Friday Morning Fracas: The Kansas City Chiefs and Sports Talk Radio

Let's make no bones about the obvious here: Every town has (at least) two sports-talk radio stations competing for an audience and ratings. If you're familiar with Kansas City's sports-talk scene, you know that it's KCSP 610 AM in the one corner, WHB 810 AM in the other. I've come to the conclusion -- and this ain't no rocket surgery -- that the former tends to draw the more blue-collar, liberal sort of listener, while the latter pulls from the right. I don't have any demographical studies in front of me to support this theory, but the on-air personalities on both stations' schedules, coupled with the majority of the callers to each, suggests that I might be right. And I, for a number of years now, have tried to stand up for KCSP, and convince dedicated WHB listeners to at least consider the advantages of listening to 610. Until this week.

In the past, my only beef with the station was their continued employment of one Rhonda Moss.



As you can see, based on the microphone and professional attire, that Moss was at one time a 610 employee, and she at one time attempted to interview Brodie Bangs. In addition to her self/colleague-proclaimed title of reporter that always "asks the hard questions," she embodies every quarter-ounce of fuel a guy like Old No. 7 needs to ignite the midwesterner-bashing coals. But this is not a personal attack. It's business. Her stay at KCSP was so lengthy, that when she was finally let go, I'd reached the point of assuming that she would be a lifer. Near the end of her employment, the lineup went something like this:

5:30-9 A.M.: "The D.A. Show"
9:00-11 A.M: Tim Grunhard
11-12:00 P.M: "The Jim Rome Show" feed
2-6:00 P.M.: "The Dog House (or something) with Neal Jones & Marty Wall"
6-9:00 P.M.: "Chris & Cowboy"

The best thing that ever happened to 610 was D.A., or Damon Amendolara. They canned him. Big freaking mistake. Insert "The Morning Sports Drive with Roger Twibell" in his slot. Grunny went to coach Bishop Miege High School football; it's possible he was canned as well, or maybe he was just too busy to do both. Chris & Cowboy take that slot, and in comes Nick Wright, who is, bar none, the biggest doofus on Planet TalkRadio -- but more on that later -- to C & C's former place. Shortly thereafter, Wall gets canned, leaving Jones to do the four-hour slot by himself. To his credit, he did a pretty decent job. On Monday, they unveiled a new schedule again, one that features Nick Wright in Chris & Cowboy's place, who took Jones' slot, making him the most recent casualty. And from six-nine, there's some other national feed.

The problems I have with this are many. It took me a while to get used to Twibell, but his show's pretty solid, he has great guests, and I figured it was a ploy on 610's management end, to get some of the more sophisticated listeners to tune in on the way to work, and if that was the gig, it made sense that they axed D.A., even though I still don't agree with it. But I hung with them, and even caught significant portions of Chris & Cowboy when they switched to mornings. In the past, I would always tune into 810 or listen to music after 11 'cause Rome drove me nuts. Now, I'm tuning in to Rome rather frequently, as he's one of the best things to listen to on the K.C. airwaves, simply by default. My guess is that it won't be long before the station folds completely, and here's why:

Not one single original, non-feed program they have on the air after Roger Twibell in the morning is worth two squirts of piss (Editor's Note: This is, perhaps, my favorite Cecilism of all time.) in a dead hooker's mouth. Nick Wright, as I mentioned, is a complete bonehead, and the fact that he's gainfully employed in this industry is baffling. I've only voiced a few literal droplets of my opinion on him before here in the House. I've been tempted to offer more, but that would imply that I do, in fact, still listen to him, and that is inaccurate. We do have, however, thanks to KC Confidential some other takes on the new morning host, but before I share them, know that there is some positive feedback, too. I'm just choosing not to share it.

From listener Gavin:

"The good news is that now I won’t have to listen to adenoidally challenged Nick Wright who clearly knows everything, just ask him. The bad news is that he is being replaced by those meatheads Chris and Cowboy who get by on appealing to the lowest common denominator and making jokes about looking at other dudes’ junk in the mensroom."

listener SM:

"And Nick Wright is a train wreck. The most inept, unprepared host I’ve ever heard in KC. I can’t imagine who will chose him over Petro."

Mike chimed in:

"I listened to Nick Wright when he did evenings before the Royals started the season. I did like him at first but he got annoying quickly after he harped about Ponson getting the start on the opening day from the K on April 10th. He went nonstop. It felt like he was the kid screaming the loudest for attention and it was something not many even cared about. Point is he annoys me. Petro and company will crush him."

