Marchand Sports Media Frank Isola's trip from New York sports media institution to the national spotlight
In the 50-minute sports media podcast, SiriusXM/ESPN/YES’ Frank Isola tells incredible stories from his days on the Knicks’ beat to his move into TV and radio stardom.
Isola is the guest on “The Main Event with Andrew Marchand”
For access to our twice-a-week podcasts sign-up as a free or paid subscriber at AndrewMarchand.com.
The Rundown …
* How Marchand first met Isola and how Marchand got in “trouble” at the New York Post from night time sports editor Pat (Hondo) Hanigan
* The way Isola launched Michael Kay’s career at The Post
* How Isola broke into business after making $10 per story at the University of Maryland newspaper
* The Stephon Marbury-Isiah Thomas fight on the plane story that Isola broke
* Isola’s connection to Marbury when Marbury was a kid
* Tremendous Isola-Marbury driving home story that ends with a Mike Vaccaro question
* Why covering a baseball beat is the hardest job in sports media
* How Isola moved from the Mets to the Knicks beat
* Why Jeff Van Gundy was such a great coach to cover as a young reporter
* The ways Isola worked the beat and made relationships with players
* The “Done Nelson” back page came from hard work
* Tremendous story about Van Gundy ripping Phil Jackson
* The reasons behind Van Gundy calling Michael Jordan a “con man”
* Joe Sexton’s advice of how if no one is mad at you, then you probably aren’t doing a good job
* Being confronted by Jeff Can’t (also known as Jeff Kent)
* How the Garden always wanted to know when Jim Dolan’s name was mentioned in the paper
* The story of Isola getting the first interview with Dolan when Dolan began running everything
* How on a beat it is much easier to just go along with the team, but, to do your job, you can’t
* The infamous story of Isola looking under his car when he was covering the Knicks
* Ian Begley and Isola go see JD and the Straight Shots that led to the “Jimmy The Greek” headline
* Why Marchand would hire Isola as a New York sports talk show host
* Aaron Solomon and how Isola ended up on “Around The Horn”
* How the TV business is nicer than the newspaper biz
* How big time athletes are not great with confrontation
* The reasons why Isola loved covering Patrick Ewing
* Tony Kornheiser might be the most successful person as a sports writer and a radio and TV host
* Marchand criticized Around The Horn in a column for The Athletic so he asked Isola what he was missing
* The SiriusXM NBA show that Isola and Brian Scalabrine is a really fun hang
* Why the NBA is so good to talk about
* World Cup predictions …
Some Related Sports Media Podcasts
* How Chris Russo became the greatest sports talk show host of all-time
* How Adam Schefter became the most prolific NFL insider in history
* How Woj became a Hall of Famer
* Ian O’Connor tells the stories of legends
* Peter King’s legendary NFL stories
* Mark Kriegel, Mike Tyson & making the of the baddest man
* How Joel Sherman became a New York baseball institution
* How Tyler Dunne made his NFL longform Substack work
* Peter Schrager, the king of connections
Hans Schroeder is the guest for the next Off The Record presented by WS Sports on Thursday, Dec. 11th in midtown. It is free to attend, though, space is limited. Sign-up here.
* On Deck Tuesday: Marchand & Meterparel
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