Today you will hear two incredible stories from Sal Capaccio, Class of 1995. The first is his own "origin story." At 37 years old, he quit his job to follow his dream. He and his wife moved back to his hometown of Buffalo for part time work on the sports station there. Through hard work, perserverance, networking, and other lessons he learned at WJPZ, he's now a radio and podcast host, as well as the sideline reporter for the Buffalo Bills radio network.
This role gave him a unique perspective of the most harrowing moment of last year's NFL season. He was on the field when Bills player Damar Hamlin's heart stopped after making a seemingly routine tackle in Cincinnati. (36:33) He spends the final third of today's episode taking us on the field, in the tunnel, and even on the team bus as the events of that evening unfolded. You'll be hanging on his every word.
Sal grew up as die-hard a Bills fan as they come. In fact, he would take a bus home from campus on home game weekends his freshman year so as not to miss the games in person. And it was his love for sports that brought him to Z89. He did do some music and morning shifts, but he always was passionate about covering teams - from SU Football to basketball and theSportsline 89 talk show. We spend some time talking about the relationships he formed with some classmates whose names you'll recognize, and others you may be hearing for the first time.
Following school, Sal had an opportunity to work at a small town Florida radio station, where he did sports (and sales, thanks to what he learned in Syracuse). This led him to get involved with youth sports, and eventually high school athletics. He got into teaching and really found it rewarding to work with kids. As circumstances changed, and his wife was transitioning jobs, he explains the decision to move home and start over, pursuing his dream as he approached 40.
For those of us who always wanted to pursue sports but didn't, we ask Sal to take us through his schedule for a typical Sunday Bills home game. It's a chance for many of us to live vicariously through him. And that of course leads to Damar Hamlin.
Sal was reporting from the sideline when Damar Hamlin's heart stopped on the field in Cincinnati. We revisit that evening, and he shares what he was allowed to see, and what he wasn't. And of course, all the good that came out of the story of that amazing young man.
But we can't end on such a serious note. We wrap up with Sal telling us how he talked his way out of being suspended from WJPZ.
The WJPZ at 50 Podcast Series is produced by Jon Gay, Class of 2002, and his podcast production agency, JAG in Detroit Podcasts.
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JAG: Welcome to WJP Z at 50. I am Jon Jag Gay. So many of us, as you've heard in the podcast, got to Syracuse and got to WJPZ, wanting to get into sports and maybe cover our favorite team. Today's guest actually did the damn thing and he's got a tremendous story of how he got there. From the class of 95. Sal Capaccio, welcome to the show.
Sal: Thank you very much for having me, Jon. Really appreciate you and it's always fun to talk to fellow Z89ers for sure.
JAG: Absolutely. It's what we have in common. As I mentioned to you in text, I'm a Patriots fan. We don't need to go there cuz I know you are the authority on the Buffalo Bills and we will get to all of that in due time. But tell me first how you got to Syracuse and found the radio station.
Sal: Ever since I was a little kid, at first I wanted to be the center fielder for the Yankees or wide receiver for the Buffalo Bills. And then I realized that wasn't gonna work out. But someone, I remember my brother telling me when I was really little, this is another person he knew he wants to go into sports broadcasting.
I'm like, wait a minute, you can actually do that? You can go to college for that? I didn't know that. I was a kid. So I started thinking about that really at a pretty young age. And when I got into high school, it was geared towards that. And then I realized Syracuse and the program they had and all the people that went to Syracuse and wanted to do that.
It was always the goal. Ultimately it worked out. I was able to not only go to Syracuse, but then, discover all these great ways and avenues to be able to talk. And that was the thing for me, I've always been, Jon, involved in everything. Like I've always been the Energizer bunny, since I was a little kid. I'm a drummer. I've always been in jazz band. I was the lead in the play. I was Conrad Birdie in high school in Bye Bye Birdie. I remember things like that. I always, I played three sports and I just say that. I've always been active. I've always been involved. So, the minute I got to campus, the minute that I saw what was available, I'm like, oh, radio station, TV station.
These are things that I said I gotta be a part of. Yeah, I wanna do that. And when I heard about WJPZ, when I saw Z 89, and I don't even know it, I don't know if it's the same format now, Top 40 format at the time and music I was listening to. Thank you. It just really spoke to me and I'm like, oh, this is super cool.
And they're like, yeah, we do sports too. Oh, okay. Maybe I could be a DJ and do sports and actually wound up doing it all. Hosted the morning show a little bit. That was really cool. So that was the biggest reason. And then they had Sports Line 89 was the talk show. My thing I wanted to do in sports was be a talk show host.
And there was literally a guy at Buffalo who's legendary, people still know his name. He's in his nineties now, still living. His name is Art Wanderer. His nickname was The Tiny Tot of the kilowatt. And Artie Baby Boo Boo. And I would call his show. So Jon, I'm in high school and I'm like, in 10th grade I'm listening to talk radio, calling shows, right?
This is me. I would put the cassette tape inside, hit play and record. I'd record myself when I got on air to do an air check and to see how I sounded.
JAG: Oh my G-d.
Sal: People would call and they'd have these nicknames and you'd have Mr. T, ACE, the Polish Prince, and I went to Cleveland Hill High School, still very dear to my heart. The Cleveland Hill Golden Eagles, by the way.
JAG: Got the mascot holding up right now. Got it.
Sal: I was the Golden Eagle. That was my nickname on the air. I'm like in 10th grade and I would call. And one day I said, Hey Art, can I talk to you something after the show, he says, yeah. This is before cell phones and all that.
I call up, he answers right away for the show, Golden Eagle, what's up? And I said, hey man, I want to do what you do for a living. I listen to your show every day. I'd really like to go to Syracuse. Would you write me a letter recommendation to Syracuse University? And not that he made or break it, but it was just one of those examples of people helping you out to try and get to where you want to go.
And how cool that was to do that. And little things like that, and I knew what I wanted to do for a long time. And then I got on campus and found out about Z89 and it was pretty cool to, to get involved there and to be a part of that scene right away.
JAG: So you're doing music and morning show, but sports was really your passion. That was really where you spent most of your time.
Sal: Yeah, a hundred percent. Sports Line 89, it was like my thing, I got to host this show and I did. I remember hosting Sports Line 89. We had a bunch of hosts we'd rotate through on Sunday nights and do that show. And my first year I got on campus, I'm living in Brewster Hall and I had season tickets for the Bills. I come from Buffalo and it was the year right after the Bills had gone to their first Super Bowl and lost against the Giants, outta the four. And I'm on this floor with all these Giants fans and people from New York. And they're giving me crap every day, but I would literally take a Greyhound bus home in October for the home game weekends to see the Bills play.
JAG: Oh, wow.
Sal: And I just happened to be sitting near, met this guy, a fan who lived in Syracuse, and he would drive me back after the games and dropped me off at Brewster Hall. And that was like how I spent my freshman year on the weekends a lot of time.
