From December 1995 until July of 1997, WJPZ-Syracuse changed formats, to an alternative lean, and re-branded itself as "89.1 The Pulse." Today, we talk to the architects of that transition, Hall of Famers Dan Austin and Jeff Wade from the Class of 1997.
First, we hear how they both found the station. For Dan, the native Central New Yorker, it started working summer staff in high school. Meanwhile, Jeff was in high school in Rhode Island, hearing about the station. Soon, these two would become great friends, spending many hours together in the back office of the radio station.
In 1995, when Dan was GM and Jeff was VP of Programming, CHR was becoming much more fragmented. And Jeff was having a hard time finding new music that fit the station's current format. Meanwhile, alternative music was taking off, with stations like New York's Z100 leading the way.
Simultaneously, Dan and the station's business staff were having a hard time making the "major market coin" the station had seen earlier in the decade. To remain self-supported, they needed to make a splash, and get some attention in a quickly changing media landscape. The format change accomplished both goals, though not without controversy among students and alumni.
The format flip of 1995 was more proof that WJPZ is the world's greatest media classroom; throughout today's episode, Dan and Jeff talk about the radio, business, and life lessons this experience taught them.
Jeff and Dan talk about their careers in the 25 years since leaving Syracuse - Jeff moving from the music side to news/talk programming - and Dan's sales career that went from radio to now television, in the polar opposite of his native Syracuse, at least weatherwise - San Diego.
In today's episode, you'll also hear stories of how Jeff hired Jag for his first radio gig, and the awful mistake that cost Jag that job. But you'll also hear about folding tables hanging out of cars en route to the State Fair, the "Denny's Annex," and the exec staff getting PAGERS - which came in handy when one jock locked herself out of the studio.
Join Us in Syracuse for Banquet on March 4th: https://bit.ly/WJPZ50BanquetTickets
The WJPZ at 50 Podcast is produced by Jon Gay '02 and JAG in Detroit Podcasts
Bonus! See a brief documentary on The Pulse here, complete with 1995 Jeff, Dan, and their classmates!
JAG: Welcome to WJPZ at 50. I am Jon Jag Gay. Today we're joined by two Hall of Famers from the class of 97. Between them, they've helped countless alumni land jobs, including yours truly. Both have been extremely involved with the alumni association, including help run it, and one even got up at 6:30 AM.
Welcome, Dan Austin, Jeff Wade, thanks for being here.
Jeff: Good morning broadcaster. It's good to see you.
Dan: Hall of famers, and that puts so much pressure on this.
JAG: There are so many things I wanna ask you both about. I'll start where I start with most of these podcasts, which is each of you tell me how you ended up at Syracuse and getting involved with the radio station. Dan, we'll start with you.
Dan: I grew up in the suburbs of Syracuse in Cicero, and endured the Hoth planet of Snow. Envisioned myself going somewhere warmer. But I remember very distinctly that in my high school they did announcements for an opportunity for an internship at the college, radio station Z89.
And at that point, my experience in broadcasting was occasionally pinch hitting and doing the announcements in high school. So by no means a professional, but I do remember distinctly being in class and that really resonating and going, that sounds cool. I want to check it out. And really the rest is history.
JAG: And you were a summer staffer in high school, right? Dan?
Dan: Yeah. I was I was one of the many interns and did a lot of promotions at the station and that set me on the path that I wanted to apply at Syracuse and ultimately attend.
JAG: Are there names of alumni a couple years older than you? Do you remember from your time there as a summer staffer in high school?
Dan: Yes. Many. Jordan Guagliumi and Damian Redman. Doing summers with promotions with Jeanie Schad or Betty Kestin. I distinctly remember the Dave Gorab era. The station was hot. It just was fun to be there. And the station was super competitive and I just wanted to be a part of it. I was hooked.
JAG: And Jeff, how did you end up at Syracuse?
Jeff: So I went to Coventry High School in Coventry, Rhode Island. And my high school had a radio station, 91.5 WCVY, the Rock of Kent County, or at least it was at the time. By the time I left it was America's new music station cuz we started playing Top 40 Music. I was there and I was working my way up and I became the program director my junior year.
