August 16, 2024 • 40 mins
Play-by-play sports broadcaster for Fresno State, Paul Loeffler joins us on this episode. Speaking into one microphone or another since he was 12 years old, Paul relishes the opportunity to tell compelling stories, whether it’s describing an intense competition on radio or television, helping an aging veteran dig into his historic past to educate the rest of us, or simply sharing from a grateful heart about his own journey.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Before we officially start the episode with our guest Paul Leffler,
who's here before we give you the proper introduction, apologies
for the AC.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Just went out like maybe an hour ago.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Come on, man, I've from lost Veana, so you don't
need an act.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
One hundred and thirty degrees in here. Man, sweat through it.
Let's go the thing I'm going through right now. I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I don't know if this is legal or not, but
I haven't had AC in my apartment for the past
five days. I've been trying to get the property management
to fix it. They keep giving me the run around.
I've been trying to pay someone else to fix it,
and they say we need to get the properties permission
to fix it. I've been having to get hotels because
(00:39):
I can't. I can't sleep in there. Legally they have
thirty days to fix the issue.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Damn.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Yeah, I was trying to get a compensation, like can
you pay for these hotels that I'm staying at.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I mean, luckily the triple digits have gone down.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
I mean it's still like ninety nine, but you know
we're not in triple digits anymore, so I don't know.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Good luck.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
These these Fresnel summers were almost done. And then I
don't have to worry about this anymore.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
You know, there's some great camping spots around here. Sleep outside,
bro see the start? Yeah, all right, I'm ready to
get this episode started.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
This could give me fire podcast? What up onio? That
is John Magic and we are back.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
It's excited to have this guest because always interested in
his profession of work. And you know, I was telling Jizo,
I know him as the voice of Fresno State Athletics.
He's like a play by play and then you Giso
reminded me.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Yeah, used to be on the news, right I want
to say, I want to say CBS.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
He was a sports and I was like, oh yeah,
he was on TV. I remember ladies and gentlemen. Paul
Leffler's here.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
What's this?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
This could get me fired stuff. Nobody told me that this.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Could give me fire podcast the way, So what what
episode is this?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
One hundred and fourty? Yeah, were almost like one fifty.
I think has anybody gotten fired yet? No? Not here.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
The way it came about was, you know, Jesse and
I were in the studio during his show and when
he would go to commercials, we would just talk about
different topics and we would say, turn on the mics,
let's talk about these topics. And then we just said, wait,
this might get us fired, and then it just clicked
that's our podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah. Well and you're still here. Yeah, so it hasn't
got as fired quite yet.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
So basically, yeah, we just wanted to get a timeline
of your career as a broadcaster.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
And how what you're doing now.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
You mentioned in the beginning of the episode you're you're
not originally from the five to five nine.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
We were the two o nine. Growing up, Fresno used
to be the two o nine two. But the center
of the universe is still in the two o nine
and your littleos center of the universe. Every time I
drive past those of Banos going.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
To yeah, we all drive through it to get to
the Bay. Right, my, what is there? What the people
that live there? What do you guys do? Well?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
When I was growing up, it was like, you know,
ten twelve thousand people, you knew everybody in town. And
then the Silicon Valley boom happened, so it became a
city where people could afford to live and they'd commute
to the Bay, so a lot of that population. They're
working in San Jose and they're spending a lot of
time on the one fifty two, right.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
But there's some.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Great people there, great places to eat. There's a restaurant
there that's been there over one hundred years called Woolgrowers.
That was John Madden's favorite restaurant in the whole country.
Really wow up with him at forty nine or training
camp one time and he found out I was from there,
and he just started going off. It was when I
was doing local TV. We ended up putting on the
news where he says, you know, if you're a fork man,
if you like to throw on the feedback, you got
(03:51):
to go to Woolgrowers in Las Banas. And there's another
spot that was voted best breakfast in California, Eddie's Cafe.
They've got great cinnamon rolls bigger than your head. They
make French toast out of the cinnamon rolls, and they're
homemade salsa that they serve with their chili verne omelet killer.
So that's just a couple of the spots. There are
plenty of them.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Are one of those spots.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
It was a barbecue spot, Hot City Barbecue, that might
have been knit outstanding. Yeah, real good. Yeah, there's a
spot there that was amazing. Yeah, you're right, I agree.
There is some hidden gem gems there.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Aspanya's is another place, been there a long long time,
a lot of history around there. But I don't want
to ramble on and on, but it is the center
of the universe.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Oh go hey, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
I went to Las Spantas High School and there was
only one high school in town.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
But if you're going real slow, well you're always going
real slow.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Fifty two.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
If you look to your left, you see a big park,
then you see the football stadium. Yep, and there's a
little press box up there. So that's where I started
announcing when I was twelve years old. Nice twelve years old,
you guys want to hear the story. Yeah, I was
here it so I played every sport I could, but
my parents wouldn't let me play football because my granddad
was a doctor and treated to me football injuries. So
I was kind of mad about that. But it's one
(05:02):
of those things I look back on now. If there's anything,
I believes that God's plans are always better than my plans,
because I have my way of that. I think things
should go. But there's always something that God knows that
I don't know that's better.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And this was one of them.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Because I wanted to play football and they wouldn't let me.
But I'm watching a forty nine er game back when
the forty nine ers, I mean, this was the glory
days Montana to Rice, Roger Craig Rath make fan.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, I'm a forty nine er fan during that era, yep.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I mean what didn't they have Ronnie a Lot I
mean Fred Dean, I mean they had Charles Haley came
along that everybody. Anyway, I'm watching the game on TV
and the announcer said something about my team, the forty
nine ers, and he was.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Wrong, So that guy doesn't know what he's talking about.
And my dad laughed, just like you guys did. Do
you remember what he said?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
I don't even remember what he said. Maybe it was
like some what college somebody went to.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Like that, you know, like the facts so wrong?
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Yeah, yeah, like Jerry Rice went to Mississippi Valley State,
Delta Devil's Right, one of the most obscure schools.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
It was something like that.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
And and my dad said, well, you know, if you
think you can do better, maybe you ought to be
a sports announcer. I said, well, how do I do that?
He says, get on your bike. My bike was just
get on your bike. So we ride our bikes a
couple of blocks away. Here's the home of the gentleman
who did all the public address announcing in our hometown, right,
And my dad said, my son would like to learn
from you. So he says, bring your binocular show up
(06:18):
Saturday night. So I do, and I'm pointing on his
roster you know who made the tackles and he can
announce it. And a couple weeks later, this guy turns
to me and he says, well, kid, you ready, like
ready for what?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Ready to start announcing? Really? I figured out this guy.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Was announcing everything, the high school games, the little league games,
the basketball games, a Pop Warner games. So he saw
an opportunity. He said, I'm going to pawn off the
Pop Warner games on the kid. So, twelve years old,
announced my first Pop Warner football game. And I've been
announcing one way or another ever since.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Now were you doing like the play by play or well?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Actually I probably was doing some of that until people said, hey,
you're the PA announcer. We don't want to, okay, but
I do have a story about the first compliment on
my announcing. So you know, twelve year old kid, We
get done with one age group and we're getting ready
for the next and I'm chomping on a great try
tip sandwich from the snack bar or something, and this
guy comes marching up the wooden bleachers to the press
(07:12):
box and he opens up the door and he looks inside,
and that press box isn't much bigger than the studio
we're in right now, so there's only five or six
people in there. But he looks inside, and he looks
all around. He makes eye contact with everybody in the room,
and then he just gets this really confused look on
his face and he goes, well, I don't know where
she went, but when that girl comes back, tell hers
she's doing a great job announce in the football.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Damn man, twelve years old. I mean, first, that's what
I was gonna say. Where was it broadcasting from? But
you were just doing a.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
P yeah for all the fans in the stands. That
is an amazing story. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
And I grew up like literally two blocks from that stadium.
Like if you walk out my front door and take
a right you would dead end into the fence behind
the That would be the west end zone of Lofton Stadium,
named for a former Bulldog who starred for Fresno State
in the twenties and was a great coach there. But
so you could hear, I grew up hearing the PA
my whole life. Right, anytime there's a game, I'm hearing
(08:11):
it because I'm two blocks away. And then my senior
year in high school, I got to actually call the
games on the radio, which was cool.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
And how did that come about? Was it like high school?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
There was a radio station in town, a country station actually,
and they said, hey, we want to put the Tiger
games Los Panics Tigers on the radio. And they asked
that gentleman who gave me my start to do it,
and he said, no, let's let Paul do it.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
MM.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
So I did that my senior year and one of
those guys in that booth, the guy named Lloyd Katta,
had handed me this article from Sports Illustrated and it
said I'll never forget. I think it was like nineteen
eighty four. This came out or something, and it says
the voices from Syracuse and it was about all the
great announcers who went to Syracuse University in upstate New York.
And it's all the guys I've listened to, Bob Costas,
Marv Albert, my favorite, Hank Greenwalder did the Giants. I
(08:58):
listened to him growing up, Greg Pop who was doing
the Warriors at the time. Now you could throw Mike
Turrico and Sean McDonough probably two best out there right
now anyway, long long list, And so that's so it
was because of that that I decided to go to
school there and froze my tail off for four years,
learned how to walk on ice and throw good snowballs,
but had a good experience.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
So twelve years old starting there and then you know
the years reaching to high school, was this something already
in your head, like this, this is what I'm going
to do?
Speaker 3 (09:28):
You know, it really was. There were a lot of
people that thought I was crazy for that. They so
you got to be a doctor, or you know, you're
really good in math, you got to do this and that.
