Today's episode is a must-listen, especially for those of that are sports fans or ever had aspirations to get into the field.
Howard Deneroff, WJPZ Class of 1989, is the EVP and Executive Producer of Westwood One Sports. He's been with the company since immediately after graduation, and has worked the Super Bowl, World Series, Final Four, Stanley Cup Finals, and more.
Like many of us, Howard decided on Syracuse because he wanted to be as involved with sports as possible. He went to WAER, writing for the likes of Mike Tirico and others. But when it became clear that he could get much more hands on experience at WJPZ. This proved true his sophomore year, when in addition to calling women's sports and minor league baseball, Z89 was able to cover an undefeated SU football team (wow that seems like a long time ago), and a basketball team that made it to the NCAA Championship game.
Additionally, their Saturday morning show "The Press Box" morphed into coverage of Central New York high school football. Staff would call the games, interview coaches and players, and bring the cassettes back. Then the real work began, splicing highlights on reel-to-reel decks until 3 or 4am, to have them ready for air the next morning. This is where Howard says he really learned the skills, attitude, and perfectionism that carried him to where he is now. This really came to fruition when working on a piece commemorating the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier. The desire to always make his work better led to Howard getting some unbelievable audio and previously unheard stories for the presentation.
In addition to talent and hard work, sometimes you need to be in the right place at the right time. We hear a wild story of coincidence, and how a chance meeting turned into a job at Westwood One upon graduation, and a three-decades plus career there.
Deneroff started at CBS Radio in 1989, working on baseball and football, where his encyclopedic knowledge and preparation quickly impressed his coworkers. He also learned how to think quickly on his feet - when he was in studio for an Earthquake during the 1989 World Series. He's worked with everyone from Jim Nantz to Greg Gumbel, Brent Musburger, John Madden, Terry Bradshaw, Pat O'Brien, Vin Scully, Ernie Harwell, and more.
Howard tried to learn from the best, and take pieces from folks he's worked with - this led to his "index card system" used in the booth for broadcasts - color coded index cards for promos, sponsorships, and commercial breaks. If you are into the behind-the-scenes of broadcasting, you'll geek out of this like we did.
Despite the responsibilities that come with his current title, today's guest still loves producing radio broadcasts. He still gets the adrenaline rush and tries to do at least one game a week. We spend some time talking about the magic of radio, and the advantages it has over television. We also talk about the future of audio.
Deneroff has made it a point to give back to Z89, after the station gave him so much. He's airchecked play-by-players. provided internships and more. He firmly believes what he learned at the station got him to where he is now.
We close with a couple of funny stories. Will Howard confirm Lippy's story about shaking a spatula at him? And you won't believe Mr. Deneroff's reaction when Howie came home and played him a tape of his first sportscast.
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
JAG: Welcome to WJPZ at 50. I am Jon Jag Gay. It's a typical moment you would think in the family of JPZ. I'm at the Banquet in 2019 and there's no other group in which I'd be sitting there at the table at the Sheraton bar talking to our guest today, and he'd be telling me all these great stories about all these amazing sporting events he's covered.
But that's just what the JPZ family is, and you sit down and everybody's friendly with everybody. Today's guest, one of our big gets, that I'm really excited to have him today from the class of 1989. He's the EVP and executive producer of Westwood One Sports. Mr. Howard Deneroff, welcome to the show.
Howard: Thank you so much. Pleasure to be with you and this is a great project and thank you for undertaking it because I don't have the time, even though I'd love to be a part of this history of the station, in a bigger fashion.
JAG: You're proud of it today, which is what we're thrilled to have you. Tell me how you ended up at Syracuse and finding the station. We'll start at the beginning.
Howard: Very simple. I was in high school in New York City, knew I wanted to get into sports broadcasting. My goal, and I tell this to everybody is, was to be at as many sporting events as possible for free as I could, and whether that meant selling hotdogs as a vendor or whether that meant working as a journalist or some other fashion, that's what I wanted to do. And I grew up in New York and Marv Albert was doing every sport and everything at the time, and he was a Syracuse guy. And so that was my first knowledge of the University. And there were some others that were out there that had come through Syracuse and Bob Costas and everything.
And then when I was in high school trying to figure out what to do and where to go, Sports Illustrated did an article on Syracuse University, Newhouse, called Sportscaster U. Is Greg Papa the next in the great line of Syracuse broadcasters from Marty Glickman to Dick Stockton, to Marv Albert, to Bob Costas?
Len Berman was also mentioned the article, and so it was a no-brainer. That was where I wanted to go because that's what I wanted to do, and they had a great sports program and Pearl Washington had just committed to going there was a freshman and all that. I think if my timing maybe he was a sophomore, it was a natural, that's why I wanted to go there. I, to be fair, I did not know about Z 89 when I first applied. And when I was accepted and I only found out about it when I was on campus. It wasn't the station that brought me, it was the reputation that brought me. But once I was there and I heard about it, it became obvious where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do.
JAG: So going after sports and that being your passion, were you at AER as well or?
Howard: So back in the day, you could not work at both. It was one or the other. And there was a very strict clearance process at AER where they only had about, eight people that were on the air, and you had some people that would write for the casts.
So I would go at five in the morning and write for some of the anchors. And as you can tell, even still, I have a New York accent. I try and enunciate and mask as much as what I can. Back then it was much heavier. Much heavier. I didn't say coffee and water, but it was bad. And so I couldn't get cleared on AER to start, and I would write for Mike Tirico and some of the other guys that were there, and the option was to cut your chops, if you will, at Z89, and get some of the kinks outta the way on the air. It was much more open and. They were doing women's basketball. When I first started. They had the rights to minor league baseball.
They were doing the Chiefs games too. And we did other shows and talk and everything else. And so it was a good opportunity for me to get a little more hands on than I could at AER. And so when I started there, it just snowballed and I moved up the chain there and then never ended up even trying to get cleared again on AER.
