Living in the Bay Area, my sports radio options are pretty limited. There's the self-appointed "Sports Leader" (and ESPN backed) KNBR, and for the better part of two decades it's been KNBR or KNBR, in terms of options.
KNBR represents everything that's wrong with sports radio these days. The station practically oozes all things ESPN Corporate Policy, while parading nothing but insipid and syrup spewing hosts that claim to be "hard hitting" all the while sending me to my smart phone to listen to WSCR The Score. All of that changed this past summer with the premier of 95.7 The Game.
The Game, while still pretty far from a finished product, is a refreshing alternative to the ESPN Propaganda Machine that is KNBR. It is obvious anytime you listen to The Game's broadcasts, the opinions offered are strictly theirs, and are not tied to some money-making machine operating out of Bristol, CT. Their hosts actually have original thoughts, that are well informed in addition to having credibility behind them, while maintaining a connection to the alienated Bay Area Sports Fan. So it would seem only natural that The Game would start a contest called "Lucky Break".
What's "Lucky Break" you ask? It is a sports reality competition the station is having with the purpose of finding an ordinary listener and giving him/her a full time position as an on-air talk show host. Think of it as a sports equivalent of American Idol. Naturally I was intrigued, and (you guessed it) I decided to compete.
How did I do? I'll get to that in a moment. First I must set the scene. The competition itself has 4 preliminary tryouts, with the idea of selecting a total of 16 second round qualifiers out of the 4 tryouts. My schedule allowed me to compete in the second tryout last Wednesday. The tryout was located at a bar/restaurant about 2 minutes away from where I work. At the tryout there were 39 other hopefuls alongside of me, all with the same goal of qualifying for the next round.
The judges had me (along with dozens of others) give "The Big Opinion", in which I'm responsible for giving a 90 second long rant on any particular Bay Area Sports subject (it's not as easy as it sounds). I decided to give my opinion on whether or not Barry Bonds is a Hall Of Famer. Oh yeah...did I mention that I had give my opinion live in front of the judges as well as my fellow competitors and the entire audience at the bar?
Needless to say, it's a pretty nerve-wracking environment. If you don't possess the necessary chops to verbalize your knowledge of a particular subject, you run the risk of complete embarrassment and humiliation from both the judges and the audience. The pressure is really on you to deliver, and it takes a lot of courage and/or self-delusion depending on your perspective, to get up there to perform.
Despite all of that pressure, I went ahead with my audition anyway. After all, I do have a history of performing live in front of an audience (starred in a play in college), and I've been told numerous times that I can be very engaging. I owed it to myself to see if I was up to the challenge of putting aside my fear, and giving it the best that I've got.
Now the story would be great if I advanced to the next round, however that wasn't the case. It wasn't that I bombed you understand. As a matter of fact, I thought I did pretty well, and I wasn't alone. The judges themselves complimented me on my knowledge, delivery, vocal inflection, and passion. They were all unanimous that I did a "good job". As you'll see if you click on the link below, the judges were not holding back if somebody sucked, so it's not like the review of my performance was being sugar-coated! They made it pretty clear to me that I didn't suck, plus my fellow competitors felt I did a great job as well, as I received numerous compliments on my performance after I sat down.
Could/Should I be mad I didn't advance to the next round? Maybe. Am I mad about it? Not really. This wasn't necessarily about winning the competition, or advancing to the next round. This had more to do with proving to myself that I could take my supposed sports expertise with my ability to entertain, and put on a 90 second show for people while putting aside my fear of embarrassment. In that regard I consider myself successful.
Despite that consolation however, I still felt I should have advanced. You can click HERE to see the guys that did advance as well as the guys who bombed.
So even though I didn't advance, I still had a fun time. Chances like this don't come along everyday, and at the very least I rolled the dice so to speak. I guess I'll be "stuck" posting my random sports stupidity on this platform, to which I really appreciate you guys still reading.
I just wish I had some footage of my performance so you could judge for yourself.
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