Posts Tagged ‘sports’
Holiday Guide: Home Runs for the Sports Fan
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, December 8th, 2011
Hello there, shoppers! If you’re excited to go holiday shopping but armed with less than ample ideas, you’re not alone. If only everyone would be forthcoming with their wish lists, right? Santa has it so easy with everyone being so specific — minus all that travel and the length of his list.
At any rate, fret no more. Help is here. Inspiration shall abound. Your friends at SWAG have done all the homework so you don’t have to. Each weekday today through Dec. 13, score ideas for absolutely everyone on your list!
Today:
Home Runs for the Sports Fan
Sports junkies aren’t too hard to please, but getting the wrong gift can get you tackled. Check out SWAG’s gift guide to save you a lot of pain this holiday season.
What: Sports Illustrated Almanac 2012
Sports Illustrated Almanac 2012 (Photo courtesy of amazon.com)
Why: Football, fencing, hockey, handball and more … no matter what sport your sports junkie is into, this almanac has it covered. Complete with Sports Illustrated essays, statistics, records, ticketing and venue information for pro sports.
Where to Get It: Amazon
What It’ll Cost You: about $9.56
What: Sports-based Video Games
Madden NFL 12 (Photo courtesy of amazon.com)
Why: There are some great video games out there that can put the sports junkie into the game. NHL 12, Madden NFL 12, FIFA Soccer 12, NBA 2K12 and countless others.
Where to Get It: Amazon and other video game stores.
What They’ll Cost You: $45 and up
What: Super Bowl XLVI Tickets
2012 Super Bowl XLVI tickets (Photo courtesy of childrenscbf.org)
Why: What football fan’s life wouldn’t be complete after scoring tickets to the Super Bowl?
Where to Get Them: NFL Ticket Exchange
What It’ll Cost You: $2,597 to $14,207 (each)
What: Sports Packages
Sports Packages (photo courtesy of chelseasrestaurantpub.com)
Why: Want to upgrade your sports fan’s experience? Upgrade to DIRECTV or Verizon Fios sports packages.
Where to Get It: DIRECTV or Verizon Fios websites. A tougher one to pull off, may need to have your name on the account. If you don’t, you can do an IOU and take care of it after the holidays.
What It’ll Cost You: various prices.
What: “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game”
(photo courtesy of amazon.com)
Why: “Moneyball” the movie may have been a big hit at the box office thanks to its eye candy for female sports fans, but the book is a sure bet for anyone who has an affinity for baseball — or math, really.
Where to Get It: Booksellers like Amazon
What It’ll Cost You: $8.29 on Kindle, $9.72 on paperback, $15.21 on hardcover at Amazon
What: Team Grill Pro
(photo courtesy of uniquesportsfan.com)
Why: This gift helps take your favorite college football fan’s tailgating to a whole new level! An NFL version is also available, costs a bit more.
Where to Get It: Uniquesportsfan.com
What It’ll Cost You: $799
Happy shopping!
– Lexie Ramage
Posted by Rebekah Lowe / Monday, September 12th, 2011
By Lorin Drinkard
KICKBALL VS. SOFTBALL
There are those people—who shall remain nameless—that insist their preferred co-rec sport is the best. So, we decided to have a little play-off competition between two of Northern Virginia’s biggest and most popular adult co-rec leagues: WAKA Kickball, say hello to Fairfax Adult Softball (FAS). We surveyed, prodded and compiled all the stats for a complete play-by-play breakdown below.
Joe Belanger/shutterstock.com (dodgeball); artproem/shutterstock.com (t-shirt); Tomislav Forgo/shutterstock.com (softball); iofoto/shutterstock.com (pitcher); Brocreative/shutterstock.com (ref); zimmytws/shutterstock.com (plate)
(August 2011)
Reduced Invents Fresh Sports Comedy Nightly
Posted by clara / Friday, July 8th, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
To be fair, I must tell you that I once performed in “The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged)” and I stayed after the performance to get Reed Martin, Austin Tichenor and Matt Rippy’s autographs.
The Reduced Shakespeare Company, made up of standout comedians Martin, Tichenor and Rippy, is performing “The Complete World of Sports (abridged)” at the Kennedy Center through July 24. Performing isn’t quite the right term for what I saw, though. It’s more like inventing. They’re a fast-talking group that delivers on the spot punch lines, some tailored specifically to our area. For instance, they joked about former Congressman Weiner, the Washington Redskins, even the state of Virginia itself.
