As we count down to Banquet, we've got a special episode of the podcast today. WJPZ Hall of Famer Carl Weinstein, Class of 1988 joins us along with his sole Cole, who followed in his WJPZ footsteps and just graduated in 2021.
Carl talks about discovering Syracuse as a journalism school and getting to WJPZ shortly before the moved over to the FM dial. He went from news to on-air to program director. And later in the episode, we'll hear him talk about the move to the CHR Power Hits format. It was a collaborative decision between station management. And staying true to the station's mission, eliminating block programming, meant giving up funding from the University. All of a sudden, the station had to be self sufficient, and it was a learning process.
After graduation, Carl followed Rocco Macri to Hot in New York. Then, the company bought the Seattle Mariners, and chose several staff to head west and help run the baseball team. Carl fell in love with Seattle - after all, the 90's were a great time to be there with the growth of Microsoft, Amazon, and more. And the entrepreneurial spirit was contagious, leading Carl to work with several startups over the next 25 years or so, including most recently with the Locked On Sports Network.
Cole grew up hearing about Syracuse all the time, of course. And as he gained more of an interest in sports, it became clear that Syracuse was where he wanted to go. Today's guests tell a great story about having the same reaction upon visiting the campus, three decades apart.
At SU, Cole realized he had to differentiate himself from everyone else who wanted to be the next Colin Cowherd. He did this by really focusing on his interviewing skills, networking and getting to know athletes. During COVID, with everyone working virtually, he was editing highlights for NFL media while still a student. He parlayed that gig into a job for the Chargers, where he did a podcast series on LaDainian Tomlinson. Now, he's with Fox Sports, having recently worked on the World Series, World Cup, and Super Bowl.
Despite his passion for sports, Cole really enjoyed his time on the Z Morning Zoo, and has some fond memories to share, including an unintentionally hilarious moment where he didn't follow his own advice of "always do your research."
Throughout this episode, you'll hear the special dynamic of a father and son's shared experience, and how that feels from both sides.
Cole's series Running for History
This episode was produced by Jon Gay, Class of 2002, and his company JAG in Detroit Podcasts.
JAG: Welcome to WJPZ at 50. I am Jon Jag Gay. Tonight. I say tonight cause we're recording tonight cuz we have some West Coast guests tonight and they're a father and son. This will be a very unique episode. It'll be fun to do. We have from our hall of fame, Carl Weinstein from the class of 88 and his son Cole Weinstein from the class of 21. Welcome to you both.
Carl: Hey Jon, great to be with you. Excited for the podcast.
Cole: How you doing, dad?
Carl: I'm good buddy.
JAG: All right, so let's start from the beginning. Chronologically, that would be you, Carl, how did you find out about Syracuse and how did you get to the campus, then to the radio station?
Carl: I was going to study communications. Specifically I wanted to do broadcast journalism and Syracuse in the mid eighties was, as it is today, one of the hot schools to consider. I looked at other schools that were in that category and it was not a hard decision once I'd visited the campus and decided that was the place I wanted to be.
I got to campus and I wanted to get as much experience as I could right away. To be honest, I don't remember exactly how I found out about the radio station, and now I think about it. I probably thought JPZ was WAER. I probably didn't know the difference at the time, and literally went to an orientation.
I wanted to report the news, so I signed up to be on the news. And my first endeavor at JPZ was early morning news writing. Sue Mandel was the news director at the time. I say to this day, I learned more from Sue about writing news and delivering a newscast than I ever learned in a classroom. And that was just in the first, semester of my freshman year.
JAG: So if my math is right, Carl, the station was on AM When you first got there.
Carl: It was actually on a carrier current.
JAG: Oh, that's right.
Carl: So it wasn't even on am Yeah. It had been taken off of am in lieu of getting ready to go on to fm. It turned out a semester after I got to Syracuse. There was the only people that could hear it was closed circuit television in the lobby of dorms.
So at any point in time you were lucky if TVs were on in the lobby of the dorms. I don't know. There were a few hundred people listening at best, and when I was doing my newscast, probably at that point it was like four in the morning. I was probably just broadcasting to myself at that point.
JAG: How many terms that you just mentioned do we have to have Cole Google to follow along with the what things were in the mid eighties when you got there?
Carl: Carrier current, Any longer, they're gonna have to be researching AM radio.
Cole: When you told me that story when I was younger, I honestly just assumed, like I, I knew the internet was a thing from the nineties and that wasn't really going on when you were in college.
I just assumed it was something like that or something with cables. Like I got the message and you've told me that story growing up.
Carl: Yep. But that was an exciting time to be at the station because it was right before we went on the FM dial. So of course I was oblivious to all that at the time. I had no idea that there was years of work at that point had gone into making the transition from AM to FM and there were people feverously working to make that happen. I was just a freshman trying to do a four minute newscast or probably two minutes at the time, .
JAG: So you grew up in Pittsburgh and you found out at the radio station and by the time Cole comes along, you know your dad went to Syracuse, you grew up Seattle? Where'd you grow up?
Cole: Seattle and then moved to the Los Angeles area in 2010. So first half of my life, Seattle second half of my life, Los Angeles, west Coast guy. Through and through.
