Woody Paige of ESPN Talks Elvis, Around The Horn, Tennessee Vols, Arnold Palmer l Full Interview

Chase Thomas podast the chase Thomas podcast um my nephew needs me to record see I hate I already hate it I hate [Music] it all right hello and welcome back to another episode of the chase podcast where I'm still the a for mention Chase is coming to you live from Knoxville Tennessee everything School HQ over there in Denver Colorado friend of the Big Orange Denver Gazette ESPN Around the Horn Legend whaty Paige is here Woody good evening sir how are you well I'm not a legend I think that's when you die no you can be a legend there's a they have the term living legend for a reason I was back uh about a year ago one of my best friends uh died in Memphis so I I went to Knoxville and I went to Memphis and while I was in Memphis I I visited the grave sites of my mom and dad because I grew up in Memphis my dad was from Mississippi my mother from South Memphis and so I went out to visit with him and I talked to them and I said to my dad who told me when I was a kid you can't find your butt with both hands son he thought I was gonna be worthless and maybe I am and so I must tell you the story I didn't quite remember it had been a while and and it's one of those cemeteries where all of the grave sites are flat with the ground mm-hm it's difficult to find you know where you want to go right and we' been a couple of years since I'd been there and so I went into the funeral home and this guy came up to me and he said I'm the director of the funeral home we're just honored to have you here which like a strange thing at a cemetery to have somebody say HED to have you there he introduced me to everybody else they said what pages famous Memphis journalist Denver he's on ESPN he's been on ESPN forever and he said in fact if he comes and joins his mother and father here he'll be the most famous person in this cemetery and all I could think about as I was sitting there talking to my parents I said I hope I don't come be with you I I was having one of those moments anybody's ever gone through that where you go back to visit someone who's died and I said yeah just hope mom and dad that they don't have tour buses to come by and say you know we don't have Elvis we don't have uh Stax Records producers but we've got woody pagee and people get off the bus and take pictures of my gravite so yeah anyway that's funny do you have any Elvis stories growing up in Memphis pardon me do you have any uh Elvis stories growing up in Memphis I'm writing uh I don't want to call it Memoirs but I'm writing U stories of my life in sports and out of sports and the title of the book and I'm actually working on it today the title of the book is from Elvis to ESPN oh okay Elvis and I grew up in the same government housing project and he was about three it's still there it's right by you ever spend any time in Memphis I've never been to Memphis NOP oh but you should go everybody goes and visits Gracin I know I need to go at some point I just it's funny to me that Tennessee is so big where like I'm from Atlanta originally it's three and a half hours to Atlanta it's the same distance from Knoxville to Jacksonville Florida as it is from Knoxville to Memphis Tennessee it's a it's a hall it was 400 miles when I School Tennessee it was 400 miles and we'd make it in like four hours and 15 minutes hold on you got from Memphis to Knox F in 4 hours and 15 minutes there was no freeway system then okay it's the most terrible story you ever heard but we were 17 year old kids and four of us in a car driving from Memphis to Knoxville and we'd go at night you could do 115 miles an hour so it's no wonder so you drive through Nashville you stop and get donuts at Crispy Cream or something cups of coffee and uh and we would continue asked me early about coffee when I was at all night dish jockey in Knoxville on Cumberland Avenue where our studio was around the just south of the campus want to say and I was on from Midnight to 6 and I would drink coffee all night long to keep up because I was studying while I was playing music from Midnight to 6 and I found out that uh I played a song inagata deita that was 19 minutes long and I would go to the crystal hamburger placees I assume you've had those Georgia and Tennessee I would go there and get my breakfast during the middle of the night and I'd play this long song and I'd come back to the studio and I had plenty of time to do it and I came back to the studio one night and it and the record was skipping this was long before there were tapes and the record in go starts out it was going now went oh I'm in trouble they're going to fire me nobody complained that none of the listeners called nobody at this station ever said anything and I realized nobody was listening to me and I was drinking coffee all night and then I'd go to class at 8 o'clock in the morning so I would try to St or whatever I was doing in the middle of the night anyway I love that anywhere of your question I don't think I mean oh Elvis yeah back to Memphis did you ever meet Elvis oh maybe 150 times oh okay when I was was five and six he was 12 years older than me I'm 77 now so he would be 89 MH um I would walk down so where I played was now St Jude Hospital if you've never gone to Memphis but people listening to this podcast know where St Jude Hospital is the most famous Children's Hospital in the world nobody ever pays a that that was an empty field next to the housing project which when I went back a couple of years ago I went back to see what uh if anybody seen the Elvis movie you can see the project in the very beginning have you seen the Elvis movie that came out no my wife and I did see Priscilla a couple months ago we have not seen Elvis yeah I watch that because I went to high school with her I uh didn't uh I didn't want to see that I'd seen the Elvis movie but they show uh Lauderdale courts where we lived you couldn't live there if you made over $30 a month so G you idea my dad was making a dollar a day so he was making about 22 a month and we could there and Elvis's father was an electrician and so they they also moved there uh and it was for mostly for people coming from Mississippi and Arkansas because the mids South was based in Memphis Tennessee being on the Mississippi so people would come from the farmlands around there uh Eastern Tennessee not Eastern Tennessee Western Tennessee it migrate to the big city which Memphis was at the time looking for jobs so anyway I would walk down two apartments away two apartment buildings away and there was a high school kid standing on the front porch with a guitar with greasy black hair uh singing songs and I would sit in the grass and listen to him I was a little kid i' been playing where s Jude Hospital eventually became uh the major Hospital Hospital there for kids and so I'd come every day and I'd bring like two or three of my friends that I played with and we'd sit in the grass and he would give us a concert every day and we had no idea he was nobody and I asked my mother said where you go and I go you know there's a kid down the way and she said that's a Elvis Presley he's trying to be a country singer or something and so I kid she said the Presley is about to nothing because they were from tupo Mississippi that's where he was born and they were Elvis Presley was considered uh Someone who lived on the long cber Tri so anyway later on one of my cousins became it was famous group his passing was called the Memphis Mafia MH and and my family when we had uh became lower middle class bought a home behind graceand there was a subdivision called graceand that's where I went school was graceand and I would go up to uh graceand all the time and one of his uncles was the security guard and he'd let me in and I my cousin as I said was one of the hangers on with Elvis and I go over to gracein and listen to them uh play music and uh go visit his grandmother who lived upstairs and so I was around him we played touch football you could actually look it