Reduced Shakespeare Company's "Complete World of Sports (Abridged)." Photo by John Burgess
Some of the best moments happened at their so-called mess-ups. They improvise their way through a situation, always challenging each other to take it a step further, and watching them struggle, contend, and defeat themselves on stage is hilarious. It’s also the result of a group that knows each other so well they practically know what’s coming next.
Their show is family-friendly, but the Shrek kind, the one where it is appropriate for kids because the jokes that aren’t go right over their heads. To give you an example, but not to spoil the fun, Tichenor spotlights Tiger Woods in a Nike, Gatorade and McDonald’s sponsored ad. The Tiger Woods’s favorite punch lines, it’s called: “Just Do It,” “Is It in You?” and “I’m Lovin’ It.”
The RSC has more than just good jokes up their sleeve. The performance is also audience-participation, and involves some singing, both from them (which is excellent) and from us (which we all hope our spouses didn’t hear). But at least we weren’t lip syncing like the Chinese girl at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
As the Kennedy Center’s Jeremy Birch writes, “Sports fans will like this show. Sports haters will love this show.” As the trio says, “What’s the most exciting thing that can happen in baseball?” “A no-hitter.” “The most exciting thing that can happen is when nothing happens.” And that’s the sort of insight that allows them to humorously make fun of American, and world, sports culture.
For more information, visit www.kennedy-center.org.
–Clara Ritger
Pro basketball hits Northern Virginia
Posted by colin / Monday, June 13th, 2011
If the Washington Wizards aren’t giving you much to cheer about these days, perhaps you should turn to Northern Virginia’s new professional basketball team, the NoVA Wonders.
The Wonders are an expansion team in the once defunct American Basketball Association and will compete in the 2011-2012 season. The team will host a tryout in Chantilly on Saturday, July 9.
In a press release, ABA CEO Joe Newman said his league has had its eyes on NoVA for a while and is excited about the people they have in place to run the expansion squad.
“In Jacqueline “Jackie” Smith, Cassandra Warren and Joy Pickett, we have found three great women to own and operate the team, all with extraordinary basketball and business experience,” says Newman in the press release. “I have no doubt that the NoVA Wonders are going to be a spectacular addition to the ABA.”
The original ABA merged with the National Basketball Association after its 1976 season, but ABA 2.0 is bigger than ever. The league had 24 teams last season in locations ranging from Seattle, Wash., to Jacksonville, Fla., and plans to expand even more with teams like the Wonders.
ABA-style basketball is centered around a more high-powered offense, with scores often soaring past triple digits for both teams. The league is also focused on community involvement and, according to their website, so are the NoVA Wonders.
“The NoVA Wonders maintain the ABA’s philosophy of promoting community-based, exciting, high scoring, above the rim professional basketball entertainment,” the team states on their website. “We want our audience and fans to reflect our community and we are committed to making a positive impact in the Northern Virginia area through partnerships with non-profit and community based organizations.”
The Wonders’ schedule is not set in stone yet, but they will begin play late this November.
-Colin Daileda
Football + Food + Fun = Great American Past Time
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Wednesday, January 5th, 2011
The college football bowl season is finally winding down, but the NFL’s postseason is just getting started this weekend. Not to mention that the NBA, NHL and college basketball seasons are in full swing.
Watching the games at home is all well and good, but Northern Virginia is home to a multitude of bars that cater specifically to sports fans. You may go with no intention of eating, but it’s been my experience that many of these establishments turn out to be restaurants worth trying more than once.
One of my personal favorites is Crystal City Sports Pub, located a little over a mile from the Crystal City Metro Station. It has three floors and flat screen televisions everywhere you turn. A definite must at a sports bar! Alumni associations like to meet there, so there’s always that chance you’ll run into someone you know from your alma mater. It’s fairly easy to make new friends with similar loyalties too. Game day experiences here can make up for the fact that you weren’t able to go to the actual game. You can cheer or jeer as much as would like, with plenty of others doing the same.
