media world locally that I’ll be writing about later in the fall when I start to blog more regularly about a myriad of issues.
I would say the greatest improvement in the quality of my life has been the simplicity of running WNST without the frustration, risk and awfulness of managing a myriad of issues outside of my control. And, in retrospect, I was trying to do it with people who were clearly not focused on our team success or my personal happiness or sanity.
As for those who cast ridiculous aspersions – and to all who have written hateful stuff about me on the social media walls or “liked” the hatred spewed by my former “friends” – here’s the wisdom I’ve gathered over the past year as I’ve heard all sorts of whispers about my character from folks who have thrown rocks, lies or accusations my way on the internet.
First, after a couple of decades of doing sports radio (in one form or another), I’ve learned that my audience understands virtually nothing about the industry of radio or how WNST operates as a business. It’s like money literally grows on a tree and I’ve not dispersed of it generously enough among a bunch of amateurs over the years.
One day, I might write a book of facts about all of it that you probably won’t read. Of course many of these callers, listeners and “outspoken critics” are the same ones who swore they knew more about offense than Cam Cameron. Or more about scouting than Ozzie Newsome. Or more about coaching than Brian Billick.
It goes with the territory of taking phone calls from Monday morning quarterbacks. Everyone has an opinion about a fact they couldn’t possibly know is true or false.
I realize, to some degree, it’s all just a bunch of noise from “men outside of the arena” as Teddy Roosevelt would say.
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But sometimes I’m shocked by the nonsense that alleged friends come up to me about regarding my business or life and present it as a “fact.” I don’t know whether to laugh or cry but I know that attempting to explain 25 years of institutional radio, social media and Baltimore advertising knowledge isn’t the best way to go.
But in my defense – and this is for anyone still reading the bile and hearing the spillover of my decisions to fix my life a year ago by some loud and incredibly ungrateful former employees – if my only value was to provide a guaranteed paycheck for life every two weeks and when that goes away I’ve somehow become an evil beast, well that says a lot about why I shouldn’t employ, partner or “represent” those people moving forward.
If there’s anything I’ve learned in 17 years of owning WNST and trying to give other folks a chance to realize a dream that I built it’s this: if you believe they are being disruptive or subversive or dishonest as an employee when you are paying them every two weeks while you’re doing your best to enhance their lives around the clock, then they’ll be exponentially more disruptive and abusive and dishonest as “ex employees” once you’ve fired them or they leave on their own.
It’s the strangest thing because it’s like a girlfriend who wanted to break up with you and then is pissed because you broke up with her.
I never, ever considered this concept or reality when the guy who owned AM 1570 offered me a chance to have “my own radio station” in 1998. I just figured I’d find a hundred hungry, smart, sports savvy, willing-to-learn protégés, veterans and people who wanted to be great and feed their families doing radio and media.
In reality, I was the Reuben Kincaid of local sports radio for 16 years. I had to go out in a suit, find talent and “manage” the careers and brands of folks that no one had ever heard of before my afternoon sports radio show off the core strength of my business relationships and local sponsors that birthed WNST in 1998.
The theme was always the same even though the names changed: “I want to do sports radio and I want to be paid a full-time salary to talk about sports a few hours a day but YOU can figure out how to find sponsors to pay for it.”
And then when they inevitably didn’t have sponsors and departed, I had to deal with the fallout, abuse and
