Bill Zimpfer: I Was Rolling With the Mad Dog

00:00:00 Speaker 1: You're now diving fish stank sitting down with step O. This is strictly but I'm true fans golf fans number one one. Of course, this was to be a fish tank. Welcome back to the fish Tank, presented by iHeart Radio right here on the Miami Dolphins Podcast Network, Seth Levitt and the man with the best hands in the podcast business, O j McDuffie. Juice, how you feeling today? You know you haven't said that in a while, Big said, I thought you forgot about that. You know, I remember if I trying to get a little variation, Mike always reminds me of how everything I say is exactly the same at the beginning of these things, So try to, you know, diversify. Well. I appreciate you bringing that back though, good stick with that one. If I'm gonna be consistent anything. Well, this is has to be an exciting day for a lot of reasons. A voice that all of our listeners are familiar with and a guy that knows a little bit about you and your college career. So this should be a great time. Bill's in for dies into the tag. Bill, how are you doing. It's been a long time, man, I'm doing great. It hadn't been a long time, and this is a real treat for me. Guys. Great to be with him, good having you man. You know, we always seem to get so many gators on this show, bill, you know, I mean, it's good to have a Penn State guy on for once. Man. It's good stuff. You know what too? It was it was funny, juice when when I was doing the games, I always and Jim Man that used to look get a bit a little bit disturbed with me. I always would mention that, you know, we got a quality Penn State guy on this roster. And yeah, every time. In fact, one time for Jim it was for either for his birthday or for Christmas or something. I got him a Penn State Gulf shirt and I got him a real nice one because I knew he wouldn't wear it if unless it was really nice. And he still didn't wear it. He refused to wear that Penn State shirt the whole time. Just incredible. But I reminded of him about that a lot. Yeah, we have a similar dynamic on this show as well here, so I could totally see that happening, and I feel for mad Dogs in that situation. Absolutely. But you know, so speaking of that, the majority of the people that are listening today know you as the voice of the Miami Dolphins. From so ninety four to two thousand and one, you were in the booth doing play by play with the legendary Jim Manage, who we just talked about, and actually I would say you were in the booth with him probably more than anybody right that period of time that you were there. But I and I thought I was going to beat you to the punch, but we just discussed it here. You also, before you got here in Miami, you're a Penn State guy through and through, and not just because ultimately what we're going to discuss here, but you attended Penn State. You went to school Penn State, you cut your broadcasting chops there, and then you called Penn State games. So you called, I don't know, almost all of Ojay's games at Penn State. You missed his rookie year here with the Dolphins because you were still at Penn State, and then you come down in ninety four and call all of his games. As an NFL player, you have called more O J. McDuffie games than anybody in the history of broadcasts. You know, I'm gonna have to write that down and O J, don't be surprised if you get an invoice. Yeah, you're right, and you know, it was interesting things I remember back at Penn State. One of the things that I remember, OJ, and you'll remember this, I'm sure it was you ran a reverse when Tony Saka was quarterback and you ran a reverse for a touchdown. Saca, when we interviewed him after the game, claimed it was his block that strung you. And you know, I said, I'm not. I'm not so sure. He wouldn't have scored anyway, Tony, But that was one play that stands out for me at Penn State. And then when you got drafted at Penn State, and we used to do I used to go on draft shows every year because I worked for sports radio in Philadelphia, and I can remember nineteen ninety three, I was doing draft show for another city and I had the Dolphins pick and I said, oh, J mcduffey, and then son of came through. And then the next year when I got the Dolphin's job, it just felt, I don't know, it felt like I had a connection there anyway, that there was another Penn State guy there absolutely and SOCCA he didn't he I don't think he blocked anybody, you know what I mean, I know it was the reverse. I think it's just notre dame that game. But uh, anyhow, Tony always took credit for stuff. He probably saidn't take credit for him. That's that's a whole different story. You know, as Seth mentioned, you know you first timing to Mike down in Miami is in nineteen ninety four, which means that you know, your first game was an absolute monster. First regular season game was an absolute monster. That was Danny's return from achilles injury. The year before that first game back, a muddy, nasty day in the stadium. Him and Drew Bledsoe through for almost combined with nine hundred yards. And I think you know, Robert Kraft had just taken over for the Patriots and Wayne Hazinga was our new boss around here. I mean, so many things going on. You had Tula, you have Bill Parksels, you have so much going on in that game. And