up on on the internet we played in a touch football game against Elvis in his PR was he good they pardon me was he good no he was he was a mama's boy he never played all he was a yeah musician yeah yeah and so we were told it was guys I went to high school with we were told tackle it was touch football like the Pro Bowl is yeah don't tackle Elvis don't even try to tackle him let him run for a touchdown and so we were under no uncertain terms that we were not to tackle him or grab the handkerchief out of his pocket and he caught a pass and he fell in a hole and fell on his right hand and everybody rushed over and my cousin who worked for him said I told you not to tackle him I said he tripped he fell he's not an athlete he broke his Thum they took him to the hospital he was in a cast for like six weeks or two months and couldn't play the guitar and it became a national story it International story you can look it up and we were blamed they blamed these high school for beating up on Elvis we never touched him he fell in a hole that was on the football field and people would find out that we were playing uh touch football and there'd be like 500 people would show up and they all all exactly what happened but the story in the National newspapers of magazine where Elvis got kind of bullied by this high school football team which wasn't true so anyway so so you played football growing up were you a good athlete uh I played uh um I played in the only game you haven't ever heard you went went to grad of school I I know you went School in Georgia University of Northern Georgia you went to Tennessee to get your master's degree I played one year in the orange and white inlad game okay and what makes it interesting I was a sophomore what makes it interesting is Sports Illustrated and you could you can Google this anybody listening Google this Tennessee put on an exhibition at the inner Squad game they were about 10,000 people there in conjunction with Sports Illustrated with 12T gem 12 foot rims because there was a lot of talk in Kareem Abdul Jabar when he was Louis ALU because of him and others who were becoming who were seven-footers that were playing college basketball and they outlawed uh the DG and there was some concern about raising the rims from 10 feet to 12 feet and so Ry M who was a coach at Tennessee agreed to do this experiment with sports frustrated uh with 12 foot goals and Coach Ms called me and said you want play a game and sure yeah so what we found is that the ball would come out the rim farther out the rebounds were easier for guards than they were for centers and you couldn't just it up and you couldn't dunk and I ended the game with u uh one basket two points and one rebound and and the Knoxville News s still has that box score somewhere and I got a call from one of the players when I was on ESPN he said are you the same guy team we didn't know who the hell you were yeah I played basketball baseball but I was a great athlete but I was uh the editor of this The Daily newspaper and I think as part of the experience the basketball coach who I ripped in my column in the you David Beacon and said he should be fired I think he called me to try and get me closer to the side by asking me to play that so you and Paul fine bomb both have interesting stories about Tennessee basketball coaches yeah Paul Paul I done his show uh half a dozen times and and as I said he uh when he came to school there and sort of followed me with the GT daily beon School newspaper as you know it's still there I don't it's just a digital Newser now but Paul became rather wellknown writer there I I was the sports colonist and general colonist and editor of which sounds a lot more impressive than it really was because most people didn't want me part of working for the schools so I could call my shots I could I was an to cartoonist I'd do cartoons but when Paul came and became rather well known as a journalist there uh they did tell him don't be like what he page and he still reminds that of whenever I go on his show on the SEC that work and we produced when I say we I used we meaning to a lot of uh uh outstanding journalists and and broadcasters who've come out of uh Tennessee one of the most famous has one of the stadiums named for him and he lived in oxville forever and they're probably I would say 10 to 15 uh guys that are on ESPN or Fox Sports or major columnist around the country but outstanding writer for magazines that that came out of the program there and of course you came out of it because you're doing this terribly exciting popular day are you doing the daily podcast I am doing daily uh I actually have an announcement that I we we'll talk about off air about what's happening with Tennessee uh as well but no this is daily National and uh I cover it all uh each and every day I did podcast for about three years it's a very difficult job especially as you found out and you know uh in getting guest yeah so that's why I tend to agree to do them particularly what I saw that you were Tennessee man uh because it's difficult I had I had people like Joe neth and rock and roll stars and stuff like that on mine and it's still line a lot of national comedians came on my show because they think money on PPN but who's your favorite uh guest yeah just yeah who was your favorite person to talk to I I think that Joe neth was the most interesting because he was in school at Alabama the same time I was in school at Tennessee and he majored in journalism and the reason why he majored in journalism at Alabama was he said that was the easiest subject to Ma and I said I totally agree with you and we were going to do an hour show this was about a year and a half ago we were going to do an hour show and at the end of the hour he Saidi don't want to quit so we ended up doing about three hours and I I I made it into three different podcasts because he was telling me he now lives in Florida where his daughter lives and he basically places his daughter's uh well his grandkids he's in the Sarasota area if you're familiar with that and he he was fascinated uh because he was Broadway Joe and because they won the Super Bowl and it was around that time when when I interviewed him and I I never I talked to him when I worked for the Memphis Commercial Appeal uh when they were coming to Memphis for an exhibition game when he played for the Jets and that was the last time I'd really talked to him and it was funny I was a sports columnist at the Commercial Appeal and I'd be working on my column I was talking to Joe NE male and I hung up the phone because I got phone call the NFL set it up and I said hello and they and and Ne said this is Joe neth I'm supposed to call Woody page and I was a kid like I was you know 22 years old and Joe nameth is talking to me yeah and we talked for about 30 minutes and it fascinating and so I reminded him that of course he didn't remember it but I told him that as soon as I hung up the phone I turned and said to I I just talk to Joe and Ne and my phone rang and I wondered who could this be and I picked up the phone and said I've got the high school track agot I want you to do and so I gotta I went from Joe namoth to typing up the results of a high school track meet and I yes the job so it still is uh on the podcast that lisis black who's a famous U oh yeah yeah was been on TV for years he and I yeah we' become uh close friends and he came on and did about two hours on the show and the former commissioner of baseball uh I had great fun doing it but it was a lot of work as you found out so that's my it is funny people think you just put on your headphones and you just go and that's just not how it goes it's a whole lot more to it I have a feeling about that because I do round a horn and you pointed out we're we're in our 22nd year I think it's 22nd years and I've been with ESPN about 23 years and my friends just say to me oh so you show up you do 30 SEC 30 minutes and then you go home wow you paid a lot of money for that yes I get paid a lot of money for that I'd