Greg Cote: I Grew Up a Dolphins Fan

00:00:00 Speaker 1: You're now diving. I'm gonna been that pis tank setting down with Seth oh Jay. And this is strictly for I'm true fans number one of course, y'all. This ain't the other never sports talk that might have been that. Welcome back to the fish Tank, presented by an iHeartRadio right here on the Miami Dolphins Podcast. Now Seth Levin and my main man O J McDuffie. Juice. How you feeling today? Going great? Big Set? We get in the living room, man, it's always a good feeling and I'm feeling pumped about it. Bro wingfield living room to tell some good stories with a professional storyteller. Right finally, Yeah, Greg Cody, Welcome to fish Tank. Thank you. Yeah, it works out on a professional podcast all the stuff. Wow, how about that? That makes me sounding better than I am the world? I don't know about that? About that? Happy to be here? Well? Yeah, it works about it? And actually it's funny. So I was all, you know, as a guy who grew up in South Florida, I wanted to focus on your decades long work as a columnist. You know, That's how I know you. And even when I work for the team, you and Dan would come strolling in about two minutes after kickoff, and you always had your two seats there. You would sit there and kind of watch the game differently than everybody else. But then I watched your South Beach sessions as I was preparing for this unbelievable conversation that you and Dan had, and you said that your identity now is really more as part of Dan's show as a podcaster, not print media, that that's not your identity any longer. And I'm like, shit, am I am? I going in the wrong direction here, But I'm gonna go with my gut, and I think that it is. It is that work as a columnist that really has woven you into what the South Florida sports lore really is. All this stuff you do now that we're going to talk about is very cool. But I think that the history and the career that was built behind a typewriter or a keyboard, I'll say, I shouldn't say typewriter. That's going too far back, isn't it. I had a typewriter. It was a big battleship gray Royal typewriter. I weighed about forty five pounds. Yeah, So I want to focus on that first, and then we'll get into all the cool stuff that you're doing now. But let's establish something. You are a South Florida guy. You're not somebody that lived somewhere else and just landed a job with the Miami Herald. You grew up here. You went to MacArthur High School, which juice you know. I like Thert Brower County Piper High guy. We got Robbie Chosen, went to South Plantation, got Mike White, who went to the U School, and now MacArthur High's finest the Mustang, the Mustangs, I love it. So talk about the fact that you go to MacArthur High School, you're writing for the school paper, and like, right out of high school you get a gig with the Miami Herald. Yeah. My brother who was still at the time living there, he was nine years older than me, but he was still at home and I was about sixteen, and he saw an ad in the paper, a little ad that big for a clerk, you know, a guy to answer phones and so forth, and he said, Hey, this looks like it might be something that interests you. I never would have seen it if he hadn't mentioned it. So that's a little twist of fate there and out of the blue, I called and it was Jim Martz, one of my mentors who worked at the Herald for many years covered you on football and tennis and a bunch of other stuff. He was the Bard sports editor at the time, and I answered the ad. I didn't even drive yet, I was late to get my license, so I took a city bus to the Broward office on Sunrise Boulevard, did the interview. He hired me right on the spot. Wow, And I began just answering phones, and one of the first phone calls I took was from Hello. It's a female voice. Hello, could I speak to Jim Marts please? Who's calling? It's Chrissy Evert And at the time she was at the top of might have been the number one ranked player, and I transferred the call to him, and I immediately am thinking to myself, I may have just fallen into an interesting job. And you know, one thing led to the other, and I worked my way up the ranks and eventually I did what I'm doing. Yeah, you know, so that was kind of cool. But the other thing is I grew up a Dolphins fan, Like the Dolphins raised me one hundred thousand. People will tell you they were at that first game in nineteen sixty six. I actually was with my dad, and I think history has largely forgotten that that was a pitiful crowd for that first game. I don't think the Large Bowl seats one hundred thousand, especially with that open end. Yeah, and I think I think the attendance might have been twenty six thousand or something like that. But I was there for Joe hours kickoff return, and so the Dolphins raised me. And it was only years later that I began covering the team. Yeah, I want to get into that a little bit. So how do you go from being a clerk to elevate yourself to columnists? Was that a role you always envisioned for you once you started being a cleric? No, I didn't. I worked for my wrote for my high school paper, purely by accident. I never grew up thinking I want to be a journalist, I want to write for a living. I didn't really have a design on what I was going to do. I didn't even really plan to go to college. I was the first one in my family to go to college, which sounds weird to say. In twenty twenty three. But I was and my best friend at the time was on the high school paper, and he's like, hey, this is fun. It's