But it was just something that I loved. And I
played basketball and baseball in high school, but you know,
announced the football and just you know, spent a lot
of my time doing something sports related. And I look
(09:49):
back on it now and I see the course my
life's taken, and I'm really thankful that my dad cared
enough to say something and do something. I mean, how
many parents take that kind of initiative with something stupid
their kids says watching a football game, say hey, wait
a second, there's something there.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
And at the time he was he was really ill.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
He'd had to, you know, close down his machine shop
and go on dialysis. You know, he was on dialysis
for three and a half years before he got a
kidney transplant. And I think about that, with everything he
was going through, that he had the awareness And this
is a guy who had four kids right to take
that initiative and invest in my life the way he did.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I don't know where i'd be without that.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
When we talked to when we talk to other radio colleagues,
we always go back to when we were young, and
we asked him, ask them when they were young, who
did they emulate, because we always have that story of
who we emulated when we first started because we didn't
have our voice yet. Yeah, yeah, did you go through
that stage where let me just copy someone that I like.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Well, there are a lot of guys I love listening to,
and I got to hear who your guys were. But
I mean I listened to Hank Greenwald and all the
Giants' games. Lon Simmons was doing the Niners. I'll distinctly
remember riding my bike actually heading to church on a
Sunday night and listening to that forty nine er game
against the Vikings when Steve Young had the epic touchdown
run and I almost veered into traffic on the one
(11:09):
fifty two because Lon Simmons got so excited calling that.
So I don't think I intentionally tried to copy anybody,
but I'm sure some of those elements have bled into
what I do. I mean, there are a lot of
guys who are really good at this, and when I
talk to young announcers now, you know, I remind them,
don't try to be somebody else, be yourself. And that's
(11:30):
something I think I've heard a lot of guys say.
But Vin Scully had a real eloquent way of saying that,
you know, don't try to be the next Vin Scully
if you're not being your authentic self. At some point
the veil's going to be pulled back, and you're gonna
have to be one person on the.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Air or somebody else off the air.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
So hopefully when people hear me, they feel like they
know me, and hopefully they want to be my friend,
because I want to be theirs.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Definitely.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
What was the first paid broadcasting gig or announce? Sports announcing?
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Ooh, you know, I think I did some softball tournaments
for somebody somewhere. My senior year in high school, I
ended up so I did the football games on radio.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
I don't think they paid me for that.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I think that was you know, they paid me in
food and transportation.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
And stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
But that year I also ended up on Jeopardy on
the TV show and there was a radio station in
Sonora that saw me and they said, hey, why don't
you come up and call part of our Columbia College
Claim Jumpers basketball playoff game? So I did go up
and do that, and that might have been it. But
like as far as a full time job, you know,
I had some internships in college and all that, but
(12:40):
Channel forty seven here in town was my first real job.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Nice. Yeah, how was that? How was that experience doing TV? Well?
There's another story there too.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
You know, if you guys don't mind me telling the stories, yeah,
let's do it.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I told you before, and I'm a broken record on this.
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
God's plans are better than mine. So I'm finishing up
at Syracuse and I had a great experience there. It's
a phenomenal school. It's a community a lot like the
Valley in that it's overshadowed by the big cities.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Back to East right, It's not New York City.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
It's three hours away, and the big city people kind
of look down on.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
It's a blue collar town but a lot of tradition.
Great school, and I was in the same class as
a guy named Donovan McNabb. Played a lot of basketball
with Donovan and his wife. His wife, Roxy was the
point guard on our women's team. So I played a
lot of pickup ball, tried to play some club baseball there.
But I'm finishing up my final year, getting ready to graduate,
and I just knew there was this TV job there
(13:34):
that I was going to get.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Had the New York in Syracuse.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Yeah, so it's a little smaller than Fresno, but it's
you know, still, it's a great sports Town. McNabb was
going to have one more year as the quarterback our
basketball team and just played Kentucky in the National Championship
a couple of years before, so big time sports to cover, right,
So I just had it all figured out. That's my plan.
I'm staying here. I'm getting this job. I interviewed for it. Nope,
they gave to somebody else. So now I'm graduating. I'm
(13:58):
not sure what's next. I come back to the valley
and I'm so so thankful that my plan didn't work
out and God had a better plan, because the next
three months were the last three months of my dad's life.
So I got that time with him.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
So he'd been diabetic since he was eight, kidney failure,
blind by the end of his life. But I got
those three months with him I wouldn't have had. And
I could talk all day about my dad and how
he inspired me, and just how as so many of
the things that we kind of build our identities around
got stripped away from him, his faith only got stronger.
(14:31):
And when you see somebody whose circumstances are so far
from what they hoped for, but the hope that they
have keeps burning bright, that's pretty powerful. So that's maybe
been one of the most impactful experiences of my life.
So I got that time with him, got the job
at Channel forty seven, started doing a show on the
side on cable called The Bulldog Wire where we interviewed
(14:54):
people from Olympic sports at Fresno State and so great
coaches and student athletes. I'm getting to know and I
also got to know somebody else because they had Fresno
State students who were doing all the production work, running
the cameras and all that on that show. And one
of those was my wife. So I wouldn't have met
my wife. We got two beautiful daughters who are both
in college now. I can't believe that. But all these
(15:16):
things that happened that wouldn't have happened if I got
my way and had my plan workout. So I've been
in Fresno ever since, and there's nowhere else i'd rather be. Man,
we live in a special place, definitely.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
When you apply for a TV job, you know, in radio,
we turn in air checks. Yeah, a little sample how
we sounded on the radio. Well, how does TV work?
Speaker 3 (15:38):
I'm going to date myself. Man, it's kind of the
same thing. Back then, we call them resume tapes because
there were these things called tapes that you stick in
a machine.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
So it's back in the VHS days.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
I mean you'd be mailing out vhs.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Then it got to DVDs now of course the kids,
I mean they just send them a YouTube link. Yeah
it's real, it's on youtub tube.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
So but do you fake it like you you know,
I did the same thing using it just set you know,
a press cord, a microphone.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I just pretended to be on the radio. Is it
the same, Well it is.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
And at Syracuse, you know, we got a lot of experience,
you know, in the out of the classroom. So they
have a student TV station, they have student radio stations,
and I did a lot of that. But I also
had some great internships. So I interned at KMBR in
San Francisco, which is a great you know, sports station,
intern at Casey twenty four here in town. If you
guys remember Aoran Winnick with his highlight of the night.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Great play, yes, highlight. No.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
He and Paul Sweringe and actually at the time were
the sports guy's there. And then Mike thrill Hill came
in and but then my summer before my senior year
in Syracuse, I got to I got to intern at
Fox Sports in La Wow. So this is when they
were trying to compete with ESPN and they had their
nightly highlight show. Susy Colbert was there, and Alan Massingale
and Tom Kirkland, Jeanie's Alaska, all these people. And toward
(16:59):
the end of our summer in turn Ship and I
had gotten to a lot of the people, played basketball
with them and stuff, and I went to them and
I said, Hey, if if I buy the crew pizza,
would you guys let me in this other intern dress up,
get on the set and do our own version of
all the highlight show, you know stuff that you guys did,
(17:20):
write our own scripts. You don't have to edit anything else,
just press the same buttons and we'll do our thing.
And they said yes. So apparently we were the first
interns ever that got to do that. But that was
my resume, reel me hosting, you know, their version of
Sports Center, And whether it was that or something else,
it was enough to pull the wool over the eyes
of a guy named Mark Cotta, who's a Fresno sportscasting legend,
(17:41):
who was the news director at Channel forty seven at
the time and still a.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Great friend of mine.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
So yeah, So I've been here since August of nineteen
ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
That's amazing. How long were you a Channel forty seven?
Ten years? Oh? Ten years?
Speaker 3 (17:55):
And I did news, did sports, did a lot of things.
That's where I really started interviewing World War two vets,
which has been a life changing thing for me too.
But one of the first big opportunities I had there.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
A tragic story. Early on.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
They had me doing news and a little bit of sports,
and it was when those women disappeared in Yosemite. So
I ended up almost, you know, three four weeks doing
live shots from Yosemite for stations around the country given
the latest information on that, and I think, you know,
there are a lot of good things that you can
learn from every element of the TV news business. But
it's changed a lot since then too. And getting to
(18:31):
cover all the high school football in the valley, that
to me was I think that was great because you
got to know so many people, and you get to
see all the communities that have distinct character, but they're
all part of this valley tapestry, you know, because the
valley's distinct. You guys know this. We're not La, We're
not the Bay. I think we're better. Yeah, but I
love all those communities and doing high school football, you
(18:54):
really got the flavor.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
I mean, you make a good point because we would
go out to high schools a lot from everyone where,
you know, like Madera and you know more everywhere, and
you do get this different vibe from every school.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
But like you said, we're all so repons in the valley.
So it's cool.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
I mean, yeah, it's a separate identity.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Yeah, when you were doing TV, you didn't do any
play by play announcing during your TV run.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Well what well?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
I actually early on I did some Fresno Pacific play
by play on cable, did some basketball and soccer and volleyball,
and then in two thousand I got to fill in
on a few baseball games on the radio different station,
and then in one that's when I started being.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
The voice of Bulldog Baseball.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
So I was still doing the TV job, but on
the side, I was calling all the baseball games on
the radio. And so this year is going to be
my twenty fifth season calling Bulldog Baseball in the radio.
Nice And it was you know when they won the
national championship.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Yeah, kind of a life changing deal too.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
But when did you be officially become the voy of
pretty much all the sports over them?
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I know, not every sport, but you know football and yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
So again, I mean, you guys gonna get sick of
me saying this. God's plans are better than my plans.
