Pete Gianesini, '94, did not technically work at WJPZ as a student. But nobody would doubt that he's an adopted member of the Z89 family. He's supported the station and its members from his time as a student, through his long tenure at ESPN, and now in his role as newly-elected President of the Syracuse University Alumni Association.
Pete grew up in Connecticut, where his dream job was play-by-play for the Hartford Whalers. When he got to campus, he worked at WAER, eventually doing games for the Orangemen, but he always maintained friendships with his classmates at WJPZ. And his working at one wasn't a result of a rivalry; it was just a matter with 1990's technology, he simply didn't have the bandwidth to do both.
In fact, after graduation, Pete began working for the new expansion hockey team in town, the Syracuse Crunch. He lived right off campus, giving him access to a "super senior year" of sorts, going to games, Faegans, and hanging out with the WJPZ Class of 1995 and lifelong friends he made there.
Next, Pete returned home to work in the Hartford market, and began doing part time work at fledgling ESPN radio. He found himself at a crossroads when "The Worldwide Leader" offered him full time work. It would mean giving up the on-air side to go into production. He talks about that choice, but also how he was given a chance to live out a play-by-play dream, of sorts, before crossing over.
Pete starting producing the overnight show on ESPN, then moved up to mornings, where he was with Mike and Mike for the majority of their run. He then moved to the digital audio side, really ramping up ESPN's efforts in the podcasting space. Earlier this year, Pete was part of the latest round of cuts at the company.
And while he's looking for his next full-time opportunity, "Professor Pete" is teaching at nearby Qunnipiac, and diving head-first into his new role as SU Alumni Association President.
Throughtout today's episode, you'll hear Pete's passion for teaching and paying it forward. So it's no surprise he's such a great fit for our group. It was WJPZ Alumni Alex Brewer and Molly Nelson who convinced him to come to his first Banquet in 2020, and he talks about what an amazing experience it was. Now, when you ask him how he met a Syracuse person, he has no idea if it was as a student or an alum.
As a bonus, at the end of our episode, we've included a clip from when Pete was on Jag's podcast "The Jag Show" back in 2020. Jag asked him, in all his time at ESPN, if he'd ever been starstruck by an athlete or celeb. It happened once, and Pete shared the story.
Pete is looking for his next opportunity. You can find him:
On Twitter (or X) here: https://twitter.com/peteg860
On LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pgianesinijr/
Or via email at pgianesinijr@gmail.com.
The WJPZ at 50 Podcast Series is produced by Jon Gay, Class of 2002, and his podcast production agency, JAG in Detroit Podcasts.
Sign up for email alerts whenever we release a new episode here: jagindetroit.com/WJPZat50
Want to be a guest on the pod or know someone else who would? Email Jag: jag@jagindetroit.com.
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JAG: Welcome to WJPZ at 50. I am Jon Jag Gay. I'm very excited for today's guest. He is the first guest we have that technically did not work at the radio station, but has become such a friend to the radio station, both as a student and as an alum and a mentor to so many of us. Mr. Pete Gianesini from the class of 1994. Welcome to the show.
Pete: Thanks for having me, Mr. Wow. Okay. We're going to do that.
JAG: I'm really excited to have you. And I also want to thank you. You came on my podcast a few years ago, the JAG show back in 2020. It was the beginning of COVID. That feels like a lifetime ago.
Pete: It does, and it's so funny how much it has warped. As I'm thinking about some stories that we can tell today, it's what year was that? How long ago was that? It was like, that was either 18 months ago or 6 years ago. My whole sense of time, because it just skipped. It was like the Thanos snap, you know?
JAG: Yeah, my wife always says time is a flat circle, especially since 2020.
So typically I ask guests how you got to Syracuse and how you got involved with the radio station. So let me ask you first how you ended up at Syracuse and then we'll talk about your connections to many of the JPZ folks.
Pete: Yeah, it's funny. So when I was in high school here in Connecticut, Bristol, Connecticut at the time had a dinky little AM radio station at 1120 AM.
And I stumbled into an opportunity to call in and give the results of Terryville High School Sports on WBIS in Bristol, Connecticut. It started with just calling them and telling them who won and who lost. And the DJ was like, hey, why don't you call back and we'll talk about this. I was like, Oh my God, they want to have me on the radio.
And I was in the office at the high school. And I remember, I must've had 20 minutes or a half hour lead time. I called my house and I walked my mother through how to put the cassette into the boom box, turn in the radio station and hit record. So I actually have it somewhere in the downstairs and on cassette is my first time ever on the radio doing this.
And I did it a few times and then I had a meeting with my guidance counselor and I said, This is what I want to do. I want to do sports on the radio. Where should I be going to school? And she's you're wearing it. And I had this terrible Syracuse sweatshirt with the Tasmanian devil dunking or, something on it like that.
JAG: I remember those!
Pete: Because I loved Coleman, Owens, LeRon Ellis, Stevie Thompson like just from watching them on television. I didn't have a connection to the University or anything. I just loved the team. And so I come home, Dad, my guidance counselor says I need to go to Syracuse. Apply to a few schools, go up for the campus visit, I forgot we parked somewhere near Crouse, and the very first building we set foot in was the McDonald's that was at the time on Crouse, across the street from Faegan's.
JAG: Which was then a bagel shop, and I think is now the Orange Crate Brewing Company, if I'm not
Pete: mistaken. I think that's right or right next to it, at least. And we walk in, and in line in front of me is Billy Owens, LaRon Ellis, and I think Michael Edwards. And I was like, we're done here. It's over. That's what got me to Syracuse.
JAG: Okay, so again, as I mentioned earlier, this is typically where I ask how you found the radio station at Syracuse, but for you, and we talked off the air that it blurs who you got friendly with as a student versus who you've gotten friendly with in the time since as an alum, but what were some of the connections you had with your classmates that were at JPZ while you were a student, from what you remember, Pete?
Pete: I'll start with my freshman year. I had two or three guys on my floor who went to WAER. Out of the gate, first semester, that's what they did. And they started on, and it actually was a year later. I didn't start till I was a sophomore. Where they were like, hey, why don't you come over and do this with us?
That's how that decision was made between one station or the other. And really it just got to, you start taking com 107, you start doing the Newhouse stuff and you meet different people in different classes. And it's like, what do you do? I do Daily Orange. I do. At the time, UUTV, Citrus or I do Z89, or I do WAER and then you start there and it all branches out.
