every Texas football game that with players and coaches, including Fred Akers. Remember Fred Akers?

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Yeah, funny story, yes. Freddie was the was the coach, then well, you know, I walked on at Texas. Yeah, I knew that. I think I knew that. 1986. And Fred was the coach. His last year. His last year. So I mean I knew Fred Akers and I I watched him coach and how things, you know, and it was it's so strange compared to nowadays. Um I couldn't believe that the head coach didn't know the offensive plays, which he didn't. Yeah. He had an offensive coordinator for that, right? Right. But I mean he didn't really seem to know much, and from coming from high school, which was my only perspective, I thought the head coach knew everything. Because he probably had to. And it just seemed like back then, you know, the head coach in Texas, whether we went for it on fourth and one was about the only decision that got made by the by the head coach.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Yeah, no, that's well, you know, I think at that level, even then, being the head coach at a school the size of Texas, you're a coach, but you're also a CEO. Right. And you're also a politician. You're a you're a delegator. You're a politician with the alumni. You bet you are. That's just unique. I think college football's a unique skill set. Matt Brown was the best I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

He was a football coach, politician, and uh and and delegator, and all that stuff at the same time. He's the best combination I've ever seen of doing all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

He was good. And you know, you mentioned Sixth Street. What I remember, you could just walk up to the stadium when I was there. Yeah. And go on the track and jog around the track, jog. Sometimes while practice was going on. I mean, it was totally wide open. Totally wide open. Compared to the way it is too.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

And I would go and Fred ran up, he ran a I think Fred was a good football coach. People don't give him credit.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

I I didn't see much of him other than that windows season of '86.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

You know, we went eleven and oh twice when Fred was the coach and played the national champion for the national championship a couple of times. Some people say he was still playing with Daryl Royal's players. Well, but but after, you know, but he took Earl. Remember, Earl nobody loved Daryl Royal more than me. I didn't know him well, but I got to know him a little bit. But they were running the wishbone. When Freddie took over, they made Earl a tailback and uh split and ran the eye out of the eye for him. The eye of the yeah. And he became Earl Campbell in the eye. In the eye. That's right. And became the number one pick in the draft in a future Hall of Famer because he was the guy. And so that was Fred. And that was that offense that they went to.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

So that was the offensive coordinator. Yeah, well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

But but Fred had to make the call. Right, he had to decide we're gonna decide what we're gonna change. Right. And so uh they played my my first year at Texas. Um I wasn't in the media yet, but remember uh the Longhorns played in the 1977 national championship game. We went 11-0 and played Joe Montana and Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl. And I went to that game as a fan. Cold, cold, cold day, and Montana wore us out that day and beat us. And then three year th four years, five, six years later, they had in 83, they had another 11-0 season and got beat the Cotton Bowl by Georgia. I was there. Yeah, I went to that game too.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Remember, we muffed a punt. Jitter Fields. Yeah. Jitter Fields was the returned man who muffed the punt.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Anyway, so uh anyway, but so had but they still went eleven and oh twice. So Fred Fred was a good coach. And I got to work with him for three years after that. No, this was uh I got to work with him from the in the 80, 81, and 82 seasons, and I saw some pretty good football. He went to Wyoming? No, he was uh he came from Wyoming. He got fired. He came from Wyoming to Texas. Where did he go after Texas? He went to Purdue. Oh, that's right. That's right. Went to Purdue and finished his career there. But he had ten years at Texas, which considering that he followed Royal, that was a pretty good run. It's hard to follow a legend. It is. I mean, the guy who followed Bear Bryant was Ray Perkins, and he didn't last very long. I mean, think about I mean, I like Caleb, the Alabama coach, but considering who he's following, that's got a tough gig, man. I mean, that's John Saban. That's hard.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

The Lane Kiffin move looks good in that respect. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Don't follow the legend. Follow the guy who follows the legend. And Fred followed a legend and did did well with it.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Or go when the team is down. Go when the team is down. Now, you get over to Dallas in the early 80s on radio. How did that job come about?

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Well, I just I mean, they came to me and I was I guess I'd been at it long enough that people are starting to know who I was, and uh I'd met a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Is there a group or an association where you guys, that is, radio people know each other? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Oh, yeah. It's like any other pos it's it's like any other profession, Chad. You get to know guys in your profession and they like your work. In different markets. And and so uh Dallas was a bigger market than Austin, and I got a chance to go to WBAP, couldn't say no. And I got to go to WBAP. I was the morning sports anchor with uh uh a couple of radio guys named Hal Jay and Dick Siegel, and I did that for eight and a half years. And also while I was there got to do TCU football and basketball, and I got to do the maths for five years. So I mean so I got to do some of that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

I mean, you're you're kind of learning the sports, right? If you're doing football and basketball. Oh, yeah. What what I'm curious about is just these these radio stations you've worked at, were you ever called upon to be a disc jockey?

SPEAKER_01 20:37

No, I didn't. No, I never did that WBAP the I what when uh The country station. I will I will dial you back a little bit. When I first the first time I ever keyed a microphone, there's two two different places here in Tyler that if when I was in junior college for part-time work, I went with a guy named Jim Buck who was doing uh he was a stockbroker here in town and he did Robert E. Lee football on the radio. This is in the late 70s when I was at Tyler Junior College.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Kind of like a Roger Nunley type that's just doing it as a second job.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

I was in this case, it was not a job. I was just a volunteer, just a kid who went along and was their spotter, helped him do stuff, carry equipment, and I got to do the halftime show, okay, on those Robert E. Lee football games. And at the same time, I had a part-time job at KNUE, uh now a country station, has been 1015, has been a country station for many years. You got to spend some discs. But at that time it was it played easy listening music. You remember what easy listening is? Henry Mancini records. Yeah, yeah. Stuff like that. So I got them six o'clock on Saturday to one o'clock. Absolutely. Yeah, stuff like that. Messina and logging. So I was kind of I was I don't say I'm really a disc jockey, but I worked late Saturday evenings, kind of cut into my social life, but I would spin records and do do stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

You got to do a lot of things in the eighties, and then what was it that opened up an opportunity to come back to Tyler? Well, I got I left WBAP.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

In 1980, 1991. And I'd always thought that I wanted to own a radio station. And I always thought that I loved radio enough that I could get into sales too. So I when I left WBAP, I came back here. I was still able to do some on-air stuff. David Smoke was here at the time, and he and I were teammates here for a long time here.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Where did you come back to?

