Philly Sports talk radio and Temple

Dan Klecko’s name was never mentioned on Philly sports talk radio until he joined the Eagles.

Right now the talk of 100.9, the Tide in Tuscaloosa is about Alabama in the NCAA basketball tournament and Nick Saban’s spring football practice.

The E3 Tornado that skipped through town Wednesday is barely mentioned.

Meanwhile, about 1,000 miles Northeast, in Philadelphia, the dominant talk on the two major sports airwaves for the past 24 hours has been a press conference in Indianapolis that did not even allow questions from the Philly sports media.

Different strokes for different folks.

The only published photo on the internet of Dan Klecko and his father, Joe, taken on Temple’s senior day.

Tuscaloosa sports talk is no different than Manhattan (err, Kansas) sports talk or State College (Pa.) sports talk.

Hell, Pittsburgh talks more about the Pitt Panthers than Philadelphia does the Temple Owls.

You can bet sports talk radio in Miami has mentioned hiring Temple football coaches more than Philadelphia sports talk radio has in the last three years.

Needless to say, talk about the upcoming Temple football spring practice in now less than two weeks is non-existent.

Has been for my entire lifetime that pre-dates the existence of sports talk in this town.

Doesn’t mean I haven’t done my part to change things. When the Big East Player of the Year was getting ready to be drafted, I called WIP and asked Glen Macnow what he thought of Dan Klecko’s draft chances.

“I’m not talking about Temple football,” Macnow said.

Click.

He hung up on me.

I didn’t even get the chance to tell Macnow I wasn’t asking about Temple football I was asking about the draft chances of a player of the year in what was then essentially a Power 5 conference.

He never gave me a chance to state my case.

Ironically, that player was drafted and became a three-time Super Bowl winner–three more times than even his more famous Temple father, Joe, who used to tailgate with us for much of Dan’s four years at Temple.

“Now, Joe, just because Dan graduates that doesn’t mean you won’t tailgate with us again, right?” I said to Joe on Dan’s Senior day.

“No, Mike, I will definitely be here next year for one or two games,” Joe told me.

We have not seen Joe since. I don’t blame him. We do not see 99.9 percent of the great Temple parents we tailgated with after the kid graduated. (Major exceptions of the top of my head are Chris Coyer, Mr. Seifert and Mr. Matakevich … huge props to them.)

Back to the irony of my call being about Danny.

More ironically, the would-be subject of the call became a sports talk host himself at the same station.

Different strokes for different folks, sure, but more like what goes around comes around.

Now we end up talking about a guy who no longer is here who doesn’t want to hear questions from here.

That’s the spell pro sports has on this town and it’s going to take a very strong warlock to break it.

Monday: 5 Questions Philly Sports talkers would ask Rod Carey

Friday: Trolling Temple

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6 thoughts on “Philly Sports talk radio and Temple

  1. I recall something Ed Snyder has said many years ago addressing WIP Sports Radi0. He said something the the effect as ‘one of my biggest mistakes was to make and allow WIP to get out of control’, something like that.
    I offer a very simplistic observation, an not wrong either, Sport talk radio around here is dominated by loud mouths who actually had little real school team sports association.
    Big mouth s like Angelo C of WIP seem to delight in their view of NO Temple Talk. He is one of several examples of DWEEBs , never really played competitive sports, and basks in his loud mouth ignorance.
    At least ,I myself, joined in 3 sports teams while in HS. You learn alot about what talent and dedication form the stars there. ( I was not a star but I was there with them, gave ’em something to practice against.
    I view the biggest mouths in Philly often never discussing their sports lives.
    Where as the actual athletes are more respectful.
    Just my view.
    Mike , you hit it with this post.

  2. Rhea gets a plug in now and then. Recall she did the play-by-play for Harry D when the Owls ended their losing streak against BGU.

    Look at it this way: they don’t talk about Penn State either.

    Didinger and Eskin will utter a syllable or two occasionally about Owls football (they too have cherry blood).

    • While I agree with Mike to a large extent on this one. And before I do, I suggest everyone does themselves a favor and spring for the SIRIUSXM satellite radio. I haven’t listened, other than Phillies games, to one second of WIP in years.

      Anyway, I will play the contrarian here and point out that Temple sports needs to do something worth talking about before we complain to loudly. Any attention now will be humiliating.

      • Agree with all points, particularly the last one but even in the halcyon days of beating Penn State and playing the No. 9 team in the country even on national TV, sports radio barely mentioned the Owls.

  3. Echoing JoeFa, Sirius channel 84 (or 85) is college football all the time during the season. Worth the cost to listen to Rick Neuheisel during the late morning.

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