JAG: Is there a thought that, hey, I might wanna get into communications, I might wanna go to Syracuse, my dad went there, or is it like you had to figure it out on your own? How did that play out for you?
Cole: So when I was really young. My dad thinks his story is hilarious. Like he just would always bring up all the famous people who went to Syracuse. It was anytime I ever watched a football game or anytime Sports Center was on, and when I was really little. Actually, I wasn't like the biggest sports fan.
Like I became a sports fan probably when I was six, seven, and eight, midway through elementary school. So when I was really young and honestly followed sports more because it was my dad's thing and he'd bring up all these guys and be like, cool. They all went to Syracuse. Congrats. I used to literally say to my Dad growing up, did God go to Syracuse? Cause I just assumed everyone went to Syracuse.
I fall in love with sports. I can't stop watching NFL network. I realized, hey, maybe this is something I want to do. My dad and my stepmom, Sarah, encouraged me to start writing for a sports blog in the eighth grade. Cuz they're like, if you wanna work in sports, take it seriously when you're young.
Even if no one's reading it. Get the practice in. And I started to realize, I want to be part of, covering sports. I always loved movies too. I thought maybe one day I could cover movies. Like I wanted to be part of media, part of covering something, part of being around the stuff that interested me.
And once that happened, I was like, oh wait, I need to go to Syracuse. This is gonna happen for me because Syracuse is where it happens in media for everyone. And the moment when I realized this was a dream of mine. Syracuse became the school. Honestly, my dad can attest to this, like I structured my entire time, the back half of high school just to get into Syracuse.
I didn't really take a lot of AP classes because I knew I didn't need to get into what I wanted. I knew that the extracurriculars were more important. I was a coaching assistant on my football team, like my path to Syracuse. Once I realized I wanted to go there became just how can I structure my time at high school to best get in?
Hopefully I'll work it out. And Kevin Martines is one of my dad's best friends and when I grew up around a lot, all to speaks really highly of Syracuse, don't believe a Newhouse guy, but still just, I grew up around the Orange and when Otto's the mascot and you're a kid, like who doesn't want to be a mascot?
JAG: Did you apply anywhere else or was it just all Syracuse Cole?
Cole: I did actually. For anyone. If you're listening and you're in high school, the biggest piece of advice I give is apply early. I applied to five schools. I got wait listed and rejected from one, got into all the others, applied to them all. Found out I was going to Syracuse.
I wanna say like December 16th. It was actually during the end credits of the Star Wars movie. Rogue One. I was with both Dad and Sarah. The end credits are rolling. I pull out my phone and found out I got in to Newhouse on the spot, which was pretty incredible. And that's one of my favorite Star Wars movies, just for that reason.
Carl: By the way, Jon, for the record, Cole is way smarter and a way better student than I was. And I actually didn't get into Newhouse originally. I got deferred to arts and sciences and then had to prove my way into Newhouse my freshman year. Cole got in right away.
JAG: Cole, what did you do at the radio station? Did you just go to the radio station when you first got there, or did, or how did you end up at JPZ?
Cole: I knew of JPZ as the radio station before I even knew what the name was because my dad would tell me stories about it when I was growing up. So when I got there, I wrote about WJPZ in my college essay. I wasn't even completely sure what the call signs were. I remember I had to keep looking them up.
Cause I didn't actually know JPZ tangibly, I just knew them from my dad's stories. But I was like, of course if I'm going here, I wanna follow my dad's footsteps. And when I went there, I let everyone know, my dad did this stuff in the eighties. Like I think it's really cool that I'm his kid and I'm here now too.
Like I was not shy to admit that my dad was a part of WJPZ in the eighties. I was really excited to be part of it during my time there.
JAG: What did you do at the station, Cole?
Cole: Mostly it was zoos. I really enjoyed the zoos. I finally got on, I auditioned to be on them my freshman year. Got on first semester my sophomore year and basically did them all the way through until working towards the end of my senior year.
Got me busy, but. The zoos really were what tied me to WJPZ and was where I met some of my best friends at JPZ. And honestly, I was really thinking about this last time when I was back for my first Banquet as an alum. All the people I gravitated towards were people that I was on zoos with and people who just, I built the friendship with.
Being on air and it's, just someone like Melody Emm, where Melody and I are such different people, but we just found time on air together and developed such a great chemistry together. And Melody's hosting with my co-hosting, I just always felt was just so much fun and I felt like we made great radio together.
And it's that's what I love. My about my time at WJPZ was being on the zoo. Getting to meet people who I'm not sure I would've met in college and become so close with if I didn't spend all this time getting to know them on and off air.
JAG: With that said, Carl, let me turn it back to you.
You mentioned Sue Mandel as your news director. What are some of the other connections that you made there and some of the other things you did at the radio station?
Carl: You know, I started in news, by the way, I'm one of the few people that went to Syracuse and ultimately Newhouse, who didn't want to be the next Bob Costas.
My aspiration originally was to be the next Geraldo Rivera. He was doing big things on 20/20 at the time, and. I wanted to be an investigative journalist, but I got to the radio station, started doing news, which was my early pursuit of that, and very quickly then immediately started doing a DJ shift.
I got an overnight shift. Back then, there was no automation. You actually had to show up at 3:00 AM and do your shift from three to six in the morning.