And to be fair, I don't know that I ever would've, because they had the likes of Mike Tirico and other guys like that. And Shawn Colthard and Doug Sherman all these great guys. But a lot of people did start at Z89, work for us, and then went over to AER. Ian Eagle being the biggest example of it. And so it was just a matter of, by the time I was the end of sophomore year, I knew I wanted to be behind the scenes and not on the air anymore.
And so it made more sense for me to stay there where I could do much more production than ever switching over. Plus, I had all my friends there and it was just the best experience of being at that campus. Quite honestly, that was my family.
JAG: That's a theme that's come up in so many episodes of this podcast.
So you've said your friends. Who were some of the folks that you were working with at the time in the late eighties at JPZ?
Howard: So when I first started, the sports director was Neil Presant and Jim Morrison was the assistant sports director, and they're the ones that allowed me an opportunity and I'm very grateful for that.
And promoted me from within to do a lot of things. And my sophomore year was a great year for the athletic department. We went to the Final Four, the national championship game in basketball. We went to the Sugar Bowl as an undefeated team for football. And while we didn't do the play by play of men's basketball and men's football, we covered those teams, right?
And had a lot of opportunity. We did a weekly show with Don McPherson, who was the quarterback of the undefeated team. We did a weekly show with Ronnie Seikaly. And those were set up before the season started, and we got very lucky with both. And I didn't have anything to do with setting those up, but worked on those shows every week.
And so that was a great experience, a great opportunity, and a lot of fun. Got to go to New Orleans and, that just started my passion for it even more. And, it didn't matter what we were doing. Kevin Martines and Dan Corson and all these other guys, we did a weekly Saturday morning show called Press Box, where we "tackled the issues of the week."
And then that show ended up when I was a junior. We changed the show to become a high school football show. Where we went out every Friday night and did play by play, recorded it and from all the different local high schools and put it together and put together the best highlights the next day and would have a player of the week and have the player come in the studio and give him a trophy and have coaches come on with us.
It was a great experience. And then Scott Cordischi and Mitch Levy we're on the sports staff and Richard Ruggiero and Ian Eagle was on the air with us. And Craig Carton was on the air. His first on air gig was with us. Mike Dardis. And so there was a lot of, that was the sports that Scott Meach was there and Carl Weinstein.
Mike Tierney was in music. T-Bone, and Jim Mahoney. I'm sure I'm forgetting somebody who's listening to this and they're very upset with me right now, and I apologize. But it was a great crew. From the promotion staff to the operation staff, to the sports staff. It was great because everybody was there because they wanted to be there.
They cared about it. They loved it. You know this, everybody who's listening to this knows, that it's what, 15 degrees in snowing every morning, and yet I never missed a cast at 6:20 in the morning when I had to be there. Couldn't make it to my 8:30 classes when it snowed.
JAG: Motivation!
Howard: But the point was, I don't ever remember somebody saying, hey, I can't make it to my shift at 6:00 AM. I don't remember that. But we all were like, oh my God, I'm going back to bed. It's freezing out. I'm not going to my 8:30, logic class or whatever it was. Every minute that I was free that I could be there. I was there.
I mean we were editing, I mentioned that Press Box show. We were editing at night that Friday night show until three, four in the morning cuz everyone would come back. There were no cell phones back then. You couldn't transmit any other way. You couldn't send it in on the computer.
So everyone would come back from East Syracuse Minoa, and Fulton, and Baldwinsville and Henninger High, and wherever it was. Liverpool and Nottingham. And they'd bring in their cassettes and we'd have to go through two hours of tape from every one of them, pull out the best highlights. They'd interview the player and the coach.
After the game, we'd put together a package on each game. And we had multiple studios working. So we were working, and this show aired at 9 or 10 in the morning. I forget which. So we were there till four in the morning on a Friday night. Now, how many college kids do you know that are not on Marshall Street on Friday night?
But we had 10, 11 guys in there. Every one of us was editing sound and working on this show because it was a passion still is for me. I never lost that passion. That's why I still, I am still in this business and. There's nothing like the adrenaline of trying to get a broadcast on the air for me and doing it right, or redoing it until, you think it's right.
JAG: Absolutely. And the sports coverage that J P Z had in 86, 87, 88, 89 is legendary in terms of the 50-year history of the radio station. Talk to me about your career after JPZ and how you worked your way up to where you are now.
Howard: It's a funny story. I was, I dunno, 10 days away from graduating. I had applied for a lot of different jobs, like everybody and obviously it's a lot easier now with internet and things like that.
But back in the day, Newhouse, they had a career placement office. They still do. Every Friday at four o'clock, they would print a list of job openings. From alums that would call in. Again, no emails back then for the younger listeners, they would call it into this office, and they'd type these up and they'd make photocopies of it, and you would come and pick up a photocopy of it Friday at four o'clock.
And this could be, you could be an overnight DJ in Mason City, Iowa, might be the job, right? Or it might be a camera operator in Fort Pierce, Florida. Or it could be the sports director at the ABC affiliate in Macon, Georgia. Anywhere. And so you would go and get this list. Then I applied for a couple of things and I had interned down in Miami and I had a potential part-time job in Miami where I had interned and had a potential part-time radio job in, in New York, behind the scenes.
So I'm graduating on May the 14th, so let's back to it. May the 5th. Friday, May 5th, I'm going there to pick up my thing. I'm looking through the listings. I'm walking out the back of Newhouse on Waverly Avenue. And one of the girls in my class asked me if that was the most recent listing, and I said, yes.
She said she was on her way to the airport running to go home for the weekend. Would I mind giving her that copy? She didn't have time to go up to on the third floor to get it. If I would go get another one and give her that one, I was like, sure, no problem. Handed it to her. Hadn't looked at it, went back up the elevator, from Waverly up to the building, got a new one, and when I got up there, the woman who was working there at the time, who now works for the Chancellor's office is still there. Lynn VanderHoek, was there and said, hold on a second. Somebody was calling in a job for CBS Radio Sports. At four o'clock on Friday, the woman who worked at CBS, who became my boss, who hired me, had gone to Syracuse's graduate program and was calling in to offer the job.