love to have that job and I got an email from a guy said I'm a plumber's assistant male uh I dropped out of high school I've got a wife and three kids and I go to the bar night and I drink with my buddies and they say you should be on around the horn you're better than those guys and I said I have no doubt you're better than I am but you can't just show up and do it actually 25 years went into preparing to be in that position but we spend for the inside story for people we have conference calls on uh zoom in the morning you you're using another system but we have a zoom conference call every morning for an hour and a half go over all the subjects yeah that's the way all of these programs because I did one out of New York called C pizza for years with I worked with skip who was now in the Fox Sports Network and we'd get there at 3:30 in the morning and go through conferences and research for hours before we went on the air live for two hours every day and so around a horn just for the people who have ever watched it we have about an hour and a half of a conference call in the morning and then we start doing I get up very early in the morning and go through all the stuff that I spend tonight when we get finished here I'll spend watching NBA games and NHL games you want to get as familiar as you can because this isn't like someone covering Tennessee football and that's what con we have got to be at least familiar with or knowledgeable about every sport in the world every day and I mean I go to Olympics and I've covered like I don't know 15 Olympics and I show up at Olympics and I wouldn't even know what how like Taiwan do yeah I didn't even know what it was that I'd show up and covered and in Australia I covered one of the greatest sports events of all time that nobody else was covering that was uh the heavyweight uh championship wrestling match uhhuh and the greatest wrestler in the whole world from Russia had won like four Olympic gold medals had never been beaten and they be scored upon and and a kid from uh Utah Wyoming Bea him I'm looking at it and I look around and there's no other press there because they're all covered ing the track and field and I thought I don't know how to cover this for and I had to find out like 15 minutes anyway we go through the process we do research uh then I do makeup uh have a an associate who does my makeup and my hair and uh we have more conversations before the show goes on WE tape in the middle of the day it takes us about an hour and a half to do the show so there's about I would say five six hours a day that goes into putting together real so it's the same way as you spend five or six hours getting guests preparing what you're going to do whatever advertising marketing you're doing um it's not just showing up and uh the show did start with male uh when they came to me and said we're going to do [Music] a second show to Pardon Interruption which became very successful show uh on ESPN companionship yeah and I said we want you to be on it you're the first person to were talking to that I said well what what is it going to be like and they said like Hollywood Squares and if you think about if you've ever watched around a horn kind of the concept where they said you're gonna be like the middle Square Paul in block and I said is this GNA be a game show in a sort of way because we're gonna score it and people always ask me do you know who's gonna win before I don't know until the last moment and there A lot of times when they go You've Won what's your 30 seconds I have no idea because I didn't think I was gonna win I'd be like eight points behind anyway there's a lot of work that goes into it just like there does in your job like I think that every body that either is going to school or has a job realizes that it's hard work whether you're selling Insurance whether you're a plumber's assistant or whether you're doing television we we have fun at it what we work at it you have to work at it there are mistakes made so we redo segments we might go too long so we retap a segment there bre to put in the highlights for the next segment there are questions about whether the that segment actually was very good or there was a mistake made in statistics because when you're talking fast and you know this what you're talking about you may not get every statistic or every team that played in the bowl correctly rvy play in the Super Bowl the last weekend so it's interesting when I was in New York with the ESPN for three a little over three years I think it was I was doing six shows uh six different shows every week that I was doing around hor I was doing a show with skip Alis in the morning a two hour show that was like the Today Show that was ESP birth Good Morning America called Co pizza we did a show called uh first and 10 we did a show called First Take which is still on there Stephen A Smith uh we started that I was doing a show that was a takeoff on American Idol and it was called the dream job and 12,000 applicants would compete to be on was this the Wendy's one uh the one sponsored by Wendy's what was that the searching for I remember a Wendy's W years ago they they they there were a lot of ESPN sports bars in you remember that ESPN the ESPN Zone is that what it was called ESPN Zone and so people could apply and they'd have uh auditions at all of the esps and they narrowed it down to 12 and I was one of the judges like on American Idol or you know America's Got Talent the winner got to be and most of them I think were you know in the Departments of communication like you you have been or journalism and they narrowed down to 12 and we cut one a week so it was like 13 weeks Ste Scott the late Stu Scott who's one of the best guyss I ever worked with was the host of the show I'll tell you one story that came out there be interesed uh Stephen A Smith was a judge I was a judge vice president of ESPN who hired people was a judge with three judges four actually one other and we'd work on that for like 18 hours it was live yeah but only the that was on we would work throughout the day and the night with the 12 and so we got to the finals we did three or four seasons of that uh and we got down to the last two and one of them wasn't very good he ended up doing M but they kept saying to me he's got a great personality would you vote for it so there was behind the scenes thing that's why I don't only piece of advice I get to people don't think that reality shows are for real well have you ever seen the one where they go to storage units oh yeah hoarders or Storage Wars and all that yeah put stuff in those storage units I mean units have dirty clothes in it and newspapers they put diamonds in there and people discovered so all of the that there's no way that these shows are live they have to be taped all anyway so they they would say the producer would say uh what do you think of this guy and I said not very good well he's got a great person Happ can you help us out here and I said I don't want to you put jail for fixing a real show but they were we're down to the two finalist andent gu as I said was the post of the show and the one guy was really good he ended up winning the guy who didn't win ended up doing Pizza Hut commercials for years so he actually become more famous than the guy who was on ESPN and I think he's still in broadcasting at some point so the we got to be an anchor on ESPN $95,000 in cash a brand new convertible uh uh Mustang for Mustang and so it was a pretty good end up for whoever won so it came down to two people the guy who ultimately won when he got through that Stephen A Smith went through his hor and they said to me what do you think of that I said you were Rock Solid son you rock solid you because they would turn the U the microphones off when they were interviewing people and they had to overcome all sorts of obstacles and I said you had a perfect show tonight so now I got to turn to the other guy and I said you know you were good too because I didn't want to put him down you good too you were Rock