JAG: Hey, I was the chief announcer in 2001, and if the 4:00 AM jock didn't show up, guess who phone rang. So I feel your pain.
Carl: Okay. In fact, I got stories of staying over Thanksgiving break just to do 12 hour shifts and keep the station on the air. That was, those were the days. So I started doing a DJ shift and that was the beginning of a shift of me discovering something a little different that I wanted to do. I really took to, not as much being a dj, which I enjoyed, but really to the programming side and marketing and promotion side of the radio.
So we started doing DJ shifts and my sweet spot was not afternoon drive, but I love doing the evening shift, the seven to whatever it was at the time, seven to 10 I guess. And so I moved into that slot, but by the end of my freshman year, I had been named assistant program director under Happy Dave Dwyer, who's being inducted in the Hall of Fame this year.
And Rocco Macri, Chris Bungo, those guys took me under their wing and taught me a ton. And that led to my path of ultimately being program director of the radio station for almost two years. Essentially my sophomore and junior year. There was some quirks to made that happen. And then in my senior year, I was the, what they called the broadcast consultant. Those were my roles at the radio station.
JAG: What did you do from your time after graduating? Carl, you've had an amazing career. Now for those who are alumni listening who don't know you, take me a little bit through some of the things you've done since you got out.
Carl: Sure. Initially I did what you would expect. And Cole's been amazing at this. I encourage any students who might be listening to this podcast to, do internships, so that is probably a given these days. But I had done an internship between my junior and senior year at what was then Hot 103, which became Hot 97 in New York. That was through Rocco had brought me in that summer to be an intern, and that was Emmis communications.
And that led to my first job right out of college, which was. In New York at Hot 97 producing a morning show and doing marketing and promotions, and then something amazing happened and fortuitous and Emmis was owned by a Hall of Famer in the broadcast business general by the name of Jeff Smuylan, who started Emmis Communications. And he's a legend.
And in 1989, I guess it was, he bought the Seattle Mariners. And ended up moving a few of us from the broadcast side out to Seattle to be part of the management team for the Seattle Mariners. The GM at Hot 97 was a guy named Stuart Lane, one of my great friends and a true, incredible mentor of mine. He took over the Mariners as head of sales and marketing and brought me in to head up marketing and promotions for the Mariners.
So I moved to Seattle. Did a complete change from radio to sports marketing in the sports business. And that led me down a really interesting, fascinating path. Was with the Mariners for a number of years. Then actually went back into the media, business and radio with a group called New Century Media, which was a group that eventually everyone, I think sold to Clear Channel.
So this was before that, but was running Marketing promotions, operations. For New Century Media in Seattle and marketing promotions for New Century Media in Phoenix. But then in Seattle it was the nineties and there was really this incredible culture of entrepreneurship and innovation. The heydays of the early days of Microsoft blowing up and Amazon launching, and I got the entrepreneurial and tech bug, if you will, and went on to be part of, or start a number of startup companies in the digital media, consumer tech and entertainment spaces. So I've been part of, I think, were five pretty interesting and somewhat significant startups either as a founder, a CMO, early member of the executive team board member. So I've had an interesting path and then.
JAG: Hang on. Let's give credit where credit is due, where some of the companies you were involved with as startup? If you feel comfortable naming them here?
Carl: Sure. Of course. One of the early ones was a company that was called Season Ticket. The parent company was called One Cast Media. That was actually a company that I'd founded with some other people that was essentially interactive television.
In the early days now, we were ahead of our time. We were essentially producing something that was akin to a personalized SportsCenter product. But this was before broadband was even in homes. So in fact, in back then, Monday morning was when we had most of our users, because everyone would finish their weekend and get into work and the first thing they do wasn't opening their email to get work done. It was going online to watch sports highlights. We were one of the first companies to license digital media rights from some of the major sports leagues. And I was involved with a company called Screen Life, which was in the early days of digital social gaming. It was a interactive game product.
And then I was Chief marketing the officer of a company called Cozy, which was family productivity software. A hub for families to manage all of their calendars and shopping lists and other activities that, hold a family together. Was involved with a company called News Vine, which ultimately sold to MSNBC, as a board member.
And a few other companies in between there that I've been involved with as consultant. I helped a number of companies with product strategy and with fundraising, Number of kind of entrepreneurial consulting projects. And then most recently, the one that's been really maybe the most fun I've had in my entire career was partnering with somebody I'd worked with in Seattle when I was managing radio stations.
A gentleman by the name of David Locke, who's the play by play voice of the Utah Jazz. And he had started a business in the podcast space around delivering daily podcasts for every major sports team. And I partnered with David back in 2018 to build out that company and it's been an incredible ride.
We actually sold the company about in early 2021 to a company called Tegna, which is a major publicly traded media company. Yep. And we've built what we believe that the data's a little hard to find all the numbers. What we believe is a top three sports podcast network in the country.
JAG: I've seen you and we've talked about this stuff at podcast conventions, Carl. We've had some conversations, and I gotta say, as a Boston Sports fan, I've checked out some of the Locked On Sports podcasts from my teams and they're great. I'm just picturing for a second to go back when you talked about big in Seattle at that time, when you've got Microsoft and Amazon. Oh, by the way. That's the early nineties, that's the early mid nineties.