They were looking for somebody to start immediately who could work on Major League Baseball and the NFL in production. So it was gonna be a hybrid job. They were starting a Spanish language network to broadcast the jewel events in Spanish nationally on the radio, and also working on the English side.
So you had to be proficient in Spanish, you had to know production, and you had to know sports. I was proficient in Spanish, was my best subject in school. And so I walked down the hall. The younger listeners don't know what a payphone is. There was a payphone at the hall end. The hall end of the hall.
JAG: It was a Maroon five song about 10 years ago.
Howard: And I called my boss Beth Robinson. I just heard about the job. She goes, I just called it in. I was in the room when you called. When can you come down for an interview? I was like, I can be there in five hours if I drive fast. She wasn't gonna interview me on a Friday night at nine o'clock.
I had the interview on Tuesday morning. Before the end of the week before I graduated, I was offered the job. So I graduated Sunday. I packed Monday, drove Monday. I started Tuesday. So May 16th, 1989, I started. I have never left. So Westwood one took over from CBS Radio in 1998, they merged. I stayed when it became Westwood One. And until the pandemic forced us out of our New York City studios I had been in the same office with the same phone number for 30 years. A different job, obviously moved up the ladder. Now I'm in Los Angeles, but same company and I've never left from that one time. And I say this in all seriousness, had the person I run into in the lobby of Newhouse, I don't know that I would've been back in Newhouse to see that job all the next week, cuz the finals week I wouldn't have been in there.
We didn't have our normal classes. I don't know when I would've been back much less, interviewed for the job, received the. Or anything like that. So.
JAG: Sometimes right place right time.
Howard: Correct.
JAG: You don't know who the woman was, or you could
Howard: Oh, I know exactly who she was and I don't think she knows this story. I've not spoken to her since. I've not seen her since, but she had a very long career as a TV anchor in Vermont. Stephanie Gorin was her name.
JAG: No kidding. I lived in Vermont. I remember watching her on tv. Small world. Look at that.
Howard: So yeah, if I remember correctly, she was from Boston and heading home to Boston for the weekend, but it's 30 some odd years ago. So I could be. She probably has no recollection of it.
JAG: We'll have to send her the podcast and see if she remembers.
Howard: Yeah, I don't know, but it certainly changed the course of my career, so thank you, Stephanie.
JAG: So in addition to that fortuitous moment for you, what lessons and experiences did you have at JPZ that have informed you throughout your career as you rose up the ranks there?
Howard: There's a few things. I mentioned one of 'em already, passion. And I think this is true for any field. I've taught this to my daughters. I've said this to students when I've spoken in their classes. I don't care what job or what line of work you go in, if you're not passionate for it, I don't think you can be truly successful.
Then it's just a job to you. And I've never looked at this or felt this was a job. This was a career choice for me. And not everyone has that advantage that they can pursue that or get that. I've been very lucky. I work very hard at it, but I think you have to have passion to be successful.
And so that's number one. I said that at the station. Everybody there was there cause they wanted to be there. It was fun. You have to enjoy it. And I believe this, I say this as well, the worst day on my job is better than most people's best day on their job. And I feel that, and that's why I've stayed here for 30 some odd years.
Yes there's parts of every job that you're like, oh, all right, I have to work on a budget, or I've gotta do this, or whatever it may be. But in the end of the day, , I get paid to know how many touchdown passes somebody has. Or whatever it may be. Just get us on the air or line up an interview or do a piece on this or whatever.
How is that bad? How is anything about that bad? It's perspective to me. I mean this sincerely. If I had won the Powerball, was it two weeks ago three weeks ago? It was a hundred million dollars or a billion dollars, whatever it was, I'd still do my job. I might hire some people around me to help me.
JAG: To do the budgets and the stuff you don't wanna spend your day on, probably.
Howard: I might hire some, a bigger staff right outta my own pocket. I don't care. I might hire somebody to drive me, somebody to cook for me, somebody that, whatever, free up some stuff for me. But I would still go produce the Rams Raiders game next Thursday night at SoFi.
Why? Because I love being at the event. I love doing that. I would still work on the 50th anniversary piece we're putting together on the immaculate reception. I would still work on those things because it's a labor of love. That's the most important.
The second thing I think is good enough is not good enough. I was surrounded by some perfectionists there at Z 89. And I'm a very type A person anyway. Just because you can finish something and get it on the air doesn't mean it should be on the air. Doesn't mean you can't make it better. Doesn't mean you can't improve the product. And so I've always felt, and I maintain this and I harp this to my staff, just because you have it done, if something comes up that you can make it better, fix it.
Something comes up. In 1997, I was working on a 50th anniversary, speaking of 50th anniversary, piece, which is what made me think of it, on Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier. And it was an hour long special, we were doing before the opening night of the season. About, I dunno, 10 days, two weeks before, we were virtually done with the entire piece.
It came to my attention that his first manager in Montreal, Clyde Sukeforth, was in a hospital in Maine. I wanted to talk to Clyde Sukeforth. I thought it would make the show better. I didn't know how coherent he would be. I didn't know whatever. But if he was on his deathbed and we had a chance to get him, I don't mean to sound callous, but to make the show better, we were gonna try and do it.
We got him. Two answers, but something nobody else could tell us. Because he was the manager.
JAG: Wow.
Howard: But I'll tell you another one, even better. So Friday night, two nights before the show's airing on Sunday before the season's starting, I'm reading Baseball America and I'm reading about a new ballpark opening in New Orleans, and that Branch Rickey III would be there.