That's how crazy I was about the Bills too. And I'm always like, oh, I'd love to be in Buffalo working on the air, be a part of these games. And I'm listening to Van Miller and John Murphy. Oh, how cool would it be to be a part of that. And Jon, think about it now. I work with John Murphy every weekend and he's the play-by-play guy and I'm the sideline reporter and this is my life now what I do. And I just think it's a true testament of if you stick to it, you work hard, you have a dream, a passion, a goal that you can achieve those things.
JAG: So you're Class of 95, correct?
Sal: Yes.
JAG: Your class was one of the greatest classes in the history of WJPZ In terms of active alumni that I've met going back every year.
In terms of people who've done just incredible things in the business, whether it's music, whether it's sports, whether it's news, whether it's anything. Who are some of the names that you remember of people you worked with at the radio station?
Sal: Of course Mike Murphy. He was awesome to have.
JAG: I've got my texts open right now. He says when he connected me with you that you had some great Zubaz pants and that, this is a direct quote, he had to deal with incompetent me as his sports director when he was assistant sports director.
Sal: I was. I was, yes, I did, I should say. But no, he was not incompetent. He was great. I loved that. The actual first sports director I worked with got the job at a young age was Ryan Raffensberger. And you remember Ryan, right? And Ryan's still doing great things. He's at Mount St. Mary's maybe or somewhere. He's helping out, like he's a part of a college. He's a part of that scene. One of the smaller college basketball programs I know he helps out with.
Raff was actually like the youngest sports director they had. He was named like his sophomore year. He becomes the sports director. But I remember, and I don't know if these people were in my class, but I remember. Dion Summers being a DJ of course. Dion was the best. He was the best.
And people like that, guys that aren't in the business anymore. Billy Abelson, he was a part of, he's a big Jets fan. I'm on the Jet sidelines. Billy's hey, I'm looking up the Bills sideline. I guess, at Met Life. I'm on the Bills sideline and Billy's up there with his son or daughter and they're, he's waving to me.
I go over, I talk to him and then his and I don't remember if it's his son or daughter, I apologize. I think it's his daughter. Winds up going to Buff State here in Buffalo, actually, a few years later. So he reached out and said that, that was really cool to me. Or the University of Buffalo, either way, Buffalo connection.
So that was cool. I've met so many people and I remember hooking up with Murph as well, years later. And we had some wings here in Buffalo as well.
JAG: Of course.
Sal: So guys like that, I'll tell you, I remember doing a radio show with Ryan Burr. And Ryan now is on the Golf Channel. He covers the PGA and it reminds me I need to reach out to him.
Cause the PGA Championship is here next week in Rochester at Oak Hill. And I'm going and I got a credential. And I'll be covering that. So now see this little thing me reminded me. I gotta get in touch with Ryan Burr. But he was a guy that I remember doing a show with, there were a lot of people who didn't wanna do this or I didn't wanna be in front of the camera.
They did sales. I think I would tell you though, Jon, I learned so much. What do they say about WJPZ? It's like the greatest classroom ever.
JAG: World's greatest media classroom. Which is my next question, which is some lessons you learned there.
Sal: The biggest lesson I think I learned is that it takes so many people in so many ways to be a part of this, to do this, right?
And I'm not just talking about on-air talent and producers. I'm talking about people who, directors, program directors, sports directors, but the sales department is so big, right? They're the people that drive the money. And there's no show. There's no station if these people aren't doing it.
And my first job outta Syracuse was at a very small station down in Florida, and I remember they said to me you gotta do some sales here, if you come here. And I'm like, okay. So my last summer at Syracuse, Before I moved, I said I want to learn about the sales side of things. I got with some people, maybe Jen Nycz was there, I can't really remember.
There were some people there who were, into the sales department and they showed me the ropes a little bit and I'm like, okay, not my thing.
JAG: Ditto.
Sal: I can help finish the deal. I hate doing it. I hate walking in trying to do sales. I have so much respect for the people who do that. Even here now in my life at WGR and Audacy, like the people who do sales, just so much respect for what they do, because I can't do it.
Yeah. I'm not that guy. I can talk to people. I just I don't wanna get you to buy anything from me. And I build relationships with clients. I endorse a lot of products on the air.. It's one of the things I do, and I build those relationships, but I'm not the guy to walk in and say, hey, do you wanna go sponsor a show?
It's just, it's not that thing. But that's what I learned. I learned about how all those relationships have to intertwine with each other to make it work and to help each other out. And I've been a sports guy my whole life. I've played sports. I was a very high level football and baseball player in high school here in Buffalo.
And I played a little club baseball at Syracuse, things like that. I coached high school football in Florida for 10 years when I left the business. And I say this because. I just believe in the teamwork part of things all the time. And I've worked in this business as I'm sure you have, with people who aren't very good teammates. They're just not.
JAG: Names are popping in my head as you say that.
Sal: Yes, exactly right. Yeah. And that makes it really difficult on everybody involved. And I'm so fortunate to now work with such a great team at WGR. I've been in, now, this is my 11th year there, or 12th year and, since coming back to Buffalo.
And, I'm so happy and thankful to be a part of it, but it hasn't always been so smooth with not having those people. And I think that's what I learned at WJPZ is, be a good teammate, help out. We're all here for the same reason. That's to help each other and to help this thing grow and to help be successful together.
JAG: So you alluded to your time in Florida. I am fascinated by your story, as I've only recently learned it. Take me through after graduation and you go down to Florida and then how you end up back in Buffalo.
Sal: So I was first hired at a little station, a radio station in Florida on the southwest coast, a little below Sarasota in a small, sleepy town called Englewood.
It's situated. If people wanna know, between Venice and Port Charlotte, it's a very older town, let's just say that. They say retired people moved to Florida. They say retired people's parents moved to this town, Englewood. That's how old it is.
JAG: So this is not Del Boca Vista. This is even older.
Sal: That's exactly right. The way that I got the job was one of my best friends in high school. His cousin was actually running this small radio station for his girlfriend's dad. The girlfriend's dad owned it. It's an independent radio station. He said to me, he goes, hey, we, you wanna come down and work, we'll put you on air, you gotta do some sales, whatever.
And I'm like, wait a minute. None of my friends are getting jobs outta college. It's an on air opportunity. Why wouldn't I? And it's Florida, right? Why wouldn't I do that?
JAG: Buffalo and Syracuse, the sun's probably sounded tremendous to you at that point.
Sal: Yes. So I. I moved down to Florida, I think it was October 9th, 1995.
I think that's the day I moved down there, if I remember correctly. It was right in the middle of football season basically. And they're like, hey, come down here and we're gonna put you on the air to talk about sports, but you gotta do sales and things like that. And I'm like, okay, I could do that. And that's when I said, okay, this is tough, doing the sales and going to these mom and pop stores and saying, hey, do you wanna advertise on this Saturday show called the Swap Shop where people are calling in because they have garage sale items to sell, right?
JAG: Oh yeah.
