Gather 'round and allow me to riddle you with a tale of how a Prodigal Son returned home, or some such thing.

I have been a part of the KISS-FM staff for nearly 12 years now, a rarity in this business we call radio (people tend to jump around from city to city on a regular basis in this industry). Over those 12 years I have hosted the morning show, middays, afternoons, been the station's Promotions Director, and, for the last eight years, the station Brand Manager.

Then, in the spring of 2014, I was presented a new opportunity. Our company was launching an ESPN Radio affiliate on 105.3 FM, and I was offered the chance to co-host a sports talk show weekday afternoons from 3 to 6pm with our Production Director, Jimmie Ford (who I've called high school football with for the past six years). At the time I was in a place where I was starting to question my longevity on KISS. Being on the down-slope toward 40-years-old, I wasn't sure how much longer I could relate to an audience that tries to keep up with the Kardashians and wants to know the latest member of Taylor Swift's squad, nor was I sure that I even cared.

The opportunity to host a sports talk show was intriguing for two reasons. 1.) I like sports and it would give me an opportunity to discuss them in a forum that made more sense, and 2.) I could do sports talk until I retire or die, whichever comes first. The self-imposed "age limitations" wouldn't be an issue there like I thought they would eventually be on KISS.

On July 9th, 2014, we launched the "Ford & O'Bryan Show" on our sister-station, ESPN Evansville 105.3, and for the first nine months, I remained as the Brand Manager for KISS as well as midday host.

As I quickly learned, hosting a three-hour sports talk show everyday where you don't get the advantage of music to give you a break every so often is much more than walking into the studio, cracking the mic, and talking about sports for three straight hours. There's research that needs to be done, stories to be pulled, stats to know, and opinions to construct based on all of it. For every hour of the show, there's easily an hour's worth of time that goes into preparing for what's going to fill it, usually more. I'm no math wiz, but if you add a three hour show plus three hours or more to prepare for that show, it comes out to between six to seven hours of my day spent on that one task.

I thought I handled it pretty well for the most part. I would use the time when music was playing on my KISS air shift to do the prep work for ESPN later that day. The problem with that became that neither was getting 100-percent of my focus like they should, and therefore, both were suffering to some extent.

In April of this year, I left the on-air part of KISS, and remained the station's Brand Manager. The extra time allowed me to put a majority of my focus on growing the ESPN show and making it as good as it could be, while overseeing the day-to-day operations on KISS.

Then sometime in late-October, early-November, I found myself waking up in the morning wondering what I was going to fill a three-hour show with that afternoon, and if I even cared anymore. I thought maybe I was just in a slump, or that notorious self-doubt was rearing its ugly head like does so often, and that it would pass, but as the days and weeks went on, the feeling stayed. Call it burn out, or whatever, but I realized after a year and a half, sports talk radio wasn't something I wanted to do anymore.

I believe that in order to do a sports talk show well, you have to be insanely passionate about sports, and consume them nearly around the clock. The daily grind of putting a show together started to take the enjoyment out of sports for me. I was watching games and sports I had little-to-no interest in because I felt I had to for the show. Maybe I was doing it wrong, I don't know, but that's how I felt.

Even though I had stepped away from the on-air side of KISS to free up some time, six to seven hours of my day was still spent preparing the show. If I had a video idea, or wanted to write something more long-form for the website, those ideas, projects, whatever you want to call them were often pushed to the back burner because I didn't have the time to dedicate to them in order to make them worth watching or reading like I wanted (unless I wanted to work until 10pm every night, which I also didn't want to do since I'm usually in the building by 7:30 each morning).

Without pulling the curtain too far back on the Wizard, being the station Brand Manager sometimes affords me the chance to know certain information before it's revealed to the rest of the staff, and I knew a staff reshuffling was in the works that would open the door for my return to KISS.

I'm not the type of person that jumps from thing to thing. Once I start something, I stick with it until I'm reassigned to something else, or someone else decides that "thing" is over. So the idea to leave the ESPN show on my own was new to me. Was I a quitter? By definition, probably. But as the saying goes, "if you love what you do, then it's not work," and I wanted to get back to that. The daily grind of a sports talk show was starting to take it away from me.

After a discussion with Jimmie (I felt I owed it to him to let him know what I wanted to do before anyone else), I spoke with my immediate supervisor, and the wheels were set in motion for my return. The final "Ford & O'Bryan Show" aired on Thursday, December 10th, and after burning up some vacation time, I walked back into the building on December 21st to start my new/old job.

I don't regret doing the sports show. I did enjoy it for the majority of time it was on the air. It gave me the opportunity to interview an Olympic Gold Medalist from the "Miracle on Ice" hockey team, former Central High School and St. Louis Cardinals pitcher, Andy Benes, along with Don Mattingly, and World Series-winning managers, Jack McKeon and Jim Leyland among others that I probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to interact with otherwise.

This will sound super cliché, and maybe a tad on the pretentious side, but I'll say it anyway; I got into this business to entertain people, hopefully put a smile on their face and all that, and with technology being what it is these days, I have the opportunity to not only do that behind a microphone, but in front of a video camera, or in this case, from a keyboard in my office. I like to create things, see them through from start to finish, but those things require time, sometimes hours depending on the concept, and being back on KISS, and KISS only, gives me that time.

As for getting too old, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and the latest additions to Taylor's squad, I'd say you're only as old as you feel, Taylor writes some really catchy songs, plus she seems like the coolest person on the planet, why wouldn't you want to hang out with her, and I don't have to keep up with the Kardashian's to make fun of them.

It's good to be back.

 

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