Now, Branch Rickey the first was the one who signed Jackie Robinson to come to the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was basically the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. I didn't know there was a branch, Ricky the third. Branch Rickey the first was deceased. And so all of a sudden, I'm trying to track down Branch Rickey III, cuz maybe he knew Jackie Robinson.
Maybe he could tell stories about his grandfather, maybe whatever. He turns out he was the commissioner, I believe it was, of Minor league baseball at the time. Of one of the associations of minor league baseball. I tracked him down and on Sunday morning he called from the airport in New Orleans. And the show was airing at six o'clock, seven o'clock.
And I had to blow up the show because all of a sudden, not only did he tell me he knew Jackie Robinson, he said Jackie Robinson used to read in bedtime stories.
JAG: Wow.
Howard: In his house when he was growing up. Cuz Jackie Robinson lived when he was getting his house fixed in Westport, Connecticut. Jackie Robinson was living temporarily with the Rickeys.
While they were fixing up his house. And so how does that not go in the show? But you don't know it until you have it. So to me, that show, I could have been done with that show two weeks before. I could have been done with the show two nights before. That's an example to me, and maybe it's an extreme example, of never stop looking to make the product better If you can.
Don't settle for good enough. If you have an opportunity to make the show better, make it better however you can. And I've been blessed by working with a lot of great people who have the same attitude or understand that because there's such a satisfaction after. Of having that and putting that in. I'll tell you another one that didn't make air last week on the Lions game that bothers me.
The Lions were 3-0 in November, heading into Thanksgiving last week, and the Detroit Lions had not gone 4-0 in November since 1962. Unfortunately, I was not aware of that until the start of the fourth quarter of that game. But I actually have audio from that 1962 Lions Packers game on Thanksgiving.
I have a touchdown pass, I have a sack, and I have the final seconds. And the Packers came into that game undefeated. They were the best team in the NFL. So now in the fourth quarter, I'm going to grab that highlight cuz the Lions were winning at the time. As we taped this on December 1st. So if people know the reference when they listen.
So I'm thinking if they win, I'm gonna play this highlight. 60 years ago. That's pretty good. You have a highlight from that. It's rare. And then I'm like if they're up late in the fourth, maybe I don't take the chance that they lose. If they're up late in the fourth quarter, I'll just play it out of a break and say, hey, if they hold on they'll be the first time. Anyway, long story short, they blow the lead. Buffalo takes the lead. TV doesn't take a break. I can't explain it to the announcers in time, like how to, do this without going to a break or writing it. And then Detroit took the lead late. Bills won it on the buzzer, didn't have time to run the highlight because they lost.
Had they won and held on. I could have run in the postgame. But I'm upset. I had that ready to go. It never made air. And that will haunt me for years because I should have known it ahead of time. I should have had it ready. I could have had it ready. It would've made the broadcast better.
And so to me, Those things bother me more than when I have the successes of the other ones.
JAG: Taking you back to those 4:00 AM and 5:00 AM Friday nights at JPZ splicing, the football highlights, right?
Howard: Learned that at Z89. You just don't go on the air unprepared and you just don't go on the air to go on the air because you can.
Now, I'm not saying that everybody did that, but I saw, there was a production director, Jam Master Andy Reninger, when I was talking about names of people that taught me. Phenomenal. I had great production skills because of him. Again, this is no computer editing. He would splice and replice or unsplice or whatever to get it right.
And multi-track mixing was totally different. He was phenomenal. I learned so much from him. Again, he was another one that would stay there late or get there early to make sure it sounded right. And if it didn't hit on the beat, if the voiceover guy didn't hit on the proper beat, move it. Fix it. Try it again. Save the take you took, that you mixed, just in case. Because maybe it isn't better., But do it again until you're completely satisfied with him. And so that's how I've lived ever since, and they haven't thrown me out yet.
JAG: Let me back up a little bit. So you end up getting the job right outta school, right outta graduation, and you've climbed the ranks. Take me quickly through the different titles and roles you've had and what you're doing now. You're talking about being, in the announcer's ears for these national broadcasts on say, Thanksgiving. Take me through the last 30 plus years.
Howard: Yeah. How much time you have?
JAG: As much as you wanna give me!
Howard: Now, real quickly, without boring the audience. So my first gig was working on Major League baseball, which was my biggest passion growing up. I was a walking baseball encyclopedia. In my spare time I would memorize the encyclopedia and so I started working on games behind the scenes and it would be, just basic stuff. I remember one of the first games I was working on, three batters hit back-to-back-to-back home runs, and I made sure that the announcers knew immediately that only twice in history had somebody hit four home runs in a row in a game. And it had happened in the sixties with the Indians and the Twins. And they looked at me like, how would you know that? Okay, I did my research just in case, but they said, but you didn't know somebody was gonna hit three home runs. Yeah. But you have to know just in case things happen.
What's significant? Again, you couldn't look things up on a computer back then. I have to explain this to you. Had a giant baseball encyclopedia. I'm holding my hands apart, people, that are about the size from my torso to my neck. That's the size the baseball encyclopedia was back then.
And by the way, that wasn't even in the baseball encyclopedia. Cause that was a record. It wasn't in there. And so you have to have the record book. Long story short, started working on that and started working all summer. My first full baseball game that I was the studio producer for, went 22 innings, baptism by fire right away.
First World series I worked on. There was an earthquake. I was in the studio for the San Francisco Oakland Earthquake, Game Three. We were on the air, we were in the middle of a taped interview with Tony La Russa when the earthquake hit and everyone starts screaming, and we lost the connection.
How do we get him back on? What do we do, again, I didn't know what to do. I had to learn, and then once when I had a blackout in the Super Bowl 25 years later, I knew exactly what to do. Cause then I was in charge by then.
JAG: Back in New Orleans.
Howard: That was 10 years ago actually. Yes. So this will be the 10th anniversary. We're working on a piece on that blackout for this year's Super Bowl broadcast. Anyway, I started working on baseball. Then I slid over to football, started to do English, Spanish, started working on those. I was in the studio mostly to start. Then I started going on the road, doing games on the road.