Sal: I'm doing these things. We were news talk sports at the time. And I went down there and started working for this person. Name is Matt. And Matt was great and he was like I said, my best friend's cousin and him and his him and his girlfriend worked there. The dad of her owned the station and we were mostly syndicated, but we had a morning show and I was a part of that a little bit. They gave me my little afternoon show.
I was doing that, just whet the appetite a little bit. Keep me going because I had to do the sales thing. But the other thing we did, which is really cool, was we literally carried play-by-play of Little League baseball. And I'm telling you, that sold like hotcakes. Every mom and dad and grandma, grandpa wanted to buy time on the little league games for their business.
JAG: Cause everybody's listening to their kids!
Sal: Yes. And they wanna support their kids. So I did play-by-play of Little League Baseball and it was actually my first real foray and into calling play-by-play. And that was a really cool part of the job. I think when you get in anything in life, but I think especially in this business, you think when you get on the air, when you get outta college, you're gonna be on ESPN like that, right?
Like it's bam, it's gonna happen? You have all these goals and it's not how it works, right? You gotta work and do a lot of other things first. And I was living in this town, I was single. It was an older town. I was trying to pass the time at the same time. I wasn't really moving up necessarily, right?
And you butt your head, you get a little frustrated and. In the meantime, I was actually a bartender at night at a sports bar owned by a couple former New York Port Authority Police. Was cool, and we had a really good time and learning and meeting people, sports are my thing and I'd always been interested in coaching as well.
And they said to me, hey, if you wanna help out, we have a little league team we sponsor if you wanna coach the little league team. So I'm like, yeah, sure. So I started, I was in my twenties, I started coaching and I loved it. We had a good time. I had these mom and dad's and at the same time oh, you know what?
Football is my thing too. So I started coaching Pop Warner football, and I'm in my twenties. I'm coaching Pop Warner football. I have no kids, but I'm coaching. And the high school coach came to me from the local high school and said, look, you do a great job with these kids. I hear a lot of great things about the way you coach, the way you handle these kids, and you're in it for the right reasons. You don't have a kid. Would you like to join our high school staff?
JAG: Oh wow.
Sal: I'm like, yeah, that sounds really good. I think I'd like to coach high school football. So I worked it out where I could do it around the time on radio and I went to coach high school football and I loved it.
And what happens is, down in Florida you have spring football like you do in college. So they play like a whole month of May. They have spring football practice. Jon, after one spring, I'm like, I think maybe this is what I wanna do for the rest of my life. Maybe I don't wanna be in radio anymore.
I really like it. To do that the rest of my life, I'd probably have to be a teacher. So I decided right then and there to get certified to be a teacher and to leave radio and coach and teach for the rest of my life.
JAG: Wow.
Sal: I went to the principal, he said, yep, we could hire you. We love having you on campus.
You're a coach. Your coach here. I went to the University of South Florida. I got certified to teach. And that's where I met my wife of today, of 20 years. She was in two of my classes. She was getting her master's degree at USF in mental health counseling and rehabilitation. And I got certified. I became a social studies teacher.
I taught kids with learning disabilities. I taught everything from ninth grade intro to social to 12th grade American government and economics. I taught 11th grade American history, 10th grade world history. It was awesome. I loved it. I coached football. I was coaching baseball for a while. Then I became the head girls track and field coach for six years.
We won four district championships. I would recruit the living heck outta all the other girls’ teams and have the volleyball players and the basketball players, and we did great. I sent girls off to college. I was having a great time. It was amazing. I loved my life coaching. 10 years. I was coaching high school football in Florida. You get some talent, right?
JAG: Oh my G-d. Yeah.
Sal: I coached against a lot of guys are playing in the NFL now. Coached a lot of kids who went on to play division one football. It was awesome. I learned more about football than I ever thought I would in my life coaching down there. I'd imagine so. But Jon, there was always something missing. And that was talking on the radio.
JAG: Yeah. It's a drug.
Sal: Right? You'll do it. You love it. And not only talking to the radio, but talking in Buffalo on the radio like, this is what I wanna do. I wanna be in Buffalo. I'll be talking like, what's going on here? And I'd be listening online. That was when that started.
And come on, I could do this job. And what happened was we were really good for a while in football and then we started to dip. It's high school football. That's what happens. And we weren't that good. It was getting more to be a chore. It was a grind. We had a guy who was on the staff who, I'll just say it this way, probably shouldn't have been coaching high school kids.
JAG: Understood. Okay.
Sal: The way that he talked around them, the way he acted around them, and it really made my life... I didn't like my life every day going to be around that.
JAG: You mean he was just too hard on them?
Sal: Inappropriate.
JAG: Okay, got it.
Sal: More inappropriate than anything else. Here I am trying to be this adult and mentor and role model and this guy is over here and the kids think that's the coolest thing.
Cause they're kids, they're high school kids. They think, oh, that's the cool guy. This guy Sal, why don't I wanna be around him? He just wants to tell me about how to be a man. I don't want that. I don't wanna be how to have fun and talk the way I wanna talk, if that makes sense.
JAG: It does. Yep.
Sal: As the year went on, I decided I just can't do this anymore. I need to step away. I think I wanna go back into media. And at the same time, it was a long story. I think it's worth it though.
JAG: Absolutely.
Sal: At the same time, 2007, WGR had got rid of a host, a nighttime host.
JAG: This is the news talk station in Buffalo that you're at now.
Sal: Sports, only sports radio., and I said, okay, this is my chance. This is my dream job. WGR. I applied and the program director at the time, Andy Roth, said, “You probably have no shot for this job.” He told me that. He's you're not even working in the business now, but if you have anything, you can send it to me.
What I did was I, this is when podcasting first started. Jon.
JAG: Yeah. You were an OG in podcasting, right?
Sal: That's right. This was, there was a little thing called mysportsradio.com. And they did all these little teams that's it's like Locked On network now.
JAG: Which is partly run by another one of our alumni, Carl Weinstein.
Sal: Exactly right. So this guy, Sam Cutin was his name. He was out in California. He's running this little network and. I'm like, yeah, I could talk about the Bills. And I started podcasting and it was brand new and I'm telling you, I gotta set up like I have now, this little thing and I'm doing like a little video here and there before that ever came in.
This is way back when. And people online were making fun of me. Who's this guy in his basement? Haha. This is before when people made fun of bloggers and casters and all that kind of stuff. And I'm like, this is a means to an end for me, hopefully. And I'm getting my reps, so I send this stuff off to Andy Roth and he's probably a no shot for the job.
Tries out a few people, doesn't like him. Says okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try you out. Says you gotta drive to Tampa. An hour and a half you go to this radio station. I did a show in Buffalo. Halloween night of 07, and it was like the first time I ever actually hosted a show in Buffalo, but I was not in Buffalo.
I was doing it remotely from Tampa at a radio station that was enclosed with no windows. And I'm talking with the producer over instant Messenger on AOL. And I get off and he's you were amazing. I loved your energy. You were fantastic. Wanna do it again? I remember doing it again the next week.