SPEAKER_01 22:23

KTBB Radio. Okay, you watched you at 34 years. Same place. Same place. We're now news and talk on 97.5 for KTBB and then the Team Sports Radio, which is where uh 92.1 FM, which is the called the Team Sports Radio. That's you and Kevin Simon. Kevin Simon. That's our show in the afternoons from four to six. So I'm on both radio stations, but primarily on the team doing that afternoon radio show. But I came back here because I was able to still do some on-air stuff, but also do sales.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Just an uh I guess a sales uh ad sales. Yeah. Yeah. Ad sales is just part of the job for somebody. And you just did that.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

I mean, you deal with ad ad people all the time doing what you do. You've done a little stuff, some stuff with us in the past. Right. So you know what I'm talking about. I do. So I do that stuff. I mean, that's why I still do a lot of that stuff. I'm the sports director for the two radio stations, and I do do ad sales.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Now, 92.1 uh is that a station owned by Paul Gleiser? Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

We are owned locally. Uh Paul owns uh uh KTBB and the Team Sports Radio and has for 30 years. I mean he and I both of them? Both of them. We pretty much been together. He and I pretty much been together the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Because 92.1 was not always ESPN affiliate.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Oh no, no, no. We became uh we were we played uh uh some we we played uh uh originally before Paul bought it, it was once upon a time a country station. That's what I remember. It was called I think the Rose, maybe, or K Rose, I believe, a long time ago. 92.1. Years and years ago it was K Rose. But um it has been uh uh it has uh it was briefly kind of a talk station, and then we started playing oldies, and we were pretty successful with the oldies, but we decided that to really take that station to where we wanted it to be, uh we we needed to go to all sports because there's a market for that out there. Sports stations are not exclusively men, but mostly guys listen to sports talk, and so uh it was an opportunity for us to hit a niche, and so we did. That's been uh been 15 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

All right. Um The sports talk is you and Kevin Simon. Right. Um Chris, let's let's pull up that uh we've got a picture of Kevin and Bill. Not necessarily I don't know if you're doing the sports talk in this moment, but he's he's got the shirt on.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

Yeah, we are doing uh we're at I think Big 12 Media Days, probably at A, I think that's where we were at ATT Stadium in Dallas when that picture was taken. That's a preseason football gathering that the conferences all do for f before football season, done in July every year, where they get together and all the coaches and they bring players together in one location, and you get a chance to hear from all the coaches from the Southeastern Conference, which we go to every year, or the Big Twelve or whatever, and I'm sure we were there. And so I you know, I have I got that stupid grin on my face there because we were posing for a picture that I think Phil Hicks from the Title Morning Telegraph took.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

I think but this is your uh your partner that's my partner, Kevin Simon. And has been uh sports talk which runs every day of the week or at least Monday through Friday, four to six. Now, where do you broadcast that from?

SPEAKER_01 25:32

From all kinds of places. Like as we record today, we're gonna be at Road City Draft House tonight. You know, we move around to a lot of different places. Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

I mean, I I can sponsors different places. I can remember you being different places.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

I interviewed you one day. We were at Texas Music City Grill over on Old Jackson, Ohio. You talked about Mahomes for a while.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

I did. I remember that interview. And and so that's been that show for all these years.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

For all these years, yes, sir.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Um now what do you what are your job duties or what do you do for KTBB?

SPEAKER_01 25:59

I do uh well, I mean, I'm the sports director, so I'll do reports. I do sales, number one, but I also do reports on the for the morning show. We have a morning show from six to eight every day.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Where they'll read sports.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

So I'll do reports that run, you know, little package stories that'll run in in the sports casts and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

When you say run, that's the host reads the story.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Either that or he'll run my little recorded version of it. Sometimes I'll record something and put it on there. All right. But uh Jeff Rourke is our morning anchor and he he does his own sports, but I'll have little little features, if you will, that run in those sports casts.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

I mean, do you still broadcast um live much of anything, say, today? I mean, other than sports talk?

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Uh there's nothing going on today other than sports talk. But I mean, just let's just go back to the case. But later this week, okay. But later this week, on Wednesday night of the week we're recording this, I'll do a TJC men's basketball game on Wednesday and Thursday UT Tighter uh they have a men's women's men's doubleheader on Thursday night at the Harrington Patriots Center. So we do TJC's football and basketball. We do some UT titler basketball, we do the high school football, you know that. Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

And uh I mean you're out there at Trinity Mother Francis.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Oh yeah, gosh. All every practically every Friday night in the fall. Just about every Friday night.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

You've seen a lot of good athletes because you've witnessed the games firsthand. Yeah. Right? And I've read stuff about you and some of your quotes about what you do. Uh you've got a canvas, you say. Yeah. And it's your job to paint a picture.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Well, think about radio. You can't see, there's no there's no video there. So um one thing I love really love about radio is that you are you are looking at either your radio or your app, however you but you're not you don't see the picture.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Or you're just listening.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

You're listening. And so our job is if you're if you're doing trying to do play-by-play, your job is to paint the picture. So that people could imagine themselves seeing it there. Right. So when Mahomes and Parker, or Jake Parker, your son was were playing or something. You never did the White House games. I didn't do the Brian Houston did those White House games in those days. He did a great job with it too, by the way. Um but anyway, you know, I'm my job is to describe that uh, you know, the Wildcats have it first and ten at the 40-yard line, they're going right to left, and uh, you know, they've got uh you know Mahomes is in a shotgun, they got a running back, and the Parker boys are one split left.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

The coach is trying to get a timeout on the other sideline.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Absolutely. But the ball is snapped, Mahomes is rolling out to the right. These are things you don't see on TV because you can see all that. On radio, you're supposed to describe that. And Patrick is on the run and he throws a pass, and Jake catches it 15 yards downfield for a first down. I mean, that's we're supposed to try to paint that picture for you.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

You mentioned Mahomes, of course, and obviously I'm familiar with him and you are too, but I'm sure you've seen a lot of other great athletes in football and basketball in some of the games you've covered. Let's talk about you know, you've talked a little bit about uh what was John Tyler, right? Earl's years, but you mentioned TJC. TJC basketball. What kind of athletes have you seen come through there in your time?

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Well, I mean, uh the junior college athletics, people sometimes downgrade UCO athletics, and that's wrong because what happens, the junior colleges get Division I talent. For some reason, those kids grades sometimes it's a different bunch of different reasons. Right, but it can be a great athlete that sometimes it's grades. Sometimes it might have been a discipline issue that the kids trying to trying to grow up. Right. But there are also cases Cam Newton where well, I was going to get to Cam here in a moment, but there's there the junior college you get others. Some kids you get that play in junior college athletics were overlooked because there are more they're just not enough, there are not enough jobs or more players than there are jobs. And the measurables have taken over college football. You'll get kids at the junior college level sometimes who are great athletes and great football players or basketball players, but they didn't, A didn't get recruited sometimes because they played on a bad team, right? You know, and didn't get and didn't get noticed. Maybe the offense doesn't showcase a receiver. Or maybe the quarterback is 6'1 instead of 6'4. Right. You know, and he didn't get recruited, but he can still play, and you see it every day. Baker Mayfield's not 6'4. He's pretty darn good. Yeah. You know, now Patrick fit the measurables, but remember the way Patrick was recruited, he got overlooked because he didn't really become a quarterback full time until what his junior year at White House. That's right. So Kingsbury, Cliff Kingsbury of Texas Tech was on him from the beginning, but Patrick was considered what, a three-star maybe coming out of White House?