So you make one or two friends. You know I was a classmate with Matt Friedman. So you know Matt Friedman five minutes later, you know, everybody. And by the way, now you know everybody who's worked at Z89 since 1994 to this date.
JAG: And prior with Matt's connections!
Pete: Yes, that's right. When you make that connection. So then it's just my Syracuse friends. And while at the time, you really only did one thing, or if you did 90% of your time was one thing, it's very different now. You either worked at WAER or you either worked at Z89 largely because you didn't have the time to do both.
Your editing was done in the studio with a razor blade. Yeah. And you weren't editing on your laptop in your room. So you only really had a capacity to do one or the other at the time. It was a very rare instance, Scott MacFarlane probably being the only one who really worked at both places.
JAG: Let me ask you about that because throughout the 50 years of WJPZ, there's been a changing relationship with WAER. There were times where, very cooperative, like now a lot of students work at both. And there were times where there was a rivalry. Your point is well taken about not having the time to do both. But did you feel like there was a rivalry being at AER at the time?
Pete: I think so. It was a lot of... there were feelings like if you chose one, it meant that you had a problem with the other.
That it's like, oh, you work at Z89. Yeah. Cause those guys at WAER.... By the way, the reverse was true, right? Almost like a sports fan assumption that if you like this team, it means you hate this team. It's no, this is just where I am. And I'm doing what I'm doing here. And I'm happy with what I'm doing here.
And I have people who mean the world to me over at the other place. And I'll go visit and hang out over there. I don't have the time to work at both places. To me, personally, it was never like an acrimonious thing, but I saw that it was for others, and I get that.
JAG: Did some of your AER classmates give you a little side eye for hanging out at JPZ with us misfit toys?
Pete: No, I think, I'll fast forward in a story that articulates how things had changed. I want to say it was 2017, 2018. I was up at Syracuse for Homecoming, and I went and it was a Friday afternoon and I'm speaking to the sports department at WAER and in the station and I'm talking to the kids, I'm listening to tape, I'm giving feedback, stuff I love doing when I go up and visit.
Some of my favorite things I do when I go up there. And when we finish up, one of the guys comes up and says, hey, can you come on my show tomorrow morning? Talk about working at ESPN, talk about the game, sports show. So for the, yeah, I'd love to do it. What time? And he said it was like nine o'clock or whatever it was.
And I'm like, great. Meet you here. See you then. He's oh no. It's in Z89. Ah, wait, what? And more for me, you work at both places? That's a thing? And he's, oh yeah, I do this on the afternoons. And weekends. I do that. And he's telling me everybody's also writing. And I was like, Oh my goodness.
The bandwidth these guys have, largely driven by technology. They track whatever they're tracking at whatever station they're at. They go home and edit it and it doesn't even really matter. So Saturday morning, I go over to JPZ and I hadn't been in there in multiple decades at that point and wave to somebody who finally sees me, who lets me in and I get in there.
And I remember. I took a picture of a banner with the Z 89 logo on it and tweeted, guess where I am or about to go on the air. That's what it was. I said I was going to go on the air and I tagged the two kids I was going to go on with and I'm really excited to do this. And instantly Friedman responds, saying it only took you 25 years to get cleared.
And I might've been Seth Everett. I can't remember who it was from the WAER side that was like, what are you doing? And he's joking. It was tongue-in-cheek. And then I remember tweeting a GIF like NWO Hulk Hogan strutting to the ring, right? This was my heel turn moment, going on Z89 and we had a ball.
Logan Radek was one of the kids. He's a news anchor and reporter now nationally, I think with Newsmax. Josh Hess was another one who went on to do Play by Play at Yale. And, we just had a blast. And a lot of that conversation was, wow, you've really never been on the air here before. And I'm like, no, this is the first time I cracked a mic.
I think it was 2017. I could look it up. And I've been on since the Sports Media Center or Syracuse and a delegation of students to the Super Bowl. And I was there with shows at the Super Bowl and went on. And honestly, when they were taping with me, I didn't know which station, I didn't know who I was on with.
Was it WAER or was it WJPZ? They had an amalgamation of all the different platforms all working together. For all I know, it might have aired both places these days. I'm thrilled to see, listen, whatever provides opportunity for students. Whatever provides opportunity for alumni. I'm all for it.
JAG: Excellent. Any other names that come to mind from your undergrad years before I ask you about WAER and your career?
Pete: Ari Katz was a good friend who I've had multiple classes with. I know he was involved in Z89. Velardi. It's funny, Chris Velardi, who is one of my most trusted friends and also a Connecticut native. Would run into him when he was working at Channel 8 and I was working at Hartford Media. We knew each other back when we were in school.
Now he's with the Office of Alumni Engagement and I'm with the Alumni Board. So we work very closely on that kind of stuff.
JAG: Hang on. You're glossing this over. We're recording this on July 27th. "I'm with the Alumni Board." You are the president. Newly elected president of the Syracuse University Alumni Association.
Let's not be too modest here, Pete.
Pete: It's an incredible opportunity and an honor and, yes, opportunity, because there's a lot that we can do. But Chris and the people who work in that office are instrumental in making all of that happen and all the things that we do to try to help our alumni out and build up our alumni base.
And you know this. Z89, probably no better example of this. How great is it to do something you love with dear friends? Many of us who've worked in radio, you're doing something you love and you can't stand the people in the room. Or you love the people in the room and the management's brutal, like very rarely do you get that.
I love what I'm doing and I love the people around me. And if you can find that, whether it's Z89, or if you can find it professionally hang onto it with everything that you have, because those opportunities are more and more rare.
JAG: Succeeding, by the way, Mark Verone and Ryan McNaughton as presidents of the Syracuse Alumni Club, so you are in great JPZ company.
Pete: Both of which who are instrumental and incredibly supportive. When I was approached about my interest in doing this, I had a lot of questions, because I only wanted to do it if I felt I could fully do it well, have the information I need and the experience that is needed to do right by all these people. And both of those guys, among many others, were incredibly helpful.
JAG: Alright, so what did you do at WAER and how did that lead to what you did after graduation?