A typical football game can last over three hours, so I recommend trying a few things off the menu while you’re there. Tasty appetizers include spinach artichoke and buffalo chicken dip. If you’re still hungry afterwards, feel free to try one of the many entrées that are guaranteed to hit the spot. You can’t go wrong with one of their mouth-watering burgers or saucy chicken wings with your choice of ranch or bleu cheese dressing. An assortment of salads are also available. Sufficed to say, there’s something for everyone.
Don’t forget about the growing list of beers on tap you can try while enjoying the game. Five domestic bottle buckets are a usually a better deal than pitchers. You can save yourself up to $2, and get a little more beer in the process.
I’ve also had pleasurable experiences at the Hard Times Cafe in Fairfax and Lucky’s Pub in Alexandria. Whether it’s the spicy chili platters at Hard Times or ultra competitive arcade games at Lucky’s, I’ve always enjoyed myself no matter what. Most sports fans will too.
-Ryan Robertson
Crystal City Sport Pub's Third Floor (image: www.dcsocialite.com)
Readers Respond to Joining a Team
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, March 25th, 2010
Thursday, March 25th, 2010
Earlier this week, I blogged about the merits of joining a softball team for good old-fashioned fun. Based on your responses, the ball park is where it’s happening. It replaces the gym for some, serves as the social scene for others and is the perfect outlet to relieve stress for everyone.
“I love to play softball on Thursdays. It’s a great way to rewind after a hectic work week, enjoy some fresh spring air and take in the beautiful scenery on the Mall. Although I didn’t meet my significant other while playing, I do use softball as an excuse to get away from the wife and kids for a few hours.”—Lefty
“I enjoy spring and summer in Northern Virginia so much because it provides me with the opportunity to play my favorite sport, softball, which allows me to take in some sun, laugh and exercise and have a celebratory cocktail after the games with my teammates. I play competitively, which I think guys really respect. I have developed solid friendships, and it has helped me get through a bad breakup. Relieving stress helped me put the past where it belongs!”—Miss Competitive
“I actually have a really fun suggestion. It’s not really a sport, and I didn’t sign up to meet men (not directly!), but there is a place in NoVA called Diva Fit that has pole-dancing classes! I absolutely love it. I recommend you check out the website (four locations) at www.divafitonline.com. It’s a crazy good workout, and you can meet a lot of other cool women. Then when you happen to meet a guy, you can mention that you are a pole-dancing expert.”—Tiny Dancer
“Flip-flops kick arse! Softball is a great way to meet people, and so is kickball. Both have a commonality—beer. Pick a good team and pick the right person on the team, or else it will be a recipe for disaster since both are team sports and if you date and it does not work out then you will have that awkwardness that could ruin the team’s chemistry. So choose wisely, and don’t overthink the play, and being last is not always bad. Nice people always finish last!”—No Rookie
“I am interested in joining a team. Do you have a list of teams in the area or suggestions how to join? Much obliged!”—Lois
I do have information for you, Lois. Go online to your city or town’s website. For example, www.arlingtonva.us. Click on the “parks and recreation” tab. Once there, look for a tab that says “adult sports” or “adult activities.” You can learn more there.
And thanks, Tiny Dancer, for your suggestion about “a crazy good workout.” I’ll be checking that one out.
–Katie
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, March 22nd, 2010
Monday, March 22nd, 2010
Spring has finally arrived and, along with it, warmer temperatures. It’s time to bring out my favorite shoe of the year: flip-flops. I have also unearthed my pair of softball cleats as I prepare for another season of unpredictable fun.
Softball, a very popular activity among Northern Virginians, is a sure sign that spring is here and that summer is around the corner. People of all ages, careers and backgrounds play the game to compete, relieve stress or to socialize. The game doesn’t discriminate when it comes to defining relationships, since you see couples and singles alike participating. Being athletic is helpful if winning is your goal, but not necessarily a prerequisite.
You may be thinking, But I’ve never played before! No problem. You have to start somewhere. You could begin in the outfield as a rover or behind the plate catching. If it means you hit singles and get out at first, you’re not alone.
If you’re looking to meet someone new, either romantically or otherwise, then joining one of the many area teams is a great way to start. It beats the bar scene, and serves as the perfect breakup therapy, should you require it.
–Katie
Do you participate in a spring or summer activity? Which sports or groups are good when it comes to meeting new people? What is your reason for joining an activity? Have you joined a team in the past and met your future husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend? Post a comment below, or email me—your responses can be anonymous—at littleredbook@northernvirginiamag.com.