uh, tell us what you remember about that game. I mean, I know I remember about it, Bill, but tell us what you remember about that game? Well, there were so many memorable things about that game. First off, you're right, you know, you know what it's like coming from Penn State, juice. Hey, we're used to fourteen to ten games, right, So just the fact that teams were going up and down the field was just exhausting to me just watching it. Then, of course, Dan's fourth down touchdown past Irving Fryer was just incredible at that end. And that's another one we come down to that. You got a fourth down and what was at five from about the thirty five yard line, and you're saying, Okay, if this was Joe Paterno, he probably would punt and let his defense win the game. You could try along field goal, and if you're gonna go for it, maybe you try a little short pass and pick up the first down. And here's Dan throwing into the end zone for a touchdown to Irving Fryer. Justin credible. But maybe the most memorable thing to me was that if you remember that year, there was a baseball strike, so there was no baseball in the month of September, and you talked about the rain for that game, O Jay, and the infield became almost like a swampy area, and all of a sudden, we get near the end of the game, and it always seemed like you guys on offense, we're always in that swampy area. So during the game, Jim Mandich goes on a rant about how the baseball guys should just give it up, fill that dirt in with grass and let's play football. Well, Wayne Heizega also owned the Florida Marlins. And it gets to a point where I'm feeling something happening behind me in the booth. There's some kind of ruckets going on, and I turn around and Wayne Heizega is in the booth with vanes popping out of his head, saying some things that went very nice about Jim's mother. So at that point, I just kind of put my headphones back on and turned back to the field, and I thought to myself, what did I get myself into here? That was just and that was just the beginning. Oh man. Yeah, I remember, like big set, I mean, I remember trying to return kicks in that mud. So I understand what Matt Dog was talking about there. It was it was a tough environment for anybody out there trying to, you know, trying to make a play out there. But I mean, the quarterbacks still had a blast. It looked like, Yeah, it didn't slow Drew and Danny down one bit. So you know, I'm curious about that though, Bill, because, as he said, you just spent your entire career as as a college broadcaster. Now you're in the NFL. Things have changed a little bit, and you expect that the product in the field obviously was different. But to have the owner of the team kick in the door like you know, an old Western movie or something, and and then you know, those guys are having a show down. What were you used to versus what you saw there? And was that something that you started to say, Oh wow, is this what it's like in the pro? Yeah, that that was the beginning of it. But the first thing was that it was much different because at Penn State, trying to even get any kind of access to the football team was trying to like to uh, if you would try to breach the Pentagon, you could not get any access to anybody. I can remember when I got the Penn State job. I went out there for a couple of days just to get acclimated and you know, meet people and such, and I called the athletic office called a football office, and I said what time to practice. I'd like to come out and watch practice. And the secretary just said, hang on a second, and I got transferred around and transferred around, and I think it was Frank Rocko. Do you remember him, Jay, Yeah, Frank Rocko said you can't go to practice and I said really, and he said yeah, we don't. We don't allow anybody at practice. And I said okay, And that that was the first indication I got. But other than you know, I had every Friday I would interview Joe for a pregame show and things like that, and he was always very nice. But just the organization there was much different than Miami. I can remember my first day down in Miami. I went down and one of the PR staff took me for a tour of the facilities and we go to the elevator. Elevator opens up. It's coach Shula. So he says, hey, Coach, I want to introduce you to our new broadcaster, Bill Zipfer, and he goes, did you broadcast that game when Alabama got shafted up at Penn State? You remember that? It was before I started doing Penn State. But Alabama ripped off and Michael Shula was on that say, Mike had to be the coach of Alabama at that point. That's right, He's like the coach he was on the team. But I said, no, coach that was before me. And from that point on, it seemed like I was okay. And with the Dolphins, you really had access to anything you wanted. Of course I was rolling. And with the mad Dog, I was gonna say, you had the all access passed. And his name was Jim Mandage. Right, anytime you were with Jim, you had, you know, cart blanche, you could. You really had any kind of access you wanted. I mean, Coach Shula would let me ride on a team bus if I wanted to uh to go different places and things like that. There was never a problem with that. And that was really, you know, really comforting and welcoming to me. So your first introduction