I had a plan, and because I had started interviewing
World War two vets on Channel forty seven, had this
thing called Stories of Service, and every Sunday I'd feature
a different World War two vet and I means your
mind blowing stories.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I mean, there's your guys who.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Were seventeen eighteen years old and doing things that we
could never imagine doing and just got so much fulfillment
because I'd finished interviewing one of these vets and his
wife says.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I've never heard that before. Like, hold on a second.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
You've been married like sixty years and he's been holding
out on because they just didn't feel safe to talk
about it. And that was, you know, really well received
one awards and all these things, but I said, you know,
this is this is so much more impactful. I think
I'm going to quit the TV sports and just try
to turn this into a syndicated TV show, so I
give more time. At the same time, I'd added this
(20:57):
radio show called Hometown Heroes, which is still going and
is on in a bunch of cities, where I interviewed
the World War two vets.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
So I thought, I'm just going to focus on that.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
But I have to finish this Fresno State baseball season
before I can really get serious about that. And that season,
I don't know if you guys remember, but it wasn't
the greatest season. Like they were Okay, they were up
and down. They barely won their league. They needed to
win their conference tournament to make the end.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
A magical season.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Unbelievable, right, And I'm telling my wife, don't worry. You know,
we're going to Arizona State. They've only lost three home
games all year. The Dogs have to beat them two
out of three. Really don't have a chance. Hey, look
what they just did. And then in Omaha, same thing,
And unbeknownst to me, a guy named Bill Woodward, who
had done football and basketball for over thirty years, was
getting ready to retire and they were looking for someone
(21:41):
to take that over. And honestly, and I haven't talked
too much about this over the years, and I don't
think this can get me fired, but it almost did
back in the day. You know, doing that TV job
in the radio job made a lot of sense to me,
but sometimes it didn't make sense to everybody else. So
you know, when you're doing TV and you're a journalist,
(22:01):
sometimes you have to tell stories you don't want to tell.
And there were some things that happened with a women's
basketball program at Fresno State that weren't exactly the way
they were supposed to be, and I had kind of
exposed some of that in my TV job, So there
were some people that thought, well, he shouldn't be announcing
in any of our games if he's going to embarrass
us by exposing what this person did. And so I
had actually been counted out. I was like the one
(22:24):
person they couldn't choose to be the next voice of
football and basketball. And again I had my own plan
of I'm going to leave and do this. So then
that team and I just got to see Justin Wilson,
who pitched that championship game.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
This last week in Cincinnati. He's with the reds.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Now and they brought back a lot of these memories.
He was unbelievable that night on short rest when that
team won that national championship and that whole run, all
these people heard me doing, maybe we should have Paul
do football and basketball, so something I didn't even know
about that I couldn't have orchestrated, and they offered me
that possibility.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
And it's been great.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Right, it's been a thrill and a privilege, and some
other stuff came along about the same time that has
been really rewarding.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
To play by play is such an art form. And
you know you talked about baseball and football and I've
gone to board off your basketball Wait, yeah, basketball, right?
Basketball games?
Speaker 2 (23:15):
How are you know?
Speaker 1 (23:16):
When I watch sportscasters on TV, it's usually one guy
is known for this sport or this sport.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
I mean Joe Buck, He's done football.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
And in your head, like, why do you know all
these things about the sert sport? Where where is all
this knowledge coming from? You're so knowledgeable about each sport.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Or the names? I begin the names all the time.
That's the one that worries me.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
All the time.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Well, I'll tell you anything that it seems like, I
know I've had to learn from somebody else. But back
when I was at Syracuse, we had an opportunity one time,
and this was kind of cool when I think back
on it.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
There were four of us.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Students who got to have lunch with a guy named
Marty Glickman. And some people remember that name, and some
of us are maybe don't. But Marty was actually in
the nineteen thirty six Olympics as a track star, had
gone to Syracuse and he became one of the first
really well known sports announcers in the forties and fifties,
(24:15):
and he's the guy that when it comes to the NBA,
he kind of invented a lot of the terms that
we use now. If you say top of the key,
he's the guy who called it the key, like no
one called it that before. So he came up with
a lot of the lexicon. And he came back to
his alma mater, Syracuse, and was meeting with us and
those other guys at that lunch.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
I look now.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
One of them's guy named Phil Shaner who's been doing
local TV in Pennsylvania for years. Another one is Matt
Park who's the Syracuse play by play guy now, and
the other one is John Bloom who's the voice of
the Phoenix Suns. So we're all doing the stuff we
wanted to do, but we're sitting there with Marty and
he says, now, this is the most important advice I
can give you. It doesn't matter if you're calling the
(24:56):
Super Bowl or the World Series or the World Marbles
Championship or the National Spelling Bee. You need to prepare
like it's the most important thing you've ever done and
take it just as seriously. And never imagine when he
said that that I'd get to announce the National Spelling
Bee for all these years. But it was one of
those things where he also just really emphasized, you know,
(25:18):
our job is not to be the show, right, It's
not to make it about us.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
It's not to.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Make people pay attention to us. It's to make them
feel like they're there with us, right, that they're at
the game, that they can feel it. So he would say,
you know, describe what a guy looks like, Describe the sounds,
the smells, the atmosphere. The more you do with that,
the more it makes someone feel like, hey, I'm right
there with you. And maybe they fall asleep in their
(25:45):
recline or listening to you. But Hopefully when they wake
up they say, Hey, I feel like I was just
at that game.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
You do do that.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
By the way, every time I listen to you when
I get to board op your stuff, you definitely paint
the picture. I mean, the only guys you here for
like fifteen more minutes. One thing I do want to mention,
I think I think I know your next career. You
got to read books, the audio books that might have yeah, yeah, well.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Yeah no.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
But two things that I want to bring up real quick.
Number Number one, obviously, you've been the voice of Fresno
State Athletics, and there's these professional athletes that you've gotten
to know, like Aaron Judge and you were talking to
his dad this one remote that we had. And I'm
sure you know the NFL stars. Do you have these
guys numbers? And like, can you call them and hang
(26:35):
out with them anytime you want?
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah, you text some buddies.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
I think if I tried that, I might be in
for a rude awakening. But yeah, those guys have been great.
And I remember Derek Carr. I mean he came on
our set at Channel forty seven his brother's senior year.
You can YouTube that, you know, Derek Carr's first t
TV interview, He's like ten years old.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
He was he was pushing for the Heisman exactly.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Yeah, remember and his voice was like a squeaky as
that way. I thought I was a girl announce in the.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Games, right.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
And Derek's such a great guy, all those guys. Paul George,
I mean, he was just back in town and I
missed him. I was out of town. But anytime they
come back, it's just it takes you back to when
they were here and they haven't changed. They still have
that heart for the valley. They have a humility, and
I think they they understand the responsibility they have to
pay it back. Aaron Judge, I mean I get to
go to New York every year and mce his fundraisers
(27:26):
for his Rise Foundation.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
These guys are.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Just real, genuine people who love the valley, and I
think there's something to that.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
I think, you know, part of their success you can
attribute to how they were raised, the things their families emphasized,
and the fact that they see value in every other person. Right,
They don't think they're better than anybody else.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
I was watching that like Receiver on Netflix. You know,
Davante Adams. He was on that and they showed his
house and his family and there was like, you know,
there was a lot of Fresno State name drops in
that episode.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
So it was just dope to hear that, Like.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
A lot of great talent has come out of this school,
you know.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
And DeVante's another one. He's given back so much. You know,
he's a ton for his high school in pala w Alto,
and he'll do anything for Fresno State. And you know,
I think all those guys see that while Fresno State
didn't make them necessarily right, it wasn't. It didn't turn
them from like, you know, Cinderella into the princess, but
(28:21):
it had a role. It gave them an opportunity. And
I'm somewhat concerned. This is a whole different topic, but
in this era of the transfer portal and the nil
and all that, Yeah, it kind of makes you wonder
if we're going to see as many of those stories
in the future as we've seen in the past.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
That's tough.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
I was going to say, as broadcasters were sometimes we
forget because you know, we're talking about professional athletes now.
And I was at a preseason game and one of
the Lopez brothers. I was sitting courtside and I was
like Fresno and now he turned around. I was like
John Magic and he was like I used to listen
to you.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah, but with Paul.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Though, I mean, you hang out, you know, you know,
I feel like, you know these guys, you know, you
feel like you do and you know they're families, which
makes yeah for rewarding.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
You know, it's and when you see them, it's like
the years just disappear, Like you know, catching up at
this Reds game with Justin Wilson and Austin Wins, two
of my all time favorite you know, Bulldog baseball players
because they did everything the right way and they just
worked their way to where they are now. And you know,
it felt like it was two thousand and eight again
or twenty eleven again, or you know, and but then
(29:31):
you see now they're in their thirties and they're married
and they have kids. You're like, wait a second's playing
with my daughters on the field, you know.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Yeah, man, even you know, recently I got to meet
Bernard Berrian. Yeah he's been coming to the club a
v but not you were just talking about these guys
like come back to Fresno and he's been like the
I recently just like met him and like he says
hi to me now every time I see him, And man,
it's cool to see these professional athletes, like you said,
(30:01):
give back to Fresno are still here.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah, so that's a cool thing. I know. We got
about ten minutes left.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
So the last thing I want to bring up is
this amazing thing that I got to witness.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
It's the Honor Flight. Can we talk? You know you're
talking about the.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
World you interviewing the World War two vets. Can you
tell us this thing that you're part of?
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Man? You sure? We only got ten minutes? Two hours?
Speaker 3 (30:24):
No, Central Valley Honor Flight, in my mind, is one
of the best, if not the best, thing that happens
in our valley, because not only is it honoring people
who really deserve it, but it's bringing people together. And
how many things in our world today really bring people together.