SPEAKER_00 30:48

Yeah, I mean, a story along those lines is I actually took Patrick to LSU junior day. Yeah. Okay. As you mentioned. Yeah. And they did not know who he was.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Didn't know who he was.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

That's when you say overlooked, that's exactly. Yeah. I mean, can you imagine Les Miles now saying, what?

SPEAKER_01 31:03

What that happens to all coaches.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

And Patrick wanted to play baseball, and LSU had one of the best baseball teams. SMU, he wanted to go to SMU. They didn't have a baseball team.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

They didn't have a baseball team.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Yeah. But there's other guys. I mean, we've seen guys in basketball like I remember this dude named Prince Bridges back in the day.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

I I remember the name. I didn't I don't think I saw. Who did he play for?

SPEAKER_00 31:24

TJ City. TJ City. I don't know where they and then he went on to Missouri.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

They've had great players come through all those schools and people kind of forget them. Yeah. Jimmy Butler. I remember Jimmy Butler now. And uh some of those guys. Here's the bet uh you you was asking me uh in my years of doing football at at uh at Rose Stadium, the best players I've ever personally seen out there would include Earl, would include Mahomes, would include Aaron Ross. Yeah played in the NFL went to Texas, won a national championship and two Super Bowls, would have included Cam Newton, who played at Blyn Junior College. That's right. I'd never seen anything like him. He was kind of 6'4 fast, he could throw it. Oh, he was a man among boys, and that's hard to say in that league. And a kid named Reggie McNeil, who played at Lufkin High School. I don't know if you remember Reggie. I don't know. Reggie played for the Aggies after he left Lufkin. He won a state championship in 2001 for Lufkin. And uh people he was born ten years too early, probably a little bit like Manzell. Right. Uh but Reggie McNeil was born a decade too early because he was a dual threat guy in an era when coaches wanted their quarterbacks to drop back and throw it. Reggie McNeil today, he'd be the number one pick in the draft. Remember, he went to Texas AM and he had some great games down there, but they were trying to fit a square peg and a round hole, and R. C. Slocum's the coach, and Mahomes, I mean, and uh and Reggie was really not that drop back guy. He was the dual threat guy that now coaches drool over today.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Yeah, I mean that's the uh the prototype is no longer Peyton Manning. Not really.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

I mean you get those guys, you love those guys, but the prototype now is that kid who can move around out there. Caleb Williams. Yeah. Right. Well, and Patrick kind of sa has sort of been one of the runners for that.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

He's a deceptive runner.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Yeah. He is a deceptive runner, but he's what I've always thought about Patrick was I think Patrick's baseball background has made him an as one of the reasons he's such a great quarterback. He sees the field.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

Baseball basketball as well.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

Right. And don't you if you're a baseball player, if you're a shortstop, which is I understand the position you really love to play the most. Am I right about that?

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Yeah, I mean he for outfield. Well, I mean, if he was a little wild, he always could throw hard. Oh gosh. But he likely, if he'd gone to the major leagues, the plan was for him to play right field. Yeah. Because from the throw from right field for third base.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

But but a baseball player has to see the be able to see the whole big picture.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

I see a bunch of basketball moves in him on the football field.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Well, that and that sidearm throw that everybody drills over, that's nothing but a short style making the throw for the basketball.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

And the no-look pass.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

Yeah, the no-look pass. That's baseball stuff.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Basketball.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

That's basketball.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

That's basketball. Yeah, I mean, I'm saying he's incorporated all three of those things.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

I think his real gift is, is that he is able to is his mind. And now he's God gave him a lightning bullet for a right arm. God bless him. But he also, I think what he has up here.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Smarter than most people realize.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

Even have any idea how smart that kid is.

SPEAKER_00 34:21

Now you've also said that uh in your career nobody's had more fun than you.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

Yeah. Right? I've had a lot of fun. I've never claimed to be the best, but I've had a lot of fun doing it.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

Trevor Burrus, but I mean, uh you know, people talk all the time it's not work if it's fun. Yeah. Right? It doesn't feel like work, does it?

SPEAKER_01 34:37

Now, there have been days I've worked hard, but I've never felt like I worked a day in my life. Paul Gleiser.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

Yeah, Paul Gleiser's on you. Hey Bill, can't we get some ad revenues?

SPEAKER_01 34:45

Oh yeah. No, no, no. There's always stress. But as far as dreading, as far as you know, people I've never looked at the clock at three o'clock in the afternoon and said, Oh man, do I have to stay here another two hours before I get to go home? I've never done that, Chad, because there's always been something coming up that I've had a chance. You know, I got a show to do at four o'clock, so I've never had that I've never I I've I'm thankful that I've never looked at the clock at three o'clock in the afternoon and said, Dad gummit, I've got to stay two more hours.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Never have done that. Right, but that is a commitment, though, because if you have a show every weekday from four to six, there has to be some preparation and setup. Right. I mean, you just can't go over there and just start talking.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

I'll leave here and go to my my next location. We'll start prepping for the show this afternoon. Yeah. Try to prep for the show.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

But you've also got uh, you know, gone to some interesting places like Super Bowls, I presume. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

I think we've got a photo of you and uh, you know, Earl. Oh, yeah. And Emmett and uh Tony Dorsett, and in your sidekick over there, Kevin Simon.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

Well, that was uh Arizona, I think it was Super Bowl 57, I think. Anyway, so the way that went down, um the we knew we were going to get Earl and Tony Dorsett. They were in a documentary uh that was being made. There have been only a handful of players in NFL history that won the Heisman and made it to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. That's a short list. Ryan Stahlbach is one of them, but there's a short list of those guys. Charles Woodson is one of those guys. There's about maybe ten of them, okay, in the history of football that have done both. And you're looking at two of them right there. And Emmett, we knew Emmett was coming on uh because he was there promoting Herodura tequila, okay?

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Well, he's got a bottle of Herodura a nah under his arm.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

So Emmett shows up first. We knew we were about to get Emmett at about 10 o'clock in the morning on a Thursday. We knew Emmett was going to be there. We knew we were getting Earl and Tony, we just didn't know when. So I'm sitting there, like I'm like we're doing right now. We're interviewing Emmett, talking football, talking about the Cowboys, and the next thing I know out of the corner of my eye here, I could see that wheelchair coming up, and here comes Earl. So Earl and Tony sit down, and off for 10 minutes, I had even Emmett was a little bit, I it's the uh dirtest thing I've ever been a part of, and I've had a chance to interview a lot of people, but I looked at Kevin, I'm going, I'm not believing we've got this panel. Think about the running backs, think about those three dudes. Right. You got three Hall of Famers. Even Emmett was a little taken aback. He looked at me and he said, Man, there's a lot of yardage represented here. I mean, right.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Emmett's Emmett's the overall leader.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

Emmett's the leader. Dorsett's got 11,000 or something, and Earl for eight years was the best player in the NFL. I mean, period. You know?