to the owner, he's dog cussing your partner behind you. And your first introduction to the head coach, the legendary iconic head coach, he's asking if you kind of implying that you were part of the reason Alabama gosh daft in there. That's that's some welcome to Miami moments. And I made it. I made it clear I was not connected. Even if you would call that game, What impact did you had from the broadcast booth is what I want to know. But but if you know, going back to that that ninety four whole opener, I mean, can you I know you weren't down here daily, and you know you did commute. We'll talk about that commute a little bit, but can you talk about the build up? I mean, Dan Marino had one hundred and forty five straight games I think he had played in and while you hadn't called those games, everybody knew who Dan Marino was and associated Dan Marino with the Miami Dolphins as much as any player's ever been associated with a franchise. And now it's is there a chink in the armor? Can he still play? How much of that build up do you feel going into that game? And how much of that are you now you're calling this game, and so you're anybody who's not watching, well, I guess at that time people sitting in the stadium also were still listening. But if you're not watching that game, we only get to see it, so to speak through your eyes, how much does all of that that led up to that game impact the way you call a performance like that. Yeah, you're never quite sure exactly the way things are going to turn out, because, yeah, Dan was coming off the injury, and in the preseason, he didn't play in the first two games. I don't think of the five preseason games that year, Yeah, you're right, the first one was against the Giants up here at the Medal Lands. But Dan didn't play in the first at least the first two. And when he did play in the first preseason game, I can remember seeing him come out onto the field and thinking, Wow, he's he's really limping right noticeably, and how is this guy gonna play? Third play of the game, seventy eight yard touchdown passed to Mike Williams, and I said, Okay, I guess everything's all right. And then but you're still never quite sure in the because it's preseason. Then you get to the regular season and hey, yeah, you knew right away that this was gonna be this was gonna be a big year. Let's let's go back to mad Dog a little bit, man, because he's always been one of the guys in yourself that I really enjoyed, like listen to him when I was done playing. But talk about that relationship a little bit more and how when you came down here, he was already established into the South Florida community in terms of you know, especially in the radio and the business. You talk about the cloud that he has. How did you guys build that relationship. It seemed like it had a really good rapport, like right away. Yeah, it was almost instantaneous. Oh, Jay, I had not met Jim. I went down early before the first preseason game against the Giants. I went down early just to hang around practice a little bit and talk to people and have people get to know me, and Jim was on vacation or something, and they said, oh, well, he'll meet you up in New York. So I had not even met Jim. I've spoken to him on the phone, but I hadn't met him until the night before that first preseason game. And it was almost an instant report that we had in chemistry, and it was a pleasure the whole time I was with Miami, Jim kind of Jim and his family kind of adopted me down there because they knew I was traveling down from Pennsylvania and we would have dinner every Saturday night before the Sunday games. And he would pick me up and we go to the games together. A lot of times after the game, we would sit and tailgate a little bit after the games in in his pickup truck. H And it really was a great relationship. And it got to the point where when we were doing broadcasts, he knew what he could say that would kind of set me off, and I knew what I could say that would set him off, and we would play off each other, and I thought, at at some point I thought we had one of the one of the better presentations in the whole NFL. I heard other broadcasters, and there's a lot of talented people around, but I really thought that we had something special there. So the whole Pence Day Michikan thing never came into play with you guys and oh yeah, well now there was a lot of back and forth about that, but nothing ever, nothing ever serious about a little bit about Jim on the road though, how about when you guys are on the road. Seemed like guys get on the road and they kind of let loose a little bit, a little bit mo or my opinion. You know, when you're away from home, you kind of, you know, have a little bit more fun you do, you know, in the in the more controlled environment. Yeah, Jim always had it planned out. I mean I just had to. I'd meet him where whatever city we were in, and he would say, Okay, we're gonna go to this restaurant, then we're gonna go here, and then we're gonna go here, okay, And most of the time it was a fun evening, but we never got to the point where we couldn't do our jobs the next day. One of my favorite ones was we're down in New Orleans and of course we went out the night before and we ended up at Cafe Dumont and I don't know what time it