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
Thrillist is offering $4,350 in cash to whoever can correctly crown the “best sports bar in America”–i.e., the best place for everyday fans to pull up and stool, suck down a few brews and spend some quality time loosing profanity-laced tirades at telegenic jocks flittering across mondo plasma screens–via their ongoing Bar Madness contest (2/24-3/24).
Thrillist prognosticators narrowed the playing field to 12 major cities (Washington D.C., included) and got first crack at laying down their sports bar markers : Hard Times – Clarendon and Maddy’s and were their auto-selections.
Participants can also pitch write-in candidates during the first (Crystal City Sports Pub and Grand Slam are the latest recruits) and third round (3/8-3/10).
Check out the full schedule and per-round prize breakdown here.
Having recently toured some diehard sports hubs, I’m very interested to see how our area fares against more renowned sports capitals (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles).
Meanwhile, what local watering holes would you put up against the rest of the country?
–Warren
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
Lindsay Czarniak Finds Center Stage at Home
Text by David Gignilliat / Photography by Jonathan Timmes
The Florida Marlins had just traded for Carlos Delgado, and WTVJ-Miami reporter Lindsay Czarniak was waiting at the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport for the power-hitting first baseman to arrive. It was the kind of impromptu reporter gathering that typically occurs when a new player joins a club, especially one of Delgado’s caliber. Two seasons earlier, in 2003, the Puerto Rican slugger led the major leagues in RBIs and hit 42 home runs for the Toronto Blue Jays. His free-agent signing was a big deal, worthy of coverage on local 11 o’clock newscasts around the country. So it made sense that then-NBC4 sports director George Michael might be calling Czarniak for a videotape to play on his station’s Washington D.C. air.
Czarniak, whose family moved from Harrisburg, Pa., to Virginia when she was 5, knew the voice on the other end of the line. Like many Northern Virginians her age, she grew up watching Michael, an affable former disc jockey, entertain television viewers with his energetic, highlight-driven local sports coverage. Whether it was rasslin’, Redskins or rodeo, he had a knack for getting people to tune in and pay attention. He’d built a local empire out of his effective mix of bombast and enthusiasm, created a syndicated hit in “The George Michael Sports Machine” and was entering his 25th year in the D.C. market.
But Michael wasn’t calling Czarniak to talk about a ballplayer, a story or a videotape. He wanted to hire her.
Michael had first noticed the James Madison grad a year earlier, catching her freelance work on The Speed Channel. She was young and had only been doing sports for a few years, but he liked what he saw. She had good energy. She was photogenic. She did her homework. She connected with people.
“I just liked the fact that she had the ability to ad-lib, and I thought she had good relationships with the drivers,” says Michael, 69, who now hosts the “Redskins Report,” “Full Court Press” and “The Jim Zorn Show,” all studio shows on NBC4. “She just had this natural charisma about her … I hate to use the word ‘it,’ but there’s an it [factor] to it. Some people have it. Some people don’t. And Lindsay had it. And I just said to myself, This is exactly what we’re looking for.”
At first, Czarniak, now 31, thought he was joking. She hadn’t sent him a demo. Originally a news reporter, she’d only done sports for a short time. She didn’t think he was even aware of her work.
“It was crazy. I really thought [George] was kidding,” says Czarniak, who lettered in lacrosse and field hockey at Centreville High School in Clifton. “My first thought was, You’re kidding me. I remember I hung up the phone, and I called my mom and said, Mom, you’ll never believe who just called me on the phone.”
Czarniak accepted Michael’s offer in April and joined the NBC4 staff in June 2005. Since then, the trajectory has been Washington Monument-steep for the 1996 Centreville High graduate. In September 2006, she officially became Michael’s co-host on “The Sports Machine.” After budget cuts at NBC4, Michael decided to abdicate his anchorship in March 2007 rather than pare his staff. The move eventually shut down “The Sports Machine,” but vaulted Czarniak and colleague Dan Hellie into unique co-anchor roles. Czarniak often anchors the 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts alongside colleagues Doreen Gentzler, Jim Vance (“the coolest guy I know,” she says) and Bob Ryan, regularly grabbing the highest ratings among local newscasts.