and I was trying to think I can't say Rock Solid because I've already said about deia what is it I ask you chase what is the word you can use after rock that would that's what I said there was a studio audience of about I don't know 200 people steart Scott fell on the floor laughing those people were were going berserk and I'm saying to the guy you know you were rock hard you were rock hard and I went that's not what you want to say a live National TV with a million people watching and we laughed through that and we had a a party afterward of all they brought back all the people who had been on the show came over he said I think that I didn't win I think you have the most famous line in history of ESPN television and I think I commercial out of it and he ended up getting a Pizza Hut Commercial and they actually the advertising company that agency that hired him said we loved it when the guy called and said you were rockart he said we just thought this guy he was rockart anyway I'm sorry I'm going on no I love that to talk about I mean I love that back to the first question I knew Elvis would come to Colorado uh in his later years on vacation go to Aspen and he Denver and he went to a restaurant that I would go to a steakhouse and I my my friends in the steakhouse said Elvis is here and Elvis I saw him throughout the years I used to when I was in high school in addition to playing touch football he would he would rent out a movie theater because this was before VCRs or HBO or anything he'd rent a movie theater out and show and and get to see the screenings of three different movies and so he read the movie theater from midnight to 6:00 a. and he'd invite like 20 people and I would ask wherever I was dating if they want to go watch movies with Elvis their parents thought I was biggest lying cheating kid of the world my mother call and explain it really is going on because you know I'm going to say to the parents when they sayi want my daughter to be home at midnight I go she'll be home about 8 o'clock tomorrow morning go to the Myan movie theater that was the one that Elvis R out and we had to wait in the lobby we could pick out whatever candies you could get as much candy as you wanted popcorn hkes and stuff like that but you couldn't go into the movie theater until Elvis and his girlfriend or Priscilla would go into the movie theater wherever they sat you had to sit behind them and they watch three movies and we get finished about 6:30 7:00 in the morning and because my cousin was one of his mempis Mafia Entourage because now athletes all have entourages well Elvis was one of the first like Frank anatra have you know entourages security guards basically we would go do that so I knew Elvis throughout my life and he always remembered that I was the kid that Sat by the porch when he was a high school student and I was a little kid clapping for him on the front porch and so at the end of his life he was coming to Denver and that's when his was in his fat period at the end where he couldn't lose the weight and we'd have dinner at a steak restaurant and uh talk about old times in Memphis Yeah so and that's the Finish to to the story so the book I'm writing is from me is ESP pin because I feel like Forest G if anyone remembers that movie for G oh yeah he he ended up being with people and you go he can't be next to the president but they stuck him in all the scenes famous movie that's been basically my life where I was in Cuba and met Fidel Castro almost by accident and he ended up telling there was a group of us a small group we were talking baseball he wanted to talk baseball because pel Castro always wanted to be a major league baseball player and some team had signed him Cuba would probably still be a democratic country but we were talking baseball and someone came in and hand in a sheet of paper and uh he announced to us in perfect English he said the Gulf War started so this is 199 too the the games were being held in Cuba and I thought is this where I want to be and I asked if Saddam Hussein had called him or uh us had no uh had no political uh arrangements with Cuba at that time and he said no it's on he said in perfect English again he said it's on CNN Ted Turner had given him a satellite dish so he could watch the Atlanta bravs and CNN anyone that's old enough to remember the golf War the scenes on CNN that night of of bagd day and and the missiles coming in and I thought is this where I want to be if there's all that war you know I'm in Havana Cuba with Fidel Castro so my life has been where uh when the dream team went to Barcelona uh I hung out with Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan and we play Black we go play Blackjack and then we uh got drinking and I remember Charles Barkley saying uh can't be a drunk in this town because they were training in mik harlo the dream King the original and he said you can't be a drunk in this town I said what do you mean he said beards are $18 and I thought you are very rich not like it is today but hardly very and he's complaining about the price of beard in Monte Carlo while I'm sitting next to Michael Jordan at the blackjack table in the casino in Monte Carlo and I'm winning $10 10 Franks 25 Franks and he's losing 25,000 Franks on the same hand and I'm going yeah I got Blackjack and he said pop it down because he's losing he was a terrible off of him so I mean things have happened in my life just being around Sports and just people anyway that's I'm not here to promote the book we out sometime who is the big based on what you know about the the player publicly versus what how you got to know them and see them privately who who was the biggest difference in terms of personality from what you saw from the outside versus how they were uh just around regular folks I've never quite been asked that question uh I'll think about it during while we just sit here and talk but uh Arnold Palmer H was one of the nicest people I ever was around in my life and I was at Pebble Beach for the US Open Tom Watson chipped in on the 17 told end up beating Jack Nicholas and Palmer I I asked Palmer if I could he was coming to Denver like a day later for an exhibition and I said can I interview you when you get to Denver I won't bother you here that was his I think open and he said when are you going home and I said tomorrow morning and he said I'm flying to Denver tomorrow morning fly on my plane and so he had the Ard of harer plane AP1 and he uh paded it and [Music] every airport would say how you doing Arie he talked to everybody across the country we were in Pebble Beach coming to Denver so you know thousand miles or something it was about a three or four hour three hour flight I said and so about halfway through the flight he um turned it over to his co-pilot and he came back it was this a Lear Jet and we talked for about an hour and a half and he brought out sandwiches his wife had made for us and I thought that was interesting you that we just experienced Taylor Swift flying from Tokyo to get to the Super Bowl and I can't imagine that she was eating a peanut butter jelly sandwich like Aro Palmer Dr J G serving uh I covered him when he came into the American Basketball Association we've remained friends for a long time he was the until then the most dynamic player I won't say he was the greatest will CH will chamin was not the greatest player Bill Russell was a great he won 11 Championship Bill R in my mind was the best NBA uh player of all time not talent wise but people were talking about that now that Patrick Mahomes is the goat no Tom Brady's goat Joe Montana was the goat when he won those Super Bowls the 49ers are they the most talented players no but the greatest of all time was world chamberling juding was the most acrobatic I don't know I wrote a line when I saw him playing his first Aba game nobody ever heard of J serving he a kid that came out you know came out of school early out of Massachusetts he was playing in the league nobody paay attention to the ABA and I saw him and I wrote