was, and we're sitting there and Jim says to the waiter, you know, they have those those hats they used to wear, and he says how much how much for those hats? And a waiter said, GI, I don't know, let me check, and he goes back and he says, oh, they're fifty cents a piece, and Jim goes give us four of those hats. So we put we're wearing these hats and we go back to the team hotel with these hats on, and we were most of the time, we didn't stay on the same floor as the players did, but for this game we were and we get out of the elevator and Stu Weinstein, the head of security, has a table set up right at the elevator there so he could screen anybody coming in, and he just he just looked at us and he said, looking good, guys, looking good. We just walked right by. But we had a good time on the road. Tell us story about Jim doing the postgame show from the locker room and I guess you know where I'm going there, right, I know where you're going. And you remember this game. It was the game where we thought the game was over, but it wasn't. That's right that we thought the game was over. That there was a fumble that was recovered by the Dolphins toand the game and they said no. After I don't know how long they said no, it was an incomplete pass. Everybody was already in the locker room, so Jim doing the locker room show had already gone down there, and then we ended up coming out and it was a bust anyway. New England tried to throw a hail Mary or something and it came nowhere close to getting where it was supposed to be. So in the meantime, Jim is trying to work his way through the you know, this is old Foxborough Stadium. He's working his way through the bowels of the stadium trying to get to the locker room. The first thing he did was he goes through this door and he's in the Patriots locker and Bill Belichick is just kind of looking at him, Yeah, what's going on. So then Jim he's, you know, he's gone through these little catacombs down there, and he's standing there and someone just says, oh, you have to step back, and they close a door in front of him and it locks, and he's locked now in a supply close and he's, you know, he's got his mic there and he's talking to microphone and that cord that wrapped three times around the stadium. Hello Bill on the door saying hello, can somebody and he got locked in that closet. Suddenly somebody finally did let him out of it. I had no idea. Oh my god, you know that was It's funny as you tell. I mean, it's funny for a lot of reasons, and that game in particular, I just remember walking out with Jed Weaver and Kevin Donnelly were just in their towels night. It was a chilly night, but those guys were about to get in the shower. That the whole thing was once that was given his whole speech. All right, guys here, and he's rubbing his hand through his hair, and then the referee is banging on the He's banging on the window. There was a tiny little glass window that they had like paper over at the locker room door, and he's banging on and I look out and he's banging on the door. I'm like, stew you need and they opened the door and he says, you guys got to come back out. So that was crazy. But I didn't even know that Jim was doing that. But Jim, I don't know how you guys did that. So we do the postgame show now with Travis Wingfield. So after the games, OJ's in the stands, I'm in the press box and we all kind of race over there in the last couple of minutes, you know, the drill, and we get over there for the postgame show. But Jim would come down to the locker room and he had a wired microphone that was like had eight hundred feet of cord and guys are tripping over it and the whole thing, and Jim I don't know how how loud his damn headphones were, Bill, but he was screaming into that thing. Hey Bill, Hey Bill, we got you. Hey Billy. You know I'm here with oj mcduffy, Bill, Hey Bill, and he's screaming and everybody's like, what the hell is going on? So I can just imagine him doing that in a closet. It had to be echoing like crazy, unreal. You know, there were some there were some plastic moments in that postgame show off. I'm sure you remember the Brian Cox incidents in the postgame show. Yeah, that was an all times. There's so many things happened during that season. Oh man, that's too funny. So we covered the start of your first season, the ninety four season, but there were fireworks at the end of that season as well. So you know, I think about the postseason there and and you know, we host a wildcard game on New Year's Eve against the Kansas City Chiefs. Joe Montana led Kansas City Chiefs at this point in time. So, Bill, your first season in the NFL, that unbelievable game with Dan Marino, and then you are calling Joe Montana's the last game of his career. I mean, that's that's pretty remarkable. And then a week later you're flying down here to catch a charter to go to San Diego. And as much as I hate to bring this up because Dolphin fans who are listening to this will throw up every time we talk about it, but that was a team that probably was as good as any we've had since then, at least in terms of having an opportunity to get to the Super Bowl, and had San Diego dead in the rights, and obviously that kick was missed. It was at wide right, I think by piece Sianovitch there so talk about not only