an easy credit, you know, come on, And so I did. And and the advisor of the high school paper saw a writing talent in me and nurtured it and encouraged me and so forth, and and that's the only reason I wrote for the high school paper. Did the same at the at the college paper, and the Herald hired me and and you know, I started off as just answering phones, and then they would let me write little, tiny things, and eventually I wrote a bowling column. Oh wow, Robert Bowling column The Bowler Are you? Oh yeah, what do you average? I don't know my average is, but I do have a three hundred game in my belt No way, yeah, absolutely, Are you serious? You got to documented three hundred? I got a brag on you and two yeah, we do I do on YouTube. Wow, Yeah, I'm a bowler. I'm I'm actually in a league right now for the first time since the nineteen eighties. I used to bowl before I had kids, and I was okay, I averaged like one sixty. And now I'm back in the league. And down in the one forties working my way north. I think you're saying, bag that one forty. You know, there's a handicap when it comes out what it is, right already between you and I start off load, right, We did that in the weight room with John Gamble, were like, you know, act like we can only live you know too in a quarter, you know, five times. Then we get better as the year goes on. How strong. Yeah, I'm amazing, John. You're killing you doing a great job, John. But real quick though, Greg, though, you know some people, you know, spend a lifetime really in newspaper and not get to the level of being a columnist. I mean, that's that's that's a hell of an accomplishment. Well. I started off covering after Bowling. After the Bowling column, I covered high schools, which is, you know, high school football and everything is big down here. You all know that. And then from there I covered the Fort Lauderdale Strikers. And at the time we had a big budget, and you know, there weren't that many teams in town at that time besides the Dolphins and m football, so the Strikers were a big deal. I remember going to Vancouver and elsewhere to cover them, and from there I covered UM football. During the Jimmy Johnson years eighty four to eighty eight, I covered the Dolphins. People associate me with the Dolphins, but I only covered the team full time two years. Yeah, And I think it was ninety and ninety one as a beat writer like where I was there every day, and then I became a full time columnist in I think ninety four or ninety five, so I would gradually work my way up. I tended to always be overshadowed because Edwin Pope, the local legend, was the number one columnist for decades and then as he was getting ready to retire, and and I was about to make my Mark Levatard, right, Damn Levatard comes into the market and wonder kid, and he becomes a rising star. So it took him to sort of leave the Herald for me to finally, you know, become the established number one columnist. But it's been a great ride. I've got no regrets. So let's let's dig into the kind of the construct of columnists and what what that responsibility is, because in my mind, it's it's an interesting thing. It's like you're a voice of the fan, but you're also a voice for the fan. And while those two things sound similar, they really are distinctly different. How did you view your role like when you when you started to write columns, and then certainly as you elevated to that position, Damn Levatard, as you elevated that position as number one columnist, how did you view that role? How do you continue to view that role every time you sit down and you have an opinion and have to have this distinct voice. Consider myself a neutral observer, but with the understanding that I don't deny my background, which is I was raised down here. I was a fan of the dolphins growing up. I had I don't even know if they make pennants anymore, of those little like the cloth. I used to actually have a dolphin pennant on my bedroom wall. I don't know if y'all remember. Royal Castle used to have dolphin trick playing cards that they would give out. I collected those, and so I don't deny the latent fan in me, Like like when I'm writing about the Dolphins, and I try to do this with all the teams, but the Dolphins are the most personal to me. Whenever I write about the Dolphins. I do try to write from a fans perspective, you know, I try to write as a professional journalist with sort of a neutral, observer tone. But at the same time, you know, if the Dolphins are going through a rough patch, I can relate, you know, I can sympathize with the fans, you know. And and so I think that's a perspective I bring to whatever I write. That is a little bit unique because I don't know how many people covering the team were at that first game in sixty six, and you know, I and then when I first started really writing about the Dolphins, when Marino was drafted, everything changed and all of a sudden, the Dolphins are so huge. You gotta and and and so I got to meet Shula. That was a thrill for me. And I'm not going to deny it. The first time I met that guy Shula, it was it was sort of neat, you know. It was my talking to Chrissy Everard on the phone moment that you know, look at this guy Shula, because my dad idolized Shula, and late in my dad's life, I was Shula was kind enough to invite my dad and I into his office for a meeting, and that was the thrill of my dad's life. So, so you and your dad had a different viewpoint of Don Shula than Levitard and his dad. He told us that story on the