Sports With Friends

Longtime NFL reporter turned author Gary Myers makes his third appearance on the show. (Episodes 49 and 117) Myers has been covering the NFL since 1978. He wrote for the New York Daily News starting in 1989. He's been an insider/analyst for HBO's Inside the NFL and the YES Network's This Week in Football. His new book, Once a Giant: A Story of Victory, Tragedy, and Life After Football, chronicled...

On January 8th, 2024, the University of Washington was playing in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game against the University of Michigan. The Huskies hadn't won a national title since 1991. After the build-up of unprecedented proportions, the Huskies lost to the Wolverines 34-13. Four days later, Washington's head coach Kalen DeBoer was named the new head coach of the Universit...

Longtime sports reporter/broadcaster Sam Adams recently announced that he was retiring from covering sports after three decades to pursue stand-up comedy full-time. Adams is best known for being a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News until the paper's demise in 2009. Since then, he has done various radio and TV shows, while honing his craft as a stand-up. In this episode, Adams talks about his ext...

Steve Gelbs has been the New York Mets on-field reporter for regional cable network SNY since 2015. In 2014, he took over for Kevin Burkhardt, in the 10 years since Gelbs became the studio host for SNY's New York Jets coverage. Two years ago, he began freelancing as a commentator on NHL Network. In this episode, the Syracuse alum talks about the 2014 season, where they met, and where Steve was int...

The first episode of 2024 discusses College Athletics and the role Name, Image, and Likeness money is impacting athletes. While NIL has been in college sports since 2019, the changes to the transfer portal have been similarly consequential. In 2021, the NCAA changed transfer rules that eliminated an athlete from having to sit out a year when changing schools. David Kelley PhD, CAA is a Professor a...

Like the 5 episodes before it, this show is exactly what the episode title says it is. Scott Seidenberg, now with Pre-Game.com, joins the show for a record-tying sixth time, tying LaTroy Hawkins and Eli Manning. The story behind this episode is that the show fell on Christmas six years ago, and was going to be skipped. That wouldn't work with a new sponsor, so Scott came to the rescue. The success...

Acclaimed actor and director George Clooney directed a new sports movie entitled “The Boys in the Boat,” which is being released in theaters on December 25th, 2023. The story is based on the 1936 United States Olympic Rowing team, which took gold in Berlin, Germany during the height of the Nazi regime. The story involves the University of Washington junior-varsity rowing team that qualified for th...

In March 2023, Steve Cohen left his position as the Senior Vice President of Sports Programming at Sirius/XM Radio. He recently created The Content Lab and is looking for new projects. He still advises Sirius/XM and hosts a Sunday show on the NFL Channel. Cohen was an early employee of WFAN-New York in the late 1980s/early 1990s before leaving to join Sirius Satellite Radio. In this episode, Cohen...

Former Tennis player and current ESPN Tennis Broadcaster Patrick McEnroe returns to the podcast after a six-year absence. He previously came on Episode 59. Since then, he started his own podcast, “Holding Court.”As a player, McEnroe won one singles title and 16 doubles titles, including the 1989 French Open. His career-high rankings were world No. 28 in singles and world No. 3 in doubles. His youn...

In 2009, Jenson Button won the prestigious Formula-1 championship for the newly-branded Brawn GP team. The saga of that season has been the subject of a new documentary that recently premiered on Hulu called: Brawn: The Impossible F1 Story. Hosted and produced by actor Keanu Reaves, the story tracks the incredibly improbable 2009 season. Jenson Button won 6 of the first 7 races. Then, a controvers...

Since 1992, the Premier League in England has been the top-ranked soccer league in the world. This episode focuses on the league's growth through streaming, and how popular it really is. Laurent Courtines is the host of the “Squeaky Bum Time” podcast and has covered the EPL (English Premier League) and released over 200 episodes of his Premier League soccer-specific show over the last 3 years. In...

Roy Firestone is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning and seven-time cable ACE Award-winning host, interviewer, narrator, writer, and producer. As the ground-breaking, original host of ESPN's legendary Up Close, Up Close Classic, and Up Close Primetime, Firestone has interviewed more than 5,000 athletes, musicians, actors, and political figures, as well as scores of writers and filmmakers. As an actor,...