fireworks at the beginning of your career here with the Dolphins, but at the end of that season, those two games back to back, well, you know that that whole season was wild. Not only did you have you know, Dan coming back and going crazy in the first game, we won games in overtime. We lost games in overtime that season, and then the way it ended was yeah, unbelievable. I'll tell you. We at halftime of that game, we're trying to make reservations for Pittsburgh the following week. We're up twenty one to three at halftime, right, so we're saying, oh man, we better, we better get something in place for the following week. And then of course everything kind of fell apart. But that whole season was just you know, one exciting thing after another. And uh, you know that probably, of course, naturally it probably would be one of the most memorable for me, but it really was for a lot of different reasons. I have a follow up too, so as I'm looking at what it looks like maybe press credentials there on your board or what have you, and and you know, we all remember these games that is that are those press credentials or we all remember our experiences for different reasons. Oj of course, you know, for for all the amazing plays that he made and my experience as a PR person are different. As a broadcaster, when I think about calling Dan Marino's first game back Joe Montana, what a legendary career and to be there for the last game of his career, how do those things impact you as a broadcaster. How much perspective do you have on that in the moment or are you just too focused on who's number twenty seven for the opponent, and I want to make sure I say his name right when I'm calling play by play. Yeah. Yeah, you may think about that before the game and after the game, but once the game starts, it's it's just a whole different thing. You're so busy with making sure that your call is accurate, and you're working with At Penn State, I did have a spotter and a statistician there, but at with the Dolphins, we just had a tremendous crew there with my spotter and my stat guy, where you know, they were with us almost every game, not on the road games, but every home game, and our producer, So you've got a lot going on in there, and you and reading commercials and making sure you're getting the commercial breaks at the right spot and all that kind of stuff. Once the game starts, you're really not thinking about that. You're just trying to make the call the best you can and make the broadcast the best you can, So that kind of all goes away. Now. What I used to do my normal procedure was when I would be flying home after the game or the next day, I always had the game's taped and I would listen to them to see if there were things I could do better, And that's when that stuff kind of hits. You would sell Scout as a broadcast, just like OJ's watching tape to make sure that he watches that he all ran all all the right routes and the coverages and all that. You would sell Scout and listen to how you could have called the game better, or if you were happy with the way you called it right. Absolutely, there were times where I could say there's a better way I could say a particular phrase or something like that that would I would change the way I would say it, or use different terminology because it sounded better. And there might be things where there were a lot of times where I'd listen and just crack myself up things game said or whatever. You know. But it was an important part for me to be able to I still have you look care. I still have a lot of these cassettes. This is Dolphins. This is from a Chargers game. That one let else. I have boxes of these things. I should go back and look at him. Here's Buffle. There's a Bills game on this one. I think we need to get still, see if you can transfer those over to something digital. I don't want the uh yeah, yeah, yeah, because you know, once they break, you're gonna need a pencil bill and you're gonna need some Oh that's funny, the bill. You know. The following year, you know, we didn't really live up to our you know, our potential, and this time, you know, we were kind of one and done. We play Buffalo and they jumped on us right away. I mean it was wasn't even close. And that game, of course becomes the you know, the final game for Coach Shula that you ever coach. And when you were calling that game, how much do you feel that moment is bigger than the game itself? You know, And how do you bounce between keeping focus on what's going on the game and what could be a bigger picture possibly after that game. Well, it's a good thing. Without being a play by play guy, I can let Jim handle all that stuff. But it was there, Oh, Jay, it was you knew at that point, and of course Jim was very close with Coach Shula, and we knew that this was probably going to be it, and you knew that was happening, and to express that probably is very difficult. I don't know that we even did talk about it much after the game on the on the broadcast. I know we did personally between Jim and myself, but that and another similar situation wasn't when Dan hung it up, we knew that was it. You knew that Jacksonville game was going to be it, but it's it's something that you're aware of, but you don't want to make too big a deal of it because you