You've got the grunge scene taking off. Oh, by the way, the Mariners, if my math was right. That's when Ken Griffey Jr. and everybody was there too? And it's not surprising that, first off, the Syracuse and your natural abilities, but then to be springboarded from an environment like that to have done all these amazing things since it's not surprising you've done so well in the time since then.
Carl: You know, it's, you are a function of a number of things that all come together and that environment. Seattle in the nineties was as creative. It still is a great place. It's one of my favorite cities in the world. And, but it was an incredibly creative culture environment for fostering ideas and having them supported by a whole ecosystem of venture capitalists and advisors and mentors and a city that just encouraged it. A super fun time to be in Seattle.
JAG: I'm gonna turn back to Cole in a second, but before I do, Cole talked about hearing about Syracuse from his dad and all the stories that he had heard growing up. What's it like on the other side of that? What's it like being a dad and seeing your son follow in your footsteps and go to Syracuse and go to WJPZ? What was that like watching that from your perspective? And he's telling you about whether it's a game in the Dome or it's a dorm where he was in like, and you're almost like reliving these days. I've gotta imagine.
Cole: Both lived in Booth Hall, by the way, as sophomores. . Very important to say.
Carl: I'm not sure I can adequately describe the joy and pride that I have in Cole, of course. But in him going to Syracuse, it was I think we talked about it at one point after he accepted, and it, it's like the greatest in a way. It's a huge honor to have your child follow in your footsteps. And look, Cole's charting his own path, he's hardly following in my footsteps.
But, to have your child essentially, I'm not sure I even have the words, endorse what you've done and think that it was pretty cool to want to follow that path. That's pretty amazing. What I will say too, though, is I owe Cole a ton here. He reconnected me with Syracuse in ways that have been incredibly powerful and meaningful in my life in the last six or seven years.
You get further from your graduation and you live your life and you, it's not like you've lost all ties to your past by any stretch, the further you get from that, the less connected you are to those things. And he absolutely reconnected me with the University. And with WJPZ, just by his involvement in all of this, I have a rekindled passion for the University, a rekindled relationship and passion for the radio station.
And in fact, the very fact that I ended up back in media, back in something that to me was the next wave of audio, information, entertainment and podcasting. I really owe to Cole, because I returned to the university, I returned to the WJPZ banquets. Yep. And I reconnected with all of these incredibly smart, interesting people that I, they're some of my best friends in the world and I was just inspired, again, inspired to jump back into the audio and media space and there's a whole story behind it. But that led to me partnering with David and launching this sports podcast network that's been really pretty wildly successful.
JAG: And you're back donating to the University and it's just that it's in terms of tuition payments now,
Carl: RIght? That's exactly right.
Cole: I remember when my dad took me to Syracuse for my first tour. And the way he reacted to it stood out to me because like you could tell he hadn't been there in a while. You could tell like it's a place he'd spent a lot of time. It's a place he'd spent four years. Like it looked familiar, but it was like it had gone through a lot of change.
And I remember my dad pointing out like, oh, this used to be here or there. There used to be a McDonald's here, like this looks so different and you could tell it was jarring. And to see him come back and visit me or come back for WJPZ Banquets and to see before my eyes. The first time he'd been there in so long when it, they blown him away.
Like how different, and it was the same. To see him literally get re familiar with the campus has been cool. During our time at Syracuse and even, last time we were at the banquet.
JAG: That's really cool to hear.
Carl: It's emotional, to be honest with you. One of the most important times in your life, obviously, is college.
One of the most important decisions that changes the trajectory of everything you do. Where you decide to go to school. And I'll share this though. So I took Cole on all his various college tours. I toured almost all the same schools that he did. It was actually like deja vu. It was crazy. Like we're revisiting and I kept my mouth shut.
I was like, he's gotta have his own experience. He's got to see these schools for himself. He's gotta decide on his own what he wants. I kept my mouth shut, but did we finish at Syracuse? That was the last one, right?
Cole: Yeah. For that trip.
Carl: Cole went on this tour, many of the same almost identical schools that I looked at, how many years before. And he had a virtually identical experience that I had. All of the schools were great and interesting, and everything had its pros and cons, and then you get to Syracuse and then you tour Newhouse, and it is done. You tour Newhouse, you're done. It's over. And he had the same experience. And then I even said, I remember calling my wife and saying, this is crazy, but 25 years later, actually it was more than that, 30 years later, I would have made the exact same choice all over again.
I just redid my college tour and I would've made the same choice all over again. And Cole just made the choice too.
JAG: Cole, you've only been out for a couple of years, but tell me about some of the things you've done since graduation.
Cole: Honestly, it started before graduation. I interned a couple different places. I interned at 710 ESPN in Seattle. I interned at Fox Sports Radio, and then I was supposed to be the NFL's podcast intern at NFL Network, summer of 2020 in person. So I was a virtual NFL intern and then I turned that into two different jobs with the NFL network, NFL media, while I was a senior at Syracuse.
And because everyone was doing everything online, who cared if I was doing it from my bedroom in Syracuse, New York?
JAG: What did you do while you were in school?