show. They had a little different opinion of Coach Shula was God to my father. And one of my memories I was at I think I was in high school at the time, and when they won that first playoff game in Kansas City in seventy one Christmas Day, right, the longest game. My brother was in the Army at the time, stationed in Japan. My mother didn't give a bleep about sports, so it was my dad and I watching that game alone in the living room and it's big Panasonic you know, box set, And when they won that game, my dad and I jumped up and hugged each other while jumping out. We may have invented the like that chess by Yeah, in that whole Poco jumping was so cool and we weren't huggers, you know, So that was spontaneous where my dad and I just hugged each other and jumped up and down. A little memory because that was the turning point for the franchise. Yeah, you know, and as a fan it was for me as well. Oh man, all right, all right, big seth. We're going to get you out of your your OPR guide fields right now for a little bit. I know you do, I know, and then get out of class sports journalism, Oh Harry classes. You know you want to get us all up in here, you know, And we're going to ask Gregg and talk about the Dolphins in your relationship with the Dolphins for a little bit. We talked about before you started in seventy two with the Herald, and we know how the Dolphin team was at that point. You talk about seventy one when it's the beginning of things to come, seventy two of course, the perfect seasons team. When you first start writing about the team exclusively, I mean you said you became a beat, right you only beat writer for a couple of years, but like exclusively writing about the Dolphins throughout the seventies. I was working my way up at the Herald, you know, bowling and you know soccer, and I didn't really get a chance to cover the major beats at that point, so I never I think the first time they sent me to a Dolphin game was to write a sidebar, and I think it was that epic playoff game against San Diego, the overtime game, I'm remembering correctly, and that I think was the first time I ever covered the Dolphin game. Whatever year that was eighty two, I think it was eighty two, Okay, Yeah, And then, like I say, when Marina was drafted the next year, I became much more involved and all of a sudden that was something I was doing. Lost, So I had to be right because Marino they went to the super Bowl with David Woodley and lost, didn't they They went to the super Bowl that year, So they lost that San Diego game. The strike season they went to the super Bowl, right, right, Yeah, right, So I think it was earlier. But so basically, when Marino was drafted, I began pretty frequently writing about the Dolphins. Got it. Not a bad time, not a bad time. But tell us about your experience with that guy. You know, I had great experiences with him. You know, everybody knows Sholo could be very gruff and demanding, but you know I I'd go to practice at you know, Saint Thomas, and what a difference this place is right compared to that? Oh my god, God, baby was nice, didn't We would say, I know, but say the Saint Thomas training camp. Oh lord, but I remember Shula, you know, after practice, his grandkids would come and they were small at the time, and he'd lift them on his arm and he'd referred to his hang time, you know, and and they were like three years old or something. There was a lighter side to him, but I just admired him. You know. He was straightforward. Uh. He had a sense of humor that, uh, I think was a little bit underrated. I think he could be you know, a little wry sense of humor there. So I enjoyed him. He was honest, forthright. You know. If I wrote something he didn't like and got that look that you walked in and said that looked familiar, very familiar look. Yeah. Yeah, the day after I wrote something he didn't like, he would see me with that look and begin that His greeting would be something like, what the hell was that? But you know we'd talked for thirty seconds and then it was fine again. You know. It's funny. One of the first things I remember when I was in his company. It was in a media setting at camp, and there were a dozen reporters there and everybody's calling him coach. I called him don I you know, I not to disrespect, but he wasn't my coach, you know, And I'm an adult, so I'm able to call another man by his first name. I think. So, yeah, sounds interesting and I don't disagree with that, but I and maybe because I worked for a team and like that office set, and I didn't work for coach Shula. It was coach Johnson and coach wantstet But I just to me, if you get to the NFL, that's almost like a PhD. You deserve to be able to put doctor in front of your name. You deserve to put coach. And I don't know that you have to demand that people call you coach. But I don't think there's anything wrong with a grown person. But that seems in this day and age and younger generational media, that does seem to be kind of a hot topic at times, like should do we have to call him coach? Should we call him coach? That was at Jason Garrett who says it's coach Garrett around here or something. Really, yeah, I think there was a there was a moment there. So if I hear you correct, you're saying, Hey, I think I as a grown man, and he's not my coach. I can call him Don. But do you think there's anything wrong with somebody who is not playing for the team calling No, I don't. I don't if that's what makes them comfortable. And you know, I didn't think about it a