So I'm going to give your listeners a couple of
(30:44):
dates here. September eighteenth and October sixteenth. Those are the
next two nights when we're going to be welcoming home
a charter plane full of veterans.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yeah, explain what Honor flight is yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
So it started way back. You know, the World War
Two Memorial and D wasn't built till two thousand and four.
A lot of people don't know. It wasn't a government project.
It was World War Two veterans themselves donating one hundred
and ninety seven million dollars to build it. My granddad
was one of those who donated but never got to
see it. But after it got built, there was this
(31:17):
one man in Ohio. His name was Earl Morse. He
was a physician's assistant at the VA Hospital and he's
talking to this one patient who's a World War Two vet.
He says, Hey, are you gonna go see that new
memorial they just built. The guy says, nah, you know,
I'm too old. It's too hard to travel. And this guy, Earl,
he says, well, you know, I'm a pilot.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I have my own plane. What if I fly you there?
Would you go? Then?
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Yeah? And then other guys found out. So the next
time he took a few people. Then his friend in
North Carolina heard about He says, I'm going to charter
a whole plane there. So it started to spread around
the country, and interestingly enough, in two thousand and eight
when we're there in Omaha for two weeks with the
Diamond Dogs and that, you know, incredible underdogs to Wonderdogs story.
I was interviewing a couple of World War Two vets
(31:56):
there and they had just been on an honor flight,
so I'd been familiar with it. I told a few
people here in town, you know, we really need to
start this. Nothing happened, but again, God's plans are always
better than mine. I just saw this woman two weeks ago,
this lady named Nancy Walker. She called me one day
after my hometown hero show. She said, hey, Paul, you're
always talking to these veterans. Why don't you start on
(32:17):
her flight in Fresno. They have it in Eureka. Why
don't they have it in Fresno. I said, hey, I
agree with you. I've been telling people that for years.
She's like, no, but you need to do something about
It's like, well, we'll see. The next week, I get
this call from another lady named Diane. She tells me
the same thing. My husband was involved in Chicago. Why
don't we have it here? I was like, do you
know Nancy? Who's Nancy? The next week Nancy calls me.
(32:38):
Then Diane calls me, then Nancy. So these people they're
just pingponging this reminder, Hey, this is really needed in
our community.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
And I agreed with them.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
So we got some people together, we had a meeting.
We all said, yeah, that would be awesome because I
don't know if you guys know this, but there's a
higher concentration of veterans in the valley than just about
anywhere else in the country. So if ever there's a
place where there's a need, it's here.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
And we had a meeting. We all agreed it needed
to happen.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
But I had to face the reality that, you know,
as a husband and father of young kids, I didn't
have fifty hours a week to devote to this and
I wanted to do it, and it was one of
those things I had to let go of. And my
prayer was, you know, God, if you want to make
this happen in our community, do it your way and
your timing. And a year later, a lot of things happened.
(33:24):
I got a call out of the Blue EECU, the
Credit Union. They say, hey, we want to support a
veteran's charity this may do you know of any that
are worthy of supporting It's like, yeah, there's this, this, this,
and oh we talked about this one.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Well, hey, can we do that. It's like, well maybe if.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
You guys are bringing some money, maybe, And all the
pieces started to come together. We've had a great PR
firm design a logo for us and they were on board,
but we still needed someone with the expertise and the
time to lead it. And it's it's crazy how this happened.
Remember Tim Tebow. Tim Tebow's coming to town a fundraiser
for Break the Barriers, which might be my favorite other
(34:00):
nonprofit in town.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Man are they awesome?
Speaker 3 (34:02):
And for Fresnel Christian And I'm mceing it and Tbow
did a great job, memorable night, tons of people there.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
The next day, I get this phone call.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
This guy says, Hey, Paul, I just wanted to tell
you a great job last night. Blah blah blah. Said, Hey,
wait a second, didn't you just retire? So a year earlier.
If I had pushed forward and said let's do it,
this guy wouldn't have been available yet. But he had
just retired after running our VA hospital in Fresno for
thirteen years. He took it from one of the worst
in the country to.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Maybe the best.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
He spent his whole career serving veterans, and now he
had all this free time.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
So I told him about Honor Flight. He jumped in.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
His name's Al Perry, by the way, and so Honor
Flight it's all volunteers.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
It's all donations.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
But we simply fly veterans from the valley and we
cover from Porterville all the way up to Stockton to Washington,
d C. It's a three day trip. They don't pay
a dime. Wow, So we have to raise the money.
They're guardians who go with them. Usually it's a son,
it's a daughter. Someone listening to this right now. They
could sign up and go as a guardian. They make
a donation that's tax deductible. We asked for twelve hundred
dollars that offset some of the cost. But what's amazing, guys,
(35:04):
is that something we thought we'd do for a few
years and maybe just take the World War two vets.
Now we're more than a decade later, we're taking Korean
War vets and Vietnam vets. And I'll tell you, I
think it's more important for our Vietnam generation than any
of the rest because of what they endured fifty years ago.
But this valley is so generous that flight in September
(35:25):
is going to be our twenty ninth flight, and the
flight in October will be our thirtieth, and at that
point will have taken more than two thousand Valley veterans
to go see their memorials for free because the valley,
the people made it possible with their generosity.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
That's cool.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
It is such a site. They So the big event
is when they land back at Fresno Year seventy Airport
and they're greeted. Thousands of people are there just greeting them. Cheers. Yeahah,
Paul m sees it and you get the crowd going.
It's just an amazing sight.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Well, and I don't know if you saw this, but
what I see every time, and I get goosebumps every time. Yeah,
And I've only gone on one of our twenty eight
flights because I realized if I go, I'm not here
to do that part of it. And sometimes that plane
gets delayed, so I have to try to keep that crowd.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Yeah, when I was there. Then when I was there,
it got delayed and he didn't fall asleep. But you
saw this too. Magic if you look out there.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
This is literally you're going to see a zero two
one hundred because there's infants there every time. It's here
to see great grandpa, and there's guys who've already gone
who want to come back and welcome back.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
The other vats.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
You see every ethnicity, every religion, every political belief, every
tax bracket, all these things that every day we're all hearing, Hey,
you can't agree so different, and nobody cares because one
thing they all agree on, our veterans deserve our gratitude.
So they're wearing red, white and blue. They're shaking pom poms,
they're waving flags.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
You.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
I tell everyone to be quiet, and we hear the
bagpipers from the Fresno Stag and thistlefife and drum approaching
down the hallway.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Did you feel Yeah, live bagpipes go to one of these, Yeah,
as an experience.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
The sailors from nas Lamore, they take their time. Yeah,
they come up in uniform and they line the hallway,
standing in attention, saluting the vets as they come through.
And then as soon as those doors open, I get
to say welcome home veterans. The Clovist Community Band starts
playing the Army him, the Navy him, the Air Force,
the coast Guard and everything. The Marines can't forget them,
(37:21):
and the crowd just erupts. And I mean there's no
room in the airport is standing room only. And they
don't stop cheering until the last veteran has made his
way all the way through, and that human tunnel just
goes all the way to baggage.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Claim.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
Wow, and what it means to these vets, I can't
even describe for you. I can't put it into words,
because you can see the most hardened marine with a
tear streaming down his cheek. And they tell us time
and time again. You know, the World War Two guys
will say I never had a welcome home. The Vietnam
guys say, well, when I came home, they told me
I couldn't wear my uniform or else I get spit
on and called baby killer. I mean, this vet after
(37:56):
vet after vet tell us that. So in that sense,
now that we're taking so many Vietnam vets, I think
we're riding or wrong. We're bringing them to a place
they've never been before, that they've been hoping for a
long time. And it's not just going to DC and
seeing all that that welcome home for the Vietnam VET
maybe means more than all the rest. So's I could
(38:16):
talk all day about Honor Flight, guys and CV. Honorflight
dot org is the website if people want to sign
a veteran up volunteer to go as a guardian or
just support us, because it costs about two hundred and
fifty grand every flight to make this possible, but the
valley keeps stepping up to support it.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Those two dates you gave are those when it leaves
or when it comes back. When it comes back, When
it comes back, Okay, that's when we want everybody there.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
And every time we do a flight, people come up
with great ideas. Right now, I could keep you guys
here all day telling you the organic ways that groups
have fundraised for that mission. It's high school kids meeting
our vets in DC saying we need to raise money.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
And even in my hometown of Los Vana. So there's
a group of high school kids that did that.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
They started to drive through dinner and over the years
now they've contributed one hundred and fifty thousand. Have people
do car shows or so blankets for our vets or
you know, all these different ways, but it takes all
of us.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
And so that's what I say.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
In my mind, it's one of the best things that
happens in our valley because it tells me if we
can find something that brings us together that we agree on,
there's nothing we can't do, right.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
I mean, no one.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Would have said this as possible, but the veterans are
that cause we can all agree on. And so I wonder, Okay,
if we can do this for them, what else can
we agree on? What else are we capable of?
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Here?
Speaker 3 (39:30):
We don't have to feel second fiddle to La or
the Bay. You know, we can be who we are
here in the valley and people will pay attention, say, hey,
that's something special going on over there.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Man, we appreciate you telling these amazing stories. The last
thing is, if there was a professional sports team that
you want to be a play by play announcer for,
who is it?
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Oh man? Good question you.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
Growing up, that was the Giants, man, boy, I listened
to every Giants game and Giants baseball. Yeah, and I
think baseball is the sport that I'm status the most
natural FORMU But I love them all for different reasons.
I'm just I'm not trying to do anything but the
things I'm doing now, and I feel I'm right where
I'm supposed to be. I've had a lot of privileges
(40:12):
that I never could have earned on my own. That's
why I say God's plans are always better than mine.