Cole: The first thing was I was on the Gameday digital team. So if you ever click on nfl.com, I worked a lot at Jets Games. Click on Jets-Bills, upstate, Western New York, and you look at the highlights on the right side of the screen.
I was the guy who would grab the highlights. Put them together, write up the proper SEO needed, and then post them to populate on that side of the page. But basically all the highlights from the game. And I would be just assigned a certain game. And then after that I parlayed that basically into being a PA on the NFL Media Podcast and Move the Sticks with Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks.
I actually got to produce one of their shows, which was crazy. Same thing, I did it from my bedroom at Syracuse, New York. I produced the final episode before, I want to say the 2051 NFL draft, cuz everyone was busy and again it's crazy cuz you know I used to watch those guys in the NFL network when I got home from high school and so to work with them was crazy. But I worked for NFL Network my entire senior year of high school.
JAG: You said senior year high school.
Cole: So college. Yeah, my senior year of college. And then weirdly, actually my work with them ended about a couple weeks before I graduated. So I graduated not really knowing what I was gonna do.
JAG: Welcome to the club.
Cole: Yeah. But knew I was gonna do something because I had just spent the previous year working for what I thought was a dream company, moved back home to Los Angeles. My boss, when I was on the podcast side for the NFL, recommended me for a gig with the Chargers. I actually didn't get that gig, but in the process of interviewing for that gig, They realized I was perfect for a different gig, which they ended up hiring me for.
So I moved down to Orange County a couple months after graduating from Syracuse. Lived in Orange County for a year, worked for the Chargers for the 2021 season. Did a couple things here and there in between. And then that boss again, who picked me out as an NFL intern. Picked me to be a PA on Move The Sticks, is now at Fox Sports.
Recruited me over to Fox Sports. He's not my boss anymore, but I'm now at Fox Sports as a podcast and social graphics producer for them, which has been the craziest, most insane, amazing job that I could have had. I never, ever would've expected that I would be working in tv, let alone working the entirety, basically, of the NL playoffs working the World Series.
Working almost every World Cup game, working that crazy World Cup final. Currently working the NFC playoffs, working college basketball, and watching Georgetown lose every week like it's. It's been surreal.
JAG: The orange blood runs deep in this family. With that little dig on Georgetown, I love it.
Cole: I worked too many Georgetown games and they keep losing, like I get tweets on them, but I get tweets about it on air. Like I can't not put it on my Instagram story with Otto the Orange on it.
JAG: Believe it or not, you are the second current employee of Fox Sports to be on the podcast. We previously had Bernie Kim, who is my classmate in 2002 on the show. He works for the Fox Pregame show on Sunday.
Cole: Yeah, I've worked with Bernie.
JAG: He did the morning show at JP Z. So you can both talk about that. Look at that. Next time you see him talk about the Z Morning Zoo and doing the morning show. See, look at this. This is the joy of this podcast. So you mentioned something I want to note a second ago, Cole. And that is the importance of having a champion, having a mentor, somebody that really believes in what you're all about and can sort say, hey, this kid worked for me at this, he'd be a good fit here.
I wanna bring him in. I think having a mentor like that is so important in any career, whether it's media or other. Besides that, are there any other lessons that you took with you from your time at JPZ that you've applied in your career so far?
Cole: Yeah a ton. I feel like this could be its own podcast but a hundred percent about mentors.
And I really, I remember when I started working for NFL Media and I was so shocked that I even got my foot in the door. I'm so excited that, I was working with Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks, or even when I was an intern, even when I was doing stuff for nfl.com, and my motto was just, I am going to make sure that every single person in this building loves me, like I'm gonna be the most friendly. I'm gonna do everything I possibly can. Every single person needs to love me. I was convinced of it because I'd finally gotten to a place where I had felt like I could be here for next five years. That's not what happened, but once I had reached that level, like it was so clear to me, like I wanna make it clear every single day that they should feel like they made the right choice in picking me.
And another thing that I found personally. You know, something that I think is really amazing about Syracuse is just how competitive it is once you're at Newhouse. How competitive it is to get a slot, to get a mic at WJPZ, to get on a zoo, to get airtime at WAER, to work at Citrus TV. And I remember being a freshman and getting this feeling of I really need to work to just get any kind of airtime or recognition here and that process of really working hard, taught me that I needed to specialize and I needed to figure out what I could contribute, like I wanted to be the next Colin Cowherd. My dad talks about wanting to be the next Geraldo Rivera like that talks about generationally.
JAG: Oh, hang on. I've got a tote board in the studio because I mark, whether it's Bob Costas or Mike Tirico, or Marv Albert or Colin Cowherd, I always put a tick mark up here when I have another guest in the podcast to say that. But go ahead,
Cole: Colin Coward was mine and I was one in a, candidly wanted a million dudes, at Newhouse who all wanted to work in sports, who all wanted to be the next NFL analyst. And I had this realization where I was like, how am I gonna stand out if I never played football or sports at a high level compared to all these other guys who also never did this? What's gonna make me stand out? And what worked for me was I found this love of the interviewing players. I got really good at finding athletes who I could reach out to and would give me their time, and I would interview them and I'd talk to 'em about playing the game. I'd talk to 'em about something that interested me.