SPEAKER_00 37:24

Earl's kind of secluded now a little bit, isn't he?

SPEAKER_01 37:26

His health is not. I mean, he's he's his mind is great, but he doesn't get around very well. So he I don't know if secluded's the right word. Earl gets out, but he had he rides that scooter most of the time.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

But he's he's more I've heard he's he's a little more shy about interviews, things like that.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

It's kind of hard to get to Earl sometimes. But it's interesting when he comes into a room that people still stop and look.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

Oh, for sure. They know who he is. I've talked to him, you know, he shows up at the Juneteenth Association parade in Tyler every year. He's a part of the truckers group. And so I've seen him uh probably two or three times just you know sitting out there and um he's very accessible.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

And I've been in a room with him, and when he wheeled in, people go, Wow, you know. I mean, I I I've seen people go, dang, that's Earl Campbell. Well that's pretty cool. I mean, you know, besides. But that was a fun, that was a fun morning. That was about 15 minutes of just really cool and a once-in-a-lifetime deal to get those three dudes together.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

I mean, you know, with you know you're somebody from Tyler when your nickname is the Rose, right? The Tyler Rose. Yeah, oh yeah. I mean, that's what the city named after you. The city, right, Earl Campbell Parkway, right?

SPEAKER_01 38:37

I mean an award named after you.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

I'm in negotiations with the city about Jay Chad Parker. Don't get hurt twice, Boulevard. Is that what you're doing? I mean, that's well, I'm trying to figure out which one that we're gonna we're gonna have.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

I think I'd go with DGH2. I don't know. What do you think? What do you if if there's a Chad Parker Street, what do you want? Jay Chad Parker or DGH two?

SPEAKER_00 38:57

I don't know if there's gonna I don't think I'm gonna have to make that choice, Bill.

unknown 39:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

That's a good choice, though. That'd be fun. But anyway, that was a fun that that was weird as we take that right at the end of the interview. Kevin and I are both still going, dang, did that just happen?

SPEAKER_00 39:10

Seriously. So what other players, you know, that that are you know meaningful to you, interesting, surprised that you got to talk to? Have you got to talk to?

SPEAKER_01 39:19

Well, a bunch of uh a bunch of at those Super Bowl radio rows. I mean, I've talked to everybody from Joe Montana to Joe Namath and um you know from Archie Manning to Olivia Manning, their mom, to uh, you know, all kinds of Hall of Fame guys that were really cool. Uh uh Roger, I mean, you know, and uh uh uh heck, I don't know from everybody from Rocky Blyer, if that name means anything to you. Vietnam veteran played for the Steelers. Right. Interviewed Brad Shaw, I've interviewed Aikman, I mean, all those guys, a lot of people. But I will tell you who the most, the last time I was nervous about an interview was uh about four years ago, Gleiser and I flew to Montana and I interviewed former astronaut Frank Borman. We interviewed former astronaut Frank Borman.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Does that name ring a bell? I mean, just generally, I uh obviously he he survived his tenure as an astronaut. Apollo 8.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

Um you you were you were just a pup.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

I was born in 67.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

So you were so you you don't remember this, but in 1968, um, and this the last time that hair stood up on my meeting one of those guys been to the moon. I mean, that's a that's a small that is a uh short list of men who been to the moon.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

Why are you and Paul going out to interview him in the first place?

SPEAKER_01 40:28

Because we're both space freaks, and we were Paul was doing a feature on uh the Apollo program, the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, and we were just doing this, had nothing to do with sports. This was he he was going to do this interview and he said, Coatesy, why don't you go with me because I know how you are? And so I just bat I basically just went with him, Chad, just because it was fun to do. I just wanted to go and meet Frank Mormon.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

I'm assuming that you guys believe that we actually landed on the moon, and I'm gonna do that. You know, there's that internet debate out there. And so, but uh specifically, if I had my hands on a guy to talk to that he had been to the moon, right? Yeah, well he what what happened on the moon? Or did he did he just circle the moon?

SPEAKER_01 41:09

So in 1968, the reason we went to uh the uh the moon in the first place was because of the Cold War. The Russians launched Sputnik, and that started all of that. Right. We had to beat him to the moon. I was a history major. So in 1968, uh bad year in American history. You think times are bad now? 1968, Bobby Kennedy gets shot, Martin Luther King's assassinated, George Wallace was shot.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

Malcolm X.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

All that stuff was going. I'm sure that was 68 or not. I don't think that was close in there. It was turbulent times. It was. But we're also in 1968, we're in a full-blown rush, uh war with the Rush Cold War, trying to beat the Russians to the moon. So in 1968, apparently uh one of our spy satellites saw the Russians had built a rocket big enough to go to the moon. And so we were afraid they would take a shot, even though they weren't ready. We were afraid they were gonna try the Hell Mary and just send a couple of guys there just to say they could. So they accelerated uh Apollo eight was originally not planned to do that, but they decided on Christmas of 1968 they would launch Apollo eight without the lunar module, which is the landing vehicle. They were just gonna send that darn thing to the moon and do 10 laps. They sent it without the lunar module and basically untested. A lot of the stuff that they did on that flight had never been done before. So those three men were seriously taking their putting their lives on the line for their country. Bormann was the commander of the mission. So they were the first human beings ever to leave Earth's orbit to fly outside of, you know, uh outside of our gravitational pool. Right. And they went to the moon, they did 10 laps, did not land. But if you've ever Googled it or YouTube it on the Christmas Eve night, 1968, they read from Genesis. Is that right? And it's yeah, I mean, it'll still to this day it kind of gets you. If you listen to it, and that was Frank Borman. And uh to meet him, I'm telling you, man, it still to this day, yeah, it still does something to me.

SPEAKER_00 43:08

Did did Gleiser ask him if he saw any UFOs or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 43:12

I don't think he did. No, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 43:13

I don't know. I don't know what Paul's bent is on that. There's so much of that in the news recently.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

I know.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Right? All the uh there's a lot coming out, you know, about what's going on. And there's several of that. Yes. And there's several astronauts that have talked about that publicly. And so I don't think we ask him about that.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

I don't, you know, I i uh uh what was the movie the there was a movie made several years ago that uh Jody Foster said uh movie Contact.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

Matthew McConaughey was in that.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

Right. And so the her famous quote in that movie was if there's nobody else out there, it seems like an awful waste of space. So are there other are there a uh are there is there life on other planets? I tend to think yes.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

There's no way I would not have asked Frank Borman that question if I had access to it.