It was election night. Cause I remember saying, hey, it's election night. Get out there and vote. Yeah. Alright. Maybe it was 08 then, either way. But anyway, the point is, really liked me, didn't hire me because they went with somebody else who happened to be the sports director in Buffalo at the CBS affiliate. Has the TV cache, all that kind of stuff.
I wrote a letter to Andy Roth, and I will tell you, when I found out I didn't get the job, I cried like a little baby. I was in my thirties. I'm like, oh my G-d. Wrote a letter to Andy Roth and said, I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to live out my dream, but you made a mistake and you should have hired me.
JAG: Wow. That's chutzpah.
Sal: And he called me and said, listen, if you ever wanna move to Buffalo to start over in radio, you could do it, but you're gonna make minimum wage part-time. Couple years go by. I always thought about that. I was doing the coaching thing and then I decided to step away from coaching and I said to my wife, I always had this dream to go back.
And at the same time, it just so happened, we got married in 03. So we've been married for about eight years and she was actually in transition from one job to another. And my wife looks at me, my wife is from Germany. And she says, we had gone up to Buffalo a couple times and one thing we did was we came up to Buffalo once she ran the Buffalo half Marathon.
And she said, this is a fabulous city. I could live here, by running the marathon.
JAG: No kidding.
Sal: And she said, you know what? If you ever wanna do it, now's the time. I don't wanna wait though, because I'm gonna get another job here. And we haven't had a family yet. If you wanna have kids. She said, we either stay here and have kids, or we move and have kids like, I'm not having kids and moving.
I called Andy Roth, I said, you told me you'd hire me. I'm coming to Buffalo. Quit my job as a teacher. He said, Sal, you're gonna make crap money for crap hours. I said, I don't care. I'm gonna start over. 37 years old. Between my wife and I, we were making a good living. I had my summers off.
I was playing golf twice a week, teaching and coaching. I dropped everything to come back to Buffalo, New York, at the age of 37 to work and start part-time in radio for minimum wage.
JAG: Wow. This is an incredible story and I'm so glad you're sharing it today. This is amazing. So you quit the full-time job, the nice life. Like you said, you end up in Buffalo. Talk to me about how you climbed the totem pole there over the last decade and a half.
Sal: So I come up in 2011. Craziest story is after I committed to this and did it, my wife moves up to live with friends while I'm getting everything situated in down in Florida. While that's happening, my friend calls me.
I'm literally at CarMax selling my car. I had a convertible and I couldn't bring it to Buffalo. He calls me and he says, who's the guy that hired you in Buffalo? I said, Andy Roth. He goes, you might want to hear this. He's leaving to go to Cleveland to start The Fan in Cleveland.
JAG: Oh no.
Sal: And I'm like, what? I call him in a panic and he goes, yep, I will not be here when you get here. He says, but don't worry. This person knows you're coming. This person, I'm coming up cold, Jon. I know nobody.
JAG: Because you always wanna have that person championing you. And your champion was out the door, so at least he put a word in for you.
Sal: I guess he did and it worked out. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. Because I came up and with Andy here, he was gonna put me on producing and starting off in the bottom or whatever, which I still had to do. But all the people here were like, yeah, Andy loves this guy. He hired him, put him on the air and like they started giving me these jobs on the air and they just trusted me. Hey, Andy likes you and you're here and let's go.
So we did that. The new program director comes in, Alan Davis, who's still there with me now, and he like really likes me. He sees I'm a go getter, starts putting me all these shifts and as luck would have it, six months later, we get the rights to the Bills.
JAG: Wow.
Sal: And I'm there. I'm in the building. I had struck a relationship with John Murphy.
Murph's like "put Sal on stats.". In the meantime, I'm working part-time as a fill-in host. I'm substitute teaching in the city of Buffalo to make money during the day. That's how I was making money. My wife's got a job. She's starting over again pretty much, but we're starting to work our way up. We get the rights to the Bills.
That happens. Two years later. I become the Bills sideline reporter, then I become the Bills beat reporter. Then I become the host, and this is literally how everything rose up to where it is now.
JAG: It really is a fantastic story of, yes, being in the right place at the right time on one hand, but more so putting in the time and effort and the work and the networking, and it probably always go, goes back to things you learned at Z89.
Sal: A hundred percent. The relationships, the networking, understanding those roles, and even, I'll tell you the sales part of it, like I said, I think I have like maybe 10 endorsements overall right now with businesses and products and, but those relationships, that's part of the reason I was climbing because the sales team would sell me, right? They don't sell products. They we're selling Sa; Capaccio. You wanna be a part of him talking about you on the radio or something like that. On the sidelines or on a show? And that helped elevate my profile and people want to be attached to me, which obviously then the company's hey, this guy's got this profile, people were selling em.
And that starts to raise it up. But also just the overall interaction of making a connection to what happened was a few years before I came up. I literally came up one time I was in Florida. I came up for a Bills training camp just to watch. I wanted to go to St. John Fisher in Rochester, watch the Bills training camp, and while I was there, I was still living in Florida.
I said to myself, hey, you know what? I wanna meet John Murphy. John Murphy was working as the Bills play-by-play guy. He was working at CBS in Buffalo. I called. He had no idea who I was. Literally called. Got through to him and said, my name's Sal Capaccio. I went to Syracuse like you did. Murph's a Syracuse guy. I said, I just want to come in and pick your brain about the business.
He's come on in. Went in. We sat for an hour. We talked. We stayed in contact. When we get the Bills rights, he's the play-by-play guy. He's the one that says, hey, this Sal Capaccio guy, I got to know. I trust him. I wanna put him on the broadcast. Because of that networking, because of me reaching out to him. That's how that happens.
JAG: Wow. You are doing the dream gig, you are doing sideline for the bills, the team you grew up rooting for, you've made some sacrifices then that they paid off dividends for you. Now, what would you tell anybody who's at the station now who wants to pursue a dream like this that you haven't already mentioned?
Sal: I do a lot of talks with kids, high school juniors, seniors who wanna go into this or somebody who are is in the business, and I would tell them the same thing. I would tell all of them whether they're there already or they're not. Do as much as you can. Do as much as you can. As Jon, when you go to a place like Syracuse, there are a lot of people who think you're gonna get a piece of paper and that's gonna get you a job.
That's not how it works in our business. Our resume. It is not on paper. It's not on this. This is not our resume. Our resume is this. Yeah. Our resume is the microphone. It's the camera. It's the writing. That's what you have to show. You have to show your personality. You have to show who you are.
You have to make those contacts. I always say it this way, you don't have to be great at everything, but you gotta know how to do everything.
JAG: I like that.
Sal: Gone are the days when I got in the business. When you got in the business, you were either a broadcaster or a writer or a producer, or like you had a role.
Everybody does everything now. I remember being down at the Bills facility one day. When I first moved up, maybe a couple years later, I see fellow Syracuse, guy, Adam Benigni, goes to Syracuse. Adam Benigni is now working in Buffalo. My college roommate, John Willie, was Adam Benigni's intern at W whatever in Syracuse on tv, and now Adam's, the NBC sports director here in Buffalo.