And in a little over three years, she’s quickly become one of the area’s more recognizable media personalities. Her caricature adorns the wall at The Palm Restaurant in downtown Washington, D.C. She’s graced magazine covers, won comedy contests and performed searing Barry Manilow duets with local media. She guests on several local radio shows, authors two blogs, and last summer a local minor league baseball team feted her with a commemorative bobble-head day (“Only one kid came up to me with the head ripped off,” she jokes). And, in the argot of some of her devout male fans—the denizens of sports bars, message boards, blogs and Fed Ex Field parking lots—she’s earned a reputation as a legitimate sports babe.
“Lindsay is absolutely striking in person, but she’s still that girl next door,” says J.P. Flaim, 38, part of the Sports Junkies quartet that hosts a morning radio show on 106.7 WJFK-FM. Czarniak has been a guest on their testosterone-infused show. “She fits right into our locker-room atmosphere like one of the guys.”
Her colleague agrees.
“Lindsay is obviously attractive but there are tons of attractive [women] doing sports on television. What really makes her stand out is she is so likable,” says Hellie, 33. “I can’t tell you how many guys want me to set them up with Lindsay and how many girls say they would love to have a drink with her. I think it’s that old saying: Guys want to date her, and girls want to be her.”
Czarniak’s work continues to attract interest from beyond the Beltway. She works with cable network TNT as a pit reporter on the station’s NASCAR Nextel Cup telecasts. The Oxygen Network (owned by NBC) plucked the talented journalist to host its “Gymnastics on Oxygen” show last summer, covering the 2008 Summer Olympics from Beijing. Her contract with NBC is up for renewal in 2009, and she’s likely to have some suitors outside the Washington, D.C. area.
“I absolutely love what I do, and I feel like the opportunities that I get are amazing, so I really can’t ask for more. Sure, there’s stuff that I would love to try out there at some point, but right now I’m absolutely content,” says Czarniak, who lists CBS news anchor Katie Couric as one of her role models. “I really feel like my job matters, and I feel like I [get to] do it in my hometown, which is an opportunity that a lot of people never get. I’m very well aware of how special that is, and if you [ever] leave an opportunity like that, there’s just something to be said for being able to do that in a place where you call home. So, I’m aware of how difficult it would be to find that anywhere else. I don’t know. We’ll see. It would have to be the right opportunity, but right now I could also see staying here for a really long time.”
Czarniak has roots that run deep in Northern Virginia. A lifelong sports fan, her interest in sports journalism traces its origin to her father, Chet, who spent 17 years covering and editing sports for USA Today. An accomplished student-athlete, she was both homecoming queen and class president at Centreville High. Active in art and theater, Czarniak’s mother recalls a time she took her daughter to see a Matisse exhibit at a local art museum.
“She would really get absorbed [in one of his paintings], and she just looked at me and looked at one of his drawings and goes, ‘Mom, do you think if he had tried harder, he could’ve done a little better?’” Terri Czarniak, a principal at Rose Hill Elementary School in Alexandria, can recall.
“She was just very focused about things, even at that [age]. She just always wanted to know more, and then apply it, and then just seek out the next challenge.”
Czarniak took that thirst for new challenges to James Madison University, where she declared her major in electronic journalism by the end of her freshman year. Even her professors sensed they had a future star on their hands.
“Lindsay certainly was one of those people who makes a very, very positive and strong impression right from the very beginning,” says Rustin Greene, one of Czarniak’s James Madison professors. “She knew that she was just beginning, but she also knew that she had a lot to offer in wherever she was going to go. She just had that sense of confidence. It wasn’t cocky or arrogance at all—she was just a very confident young woman.”
After Czarniak graduated from JMU in 2000, she moved to Atlanta, where she worked for CNN as an associate producer. The next stop was Jacksonville, Fla., where she scored her first on-air position as a news reporter with the local FOX affiliate. A few years later, she found herself crossing over into sports at Miami’s WTJV, an NBC affiliate.
She’s taken a few lumps along the way, like the time in Jacksonville when she stood in front of a tree farm and went completely silent during a live shot. “I couldn’t say anything. I just stood there with this guppy face,” she recollects. Or the time she stepped on Jim Vance’s foot and apologized to him on-camera. Or when she inadvertently called Washington, D.C.’s Caps hockey team “The Craps.” But Czarniak—often self-deprecating, and rarely wan—seems to take it all in stride.