this line I said when he went up for a dunk it was so Dynamic that everybody's everybody in the arena their ears popped like when you know are going to a higher altitude or right you go to Gallenberg you can feel your ears pop that's what that's what experienced that night and he was the nicest guy in the world and I tend to I I'll give you an example on the other end two guys live in Denver uh most people won't remember them because you have to be but there was a left-handed pitcher in baseball who was the worst guy in the whole world and there was a basketball player who led the league and scored I'll say his name because I've done a magazine article on him and had him on my podcast Rick Barry was one of the great basketball players of the 60 and 70s leading scorer great shooter both of those guys were asses when they played i w go through the whole word but they were the ultimate asses they moved to Denver Colorado they don't live in Denver they live in Colorado where Pike's Peak is for people to and they live there another famous ex athlete Goose goich lives down there a lot people had moved to Colorado that playing sports and I've interviewed uh all of them and I thought how did this guy who was an ass turn into such a nice guy they finally got it there's too many of the professional athletes who don't get it until it's too late when when they're out of the game and they're missing the you always hear this Chase oh I missed the camaraderie I missed the locker I missed my teammates I don't miss the game but I miss being around the teammates well those guys don't get it until it's over with yeah they they finally start treating fans with more respect we have too many issues now of where fans are upset that they pay a lot of money to go to games and they can't call out a player in an NBA game the player come over and say and call the referee over and say get that guy out of the Arena this happened with a couple of weeks ago get that player out of get that fan out of the Arena that fan just paid $120 to come see you play he's not allowed to say you're out of shape get in the gym you know act like you're I I guarantee you that Luca will get it yeah 15 years now and it say oh yeah it all of that's gone and I'm going to start being nice to people so I think that uh you said people that aren't like I just saw that Jay CER blamed uh roog FY for the uh Super Bowl loss Jake C who had a went to vanville had a 10-year career in in the NFL went to the playoffs once I think maybe probably the Bear's best quarterback in my lifetime I'm 32 uh biggest jerk in the history of the world by far that I biggest jerk and he did a reality show with his wife Big Broke yeah did a real show now he's being nice to everybody you know he's he's Jay Culler the nice guy he joined the country club here in Colorado it cost $100,000 a year and he'd take eight guys out break all the rules wear shirts untucked I mean these are Classic golf clubs he'd wear his cat backward they'd throw beer cans on the on the greens and stuff like that and after about six times there the president of the club met him as he was coming out the club with his five guys that were all drunk and said here's your check for $100,000 your kicked out of the club that was Jay Cutler in a nutshell uh players hated him fans hated him I thought it was just a complete jerk so I think you were saying who who would be i t tried to give you maybe a couple of people AR Power played his last round of golf at the Masters and I'd cover it every year and it was my most enjoyable Sports Experience and I was walking for Arn Palmer's last round because I'd got know him I told you riding on the plane with him his partner in the in the golf uh architectural business was a really nice guy so we're walking together for this historic last round of our apoll first ho he makes a five anybody's familiar with watching August you know the second hole is a par five Arnold hits two good shots the third shot is like 90 yards and he veers over to us he wasn't coming to see me he was coming over to see his architectural partner but he says how would he he go thanks for you know coming along for the ride so he calls his buddy over and says something to him and I asked him I said did he want to talk about memories or something he said said no we shouldn't have had that second bottle of Jack Daniels last night he hit his third shot on the par five it's like 90 yards and it went sideways yeah all I could think about the whole round was he's hung over like in the movie Hangover he's hung over thinking we shouldn't have had so much to drink last night but he thought this is my last round or whatever he played awful that they shot 7880 or something like that but all I could think about to this day is his line to his friend was we shouldn't had that open that second bottle of Jack Daniels anybody that's ever had two bottles of Jack Daniels will know exactly what he talk about I hope nobody listening to the show so anyway but I there have been terrible guys there have been fantastic guys that I love to be around Michael Jordan we've had a great relationship uh We've attended a lot of when he got out of basketball went to Birmingham to play baseball I actually went from Atlanta I was there for some for something and I went to over I drove over to Birmingham to watch him play baseball and uh uh we played golf and we talked about his his baseball game and I knew he was going back to the NBA he couldn't play baseball he couldn't hit the curveball but he what kind of genuine fellow with you know a sports writer that he would see occasionally but we played in that uh celebrity Pro tournament in the proam the one the tournament that's in every year in U is it in California yeah on the California Nevada yeah we played in that and he and I drank all night but I said let's don't drink two bottles of jaes that's be but anyway I are you nervous like you're just sitting here with the greatest basketball player of all time the most decorated everything else like were you nervous like when you're in those situations with somebody like Michael no I I think I've only been nervous in in in the being with the like a vice president of the United States when Alba Gore was vice president he grew up in Tennessee you probably that his his father was a senator from Tennessee and Al G was a journalist at uh at Nashville and I met him in high school and and even though I had known him not we weren't friends but I had known him from you know convention and or journalism convention High School journalism convention and I'd met him a couple of times and when I spent some time with him when he was running for president uh I was I was nervous uh I are you familiar with the band YouTube uhhuh yeah and they uh I was invited by a rock promoter who was a good friend over to his house to watch a a pay-per-view heavyweight championship fight that I didn't I went to practically everyone in Las Vegas for years and years I I sat one day with Muhammad Ali for about three hours and I think if you treat it like it's a conversation the worst thing I hear out of journalists or broadcasters particularly now is their question is talk about the game yeah that is not a you you are a journalist broadcaster that is the lamest worst statement you can make I think the most important thing and you know this as a as a podcast host is to listen to the guest instead I have a list of questions and say okay that's good You' just told me about meeting Fair fsy uh what do you think about the Super Bowl on Sunday and you go God wasn't paying any attention to what I said I always listen to people and I think I became close to people I mean I have on my speed di that's not to impress me by but I have like Archie Manning P Manning I've got the entire Manning family on speed that I can pick up the phone and call them and ask them about certain things uh because I had they were good people and I had good relationships with them Jay cuddler I wouldn't pick up the phone and call him if he were in the Next