SPEAKER_01 43:56

I don't remember whether Paul did or not. I can't remember. We spent about an hour with Frank. Frank and we did a long interview. I don't know whether he was a believer in in extraterrestrial life or not. Well just curious. Most of those guys seemed to think that there had to be something out there. I think a lot of them felt that way because they had been out there far enough that go, man, this is I mean, you know, we're just in a s a speck. I mean, there's all this I mean, i an infinite universe out there. How could there not be somebody else out there?

SPEAKER_00 44:24

Well, let's talk about uh, you know, some of the awards. And I just want to ask you about them, and then you tell me, you know, kind of in a short form what they are. Okay so we can get a good understanding of the things that you've accomplished and the awards that you've got, you know, because I mean that says something about a career that's that's you know been almost what 40 years? Forty years.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

Well, I've been doing this since 1978, so whatever the math is on that. 22 plus 26 is nearly 50 now.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

You're a six-time winner uh AP Associated Press. Now, I don't know for what, is that Best Sportscaster? What is that?

SPEAKER_01 44:56

I think it was the Best Sports Cast Award, which is one of those three or four minute morning updates that we would do. So done that was that's kind of cool to do. So yes, that's what that's about.

SPEAKER_00 45:07

And and AP, though, that's is that Associated Press. That's national.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

Yeah, and then now the AP quit doing that, so now the Texas Association of Broadcasters do it in the state of Texas now, and I've had an opportunity to win a couple of those too.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

Well, the Dallas Press Club gave you the Katie Award in '88. I don't know what that is.

SPEAKER_01 45:24

It is uh it's the Dallas Press Club's Oscars, I guess if you want to call it that, for the DFW media in that area. And I was working at WBAP at the time, and it was one of those morning sports updates that I did on the Howland Dick show. Got a cool little thing in my office. It kind of looks like it's Katie. It's uh a lady, kind of like looks a little bit like uh the Oscar only a female form, yeah. Only a female version of Oscar, I guess. How about that?

SPEAKER_00 45:48

Ultimately, you made reference to this earlier. You were uh inducted into the uh Texas Radio Hall of Fame.

SPEAKER_01 45:55

Back in November, yes, sir.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

Um you know, you in your business, I mean, how does one get you know put up for that award? Is that just everybody eventually who's in radio, or is this a real honor?

SPEAKER_01 46:05

Aaron Ross Powell Well, I'd like to think it's a real honor. Uh I was you had to be nominated, and then they have a panel that votes, and so there were 20 of us in this particular class, and so I got voted in. So I'd like to think it's a big deal, but uh but I had to be nominated. I can't nominate myself, so I had to be nominated, and they had some people had to vote for me.

SPEAKER_00 46:22

Had you ever been nominated before?

SPEAKER_01 46:24

Uh one other year before last I was nominated. Um just kind of like the Pro Football Hall of Fame. You don't always get in? No, I don't guess. I mean I learned I was nominated the year before and didn't get in. I'd think much about it. I'm going, wow, I'm honored to be nominated. And then this past year I got in. So wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Were you working at KTBB when Paul Gleiser bought the uh radio station?

SPEAKER_01 46:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 46:45

Okay, so you came with the station.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

Right. I kind of did we and uh he and I got to to East Texas about the same time. I had moved I'm from Tyler, but I had moved back to Tyler in 91, and he bought at that time KDOK radio.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

I remember that. It was AM, wasn't it? AM, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:00

He bought that station. Was that out on the East Loop? I think it was at that time. You know, that kind of that East Loop that that play that little It's grown up around that area with a huge antenna. Right. We still uh we still have part of our antenna there. I think we still own part of that property, but not the building. And I don't think we own I'm not sure I don't think we own the building, but the building's been condemned and we don't own that. But uh the tower, we still use that tower out there and um rent that uh or have uh maybe uh I I'm not sure whether Paul owns that little piece of property or uh or not. But um but yeah, he uh he owned KDOK and and he kind of when KTBB, the man who owned KTBB and KTYL at the time, he had some financial issues and went into bankruptcy. Paul bought KTBB AM six hundred out of bankruptcy, and uh we got lucky because at about that same time along comes a guy named Rush Limbaum.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

Right.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

Who changed talk radio.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

And he did it, he was had a show forever.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Right, and he he proved that talk radio was was viable instead of playing records, okay? Exclusively playing records. Radio had always been leading up to that had always been about playing music.

SPEAKER_00 48:16

With a few news breaks spread in there.

SPEAKER_01 48:19

And so nobody had ever done talk radio in the daytime instead of playing records, okay? Did he do it on 600 a.m.? He did he originally was on another station in town, but we got the we got rush. But anyway, we just we saw pretty early on that we thought the talk format was going to amount to something. So we started doing talk radio and then later added Rush Limbaugh, and that solidified what we were trying to do.

SPEAKER_00 48:45

How do you get a show like that as a broadcaster?

SPEAKER_01 48:47

Well, in that particular case, Paul bought the stations that he was on at the time and uh bought the show. Got the show in the radio stations. He bought literally bought the radio two radio stations in order to get Rush Limbaugh so we could build all of our midday programming around the babe Ruth of the genre, because that's what he is. He was the original guy that proved that instead of playing records on the radio, you could like we're doing right now, that you could actually talk and people would pay attention and listen to people talking on the radio about everything from sports to politics. Because that was a long show. Yes, three hours every day. And it was, you know, conservative bent. Still, yeah, still yeah. And so from there, Rush passed away. We lost him two, three years ago. Uh he had lung cancer, but uh out of that has come all of the the other men and women who do it now.

SPEAKER_00 49:38

That's right. I just wonder about the the economics and and how this all works. You know, does a radio station have to pay for the content like the show to be on there?

SPEAKER_01 49:50

Radio radio programs are paid for in two different ways. You can either pay money or you can pay with inventory. You can give the syndicator part of your inventory advertising revenue. And so in most cases, that's the way it's done. You don't necessarily write them a check, you give them X amount of spots per week that they go and they've got their own Salesforce if they're a national company. And they run anything they want in those spots. And we run that, and that's how we pay for some of that programming. And it works. It's it's a very good model. We have plenty of leftover inventory we can sell ourselves, but they uh that that's a lot of the way that kind of thing done. It's kind of a barter system in that they make their money by their own sales force going out and selling the inventory to national advertisers. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 50:39

Because it'd be hard for all radio stations, even smaller ones, to to pay to have a show like that. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 50:46

Right. No. Now we paid for Rush. I think we there was money changed hands there, but a lot of the shows are done on a barter basis in that we give them inventory and they sell it and they make their money that way. And it works. It's a very workable format.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

Aaron Powell, Jr. You know, somebody looking uh to get into the business like you've done, as we talked about earlier, and and and they're listening to us, they're probably wondering, you know, how would I get paid? What would be my sources of income? Would I have to be on the radio? Would I be in ad sales? Would I do all of it? What would I do? Trevor Burrus, Jr.: I've done all of it.