This episode was recorded on October 1, 2023, at Syracuse University's Goldstein Auditorium. Legendary broadcaster and Syracuse alum Bob Costas interviewed recently retired Hall of Fame Syracuse Basketball Coach Jim Boeheim. The event was a part of an alumni weekend entitled Orange Central. Boeheim guided the Orange to ten Big East Conference regular season championships, five Big East tournament...

This podcast was recorded on September 6, 2023, at the Arthur Ashe Tennis Center as part of the 2023 US Open Championship. The U.S. Open conducted a mental health forum, "Mental Health and Sport: Why It Matters." It featured Olympic champion swimmer Michael Phelps, former WTA #1 Tennis Player Naomi Osaka, and the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy. Phelps is the world's most decorated Olympic c...

This episode focuses on several topics involving the business of sports. Eric Fisher is a newsletter co-author at Front Office Sports. Fisher is a nearly three-decade veteran of the news business, having previously covered sports business in editing and reporting roles with SportBusiness, Sports Business Journal, and The Washington Times, and he started his career with the Easton (Md.) Star Democr...

The second season of the HBO series about the professional and personal lives of the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty is currently airing Season 2. Series basketball producer Idan Ravin joined the show to discuss his role in the creation of the new season. Ravin was charged with transforming the Lakers cast and other notable players into the silhouette of their...

Bryan Ruby is a career minor-league baseball player. Many of those seasons have been in the Independent Leagues, most recently with the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes. In September of 2021, he became the only active professional baseball player to come out as gay, and his story was featured in USA Today as well as 100+ other media outlets around the world including CBS, Yahoo, Bleacher Report, and Teen Vo...

This episode features 9 of the top tennis players in the world. Recorded live on Media Day before the 2023 US Open Tennis Tournament, Coco Gauff, Frances Tiafoe, Carlos Alcarez, Iga Swiatek, Novak Djokovic, Jessica Pegula, Taylor Fritz, Ons Jabeur, and Caroline Wozniacki all appear on this podcast. The US Open this year is bringing in record-breaking crowds, and no shortage of storylines. Russ Tha...

In August 2023, Baltimore Orioles TV play-by-play announcer Kevin Brown was taken off the air after the team owner thought he was too negative on the broadcasts. Brent Axe not only knew Brown when he was a student at the Newhouse School at Syracuse University but he was involved in an all-too similar situation himself. In July 2023, Axe was fired from ESPN Syracuse for being too critical of the Sy...

When USC and UCLA announced their intentions to leave the Pac-12 for the Big 10 in 2022, Andy Staples joined the podcast to discuss realignment (Episode 361). This year, Washington and Oregon followed them to the Big 10. Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah State announced they were leaving for the Big 12 in 2024. That leaves the Pac-12 with only four schools remaining. This all deals with s...

Sarah Langs is currently a research/reporter for MLB.COM. She has also been featured on MLB Network and countless other game broadcasts. She began her career in 2015 as a researcher for ESPN. An avid baseball fan, she is known for demonstrating that “Baseball is the Best.” Her belief is that the people that make up the sport, from players to coaches to scouts to media members make the sport the be...

Dwight "Doc" Gooden played 16 seasons in Major League Baseball. He pitched for the New York Mets from 1984-1994. During that span, he was National League Rookie of the Year in 1984, NL Cy Young Award winner in 1985, and was a part of the 1986 Mets World Championship Team. He is a 4-time All-Star. His career was derailed by his issues with drug use and was suspended multiple times, including the en...

Jonathan Mayo has been with MLB.COM since 1999. He primarily covers the MLB Draft and the minor leagues, with expertise on prospects. He recently completed his second book entitled "Smart, Wrong, and Lucky: The Origin Stories of Baseball's Unexpected Stars." It is a unique take on how first impressions measure up to their aftermaths: the draft, years of progression, and for a talented few, major l...

The League is a feature-length documentary, directed by acclaimed filmmaker Sam Pollard, and executive produced by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson. The film recounts the dramatic rise and fall of the Negro Leagues – providing a lens on the dazzling parallel world of Black baseball which was created by African Americans during the Jim Crow years. The League reveals the true story of Black baseball is fa...

From 1988-2023, Angelo Cataldi was the host of the WIP Morning Show. He retired in Spring 2023. His show was an instant hit and maintained popularity throughout his tenure. Cataldi never shied away from controversy, and would criticize anyone in the Philadelphia sports market that he felt warranted it. Cataldi was joined on the radio show by Al Morganti, and later by Rhea Hughes and former NHL pla...