Room or talk to him in the Next Room so uh I've been very fortunate because I've never had a job in my life yeah you don't have forgive me you don't have a job we talked about how hard work it is but that's not a job that's that is you getting to fulfill your wish in life to be in communication be a broadcaster be a journalist whatever it might be I mean I'm most fortunate that's why I said I'm like Forest dump because he was just a you know kid with leg problems who ended up you know running across the country and winning a touchdown winning a a scoring a winning touchdown for Alabama which didn't exist and and I couldn't even dream I want asked u a player who was from to kimbe M got nice people he spoke seven languages and you couldn't understand him in any of the seven langes he had this deep if you ever seen the commercials I think Walmart and he goes I'm he's got the most incredible voice in the world it's it's he could have been Darth Vader's voice Nic guy in the world and I said to him you grew up in Africa did you dream of playing in the NBA and he said one of the most fascinating things I've ever heard he said I couldn't dream beyond the dirt road yeah know we we assume every athlete in the United States grows up and says you know I want to be a baseball player or I want to be you want to you CH I I when I was eight years old I wanted to be a writer and that followed my dream and and so when I asked him that I thought about it he couldn't because at the end of that dirt road was you know lions and tigers and and there was no basketball he played soccer he was a 72 soccer player and then he went somewhere on a soccer match and saw basketball he said I think I could do that having that conversation with him gave me a whole new directive about talking to athletes in a world where more and more of our professional athletes in this country are coming from other countries particularly in the NBA the National Hockey League Soccer we've got Messi playing in the United States now greatest player I think in international soccer history it's playing in the United States he's not playing in Hong Kong and we got NFL Now NFL Europe where ocu minor is doing his thing in Africa like we're going to have more the NFL like they want to have games like is who's opening someone's opening in like Brazil next year in the NFL um they're expanding in that row Eagles are gonna play there and I'll tell you who other team would be they're not they're not going to tell you but it's going to be the Miami Dolphins because Miami Dolphins are affiliated with Brazil every NFL has a foreign country for the Denver Broncos it's Mexico so they tend to put those teams I've been to I think like a dozen of those International football games and when I first started going I went to Tokyo twice for games uh Barcelona Berlin London twice Australia and I I was writing a note in my book that I'm writing and I'm really not promoting it so nobody out there pay attention in Berlin the Broncos played the Dolphins and it was John Elway versus Marino I was more fascinated they were playing in the 1936 if you saw if you seen the movie boy boys in the boat I it's about the Washington rowing team going to the Olympics it was the junior varsity at Washington they ended up going to to uh Berlin and winning an Olympic medal in front of Hitler when I went to the coliseum in Hitler I mean in in Berlin Germany I had done research and I wanted to see hit sweet he had a sweet that was probably first sweet in the history of sports and so they the people in the stadium took me up there and had an elevator and I said so come out at the lockar room snow that elevator went down and went into a nearby neighborhood and tled so he wouldn't nobody could see his car coming in or going up and he he was in that you've seen the movies Jesse Owens and everybody seen some where he's standing over there waiting for you know the German athletes to totally destroy the world which they didn't do against the American athletes and to be in that suite and think about Hitler being there and all the atrocities and everything I'm just constantly amazed being an Australian going to the Outback uh during the Olympics because I wanted to go where they made the Mad Max movies out the middle of Australia I took like two planes and r a Land Rover wait is that wanted to go to Australia to begin with was the m to see the Mad Max like where it was filmed and stuff okay I was curious about going to going to the Olympics but I wanted to see the Mad Max where they made the Mad Max movies and I wanted to see K I'll make a real quick short we're going on too long and I'm not answering your questions and people are going he's he's gone off the rails but I went out to the Outback to see where the madmax movies were filmed and I went to kangaroos in the wild and I went up to a forest ranger a ranger station they sent me out there 200 miles from nowhere and I go to the ranger station and I he said what why are you here and I said well I'm covering the Olympics back in Sydney he said we're like a thousand miles from Sydney it's like going from LA to St Louis that's kind of where I was in this country and I said what are you doing out here and I said I want to see kangaroos in the wild and to see Mad Max he said well Mad Max is on the road drone he kind of he said so here's a loaf of bread I'll make this short sry here's a loaf of bread go down about five miles on the right there'll be a hill when the Sun starts to set the kangaroos will come out feed them the bread and you'll see all the kangaroos you looking so I go down there stand on the hill got this loaf of bread like everybody's got it home I opened it up Suddenly as the sun setting over the hill 250 kangaroos came over the hill big heads female uh kangaroos with babies in their and I went I was expecting like five I have a loaf of bread and I'm Not Jesus Christ I can't turn this into so started throwing pieces of bread and backing up toward the car which is about a 100 yards away and I'm backing and there like closing around me and I finally get to the car and I kind of throw the plastic bag with whatever left they're jumping on the car and I start backing up not wanting to kill any of the Kangaroos and I go back to the ranger station and I said and the guy's laughing he said do you mate good day mate do you see kangaroos and I said yeah I said what is your job is your job to protect kangaroos in a well he said no my job is to kill kangaroos there are more kangaroos than there are people in this country kangaroos are rats here I said how many did you kill today and he said 82 and I said 82 he said oh yeah and I said so I didn't need to be so care careful about backing up with them all over the car it was like the birds if you've ever seen them and he said oh yeah if you run over five that would have helped my number for today and I thought this place thing tomorrow I'm in the middle I mean as far south as you can go in the world talking to a ranger Rangers in this country prevent forest fires they protect bears in the wild down there he's got a gun and he's shooting kangaroos that's what the ranger so my stories are about sports are terribly in Norway Lily Hammer when you were younger man they had the Winter Olympics I called the uh I reached out to the good your blimp uh pallet and I said can I ride with you one day he said sure we rode all over Lily hammer and went over about eight events and we saw deer running across the the the hills and it was one of the most fascinating so you talking to me about most fascinating things that uh I'd ever seen in sports and I always tried to take Sports uh in the proper perceptive [Music] perspection and not treated as life or death I would go to the Olympics Rick Raleigh who a famous sports AR that I mentored was with Sports Illustrated and was the most famous sports R probably in the country he they had a Super Bowl in Tampa Bay and he said what are you doing I want to follow you what are you doing because he would always say what's the