And one of the DJs who was at that radio station, the high school radio station, who went on the Syracuse, who came back and visited to tell me all these glorious tales of this radio station Z 89. His name is Jeff Dyson. Jeff was for a time the Friday night party host, and he was a pretty hot jock at the radio station. He ended up transferring and going to another school, I think his junior and senior years.
But anyway, he would talk up the radio station. I was already considering Syracuse as a journalism school. But the the clincher was when I was going up there on a recruiting trip and I was early acceptance, so I knew I was gonna go, but I went anyway to this Newhouse thing where they were trying to talk about all the great things you could do at Syracuse University and they showed you the video.
There's Dick Clark and these awesome, these awesome alumni. Marv Albert's up there and Bob Costas, and then they bring out his student to speak and talk about their experience. This is like the spring of 93. Out walks Dave Gorab. He was the general manager at the time.
He's outgoing, he's a senior, he is a rockstar. He was talking about his experience at Z89, and I was like, I wanna be that guy. That sounds really awesome. And so I was already probably gonna go, but that was like, now I definitely know I need to be, this is the first thing I need to do when I get on campus is go to this radio station.
JAG: One of the great things about JPZ and the alumni association is the great friends made, and there are so many of them, and I know the two of you are very good friends. Tell me how you guys met and became such good friends.
Jeff: I think the first time we really saw each other was in the back office where I was probably training to be a promotions the promotions department.
And Dan was scheduling music. I'm pretty sure certain that was how it went down. I don't know if Dan has a different recollection of that. I just remember we were always back there together.
Dan: Yeah, I mean we lived in that office. It was a massive healthy space too. It was . We were never over fire capacity in that room.
But yeah, I think we were in tight quarters and I was using selector, which was an exciting program for music. And that feels 10 lifetimes ago because we very quickly did just start hanging out and found out we had similar interests. And it's funny because now we're deemed as inseparable decades later.
Jeff: Yeah. The way it came about, a couple people that helped facilitate it. One was Jordan Guagliumi, cuz Jordan was the promotion director at the time. So I was doing contest hours and I was entering prize forms and all this stuff. There were two computers back there. One was for the PromoSuite software and the other one was for Selector.
And so we're both sitting there, we're sitting next to each other. And so we, that's how we got acquainted. And then the other person that kind of helped was Damian, Governor D. Because he was very friendly with Dan and they would hang out a lot. And then they started inviting me to hang out with them. And we would go do whatever.
Dan: Exciting chips to the mall. We would go to the mall .
Jeff: And the other thing too was that Dan had a car.
Dan: That's what I was thinking of, was, and we had mobility to leave campus.
Jeff: Dan had this old Chevy Celebrity that was basically our ticket to the greater world. Going to the mall, going to the movie theater, stuff like that, going by records back when that was still a thing.
That was our bonding experience. The place you went back then was the Denny's on Erie Boulevard. There were many nights spent there late and it was amazing how many people from the radio station would all go with and separately, like you could have an informal staff meeting at Denny's.
Yeah. It would be like Dan and I and Damian would sit at a table and then across from us is Big Daddy, Marvin Nugent, Andy Heck. Adam Love, Dion would be there. We're all there. There weren't that many late-night dining options at the time and, it was cheap and we knew we could get in and that they would feed us.
Dan: It was the Eerie Boulevard annex of WJPZ.
JAG: So you two were instrumental in The Pulse, which for those who don't know, the station flipped formats in the mid-90s. Talk to me about what went into that decision, how that was executed, because this is a period that I really wanna make sure we cover in the podcast.
Dan: I think there was a lot that went into that when we were looking at what was happening in the industry and following major stations. You looked at Z100, or you looked at some of these legendary stations across the country, and alternative radio was huge. The music was hot. Top 40 had really gone through, gosh, I could go on forever about this, but Top 40 had gone through such an evolution.