I see Adam carrying a camera. He's talent, right? He's the anchor. I'm like, dude, what do you got a camera for? He goes, oh, that's the way we do things now. Like they're not hiring three people to do one job, right? I gotta set this camera up. I gotta film it. I gotta edit it. I gotta have it ready to roll for the six o'clock news.
I'm like, oh my God. That's wild. But that's the way it is now, John. Like when I got in this business, I never imagined I'd have to write for a website every day. I gotta write for a website every day. I gotta have it stories up. I don't love it, but it's part of my job. It's just part of what I have to do every day, because that's what the company wants.
That's what people read. They look, they want the clicks, they want the sales. They want all that. Also, if you do say, I'm a broadcaster, guess what? Studio, work, hosting, pre-game, post-game, play-by-play. All of those things matter. Again, do as much as you can. Figure it out later. You might actually not know that you love a certain part of the job that you wind up understanding you love.
I didn't actually wanna be a play-by-play guy when I was younger. I love it. Now I do play-by-play for ESPN plus, I've done college basketball and I do high school football every Friday night for here at local Spectrum news, college hockey, I've done things like that. You never know when something like that's gonna happen, but you gotta be ready, gotta prepared for it, because that could take you another way where you say, okay, because if you only do and you only focus on one thing or one way, you're gonna be eaten up in this business pretty quickly and it's gonna frustrate you.
And you're gonna say I'm out.
JAG: Yeah. There are a number of people listening to this podcast who want to do what you are doing for a living. If you'd be so kind. Take me through an average Sunday home game day in your life.
Sal: Love it. Okay. Sunday home game. I leave my house. I get up and get ready. First of all, I have to know the weather. So how am I dressing?
JAG: Oh, Buffalo. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Sal: I have to know the weather. So a Sunday in September is way different than a Sunday in December, by the way. Because I might have to get up earlier to get all of those clothes ready, but I get ready here in the morning. I usually leave here about 7:30 in the morning.
JAG: For a one o'clock kickoff.
Sal: Yeah. It's a 20-minute drive to the stadium from my house, which is nice. So I'll usually get to the stadium by eight o'clock. When I get there, I immediately go to the radio booth. I check in with the engineers. Everything's going good. I'm listening to the radio station. At nine o'clock is my first hit.
I go live on our pregame show. We're the flagship station. We have the pregame show. I go live on our pregame show from 9:00 to 9:30. After that, at some point I'm probably doing a hit with the opposing team's radio. They usually contact me and say, can we get you on? We just figure out a time. It's sometime probably around 9:30 to 10 o'clock, somewhere there. May be around 10 o'clock.
Also, at some point during that next hour or so, I have to do a Facebook Live for our station. To actually go on Facebook, go live video, hey, I'm here, it's sponsored. This is what's happening today. Do a preview for it. Something like that. Then I get a chance to settle down, do my notes.
I usually have a lot of them prepared already, but there's always things that pop up on a Sunday. You're learning about Adam Schefter's tweeting about injuries that who's gonna be available, who's not. So I'm doing my notes. I'm getting all that. Murph actually likes for me to give him a bullet point about 10 notes that he can turn to, to throw it down to me on the sidelines at some point in the game.
So that's one of the things I make sure I give Murph, a list of something, just things that I wanna talk about that I think are important during the game. He trusts me to do that, so I give him that. Then at 11 o'clock it really ramps up. 11 o'clock is our network pregame and what's called the round table.
And I am the host of the round table. It's me, it's Eric Wood, our color guy, and who played Center for the Bills. And it's Chris Brown from BuffaloBills.com and for an hour I host the round table and it's just basically, us talking about the game. I'm the one that sets up what we're gonna talk about that day.
It's generally something about the offense, the defense, special teams, all that, but there's always stuff going on. There are different storylines. Every game. We're going for a good hour. This year it changed because that was an hour. In other years it was only 35 minutes. But at some point on Sunday, a lot of times I'm also doing a TV hit for CBS in Buffalo.
JAG: Jeez.
Sal: It used to be live at 11:35. I would go on the show, it's called Buffalo Kickoff Live, and I would literally throw off my headphones, run down to the field and get on the television, go live with CBS. I am still part of that show. It's just the difference of, because the round table cuts in, if I'm doing something recorded, if I'm live earlier for a hit, what I'm doing, but I'm doing, at some point, I'm doing CBS Live television in Buffalo, or recorded television in Buffalo.
Once I'm done, I go down to the field. I'm down on the field now. Sometimes I do the round table from down in the field. It always depends on weather. It depends on the connection we're getting at that time of day. Yeah. If they want me in the booth, the engineers basically say, go down, stay up, whatever. But a lot of times I'm on the field during pre-game warmups, doing the round table, asking Chris and Eric questions.
12 o'clock rolls around. Now I can settle down, watch warmups. I'm watching warmups. Is there a guy injured? How is he running? How's Josh looking with the elbow? Is he throwing the ball okay? Do I see anybody that boy, they were questionable to play. They look like they're out here. Okay. We got the inactive list, so talk about that.
I'm going through my kind of pre-game mental checklist, if you will, down there walking around saying hi to people. Just getting the kind of the day set up. Then the game kicks off. I go back on the air with John Murphy at 12:40 usually. Usually he'll throw put me on at 12:40, kickoff at one o'clock.
That's just my pregame hit from the sidelines kickoff at one o'clock. During the game, my role, I have to read, once a quarter I have to read a scoreboard report from around the league that's sponsored. I have to do a sideline report every quarter that's sponsored, and I have to keep you aware of any injuries that are going on top of just regular things I wanna chime in on.
That's my role. I'm watching for injuries. If I see Micah Hyde coming off the field and he's limping, I'll say to our producer, I'll actually go into the mic and say, hey, got my mic right here. We're on video. I'll show you, but I'll go on my mic and I'll go, hey, Micah Hyde's limping off the field. I'm watching him and the producer, Greg Harvey hears me, but it doesn't go over the air, right?
He says, okay. He says, we'll throw it down to you in a second. He tells Murph. Murph goes, let's go down to the field with Sal. I go, hey guys. I'm keeping an eye on Micah Hyde. He's been limping around down here. He's at the trainer's table right now. We'll keep you updated as things go on. That's pretty much how it goes.
And then I read a sponsor. It's usually some injury attorney or something that's sponsor the injury.
JAG: Brilliant. Love it.
Sal: Yes of course. So I do that, and that happens throughout the game. I'm chiming in as soon as the game is over. If the Bills win. I run on the field and get a player interview.
And generally what happens, it's a kind of a cool part of the job, it's really funny, is so CBS, Fox, ESPN, whatever, they pay billions of dollars for the game. I would love to interview Josh Allen after the game. That's not happening cuz they're getting them.
JAG: That's fair. Yeah.
Sal: Okay. So let's say Tracy Wolfson is there, or Evan Washburn, somebody from CBS.