I released a entire podcast series all about football kickers actually with my dad's company, the Locked on Podcast Network. And I got obsessed with football kickers midway through my time at Syracuse, and just begged football kickers, whether they played at the NFL or won the Lou Groza Award in college or had some, clutch kick, they played for Mike Leach or something.
I just would reach out to them and ask them these stories, and I spent so much time talking to different football players and talking to different athletes and getting a perspective and learning the cadence of how to talk to athletes that I feel like part of the reason why I've differentiated myself.
Was able to do the work that I did with the Chargers or do the work that I do with Fox now, even if I'm not interviewing players, is because I found something that made me stand out, and whether it was I'm just gonna make everybody at NFL Network or everybody at Fox or everybody at the Chargers love me because I'm just gonna have that attitude of I am so passionate about this. I love this so much, or it's, I found a way for me to stand out. For me it was obsessing over audio and interviewing and asking the right question and like obsessing over how can I relate to athletes? That was the way that I found to stand out and my father's way is different.
Your way is different. What everybody's special thing is, or way that they can contribute in this ecosystem, in this media ecosystem and get these jobs that so many people are coveting. Is to find a way to stand out. For me, it was just that process of doing it and I really am thankful the Newhouse because the intensity of Newhouse and all these other kids who, have their stuff together and making me feel like I might not like that pushed me to just by trial and error.
Get lucky and figure out, I can do this. This is something that makes me stand out. This is a way I can contribute.
JAG: Ironic, we're having this conversation or we're taping it at least the night after an N F L kicker misses four extra points in a playoff game, but we can come back to that.
Carl: By the way, through the uprights, which is the podcast Cole released is outstanding. He did a fantastic job with it. It's a narrative podcast series with some incredible interviews with some of the best kickers in the history of the.
JAG: We'll link that in the show notes. And Cole, I gotta ask you, we have a lot of sports folks at Z89 and a lot of sports folks listening to this podcast. Give me one tip for interviewing a pro athlete that you wish you had known when you got into it, or that you'd like current students and recent alumni to know.
Cole: Do your research. This is a huge thing for me. The other podcast here is they got to make is the Chargers hired me to make a series about LaDainian Tomlinson's 06 MVP season.
It's called Running for History. I'm incredibly proud of lt. He's my favorite athlete of all time, and I spent so much time looking at old articles, like I'll just give you an example. We got Sam Farhan, who was another guy who, Sam actually went to the same high school I did. Another massive mentor of mine taught me some things in high school that I felt like gave me such a head start when I'd gotten to Newhouse.
But we had him on and we asked him a story about LT's, rookie season that he wrote. That he just straight up didn't remember, because he's a Hall of fame sports writer who's written so many stories. I did my research and remember this little tidbit that I thought was cool, that I felt like couldn't be a good storytelling soundbite that could push the story along and made sure to ask it.
And he literally said to us, he was like I wrote this right? And we were like yeah, you definitely did. And he refreshed it and reread the story. But it wasn't like he was saying it from memory. He was. Looking back at something that he had previously said because I was able to remind him of that, Being well researched, so that way these guys trust that you know what you're talking about.
So that way they can open up. My best interviews I've had have been when there hasn't really been a set timeframe. The guy has just went long because he's like talking about his life and me bringing up questions and asking thoughtful questions that he probably hasn't thought about in a long time, is interesting to him.
So when you can get that interview, when you can go for an hour, two hours and they really open up and they go, wow, this guy knows his stuff. And then he really wants to like, help you understand his story or her story. That's when I found I get the best stuff is it's not a thing to ask per se.
It's really hearing about what this person went through and trying to get them to tell the best story you can. I was a history minor at Syracuse, and the phrase, journalism is the first draft of history always stands out to me, and I just, yeah, am interviewing these guys. These guys are primary sources, using a history term. These guys are primary sources to these events.
My goal is to get them to recall it and to want to recall it. And to translate their experience to me so I can use the medium audio or if it's documentary, the medium video to help tell that story. And it's a comfortability thing too, and it's really like I've had so much time being around these guys, whether it's at Fox and Michael Strahan just walked past me and we say hi to each other or I'm at the Chargers and Justin Herbert, one of my favorite players is walking past me.
Or I've spent hours and hours interviewing athletes. Like I really do think of these guys as human too. And that's not something you can really mentally comprehended until you just talk to them enough. But really like understanding, like they need to trust you. They need to know that you're not just wasting their time.
JAG: That is great advice, Carl. Tough act to follow, but give me some tips and things, life lessons you feel like you learned at the radio station you've taken with you through your career.
Carl: Yeah, very tough act to follow. I'm sitting here as a proud father taking this all in.
JAG: I'm watching your hands. It looks like you're taking notes on what Cole is saying.
Carl: I always take notes on what Cole says. I always learn something. I actually made, I actually, I made a list of things cuz I, I knew this question was coming. Here's some things, it's really easy to think back now and think, oh, I knew, first of all, you don't know anything when you're a freshman going into college.
And now, 30 some years later, I look back and you think it's like you were like born with this information. So I had to stop for a minute and say, what do I really, I was starting from zero. My skills were honed in the area of management, of managing a radio station, of managing people, of building a radio format, all those kinds of things.