And there wasn't mainstream top 40 radio really at the time. The music was very polarizing. You had basically alternative, and then you had the influence of hip hop and R&B. So the stations that had been very successful with mainstream Top 40 in the 80's and early 90's were going through an identity crisis.
So that was an influence what was happening in the industry. So one of the things that I think is amazing about the station is that was self-supported. Self-funded. We were associated with the University, but if we needed duct tape for a promotion, we had to buy it. And if the soundproofing on the wall was faded and chipping, which happened, we had to replace it.
And the station had ups and downs really more of a function of how many people are contributing to sponsorship and underwriting. But that is no easy task. And when we were the leadership, we had significant obligations and less sponsorship money coming in, and so we also looked at what could we do to reengage the community and excite people?
Have something new to talk about? Those two really stand out as some of the big reasons to do it. It was a very thoughtful decision that involved the team over a extended period of time. There was a lot that went into that.
JAG: What were your positions at the station when you made that call?
Dan: I was the GM.
Jeff: I was the program director, VP of programming.
JAG: Jeff, what do you remember about the decision to make the transition?
Jeff: Dan's absolutely right. One of the major influences the industry was trending in this direction. But I remember one of the bigger influences is there was a weekend that Dan and I went down to New York City. And we were visiting mark Roone and Jordan Guagliumi.
Or maybe it was Damian. I don't remember. It was one of the three of them. They were down there and we went down to hang out with them for a weekend. And I remember it because we were listening to Z100 the entire way once we could pick up the signal. They had gone very like alternative pop leading at that time and we were like, this radio station is amazing. This is how you do it. Oh my G-d. We remembered that. And then as Dan had alluded to, when we came in into the radio station, we discovered, after the fact, that the radio station was in a financially challenged position and we were trying to figure out how are we gonna turn this thing around?
How are we gonna make the radio station so we can one, keep the lights on, and two, continue to provide the experience that, everybody's come to expect? And it was a conversation that happened over months because it's no easy task. The radio station had been Z89 and extremely successful as Z89 for so many years.
And there was a lot of history there. The alumni at the time were probably much more influential in decisions that were being made because so many of them still communicated with the staff and had influence. Because we all looked up to them and there were people working at these big radio stations in New York City and Philadelphia.
It was a little bit intimidating to, really figure out what exactly it was we wanted to do. There were a couple of people when the alumni that were Hey, this wouldn't be a terrible idea. Dave Gorab was actually one of them. Dave was working at Y100 in Philly at the time and had suggested, Hey, just think about this.
This is where the industry's going. And we ended up, I remember the day. Dan and I both at that time lived at Haven Hall. We lived at a double that year. And so we would go to lunch at the cafeteria, at Haven Hall. He and I sat down at the table at Haven Hall and I looked across the table and him, I was like, I think we should do this.
And he was like, okay, how, what would that look like? And I remember we sat there for two hours. And talked through the whole thing and we came up with the semblance of the plan and then the rest of it was trying to figure out, okay. There was so many things involved.
You're literally talking we literally renamed the radio station. We changed the logo. We had to get a completely different imaging guy. We had to get all this music, we had to talk to the record labels. It was a massive undertaking. We didn't do it by ourselves. We had help. We had a lot of people that were at the same time, it was also a very controversial thing because there were people at the radio station that did not see any reason that we should change. We ended up having a staff meeting in late November, early December.
JAG: This is what year, Jeff?
Jeff: This is late 1995. So we had the staff meeting and we said, guys, here's the situation.
And Dan spoke to the economic stuff, and I spoke to, here's where the industry's going, and this is where we think we should take the radio station. We need you guys to be involved, and we need your help. And look, if I had known that the Spice Girls and Britney Spears were gonna be showing up in 18 months, then it might have been a very different outcome.
But we didn't know that at the time. We were 20 years old. I wasn't even legal to drink yet. And I'm making these decisions for this radio station that are gonna have far reaching and long-term effects. It was one of the most stressful experiences of our life, but ultimately one of the most rewarding.
When we got on the air and kind of upended things for a time in Syracuse Radio and to Dan's original point, we made a ton of money in a short period of time.