And our portfolio expanded. We had the NCAA tournament. Because we were CBS Radio, we had all the events that CBS television had back in the day. So in the early, this was 89, early nineties, CBS had Major League baseball. CBS had, still has, the NCAA tournament. They have the Masters. Still have the Masters.
So we did the Masters every year. Back then CBS had the Olympics in the nineties, 92, 94, 98, they had the Winter Olympics. So I was fortunate enough to work on those and go to Lillehammer and Japan. Work with a lot of great people, and even better than all that, our announcers at CBS Radio were CBS television announcers.
So I did games with Jim Nantz and Greg Gumbel in the studio, and my first studio host was Brent Musburger with John Madden, Terry Bradshaw. Pat O'Brien was there. These, all the names. Got to work with Vin Scully two World Series later on in the nineties. Ernie Harwell for you From Detroit.
Great. Great. Ernie Harwell, had wonderful announcers along the. And so you learn a little bit. Ernie had a saying, and I'll butcher this and I hate that I'm gonna do this, but he said that when he got inducted the Hall of Fame, he said basically, I am a part of all whom I have met. Basically saying he's morphed into learning from everybody.
And becoming a super person, if you will. Cuz he was absolutely by taking a little from, whether it was announcers or, he was even nicer off the air than as great as he was on the air. Hall of Fame announcer. So I just was like a sponge. I tried to learn as much as I could from all these great people who had worked for so long in this business, behind the scenes, on the air, whatever.
Because I was a fan. I grew up listening to all these people. And to be surrounded by them was great. So how can I be better? Take a little from this guy, take a little from that guy and ask questions and stuff like that. There's nothing wrong with asking questions, so you know, I didn't ask questions how to handle a 22-inning game or an earthquake in the World Series cuz I wasn't expecting those, but I just kept doing that.
Moving up. Westwood One took over in 98. Added in some different events as well. We picked up doing the NHL. And at this point, 30 years later, I think I've done every major event other than never done the NBA, cuz ESPN radio has had the NBA forever. I have not done the Australian Open and auto racing.
The only things I haven't done. I haven't done a World Cup, which is going on right now as we speak. Hopefully one day we'll get to. And been very fortunate. Right place, right time. We've had the NFL ever since 1987. I got there in 89. Kept it ever since. When I first started, we did 30 games a year.
We're up to 80 games a year with Thursday night, Sunday night, Saturdays, London, Munich, playoffs have expanded, three games on Christmas. This year the tournament is expanded, NCAA tournament. I've done March Madness every year since I've been there. Producing the games is my love, my passion, my biggest passion as I mentioned.
Once I became the, from regular producer to coordinating producer to executive producer, along the way I am now responsible for helping negotiate contracts, whether it's with leagues, conferences announcers, et cetera. And I hire all the talent and work on all the crews on top of it.
And I still go out and produce games. Because I don't have to. But that's still my love is being on site at the game. So I still will produce games because that's where I cut my chops. That's what I feel I'm best at and that's the most fun. And negotiating a contract is not fun. It's okay. Look, beats working for a living, but it's still, I'm sure there are people that are better at it than me.
I believe I can produce a broadcast better than most, if not everyone. And that's not being cocky, that's not being arrogant. I've done this a long time. I feel that's my lane. Everyone has a lane. I think everybody has something that they're better at than anybody else. Or better than average than anybody else.
JAG: Take me through, if you could, just a typical, maybe it's a Thanksgiving game or an NFL game or a game you're producing. Take me through your workday when it starts, what you're doing at different times.
Howard: So we do the primetime game. So like tonight we have Patriots bills. I'm not working on that game, but I'll give you an example of any game.
It doesn't start that day. It starts way in advance. I mean, first of all, I hire the crews way in advance. We start that months ago. Mostly, unless there's a late change, you start working on formats. How long do you have? How many breaks are there gonna be? You have to work with sales. What sponsorship elements are there gonna be?
Do we have the player of the game sponsored? Do we have the keys to the game sponsored? The opening kickoff, sponsored? The NFL announced two weeks ago that they were doing a John Madden celebration on Thanksgiving. So we, now we have to reference some things about John Madden, pull out some old footage.
They were celebrating John and his impact on the NFL on Thanksgiving Day. And John worked for us too on CBS radio when I, as I mentioned, when I first started, and we had some old tapes of him. Shows I had worked with him on. And then the other part, I'm gonna lean back here and show you this, but the listeners can't see it, hang on, is that we have cue cards for everything we do.
Cue cards. So I'm holding up five by eight index cards that we do everything. And I will hold it up to the camera here.
JAG: Opening, kickoff, coming up. You are listening to Monday Night Football on Westwood One.
Howard: All right? So everything that the announcer will read or say is on a cue card, and you've gotta have them ready for a broadcast.
So here's an example, another example. When a team gets inside the 20 yard line on Monday night Football, we read:
JAG: The Patriots are in the CDW Red Zone. CDW, people who get it.
Howard: Correct. And that could be a sponsor read, it could be a promo read for our next broadcast or how you can hear our broadcast.
So I've got a stack of cards here that's probably about a hundred here. We don't go off the air until every card is read.
JAG: Color coded. I see too.
Howard: Yes. Color coded is correct. Blue is a break, yellow is a sponsor, green is a promo. That's my type A taking over. But part of it is for visual for us to be able to find what we need quicker.
Part of it is to indicate to the announcers on the crew what's happening. For example, if I hand the blue card to Kevin Harlan on Monday Night Football, or Marv Albert who did it prior, or Jack Buck who did it when I first started and I worked with him. The analyst knows he has to finish speaking because I'm handing him a blue card.
He's gotta get to a commercial break. Ah. They're all aware of that. Okay. When I hand the play-by-play announcer a yellow card, it's a sponsor that is tied to something. A team is in the red zone. He's gotta read it word for word. We gotta give it some juice because a sponsor's paying money to have that read.