I go up to them with a few minutes left and go, hey, who are you guys getting today? And Tracy's we're getting Josh and Gabe Davis. I'm like, okay, who do I get then? Because now I gotta think. I can't get either of them. I'll go to Bills PR. Hey, this is who I'm thinking. Oh yeah, that sounds good. Or who you thinking? Who had a good game today? So we're like working through this. You remember the 13 seconds game? The Bills lost in Kansas City. Of course you do, right?
JAG: I wasn't gonna go there for it. But yeah.
Sal: So this happens. I go to Tracy. So who are you getting? Who are you getting? We're talking about it. After they score a touchdown, we are setting up our post-game interviews for the Bills win.
Cuz we think the Bills are gonna win, and I am all set. I don't even remember who I was gonna get, and then everything went the way it did. Yeah. This is what happens, right? You're in that mode. You're thinking about it. So I interview the player, I'm like, okay, I run out there I go.
Okay. All right. Devin Singletary. He's not on the Bills anymore, just signed with the Texans. But hey Devin, two touchdowns today. Take me to the first touchdown through it, and you know what happened. We do that. I sign off soon as I sign off. I head right to the the postgame media room.
I give all my equipment to the engineer, I throw it off, blah, blah, blah. I hook up my new equipment to get to the locker room, to do postgame interviews, to have recorded sound to send back to the station. Everything's done digital these days. It's so cool. I actually record all of my interviews on my phone and literally within two seconds, hit two buttons and send it to the station and they could play it.
They can say it's live or hey, a couple seconds ago, Sal just talked with this player. They can do that. In the meantime, I'm in the locker room, Coach McDermott, Josh Allen. They're all talking to the media. We're carrying that live. That's why I don't have to be in that room. It's live then, so we're double dipping.
They're getting it live from them. I'm getting the recorded sound from the players. As soon as that's done, everybody's leaving the stadium. Sometimes I'll go outside and do a TV hit for one of the TV stations. What did Sal think? He's on the sidelines. What do you think about today? After that, I go back up into the press box, and starting last year we started doing myself and Matt Bove, the Channel 7 sports director here. We do a podcast. It's always gameday in Buffalo. We will record our postgame podcast literally there that night.
JAG: Geez, it's all fresh.
Sal: A hundred percent and we want it out because. Yeah, we want people to get it as soon as possible. You don't want to get lost in the shuffle. Immediate reaction. And then I can go home and basically, I'll call my wife. I'll text her. I'll say, hey, wrapping up here in about an hour. A 1;00 game, probably talking like seven, eight o'clock. I'd been there for 12 hours already. I go home. I try to see my family and try to see my son before he goes to bed, and then when I get home, I write a column for my website called Arrow Up, Arrow Down, which was who was good, who was bad during the game.
That takes me to about, sometimes I take my time with it, halftime of Sunday Night Football. I like to have it posted by, maybe if I can, while I'm watching the game. Then I get to bed and I have to go on the air to do a radio hit at 7:00 AM the next morning to talk.
JAG: It's an amazing dream gig for so many, but man, it is a lot of work. I'm exhausted just listening to you describe it.
Sal: It's awesome. I wouldn't change it for anything. I love it. And the road games are great too. You go to these cities. We fly in the night before the game. We get there about four o'clock at the hotel and everything is the same. You just go from the hotel instead of my home, but you go on a team bus, you get taken there, all that stuff. But as soon as the game is over, like we get an hour and a half to get in the locker room, do the interviews, and then you gotta be on that bus to get to the plane, right? So you get on the bus and we fly back immediately, and then I get home and that's when I'll record my podcast and write my column.
JAG: I mean, first off, you are working with one of the greatest fan bases in all of sports and most diehard dedicated fan bases. And you had such a wild year last year, of things that happened. We'll get to the obvious in a second, but you mentioned home game, road games, having to come here to Detroit where I am to play that game here at Ford Field and that insanity with the snowstorm. Too much snow to play in buffalo is a awful lot of snow.
Sal: Unbelievable. And the only thing that really bothered me about that was the. I hate the word, but I'll say it. The narrative that, oh, build a dome, the, what are you guys doing? It didn't matter what, they could have had a dome sitting right Where Highmark Stadium is. They had to move the game because nobody could travel in Buffalo, right?
You got a state of emergency, nobody could get it or out anywhere. It was crazy. It had a driving ban that was going on, and so it wasn't about that. It was just about how much snow there was and having to move the game because you couldn't have people moving. It was unsafe. You couldn't get emergency vehicles in or out.
How are you supposed to play a football game? It's 60,000. 70,000 people. So yeah, we went to Detroit and that was a crazy wild game. And the Lions played tough and the Bills came back and won it at the end. And then I'm sorry. Played Cleveland. I'm sorry. And that was the game where Cleveland played the Bills tough went to the fourth quarter, we went back home and they got back on a plane three days later, four days later to go back to Detroit to then play the Lions on Thanksgiving, right?
Yes, exactly. And the Lions played the Bills tough in that game. So that was wild.
JAG: Take me if you are comfortable discussing it. Obviously the biggest story with the Bills this year was Damar Hamlin.
Sal: Yeah.
JAG: What a scary moment that was, and then the amazing way it turned out. But you're the sideline guy. As best you're comfortable. Take me through that night through your eyes, cuz I can't imagine what it was like to be right there as all that was happening.
Sal: It was pretty raw emotion when I would talk about it back then. It's not as difficult now knowing that Damar is doing as well as he is.
JAG: Yeah. Yeah.
Sal: So it's okay to talk about it, but it's still pretty heavy to think about. And to take myself back to that night because Jon, like the job is the job. You're doing the job, and we're always taught to detach ourself emotionally. And I did have to do that while doing the job, but you're watching a young man die in front of you. And be revived.
And it's pretty unbelievable to think about those circumstances. So my job, as I told you before, was partly, a lot of it, is to watch for injuries. So the game had just started. It would, we were halfway through the first quarter and I see a tackle made. I'm standing maybe 40 yards away.
I'm on the Bills sideline, he's at about midfield. I'm at about maybe the 25 yard line. I'm looking that way. I just see a guy on the Bills team make a tackle, stand up and then just go, bam, fall backwards. We've all seen it, right? I didn't know it was happening, but I said to Greg Harvey, our producer, and our, my, the mic, I go, hey, someone's down. Someone's down. I can't get a number on it, but we don't know. But I see this all the time. I've seen guys collapse. I've seen guys go down. I've even seen it look like that. Just not, it's not that often, but, maybe a concussion or something. That's what you're thinking. Yeah. Yeah. Head injury. He's out of it. He's out.
JAG: You're thinking like Tua Tagliova earlier in the season.
Sal: Sure. Something like that. We're trying to figure out what's going on. Oh yeah, it's Damar Hamlin. And then it just started taking a little while and then you saw the trainers out there and that just started taking a li a little longer than what you would normally expect.
And everybody's starting to gather around a little bit. And then I start to see guys getting really emotional and I'm like, boy, something's up here. Like they see their teammate fallen here. This is not normal, right? But I wonder what's going on. And even then it didn't really hit you. But in the meantime, I'm still, my job is to do the job.