SPEAKER_01 51:15

So uh and that's that's been my been my model all these years. But most radio stations have an on-air staff people who just do that. Right. And then they have salespeople who just do that. We've been able in a market this size, we're a medium market, we're not Dallas Fort Worth. That doesn't go on in the big markets much, I don't think. But in a market of our size, there's room for me to go out and busy with clients and multitask, which I do.

SPEAKER_00 51:42

Try to do. But I mean, are you able to make money for yourself, you know, as a salesperson? Yes, absolutely. When you secure ad sales?

SPEAKER_01 51:49

Yes, absolutely. I mean, wouldn't be doing it if I couldn't. No, that's part of the part of the deal. I mean, you know, the uh uh I tell people all the time that uh I I've always loved radio and I love talk radio because we are it our audience is engaged. If you're listening to our radio stations, you're engaged. I'm paying for you, you're paying attention. Uh we cannot be background music, like some you know, music stations, God bless them, easy listening. But you might not be paying that much attention. You know the song is on, but you're not really engaged. If you're listening to talk radio, uh if you're listening to KTBB and uh conservative talk show host is on, you're either agreeing or disagreeing with him, right? Or her.

SPEAKER_00 52:29

Oh, you're listening.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

But you're listening, okay. And the same thing we hope with sports. If you're listening to a uh a sports cast or a sports talk in the afternoon or a Rangers game on a Tuesday night during the baseball season, you're listening, you're paying attention.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

Now, the listeners you mentioned. Yeah. How how does radio um keep track um of you know somewhat s similar to Nielsen ratings or how do how do you sell yourself that you've got anybody listening?

SPEAKER_01 53:02

Well, not everybody subscribes to the ratings, but we do uh we are part of it, it's called uh uh Nielsen Audio now. And uh uh it uh they they basically take a st twice a year in this market, I think the way they're still doing it, they take a statistical sample over about a three-month period of time in the spring and the fall. And they will uh send out uh basically recruit people to try to keep a diary days of Nielsen. Right.

SPEAKER_00 53:30

Where people actually had a diary at home.

SPEAKER_01 53:32

Yeah, yeah. So they might keep a diary and they would uh uh you know as best they can try to recreate what they've been listening to, and so it's to a statistical sample for the Tyler Longview area of, say, a thousand people. And it's like any any poll, like a political poll or any other poll that you do, you're trying to take a statistical sample and project the whole uh market over a s a stat sample. And it's not it's not perfect, but it's the best we've got.

SPEAKER_00 54:01

Right. It's it's it's hard to sample that.

SPEAKER_01 54:03

It's it's it's hard. Political samples are not always correct. They're pretty good, but they're so that's the best we've got. It's pretty good because those people at uh that do those that run that company are very they're they're very uh stick they're sticklers about what they will actually count. For instance, as somebody that works in the radio business, it is illegal for me to ever I've had them mail me a diary and say, Would you like to keep a diary? And I have to say no, I can't because I work at one of those radio stations.

SPEAKER_00 54:34

You have a conflict.

SPEAKER_01 54:35

A big conflict. Now, you know, you don't think any of us that work in the business wouldn't love to keep a diary and put our own station down? Can't do that. Right. They're not supposed to be doing that. But so they're trying to do the best they can to take a legitimate statistical sample of the market to give people an idea, you know, who's listening to what and how often.

SPEAKER_00 54:52

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Radio is complicated, it would seem, because uh, you know, unlike a car, there's a radio in a car, right? You're not you're not watching TV driving down the road. We still own the car dashboard.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

So uh you need to not be surfing the internet when you're driving. So we still own that car dash.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

So they're sporadic listeners, I guess, in some way, shape, or form, which is hard to measure.

SPEAKER_01 55:11

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well, there are a lot of things that uh the the audience the the the ratings measure. One of those ratings, one of those things that they measure is called time spent listening, which means that like in TV, how long viewing how long do you how if you're you know when you go home this afternoon, Chad? I mean, how if whatever you're listening to, how long do you listen to it? What's your drive home? How long might you listen to a radio station in the course of a day?

SPEAKER_00 55:34

I mean My attention span is too short.

SPEAKER_01 55:36

Well, I understand that, but you know, but so people don't necessarily listen, then you know, like for a football game. You're not probably not going to sit and listen to a game for three straight hours. No. But you're gonna listen to the I don't even watch three straight hours.

SPEAKER_00 55:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 55:48

And so you listen for a while, then you gotta do something. You'll check back in, you'll go check back in. That's why we give the scores off as often as we do to keep people. But talk stations generally are very high in time spent listening. People that are listening to talk radio generally stay on that radio. They they it's the only station, perhaps the only station they have tuned into because when they are on the radio, when they do get in the car and they do have time to listen to the radio, they're listening to that station. And talk stations index higher than any other stations in that area. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 56:18

What about uh consolidation in the radio industry over the last thirty years? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 56:23

Well, it's it's changed everything. Some of these big companies have struggled. It's hard enough to run two radio stations, much less own a thousand of them.

SPEAKER_00 56:31

Right. That seems like you know, in my adult lifetime, you've heard things like Clear Channel, oh, yeah. You've heard Odyssey gobbling up all these radio stations.

SPEAKER_01 56:43

And then putting program, common programming on all of those, which defeats the whole purpose of what local radio is supposed to be all about. Right. I grew up in an era when we had local dish jockeys who looked out the window and they could say, It's raining today in Longview. You know? Right. You could really you knew they were looking out the window and doing that. They they spun records and you could call them and talk to them, and and we try to do that at the KTBB and the team. We try to have local programming as much as possible. It's not all, some we have syndicated programming too, but we have that our show in the afternoon. Um we have a morning show and an afternoon show on KTBB. We do local news every hour, uh, every half hour we have updates. We try to have as much local as we can absolutely put on because that's the heart of radio. And if you've got a thousand radio stations you're trying to manage and you pay too much for them and you're having a hard time making your loan note, it's real hard to have good people doing what they need to be doing.

SPEAKER_00 57:43

Well, give us an example of a syndicated responsibility that, you know, KTBB or 92.1 might have. Like what does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 57:52

Well, I mean, we run uh let's use 92.1 FM the team every day. We run uh a morning show that we get. We're affiliated with Fox, okay, Fox Sports now.

SPEAKER_02 58:01

Right.

SPEAKER_01 58:02

We get a morning show and then we get the Dan Patrick Show every day from 8 to 11.

SPEAKER_00 58:06

When you say you get it, does that mean you have to pay for it?