But some of the things I noted here is, the exponential multiplier of working with a team and collaborating. You come in and think, I can do this all myself, and then you quickly realize the power of collaboration. The power of just diverse opinions on your team, diverse ideas, all comes from that teamwork and that collaboration as well.
The idea that learned a lot about marketing and branding, the power of differentiating your product, particularly building a radio brand, and that's given now, but, that was something that didn't, I didn't even know when I came into Syracuse, when I started working at the radio station.
We went through some really challenging and maybe one of the most tumultuous eras in WJPZ's history. I Learned that, desperation and dire times will either lead you to crumble or actually if you focus on the problem solving, you're able to do pretty incredible things. And desperation is a pretty incredible motivator.
I learned that sleep is overrated. That was definitely a hallmark of my time at WJPZ. Passion and curiosity are incredible sherpas. That was a kind of a hallmark of the journey. I learned some things from some of my mentors. The teamwork one I learned from Happy Dave, Father Dave Dwyer, but I learned from Chris Bungo, don't sell past the close. I have carried that on my entire life.
JAG: So get what you need and walk out the door?
Cole: And shared that one a lot as a father. I heard that one a lot growing up.
Carl: So once you have sold, you just shut your mouth and then move on with your win. It's a good lesson I've learned. There's always smarter people. And you either wanna make 'em your friends or your coworkers, cuz that's how you find success. You are never the smartest, most talented person in the room or the building. So just accept that and then embrace. it. And this came from the process of programming a radio station, is that there are no such things as formulas.
There are principles. But there, there are no formulas. Every situation is different. Every competitive environment is different. Every product you're building is different. If you just try to replicate a formula, you're probably gonna fail.
JAG: You mentioned it being a tumultuous time and some controversy, Carl, let's to get it into that. What do you mean? For those who don't know what's going on there in the late 80's.
Carl: Yeah, so when the radio station went on the FM dial, finally off the carrier current in dorm rooms, , it was, an incredible accomplishment. And it was honestly a, an incredible programming format that a number of people had hand in.
And Mary Mancini, who I believe like ahead of her time, a revolutionary job of creating what was within the station's mandate to do a CHR format. And a formatted radio station, but also something that would appeal to a college audience. And she launched something called Future Radio. Her and the whole team that were part of putting the radio station on, Larry Barron and Chris Mossman and Dave Levin and that whole group. Mark Humble and others.
And it was great. It was fantastic, and it met the needs of what the station was supposed to do and generally appease the students. But this was the first time Syracuse had a student radio station on the FM dial. And within a year or so, the rumblings began across the campus to expand it or convert it into what would be considered, traditional college radio station.
JAG: More of a block format?
Carl: Yeah. Yep. Block formatting. Anybody could come on the air and do whatever programming they wanted. So you'd have two hours of jazz and two hours of reggae, and two hours of alternative, and two hours of pop, whatever it might. Talk shows and other things, and that's fine if you're just doing a traditional college radio station.
That was never the intention of WJPZ. It was always intended to be this media classroom. The further we got within a year or so of getting on the FM dial, the rumblings turned into a bit of a groundswell to change the format. And we were getting a lot of pressure from the Student Government Association at the time, and that's where all our funding came from at that time to actually run the radio station. And what does a naive 19 year old college student do in the midst of all that and, taking the mission of the radio station to heart? The management team. So I didn't do this in isolation, that was Rusty Burrell and Mark Bokoff, they were general manager and station manager.
Scott Bergstein was music director, I pushed for us to make no doubt that what our intention was and over the summer, heading into the fall of what I guess would've been my junior year, Basically converted the station from this future radio format to a pretty hard, mainstream CHR.
At the time, there was some programming that had gotten on the air that was more block programming. That sort of led down that path of people wanting more and more of that. We took it all off the air. We went to more of a kind of traditional CHR, which was probably too far of an overreaction and ultimately led to where we ended up, but it was the right thing to do for the station.
Here we are 35 plus years later and the station exists, I believe, in part because we held true to what the mission of the radio station was supposed to be. But on campus it erupted as students wanted a traditional college radio station and we'd gone as far from that as you could possibly get.
There was a lot to it than that. There was meetings and all sorts of forums to have campus opinions, but we were ultimately given an ultimatum if you want to keep the student government money, you will consider going to a college radio station. And you don't do that, if you want to go your own way, the money goes away and we made the tough decision then to forego student government funding to stay true to the mission of the radio station.
Now we evolved from that and we evolved, actually, I talked about this with diverse voices giving us input on the kind of program we evolved from the mainstream CHR to more of a what really a station is today, a rhythmic CHR. Rhythmic and dance roots. And of course, news and sports were always a part of what we did.
And then we were doing some groundbreaking things there with getting, rights to the women's basketball and other things to expand in that area. But it was a really tumultuous time, but it forced us to essentially lay the groundwork for what became an even better media classroom. We had to sell our own sponsorships just to make money, to stay on the air, and we had to do promotions and marketing to actually be competitive in the market so that we would get the attention of potential, we don't call 'em advertisers, they're just the non, non-commercial radio sponsors. But, really, I believe in a lot of ways that set the stage for the station to continue on. Its. Providing this experience to being what generations have now called the greatest living media classroom in the country.