Pete: So I started, just like anybody else, you're writing copy and you're doing demo tapes and you start with sports updates. And I started a little bit behind the eight ball because I didn't really get going until sophomore year.
And then there was a lot of other people that are classmates of mine that were a year in front of me. So I knew things like sports director and the officer positions and stuff were probably out of reach because there were people that were A, better than me and more experienced than me. Dave Pasch, John Holt, guys who went on to do things, places that as air talent.
So that really allowed me to just focus on getting reps and getting better really worked at that so that it was getting cleared, getting on the air, new updates, and then hosting and producing play by play. And I went to school wanting to do play by play. I wound up on a different track, but it was what I wanted to do.
So I did get the opportunity. It didn't come around until junior year to do basketball and lacrosse play by play. And then by the time I was a senior, I got a couple of football games. Now, keep in mind. The football team. So my four years in school where the four years with Marvin Graves is quarterback.
And the first three years, we beat Florida. We beat Texas. We beat Ohio State in a bowl game. Like the program's rolling. Senior year, we're like preseason top 10, 11, 12. A couple writers had us 5/6/7, like huge expectations of the wheels just fell off. My first football game that John Holt and I did together right around my 21st birthday.
Final score, West Virginia, 43 Syracuse 0, was my first game. And not only that, I think the way we did it was I called the first and fourth quarters, he called the second and third quarters. I only got one of West Virginia's touchdowns. 35 points of the score and happened to be other two quarters or something like that.
It was not a great start, but loved it. And again, got great reps, great experience. I didn't range outside of that. I was really singularly focused on that one place, getting reps, getting better. I might've gone on UUT once or twice. They didn't do a lot of other official extracurricular stuff. People ask me, did you do fraternities?
Yeah, I did WAER. That was what I did. So the fact that I didn't do any other things, including Z89 or whatever, was nothing against any of those places. I just candidly didn't have the time.
JAG: Sure. So what happens after you graduate in 94?
Pete: So I wound up spending a year in Syracuse after I graduated.
The very first job offer I got, and it took a few months after I graduated, was with the new expansion team coming to the American Hockey League, the Syracuse Crunch. They announced my second semester senior year that Syracuse had been awarded a team that was coming to the War Memorial. I actually had an opportunity.
I filled in on a couple games with the Binghamton Rangers my senior year. I did a couple hockey games. Hockey was my thing. That's what I wanted to do.
JAG: And very hard to do play by play for because it's so fast.
Pete: Yes. I'll talk about that in a second. Crunch comes to town. I had been interning at WHEN. WHEN becomes the flagship and they call me.
They said, do you want to move back to Syracuse to do hockey games? And I'm like, of course. So I wound up doing pregame intermission post-game. And it was a great time to do it because it was the year after the New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup. So like interest around hockey in the United States at that point was probably as high as it's ever been.
And then they had the lockout. That's right. And they didn't play right after that. So what wound up happening is there's no NHL. ESPN was putting AHL games on ESPN too, like to fill programming at the time and all of the NHL teams were sending their coaches and their general managers and everything to these minor league games because they didn't have anything else to do.
So it's you're going to the War Memorial, and Mike Keenan's there, and Colin Campbell's there, and different general managers, and they brought in Gordie Howe for a game, and so for this dinky little arena, in a minor league hockey team, it was an amazing experience, and the other side of that was, and you talk about Z89 now, is I live just off of campus.
So I had everything in terms of socially, right? Faegan’s, you name it, going to games, the whole deal without any of the academic part. I lived in a house just off campus with roommates. I had a job at the mall to make ends meet and it did the hockey games on WHEN. So that's when I made a lot of my best friends were a year behind me at school for that reason.
Velardi and Ryan McNaughton and Tina Stoklosa, who was a dear friend my senior year, and even that following year, there's a lot of class of 95 people I wound up bonding with for many years to come by that one year that I lived there afterward.
JAG: I won't belabor the point because we've talked about it in so many episodes, but that class of 95 is just legendary in terms of JPZ history, so many names. So it's not surprising that you connect with all of them in what we'll call your super senior year.
Pete: Super senior year, it was super, that's for sure.
JAG: So what's next after that, Pete?
Pete: So I did that for a year, and then had an opportunity, I should say as much as I loved doing the hockey games, and loved working at that radio station, I got to do lots of stuff, it was $6 an hour.
And the radio station was in the process of being sold, and I had an opportunity to work at a radio station in Hartford, which is where home was, for the massive pay bump to $8 an hour. And by the way, I could move home and not pay rent and everything that came with it. But I really loved what I was doing in Syracuse, so I went back and I'm like, If you took me from six an hour to seven an hour, I could stay and they're like, nope, can't afford it.
And I'm like, all right, gotta go. But it wound up being a blessing. Station was sold. Everybody got blown out. So on and so forth. Thank God I moved on. What I did a couple of years producing morning radio in Hartford and actually producing. Patriots broadcasts, we were the Hartford affiliate for the Patriots, and we did some pre and post stuff locally around it that I got to host and produce, and so on and so forth.
And actually, we were the spillover station for the Whalers, so I got to produce some Whalers games, which was, that's what I went to school for, I wanted to do the Whalers. So I got a little taste of that, and they moved away the next year.
JAG: Ugh, we won't go there, I know that's a touching subject for you.
Pete: That actually stumbled into an opportunity to pick up a weekend gig at ESPN as a production assistant on top of working in Hartford. The Syracuse thing was a year, Hartford was two years, and then ESPN was almost 26 years.
JAG: How does that go where you start as a production assistant at ESPN and then work your way up the food chain there in the audio world?
Pete: Some of it's right place, right time. Some of you might remember ESPN Radio started as exclusively weekend programming. It was Saturday and Sunday nights. It was like 7p to 1a or something like that. Saturdays and Sundays that they offered the stations and that's all it was. And so I would work sunup to sundown those days.
You're rolling on games, cutting highlights, whatever, and you're producing those nights shows or supporting those nights shows. And then they expressed interest in going to seven nights a week. And obviously they need more people and more hours to do that. They added the Tony Kornheiser show. They had the Fabulous Sports Babe and they started putting the pieces together.
And they took me to lunch and said, would you leave your radio station in Hartford to come here full time? But I'll say this, and a lot of people will relate to this who worked at Z89 or WAER. The position was a production position. It was not on air. At my Hartford station, I had some on air and I was doing producing and so on and so forth.