He can't just kinda lollygag it. And he's gotta read it when I'm handing it to him. If I hand him a green card and it's a promo. He has the ability to pause, not read it right away, ad lib it. And same thing, the analyst may have a really important point when I hand the announcer promo, if he sees it's a green card, he's got the green light.
Green light. He can ignore the sign. Basically, like a bass runner in baseball. He knows he can speak through the green card cuz the green card doesn't have to be red then and there. It's a system I devised going along mostly for my own self to be able to find cards quickly and organize them in a certain way, but it slowly became apparent that it was helpful to have everybody understand.
Because it benefits the flow. So that's that. And so I've taught this craziness and I've passed this craziness along to the other producers on my staff, and I'm sure they're not thrilled with it. But anyway but yes, if I walk into a booth and I see a sponsor card that's not yellow, I get very upset, or if I see a promo card.
And the truth of the matter is, occasionally you're on the road a long time, you run outta colored cards. And it's sometimes you have to put 'em on white cards. So white cards are basically, all right. You ran outta colored cards and you have to get it on the air, and so that's what it is.
JAG: But I've gotta imagine having your experience and you said you're, this is your passion and what you're really good at. I've gotta imagine these announcers, you walk into the booth with them, it's okay, Howie's here. We're excited to see him. We're gonna work great with him.
Howard: I'm not sure that's their first thought, but
JAG: Or the big bosses here, we better be on our toes?
Howard: That's now maybe, yes, I can tell you. Look, I get it at this point, yes. I'm the one who hires them and or doesn't bring them back at this point. So yes, clearly when I'm in the booth they're going to be different than when I was just the producer, Mike Holmgren, the great coach for the Packers and whatever is one of our announcers over the years.
Had a long conversation with him about how it totally changed for him when he became a GM and the coach. When he was the coach, and he would ask Brett Favre or ask a player, hey, what can you give me today? Or how much can you go back in? How you feeling? Not that he was pushing a guy in who had a concussion or anything, but he's trying to motivate these guys to give him everything he's got.
That's part of a coaching job. When he became the GM, it was a totally different dynamic because now he's in an argument with a player in arbitration or whatever it is to say, oh, I don't think you're worth that, or I'll give you more money if you have this many carries. And then all of a sudden, he doesn't give the running back that many carries. Is the player thinking that he's doing it to say it's a different dynamic and I don't think Mike ever did that necessarily. But he said the relationship with the personnel changed because now he was the one deciding their fate in addition to just coaching. I'm not saying he ever had disputes on it, but I had that nice conversation with him and it's an interesting, it's the truth, right?
It's different. So yes, it'll be different. But the fact of the matter is even from age 25 or 30, I believe the only thing you can control. I believe this when I was in college and in high school too. The only thing you can control is your effort. On anything. So to me, I believe you put as much as you can into it and give the best effort to come out with the best product.
If you're studying for a test. Like I was always more satisfied if I got a B on a test and I studied my ass off. Then if I got an A without studying. Because that meant it was just easy. And now if I didn't study, and I said this to my daughters all the time, if you study and you don't get a good grade, that's better than if you get a B and you didn't study, That's a problem, right? Because that means you could have gotten an A if you studied, right? It's the same kind of thing with this, do as much research as you can be prepared because you may only get one opportunity for something and you better shine in that opportunity.
Kurt Warner's not in the Hall of Fame when Trent Green gets hurt, to use a sports analogy, if he's not ready to go and take over the offense. Sure. And that holds true on any job or anything. I'm always prepared. They know when I'm in there, they're getting the best effort. I care. And I'm gonna do everything I can to make this as damn good a broadcast as possible.
Nobody's gonna surpass me on effort and preparation.
JAG: How often do you get to do games?
Howard: At this point, I still try and do at least one game a week. There's some weeks I'll do multiple games. I used to do four games a week, but I'll be honest with you, it is a drug. I get an adrenaline rush when that light goes on.
I still do. And when I don't get that adrenaline rush, I will know it is time to stop. There is nothing I've ever experienced in my life, other than, great moments when your children are born or something like that, where I get the juice, the energy from a broadcast, I have that adrenaline running through me and then when the light goes off, it's great and it's over.
But I can tell you that when I have off in the month of July and we don't have many events. I go stir crazy. I need the juice. I need that Hall of Fame game in August, which is an exhibition game for football. Oh my God. I love it. Just because it gets me back on the horse, if you will.
JAG: What is it about radio as opposed to tv? What is so special about radio?
Howard: Very simple. Two things. TV has too many cooks. And radio. You could be more creative cause you only have your voice and sound to paint the picture. And so I'll take the first one first. So I equate radio and tv. Not seeing radio as minor league versus major league, but I'll use an analogy of minor league baseball and major league baseball.
In minor league baseball. The owner of the team signs the contracts. He may go out and do some marketing. He may go out and sell some advertising or sell some tickets. He may pull the tarp when it rains. Because there's X number of people to do it.
On television or in major league baseball, there is a person for every role. And so the GM does this. The field guy pulls the turf, the ticket guide does tickets, the marketing person does marketing and so on down the line. So it's a much more intimate at radio, just like in minor league baseball. It's the same reason minor league baseball is romanticized.
And you're also, by the way, not making as much money as you are in the major leagues. And in radio you don't make as much money as television. And that's why I think it's a fair analogy. It's a lot of people working for a passion, but not too many people. And you do a little of everything. You're hands on everything.
And I love that about radio. I love the fact that I'm a producer, I'm a director. I do the budgets, I work on hiring, I work on cue cards, right? On TV they would've just one person working on cue cards, right? Whatever it is. They have one person just to order lunch. And I'm not knocking television, don't get me wrong.