lot. I didn't like analyst, should I shouldn't? I It just sort of I think if you did, you probably would call him coach. Probably. It just sort of Don came out naturally because it was Don, you know, and I had I said Donald, you know, but Donald Francis. But he and I always had a great relationship, and to the very end, I did one of my last interviews with him at his home, his beautiful home, through all the guards and gates to get there, and he welcomed me into his office with the Super Bowl trophies on the high shelf, and he didn't have long but he was very gracious with his time. Wow. Very cool. Well, well, we can't mention Don Shula without following up with Dan Marino. And and you said that that's really when you're uh, that's when you kind of joined the beat. I'm curious as to what you remember from covering Danny, especially in those early years when we had Levatar on the show. He talked about how some of the uber great athletes they have he's I think he used the term veneer. Seems to be a word that maybe Dan would have used. That there was kind of this polished You didn't get a whole lot that you could fill your notepad up with when you spoke with him, but well he got on that field, it didn't matter that you didn't get a whole lot because the performance was so uniquely dynamic. What was your experience like covering this guy, you know, especially as a beat writer. Yeah, I don't know where to begin, you know, you just start with the electricity that surrounded him and the talent he brought to the field, and the energy and everything changed in eighty three and eighty four, those two years in particular, you know, when he first was given the chance to start as a rookie. I'll never forget it was like mid season and I asked Shula after the game, what did you think when you saw him in his first time throwing? And Sula's answer was, why did I wait so long? You know? And because it was obvious from the get go that this guy was extra special. And then what he did in eighty four setting all of those NFL records, some of them still standing, let you know that this was a guy that was going to be unequaled. And in this market you could use Dwayne Wade as an example. And you know, the inter Miami just signed Leo Messi, the goat of soccer. But Dan Marino is always going to have a special place down here in the community. And because football, I always think this is a football town. I know the Heat borrowed it for a few years during the Big Three era, but this is a football town and Marino has been the best thing that ever happened to the Dolphins. Maybe five years from now we'll argue the two in Tyreek we're the best thing. But right now it's still number thirteen. And so what I remember about Marino first was just the talent. And you're right he you know, he was not a particularly good postgame quote unless he was really angry and unless he was upset, and you can read it all over him. And we'll talk about maybe one of those moments we'll get to that. I'm ready, Yeah, I know, that's right. Well, you know, Sef you alluded to some of this greg for me, you know, I came in my rookie year in nineteen ninety three. You know, magine being a receiver from Penn State and I got Damn Reno's my quarterback. Yeah, but it only lasted a month before he tore his achilles. But then I'm reading the Miami Herald a short time after that and in the locker room, and I see the headlines and here's what they say. It's time to say so long to Marina. I remember that. Who would have said such a thing? Now? Now it's safe to say that this went viral. Before going viral was a thing around here. Yeah, and that's that's what it things we talk about a little bit. Tell us about what your mindset was, you know, when you when you sat down to write the piece. And you know, I'm not saying you shouldn't have written a piece. I'm just saying, what was what were you thinking? And I was wondering if you're thinking about the reaction that you're going to get, if you know, if if was there any hesitation at all when you were doing No, there wasn't, and and maybe there shouldn't been maybe I should have anticipated the reaction. But but here's the thing, and I researched this because we're talking about something that's a while ago now, So I actually looked it up because I couldn't remember exactly what the headline said, and it's what did you say, It's time to say so long? Time to say so long to Marina? Okay? And it was a one column headline. It was not like a big banner headline. It was a one column headline, so they had to fit it. I did not write the headline. No, I've heard that one. I know. I believe you. Look, look, I'm not going to backtrack from that column. I'm happy with it. I'm glad I wrote it. In the clarity of twenty twenty retrospect, you might even argue that that I had a point to write it. But the column I wrote was not as strong as It's time to say goodbye to Marino. At the time, there was speculation out there. There were trade rumors. The Raiders, who I think were in LA that year, no, they can't remember, but there were rumors about trading Marino. They weren't real prevalent, but the speculation was out there, and I wanted to write a column that sort of put all that in perspective. He was thirty two at the time, in his eleventh season. Assuming he comes back strong from the injury, he still has trade value. You know, at that point, you're still going to get at least a first round pick, maybe a couple of starters. I mean, there would have been a small windfall. Through eleven