They were very blunt with me and they said, this is a production position. It's not going to lead to an on-air opportunity. You are making a career decision allow that you're going into production and you're not on the air and I actually asked for a day to think about it and I went home and I opened up my cassette box with all my tapes on it, hockey, play by play, football, play by play, updates, all of that stuff and I sat and I just listened and I hit play and I thought to myself, how good am I?
JAG: Wow.
Pete: And how willing am I going to take that IBA job in Sioux Falls, or am I going to take that single a job in Fort Wayne and all these great opportunities? A lot of people do incredibly well with and go on to great things, or am I going to go work in my hometown at the Worldwide Leader in Sports and set my ego aside and do that?
And I listened to my stuff and I said, I'm good. I'm not great. In terms of my on-air capabilities, so on and so forth, I took the gig with ESPN and it was the ride of a lifetime and I never missed the on-air thing a bit.
JAG: That's fascinating because that's a crossroads. That's a really hard spot. I think a lot of our listeners can relate to that moment in time and yeah, the fact that you made the decision and you say you never regretted it, that's huge.
Pete: In fact, it was funny because here's putting a close on the on-air thing. Hartford Whalers leave, Hartford Wolf Pack comes to Hartford, so the minor league hockey team. The Crunch are in town. And my former broadcast partner, Joel Stern, who was the play-by-play guy, calls me and says, Hey, I don't have a color guy for the game, do you want to come do the game with me since we're in town?
I got permission from ESPN, got the night off, whatever. And now I'm sitting in the broadcast position in the Hartford Civic Center, calling, it's not the Whalers, it's not the NHL, but it's what I wanted to do. And I got one shot at it, I'm doing a hockey game in Hartford. And the Crunch were trailing the Wolfpack 5 to 4 late in the third period.
And the goalie for the Hartford Wolfpack, his name was Jason Mazzotti, and he used to play for the Whalers. And I remember giving up rebounds had been a thing. I don't know why I thought that. And I said, okay, Crunch pulled the goalie. They got a few seconds left here. I said, Joel, they need to win the draw.
They need a booming slapper from Thompson. Hope they get a rebound and they can poke it and get us to overtime. Wouldn't you know, that's exactly what happened. They won the draw. Brent Thompson with a booming slap shot off the pad. Somebody pokes it home. Ends in a 5-5 tie, which was a thing at the time.
When the game was over, I said, you didn't happen to...?. And he pulls out the cassette, the whole thing. And I grabbed it and I put it in my pocket and I'm like, I'm done. I'm good. My performance was average, but I knew what I was doing and I got to do my last game in the Hartford Civic Center at a hockey game and I will not do another game after that.
JAG: You were Tony Romo. You were calling the play right before it happened.
Pete: That was it. That was a very nice capper to my decision. To be like, okay, I had my fun and now I'm going to go do this and had a lot more fun, but in a different way.
JAG: That's amazing. So take me through some of your time at ESPN and what you did there, working your way up.
Pete: So we went to seven days a week and we also got the rights to major league baseball. Starting in 1998 was our first season with ESPN radio was the home of major league baseball and. I remember because at the time we only really had a couple of studios and we're doing all the games, right? This was the wild card had just come in the expanded playoffs.
It just come in. And we needed studios So I wound up going down to New York to the Fabulous Sports Babe's studio and producing studio for the division series I think was the Yankees in the Texas Rangers at the time. And got to do a bunch of baseball and then we went to 24 7 I was started by producing Overnights with Todd Wright, which was a wonderful opportunity because A, none of the management was listening, we could just try stuff, yeah. It's trivia night, we're gonna talk about intercontinental champions, and nobody cared. We did whatever we wanted.
JAG: Love all the wrestling references, by the way, continue.
Pete: I'd book The Rock at the Overnight Radio Show as he was just coming up. A lot of fun stuff we had then. And then they were shuffling the deck on different assignments, and they asked me to fill in on mornings, our morning show with Tony Bruno and Mike Golic that we had.
And they knew that I had experience producing morning drive radio in Hartford and in Syracuse, so the entertainment value of doing a morning show. And what I didn't know is when I was filling in that week, they were actually auditioning me. And then after that was over, they said, hey, we'd like to move you to mornings full time.
So I moved down to the morning show. Tony Bruno left ESPN, which left Mike Golic and I with a host du jour. We didn't have a partner. In fact, we did shows at the 1999 World Series and that was my sort of fandom moment growing up a Yankees fan. I'm on the field getting sprayed by champagne.
They win the World Series, the whole thing, like from getting hired to ESPN a year and a half later, like, all right, now what? The cool thing you want to do as a sports fan already happened. And Golic and I, we auditioned 13 different people and Mike Greenberg got the job and the rest was history. So I had the amazing opportunity to be the first producer when we launched Mike and Mike. And I was with them for 15 of their 17-year run and to work on and work with a Hall of Fame show is just the blessing of a lifetime. That led to working with Dan Patrick and Colin Cowherd and Tony Kornheiser and of course, Mike Tirico.
My favorite ESPN story that will relate to Syracuse and the audience was Dan Patrick was leaving and we ultimately got to a point where Mike Tirico was going to succeed Dan. And there was a period of time after Dan's last show and that we were going to launch Mike's show. We weren't going to launch it until September. And I reached out to Mike and I said, hey, we're looking at a Thursday in September. Cause as you know, the ratings book. So we figure a Thursday was the day to launch the show. And he's I can do it, but I'm in Syracuse that day because they're opening Newhouse III that day. So we were launching his radio show and the date we picked happened to be the date he was opening Newhouse 3.
He's so you'd have to find me a studio or whatever. And I'm like, I have an idea. Why don't we put in the press release? The launch of the Mike Tirico show, and he's going to do it from his college radio station, where it all started. So I reached out and we put him in. WAER had just moved into their studio there.
Then Mike calls me. Costas is coming and Boeheim is coming. And, the whole thing. And he's do me a favor. And this is why Syracuse is the best. Do me a favor. Make sure as many students as possible could be there.
JAG: That sounds like Mike Tirico.
Pete: And on the producer side of the glass or in the adjacent studio, it was just all people pressed up against the window.
