A Day that changed a franchise and me

A Day that changed a franchise and me

This is the week that I started full time in radio. I will always remember because the week finished with me heading to Foxboro to host a pregame party before the Raiders Patriots AFC Divisional game which was 19 years ago yesterday. The famous snow bowl game or if you’re a raiders fan, the tuck rule game. That game changed the trajectory of a franchise, their coach and their quarterback, but a mile down the road it also changed things for me.

I had just left working on Top 40 radio where we used to get moms and kids hyped up before pop concerts (think Britney Spears & *NSYNC) and a week later I am on stage in front of over a thousand cold, beer drinking, male sports fans! I was nervous to say the least.

I had been a DJ for a few years, being on stage wasn’t that intimidating to me, but THIS audience was. My only varsity letter in high school was in girls basketball, as the team videographer. I never really fit in with the jocks and now I needed to get on stage and make this crowd of male sports fans go crazy...

During my first announcement, I was not great and a few of the guys in the front were heckling me. I ignored them and just kept hitting my message points. When I came off stage, I asked my boss how I should handle them? I had never been heckled before a boyband show! She laughed and told me to give it back to them but in a fun way. On my next break, this same guy started in on me again and I leaned on my experiences from bartending at TGI Friday’s, where my friend Eddy taught me to trash with the best of them, but always with a smile! So that nervous kid took a deep breathe and looked right at that guy and pointed at him. The crowd stopped to see what I was going to say. I went at this guy hard and fast. He was stunned and his friends were cracking up. Once I knew I had them on my side, I just kept going and the crowd loved it! I stood tall again and I went on to crush that crowd. I used every trick I had in bartender bag of tricks for the rest of the event and all of my new coworkers and the client came up to congratulate for nailing my first gig. It felt great!

That shy kid from the top 40 station left that bar the quick witted, wisecracking, confident guy from the #1 Sports Radio Station in America. I thought my experiences from my internship and working at another station would be the keys to my success at my first big job and they were important to me getting there, but it was the lessons that I learned pouring drinks and making people smile that put me over the top. There are lessons to be learned in every situation, from learning how to handle a heckler when I was a bartender to exuding the confidence on that stage from that point forward changing the way crowds reacted to me. Stay hungry to learn and you will never stop getting better.

By the way at the end of the event that guy came up to me and congratulated me as well. He said, “I started it, but man you killed me! Great job.”

#GaryVeeChallenge #BeHappy #BrandedHappy #AlwaysBeLearning #LessonsEverywhere #Radio #Patriots #Raiders #TuckRule #SnowBowl