Okay, here's some mild complimenting from Connie:

"I sort of like Nick Wright, but he does tend to run stuff into the ground also and I prefer Chris and Cowboy over Neal 100%."

So the Train Wreck gets done at 11 A.M., Rome's on for three hours, and then it's Chris and Cowboy. I'm not gonna lie: I don't hate them. I appreciate them because they are a potential source of information. But obnoxious would be akin to saying George W. Bush was mildly aloof. They are complete buffoons. I think that for some time, I'd managed to tone out all of their jawjacking, but recently, a co-worker pointed out to me that they just jabber back and forth at each other a lot. And he's right. In fact, that's pretty much all they do. Come to think of it, they do manage to squeeze in the occasional piece of sports news in and around their three hours and 40 minutes of dick jokes, boozing/hangover commentaries, creepy lechery tendencies, and overall arrogant approach. Frankly, their voices don't do them any favors, either. Chris sounds like a big, dumb idiot, and Cowboy is cocky beyond belief for reasons I can scarcely comprehend.

And this is where the Chiefs part comes in. These chuckleheads spent a significant amount of their time on the air yesterday talking about Kansas City releasing Will Franklin. Here's how I would sum up that story: Big. Fucking. Deal. He was a local draft pick. The Chiefs have, for years, always tried to squeeze in that feel-good, hometown-guy pick, and guess what: It never pans out. Their big issue is that Chiefs Head Coach Todd Haley, who by the way, is trying, along with GM Scott Pioli, to put together a team that can win more than two games -- just sayin' -- allegedly called him into his office, sat him down and said, "You're a marked man. You're a Herm Edwards guy. I'm gonna ride you hard."

Know what I did when I heard that? A-fucking-pplauded. That's right. You don't spend a fourth-round pick on a receiver from the University of Missouri. Know what Franklin did for KC last year? Seven catches for 83 yards. And he wasn't taken deep in the fourth; he was the sixth pick of the freaking round. Allegedly, Franklin didn't wanna be rode hard, so he asked for his release, and it was granted.

Bye. See ya'. Enjoy your career as a Lion.

Here's the twist, though: Chris and Cowboy have their Bud Light-soaked britches in a bunch because this comes after a) the reputation Haley has as a militant prick, b) Brian Waters threw a hissy fit because they wouldn't make time for coffee and cake with him, and c) Haley claimed that everyone on the roster had a clean slate. So an NFL figure wasn't exactly 100 percent truthful with the media. Fucking. Shocker.

But it gets worse. Cowboy spent the rest of the afternoon, using enticing lines like "you're not gonna believe this," etc., telling his audience about the inside track they had on the story. Know what it was? A guy that he was texting who knows Will Franklin, and was texting him, too. And the secret-knock source reported that Franklin knew that Chris and Cowboy were reporting this over the air, and that he wasn't denying that any of it happened, which of course drummed the whole thing up enough that Haley was asked about it, and naturally responded.

You can click that link if you want, but there's nothing there, per se. What there was, was Cowboy droning on, over and over again about how Haley doesn't have the credentials, the glorious experience, the Super Bowl rings, to be conducting business in this fashion. Why? Because he'll lose the locker room. All of it, essentially, is one big simmering vile pot of weak sauce, since there's only one place that an angle like that works, and it's called print journalism.

You wanna beat the path, get your scoop, and in your 36-column-inch space, craft your story where one of your sources wants to remain anonymous? Fine. Do it. It's allowed. Your readers won't love it. Your editor doesn't prefer it. But you can do it there. What you can't do is take your anonymous source and plod along with it over the radio airwaves for four straight hours, because that's just plain bad broadcast journalism. Oh, no. I get it. It's radio. It's different. Your listeners are tuning in, tuning out, in and out of the car, distracted. It's crystal clear. That doesn't change the fact that it's downright lame.

The only thing that would make the situation worse would be, say, if you came on the air today and suggested that the Chiefs, with their third overall pick in the draft, take a wide receiver from Mizzou. No, no. I get that, too. Jeremy Maclin had 102 catches for 1260 yards and 13 touchdowns, which is way better than Franklin's final year at MU: 49 grabs for 709 yards and four scores. But to cry and whine about Franklin's release and then carry on about the should-bes of drafting another local wide out is outright absurdity at its best. It's Missouri, dude. The Big XII North. You should know. You cover it for a living.