don't want to overshadow other things in the game. Yeah, it was, man, I mean, I I don't know what I felt about that when big seth when I was you know, after that game, I knew it was a bad all we took, but I was I didn't expect coach to be to not be there following year. Man, it was kind of it was kind of tough on me, that guy that took a chance on me obviously, right Dolphins, right, yeah, yeah, first round pick, yeah, Bill, he's always trying to sneak that first round pick coming in every time like a lawyer. I opened the door for him. He walked right in and it was risky there that first round pick too. Funny. So well, it was coach Ruler's last game and it. Boy, it didn't take long for for Wayne Heisinger to get up there and introduced Jimmy Johnson as as the new and the next head coach of the Miami Dolphins. I know what that experience and that transition was like for oj and that would have been very different from what it would have been like for you or me coming in as an intern. But one thing you guys did have in common was the two of you had both been around Joe Paterno, you had both been around Don Shula. Probably some similarities between the two. Now, Jimmy Johnson came in with a reputation of being a tough coach as well, and this is an iconic coach as well, But I would say it's safe to say very different personality than the other two guys. What was that like for you or at what point did you meet or were you introduced to Jimmy Because you know, you weren't down here daily, so did you come down here did you meet him for the first time? And then what was that transition like for you as a broadcaster? Yeah, I think it was probably around the draft was the first time that I met him because I had to do an interview with him for television and we had some other things going on there too. One thing about Jimmy is that very very media savvy, of course, and tremendous in that aspect. So he was an easy interview. You knew that you gave him a softball question, he was going to answer it the way it should be answered, the way he wanted to answer it. You gave him a lot of room because you knew that he was aware of exactly how this had to be done for broadcast purposes. So very media savvy. But he it was different because, like we said before, with coach Shula, I had kind of an automatic entry there because of Jim Mandich. It was different with Jimmy. It took a while before I got to be, you know, kind of on friendly terms with him because, like all really there there in all sports franchises, college and professional, there's always a little bit of suspicion of the media. Uh, And it takes a while to get older that and become friendly with somebody. And I think maybe the time when was the year we went down to Mexico, was that fact I have that I have that credential ninety seven. Uh. We spent a lot of time with Jimmy during that trip, and and it might have been at around that point that we really got comfortable with him. Now, you didn't call the Fiesta Bowl against his hurricane, did you. Maybe that's all confront in the elevator. You call that game when we got screwed. Yeah, yeah, this stuff. You know, we don't mind me skipping over the whole Jimmy Johnson, that's not I'm not too interested too much on that. But let's let's jump to December of December thirty of two thousand. They want that's our headman now, and we go eleven to five and win the division, and we're playing against Peyton Manning and the Colts in the playoff game. But the game doesn't sell out, like I mean, it wasn't like I don't know how many times it doesn't sell out because I think it was the I think they changed the rule after Yeah. Yeah, it didn't sell out a playoff game. So it's gonna be blacked out, which is kind of crazy now because that will never happen ever again. Right, there were seventy three thousand people there, but the people that weren't in the stands, that were local had to rely on you and Mad Dog to give them the play by play. That's the only way they could. You're attention to the game. Well, what was that like being a part of something like that. You know, it's it's it's interesting when you when you're broadcasting a game, you're really not thinking about all the people that are listening to you. But it always used to strike me when we would be in the booth and there'd be a break for a commercial or whatever, and you'd look down and you'd see how many people had their earphones in or their headphones on, listening on the radio, and you realize that there's a lot of people that are that are depending on us to uh to provide the description of the game, maybe a little entertainment with the game, and you realize that you're aware of that. Uh now once the action begins myself anyway, you kind of get caught up in what's going on and you're really not thinking about that at all. But it's you know, it's something that is almost overwhelming. Like I went back to a Penn State game a couple of years ago, Jay, and the first thing I thought was, Wow, there's all these people. Yeah, and you never think about that when you're broadcasting a game that there's that many people that are there and that many people that could be listening to you too. Yeah, but that was different though, because it's i mean, there's normal games and then there's a situation where