years. They weren't winning with him enough. I mean, they were winning, they were super exciting, but if Super Bowl was the goal, it wasn't happening. And so I just wanted to put the notion out there, not that they should I consider that. I didn't write they should trade Marino, but I wrote, you know, maybe it's going to be seen as blasphemy, but maybe the idea of considering trading Marino is something that we ought to think about. You know. That's That's pretty much all I wrote, and it became such a big deal. It was comical in a way because I remember one of the local TV stations had me on and they put like a they garbled my voice in a way like I was in the Witness Protection program. It might have been Jim Barry. I never remember the network but it was hilarious. Yeah, I wish I still had a copy of that, but it was like, oh, that's great. And to this day, occasionally, like I'll see something on Reddit or I'll get an email, stray email. Now this is the guy that wanted to trade Marina. You know, every time I write something negative that people don't like, there might be a reference to that column. But you know, you asked me earlier about what do I consider my to be as a columnist. There's there's so many gears you have to shift to be a columnist. You know. Sometimes you write a super serious column, a sentimental column, a hard hitting column that says fire that guy. Uh. And sometimes you write a column it's just meant to be sort of a talking piece, which I think that column was, and and and I think it succeeded on a lot of levels and and uh and again, with the clarity of retrospect, would it have been the worst thing in the world to trade Marino? And and see what happened, because God love Marino, he never did win a Super Bowl. And now I wouldn't have traded him where he didn't want to go. I would have respected him, I thought at the time the Steelers actually would have been a perfect landing spot given his background and everything. Anyway, I don't regret that, you know, the the Freezing Cold takes I wrote, wrote a book and and included me in the book with an entire chapter about that column, which either insulted me or flattered me somewhere. Yeah, but it's just something I look back on as a as a fun chapter in my own career, because certainly, not even close, it's the most controversial memorable column I've ever written. That's what I was going to ask. Was there anything else before or after that you wrote that elicited that type of response. No, not even close, No where. People are interviewing me on TV, and NFL films talked to me for some piece they were doing about Marino years ago. It just it was out of control, really, I mean, but that shows you how bigloved Marino was and is in this market and yeah, to this day, and what I wrote was seen as blasphemous and and to Marino's credit, I didn't want to hide from him. So I was in the locker room the day after that column came up, and he was asked about the column because it was news and he's a what do you think of the column? And his answer was you he may be right. You know, he didn't want to get into it. I'm sure he didn't appreciate the column, but he didn't want to make a big in a public setting. Yeah. Yeah, But did you guys ever have a private conversation about it? I think we did. We had a private conversation later that's not right away, but later that season, and you know, he didn't appreciate the column and he wasn't going to mince words. But we're fine now, you know, I saw him. I think the last time I saw him to talk to him at length was actually when this training camp opened, the grand opening when he was there. Was that like five years ago or something? I think maybe I think this is year three, Yeah, year three. So it's been a few years since I've actually seen him to talk to him. But I wrote a column this past April on the fortieth anniversary of his being drafted, and he was kind enough to spend ten or fifteen minutes on the phone with me talking and we have a cordial relationship and he was a real professional about that column. Came back big from the injury, which made me put a little salt on my words and eat them to make them a little more flavoraful and palatable to me. But and you know, so that was that was fun. But I'm glad he came back. I'm glad he made a big comeback. I wish he would have won a Super Bowl. I do so. I think it's all good between Dan and I. My career survived that column may have even thrived from it. I can't say which, but it certainly survived well. Greg. There was growing concern about Marino at that point, I mean, to think about it, I mean there was a I mean everybody was wondering about his future. And you know, of course he had the injury. I mean he had, he went through the off season, then he had a rough preseason at that point, but then he comes back in ninety four and that opener against New England. Can you talk about the general narrative that exists between everybody else. I think there was hesitancy because you know, an Achilles is a terrible injury. You know that is an athlete. And then at that point it was there was no really recovering from that, no, no, and he already had the you know, I think he was already in the knee brace. And you know, and again Oj, you know this this was before Tom Brady. We weren't used to quarterbacks going until they were forty. You know, at that time, if you were thirty two, you were a high mileage quarterback. They were thinking, you know, once he got three more good years, two three more good years, and so now