“You just try to relax, get over it and have fun,” she says. “The truth is about television, you never want to memorize what you’re saying. If you mess up just one word, then it all goes out the window. You don’t memorize stuff—you just know your story.”
Since taking the helm, Czarniak has had her fair share of high-profile stories—the 2008 Caps playoff surge, a pair of Olympics, George Mason University’s Cinderella Final Four run—but nothing quite like the tragic murder of former Redskins safety Sean Taylor. Czarniak was the first sports reporter to gain the opportunity to interview various Redskins players after the all-Pro’s death in November of 2007.
Working the beat at Redskins Park, she had interviewed Washington’s mercurial field star on several previous occasions. “If he had agreed to talk to you and open up, he was someone that was just a warm, intriguing person,” she says.
Inside the Beltway, Redskins coverage is always high-stakes, but the Taylor story upped the ante. “Those situations are really what it’s all about [as a reporter]. I really enjoy the challenge of delivering news regardless of what the story is,” Czarniak says. “It’s interesting when it happens to a team you’re around all the time because it’s all very surreal.”
Czarniak has successfully emerged from the thicket of what is generally considered a male-dominated broadcast profession, and done so with remarkable grace and élan. Relentless in her preparation—“there are always tons of books in her car,” her mother notes—she refuses to put too much stock in the glass-ceiling side of the debate concerning female correspondents reporting from the field sidelines.
“People will ask me a lot of times how I feel about being in locker rooms. It’s not a big deal. Sure, it’s different. But why make it a big deal? It’s not. The guys don’t treat it like it is. You’re treated the same as everybody else,” Czarniak says. “I feel like sometimes you have to do more to prove that you’re as good as the guys and that you know your stuff. And, maybe that’s the one area where it gets kind of tough … But I think the bottom line is that everybody just wants to be respected, guy or girl.”
(April 2009)
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, March 19th, 2009
Can Our Reporter Keep Up with a Man Who Is on the Air from Sunup to Sundown? No.
Text by Buzz Mcclain / Photography by Jonathan Timmes
At 6:45 a.m. I’m idling at the dark, cold school-bus stop. My daughter is in no mood to talk so I have Fox Sports on the XM radio. I’m listening to a rant by Steve Czaban, the host of the national broadcast called “The First Team,” as he opines on sports, of course, but also other things in pop culture that occupy the blurry fringes of the early-morning mind of the average male listener. He’s informative, sure, sort of, but he’s more than that. He’s amusing without any “morning zoo” excess.
So now it’s 6:45 p.m., and I’m driving in the darkening remnants of rush-hour traffic to pick up my son from his piano lesson. I turn on the radio to the local sports station, ESPN 980 AM, and the voice coming out of the Prius speakers is Czaban’s. He’s the co-host of “The Sports Reporters” with Andy Pollin on ESPN 980, on the air from 4 to 7 p.m. each weekday.
It’s the Czabe again. I do a double take. He seems to be on the air from 6 in the morning to 7 at night every day on two different sports talk stations. Can that be right? It doesn’t seem possible. Maybe he’s taped.
But no. Not only is it possible, but if I were in my car with the radio on at 8 a.m. Wisconsin time, I would be listening to Czaban doing a different broadcast on a different station in Milwaukee.
Milwaukee.
Solly Rings His Bell
Is there more than one Czabe? How does he keep a schedule that has him on the air nationally and in two local markets for 13 hours a day while maintaining a 4 handicap in golf?
To find out, I followed Czaban for a Thursday from sunup to sundown, to see exactly how a man can stay on the air and stay on top of things without, I don’t know, sleeping maybe?
Czaban’s producer, Steve Solomon, calls Czaban’s phone at 4:30 a.m. every morning because “alarm clocks can’t be trusted,” Czaban said. Czaban lives with his wife Deana and daughters Catherine, 9, and Megan, 6, on 10 acres in Round Hill, west of Leesburg and near the Loudoun County-West Virginia border.
Now consider this: The station where he broadcasts from is in Rockville, Md., just west of the District of Columbia. Czaban’s house is 25 miles closer to Winchester than it is to Rockville.
The Czabe is unfazed by the commute.