Anyway, Scoob' and Shag wrap things up at six, and that's the day for 610's original material. In sum, you have:

1) pretty decent in the morning, except that it makes you seem like 810, which is a contrast to the rest of your day
2) Bozo the broadcast clown
3) Rome
4) Tweedle Meathead and Tweedle Ding-Dong,

and your broadcast day is history.

Christ. Just close up shop already. No sense goin' out making a caricature of yourself, because that's what's going to happen.
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Thursday Thesis: Another El Jay Debacle

For those not in the know, Kansas City Chiefs running back Larry Johnson was interviewed by Chris and Cowboy of local sports-talk radio station KCSP, 610 AM. The 23-minute bit aired yesterday morning, and people are still freaking out about it. Rightfully so. It's pretty preposterous, and if you're so inclined, you can hear it here. If you spent any time listening to the station yesterday -- or caught any of it on ESPN or the NFL Network -- you've probably heard the important blips. In a nutshell, they are...

...a re-hashing of what Johnson said after the Chiefs' final game this season: a) his time in Kansas City is done, b) he doesn't care for the city or the organization, c) that his beef wasn't with Carl Peterson, d) that he liked Herman Edwards, and e) that most of his teammates have his back.

Once the Chiefs name their new head coach, which some are speculating could happen today, this will easily be the largest issue for the franchise to deal with as it moves toward the 2009 season. I have a number of thoughts on the scenario that unfolded yesterday, but my largest curiosity centers around what good (beyond ratings and appeal) the station thought would come of the interview, and more importantly, why Johnson agreed to it. Station management had to know this would only increase the rift between Johnson and the organization/fans, and from a self-marketing standpoint, I find it hard to believe that Johnson thinks that this material could cast him in a positive light in the eyes of potential employers.

There was, however, one thought yesterday, that kept hitting my brain as I was in and out of the car, catching various segments of the broadcast day: It's only a matter of moments before someone tries to make this a race issue that it is not. Frankly, I should've known that it wouldn't be a listener that conveyed it, be it via a phone call, a text, or an e-mail message to the show, but an employee of the station. And I should've known that it would be the biggest idiot on the payroll: Nick Wright. I couldn't have applauded 610 more when they finally cut their ties with Rhonda Moss. She. Was. Awful. Their biggest downfall was that they waited many months too long in doing so. And then they moved Wright to a weekday slot, only bringing them right back to the status of a pretty good station with one massive corn on the foot of its staff.

I've voiced my opinions on Wright once before, and I haven't done so more often because I think his show -- though in his intro he touts it as "The Best Solo Sports Talk Radio Show in Town" -- is nothing shy of terrible. Whether his angles are his own or force-fed by management, they are, contrary to Web publishings of his alma mater, the exact opposite of "fresh, colorful style that's smart and street-inflected." That is, they are stale, bland, and wanna-be. Wright boasts his Kansas City nativeness, and that story suggests that he has a "thick, urban, Midwest drawl has a distinct tone that engages the listener." The only credit I'll acknowledge there is that his voice is in fact thick. Thick in undesirable, fat-hangover-tongue way that a body works overtime in removing from its system. Midwest drawl? Does such a thing exist? Distinct? He sounds like he's trying to impersonate Damon Amendolara, who, much as I liked his program, sounded like he was trying to impersonate Jim Rome. Engages the listener? Sure. Engages them to change the channel.

I will say that themes of race were touched on during Neal Jones' segment. He mentioned that he has had African-American colleagues in the past that have been the victim of racial profiling when driving home late at night. Jones, though, didn't dwell on the issue very long, and the reason he didn't was because that's not what this story is about. I will also admit that there were very mild undertones of race in some of yesterday's callers. They were no different than the same vibes that were cast during the prolonged weeks during the Scott Pioli hiring and the Herman Edwards firing. Perhaps they even stretched back to the Carl Peterson resignation week.

And in my mind those sentiments were this: The majority of callers that voiced their opinion of wanting to keep Edwards around appeared to be black. Conversely, the majority of the callers that wanted him gone appeared to be white. There are two caveats to those statements, and they are these: 1) Most of the callers are white, and 2) There were in fact a few black callers that wanted Herm gone, and there were a few white callers that wanted Herm to stay. Those few, however, were very few, the obvious minority. All of this, though, as a whole, remained an undertone.

