BSC 2019 Top 20 Countdown - #15 Dee Brown On Red Line Radio
A Note From Carl - This is the 6th entry in the Barstool Chicago Top 20 Moments of 2019 blog series. The list is coming from our perspective as 4 dudes who got the job of a lifetime exactly one year ago.
We covered this list in person at the December 20th live show. We're following it up on our podcasts to close out the year under following schedule:
#10-6: Red Line Radio 12/30
#5-1: Dog Walk 12/30
I'll be covering them on the blog one-by-one. I have no rhyme or reason to length or content other than I just want to give each one of these moments their own blog. And on a personal level, I want to hit 2020 in full stride and nothing says momentum like firing off 20 straight blogs to end the year:
#18 Keeping The Watch Party At Declan's Alive
#17 St. Patrick's Day Got Rowdy
#15 Dee Brown Comes On Red Line Radio
Dee Brown is one of my favorite athletes of all time. Anyone with any memory of his time at Illinois knows where I'm coming from with that take. He transcended college basketball in a way that hasn't even remotely been touched since his time. Think Steph Curry in the 2008 tournament except for basically his entire career. That was watching Dee Brown in person.
Naturally having him on the podcast was a big deal. But at an even bigger level, and kind of funny is this was the moment we all kind of agreed to stop doing 4-man interviews. That's a seminal moment in RLR history because it was historically awkward as fuck and it usually takes a major experience to incite change. This was that experience for us, and we're in lockstep agreement that the show's interviews have consistently gotten better since Dee.
It's also an opportunity for us to look back at all the guests we had this year. Rick Hahn and Carlos Rodon in spring training. Pat Fitzgerald at the new Northwestern facility. Fred Hoiberg and Brad Underwood in a little hotel coffee shop. There's Olin Kreutz and Urlacher and Lance Briggs. Quenton Nelson over Thanksgiving and Lucas Giolito in the basement of Comiskey. At the risk of sounding like a douchebag, I'm proud of our guest list because it's easily the hardest part of this job. I'll chase sailboats and do lineup previews and be a crazy person and get wet with Susanna til I'm blue in the face. That shit is an absolute breeze to me.
But networking professional channels and organizing time for a bunch of grown ass men to sit down in front of microphones and talk sports is just about the hardest thing my brain can do. It's basically the same thing as asking some smokeshow to "get a drink after work." The effort is minimal on her end but she has so much better shit to do than hang out with you. Therein lies a massive game of flirting and flattery that I sucked at as a single guy and certainly suck at now as a podcast host and content guy.
So when I reflect over my 8th beer of the evening about why Dee Brown is a special guest, it's because he's symbolic of the fact that we went out and got some pretty good guests while occupying 700 square feet in a random insurance office in the Ukrainian Village neighborhood of Chicago. In other words Cal Ripken Junior isn't just walking around the kitchen waiting for me to interview him. Sure that means a little bit more legwork but also more character in the long-run, so call it a fair tradeoff.
Up Next #14 - The Coldest Day Of The Year