Dan: There was a lot of controversy. We were like front page news on the Daily Orange for a while, We made a big splash in the market and that's what we were looking to do because the flame thrower of the early nineties, we wanted to get that buzz on campus and in Syracuse as a whole and we definitely accomplished that. And the, in the industry really.
Jeff: Yeah, I still have all the clippings.
JAG: Think about the bylaws of the radio station, that it's supposed to be mirroring, what contemporary radio is at the time, and this certainly fit, if you think back to where music was in 95, it was not very poppy. Pop was not very poppy. That was a really big time of alternative.
Jeff: Yeah, I mean we were playing, that summer, Dan and I spent the summer up there and it was Z89 still at the time, and we were playing the format and there were records that we were playing and I was like, man, I feel like his road is dried up. I don't know what to do here.
Dan: Yeah. We were struggling to add music, which was a weird phenomenon, but that was a function of the polarization of music at that time.
Jeff: Yeah. And the thing people forget about the Pulse is that, people think that oh, they just went crazy and they just start playing rock music.
It's no. We're playing Natalie Merchant. We're playing Jewel. We're playing, the Google Dolls, Name, which is like on every AC station in America these days.
JAG: Yeah. Huge song.
Jeff: And yeah, sure. We're playing some Smashing Pumpkins. We're playing Oasis, we're playing Nirvana. Yeah, sure, of course. But those were all hit records. Those are things that you hear now on, although contemporary radio and you hear 'em in the supermarket walking around.
JAG: Yeah. And you wanna reach for your cane and your walker with the tennis balls on it when you realize it's supermarket music now!
Jeff: It was really popular music at the time and we never lost sight of that.
It's not like we started to start playing Metallica . That did not ever happen during the Pulse format. It was of the moment we were thinking in terms of what are we gonna do? How are we gonna succeed right now? What's gonna be the best thing for this radios tation? It was a great lesson for both of us, and the takeaway for it for the current students or anybody who's, looking to, advance themselves in their careers, is that you'd have to trust your gut.
You have to be willing to take a leap of faith and follow through when you know that you've got something that you think can be successful. And the radio station now today is still a great place for experimentation. I have, consciously since that time, never except for the day they changed the format from the pulse back to Z89.
I was bummed that day. I remember being very bummed that day. But since that time, I have never said one word about anything that the students are doing at the radio station in terms of format. It's their classroom, it's their experimentation, it's their time to learn and figure out what works. They've got, well, now 50 years of alumni that give them ideas and share their knowledge and inspire them to make those choices and experiment. But it's really theirs now. And I think that's the enduring lesson of that time is that this is a place where you can learn and, I think somebody said that you learn more from making mistakes than you do from succeeding in some cases.
And I think that's true. So I certainly, anybody who's there now to, not be afraid to trust your instincts, take a chance and it can reward you.
JAG: Anything I did not ask either of you about the pulse that's worth mentioning that we didn't cover. You
Jeff: know, one of the things about that error for the radio station was that there's just an extraordinary amount of talent there. Scott McFarland is, a, a CBS BS news correspondent, covering the Capitol every day.
Now, Jeff Rosson was on the Today Show, and he's doing, I actually, he is a coworker of mine now for doing Rossen Reports here at Hearst Television. Mimi JG is a very successful anchor out in Seattle. Dan, not myself, Pete Diebler, God rest his soul, huge DJ in Washington, DC and had his own network for a number of.
We had some amazing people working at that radio station.
Dan: Really was a confluence of incredible talent and creativity.
JAG: Jeff, you're alluding to this. When it comes to lessons you've learned at the radio station that you've now applied throughout your career and in the time since you were at JPZ. Take us through your career post-graduation.
Jeff: Came outta school, convinced that I was going to be a dj, music director, program director. I was going to meet bands and give away concert tickets and live the DJ Rock and Roll Lifestyle. And I did for about two years. Dan and I actually reunited and worked together post-graduation at a small radio station in Manchester, Vermont, WEQX.