By the way, many of whom have now gone on to, Nick Wright, Danny Parkins, so on and so forth. And that was one of the favorite things I got to do, was to launch Mike and Mike, and then launch a radio show with Mike Tirico, who's become a dear friend, at Syracuse. And the funny thing about that was the person who I hired to produce his show, for whatever reason couldn't make that trip.
So I produced the show and hadn't done it in years. And I'm like if I'm going to produce a radio show, it may as well be back where I was. So my point being is the Syracuse thread, the alumni thread, I skipped over 2003 when Syracuse wins the national title. If you're at ESPN in 2003, every third car in the parking lot had a National Champions bumper sticker or license plate or Otto on the antenna back when those were a thing.
That's probably the last, hey, how did you know this Z89 person? So at ESPN, I worked with Matthew Berry on, Fantasy Podcasts for years. I got to know Alex Brewer and his wife Molly and so on and so forth. And Alex and Molly were the ones who got me to come up to the Banquet where I met you and so many other great people in 2020, that's where it becomes, as you said, time is a flat circle.
This is also a circle. It's I met them at Syracuse, saw them at ESPN. Knew them from Z89. I'm gesturing a circle here as I do it. But we're all orange. Like I've lost track. Did I know that person when I was in school? I think we met once, or maybe I know them from the Banquet or whatever that is.
I love how it's all blurred now. And maybe that's because I'm old and my memory's blurred, but I also think the perception of yes, I'm Syracuse. I'm proud of my degree. I'm proud of what I did there. But then you see much deeper than that. I was Z89. I was ROTC. I was Ambulance. I was Sour Citrus.
That's what brings people back. And that's what keeps people engaged. And we can talk about the time I came to the Banquet and hung with you guys. I just remember looking around going, my God, if we could bottle this, not just the passion for that radio station, but for each other as people, I just kept watching the same greeting happen over and over again.
Personal locks eyes with someone across the room they haven't seen in a long time, tries to wrap up the conversation they're having because they really want to get to that person that they haven't seen. Big hug. How you doing? And then they're already seeing the next person that they really want to go say hello and have that hug with.
And I remember. Whether it's people that I knew or people I was meeting for the first time at the end of it, and they're like, how was it? And I said, I had two thirds of an awesome conversation with a million people. I never once completed a conversation, but they have potential to be great conversations.
But you were just bouncing around to so many people with so much energy and so much love. It really was. This is how it's supposed to work.
JAG: Was that when you first came to the banquet in 2020?
Pete: 2020 was the week before COVID.
JAG: You really became indoctrinated in 2020. That year you were there.
Pete: Maybe it was COVID. I don't know what the timing was. It was the week before the pandemic started. And what was great about coming to the Z89 banquet is, yes, there were the people I've known for years, Friedman and Chris Velardi, Dave and Tina Perkins and others who I've known forever. But the neat experience was the people who I was meeting for the first time.
So Mary Mancini, Brett Bosse. I knew Jeff Wade a little bit, you get to know these people and hang out with them, go out to the bar afterward, have a couple of drinks, so on and so forth. And I remember I had to leave town early the next morning. And I get up and I'm heading down to my car and the Facebook requests and all these people.
And that wasn't just a add them to the pile of however many Facebook friends you have. These are all people that have remained engaged, right? And that wasn't even at the station. This is, we're now three years later. Now, I think some of that might've been amplified by many of those months in 2020. That's the only way we were interacting with one another largely.
But that was a unique phenomenon. And some of these people I have only spent three hours of my life with in that room that night. And they remain contacts and connections more than someone had a list of people, you may know people who have reached out with the job thing or the, SUAA presidency thing, so on and so forth.
Wanting to be supportive and everything that is just an incredible environment. I would say any young alumni who maybe doesn't make as many trips back to Syracuse as they would like, or whatever. If you worked at Z89 and it makes sense for you, go to this event. Figure out a way to get that weekend off or make the trip up or whatever it is, because it will be practically productive for you.
And it will fill your passion bucket as well. Knowing that you have all these people in your corner rooting for you. Some of which you haven't even met yet. That you can count on that being there for you. It was an experience that I won't forget.
JAG: I remember Brett Bosse and I were having a conversation with you and talking your ear off about ESPN and all the stuff you've done there. It was like, who's this guy? And so here's where I could take you behind the scenes of the podcast. This is where I have egg on my face. Because you are so well associated with JPZ and so many of us. When I started putting the podcast together months and months ago, I reached out to you.
And it was you or Matt that had told me like, technically he didn't work at Z89. And I was like... Shit, I asked him to be on the podcast, now what do I do? And then we're like let's circle back after we get some other alumni on, and we're here now, and we're thrilled to have you, I'm like, I feel like the biggest jackass, Pete, I gotta tell you.
Pete: I remember texting, just so you know, I never actually worked at Z89. And if that means you don't want to do the podcast, like I totally get it. And you wrote back something like, yeah, trying to find the best, most respectful way to politely decline without coming off like a jerk or something. I'm like no, you're good. I totally get it.
JAG: I felt like the biggest jackass I really did.
Pete: I couldn't be more thrilled to fall into the category of Z89 adjacent. I have my wonderful circle of friends I worked with a WAER. and the Z 89 circle of friends, and again, it all blurs together. And I'll say this, and I'll bring it up so you don't have to. A couple months ago I was laid off from ESPN and part of the big sort of Disney cutback, so on and so forth after 25 and a half years.
It is a humbling experience. If you've been through it, I'm sorry. It is incredibly difficult to hit the reset button on your career, so on and so forth. What's more humbling than that? Is the outpouring of support and the Syracuse community that reached out, called, texted, Facebook, messaged, LinkedIn, called other people on my behalf to have them call me those types of things.
That's what sets us, and when I say us, Syracuse inclusive of Z89, inclusive of WAER, Citrus, what have you, not everybody gets that. And it was, you get this tsunami of support when it happens. And now it's a month and change afterward into that. And I'm still getting the people forwarding me a posting that they saw or just yesterday.
A friend of mine, Chris Sheridan, who's a Syracuse alum, and we worked at ESPN together, emails me, hey, do you know Carl Weinstein? He'd be a good person for you to talk to.
JAG: Oh, for sure.
Pete: I sat at the table with Carl when he went into the Z89 Hall of Fame at the banquet in 2020, and he was one of the first people who called me when I got let go. And that went out publicly.