“It’s 52 minutes door to door,” Czaban says, fluidly reciting the vagaries of traffic that he breezes through in his 2005 Acura, from his long driveway to the McDonald’s near the station where he takes his morning sustenance.
Breakfast is long gone by the time I get to the station at 7:30 a.m. (alarm clocks really can’t be trusted). He’s already been on the air an hour and a half when I make it to the fourth-floor suite of ESPN 980.
Czaban is about the right size for his authoritative baritone. He’s 40 and keeps his hair clipped short so as to blend it with his ever-heightening forehead. He’s easily 6-foot-1 and comfortably carries his 228 pounds, “but I should be 205,” he says. Remarkably, he appears healthy, not exhausted at all. I expected suitcases under the eyes.
He sits at an oblong table with his back to a bank of windows looking out at Rockville Pike; as he talks into the microphone in front of him he deftly punches up the sound effects heard on the show from a box of 1,000 of them he has at his right hand.
Across the table is his “First Team” partner, Scott Linn, who, along with Solly (he hates that nickname, but they call him that anyway), has the same morning-to-evening schedule as the Czabe. Brutal as that may be, they live far closer to the station in Montgomery County.
Listeners tuning into 150 Fox Sports stations and XM’s national broadcast eavesdrop on a running conversation between Czaban and Linn, who have been together since June 2002. Linn scans listener emails, reads the Internet and makes notes from newspapers, while Solly forwards periodic phone calls to Czaban.
Czaban, who wiggles in his seat the way a golfer might waggle at address on the tee box, has a few notes on a computer printout of topics. What’s astonishing is how much detail he applies to a variety of subjects, and how much color his clever turns of phrase bring to the conversation.
“He’s the iron horse of broadcasting,” remarks “Smokin’” Al Koken, who hosts 980’s afternoon show with John Thompson and Brian Mitchell. “How he has the energy and passion at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. to do what he does, that’s the true mark of a professional.”
Here’s how: When the show goes into commercial at 8 a.m., Czaban cracks open a two-ounce 5-Hour Energy shot, one of many. He’s so beholden to the elixir that he calls his home theater—a 110-inch projection screen flanked by 60-inch plasmas so he can watch three games at one time—“The 5-Hour Energy Dome.”
When the Fox Sports show is done at 9 a.m., Czaban goes on the air from the same chair and microphone for 30 minutes with Bob Madden and Brian Nelson—“Bob and Brian Mornings,” the No. 1 show on rock station 102.9 FM, the Hog, in Milwaukee. He was 27 and temporarily out of radio when he became a feature on the show, and now he’s “like an adopted son” in Milwaukee, Czaban said.
‘The Mean Streets of McLean’
Czaban grew up “on the mean streets of McLean,” matriculating to Cooper Middle School and Langley High. His father was a computer-systems analyst for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and his mother taught elementary school.
“The whole ‘mean streets of McLean’ became one of my favorite cliches on the show because the suburban streets of the McLean Hunt were anything but mean,” explains Czaban, who played drums in a high-school garage band. “Nice, quiet, tree-lined, very middle America. We played tackle football in the park every weekend during the fall and winter. Basketball games in driveways of at least three different kids. I played whiffle ball in the yard, where my roof over the front porch was the ‘upper deck.’ Stuff like that.”
It was around age 11 he hit his personal sports zenith, when he made the McLean Little League All-Star baseball team and discovered the joyous wonders of golf. He realized then he’d maxed out in the former and devoted himself to the latter.
His passion for golf manifested in the form of the creation of the annual Potomac Cup, a tournament between golfers from Virginia and those from Maryland. He started it in 2001, humbly, and now “I’m blown away with where we’re at with logoed shirts, logoed golf bags and all the different stuff we do.”
Virginia, by the way, leads 5 to 3.
His first move from the area was to the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he earned a degree in communications in 1990 and for four years did the play by play for the Gauchos’ football and basketball games, while also hosting a local sports show. He moved back to his hometown and was again out of radio when Andy Pollin hired him at WTEM-AM (now ESPN 980) to do updates as a part-timer. “He’s sent in a tape, and it was pretty good,” Pollin recalls. “He was working as a range monkey over at Avenel. I remember calling his mother to see how to get hold of him.”