And I just love being here in the valley and
serving this community.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
And like I.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
Said, it's a pretty special place. So thanks for making
it a special place. And don't get me fired.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
We're looking forward to this upcoming football season.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Go Dogs. Paul Leffler, Thank you very much, ma'am. Thank
you guys.
Before we officially start the episode with our guest Paul Leffler,
who's here before we give you the proper introduction, apologies
for the AC.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Just went out like maybe an hour ago.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Come on, man, I've from lost Veana, so you don't
need an act.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
One hundred and thirty degrees in here. Man, sweat through it.
Let's go the thing I'm going through right now. I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I don't know if this is legal or not, but
I haven't had AC in my apartment for the past
five days. I've been trying to get the property management
to fix it. They keep giving me the run around.
I've been trying to pay someone else to fix it,
and they say we need to get the properties permission
to fix it. I've been having to get hotels because
(00:39):
I can't. I can't sleep in there. Legally they have
thirty days to fix the issue.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Damn.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Yeah, I was trying to get a compensation, like can
you pay for these hotels that I'm staying at.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I mean, luckily the triple digits have gone down.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
I mean it's still like ninety nine, but you know
we're not in triple digits anymore, so I don't know.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Good luck.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
These these Fresnel summers were almost done. And then I
don't have to worry about this anymore.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
You know, there's some great camping spots around here. Sleep outside,
bro see the start? Yeah, all right, I'm ready to
get this episode started.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
This could give me fire podcast? What up onio? That
is John Magic and we are back.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
It's excited to have this guest because always interested in
his profession of work. And you know, I was telling Jizo,
I know him as the voice of Fresno State Athletics.
He's like a play by play and then you Giso
reminded me.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Yeah, used to be on the news, right I want
to say, I want to say CBS.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
He was a sports and I was like, oh yeah,
he was on TV. I remember ladies and gentlemen. Paul
Leffler's here.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
What's this?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
This could get me fired stuff. Nobody told me that this.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Could give me fire podcast the way, So what what
episode is this?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
One hundred and fourty? Yeah, were almost like one fifty.
I think has anybody gotten fired yet? No? Not here.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
The way it came about was, you know, Jesse and
I were in the studio during his show and when
he would go to commercials, we would just talk about
different topics and we would say, turn on the mics,
let's talk about these topics. And then we just said, wait,
this might get us fired, and then it just clicked
that's our podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah. Well and you're still here. Yeah, so it hasn't
got as fired quite yet.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
So basically, yeah, we just wanted to get a timeline
of your career as a broadcaster.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
And how what you're doing now.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
You mentioned in the beginning of the episode you're you're
not originally from the five to five nine.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
We were the two o nine. Growing up, Fresno used
to be the two o nine two. But the center
of the universe is still in the two o nine
and your littleos center of the universe. Every time I
drive past those of Banos going.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
To yeah, we all drive through it to get to
the Bay. Right, my, what is there? What the people
that live there? What do you guys do? Well?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
When I was growing up, it was like, you know,
ten twelve thousand people, you knew everybody in town. And
then the Silicon Valley boom happened, so it became a
city where people could afford to live and they'd commute
to the Bay, so a lot of that population. They're
working in San Jose and they're spending a lot of
time on the one fifty two, right.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
But there's some.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Great people there, great places to eat. There's a restaurant
there that's been there over one hundred years called Woolgrowers.
That was John Madden's favorite restaurant in the whole country.
Really wow up with him at forty nine or training
camp one time and he found out I was from there,
and he just started going off. It was when I
was doing local TV. We ended up putting on the
news where he says, you know, if you're a fork man,
if you like to throw on the feedback, you got
(03:51):
to go to Woolgrowers in Las Banas. And there's another
spot that was voted best breakfast in California, Eddie's Cafe.
They've got great cinnamon rolls bigger than your head. They
make French toast out of the cinnamon rolls, and they're
homemade salsa that they serve with their chili verne omelet killer.
So that's just a couple of the spots. There are
plenty of them.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Are one of those spots.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
It was a barbecue spot, Hot City Barbecue, that might
have been knit outstanding. Yeah, real good. Yeah, there's a
spot there that was amazing. Yeah, you're right, I agree.
There is some hidden gem gems there.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Aspanya's is another place, been there a long long time,
a lot of history around there. But I don't want
to ramble on and on, but it is the center
of the universe.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Oh go hey, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
I went to Las Spantas High School and there was
only one high school in town.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
But if you're going real slow, well you're always going
real slow.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Fifty two.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
If you look to your left, you see a big park,
then you see the football stadium. Yep, and there's a
little press box up there. So that's where I started
announcing when I was twelve years old. Nice twelve years old,
you guys want to hear the story. Yeah, I was
here it so I played every sport I could, but
my parents wouldn't let me play football because my granddad
was a doctor and treated to me football injuries. So
I was kind of mad about that. But it's one
(05:02):
of those things I look back on now. If there's anything,
I believes that God's plans are always better than my plans,
because I have my way of that. I think things
should go. But there's always something that God knows that
I don't know that's better.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And this was one of them.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Because I wanted to play football and they wouldn't let me.
But I'm watching a forty nine er game back when
the forty nine ers, I mean, this was the glory
days Montana to Rice, Roger Craig Rath make fan.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, I'm a forty nine er fan during that era, yep.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I mean what didn't they have Ronnie a Lot I
mean Fred Dean, I mean they had Charles Haley came
along that everybody. Anyway, I'm watching the game on TV
and the announcer said something about my team, the forty
nine ers, and he was.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Wrong, So that guy doesn't know what he's talking about.
And my dad laughed, just like you guys did. Do
you remember what he said?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
I don't even remember what he said. Maybe it was
like some what college somebody went to.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Like that, you know, like the facts so wrong?
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Yeah, yeah, like Jerry Rice went to Mississippi Valley State,
Delta Devil's Right, one of the most obscure schools.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
It was something like that.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
And and my dad said, well, you know, if you
think you can do better, maybe you ought to be
a sports announcer. I said, well, how do I do that?
He says, get on your bike. My bike was just
get on your bike. So we ride our bikes a
couple of blocks away. Here's the home of the gentleman
who did all the public address announcing in our hometown, right,
And my dad said, my son would like to learn
from you. So he says, bring your binocular show up
(06:18):
Saturday night. So I do, and I'm pointing on his
roster you know who made the tackles and he can
announce it. And a couple weeks later, this guy turns
to me and he says, well, kid, you ready, like
ready for what?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Ready to start announcing? Really? I figured out this guy.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Was announcing everything, the high school games, the little league games,
the basketball games, a Pop Warner games. So he saw
an opportunity. He said, I'm going to pawn off the
Pop Warner games on the kid. So, twelve years old,
announced my first Pop Warner football game. And I've been
announcing one way or another ever since.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Now were you doing like the play by play or well?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Actually I probably was doing some of that until people said, hey,
you're the PA announcer. We don't want to, okay, but
I do have a story about the first compliment on
my announcing. So you know, twelve year old kid, We
get done with one age group and we're getting ready
for the next and I'm chomping on a great try
tip sandwich from the snack bar or something, and this
guy comes marching up the wooden bleachers to the press
(07:12):
box and he opens up the door and he looks inside,
and that press box isn't much bigger than the studio
we're in right now, so there's only five or six
people in there. But he looks inside, and he looks
all around. He makes eye contact with everybody in the room,
and then he just gets this really confused look on
his face and he goes, well, I don't know where
she went, but when that girl comes back, tell hers
she's doing a great job announce in the football.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Damn man, twelve years old. I mean, first, that's what
I was gonna say. Where was it broadcasting from? But
you were just doing a.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
P yeah for all the fans in the stands. That
is an amazing story. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
And I grew up like literally two blocks from that stadium.
Like if you walk out my front door and take
a right you would dead end into the fence behind
the That would be the west end zone of Lofton Stadium,
named for a former Bulldog who starred for Fresno State
in the twenties and was a great coach there. But
so you could hear, I grew up hearing the PA
my whole life. Right, anytime there's a game, I'm hearing
(08:11):
it because I'm two blocks away. And then my senior
year in high school, I got to actually call the
games on the radio, which was cool.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
And how did that come about? Was it like high school?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
There was a radio station in town, a country station actually,
and they said, hey, we want to put the Tiger
games Los Panics Tigers on the radio. And they asked
that gentleman who gave me my start to do it,
and he said, no, let's let Paul do it.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
MM.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
So I did that my senior year and one of
those guys in that booth, the guy named Lloyd Katta,
had handed me this article from Sports Illustrated and it
said I'll never forget. I think it was like nineteen
eighty four. This came out or something, and it says
the voices from Syracuse and it was about all the
great announcers who went to Syracuse University in upstate New York.
And it's all the guys I've listened to, Bob Costas,
Marv Albert, my favorite, Hank Greenwalder did the Giants. I
(08:58):
listened to him growing up, Greg Pop who was doing
the Warriors at the time. Now you could throw Mike
Turrico and Sean McDonough probably two best out there right
now anyway, long long list, And so that's so it
was because of that that I decided to go to
school there and froze my tail off for four years,
learned how to walk on ice and throw good snowballs,
but had a good experience.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
So twelve years old starting there and then you know
the years reaching to high school, was this something already
in your head, like this, this is what I'm going
to do?
Speaker 3 (09:28):
You know, it really was. There were a lot of
people that thought I was crazy for that. They so
you got to be a doctor, or you know, you're
really good in math, you got to do this and that.