So again, that full circle of the network, who you know, and wanting to help each other out. It's an incredible blessing. It's easy to lift each other up and celebrate successes. Scott MacFarlane has his amazing job at CBS because he is as good at what he does as anybody on the planet for sure.
And we're all like, yes, that's our guy, right? We all get to say that's our guy. But the flip side of that is when things don't go your way and people supporting you through the tough times that's appreciated more than you can understand unless you'd gone through it. If you're listening to this, I hope you haven't, and I hope you don't.
JAG: And again, and this is July 27th recording, as you said, the month and a half in since this happened. Yes, it's part of you being part of the Syracuse and JPZ family, but the flip side of that is, because this needs to be said, it's also a reflection on you, Pete, and the way you've treated people, and your professionalism, and the way you've carried yourself in the time we've all known you, that we want to reach out to you, that so many of us do reach out to you.
We're not just going to reach out to somebody because they went to JPZ or because they went to Syracuse. People are reaching out to you because they know you and they know the quality of person and professional that you are. And I think that needs to be said.
Pete: I appreciate that. And I do think some of that comes from within the Syracuse community.
I know this is the case of Z89. I know this was the case of WAER. The people who came before us took care of us, right? Whether it was at the Banquet or they come into the station and they give critiques and they listen to your tape. I had the Ian Eagles and the Mike Tiricos and here at Hartford, Arnold Dean, who was a legend here who went to Syracuse that you could say, hey, I'm Syracuse kid.
Hey, would you like to listen to my stuff? Of course. And they were wonderful. And I knew even while I was still a student, like I'm going to be that to somebody someday. That I'm going to do that. And to this day, there's recent alums and existing students I talk to on a regular basis. That's among the most important things that I do. And I saw it in and around the Z89 banquet. It was like, yes, would you speak on this panel? Sure. Would you like to come? And then, oh, by the way, would you come by and meet with the current students on Friday afternoon? Of course. If you don't have the opportunity to do that. Either your travel situation or whatever it is, you're missing the best part.
Because when you see these kids, something lights up and they take it back and apply it to what they're doing. That's as fulfilling as anything. As I'm going to be teaching a class at Quinnipiac University here in Connecticut this fall.
JAG: Professor Pete!
Pete: I get to do it actually for real, and I couldn't be more excited.
JAG: Are you sure you're not a JPZ alum? Because you certainly sound like one with everything you've just said.
Pete: I think I've been... by osmosis, indoctrinated. In fact, it's funny. Last year's banquet weekend. I had plans to go to the game that weekend, not even having put two and two together that it was the banquet.
So I'm up there and I was like, everybody's here. And I wanted to but I had other commitments and so on and so forth. And it was so funny because that basketball game, which was senior day against Wake Forest, to some degree through my advice, ESPN radio picked up that game and they were broadcasting the game.
Thinking it might be Boeheim's last game, which it turned out, by the way, it was in the Dome. We just didn't know that for sure at the time. And the producer of the game from ESPN, who's a friend of mine, I was showing them around campus, and every 15 minutes I was running into someone I knew.
Hey, it was Jeff Kurkjian, hey, it was Brett Bosse, hey, it was Friedman, hey, it was you. And he's you're old, how do you know everybody? And I'm like, oh, this is just who I am when I'm here. Everybody knows me. He's no, seriously. And I'm like, actually, it's Z89's banquet. And he's oh, I know a million people.
It just happens to be this weekend, and the jig is up. It was a stacked deck. I don't really know everything.
JAG: That's funny. I want to come back to your time at ESPN for a second, because you climbed the ranks there. You spent so long with Mike and Mike, and then were really running audio for ESPN when we last spoke at the beginning of 2020.
You were in a position, talking about paying it forward. Did you directly hire anybody or how were you able to, you worked with folks that are younger than you. You mentioned Molly and Alex and others that work there. Were you in a position to help out JPZers when you were at ESPN? How did that play out?
Pete: Yeah, absolutely. Both, and things have evolved over the years. Recruiting fairs, HR recruiting fairs, they'd send me up to Syracuse and they would do it right in the Carrier Dome. Like they just have tables on the field and you're interviewing potential interns or, entry level employees, so on and so forth.
In fact, it was during some of the leanest years of Syracuse football. And I was really happy that I was actually in the end zone because we didn't have Syracuse people in the end zone very often. They set my table up in the end zone. I felt really good about that. So there was the formal like interviewing people for internships, et cetera. And some of them panned out the people who became, worked at ESPN or at least got a really good look at an opportunity there. And then it was just building personal relationships. And it's hey, sorry, the ESPN didn't thing didn't work out or a person wound up taking a job somewhere else, but can we stay in touch that they're developing their on-air chops or they're a podcast producer and they want to send me a show. Can you take a listen? Let me know what you think.
Those types of things. That's what resonates with me. Isn't so much, hey, I hired that guy and got him a job at ESPN, as I made some meaningful contribution to that individual's career. And if they think that was helpful to them, that's great.
JAG: That's terrific. Anything you want to mention as far as your time post Mike and Mike at ESPN and running audio, anything that comes to mind?
Pete: It was a blessing to I did 17 years with radio in various capacities, and then I was asked to take on digital audio, which was largely our podcast portfolio with the opportunity to.
Develop and launch podcasts. I won't say it was before podcast was a thing because ESPN had been doing it a few years at that point, but it really hadn't taken off. I did get a couple of weird looks like you're leaving radio to go do podcasts?
JAG: I feel seen.
Pete: Yeah, from where it was to where it is and to work with actually again, another chapter with Mike Tirico, we did a Monday night football podcast when he was doing the games.
So on and so forth, but to work with Bomani Jones and Matthew Berry and Julie Fowdy and many of our other talent to just do a movie podcast with Adnan Virk and the Le Batard guys and everything that came with it, right? That was an amazing opportunity to once again. Here's our stick and ball shows, yeah, that we're going to play it straight.
We're going to talk about Monday night football and then here's Stugotz and we're going to have his PA interview somebody out by the dumpster while smoking a cigarette. Like you get, there's no other platform at ESPN you could do something like that. Podcasting for a while there really just became a playground to try stuff knowing that if it was terrible, you just cut it out and nobody will ever know that it happened.