it's a playoff game and people can't watch the damn thing. You know, like that that's just not a common that it's not something that's gonna happen very often. And and so you know, your call was as important as it ever would be when the stakes were as high as they could be. And who you know, last last playoff game that this team would win. Well, yeah, and that's the thing about it too, that game itself, right, No, we're down fourteen nothing to the Colts and then we make the comeback and you talk about some overtime, overtime games. I mean, that game was just incredible. And for those that you know that didn't show up, they the way you guys brought it had to be you know, the most impactful for them. Yeah, yeah, you don't think about that during the broad Well, I'm getting through this whole interview because bills in for when the lights come on, bills in for a zero. Yeah, there's no distract I tell you, I guess you could, and I don't know. I never did. But maybe some people, if you know that this is going to be an especially important game listener wise, maybe you're thinking of all, is there certain what can I what kind of what can I say? Is there some kind of catchy thing I could say? Or I never I never thought about that stuff. I just kind of let it go and did it as it came to me and as my emotions allowed, which sometimes got me in a little bit of trouble, which I'll tell you. But you know anything about that, I never I never planned anything out. I never you know, took that into account. I'd love to hear the call when Lamar scores that touchdown Big steths, we're to find that, Yeah, I might have let me look for that when I'm more, but not that you have him. But I want to know what you play them on. But what do you even remember that that moment and Lamar Smith bounces it outside there and the right seventeen yards and scores that touchdow a walk off, right? I mean, you know how often do you see those? Just unreal? And I still remember we talked about in the days after that game, they said, you see who led him into the end zone? Was so j McDuffie escorting him right into the end zone. But as I look back on that play, I really didn't have a real accurate call of that because to me, it looked like he was just you know, breaking away from tackles and pulling away, when if you watched the replay, they never really got a good shot at him that he kind of was moving around, moving around all of a sudden bang. So oh yeah, yeah, my call really wasn't accurate on a day when there was a blackout. Once mad Dog started screaming, it really didn't matter what you said at that point, Bill, because we had won the game and he was excited, and I'm sure everybody who was listening was fired up. I want to ask you about the idea of for eight seasons, you were the voice of this team on Sundays or whatever day the game would be, but you weren't here day to day, and you commuted, and I heard you in preparing for this. I heard you do another interview where you talked about how, in some ways, you know the guys who are here Monday through Friday doing morning shows, they have to talk about Joe Rose, right, if the team didn't play well, he's got to talk about that all week and then go call the game, and then you know, and go sit in a production meeting with the coach and maybe he's ripped whatever happened, And you in some ways were isolated from that because you know, you only called the games. But in other ways, I just wonder if there was any type of whether there was a struggle or an inner battle for you. Did you ever think, man, maybe I should live down there or you know, what was that dynamic like to be so important to the market but to not really be in the market on the day to day basis. Yeah, that was a constant internal struggle for me, that should should I be down there more? I actually did have a plan that as we moved if if if I would have been around for much longer, that I had planned to spend probably the whole football season down south and then come back up here in the off season. Never got to that point. In fact, this will tell you what kind of got Jim Mandich was. Jim said to me, we had talked about it, and he said, you know, he said, I'm making an investment. I'm going to buy a condo down in Miami Beach as an investment. He said, it's yours if you want it. And you know that was you know, that was part of the long range plan. We just unfortunately never got there. But you're right about first of all, I had no problem staying up to date on what was happening down there. I talked to Jim a lot. Of course, you had newspaper, Internet, you guys in the public relations department. I never had a problem keeping up on what was going on down there. But I can remember Almando Saugarrol one time saying to me when I was down there. He said, sure, he said, everybody loves you. You're not around here, you know, so, oh, guys, they're taking all the bullets. Man, I know I could stay out of trouble down there. Yeah, that is that's funny that Armando would say that, but that is true. And I know that that was a sore spot with the beat writers and Armando. I don't know if he was beat writer columnists at that point in time, but you know, those guys are there daily, so they think understandably, they don't think they think that anybody who's not there