JAG: Yeah.
Sal: They're throwing it down to me. I'm explaining what's going on. I'm not getting caught up in the emotion of it yet. I'm explaining what's going on, what do I see? Here's the players and yeah, guys are getting a little emotional out there. We see them working on Damar. I walk down. Thad Brown, who works for WROC in Rochester here, it's like a CBS affiliate.
He's on the field, he's a cameraman on the field shooting, and he's looking through his lens. I go, what are you seeing? He goes, boy, he goes, Sal, I'm telling you it looks to me like they just did CPR on him. I'm like, no way.
JAG: Wow. Like
Sal: I, who would ever think something like that, right? When that happens, all of the people on the sidelines go off the sidelines and they're forming a wall around Damar and not just a wall, but they did it with their back to him and their front to us. So they didn't want us to see what was going on.
It was intentional to make sure this was being shielded. At that moment, I'm like, okay, something bad is happening in there. Couple that with what Thad just told me and now I'm thinking, dear G-d, are we watching a player literally die on the field?
JAG: Ohhh, okay.
Sal: And then on top of that, players are just losing it. Yeah. Emotions, bawling. Heads on shoulders crying, hugging, and I'm like, yeah, this is, by that time, I think if my timeline is right, ESPN had reported they were doing CPR. People had talked about it. So now we know okay, this is really heavy.
Everybody's out there. Then what really made it hit home more than anything for me was while everybody's out there, I'm one of the only people left on the sidelines. I hear a voice behind me. Just kinda a little frantic and I'm like, okay, what's going on? I turn, and there's a woman at the wall and she's wearing a Damar Hamlin jersey. It was his mom.
JAG: Yeah.
Sal: And she's saying, that's my son. I need to get on the field. That's my son. And I'm like, oh my God. So I turn around. I see one of the Bills, it's the Bills team chaplain actually. And I said hey, and I pointed, I said, that's Damar's mom. She's trying to get down. And then Dane Jackson turns around, he sees her. And Dane and Damar played college at Pitt. So he knew who she was.
Everybody's, what do we do? The chaplain goes and gets Bills security. Bills security goes, gets Bengals security. Bengals security goes up to her and says, this is what you do. You couldn't get down on the field where she was. They literally had her go walk around and meet the ambulance. So as it's driving off, she comes down into the tunnel, she meets the ambulance.
JAG: Ugh.
Sal: They drive the ambulance into the tunnel. We're all watching, Jon. I am standing near midfield, maybe at this time watching. I can see into the tunnel, the ambulance with its lights on just sitting there and people are still on the field and guys are starting to warm up. And I'm like, how are we playing a football game here? Like how does that happen?
JAG: Because even sitting at home watching at that point we're, are they playing? Are they not playing or what's going on?
Sal: And this is not a criticism of anybody. I think you know what it is because what are athletes trained to do. What are football players trained to do? You play. You go play. Your teammate got hurt, he'll be all right. You go play. That's what people are trained to do. So it's not a criticism. There was a lot of controversy in the days following about who said five minute warmup? Who said it's ready to play?
I'm telling you, for anybody out there needs to know this. I was on the sidelines that night. No one said to anybody, we're starting this game in five minutes. No one said the league says this. No one said it. It was players taking the initiative because that's what they're trained to do. To warm up to play. All right?
But we're all thinking, how's this gonna work? And they're crying still. They're hugging each other. I remember Stefon Diggs though, going to everybody and going, come on, let's go. Let's get back up. We gotta do it. Let's go back out there. We gotta get ready. Like he was trying to do that. Then I see the coach for the Bengals come over, Zack Taylor.
Come over and talk to Sean McDermott. And that's when they decided this can't happen right now. And Sean said, I gotta be there with Damar. And Zach's yeah, let's see what happens here. They called everybody off the field. The ambulance was still in the tunnel by now at this time. They called everybody off the field.
Damar is in the ambulance at this point. He's in the ambulance. Yes. And they go into the tunnel. The players go to their locker rooms. We follow him in there. It was while we're in the tunnel. And then security made us move out of the tunnel and said, you can come in here, but you can't have any cameras.
You can come in here, but you can't have any microphones. And then they made all of the people in the media who were shooting into the tunnel take down their cameras. You couldn't even shoot into the tunnel. They didn't want anybody shooting what was going on. Damar's in the ambulance, winds up leaving.
We see his mom and dad were in there. Terry Pegula was in the ambulance. He comes out, he goes into the locker room. Sean McDermott, Zach Taylor. They're on a phone with the league, like this talking speaker phone. I think it's with the commissioner. We're all seeing it. But we can't record it. We can't talk about it. But we, I can go back out in the field and I could talk on the mic.
I can't shoot any video. Nothing like that. We're being told all this. So now in the meantime what I would do is I would walk out of the tunnel to turn on my mic to tell everybody, give 'em an update. What's going on the radio. Cause we're live still. So then I'd walk back in the tunnel. I'd try to find out what's going on and be the reporter.
Then I'd come out, I'd go on the radio, talk about what's going on. We waited. Nobody knew, and then they ultimately said, we're gonna delay the game. And we went in. We were sitting in there and then they said they were gonna cancel the game, or we'll find out when we're gonna play. But we couldn't go in the locker room like we normally would for post-game interviews, of course.
And they kept us very far away from that. When we went in the tunnel area. Normally I could just walk by the locker room and even, go in it at that point. But they kept us all at bay. They kept some barriers up and said, don't even walk near the locker room. They let the players have their privacy in their space.
We waited a good 45 minutes till the locker room was clear. Then we all got in line to get on the bus. And once we got on the bus, I waited another hour or so on the bus. It might have been close to that. Leslie Frazier comes on the bus, Bills defensive coordinator and says, hey, here's the deal. We're not gonna play tonight.
We're going back home. We knew we weren't playing, we're not gonna, we're not gonna come back tomorrow. They're gonna postpone this game to another time or even cancel it. That's when we first found out he said, but we can't leave yet because some coaches and players are at the hospital with Damar.
JAG: Oh, geez.
Sal: We had to wait for them to come back, and then we ultimately left, I think at about 12:15 in the morning to come back to Buffalo. Got back here the next morning. I remember landing at about 2:00 AM. I remember texting Amy Lawrence, she was on overnights on CBS radio, and Amy and I, we've gotten to know each other over the years and I texted her cause she was talking about it.
I said, Amy, if you want me to go on, I'll go on with you to tell you though what's going on, because I consider her, a friend and somebody I wanted to help out and give her some clarity on what's going on.
JAG: This is news or sports?
Sal: Amy Lawrence, overnight. CBS Sports. She does an overnight talk show and literally live at about two in the morning.