And so to have that opportunity, which really reinvented my career, like you didn't realize that you were getting stale doing something until you're energized by doing something else. And now it's funny because being in the situation that I'm in, having done both for an extended period of time.
I could see myself getting re engaged doing broadcast radio again, whether, satellite or over the air or whatever that is. I could see podcasting being a thing. Or education. When you have a situation where you lose your job like that, there are moments where you're staring into the abyss and it's difficult, and there's moments where you're looking at the blank canvas and you realize, I can do anything I want.
It's not that easy, unfortunately, but it is exciting. So the idea to be able to touch and do different things, and even in the last couple of years in the podcast space, we started interacting and integrating with other areas of the Walt Disney company. So I got to meet with and advise on some of Nat Geo stuff they were doing.
Disney parks launched a podcast. The Disney movie insiders launched a podcast about their movies and they would say, hey, can you take a listen to this and give us feedback? Our ABC partners who had so many great podcasts that they do. To be able to do some things outside of sports was really exciting as well and use different muscles than maybe what I've done producing sports talk radio.
So having the exposure and the opportunity to the platforms, the caliber of talent, both on air and off air that we got to work with, wouldn't do anything differently and didn't take it for granted at the time and certainly don't now.
JAG: Let me ask you this. I've asked people who work in radio their thoughts on the industry. You, unfortunately, were just let go from ESPN. ESPN has had several rounds of cuts in the last several years. ESPN, Disney, ABC. From somebody who has just recently worked in it on the audio side and is now looking for your next opportunity, this is a broad question, so forgive me, but the world of traditional TV and radio, how is it changing and what does the next year or so look like in your eyes?
Pete: A year or so is hard.
JAG: Or five or ten if you prefer.
Pete: It's the constant evolution of technology. This is probably the best way to illustrate it. So in my last year and change with the company, we made great efforts to add YouTube and video to as many podcasts as possible. I think we went. Two titles had video. Fantasy Focus and our draft podcast.
And a year later, like 25 of our titles had video, right? And each week I would send my boss a metrics report of, hey, here's how many downloads our shows are doing. And then here's how many video views we're adding on top of that. And it started where it was like, 90/10 audio to video and then it was 80/20 and then it was 70/30 and you see a change and the day that ESPN executed their layoffs in Bristol that morning, I was sending the metrics update.
It was in April and I'm pulling the numbers. And YouTube views surpassed audio downloads for the portfolio shows that I oversee for the first time ever. And I hit send on that email, and I had a pretty good feeling that was the day where they were going to make cuts and call people in. And I hit send on that email, and I went, oh.
That these shows are now bigger from a volume standpoint, they're now a bigger video franchise than they were an audio franchise. And we have a very established video department, video leadership, video infrastructure. So that when I got a text that afternoon saying, meet me at a conference room, you'd knew what it was.
And it just is a long winded way of saying people want things the way they want it, where they want it, how they want it. And some people want to listen on Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. And YouTube's a thing. And TikTok and whatever they're going to call Twitter. What is it going to be in three, four, five years from now?
Something different than what it is now. And staying on top of that evolution as best you can. But everything with AI, like people are always going to be looking for ways to do more by needing less to do it. That's forever going to be a thing. And it's going to catch up to people as things move along.
And then the other piece of that I would say is in the eight years that I was doing podcasting there, year one, it was like, okay, high profile ESPN talent's going to do a podcast. You roll that person out there, and by the nature of that person's profile, you're going to get downloads. Of course. Wow, Kirk Herbstreit has a podcast.
It does well. You get a Mike Tirico podcast, it does well, so on and so forth. And then you go down the road. And now there's so many more shows out there and so many more high-profile talent. That even when you get Scott Van Pelt to do a podcast, or Stephen A. Smith to do a podcast, or whoever it is, some of the biggest names in the business, you also have to do the marketing and promotion work to cut through. It doesn't matter who you are or where you work. The grind is real, I don't know, short of, heck, Prince Harry and Meghan rolled the podcast out.
JAG: Didn't go well.
Pete: No, the days of big name, give him a show, it'll be awesome, is over. And anybody who wants to do this, regardless of your profile or your prestige, you really have to do the work or it's not going to happen.
JAG: My two key takeaways there are, what you just said, it's more about the content than the name.
And then I think when we were coming up at Syracuse, broadcasting, the Rick Wright voice, broadcasting, was, you provided the content to people and they consumed it. Here, it seems like what you're saying is, they're going to go where they want to consume it and you better be there.
Pete: Yeah. And in a way that they want, some of these shows where you do an audio podcast and a video podcast. They don't necessarily need to be duplicated.
You might do the 35-minute version in an audio and then cut it down to 12 for YouTube.
JAG: Really?
Pete: Each platform works differently and the, time spent works differently and people are looking for different things on different platforms. Anybody who's been doing this or getting into this, I think they look at I'm going to make my show and I'm going to put it 12 different places and it's going to work.
But it's almost like when you do your resume, like you have different versions of your resume, depending on the job you're applying for. And I think. All right. I'm going to put my show on Spotify. Okay. How is that going to best work on Spotify? I'm going to put my show on YouTube. How is that going to best work on YouTube?
I'm going to put something on TikTok. TikTok doesn't want a 35-minute podcast, but might they want a 15 second video clip? Maybe, so it's a lot more than I'm just going to... Hit record, hit stop and do some editing in between and call it a day.
JAG: I could geek out on this with you all day long because one of the things I've struggled with in my business is I'm an audio guy, I'm a radio guy, I produce audio podcasts for people and more and more clients are asking for video and I'm like I can do video but I'm not as good at video as I am at audio. And I've pushed back a little bit, oh just put your audio on YouTube, but from what it sounds like you're saying, video needs to be a part of it in some way, shape, or form.
Pete: And by the way, we're seeing that, right? Let's bring it back to Z89 for a minute, bring it back to Syracuse. The stuff the students are doing now, where, hey, I'm in town to call this game, women's game or men's game, doesn't matter what it is, and they're doing their video on the field, previewing the game, and promoting that you can listen to the game on the radio station, right?
That's already happening at the student level. I think some of the things we can help those students, let's just use current Z89 kids and people like you and others who advise them is, yes, Syracuse teaches them journalism as well or better than anybody else does, but it's, here's how the ratings game is played.