It was very random, but a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. I spent a year there, Dan spent about seven months there. I went to Woodstock 99. . Let me tell you that's a whole separate podcast.
JAG: And many documentaries on it too.
Jeff: A very small piece of my hair is in one of those documentaries. I'm sitting next to two people who, friends of mine who got on camera.
I didn't get on camera. Yeah. Anyway, I was there and I was making absolute dirt money. I was flat broke. Dan and I were living together in a apartment right down the street from the radio station. That was the shortest commute I've ever had to work. We walked to work. It's an amazing radio station.
It's still on the air. It's broadcast out of an old Victorian era house in in Manchester, Vermont. It technically reached Albany. Great Radio station. Great history. I was making no money. I was miserable. Dan ended up taking a job at a clear channel station, I believe at the time. Yeah. And was a sales manager there.
So I was left behind. So now, I'm by myself and I'm miserable and I wanted to go home. I called a former boss of mine who I had worked part-time for, and he was like, I got a talk show producer position. You wanna be a talk show producer? And I was like, sure let's try it. I'll do it for a few months and I'll find a DJ job.
22 years later, I'm the program director of WBAL in Baltimore, one of the, most successful news and talk stations in the country. I'm the both the director of programming and I'm the news director. So that kind of set me on the path that ultimately got me to where I am now.
Worked in Providence for several years. I was assistant program director. I became a program director in news director in Portland, Maine, where I spent about nine. And then I spent the 2016 election cycle in New Hampshire working for an outfit called NH1 News, where I was the news director for a network that serviced stations around New Hampshire, and then also program director of a few radio stations.
And that led me to, here where you start is not always where you end, but it's been a really extremely rewarding ride. And frankly, as I look back on it now, my sensibilities are much better suited for what I'm doing now than perhaps if I was still, giving away concert tickets. And spinning records.
I don't know if I would nearly be as satisfied as I am now doing the work that I'm doing.
JAG: And I do owe you an apology for 15 or so years now because you gave me my very first radio gig in Providence. You needed a board op on Saturdays at your am station, WPRO-AM. So you gave me my very first job in radio after college.
A year later I was in a production studio working on a demo tape and did not realize that the radio station had been off the air for approximately 30 minutes.
Dan: Oh wow.
JAG: Probably the absolute worst moment of my career. And I remember getting called into the office on Monday and here I am, Jeff Wade, one of our great alumni, has given me this first radio job.
And well, to be blunt, I screwed the pooch. So I remember coming into this meeting with Jeff and the program director was, remind me his name?
Jeff: I believe David Bernstein at the time.
JAG: Yes. And I sat down and I said, guys, there is nothing you can say to me that will make me feel worse than I already do about the situation that's happened.
I think it's probably in everybody's best interest if I give you my notice and I leave. And to Mr. Bernstein's credit, he said, look, you're a 22-year-old kid. I'm not gonna ruin your career over this. You've had the good sense to, to walk away from this. As far as I'm concerned, this didn't happen and let it be a life lesson.
So I was always appreciative for the two of you for that very valuable lesson. I learned in my career. And then lo and behold, a couple months later, I ended up getting my first full-time on air gig in Vermont. It all worked out in the end, but I was always appreciative of number one, you helping me land that gig. And number two, the way in which you handled a colossal f up on my part. I've gotta say.
Jeff: Look, people, I think that the other thing too for people is that you can't be perfect. And I make mistakes all the time in my job. It's very hard. And you have to give yourself a little bit of slack.
Now it's really about how you respond in those moments, right? And you responded, by holding yourself accountable. And I think accountability is a big important part of people owning, their work and their mistakes and, showing that they can learn from them. And I think that's probably the big lesson there.
And I, something that I still deal with myself and trust me, there have been many other things far worse in my radio career since then, that I've had employees do, that pale in comparison to that, that oversight.
JAG: Okay. I appreciate that. Dan, over to you. You have had an incredible career all over this great country of ours. Recently married, by the way. Congratulations.
Dan: Thank you, sir.