But it was just something that I loved. And I
played basketball and baseball in high school, but you know,
announced the football and just you know, spent a lot
of my time doing something sports related. And I look
(09:49):
back on it now and I see the course my
life's taken, and I'm really thankful that my dad cared
enough to say something and do something. I mean, how
many parents take that kind of initiative with something stupid
their kids says watching a football game, say hey, wait
a second, there's something there.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
And at the time he was he was really ill.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
He'd had to, you know, close down his machine shop
and go on dialysis. You know, he was on dialysis
for three and a half years before he got a
kidney transplant. And I think about that, with everything he
was going through, that he had the awareness And this
is a guy who had four kids right to take
that initiative and invest in my life the way he did.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I don't know where i'd be without that.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
When we talked to when we talk to other radio colleagues,
we always go back to when we were young, and
we asked him, ask them when they were young, who
did they emulate, because we always have that story of
who we emulated when we first started because we didn't
have our voice yet. Yeah, yeah, did you go through
that stage where let me just copy someone that I like.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Well, there are a lot of guys I love listening to,
and I got to hear who your guys were. But
I mean I listened to Hank Greenwald and all the
Giants' games. Lon Simmons was doing the Niners. I'll distinctly
remember riding my bike actually heading to church on a
Sunday night and listening to that forty nine er game
against the Vikings when Steve Young had the epic touchdown
run and I almost veered into traffic on the one
(11:09):
fifty two because Lon Simmons got so excited calling that.
So I don't think I intentionally tried to copy anybody,
but I'm sure some of those elements have bled into
what I do. I mean, there are a lot of
guys who are really good at this, and when I
talk to young announcers now, you know, I remind them,
don't try to be somebody else, be yourself. And that's
(11:30):
something I think I've heard a lot of guys say.
But Vin Scully had a real eloquent way of saying that,
you know, don't try to be the next Vin Scully
if you're not being your authentic self. At some point
the veil's going to be pulled back, and you're gonna
have to be one person on the.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Air or somebody else off the air.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
So hopefully when people hear me, they feel like they
know me, and hopefully they want to be my friend,
because I want to be theirs.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Definitely.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
What was the first paid broadcasting gig or announce? Sports announcing?
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Ooh, you know, I think I did some softball tournaments
for somebody somewhere. My senior year in high school, I
ended up so I did the football games on radio.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
I don't think they paid me for that.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I think that was you know, they paid me in
food and transportation.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
And stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
But that year I also ended up on Jeopardy on
the TV show and there was a radio station in
Sonora that saw me and they said, hey, why don't
you come up and call part of our Columbia College
Claim Jumpers basketball playoff game? So I did go up
and do that, and that might have been it. But
like as far as a full time job, you know,
I had some internships in college and all that, but
(12:40):
Channel forty seven here in town was my first real job.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Nice. Yeah, how was that? How was that experience doing TV? Well?
There's another story there too.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
You know, if you guys don't mind me telling the stories, yeah,
let's do it.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I told you before, and I'm a broken record on this.
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
God's plans are better than mine. So I'm finishing up
at Syracuse and I had a great experience there. It's
a phenomenal school. It's a community a lot like the
Valley in that it's overshadowed by the big cities.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Back to East right, It's not New York City.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
It's three hours away, and the big city people kind
of look down on.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
It's a blue collar town but a lot of tradition.
Great school, and I was in the same class as
a guy named Donovan McNabb. Played a lot of basketball
with Donovan and his wife. His wife, Roxy was the
point guard on our women's team. So I played a
lot of pickup ball, tried to play some club baseball there.
But I'm finishing up my final year, getting ready to graduate,
and I just knew there was this TV job there
(13:34):
that I was going to get.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Had the New York in Syracuse.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Yeah, so it's a little smaller than Fresno, but it's
you know, still, it's a great sports Town. McNabb was
going to have one more year as the quarterback our
basketball team and just played Kentucky in the National Championship
a couple of years before, so big time sports to cover, right,
So I just had it all figured out. That's my plan.
I'm staying here. I'm getting this job. I interviewed for it. Nope,
they gave to somebody else. So now I'm graduating. I'm
(13:58):
not sure what's next. I come back to the valley
and I'm so so thankful that my plan didn't work
out and God had a better plan, because the next
three months were the last three months of my dad's life.
So I got that time with him.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
So he'd been diabetic since he was eight, kidney failure,
blind by the end of his life. But I got
those three months with him I wouldn't have had. And
I could talk all day about my dad and how
he inspired me, and just how as so many of
the things that we kind of build our identities around
got stripped away from him, his faith only got stronger.
(14:31):
And when you see somebody whose circumstances are so far
from what they hoped for, but the hope that they
have keeps burning bright, that's pretty powerful. So that's maybe
been one of the most impactful experiences of my life.
So I got that time with him, got the job
at Channel forty seven, started doing a show on the
side on cable called The Bulldog Wire where we interviewed
(14:54):
people from Olympic sports at Fresno State and so great
coaches and student athletes. I'm getting to know and I
also got to know somebody else because they had Fresno
State students who were doing all the production work, running
the cameras and all that on that show. And one
of those was my wife. So I wouldn't have met
my wife. We got two beautiful daughters who are both
in college now. I can't believe that. But all these
(15:16):
things that happened that wouldn't have happened if I got
my way and had my plan workout. So I've been
in Fresno ever since, and there's nowhere else i'd rather be. Man,
we live in a special place, definitely.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
When you apply for a TV job, you know, in radio,
we turn in air checks. Yeah, a little sample how
we sounded on the radio. Well, how does TV work?
Speaker 3 (15:38):
I'm going to date myself. Man, it's kind of the
same thing. Back then, we call them resume tapes because
there were these things called tapes that you stick in
a machine.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
So it's back in the VHS days.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
I mean you'd be mailing out vhs.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Then it got to DVDs now of course the kids,
I mean they just send them a YouTube link. Yeah
it's real, it's on youtub tube.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
So but do you fake it like you you know,
I did the same thing using it just set you know,
a press cord, a microphone.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I just pretended to be on the radio. Is it
the same, Well it is.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
And at Syracuse, you know, we got a lot of experience,
you know, in the out of the classroom. So they
have a student TV station, they have student radio stations,
and I did a lot of that. But I also
had some great internships. So I interned at KMBR in
San Francisco, which is a great you know, sports station,
intern at Casey twenty four here in town. If you
guys remember Aoran Winnick with his highlight of the night.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Great play, yes, highlight. No.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
He and Paul Sweringe and actually at the time were
the sports guy's there. And then Mike thrill Hill came
in and but then my summer before my senior year
in Syracuse, I got to I got to intern at
Fox Sports in La Wow. So this is when they
were trying to compete with ESPN and they had their
nightly highlight show. Susy Colbert was there, and Alan Massingale
and Tom Kirkland, Jeanie's Alaska, all these people. And toward
(16:59):
the end of our summer in turn Ship and I
had gotten to a lot of the people, played basketball
with them and stuff, and I went to them and
I said, Hey, if if I buy the crew pizza,
would you guys let me in this other intern dress up,
get on the set and do our own version of
all the highlight show, you know stuff that you guys did,
(17:20):
write our own scripts. You don't have to edit anything else,
just press the same buttons and we'll do our thing.
And they said yes. So apparently we were the first
interns ever that got to do that. But that was
my resume, reel me hosting, you know, their version of
Sports Center, And whether it was that or something else,
it was enough to pull the wool over the eyes
of a guy named Mark Cotta, who's a Fresno sportscasting legend,
(17:41):
who was the news director at Channel forty seven at
the time and still a.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Great friend of mine.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
So yeah, So I've been here since August of nineteen
ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
That's amazing. How long were you a Channel forty seven?
Ten years? Oh? Ten years?
Speaker 3 (17:55):
And I did news, did sports, did a lot of things.
That's where I really started interviewing World War two vets,
which has been a life changing thing for me too.
But one of the first big opportunities I had there.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
A tragic story. Early on.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
They had me doing news and a little bit of sports,
and it was when those women disappeared in Yosemite. So
I ended up almost, you know, three four weeks doing
live shots from Yosemite for stations around the country given
the latest information on that, and I think, you know,
there are a lot of good things that you can
learn from every element of the TV news business. But
it's changed a lot since then too. And getting to
(18:31):
cover all the high school football in the valley, that
to me was I think that was great because you
got to know so many people, and you get to
see all the communities that have distinct character, but they're
all part of this valley tapestry, you know, because the
valley's distinct. You guys know this. We're not La, We're
not the Bay. I think we're better. Yeah, but I
love all those communities and doing high school football, you
(18:54):
really got the flavor.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
I mean, you make a good point because we would
go out to high schools a lot from everyone where,
you know, like Madera and you know more everywhere, and
you do get this different vibe from every school.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
But like you said, we're all so repons in the valley.
So it's cool.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
I mean, yeah, it's a separate identity.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Yeah, when you were doing TV, you didn't do any
play by play announcing during your TV run.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Well what well?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
I actually early on I did some Fresno Pacific play
by play on cable, did some basketball and soccer and volleyball,
and then in two thousand I got to fill in
on a few baseball games on the radio different station,
and then in one that's when I started being.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
The voice of Bulldog Baseball.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
So I was still doing the TV job, but on
the side, I was calling all the baseball games on
the radio. And so this year is going to be
my twenty fifth season calling Bulldog Baseball in the radio.
Nice And it was you know when they won the
national championship.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Yeah, kind of a life changing deal too.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
But when did you be officially become the voy of
pretty much all the sports over them?
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I know, not every sport, but you know football and yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
So again, I mean, you guys gonna get sick of
me saying this. God's plans are better than my plans.