Here's how you're successful as a talent. Here's how you execute that ZipRecruiter read in the middle of your show, because you're not just hosting and interviewing, but you're also selling. The art of doing host reads, which is more and more often falling to the presenter. To the Fox announcer, who's now doing billboards for SmackDown that they didn't think they were going to be doing.
JAG: Which always throws me every time I see it on a football game.
Pete: Those skills. And I do think that's where Z89 has a leg up on everyone else because they emphasize personality. There's no criticism here, whether it's WAER, Citrus, or whatever it is. We've got journalists covering what's happening on the field. We're covering the games; we're covering the action. Turn on Z89 in the morning, there's a little bit of that, and there's a whole lot of fun.
And Z89 knew, and knows, how to do the fun better than anybody else. And you see it when you meet with people and you engage in conversation with them and you do a podcast with them and those types of conversation. And by the way, watch anything that's working now. That stuff matters. Not every day has a tentpole sports moment.
Not every day has a tentpole political moment. Some days are just Thursday. Why am I going to listen to this show? It's because you're entertaining me. And there's a lot of people that have come out of that radio station who are way out in front of that curve. Matthew Berry, perfect example.
Stick and ball sports, fantasy football. And yes, he knows the content. But there's lots of people sending out "start and sit em" stuff. Why were people spending 45 minutes to an hour every day with Matthew Berry at ESPN and they're still doing it now at NBC? Because he was entertaining and he's someone you want to have a beer with.
He was and is a perfect example of what I think the Z89 culture was then. And fast forward now is, yes, journalism when required and credibility. Of course. But on the other side, it's okay, we don't have to deal with some serious issue today. Let's have some fun and also being great at that.
JAG: I think that is a perfect place to leave it.
Congrats on the teaching gig. Congrats on the Presidency of the Syracuse University Alumni Club and look forward to seeing where you land up next on the full-time side of things. Do you want to give any contact info if anybody wants to reach out to you?
Pete: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm on Twitter. It's at PG860, my area code here in Connecticut.
I'm on a Gmail, PGianesiniJR@gmail.com, and they have a bio and stuff up for the board and everything on the Syracuse website. Feel free to find me there. I'm also on Linkedin. That's an easy one. And I'll be on campus, Orange Central this fall for the Clemson game so I'll be up there for that weekend.
If you're going to be on campus, let me know And I'm also set at the football game at Yankee Stadium on Veterans Day against Pitt, which I'm really excited about if anybody's heading into the city for that weekend, hit me up as well.
JAG: Excellent. Thank you for your time today. Thank you for your tremendous contributions to the WJPZ family, of which you are, of course, an honorary member of.
And we'll catch up with you soon.
Pete: Thanks so much. I appreciate you having me on. It's great to see you again. Talk to you again.
JAG: And finally, as bonus content for today's podcast, when Pete and I talked in 2020, I asked him in all his time at ESPN if he was ever starstruck by any particular athletes or celebrities he met, and he told me about the one time he was. You'll hear that after our credits.
Pete: 2003, I get sent to the Major League Baseball All Star game in Houston. At that point, it's another work trip. And before I leave, I complained to my wife, Houston in July, it's going to be 140 degrees, so on and so forth. So I fly down there on Sunday and we're going out to dinner with some clients at a great steak restaurant by the ballpark, and we have a private room.
There's a big table for us and there's a small table off in the other corner. And one of the clients, her husband is sitting next to me and he's this huge Met fan, he's got Mets jersey on. And he's just on me about what's it like to work with Dan Patrick? What's it like to work with Chris Berman? What's it like to work with Stuart Scott?
I'm like first of all, I don't work with any of those guys. I work with Mike and Mike. Other talent, but the times I have worked with them, they're great. And he's Oh, you guys meet celebrities all the time. It's gotta be. And I'm just not having it. I'm not in the mood. It was a bad day. And I'm like, I can't tell you the last time I've met somebody where I've just gotten excited. It's really just part of the job.
And as I say those words, Donald Arthur Mattingly and his two children walked through the door and sit at that little vacant table on the other side of the room. And I'm like, Oh my God, it's Don Mattingly. And everybody in the room knows I'm a big Yankee fan.
They're like, Pete. I'm like, I know. Are you going to go over and say hi? And I'm like, no, I'm not going to bother him while he's over having dinner with his two sons.
JAG: Exactly.
Pete: Like, how do you know those are his two sons? I'm like, I know those are his two sons. So we get back to our conversation and I step out of the room for a minute to go use the restroom.
And little do I know that while I'm away, one of the women at our table walked over to his table and said something like the following. I'm not sure who you are, but the guy in the empty chair over there is losing his mind that you're here. And when he comes back, it would be super cool if you had any time to come over and say hello.
So I don't know any of this at the time. So I sit down at my chair and I'm just chatting around the room and all of a sudden, I get tapped on the shoulder and I look up and the gentleman puts his hand out to shake my hand and says, hi, Don Mattingly, to which I respond. I know!
It was that bad. And he's hey, we're just chatting baseball over here. Want to come over and join us? And I'm like, okay. And I just glare at the table and they're all laughing like that. And I go over to the table and we talked 10 minutes or so talking baseball, talking Yankees. He was there with the Yankees because, I'm sorry, this is the 04 All Star game because they had played in the 03 World Series, the Yankees were coaching and managing the All-Star Team.
And great conversation, no autographs, no pictures, no BS, just an amazing experience. Go over to my table and sit down. And now everybody's all over me. Oh, I don't get excited. I'm just like, I'm getting murdered on this. So we wrap up and we're leaving the room. And we're going down the stairs and I say to the guy next to me who was really riding me at this point, and I had to take it, right?
This is, you don't understand. This is the one guy. Like I grew up, I played first base in high school, number 23, the whole thing. It's the one guy walking the face of the planet that would have walked through that door and gotten that reaction. And as I'm saying this at the bottom of the stairs coming up, cause I'm walking down is Derek Jeter and we're in each other's way.
And we look at each other and make eye contact. And this guy next to me is now laughing even harder. And I look at Derek and I say, love ya, not today. And I walked right past him, walked past Alex Rodriguez and out the door into the street.
JAG: You literally pulled the Costanza went out on the high note.
Pete: And I did not take it for granted since that day.