Yesterday, at the dreaded six o'clock hour when Jones hands the mic to Wright, the host of "What's Wright" kicked off his show by proudly announcing that he was going to dive straight into the race issue, and pound it home because it needed to be done. What he said as a prelude was deeply disturbing, and it (paraphrased) went a little like this:

"I listened to the radio all day, and a significant portion of the callers were angry with Larry Johnson. Not all of them, but most, maybe 20 percent. You could feel the racial tension in their voices, and you could feel a couple of them being very close to dropping 'N' bombs. You could tell that most of these callers are envious and jealous of a young, rich, rapper-looking, hip-hop-listening-to, black man, and the things that he has said, and the off-the-field incidents he's been a part of have done nothing but contribute to their dislike of this professional athlete."

That segment aired right as I was getting home. On my agenda was to tend to the dogs and get dinner ready. I could've gone inside and turned on the program, but I did not. I was torn in that I wanted to hear some reactions to his statement, but I was also furious that this massive doofus with a radio show would fuel the race fire by such allegations as callers to his stations wanting to drop 'N' bombs and being jealous, envious, and angry with a person because of the color of his skin.

Now, I'm not trying to imply that there isn't racism out there, and I don't want to suggest that there aren't Chiefs fans who are racists, or who don't like Johnson. To that end, Johnson claims in his interview that one of "the suits" at Arrowhead told his father and someone else that he knows that Johnson "walks around like a rapper." I don't know exactly what that means, but if a Chiefs executive -- all of whom are white that I know of -- said that, I can't imagine it was spoken in complimentary terms. I only mean to say that I find it disturbing and saddening that a radio voice, one who was deemed by a college colleague as having cred', would dive into a broadcast with such a topic.

Most of the callers that I heard yesterday wanted to voice their opinions on Johnson in either a game-performance or an off-the-field sense. And I get that. The skinny on Johnson, in my humble opinion though, is this: It's both.

In my utopian mind, I want my team to be full of Tony Gonzalezes and Brian Waterses. In his interview, Johnson said he understands why fans really like guys like that, that he wishes he could be like those guys, but he can't because his "situation is different." Gonzalez and Waters are great role models in both senses: They are Pro Bowlers as well as great community leaders. So was Will Shields. So was Trent Green, and so was the figure most often compared to Johnson: Priest Holmes. Holmes, though he had a stigma for being weird and ghostlike and secret, never got involved with any of the bullshit.

Johnson, after his first two legal issues, took over for Holmes and went off, putting together two very impressive seasons. When he got involved with the personal-life stuff, I was disappointed. It didn't help matters for me that he clashed with Dick Vermeil, a coach I very much loved and respected. But he got past those incidents and produced on the field in Pro Bowl fashion. Then he sat out. Then he got his giant payday, and then he got hurt. Soon after, he's having legal troubles again, getting benched, getting suspended, and seldom producing out of the backfield.

Some wanted to point to his yards per carry in 2008. I say it's a misleading stat in this situation. He didn't get the carries he would've liked this year. With a re-tooled offense, he didn't even hit the 200 mark. His 4.5 YPC mark, however, didn't come in the way of finding seams, hitting holes, and breaking tackles every time he had the ball. That stat is largely padded from a few huge runs he had in a small handful of games. He had seven carries of 20 yards or more, three of 40+, and one that went for 65. He also fumbled the ball five times in what one might call limited duty. When you miss four games because of conduct, and cough up the rock at such a rate, you're good for a fumble every two and-a-half games, which, in a rebuilding mode, on a losing team wherein you are the highest-paid player, ain't good.

So it's both. Johnson now has four (that we know of) legal issues in six years as a Chief. You're one of few veterans supposedly responsible for guiding one of the youngest teams in the league, and you're getting arrested/having charges pressed against you once every season and-a-half. And you haven't produced since you got handed big bucks. Sure. Injuries and the offensive system in place are factors. But add to that a now-totalling (at least) half a dozen times where you've told the media that you don't like the fans, the city, the organization, or some facet of all three, and you aren't going to win folks over, black or white.

As for my opinion on his future, I'd like him to stick around. I think with the right general manager, coach, and offensive scheme, Johnson could become the huge asset he's been paid to be. It's unfortunate now, though, that his negative stigma



(clip courtesy of Arrowhead Addict)

is greater than ever, making the career hill he's got to climb, steeper than ever.

As for Nick thinks-of-himself-as-cutting-edge Wright, God help us.
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