I called Amy Lawrence was on CBS radio explaining everything that happened that night, and then I got up maybe about 6, 6 30 to go on the radio to talk. And I remember I have it in my phone actually. I remember I. The next day, my radio interviews that I was contacted with and calling, I'm showing you on the phone, Dallas. Say Dallas Radio Spot, Cleveland, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Washington, Atlanta, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, San Diego, CBS Sports, ESPN Radio.
They were all calling me that day. And look, I did it because Jon, I thought it was my obligation to be the eyes and ears for people. To tell them what was going on and to talk about Damar Hamlin and what kind of man he is. And to give his story. And I thought that was very important to do the next day.
JAG: And it had to be just so heartwarming for you to see the story turn out the way it did, where he's taken care of, he's recovered, he's coming back, and he, all this money that got raised, you hear all these stories of fans, raising money for an opposing quarterback's charity or, and he had this little GoFundMe for Christmas presents that was just this little thing, and then it just blows up into millions and millions of dollars.
Sal: Yeah, it's awesome that the story from then with the things that happened since then and all the money that was raised, there's no doubt that is incredible. But I think just getting him back and healthy and now cleared to play is such an amazing story. And here you and I are talking on schedule release day.
JAG: Yeah, we're recording this on May 11th is a timestamp for those listening.
Sal: The schedule comes out at eight o'clock tonight. We're starting to get some leaks. I've been on that all day and trying to figure out who's playing where. And I think it's a cool puzzle. I always do it every year, just try to figure it out.
And I like the leaks, but one of the big ones is the Bills and the Bengals are playing again this year. And it's in Cincinnati again this year, and someone reached out to me last night and said, I'm hearing Bills Bengals Sunday night football, November 5th. It might be true. It might not be. We'll find out here soon, but that's a national storyline because that's the return of Damar Hamlin in Cincinnati that night.
JAG: Absolutely. This is I'm not even sure where to go from here because it's such a powerful story and to hear you tell it from your firsthand perspective and witnessing it, and a credit to you professionally of having to weigh the emotion with it. But that also you have a job to do and players are trained to get back on the field.
You're trained to get the story and tell the story, but the raw emotion of that moment, it had to be a really difficult line to walk.
Sal: It was. I don't think it hit me until the next day. I think I was so focused on doing the job, like the adrenaline. I don't think it hit me until the next day. I really was in like reporter mode, just like I gotta tell everybody what's going on here. And then the next day, like I got emotional on a lot of these radio interviews I was doing, and I'm like, I can't believe what I saw and I can't believe what I'm hearing about him and his condition. It was improving as we went on and things like that, which made it easier.
But it, yeah, I don't think it hit me then until the next day, what happened. And then you build the relationships too, with the people who were involved. And I was on the Zoom calls with the doctors and things like that, that they were doing, and you try to, the national media that was descending upon Buffalo that week. We couldn't go to the facility. They would not let us in.
The first time we heard from anybody was Josh Allen and Sean McDermott. A couple players did a press conference like on Wednesday. Maybe Thursday. Like we couldn't even go to the facility. It was just, it was a very interesting week. And then of course, How can you forget the emotion of the first game back against the Patriots, the opening, kickoff return? I'm sure you know that. Even watching as a Patriots fan, unbelievable.
JAG: Yeah it's even as a Patriots fan, it was just a storybook.
Sal: It really was. Yeah, it was incredible. So it's great and to see Damar and the, all the things they're doing now for. The AEDs and CPR training that he's a big part of, to be an agent for change, to get more AEDs available for youth and youth sports and schools and the CPR training that's going into it.
And I, I just think a lot of really good positive change has come out of this really what could have been tragic situation, obviously.
JAG: Really appreciate you walking us through it. Before we wrap, not an easy transition here. Before we wrap, I wanna come back to your time full circle at WJPZ. Any funny stories you remember from your time at Z 89 that come to you years later?
Sal: Ooh, funny stories, man. So it's not funny to me, but it is funny. Mike Murphy, you said, he helped you reach out. He was the sports director. I was the assistant. Mike had to suspend me for a game.
JAG: Oh?
Sal: He had to suspend me for he wanted to. No, he didn't though. I talked him out of it. He was going to suspend me. Here's what happened. Here's what happened. All right. Z 89 wanted to do like a big NBA preview of the NBA season. And they were looking for people to do this preview thing and I'm like, oh yeah, I'll do one. And I volunteered just on a whim and I didn't really follow up with whoever I was supposed to follow up with, and the person complained like, oh, Sal didn't do what he's supposed to do. And it made it bad for like how we were supposed to go on the air and do this thing, and I didn't. Honestly, Jon, I don't even remember who it was with the team. I just kinda yeah, I'll do it. I'm volunteering, help out or whatever.
Didn't get all the information that's on me and the person complained and Mike's yeah, I gotta do something. And he was gonna suspend me from covering the Miami football game at the Dome that weekend.
JAG: Oh.
Sal: Warren Sapp coming to town. Oh my G-d. He didn't suspend me. I talked him out of it. It was good.
JAG: Nicely done. Nicely done. There you go.
Sal: No, but people were mad at him for not suspending me. So I don't know if he remembers that. He probably does. But he was a good dude and he still is. But that, that sticks to me that something like that happened. I remember Mike Formasano was a crazy man. He was awesome in a crazy way.
He was really good. He was a good guy. And what I say about that is he's now the head brewmaster of a huge brewery making beer. And it's awesome. And I remember him being like a sports director for a little while. So that was really cool. I remember going to see Boys II Men and Montell Jordan with a bunch of people from Z89 through the promotions department. That was really cool. They were playing out at the fair or something like that at one time.
JAG: That's awesome. You mentioned Murphy a couple times. Other folks that you stay in touch with over the years, you still come in contact with?
Sal: I think Facebook just allows for that. So it's probably a lot of people, right? Just people you just reach out to. You doing this and Matt Friedman. Matt Friedman a really great guy, in, in Detroit, Matt from Detroit.
JAG: Yeah. He's been a mentor to me for since the moment I set foot in the Motor City.
Sal: Absolutely. A hundred percent. Matt's always been great. I remember a few years ago he reached out to me because Ralph Wilson was inducted in the Detroit Hall of Fame. That's where Ralph's from. I got Matt in touch with the Bills to be able to know about that. That was really cool. Just that interaction and that connection.
I think a lot of people, but in my own way it's not necessarily you're hanging out with them every day or anything like that. But I think just here and there you say, oh yeah, we did radio together, or we were on something together. Ben Cerney, Ben was year behind me, worked at Z 89 for a little while.
I don't think he was there a long time. It was a couple years he worked there and he did some things in sports. And then he went on to be a producer at ESPN for a long time. And he produced the college football game like the noon game of college football for a long time. He's now since left to be a part of a launch of a company, and I actually did one of these, what I'm doing with you, For him actually about a year ago, which was really cool.
JAG: That's really cool. Sal Capaccio from the class of 1995, the resident expert on the Buffalo Bills living out his dream, like so many of us at Z 89 wanted to when we first set foot on campus. Thanks for your time today.
Sal: Anytime, man. Thank you. Love Z 89. Always gonna be here for Z 89 no matter what.