JAG: Tell us about your journey post JPZ, starting at EQX in Vermont, then you head to Albany. Let's pick it up where Jeff left off the story there.
Dan: Yeah, my goodness. I definitely had the radio gypsy life for quite some time. I started my first professional job was while I was still at WJPZ, I actually did the on-air route for a bit. So I did weekends at WPXY in Rochester. My claim to fame there is I worked for Ryan Seacrest's boss. He wasn't Ryan Seacrest's boss at the time, but I'd found as I was finishing up school though, that I looked up to people who had gone into the sales side of things such as Jordan Guagliumi, and Joanna Nicholson. And seeing the route that Jeannie Schad took. So I actually wanted to focus on the sales side. So actually the last year that I was at JPZ, I got a full-time sales gig at New City, which became Cox, and they had launched Hot 1079. That sent me on my radio sales career, which led me to go back to Rochester after graduation.
Reunited with Jeff for my first general sales manager job in Manchester, Vermont. And then came down from the mountains to Albany, which I spent a lot of time in Albany. I was in sales there for many years. Sales manager got my first GM gig running a group of locally owned stations, and then actually incidentally, came back to Syracuse to run crosstown archrival 93Q.
JAG: Boo!
Dan: Got to work with the legendary Ted and Amy who are still on the air, waking up Central New York, which is an incredible feat in our industry. It is good to be back home and be close to my brother and sister. And my daughter was born in Syracuse, which was very special. From there continued on the journey.
I spent some time in Seattle with CBS Radio as a director of sales. Came back to Albany on the boomerang to run stations for Townsquare. And then actually almost 10 years ago came out to Southern California. I came out to be director of sales for stations here. And as is the way in radio, the company I worked for got sold and I got the big Zig. Yeah, new management.
So after that, following some of the lessons we learned with doing the format flip with The Pulse and taking risks, I took risks and ventured out of radio, which was, that was tough cuz that was my identity for so long. And J a I watched you reinvent yourself and it's just absolutely amazing.
JAG: Thank you.
Dan: When you only know that, it's hard to envision doing something else. I did a few things. I worked for a digital video content company in Santa Monica for a bit. I actually launched my own business and ran a series of high-end magazines and did that for several years.
It was fun, but I didn't make a lot of money. And now I'm in television. I've actually been in TV now for three and a half years. And it's fun because I'm taking what I learned in radio, just selling ideas and selling concepts and storytelling, but doing it through video instead of just audio.
So it's been an interesting journey and as Jeff said, when you're in your twenties, you have a vision of it's gonna be very linear and it's gonna go one way. And the reality is life is very twisting and turning in your career. But if you continue to learn and adapt, you'll be successful.
JAG: So what is your current role now, Dan?
Dan: Sales manager at the CBS affiliate in San Diego. KFMB television.
JAG: And not to mention, you are living every Syracuse Native's dream when it comes to weather. Cuz you're in San Diego .
Dan: Yeah. If I had traveled to San Diego in my twenties, I would've come here a lot sooner. There's a reason people will come to the beach and never leave. But I do miss seasons and it's been fun for me to see the pictures of alumni and friends in Buffalo, New York enduring an excessive amount of snow and seeing the Bills have to play in Detroit. But being able to do that from afar under palm trees.
JAG: It's fun to watch from afar. It's November 22nd when we're recording this. This is right after that record snowstorm in Buffalo. For our listeners, guys, you've weaved in all the questions that I typically ask, which is, what do you learn at the radio station? What experiences informed you? What are some connections you've made at the radio station?
My last question for the both of you is if either or both of you can come up with one funny story from back in the day that you still look back on and laugh.
Jeff: Oh, I will never forget the time that Dan and I stuffed a folding table into the back of his Chevy Celebrity. And drove to the New York State Fair for a live broadcast, I believe it was the fall of 95.
And we were running the station at the time. And those days you got space at the State Fair. Everybody did. And everybody broadcast from there for the two weeks. And of course, they didn't design the State Fair to be convenient for Syracuse students. So of course it was always the two weeks right around the beginning of the semester.
