Hour 1: 25th Anniversary with Don La Greca

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
In Espn's wild world of college football, every Saturday begins with a ritual. And then, the migration turns to mayhem. Predators hunt, territories are defended, rivals clash. In this wild world, legends are unleashed on Saturdays. No one brings you closer to the wild than Espn.
College football and Espn continues Labor Day weekend. Witness the wild in ABC, Espn and the Espn app.

**Michael Kay** (1:29)
I did too, I did too. Now, usually at this time of the day, you're going to hear the Michael Kay Show, but it's the Michael Kay and Don La Greca Show today as we celebrate 25 years of ESPN New York Radio. Don, in a way, it's gone by an eye blink, and in a way, I can't believe it's 25 years.

**Don La Greca** (1:50)
Yeah, it's the old saying, right, about time flies when you're having fun, and I had a ball over these last 25 years, but then you look at it and go, when we met each other to do those shows way back of the day in the infancy of the radio station, we were two single dudes, right?
And now you've been married for what? It's 14, 15 years now, right? 2011

**Michael Kay** (2:16)
15 years, 15 years, yeah.

**Don La Greca** (2:18)
And on September 9th, it's six days from now, in less than a week, I'll be celebrating my 21st anniversary. We both have growing kids and a growing family, so in that way, it feels like a long time. But the two things I thought of when I heard that open, Mike Thompson saying it was too long, you got to shorten it up, we got to get to the show, song's too long.
And the churn it up, which is always what you'd bring up to me. But just the tone of the song and how young Joey sounded, I knew that it was different than what I hear every day at one o'clock. So I had a feeling it was coming and it was glorious.

**Michael Kay** (2:55)
So let's talk about when it started, all right? Because the show's first voice was you. I always know that the first voice on FAM was Susan Waldman.
You had the first voice September 3rd, 2026 Do you remember what you said? Do you remember how nervous you were? And how did you get hired by Espn? You had done some spot work at WFAN, but who came to you to hire you for Espn?

**Don La Greca** (3:23)
Well, that was Steve Maulsberg, who gave me my big break. And people know Steve Maulsberg as the conservative talk show host on ABC all those years. But he started out in sports, and he was the guy that hired at Shadow Sports. When I did updates on FAM to start, it was through Shadow Sports. I'd have to go to Shadow, which is right at the intersection of 17 and Route 3 over by the Meadowlands.
And Steve hired me there to do 10-10 wins. And Steve gave me my big break. He said, listen, if I send 10-10 wins a tape, they're going to probably say no. I'm just going to put you on the air. And he just put me on the air. 10-10 wins said it's great. So I got to know Steve, got to do updates at CBS, 10-10 wins, and then eventually WFAN.
And then when ESPN came, he was working over at ABC, and a lot of the ABC tentacles were running ESPN Radio. Tim McCarthy, the general manager, Phil Boyce, the program director, and Steve Malzberg, who was the sports director. Steve was the one that was, hey, go find some talent for us to hire. And I got the call from Steve Malzberg to be the full-time night update anchor. And so it was Steve Malzberg who hired me here at ESPN.

**Michael Kay** (4:35)
Now we dug up an article from the Daily News at that time. So Don Gould got hired as the morning update guy.
Erika Herskowitz as the afternoon update person. And then you as a night person.
Pretty amazing all those years back. So there were seven people that were initially hired. And we really didn't have shows then, Don. They were running national ESPN radio stuff. And I know that Tim McCarthy at the time said, we've got to have local programming. Because I don't know if New York is going to accept just national shows after, you know, FAN was all local. And eventually, it got to that. But do you remember the first update? And were you nervous? And what did you talk? I think that was the day after Messina came, what, one strike away from a perfect game.