Then he was on to Chicago for One-On-One Sports Radio Network, where he met Bob and Brian, Charlotte’s WFNZ-AM, six months at ESPN Radio and then back to WTEM, where he was finally paired with Pollin on “The Sports Reporters.” Pollin, 50, an area native whose extensive institutional memory of local sports is collected in the new “Great Book of Washington, D.C. Sports Lists” with Leonard Shapiro, believes their partnership works because of their differences.
“We’re very different,” he says. “A different age, different politically, different interests, that works well on the air, but in terms of what we can bring to the table, we generally agree on what we want to talk about. I know how he’s going to react to certain things, and that’s how we come up with show topics.”
Czaban’s office is next to Pollin’s. It’s a smallish affair and looks like a 14-year-old boy’s bedroom, with framed Sports Illustrated covers on the walls, a large Darrell Green action painting over the desk, and assorted bobblehead and toy collectibles on a bookcase. But the dominant furniture is an overstuffed green chair and ottoman with a blanket on it. It’s where Czaban takes his daily nap.
As he updates his popular website, The Daily Czabe, Czabe.com, with opinions, videos, photos of women in bikinis and reader poll, we talk about time management. Each year he takes four breaks for himself and others with his family. He occasionally does a Sunday Redskins TV pre-game show, but says: “I don’t want to take on any more on the weekends.”
It dawns on me that he has to watch a lot of weekend sports to be as informative as he is. Isn’t that working on weekends?
“You have to watch the games, but you should still want to watch the games,” he insists. “What’s frustrating for me, particularly with the morning show, is I can’t watch as many of the games as I’d like to because I just can’t function on four or five hours of sleep. And that’s frustrating because I’m still a guy in this business who believes in watching long-form sports, watching details, the game within the game. You can get by in sports radio now with the Internet, with just watching the ‘SportsCenter’ highlights and reading stories, but I’m of the mindset that I’m still a sports fan and want to watch as much as I can in long form.”
The idea that every listener thinks they could do his job is not new to Czaban. “As Andy likes to say, ‘Everybody’s got one good show in them.’ One. What are you going to say the next day? And the next day? And the next day? That’s the real trick to it. And in truth, not everybody has one good show in them because there is a sort of a learned art to talking into a microphone and doing it in a way that makes the microphone disappear.”
The Lure of the Chair
Czaban can play 18 holes of golf during his break between shows, but today is not a golf day. So while the Czabe runs “some pretty mundane errands” after lunch—we had a 20-minute meal at a nearby barbecue place—I find myself in the plush green chair in his office.
Whoa. It’s nice here. The sun is on my face, ESPN.com is on his computer monitor, and you can hear faint sports radio down the hall somewhere. It’s cozy. Relaxing. Oh, man, is it relaxing. And before you know it, I’m out.
How embarrassing. But who could resist?
I groggily make way at 3 p.m. so Czaban, Solomon and Pollin can have a pre-show meeting; they quickly discuss a small handful of possible topics in no detail whatsoever and adjourn.
After the meeting it’s Czaban’s turn to snooze, and he closes the door. A few minutes before 4 p.m. he strides into the studio and takes a different seat, this one facing the window with a clear shot of Golf Galaxy across the highway. I find myself staring at it, my mind wandering to the fairway, and despite my nap, my eyes are heavy. And Czaban has three more hours of work to go.
The show moves at pace—in the car the commercial breaks seem much longer than they do in the studio—and at 5 p.m. he has a slice of pizza and a diet Dr Pepper. There’s been no exercise today besides walking to and from the parking garage. He has a home gym, “a nice one, but I never use it. I’d use it theoretically at night, but who wants to?”
At 5:30 p.m. he takes in another slice, plus additional 5-Hour Energy shot. At 6:21 there’s more pizza—free from a sponsor—and at 6:37 he does The Daily Czabe, a humorous roundup of non-sports items that either irritate or appeal to him.
My question is: When did he find time today to discover anything new to talk about? And how does he go all day on three programs and never once repeat himself? In an odd moment, I find myself quoting him to him, forgetting that I had heard him say it 10 hours earlier. Clearly, I’m getting delirious.
At 6:55:46 he says his final words on the air and after quick goodbyes is out of the studio, out of the building, out of the garage and into the thinning traffic for his ride home to Round Hill.
And all I can think is how grateful I am that I can sleep in tomorrow.
(March 2009)