or never, you know, in terms of if you're going to consider trading him, you know, do it now. And the illustrious Scott Mitchell for a time did show a lot of potential. And when he went to Detroit a couple of years later, you know, he had the forty five hundred yard season. So I'm not saying he would have been a better alternative than Marino, but he would have been a chance to shake everything up and just sort of the organization saying, look, we love you, Dan. We don't know that we're going to win a Super Bowl. We did because we haven't surrounded you with enough defense, we haven't given you a running game. I'll never forget. I talked to Marino after he retired for a long Q and A, and one of the questions I am asked him was who were the best running backs you ever had on your team. And there was a long, awkward pause, you know, because he had a few good running backs, but they never had a running game that gave them a balanced offense. You know. Granted with the Marx Brothers and later with you, maybe you don't need balance, Maybe you just want to throw it, but it would have been nice to to really have a running game that gave him some balance, that made the play action better, just all that stuff. Yeah, I think that's what got us in trouble mostly, you know, because at the end, you know, we had a great defense, but we still won the mission of offense, and I think that really really hurt us. I think. Yeah. And the older he got, and as the knees went a little bit, he became more of a target back there, you know. And I'll never forget. I was at the last game of his career, the sixty two to seven playoff game in Jacksonville, and I was down on field level as the game ended and he walked off the field, and the Jacksonville fan were very unkind. They nobody could be sure it was his last game at that point, but they were deriding him with Jeers and Cat calls, and I remember he wore the bulky knee brace, and I'll never forget he kept his helmet on the whole way off the field, and I was I got emotional watching that scene because I'm thinking to myself that man deserves to go out better than a sixty two seven loss. Yeah, yeah, no doubt and no ring. It didn't end well for him, but an all time great for all time. All right, I'm going to completely shift gears here for a little bit. We want to make sure we discuss how your career has, you know, some amazing evolution now, and it really starts with we talked a little bit about Dan Levatar as a young writer. You talked about Jim Marts, you talk about Edwin, Pope, Bob Rubin, and then as your career began to elevate, we talked about this young kid out of Miami that comes in and kind of you know it definitely your toes a little bit there. Talk about how your friendship with with Dan Levatar was Fords and you know, and eventually led to this old newspaper guy. I'm an old guy myself becoming one of the top podcasters, you know, fifty years later, Yeah, I mean, Dan's been a great friend of mine since the first day I met him. And I remember it was in the Miami Herald cafeteria at the old big building at one Herold Plaza, right off the Bay, beautiful piece of real estate, and Levatar, this nervous kid, right out of you. I think he might have been still been at you m but he was an intern at the Herald, and he talks to this day about how warmly I welcomed him, you know, And I did because he you know, I give everybody a chance to piss me off before I'm gonna before I'm not gonna like them, you know, that's fair. And so he seemed like a he seemed like a great kid. He had. He had a great sense of humor that I immediately enjoyed. But he and I have talked about this for a while now. Our friendship never should have happened, you know, because I should have been jealous of him. He was, you know, coming to take what I had earned and waited for, you know, because Edwin was there, and Edwin finally retired, and Bob Rubin was retiring, and then here comes levatard superstar and earning that. Yeah, you know, I wasn't sure at first, but once I started reading, I'm like, yeah, yeah, the buzz about this kid is legit. You know, he's good. And you know, I have an ego like everybody else, but not to the extent where I'm not going to let myself be proud and gratified by the career I've had, you know. And I have been the main calumnist for the past twenty plus years, and that's cool with me. You know, I'm okay with that. And so, you know, he invited me to start leaning into a microphone and talking on his radio show and then his podcast, and then you know, the Herald offered me a podcast of my own a few years ago, and I jumped at it. And these are late career delights for me, right, you know, And so it sort of helped me extend my career, redefine my career in a way because my own podcast has been to a large degree because of my association with the Levatard Show. My own podcast has been really successful. It's the biggest podcast at the Miami Herald, and I think the second biggest in the entire Butclatchy Chain does very well. I'm very gratified to my podcast family, I call them, and so a lot of that is attributable to Levatary. And now I've just written the book. I don't know if you all know that, but and it's not sports related in the least I wrote. You know, Ron McGill from Zoom Miami. I wrote a book with Ron McGill. It's the life story of a lion, believe it or not, the first male lion cub ever born at Zoo Miami and what that lion went through and where he is now. And it's also sort of a biography about McGill's life. And it comes