story here and I said I'm going to nud col they said why you go to nudus col I said how do you tell at the nudus Colby who they fans of are the fans of Steelers he said oh that's a great story can I go with you I said so we went to outside of Tampa about 25 miles to nudus resort that was located on bareass road and there were about hundred new and we went around saying are you pulling for the Pittsburgh Steelers or are you pulling for the Cowboys and and they said why don't you join us and Rick I no we're just here as journalist and and I come back and people go so what who did you write it would be media day at the Super Bowl and because there's 5,000 journalists asking stupid questions and so Rick Riley said that was the best story of the week is how do you figure out who the fan is pulling for if they have no clothes on and that was the whole you know I kind of had fun with it just like you doing through I love it well Woody uh we'll go out on this front here um you're we're in the Tennessee hat and I'm curious as seeing as someone who's seen a lot of Tennessee athletics over uh over the years who would be on your Tennessee volunteer Sports Mount Rushmore who all time the bill for you who who were those four well Todd hon in every memory right now and there's a street name after him C along with PT Manning so those two I would say that uh I'm G to put somebody in there you never heard of but I'm G to leave everybody with the opportunity to Google in high school one of my best friends was a guy named Charlie fton he went he went to Tennessee when there was a single wing our high school in Memphis played single wing when it was no longer being play Tennessee was one of the last major schools to play single wing he was the last single wing tailback and the first quarterback in a real system for Tennessee and he went on to become the most valuable player in the Canadian Football League he was my high school teammate he was his name Charlie fton I put him on my Mount Rushmore uh I love that basketball I became very close friends with a guy named Tom borwin now he's not he don't blow Rush Tom borwin had played at a military school in in in Kentucky he was seven feet tall when there weren't many seven Footers and he uh couldn't walk and chew gum and that's a famous old cliche but he couldn't he went on to play with the bulls with Michael Jordan and won three or four championships as the starting center and then got a seat on the Chicago uh Stock Exchange and it's had a brilliant life for a guy that couldn't walk in ch gum and and was just seven feet tall and I would walk around campus at Tennessee with him and girls would say how tall are you and he'd say 68 he never wanted anybody embarrassed him to be seven feet tall he's I think that uh [Music] uh help me out here uh the there was the two players that were basketball players oh Bernard King and Ernie grunfeld yes I would I'm trying to think of who I mean latter day would be better but the Ernie and Bernie show yeah I I would have to put them side by side on them yeah so maybe Charlie Fon won't ever be on anybody else's but he was he was all SEC but he played two different he he was there for the end of the single wing and the beginning of but I I I also think you you have would have to put a longtime coach on there who was maybe the greatest football player I been pton Manning that was there that finished second in the Iceman Trophy and then came back to coach the team for years uh and Johnny major that we're talking about left the national champion to coach Tennessee pardon me he left I mean he won a national title at pit and then still proceeded to leave that team to go to Tennessee yeah uh yeah and I I guess that that would be it for me in terms of uh I know when I was in high school I mean in college at Tennessee I saw the most until I saw Dr J I watched uh Pete marovich and wrote about covered Pete marovich for four years and then cover in pro basketball when he was with the Atlanta and New Orleans the New Orleans Jazz there's the question of the day for people Utah Jazz I've been to Utah 100 times you can't find a place that plays Jazz and do you know how dumb I am Woody like I always thought growing up cuz I love the logo and you have the mountain range behind it I just grew up thinking the Jazz was the mountain range in Utah like I just always thought that that's what that was and I never put two and two together it took me years that so embarrassing that I just thought there was a jazz mountain range and that's why they were called the jazz or they called the ice Jazz over there and like that's why it was I I never put two and two together growing up never thought about it any other way were the Jazz and they played it in the super doome that was the first basketball has played in a football Stadium yeah for Houston whatever and I was amazed that the players could shoot because there was no background I mean it's been people have adopted to playing in football stadiums but I I would talk to players and they'd say you've got no rain you don't yeah you don't get the perspective of of what you're doing here but Pete marovic uh watching him in college if there had been a three-point line he'd average 70 points a game everything he shot was from 30t yeah I mean he rarely drove to the basket so I would put him on my alltime college because he I never saw a performer as I did with P would been a Steph Curry a modern Steph Curry if he had played it later in life yeah except a much taller that's why I said there was elg how tall was Pete 6'4 okay and step is what 510 so he was much bigger there wasn't a ball handler like P marage I mean he did videos for years where people adopted to so I guess that's the answer your question I thought you were gonna ask me about you know I'm wearing this Tennessee hat they send yeah merch from Tennessee all the time because I think they put me in the media that's a payment of you know famous you people the legendary things you're talking about but I must I'll end on this story about why I became a tenness city football I was born 1946 right at the end of the war so I'm a baby boomer in 1948 om Miss and and in Tennessee would always play in Memphis go back and look it up my dad took me to an OM Miss Tennessee game in 1948 I was a year not two years old and it was snowing which was a rarity and I didn't know that of course I was two years old I didn't know it until I was 12 or 13 I asked my dad about it he said he was a Tennessee I said you were from Mississippi he said I was a Tennessee fan I like the colors I liked uh Tennessee under a famous General who was to the and he said maybe you grow up to uh be a Tennessee fan and my dad who who had terrible diabetes died young and uh I thought my dad wants me to go to Tennessee first person in my family they would go to college and he wants me to be a Tennessee fan and so when I wear this hat it's not only done you know to honor Tennessee it's now I'm H but to honor my dad was a Tennessee fan when he was from Mississippi it took me to a game was too young to even know you know where I was so but he he thought you know that's what a dad does dad takes a son to a sports event he took me I I was thinking about this a couple of days ago I I on this we would he' take me to M League Baseball in Memphis and that was associ they're from Georgia there would be the Atlanta Crackers which you can't name Atlanta Crackers now that has combination Birmingham Barons the New Orleans team Memphis uh was the chicks chicka named after Native Americans and my dad would take me to M Lake games and I would say to him in the 50s why can't we we never used derogatory terms but my parents will would say colored people because that was not [Music] considered derogatory I mean it would be now and I'd say why can't they sit in the stands with us they had to sit out in my field he said they're not allowed to do that and I said why he said it's unfair it's not right and the next week he took me to a negro pro league that was the Memphis uh