If I wasn't in radio, I'm sure I'd be in television. It's just a matter of, I love the intimacy of it, of that. And then the best part is, again, your inflection of your voice. The passion in your voice, the energy in your voice, and the words of what you're saying. Make all the difference in the world of how people picture it and it could be play by play, it could be a sports talk show. Sports talk is not my area of expertise. Play by play has been for 30 some odd years. But one-word changes everything. I always tell people, so you could have a running back, hand the ball off to the running back and he is into the end zone that says nothing.
But you could say bullies his way into the end zone, pushes his way into the end zone, knifes his way into the end zone, dances his way into the end zone. Or for those of us who are old enough to remember Brett Favre. When he would throw a football, I would say to my announcers, if I hear you say the word throws a pass, that's not doing it justice.
Because he would rifle it. He would loft it. He would side arm it. He would backhand it, he would flip it. And every one of those words changes the total meaning and what you're seeing in your head.
JAG: In your mind's eye. Yeah.
Howard: And so to me that's the beauty of the words, the writing, even the live description.
Cuz if you're writing a script, you want to be that way. It's all you have is music, sound inflection, sound effects, whatever it is. To me, that's the beauty of it. TV's got pictures, right? It's so easy when you can show and have pictures, . It's so much easier to me and they do a wonderful job. Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking it. It's just very different. It's an extra tool and so I, that's why I love radio and I grew up listening to radio or audio. Now, by the way, it doesn't have to, let's say we're saying radio but it's really audio. Yeah, because it's on phones. It's on Alexa devices. It's on computers.
It's everywhere that you can consume audio. I have daughters who just graduated college. They don't listen to the radio. But they consume audio, right? So we're everywhere. You can listen everywhere to all our broadcasts. I'll put a plug in here on primetime. You can listen on westwoodonesports.com.
You can listen on SiriusXM. You can listen on regular radio stations around the country. But on Alexa devices, you just say Open Westwood One Sports. And it takes you right to our game. Doesn't matter what game it is, you're not even sure there's a game. Just say, open Westwood Sports, and if we're doing a game, you'll be there.
When you get to the NCAA tournament, we're doing multiple games, it'll say, which game do you want? Yeah. And it'll give you choices. It's incredible. So it's totally different than when you were in school. When I was in school. Where you just had the one way to listen. And so that's exciting too, that people can consume this now, wherever. Wherever they are and however they want to.
JAG: Seems like that's the future of radio. I've asked anybody in the podcast who works in radio, what they see is the future of radio, cuz there are naysayers, like there have been for a hundred years. But it just seems like it's the content and how you can access it.
Howard: Yeah. When I was in college, we had a professor there at Newhouse who told us radio was a dying art. And I didn't dispute it at the time, but I thought about it. And they said when the TV came out, it was gonna be the death of radio. It's just different now. Let's be honest. It's been struggling lately financially.
A lot of radio stations are having trouble, A lot of radio networks are having trouble, but it's still an important medium. For a lot of reasons, whether it's in emergency situations, it's still the fastest way to get information. Yep. Whether it's live sports, whether it's political talk, if that's somebody's idea of a good time.
JAG: I dunno if I'd say good time these days, but hey.
Howard: Right, whatever. What they're passionate to listen to. Yeah. Look, there's so many different things, just like music. Z 89 s had different formats over the years. And people listen and sometimes if it's not what they like, you go to another station. We hope that's not the case. But, Z89 was about teaching and learning and learning how to move into a professional world.
So it's a little different than other radio stations. Certainly. And that was the best part about it. Sure. That the people before me trained me and taught me what they knew, and then I passed it along to others and it's continued for however, may 50 years now. Obviously, I don't think it's going anywhere soon.
Like I said, it's just, the concept of it is different. But look, the fact that it's all on demand now, most of it other than live sports is great. You can listen to whatever they can listen to this or not listen to this whenever they want. .
JAG: Now that you've brought it back around to WJPZ, Howie, you know so many people on this podcast like yourself got to Syracuse, seeing Bob Costas or whoever it was, or Marv Albert wanted to get into sports.
You are essentially, and you've said this yourself in the podcast, you're living the dream of so many of us that wanted to do sports and be involved with sports. Let me ask you about this. I know you've actually helped out JPZ students over the years. I know you've worked with Z89 folks and helped a few folks out from where you sit right now, right?
Howard: Yes, because I can, and I'm happy to, because when I was a student, those opportunities weren't necessarily there, and some of that is just technology allowing, us to stay in communication easier. And some of it is just being in a position. I had some very good internships when I was a student and I always felt that internships are critically important for students who want to get in the field because, hey, you learn some things that are great and you learn some things that are not so great.
And I say that because I did an internship in television. It was wonderful, but I knew immediately after that internship I wanted to go to radio for what I talked about earlier. It was too many cooks. It took 17 people to make a decision for a five-minute sports cast. It drove me crazy. And so I knew which way to go as opposed to trying to start at a TV station and then six months in or a year later saying, you know what, I like radio better.
So internships are really important and they teach you and they train you and whatever. So when we had some internships available, I offered it to some students up there for that reason, I had an opportunity to speak with several of them. And look, I hire announcers for play by play. It's what I do, as part of my main role. And so I'm listen constantly listening to announcers, constantly. And if I can help critique anybody to listen to and give my thoughts on what's good about it, what I think is not so good about it, I'm happy to do that because the only way you get better is by feedback. I can get better.
In 32 years, I don't care how many Super Bowls I've done. I don't care how many Final Fours I've done, I don't care, whatever. I have yet to have a perfect broadcast. And the day I do, I can retire. Cause it'll never happen again.
JAG: Pull a Costanza. Go out on top.
Howard: Vince Lombardi said something along those lines. You strive for perfection, knowing you can't attain it, but along the way you catch excellence. So that's fine. But I've never had one. So I can learn. I can still learn. I've done 32 years of this and this, I'm still learning. 33 years now. And so I didn't have the opportunity to have alums from Z89 when I was graduating to critique my work or give me some advice.