JAG: And Carl, we've had some of your contemporaries on and those who were a year or two or three younger than you and they have given you, and that leadership time at that time credit for making that very difficult decision because station needed funding to get onto the FM dial a couple years prior.
And it did. And the station from that point on was self-sufficient for the better part of about 15 years or so until the media landscape changed and the sponsorship money just wasn't there. And they had to go back to university funding in 2002, 2003. But you’re taking a stand and saying, no, but we need to support the mission of this being the world's greatest media classroom is an important part of the history of the radio station.
Carl: Yeah, and here's the coolest part for me. That was all great, and then we talk about lessons you've learned under the pressure of literally, will this thing crumble if we don't, succeed?
You have no choice. Failure's not an option. But the coolest thing is that we built something as a group, as a team in every generation that built and fostered the station since then, that. 30 some years later, my son goes to Syracuse and gets the opportunity to have WJPZ be a part of his experience as another student who wanted to go to Syracuse for a real life professional education in the media business.
That's the coolest part of it all, is that it came full circle for me.
JAG: Since this is a podcast and you can't see Carl, he literally just turned the page on a giant legal pad in front of him. He had a lot of notes. Do you also have notes for the question of a funny story from your time at the radio station?
Carl: That's not my specialty. It's funny stories. I'm probably too serious of a person for that, but I will say this, I do have one. I guess we were in the middle of relaunching all the branding and imaging on the radio station to be power hits from what at one point was future hits. It was power hits Z 89. This was weeks of building formats and branding and imaging, and who knows how many nights I had spent in the studio with our production team.
Brian Debkowski was production director at the time and in the haze of no sleep. So back then, everything was on tape of some sort, and there was this machine called a bulking machine that essentially demagnetized the tape when you wanted to erase it, whether it was a cart machine. Reel or whatever it was.
And you're supposed to use this thing at arms length, you press the button and it buzzes and you rub the tape over it and it demagnetizes it. And I wanted to see what would happen if I actually tried to de-magnetize my head in the midst of the, third night without sleep.
So you're, you're worn never to do this, but, put my head on the machine, hit the button. To this day, I'm really not sure what the outcome was, but I'm, it probably explains a few things.
JAG: Cole, now you have the tough act to follow. Give me a funny story from your time at the station.
Carl: The time that I was a little lazy with my research and actually turned into a really good bit. So I don't know if you ever heard of, I wanna make sure I get this right. The musical, I believe it is called the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. I had a bit, cause we, when I was doing Friday Zoos, I wanna say it was Jordan Capozzi, Melody Emm. I wanna say Bella, might have been there. Baymes was there a lot.
I had a bit on Fridays where I would say, local things that you could do. Mostly it was just an excuse for me to shout out movies I was excited for that weekend. But I'd say a couple different, like arts fairs, things you could go to at Syracuse during the weekend. Something you could do for fun.
And I saw that there was a Putnam County spelling Bee. And I just assumed that there was just some local spelling bee going on. And so when they read that Putnam County's having a spelling bee, I was probably tired. I definitely should have done more research. And Melody was like, you mean this musical, that like a school is doing a production of, that's not an actual spelling bee?
Cole: Yeah. I guess that's what I was talking about. And so live on air, Melody revealed my mistake and just eviscerated me. And honestly it was hilarious. I don't even remember what I said, but we were just laughing so hard and I just, I remember at some point I was like, I'm actually just happy I made this mistake because me laughing is so much funnier than whatever this segment should have been. And so I just always remember Melody like eviscerating me for not knowing the musical, the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Man, that is a mouthful.
JAG: So that goes to your point about doing your research, but the other lesson there is sometimes when there's a good bit, there's a good bit and just go with it.
Cole: Yes. And honestly for any students who are listening who do Zoos, that was the best thing that Melody and I had was Melody was just really good at like messing around with me and giving me just the right amount of grief and I was really good at playing off it and being on air.
I never loved leading a show. I always liked being like the second chair. Like I always liked being the top person who was responding to the person he was hosting. And Melody and I just had such a good thing going. And my favorite zoos, my favorite bits were always when you're running on not enough sleep, you probably studying for a test that you need to cram for that day in the middle of the segments.
But when it's on, you're with friends, you're with people that you spent this time with. And you're just having fun. And if a segment goes off the rails and you don't know how to pronounce this spelling bee, or you don't know this spelling bee, you don't know this musical that you think is a spelling bee and it goes off the rails, have fun with it and laugh at yourself because that's the stuff that I remember.
What I remember was the time supple off the rails and everyone was laughing and I would like to think that those were the best segments for the listener in the car.
JAG: One of my favorite things about doing this podcast is hearing stories like that translate through 50 years of the radio station and the story you just told about being on the morning show with your friends and having such a good time.
That's true whether you graduated in 2021 or 1981 or 2001, Some of this stuff just really resonates throughout the years and echoes through the generations, and that's why it's been so cool to have two generations of Weinstein's on the show tonight. Carl and Cole, thank you both so much for coming on the podcast. Really appreciate it.
Cole: Thank you.
Carl: Thank you, Jon. It was really fun.