Red Sox and there were the same Southern Association white teams and there were these black teams that were in the South Hank Aaron Willie ma uh and my dad said don't you find it funny son and I was a kid he said said white people can sit anywhere they want to in this you know in this ballpark but and black people can sit anywhere next to each other you said that's the way it should be so I I try to I'm I'm I'll close with this I've been uh voted to the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame and the induction is in April 17 with athletes and and I've always but you shouldn't put journalists in a sports hall of fame maybe you put them in a wing or something or in the bathroom but I was I was very honored about that and uh Peyton will probably give back his award because he's in that too he want to give back other one so he give this back and Todd Hon's in the you there are a lot of Tennessee and or tennessy backgrounds that are in the Colorado Pro Sports Hall of Fame I'm going to my name is wood Wilson paage Jr and I'm gonna spend my 10 minute speech ottering wro Page's senior he's the one who should be getting that so I don't want to end on a bad note but that's that's a a sad note or whatever but I think he deserved because without him taking me to a c o Miss game in 1948 without him taking me to M League baseball game without teaching me about sports and playing ball in the backyard and I have one daughter I'll end on nice story I have one daughter she's a very successful computer scientist and so when she was about eight or nine uh I came home from covering a game or something and she had a glove and a ball in the backyard and she said Dad let's throw the ball around and I said why would you want to do that and she said I know know you wanted to have a son I said no I wanted to have a daughter she said well I'm going to be your son today and so we tossed the ball and that took back to my dad and what he did for me is that she felt like you know I didn't have that father or son relationship but I can promise you that my daughter is my best friend now and I'm glad I'm glad I had a daughter because if I had a son i' have to gra drag his ass to every Sports B I ever went to and she never wanted to go to any So and I've done uh it's get I know this going sound strange but I figured it up one day I've done 10,000 sports events in the last years I mean I was doing over 200 Sports FS for the last 50 years I'm 77 I was doing this in high school I was doing it in college I was doing it so you you figured it up I was doing 200 columns a year for 50 years that's 10,000 sports events that I've covered so take that with you chase try and match that one I'm not gonna catch that Woody there's no way I'm catching that there's no way uh I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing uh I think it's great it's like you said it just kind of speaks to the forest scump nature where you just found your way into everything like you're you're just you're all over the place and this is why uh the book's coming I can't wait to read it I I'm excited for when this uh comes out uh Woody M yeah I I I'm going through of the people I've met and I will leave this that's why I ask you if I you're familiar with YouTube I didn't that story so my Pro promoter friend invited me over to his house he had a gigantic cheers bars bar that he like the TV show that he had install my friend and I who's a talk show host here hill whle we sat down at the bar and we're waiting for the the the Pay-Per-View fight to come on and two guys come over and sit next to us and the guy leans over to me and he said uh uh you guys fight fans and they said well he's got a radio talk show and I I do TV about sports and he said oh we love sports we love football and I said you do NFL football he said no football we're from Ireland I said oh you're from Ireland uh what do you do there we a band and I said oh really what's the name of your band he said you too this was the biggest band in the world and they were in Denver for for a concert and the promoter invited them over because they love watching championship fighting and we're sitting there going well I hope your band does well and it goes another Forest Gump moment in my life where I acting like you know chocolate yeah thank you for having me on I'm sorry we've gone over uh but no this has been amazing thank you thank you for being here I mean this has been an absolute Delight I've learned a lot I've laughed a lot I Woody you're just the best and uh it's cool to connect after watching and reading you for so many years and uh um it's just too hey Tennessee brings people together you and I like you never know where the Tennessee ball netor work might take somebody yeah I I still think in my life and I will end on this that uh having been a broadcast I mean I've actually done uh free games at the Super Bowl and Monday Night Football and I was a candidate to be uh uh I got beat out by a guy named Tony to be in the booth on Monday night and and I shouldn't have done it but uh I think my training in Knoxville and my love for Knoxville and being able to walk downtown from the campus and go past where there was a World's fair and I think limits of it and that had a lot of meaning in my life because it trained me how to be a broadcaster trained me how to be in radio TV because I did that show where I'd interview somebody on that would show up on Saturdays or Sundays and writing for the papers there that uh that was my moment of years that I actually learned that maybe I could do this for a little bit so I have the I have a strong connection to Knoxville Tennessee and the people of Tennessee and I spent more than half my adult life in in Denver but I've never lost my love for the state and and especially uh the uh the college that kind of put up with me as encourageable and I always uh there's a bridge over cuming so you went to school Tennessee I'm GNA name with this yep bridge over cuming I was a columnist I would write every day for the paper we had people killed Crossing that street at C Crossing from one dormatory to the other Dory side of I kept writing about it it became became fanatical about getting hit because there was no light there yeah and I kept writing there's got to be a bridge there's got to be a bridge open and they finally put up a bridge and they called me and they said uh we want you to come to the bridge you're the one that wrote about this for a year and a half and I went up and they have a little sign on the bridge that said the what I love that I went back about two years ago I told you there was last time and I went up and I walked over the bridge because it saved me all life yeah I walked over the bridge and somebody had taken my name off I'm gonna work on that Woody that's my new that I'm here locally I'm gonna work on getting what he paid his name back on the bridge a lot of statues taken down in the South I think that taking down name plates of people who had not distinguished themselves and so but but that bridge was my was my uh accomplishment while I was at the University of Tennessee I love it Woody thank you so much for the time go watch him on around the horn each and every weekday go read him in the Denver Gazette go to Woody page.com for all information about what wood he's got going on each and every day and Woody thank you so much and uh we'll have to check back in again soon stay in touch jce uh and all of you out there email me at Woody page.com or Woody page page at it's w woody. page gazette.com and I I respond every I spend the entirely too much time talking like I have on this this show you got me started and I spend too much time replying to everybody that writes me because it it's like what athletes who sign autographs they say if people are nice enough to ask for an autograph I mean I get that with photo ops so people you selfies and I always tell them it's $5 they go you're charging $5 I said no if you want a selfie with me I'll give you5 take care Chase I love it Woody talk soon