They were the ones who were there who graduated ahead of me that maybe would come back and I could talk to. And so that was great, but now the resources are available and I know I'm not the only one who's willing to speak to students now, or students from five years ago or whatever it is. The best part about Syracuse and Newhouse and Z89, and even for the ones that were not in Newhouse, is the network of alums that you can take advantage of.
Why wouldn't we? And look, we also know that if they worked at Z89, they have that passion. They care about radio. They want to succeed. I know that they were taught, trained, properly is the wrong word, but they have a certain way of doing things that they were already taught as opposed to another student at another school that I have no knowledge about.
And there are so many of us in this business, radio, television, podcasts, writing, that can help. And so I think it's important too. And look, I, again, I mentioned once before, I have twin daughters that just got out of college. I wish they had some people in their fields, that could have helped them.
It's important, I think, but again, it's all about caring. Caring about what you do, and caring about the industry and the profession and the station. I would not be where I am at. No chance I'm at where I'm at without Z89. It has nothing to do with me running into Stephanie Gorin in the lobby of Newhouse.
If I didn't work at Z 89, I wasn't prepared to get that job. I wouldn't be ready to get that job, much less get it in two days. She had already been interviewing and once she interviewed me, she called me the next day and said, look, I just need to talk to my boss, but you're the one I want to hire for this job.
Because Z89 prepared me for that job. Flat out. It was not Newhouse, although Newhouse was very helpful. But it was the hands-on of Z89. It was editing tape at four in the morning. It was being courtside for women's basketball. It was being at lacrosse. It was being at high school football. It was doing all these other events so that I could step into a network level event and have some semblance of what to do.
I didn't know exactly what to do. Everybody at that age thinks, you know what you're doing. I didn't know what I was doing. Yeah, but I knew more than anybody else at that age coming out because it was Z89. Because it was a hands-on laboratory basically. And still is.
And so how can I not want to help out others there because I would not be doing what I'm doing without it flat out. Absolutely not.
JAG: Last question for you. Is it true that you shook a spoon in the Sadler snack bar at Brian Lapis and said, Brian, why haven't you come over to Z89 yet?
Howard: So when I said to you earlier that I spent every free moment at Z 89, I guess there's a small lie in that. I also had to have a job to help pay my way through school. So I worked about 40 hours a week in dining halls and snack bars. I don't even think they have snack bars on campus anymore. My daughter, one of my daughters just graduated Syracuse. I don't remember them having them. But there were snack bars in different dorms, so after the dining halls would close, or before they would open, if you were hungry between classes, you had somewhere to go.
So I was fortunate enough, I worked at the Sadler snack bar. And I think I convinced probably 10 to 12 people who worked at that snack bar to come work for us, whether it was in the sports department or the news department or operations or music or whatever. So I don't remember. I think it was a spatula and not a spoon.
JAG: I apologize. That is your attention to detail? You're right. It was a spatula.
Howard: So at Sadler snack bar there in the lobby. We had a grill and Brian was probably working the grill. I guess it's probably true, but I shook that spatula at a few people. I don't know how many actually came because of the spatula.
It wasn't like I was gonna hit 'em with it, but the truth is, you wanted people there who wanted to be there. I'm surprised he remembered that story. I don't remember it specifically, but like I said, I tried. There was a lot of people there that I convinced to do it. And I always had a spatula in my hand.
And so it's probably a hundred percent accurate. I would guess. And it worked out, right, for him? He didn't say it as a negative, did he?
JAG: No, he said it as a positive and he said his biggest regret was not getting involved with the station sooner.
Howard: And that's the way I felt. Real quick story, funny story. So to end on this. So my first on-air cast, I was a freshman and my first on air cast was October 10th, which was my birthday. I started four weeks in and I should have started sooner, right? But somehow I got on the air within, I was willing to go in at 6:00 AM. So I'm proud of the cassette, even though I was terrible.
I have it somewhere. But I did the on-air cast and Rick Renner was the DJ at the time, Eric Renner, E double R. And introduced me and whatever, and I like stumbled and I swallowed and I had to catch my breath. I was there, but my on-air name for those who don't know it, when I was there was Jay Howard. Jay is my middle name.
Howard was my first name obviously, so I switched and became my on-air name. In addition to that was also my on-air when I was a DJ. I did the top eight at nine and I did some other shows as well. So I bring home this cassette. I go home for the weekend and I see my father and I pop the cassette in the car and I play the cassette.
He listens to the two-minute cast and I said, what'd you think? He goes, “Who the fuck is Jay Howard?!”
And he says, what, are you ashamed of Deneroff? You don't wanna keep that name. I said no. In this business, everybody has an on-air name, if you're on the air.
He goes, let me ask you a question. If I give you a check to take back the school tomorrow, and I sign it out to Jay Howard, can you cash it?
And I'm like, no. He goes, then change your fucking name on the air.
So the way I did it, was anytime I was on the air, I was Jay Howard. I wouldn't play him the tapes. When I was behind the scenes producing, I went by my real name, Howard Deneroff, and I would play him those. So he would see he was produced by Howard Deneroff or whatever it was.
JAG: Perfect.
Howard: Anyway, thank you for your time. I appreciate you including us on this. I appreciate you doing this series of podcasts. That's a lot of time. I know what's involved with this and I appreciate that. I think this is a great thing. It's an important thing for the station. For the history of it, and I'm glad somebody like you was willing to take on this project.
JAG: And I appreciate you spending so much time with us today. I know you're a busy guy. Enjoy the travels, enjoy the sunny weather in LA after being in New York for so long too.
Howard: Yes. I must admit today was overcast and I went outta the house to come to the office and I'm driving here for the podcast and I was like, I didn't sign up for this.
What is this? It's still the first time I've seen clouds, I think in six weeks.
JAG: Fair enough. Thank you so much.
Howard: Take care.