First of all, people are still coming onto campus. Still getting their act together and that's typically the time of the year where the staff is like at its thinnest. We haven't had recruitment yet and everybody's, all the summer interns are leaving. So there was nobody to do it one day.
And I remember Dan and I were just like crap, we gotta go, we've gotta go out there. And we had, it was a dash job, like I remember we had to stop to get batteries or something, it was a mess. We didn't have batteries for the microphones or something. And it was a disaster. And we're out there and the lengths that you go to do, all the things that, other radio stations take for granted.
JAG: A remote like that today is it's a cell phone.
Jeff: It's pretty humdrum, right? But, gotta set up the Marti, you gotta call the radio station and all, so all this stuff. So it was it was an adventure. It was a fun, it was a fun adventure, but it was, I remember we're driving down 690 and the table is sticking out the back window. And we're like, we couldn't, like it was too big and we couldn't figure out how to close it up all the way. And it is it is crazy.
JAG: Dan, anything, any stories that stick out to you?
Dan: There's two that I'll share. One is Jeff and I are alive because we survived on the McDonald's Monopoly game. Keeping the station on the air for the summer with a skeleton crew. And as such, not having any money cuz we were living at the radio station.
So Monopoly was not just a fun exercise, it was survival skills. I was actually talking to my kids the other day cause I think we were watching a show and it was dated and they had pagers. And I explained to them for this brief period of time in technology that pagers were advanced. And so I did this deal with Page New York and traded out pagers for like the whole exec staff. Why we needed that level of connectivity and why that was important, who knows? But we thought we were so cool. I remember getting a page that Jamie Bell had locked herself out of the studio and hence we were off the air.
Jeff: Yes. We were in class together. Yeah, we were in the school of management. We were sitting in the school of management, some auditorium there. We both get paged and we both had to go running.
Dan: Yeah. It was like urgent, like running to the station, jumping out, coming in and having to unlock that creaky door into the studio because they like inadvertently had gone locked. Life threatening type stuff. That was why we had them.
Jeff: My other favorite part of that is that none of us had memorable pagers except for AC Corales.
I still remembers AC's.
Dan: Oh my gosh, I forgot about that.
Jeff: ACS was 241-AC-AC. I don't remember if he gave it out over the air or not. I don't think he did, but I just remember, he would just tell everybody, if you need to get a hold of me, it's. 241-ACAC. Hit me on the hip kid.
JAG: Oh my G-d. Hilarious.
Jeff: AC Corales, great Friday night party dj.
Dan: Absolutely.
JAG: One of my fond memories comes from alumni year. Jeff will probably know where I'm going here very quickly, which is. During the American League Championship series we're at Faegan's with apologies to Dan here, when the Yankees are beating the Red Sox 19-8,and all hope is lost and the Red Sox are down three nothing.
I remember Jeff buying shots for him, me, Bosse and everybody that was there, just the, our miserable Red Sox fans going, oh my G-d,, this is the worst. This is awful. And then flash forward two weeks later and the miracle happens. But the low point was shots at Faegan's, getting drubbed, 19 to 8 in game three.
Jeff: I remember some guy in a random Schilling jersey standing next to me, and I remember buying him one too because I was just, was, I was in my feelings at the time and I just, I wanted everybody to, to ease everybody's pain a little bit. I believe that was the same weekend that the that was one of the fall conferences, if I recall.
I believe that was the the genesis of the the now discontinued Rick Wright drinking game.
JAG: Which if you haven't heard, go back and listen to the Rick Wright episode of the podcast where I ask him about his perspective on Rick Wright Bingo and when he figured it out.
Dan: That is still one of my favorites of all time that we created.
JAG: All right. Dan Austin, Jeff Wade from the class of 97. two Hall of Famers. Two incredibly influential alumni in everything the station did as students and as alumni, and the alumni association as well. Thank you both for your time today. Been a real
Jeff: pleasure. Always good to see you,
Dan: Jag. This was fantastic. Thanks again guys. It was great to reminisce. We could just go on and on. This was awesome.