with them in the trenches on the daily doesn't know. But but that doesn't mean you can't follow the team. That doesn't mean. Shoot, I know that Neil and Harvey and I were sending about eighty pages of the press release every week, so you had plenty of reading material and know what was going on. Absolutely well. Bill, you know you're always going to be a dolphin or Nitney lyon no matter what's your address is, I'm man. But before we let you out of here, yeah, we know you've called hundreds of two minute drills. We know you've done a bud seen a bunch of but today we're gonna put you in a two minute drill. All right? Right, is this your time? Alright? My favorite part is every act to hearing that we're going to see how you handled this two minute drill and its misreal. Soif we're gonna fire off a few questions for you and whatever comes to mind, your answers, whatever is what it is, man, We've we've had a lot of fun with it. But we're gonna see how your two minute drill would work from the radio booth. All right, And there's a two minute clock here. You can't see it, Bill, but from what I understand now about you, it doesn't matter if you've blocked out anything that's external. There, hyper focus on the task at hand. I'll chep my eyes on the clock. Okay, I got you on that one. All right, here we go. First question. I understand that, in addition to broadcasting, you also enjoyed throwing a little weight around in your younger days. You're a weightlifter. What was your personal weightlifting record? What's the most the record that you're most proud of. I think the thing that I most proud of powerlifting was at a body weight of one hundred and ninety eight, I could squat five hundred sixty. That probably is my greatest achievement. You know, It's not not world record, but it's something that I'm really proud of. Wow. Understandably, Oh wow, Okay, that's a lot. I wouldn't even thinking about the weight room like that. But yeah, we've got rulling the clock. You are right. You called games coached by three iconic coaches, Joe Paterno, Don Shula and Jimmy Johnson. If they stepped away from the sideline into the radio booth for one game, who would you have been the most had the most fun with as your color analyst. Believe it or not, it probably would have been Joe Paterno because the Blue White Game. Oh, Jay, I don't I don't know if you remember this. We used to broadcast the Blue White Game and Joe would come up in the booth with and he would he would light stuff on me like it'd be like a third and one, and he'd say, what would you do, Bill, And I'd say, I'd play action and throw deep. I like that, you know. So we had a good time with Joe. Joe Paterno. I would not have guessed that a good one. Okay, if you could take one thing back that you said on air throughout your entire career, well let's just narrow it down to your Dolphin days. You'd take one thing back that you said on air. What would it be? Easy? One? Easy one? And this involves number eighty one there. This was. We had talked to assistant coaches during the week and one of them talked to us about a special teams play they were working on where they put two punt returners back and O j would if the ball came to him, would throw it across the field. And he said, man, he can really throw, so don't you know the following week punt situation back go o j McDuffie and Terrell Buckley, and my enthusiasm just kind of got away from me a little bit, and I said, I know they're working on a play where OJ throws it across the field before the before the play happened the next day and it didn't didn't happen because they guessed that B went to a tea boxer something. And the next day, Harvey Green calls me and he said, did you read USA Today? And I said, now, there's a little piece in there that says Jimmy Johnson is upset because a secret trick play was revealed by the team's broadcasting. And that little clipping from that USA Today I used to keep in my football back. I had it in there for years just to remind myself, don't let your enthusiasm get away. That is a two minute drill. I would say the touchdown, Yeah, yeah, touchdown on that one. Bill Man. This was a lot of fun. It's so great to be able to reconnect with you. I appreciate you making the time. I love that you still have those cassette tapes we need to tap into that resource for sure. And you know, I know you're retired now, you've retired from from radio altogether. Yep. Hung it up two years ago after a forty four years in radio. Last four years I worked for iHeart Radio as a national news CARUS and I had the privilege of going every day. I'd go on with Jimmy Cephalo for a few days another. That was a real treat. Yeah. Well, well the fish Tank is now presented by Iheartradios, so it's like we're all one big famus right, good stuff. Hey, thanks for diving in, Bill, We're appreciate. Hey, this has been a real treat for me. Guys, great to break the CEO J good. Just like Jew said, thanks for diving into the fish Tank presented by iHeartRadio. Be sure to follow us on whatever streaming platform you're using, and don't be afraid to rate the show or leave us a comment. We love your feedback, and remember you can find us as well as Drive Time with Travis Wingfield and all of our international partners on Miami Dolphins dot com. Fish Tank