out December fifth. So that's taken a lot of my past year, the busiest sports year in my life. I'm also a right, how about that? Is that the first book you've ever written other than when the Dolphins had their fiftieth anniversary. Okay, I did a book called Finns at fifty and my name was on it because you have to put somebody's name on a book. But all I did was write a few column length essays in it. You know. It was mostly a picture book, a history book with past column reprints and all that. So this is the first proper book I've written. So that's another example of how blessed I feel late in my career to have all these opportunities. You know it's been, and now another highlight to sit here without. Hopefully we'll do a home and home we'll have you got that awesome? Absolutely, yeah, we would love to do that. I know you've got another appointment, but we've got one last segment here on the show. And uh, you've spent a career's worth of time opining as to whether or not the dolphins have managed a two minute drill. Well, so we have the fish tank two minute drill, and we're gonna flip the script here and we're gonna put you through raw, throw some some quick hitters at you. J T's got the timer there, and uh, wow, we have time if you need, we'll give you a time out or two if you need one. Good okay, okay, And we'll go ahead and get this thing started. And then maybe we can write a column based on your professor. Well, you're the writer, it could be. And as told to all right, here we go. In fifty years of writing about South Florida sports, who is the most interesting subject to discuss? Oh? My God, interesting, there's so many I'm verboth, i'mlong with it ahead, interesting has so many definitions. Ray Hudson back with the Strikers was a delight. Uh, Dan Marino when he was drafted. Pat Riley is a fascinating guy to talk to. Lebron James when he came into the the heat, I mean, Lionel Messi now, I mean those are all such huge, interesting characters that I have to them all on my elongated mount rest floor. All right, fair enough, fair enough, Okay, you've enjoyed great fun and shown amazing self deprecation with your Back in my Day segment on The Levatard Show. And maybe Dan has even more fun with it than you do. But if you could actually travel in time, you can get in the time machine and take Levatard with you to any one specific moment that was back in your day. Where would you take Dan and when would it be? Okay, I have to take him, Yeah, okay, okay, I suppose I suppose selfishly, I would take him back to my childhood. I would get because we're such friends. I would give I would like to know how he grew up, So I would take him back to my house in West Hollywood, Florida, and just maybe we could hang as kids, you know, love it. That is great. Okay, the final column, great, Cody ever right, will be what I don't think I can avoid the sappy perspective column on my own career. I think everybody has to have the fair I'll column, you know, and and it wouldn't be so much about me, but it would be about all the characters I've met and the gratitude I feel for the journey and all of that stuff. Yeah, I can't wait to read it. I hope it's not anytime soon. I think we've just totally blown through time in space. But we'll use some timeouts in there. Okay, sure we get to sing in two minutes. I do have one last question. Okay, I'm gonna channel my best Alex Marvez here. We're gonna put every South Florida sports columnist that we can think of, pastor present in their prime in a steel cage match battle Royale. That's you, It's Levittard, It's Edwin, it's Bob Ruben, Dave Hyde. Let's get Armando in there, Charlie Bricker, get some nasty in there. Dave George, all you guys are in there who climbs out of that cage victorious in the end, and why this is exactly what you expected when you sign up for this Vand Pope is the goat. Edwin, Pope is the goat forever and ever in my mind. He wrote with such an elegance. He taught me so much, he counseled me. One thing I loved about Edwin is that he wouldn't try to put on airs and show off, but there would usually be one word in a column of his that I had to look up. Love it, and I love that. I really appreciated that, and I try to do that a little bit, not to show off and not to do it intentionally. But you know, I don't like to write down to the reader. Yeah, I like to assume that the reader is intelligent and well read and wants to read because he wants to read or she. And Edwin taught me that, you know, that was just a style of his. So he's the goat. With all that I love, Dave Hyde Levittard goes without saying I would probably selfishly put me somewhere up there. Yeah, you know, I like it. But Edwin is the goat and Edward's got a little toughness to him, so I think he would have been just fine getting out of that battle Royality. Yeah, that is the two minute drill. He is, Greg Cody. I think he did a great job. It's gonna be an if we if we write how you handled that two minute drill. More than anything, we appreciate that you went from the Levatard Show. You have another interview after this, and you spent some time with us, so I'm happy to do it. When the column you write with me about me what I just said, you should, uh, you should write that they should trade me, that Harold should trade me so long that I'm gonna Achilles on the way out of here. You never know what's gonna happen. I like it. Thankes for diving in Grady Okay, anytime you're now diving just like Juw 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