SPEAKER_01 58:09

We we we we pay for it with barter.

SPEAKER_00 58:11

Okay, and barter, you you give them spots for national plugs.

SPEAKER_01 58:16

From eight to eleven, uh we have Dan Patrick, who uh is on, and then from eleven to two, I got him Colin Calher. Yeah, he's gotten big ones. He's on absolutely and then from two to five, Doug Gottlieb is on. Right. And so from two to four, we hear Gottlieb his last hour, we're on.

SPEAKER_00 58:33

So he's kind of a basketball game.

SPEAKER_01 58:35

He was yeah, he's about to leave that deal and go is going to focus on his basketball job for for now. He's the head coach at Wisconsin Green Bay. But uh so that those are syndicated shows, and then after we go off the air at night at six, then we'll have some play-by-play, or we have syndicated shows from CBS radio that uh comes on at night from six to midnight, you know, depending on what's going on that night.

SPEAKER_00 58:59

In your career, you know, um like in in my growing up, there was there was no cell phones. No. Okay. There was no such thing as a streaming service. Nope. And so those two at least those two things have come into the marketplace while you've been a radio man. Yeah. How have those things changed the way that radio has to operate?

SPEAKER_01 59:21

I'm not sure the the TV version of it's changed us much. We uh used to, you know, of course, XM and Sirius merged a few years ago. Now that would be considered competition, but it's never really impacted us. People who listen that want local stuff listen to us, but they might also listen to Sirius XM radio if they want to, you know, want to listen to something else. So we've not been impacted that much by that. Now, TV local affiliates have been greatly impacted by uh by some of this stuff because if you watch one of these shows, I saw CBS. Um they're they're uh debuting a new show called Marshalls. It's a spin off of Yellowstone. Do you watch Yellowstone? Yes, oh yeah. Well they got a new the the Casey who was John Dutton's son is a Marshall now. He's on CBS and they're advertising the heck out of that, but they're also saying you can also stream it on Paramount Plus, which to me they're cheating their affiliates, in my opinion, because they're saying you don't have to watch, you don't have to watch it live. You don't have to worry about watching your local affiliate because heck you can go get it on Paramount Plus. You don't have to watch TV, it's available for you there.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:28

And depending on We don't have to deal with that. Depending on how CBS acquired the rights to show Marshalls, uh they may have be hurting in ad sales if everybody's watching it on Paramount Plus.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:38

Yeah, well they're just looking to, you know, it's another know the revenue stream for them. But I think it can't I think it's they're doing their affiliates, their local affiliates. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

The local affiliates won't be able to sell advertising. It'll be more difficult if someone could just go to Paramount Plus.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:54

I don't know their business and how they're doing, but I know that uh to me, what they're saying to their the people out there are you don't have to actually watch this station. You can watch Marshalls anytime you want to on Paramount Plus. And I think that's a disservice. We haven't had to deal with that.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:07

All right. So you're insulated. There's there's one. One of the changes that radio's been insulated from is is what you just said.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:14

Trevor Burrus, Well, we've been impacted by stuff just like anybody else. The internet, social media impacts using the case.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:19

Mark Cuban Mark Cuban's business. Wasn't it a sports? His original business was Internet broadcasting of games.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:27

Yeah, Internet broadcasting of games. Because you know, he lived in Dallas and wanted to hear Indiana basketball. He thought, well, heck, if I want to hear it, there's bound to be a lot of other people out there that want to hear their team's games. And so, yeah, that he kind of invented an industry with a laptop computer, basically. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:43

Mark Cuban's probably pretty excited about uh Fernando Mendoza and and Indiana in the playoffs. Yeah, I think he's I think he's an Indiana grad. I'm sure he is. I wonder if he's an NIL contributor.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:54

I don't know. I don't know if anybody's asked him about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:57

Because he's got the kind of money to do it to make a team or help a team go from two years ago to where they are today.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:06

I I speak to a lot of rotary clubs and stuff like that because they like to talk sports. And you know, when I first started, we covered games. We didn't cover too much of the off-the-field stuff. Right now, it's a lot of off-the-field stuff, but think about how the world has changed now. The uh the three the four teams that are in the college football semifinals, three of them have never won a national championship. And none none of the four are the so-called blue bloods. Miami has won one before, and they're a well-known program, but they're not. But think about it Oregon, Indiana, and um who am I overlooking? Oregon, Indiana, and uh Ole Miss. None of those three have ever won a national championship in football before. Yes, and they all beat Blue Bloods to get there. I mean, Ole Miss beat Alabama. You know, uh of course Oregon, you know, had to get through Texas Tech, but Oregon beat, you know, but Ohio State lost to um uh lost to Oregon. Oregon uh no, who beat Ohio State the other night? Um Miami. It goes so fast that I forget who played who. Alabama lost to Indiana and Ole Miss beat Georgia. Those are all blue blood programs and they all got beat. That's all because of the NIL the transfer portal.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:16

Right. I mean it's free agency now.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:18

It's free agency, total free agency. I mean, it's great for the fans. Great, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:22

But I'm not sure I'm you can buy a team now.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:24

I'd be curious to see what the TV ratings look like that, because I would submit to you that most people that the average college football fan out there, even though they won't admit it, they like seeing Alabama, Texas, Georgia, Notre Dame, Michigan, Michigan, all Ohio State, all those big blue blood programs. You will they will they watch Oregon, Ole Miss, Miami, and Indiana?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

Well it's funny that the West Coast, UCLA and USC really have no participation in much of this.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:51

Oh, not yet. I mean USC didn't make the playoffs, nor has UCLA. Now, Oregon is the big power on the West Coast right now because they've got Phil Knight. Think about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:01

Everybody's gotta have a whale.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:02

Everybody's gotta have a whale.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:03

Texas Tech's got a whale.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:04

They've got a couple of whales. Oregon's got uh Phil Knight. I don't know who Indiana's big big backers are, but they may Cuban might be one of them. I don't know. But the if you've got a good coach and some NIL money, you can you can go play college football now.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:18

Well, this is a you know, change is what we're talking about in industry, in football, in TV, and radio. What do you think, Bill, uh the future of radio is with the technology advances and the way people live going forward?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:34

Well, we hope that the future is good because we think we have a unique product. We have talk radio. But again, our biggest competitor now is not TV, it's not XM, it's probably social media. There are a lot of other ways to consume news now, okay?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:49

And uh, you know, social the problem with social media is there is no buffer and there is no accountability. We are we have to we have a license given to us by the Federal Communications Commission. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:05

You can't say certain things.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:06

I can't go on the air this afternoon and drop certain words, okay, without getting in big trouble. But no, there is no on social media, there's a there's no accountability. You can say whatever you want to say and report whatever you want to report. Now you hurt your credibility, but there's no there's no there's no uh punishment for that.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:27

