Well yesterday turned out to be the last show where both Mike (Francesa) and Chris “Mad Dog” Russo were on together, albeit it for 5 minutes, on the Mike and the Mad Dog radio program. For those not too familiar with the show they were the first sports radio talk where not many gave them hopes to last very long… This was all the way back in 1989. Now 19 years later, they are finally going their separate ways with Mad Dog probably accepting a multi-million dollar satellite radio offer pretty soon. Mike has just signed 5 year extension to stay on with WFAN 660 and will change the show name to “Francesa On The Fan”. It is quite impressive how they did a show from 1 PM to 6:30 PM every day for 19 years… that’s a lot to handle.
They literally set the stage for sports radio all across America when they first started and they have been a part of my daily routine for nearly 8 years now. I eventually became interested in doing sports radio and then broadcasting. I had always been interested in sports but never thought doing a show until I started listening to theirs and really enjoyed it.
I started doing my first radio show my freshman year on college where I co-hosted “Double Play” with my good friend Justin Eusebio and eventually Matt Fitzsimmons. We hosted it for two seasons where we discussed professional sports, collegiate athletics, sports picks and debated any other sports topic that came to mind.
Eventually college schedules began to take a toll ok everyone and the show folded but then I started working for the Stevens Athletics Department in doing Public Announcing for games and eventually Broadcasting games online with Matt. The games varied from basketball, soccer, lacrosse and volleyball for both men and women teams as well as doing field hockey games.
I plan on continuing broadcasting for as long as I’m in college and who knows what happens after that. However it’s safe to say that I would have zero interest in doing either the sports radio show nor broadcasting if it wasn’t for both Mike and the Mad Dog.
I don’t know too many people outside of my own personal and extended family who listened to the show regularly but it was truly stuff of legends the way those two worked with each other. There was doubt they would last 19 days, never mind 19 remarkable years of being atop of the ratings garnering national attention of those who wanted to make a name for themselves in tri-state area had to go through these two first.
Hopefully these two continue to have successes in their respective program but everyone can clearly admit, things will no longer be the same for the powerhouse of sports radio.