I had a plan, and because I had started interviewing
World War two vets on Channel forty seven, had this
thing called Stories of Service, and every Sunday I'd feature
a different World War two vet and I means your
mind blowing stories.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I mean, there's your guys who.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Were seventeen eighteen years old and doing things that we
could never imagine doing and just got so much fulfillment
because I'd finished interviewing one of these vets and his
wife says.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I've never heard that before. Like, hold on a second.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
You've been married like sixty years and he's been holding
out on because they just didn't feel safe to talk
about it. And that was, you know, really well received
one awards and all these things, but I said, you know,
this is this is so much more impactful. I think
I'm going to quit the TV sports and just try
to turn this into a syndicated TV show, so I
give more time. At the same time, I'd added this
(20:57):
radio show called Hometown Heroes, which is still going and
is on in a bunch of cities, where I interviewed
the World War two vets.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
So I thought, I'm just going to focus on that.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
But I have to finish this Fresno State baseball season
before I can really get serious about that. And that season,
I don't know if you guys remember, but it wasn't
the greatest season. Like they were Okay, they were up
and down. They barely won their league. They needed to
win their conference tournament to make the end.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
A magical season.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Unbelievable, right, And I'm telling my wife, don't worry. You know,
we're going to Arizona State. They've only lost three home
games all year. The Dogs have to beat them two
out of three. Really don't have a chance. Hey, look
what they just did. And then in Omaha, same thing,
And unbeknownst to me, a guy named Bill Woodward, who
had done football and basketball for over thirty years, was
getting ready to retire and they were looking for someone
(21:41):
to take that over. And honestly, and I haven't talked
too much about this over the years, and I don't
think this can get me fired, but it almost did
back in the day. You know, doing that TV job
in the radio job made a lot of sense to me,
but sometimes it didn't make sense to everybody else. So
you know, when you're doing TV and you're a journalist,
(22:01):
sometimes you have to tell stories you don't want to tell.
And there were some things that happened with a women's
basketball program at Fresno State that weren't exactly the way
they were supposed to be, and I had kind of
exposed some of that in my TV job, So there
were some people that thought, well, he shouldn't be announcing
in any of our games if he's going to embarrass
us by exposing what this person did. And so I
had actually been counted out. I was like the one
(22:24):
person they couldn't choose to be the next voice of
football and basketball. And again I had my own plan
of I'm going to leave and do this. So then
that team and I just got to see Justin Wilson,
who pitched that championship game.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
This last week in Cincinnati. He's with the reds.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Now and they brought back a lot of these memories.
He was unbelievable that night on short rest when that
team won that national championship and that whole run, all
these people heard me doing, maybe we should have Paul
do football and basketball, so something I didn't even know
about that I couldn't have orchestrated, and they offered me
that possibility.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
And it's been great.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Right, it's been a thrill and a privilege, and some
other stuff came along about the same time that has
been really rewarding.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
To play by play is such an art form. And
you know you talked about baseball and football and I've
gone to board off your basketball Wait, yeah, basketball, right?
Basketball games?
Speaker 2 (23:15):
How are you know?
Speaker 1 (23:16):
When I watch sportscasters on TV, it's usually one guy
is known for this sport or this sport.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
I mean Joe Buck, He's done football.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
And in your head, like, why do you know all
these things about the sert sport? Where where is all
this knowledge coming from? You're so knowledgeable about each sport.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Or the names? I begin the names all the time.
That's the one that worries me.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
All the time.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Well, I'll tell you anything that it seems like, I
know I've had to learn from somebody else. But back
when I was at Syracuse, we had an opportunity one time,
and this was kind of cool when I think back
on it.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
There were four of us.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Students who got to have lunch with a guy named
Marty Glickman. And some people remember that name, and some
of us are maybe don't. But Marty was actually in
the nineteen thirty six Olympics as a track star, had
gone to Syracuse and he became one of the first
really well known sports announcers in the forties and fifties,
(24:15):
and he's the guy that when it comes to the NBA,
he kind of invented a lot of the terms that
we use now. If you say top of the key,
he's the guy who called it the key, like no
one called it that before. So he came up with
a lot of the lexicon. And he came back to
his alma mater, Syracuse, and was meeting with us and
those other guys at that lunch.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
I look now.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
One of them's guy named Phil Shaner who's been doing
local TV in Pennsylvania for years. Another one is Matt
Park who's the Syracuse play by play guy now, and
the other one is John Bloom who's the voice of
the Phoenix Suns. So we're all doing the stuff we
wanted to do, but we're sitting there with Marty and
he says, now, this is the most important advice I
can give you. It doesn't matter if you're calling the
(24:56):
Super Bowl or the World Series or the World Marbles
Championship or the National Spelling Bee. You need to prepare
like it's the most important thing you've ever done and
take it just as seriously. And never imagine when he
said that that I'd get to announce the National Spelling
Bee for all these years. But it was one of
those things where he also just really emphasized, you know,
(25:18):
our job is not to be the show, right, It's
not to make it about us.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
It's not to.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Make people pay attention to us. It's to make them
feel like they're there with us, right, that they're at
the game, that they can feel it. So he would say,
you know, describe what a guy looks like, Describe the sounds,
the smells, the atmosphere. The more you do with that,
the more it makes someone feel like, hey, I'm right
there with you. And maybe they fall asleep in their
(25:45):
recline or listening to you. But Hopefully when they wake
up they say, Hey, I feel like I was just
at that game.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
You do do that.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
By the way, every time I listen to you when
I get to board op your stuff, you definitely paint
the picture. I mean, the only guys you here for
like fifteen more minutes. One thing I do want to mention,
I think I think I know your next career. You
got to read books, the audio books that might have yeah, yeah, well.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Yeah no.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
But two things that I want to bring up real quick.
Number Number one, obviously, you've been the voice of Fresno
State Athletics, and there's these professional athletes that you've gotten
to know, like Aaron Judge and you were talking to
his dad this one remote that we had. And I'm
sure you know the NFL stars. Do you have these
guys numbers? And like, can you call them and hang
(26:35):
out with them anytime you want?
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah, you text some buddies.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
I think if I tried that, I might be in
for a rude awakening. But yeah, those guys have been great.
And I remember Derek Carr. I mean he came on
our set at Channel forty seven his brother's senior year.
You can YouTube that, you know, Derek Carr's first t
TV interview, He's like ten years old.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
He was he was pushing for the Heisman exactly.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Yeah, remember and his voice was like a squeaky as
that way. I thought I was a girl announce in the.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Games, right.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
And Derek's such a great guy, all those guys. Paul George,
I mean, he was just back in town and I
missed him. I was out of town. But anytime they
come back, it's just it takes you back to when
they were here and they haven't changed. They still have
that heart for the valley. They have a humility, and
I think they they understand the responsibility they have to
pay it back. Aaron Judge, I mean I get to
go to New York every year and mce his fundraisers
(27:26):
for his Rise Foundation.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
These guys are.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Just real, genuine people who love the valley, and I
think there's something to that.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
I think, you know, part of their success you can
attribute to how they were raised, the things their families emphasized,
and the fact that they see value in every other person. Right,
They don't think they're better than anybody else.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
I was watching that like Receiver on Netflix. You know,
Davante Adams. He was on that and they showed his
house and his family and there was like, you know,
there was a lot of Fresno State name drops in
that episode.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
So it was just dope to hear that, Like.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
A lot of great talent has come out of this school,
you know.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
And DeVante's another one. He's given back so much. You know,
he's a ton for his high school in pala w Alto,
and he'll do anything for Fresno State. And you know,
I think all those guys see that while Fresno State
didn't make them necessarily right, it wasn't. It didn't turn
them from like, you know, Cinderella into the princess, but
(28:21):
it had a role. It gave them an opportunity. And
I'm somewhat concerned. This is a whole different topic, but
in this era of the transfer portal and the nil
and all that, Yeah, it kind of makes you wonder
if we're going to see as many of those stories
in the future as we've seen in the past.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
That's tough.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
I was going to say, as broadcasters were sometimes we
forget because you know, we're talking about professional athletes now.
And I was at a preseason game and one of
the Lopez brothers. I was sitting courtside and I was
like Fresno and now he turned around. I was like
John Magic and he was like I used to listen
to you.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah, but with Paul.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Though, I mean, you hang out, you know, you know,
I feel like, you know these guys, you know, you
feel like you do and you know they're families, which
makes yeah for rewarding.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
You know, it's and when you see them, it's like
the years just disappear, Like you know, catching up at
this Reds game with Justin Wilson and Austin Wins, two
of my all time favorite you know, Bulldog baseball players
because they did everything the right way and they just
worked their way to where they are now. And you know,
it felt like it was two thousand and eight again
or twenty eleven again, or you know, and but then
(29:31):
you see now they're in their thirties and they're married
and they have kids. You're like, wait a second's playing
with my daughters on the field, you know.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Yeah, man, even you know, recently I got to meet
Bernard Berrian. Yeah he's been coming to the club a
v but not you were just talking about these guys
like come back to Fresno and he's been like the
I recently just like met him and like he says
hi to me now every time I see him, And man,
it's cool to see these professional athletes, like you said,
(30:01):
give back to Fresno are still here.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah, so that's a cool thing. I know. We got
about ten minutes left.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
So the last thing I want to bring up is
this amazing thing that I got to witness.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
It's the Honor Flight. Can we talk? You know you're
talking about the.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
World you interviewing the World War two vets. Can you
tell us this thing that you're part of?
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Man? You sure? We only got ten minutes? Two hours?
Speaker 3 (30:24):
No, Central Valley Honor Flight, in my mind, is one
of the best, if not the best, thing that happens
in our valley, because not only is it honoring people
who really deserve it, but it's bringing people together. And
how many things in our world today really bring people together.
So I'm going to give your listeners a couple of
(30:44):
dates here. September eighteenth and October sixteenth. Those are the
next two nights when we're going to be welcoming home
a charter plane full of veterans.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yeah, explain what Honor flight is yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
So it started way back. You know, the World War
Two Memorial and D wasn't built till two thousand and four.