What about content like uh could you and I go on KTBB or and talk about anything we wanted to so long as we didn't use profanity?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:36

Or does the FCC have some you know monitoring system where they're we have to prove every year that we serve the public, the public interest. Could I go on this this afternoon and say that um just out of the blue say boy the Russians have you know uh you know the the Russians have gone all out into Ukraine Crane now. I mean, you know, Putin has called off the dogs and he's gone crazy and and they're, you know, World War III has started.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:06

We can't do that. But what what's different about that than, you know, opinion news versus real news?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:15

Credibility. Right. I mean, like now there's so much editorializing. I can give my opinion, but I can't just go on the air this afternoon out of the for shock value and say the Cowboys fired Brian Schottenheimer today.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:30

I don't mean shock value. I mean, you know, a controversial issue where, you know, um people are disagreeing on what it means, what it is, you know, because Gleiser himself puts a lot of content out himself. Does he not?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:45

And he but he makes it very clear that that's an opinion, and his the the the title of his that segment is You Tell Me, he's inviting your opinion back. He makes it very clear that that's an opinion. He doesn't claim it to be fact. And so that's what we do in the afternoon on sports talk. We issue opinions. I think the Cowboys are a poorly run football team, okay? You know? Sorry, Bill, that's defamation. But I can't I but I can't sit there and say that uh go and say that Jerry Jones is uh uh not a good general manager because he's some kind of alcoholic.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:20

I mean I can't say that.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:22

Right. But I mean what you're saying is even with an FCC license, you can go on and provide opinion content content for the radio. But I can't yell fire in a theater.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:32

Right. Well, yeah, it's the same First Amendment issues. There's got to be some but there's got to be accountability, and if we go overboard, it's theoretically possible for us to lose our license.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:44

What about political advertising?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:46

And there is no license on social media. There is no license for so anybody can get on and say anything. There's no accountability and there's no measurement. We're measured. We talked about it earlier. We have a rating service that kind of measures who's actually listening to us. You know, you now on social media, they all brag about all these hits and all this other stuff. Well, you don't know where how that stuff is coming, all these millions of views and whether this stuff's legit or not.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:12

You think it is? Well, I mean everything in TV and radio and social media is meant to be the basis for an advertising charge. Right, absolutely. I mean, that's the whole game, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:25

I mean, but we actually have a company that is that is licensed. The FCC has I mean, the uh Nielsen Audio uh that rates, you know, the the the folks who rate TV and radio stations, they have a formula. They go about it in a statistical way. Is it perfect? No. But they have a formula that goes out there and there's some credibility from years and years of doing it attached. There is no credibility on some of this social media stuff out there. Right. It's just whatever they say it's whatever they say it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:56

My question is really more about can a politician, a political ad be purchased and put on KTBB? Or is there some FCC prohibition? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:08

Yes, on yes, on all of that. Now I'm not an expert on political advertising, but we are KTBB radio, and we therefore we get tons of political advertising at the time of the year. Right, like East Texas is predominantly a Republican area, so most of the money comes in during the during the primaries because so far in East Texas, generally speaking, the primary is where the elections are won. We get a ton of that political money. There are strict rules about it. The politicians they uh they can they advertise. We have to take their advertising as long as they're a legitimate candidate. Again, I'm not going to go into too much detail because I don't know all the rules. I was just curious whether you guys are. If they're a legitimate candidate, we have to take it. Not only can we, we have to take that advertising.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:55

Do you have to put something like a disclaimer uh paper?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:59

You listen to the ads, they do that on their own commercials. Paid for, ad paid for by the the elect Chad Parker mayor campaign. You know, that type or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:08

Aaron Powell I mean, I'm working towards that. You're working towards that but but there is a I'm trying to figure out the rules with you right now so I can launch a campaign. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:16

Well, there had there's very definite rules to what uh politicians can do to advertise, and we take their advertising because it's part of what part of our part of what's considered us serving the public. We take their ads. And it they're uh competing candidates. We don't get to pick. No, yeah, we don't get to pick as long as they're a legitimate candidate and the ads are done tastefully, okay. Where they're done, you know, they can't be they they can't use profanity and things like that. But as long as they're they're legitimate political advertising, we not only do, but we kinda have to. You know, Paul And we're happy to do that because that's part of what we do. People who, by the way, vote listen to KTBB. Right. The nature of the format.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:58

Right. And they know that a conservative audience in the right demographic. Yeah. Now, Paul uh once said when he bought um the radio station, one of the things he got in the in in the deal was was a bargain, and that was Bill Collins. Um I thank him for saying that. And he goes on to say Bill is an old uh he is a old school guy, right? He yeah, he's he's a pro sports caster, he's a pro talk show host and ad executive as well. So I mean it it sounds like he recognizes your contribution through the years, and I would assume y'all become somewhat friends.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:38

Oh, we're close friends. He's my boss, and there's certain things I I lines I won't cross, but he is a friend. He's a close friend. Well, um And a pretty darn good radio guy, too. Yeah, I mean he you know Paul he loves radio and he loves East Texas.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:54

Paul has a radio voice himself. Right, I mean uh Paul Geyser and we're gonna talk about the uh you know Clinton Global Initiative or you know He was a dish jockey when he was a teenager.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:04

It was Highland Park High School, he was a dish jockey on KLIF in Dallas. That's what he's always loved doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:09

So yeah, he genuinely loves radio.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:11

Well, you've been a good advocate on the show for people thinking about getting into radio, giving them reasons why it's still relevant. Still fun. Hopefully it still will be relevant in the future. Uh, you know, luckily you're at the end of your career. Well, I hope not too close. I don't know what else I ha chad, I have no hobbies.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:27

You have hobbies, don't you? Not really. I don't have any hobbies. Not really. Um I keep doing this because I I like it and I don't have my wife would get tired of me at home in about about a week. She'd probably be right. You know, uh yeah. I don't have any intention of retiring. But yeah, I'm you know, I'm 69 years old, just turned 69. I still enjoy it. I um I have fun with it every day. And I think most of the people who do this at the other radio stations, I don't know as many of them as I used to, but I think those folks would all tell you they've had a heck of a good time doing this. It's kind of a bunch of uh type type A personalities locked in a room together trying to make make radio. You can see the same thing in what you do. I mean, a lot of you guys that actually go into courtrooms and battle, you can you you got to be a type A personality. The Chad Parker I know, you're a type A personality, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:16

And that's a good way uh to end the show, Bill. Uh two extroverts, two people who like to talk. Um and my voice may not be as distinctive as yours, but I'm trying to get there. Bertie, you you're pretty good. You do okay. Anyway, Bill, thank you for being here. We really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:35

Appreciate you having me. Thank you very much. This is a cool studio. Way to go, man. This is awesome. I love this.