More Old Media Friends

Here are two more media friends I like. Paul Keels (right) is the radio play-by-play guy for Ohio State football and basketball, and Denny Janson (below) is the main sports anchor at a television station in Cincinnati.

The reason I mention them today is because I was reminded of a story that I think is funny, though you probably won't, but this is my blog and I'll write what I want to.

When I was getting my start in the media as a jackass sports writer for my college newspaper at the University of Cincinnati, I got to know these guys well enough for them to play an embarrassing gag on me.

As part of UC's Midnight Madness festivities to ring in the new basketball season, the school set up many kinds of activities, including a media celebrity all-star game. Nine celebs must have called in sick, because somehow I was asked to participate.

So there I am breaking a sweat, the youngest guy out there in front of about 10,000 people at the Shoemaker Center, running circles around a bunch of 40-somethings. A teammate grabbed a defensive rebound and threw the ball to me, about 80 feet away from the basket.

Janson and Keels were on the other team's bench, and only like two hecklers could, they began to count down quite loudly, "Three, two, one . . . " So for some reason I fell for it and heaved an 80-footer toward the far basket that came nowhere near going in, giving the ball back to the other team with about a minute still left on the clock.