A lot of people don't know. It wasn't a government project.
It was World War Two veterans themselves donating one hundred
and ninety seven million dollars to build it. My granddad
was one of those who donated but never got to
see it. But after it got built, there was this
(31:17):
one man in Ohio. His name was Earl Morse. He
was a physician's assistant at the VA Hospital and he's
talking to this one patient who's a World War Two vet.
He says, Hey, are you gonna go see that new
memorial they just built. The guy says, nah, you know,
I'm too old. It's too hard to travel. And this guy, Earl,
he says, well, you know, I'm a pilot.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I have my own plane. What if I fly you there?
Would you go? Then?
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Yeah? And then other guys found out. So the next
time he took a few people. Then his friend in
North Carolina heard about He says, I'm going to charter
a whole plane there. So it started to spread around
the country, and interestingly enough, in two thousand and eight
when we're there in Omaha for two weeks with the
Diamond Dogs and that, you know, incredible underdogs to Wonderdogs story.
I was interviewing a couple of World War Two vets
(31:56):
there and they had just been on an honor flight,
so I'd been familiar with it. I told a few
people here in town, you know, we really need to
start this. Nothing happened, but again, God's plans are always
better than mine. I just saw this woman two weeks ago,
this lady named Nancy Walker. She called me one day
after my hometown hero show. She said, hey, Paul, you're
always talking to these veterans. Why don't you start on
(32:17):
her flight in Fresno. They have it in Eureka. Why
don't they have it in Fresno. I said, hey, I
agree with you. I've been telling people that for years.
She's like, no, but you need to do something about
It's like, well, we'll see. The next week, I get
this call from another lady named Diane. She tells me
the same thing. My husband was involved in Chicago. Why
don't we have it here? I was like, do you
know Nancy? Who's Nancy? The next week Nancy calls me.
(32:38):
Then Diane calls me, then Nancy. So these people they're
just pingponging this reminder, Hey, this is really needed in
our community.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
And I agreed with them.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
So we got some people together, we had a meeting.
We all said, yeah, that would be awesome because I
don't know if you guys know this, but there's a
higher concentration of veterans in the valley than just about
anywhere else in the country. So if ever there's a
place where there's a need, it's here.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
And we had a meeting. We all agreed it needed
to happen.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
But I had to face the reality that, you know,
as a husband and father of young kids, I didn't
have fifty hours a week to devote to this and
I wanted to do it, and it was one of
those things I had to let go of. And my
prayer was, you know, God, if you want to make
this happen in our community, do it your way and
your timing. And a year later, a lot of things happened.
(33:24):
I got a call out of the Blue EECU, the
Credit Union. They say, hey, we want to support a
veteran's charity this may do you know of any that
are worthy of supporting It's like, yeah, there's this, this, this,
and oh we talked about this one.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Well, hey, can we do that. It's like, well maybe if.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
You guys are bringing some money, maybe, And all the
pieces started to come together. We've had a great PR
firm design a logo for us and they were on board,
but we still needed someone with the expertise and the
time to lead it. And it's it's crazy how this happened.
Remember Tim Tebow. Tim Tebow's coming to town a fundraiser
for Break the Barriers, which might be my favorite other
(34:00):
nonprofit in town.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Man are they awesome?
Speaker 3 (34:02):
And for Fresnel Christian And I'm mceing it and Tbow
did a great job, memorable night, tons of people there.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
The next day, I get this phone call.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
This guy says, Hey, Paul, I just wanted to tell
you a great job last night. Blah blah blah. Said, Hey,
wait a second, didn't you just retire? So a year earlier.
If I had pushed forward and said let's do it,
this guy wouldn't have been available yet. But he had
just retired after running our VA hospital in Fresno for
thirteen years. He took it from one of the worst
in the country to.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Maybe the best.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
He spent his whole career serving veterans, and now he
had all this free time.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
So I told him about Honor Flight. He jumped in.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
His name's Al Perry, by the way, and so Honor
Flight it's all volunteers.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
It's all donations.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
But we simply fly veterans from the valley and we
cover from Porterville all the way up to Stockton to Washington,
d C. It's a three day trip. They don't pay
a dime. Wow, So we have to raise the money.
They're guardians who go with them. Usually it's a son,
it's a daughter. Someone listening to this right now. They
could sign up and go as a guardian. They make
a donation that's tax deductible. We asked for twelve hundred
dollars that offset some of the cost. But what's amazing, guys,
(35:04):
is that something we thought we'd do for a few
years and maybe just take the World War two vets.
Now we're more than a decade later, we're taking Korean
War vets and Vietnam vets. And I'll tell you, I
think it's more important for our Vietnam generation than any
of the rest because of what they endured fifty years ago.
But this valley is so generous that flight in September
(35:25):
is going to be our twenty ninth flight, and the
flight in October will be our thirtieth, and at that
point will have taken more than two thousand Valley veterans
to go see their memorials for free because the valley,
the people made it possible with their generosity.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
That's cool.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
It is such a site. They So the big event
is when they land back at Fresno Year seventy Airport
and they're greeted. Thousands of people are there just greeting them. Cheers. Yeahah,
Paul m sees it and you get the crowd going.
It's just an amazing sight.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Well, and I don't know if you saw this, but
what I see every time, and I get goosebumps every time. Yeah,
And I've only gone on one of our twenty eight
flights because I realized if I go, I'm not here
to do that part of it. And sometimes that plane
gets delayed, so I have to try to keep that crowd.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Yeah, when I was there. Then when I was there,
it got delayed and he didn't fall asleep. But you
saw this too. Magic if you look out there.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
This is literally you're going to see a zero two
one hundred because there's infants there every time. It's here
to see great grandpa, and there's guys who've already gone
who want to come back and welcome back.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
The other vats.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
You see every ethnicity, every religion, every political belief, every
tax bracket, all these things that every day we're all hearing, Hey,
you can't agree so different, and nobody cares because one
thing they all agree on, our veterans deserve our gratitude.
So they're wearing red, white and blue. They're shaking pom poms,
they're waving flags.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
You.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
I tell everyone to be quiet, and we hear the
bagpipers from the Fresno Stag and thistlefife and drum approaching
down the hallway.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Did you feel Yeah, live bagpipes go to one of these, Yeah,
as an experience.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
The sailors from nas Lamore, they take their time. Yeah,
they come up in uniform and they line the hallway,
standing in attention, saluting the vets as they come through.
And then as soon as those doors open, I get
to say welcome home veterans. The Clovist Community Band starts
playing the Army him, the Navy him, the Air Force,
the coast Guard and everything. The Marines can't forget them,
(37:21):
and the crowd just erupts. And I mean there's no
room in the airport is standing room only. And they
don't stop cheering until the last veteran has made his
way all the way through, and that human tunnel just
goes all the way to baggage.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Claim.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
Wow, and what it means to these vets, I can't
even describe for you. I can't put it into words,
because you can see the most hardened marine with a
tear streaming down his cheek. And they tell us time
and time again. You know, the World War Two guys
will say I never had a welcome home. The Vietnam
guys say, well, when I came home, they told me
I couldn't wear my uniform or else I get spit
on and called baby killer. I mean, this vet after
(37:56):
vet after vet tell us that. So in that sense,
now that we're taking so many Vietnam vets, I think
we're riding or wrong. We're bringing them to a place
they've never been before, that they've been hoping for a
long time. And it's not just going to DC and
seeing all that that welcome home for the Vietnam VET
maybe means more than all the rest. So's I could
(38:16):
talk all day about Honor Flight, guys and CV. Honorflight
dot org is the website if people want to sign
a veteran up volunteer to go as a guardian or
just support us, because it costs about two hundred and
fifty grand every flight to make this possible, but the
valley keeps stepping up to support it.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Those two dates you gave are those when it leaves
or when it comes back. When it comes back, When
it comes back, Okay, that's when we want everybody there.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
And every time we do a flight, people come up
with great ideas. Right now, I could keep you guys
here all day telling you the organic ways that groups
have fundraised for that mission. It's high school kids meeting
our vets in DC saying we need to raise money.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
And even in my hometown of Los Vana. So there's
a group of high school kids that did that.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
They started to drive through dinner and over the years
now they've contributed one hundred and fifty thousand. Have people
do car shows or so blankets for our vets or
you know, all these different ways, but it takes all
of us.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
And so that's what I say.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
In my mind, it's one of the best things that
happens in our valley because it tells me if we
can find something that brings us together that we agree on,
there's nothing we can't do, right.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
I mean, no one.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Would have said this as possible, but the veterans are
that cause we can all agree on. And so I wonder, Okay,
if we can do this for them, what else can
we agree on? What else are we capable of?
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Here?
Speaker 3 (39:30):
We don't have to feel second fiddle to La or
the Bay. You know, we can be who we are
here in the valley and people will pay attention, say, hey,
that's something special going on over there.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Man, we appreciate you telling these amazing stories. The last
thing is, if there was a professional sports team that
you want to be a play by play announcer for,
who is it?
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Oh man? Good question you.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
Growing up, that was the Giants, man, boy, I listened
to every Giants game and Giants baseball. Yeah, and I
think baseball is the sport that I'm status the most
natural FORMU But I love them all for different reasons.
I'm just I'm not trying to do anything but the
things I'm doing now, and I feel I'm right where
I'm supposed to be. I've had a lot of privileges
(40:12):
that I never could have earned on my own. That's
why I say God's plans are always better than mine.
And I just love being here in the valley and
serving this community.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
And like I.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
Said, it's a pretty special place. So thanks for making
it a special place. And don't get me fired.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
We're looking forward to this upcoming football season.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Go Dogs. Paul Leffler, Thank you very much, ma'am. Thank
you guys.
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