June 26, 2024
Jimmy Cefalo: Jimmy the Jet
Entering his 20th season as the radio “Voice of the Miami Dolphins,” Jimmy Cefalo dives in to discuss tough conversations with Don Shula, memorable passes from Dan Marino and David Woodley, his Penn State experience, and an Emmy Award winning television career. Contributors to this episode include Sevach Melton and Dolphins Productions. Theme song created and performed by The Honorable SoLo D.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Speaker 1: You're now diving.
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Speaker 2: I have been that who oh Jay, And.
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Speaker 3: This is strictly but I'm true number one.
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Speaker 2: Of course, this ain't the other Nevers boys talk.
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Speaker 3: That might have been a pitch tank.
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Speaker 4: Welcome back to the Fish Tank presented by iHeartRadio right here on the Miami Dolphins podcast network, Seth Levitt and the only podcaster the Bowl of Perfect Game and lead the NFL and Receptions. He is O J McDuffie and Juice. We handed over the guest booking to you a few weeks ago, and wouldn't you know it, something magical has happened two weeks in a row. We now have a Nitanny lyon here.
00:00:49
Speaker 2: In the fish Tan Jared Adrey.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so I come.
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Speaker 2: Hard to pin down, hard.
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Speaker 4: To save, save the best for last. Is like to say, but and you hear that voice. If you're a Dolphins fan, you certainly recognize it. He is Jimmy Cephalo and Juice. You and Jimmy are connected in some special ways.
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Speaker 2: Yes we are. You know.
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Speaker 5: Of course the Penn State Way was as a great way of being connected. Of course we're wearing number eighty one here for the Miami Dolphins. Another way, but Jimmy has one up on me, Big Seth, being the eighty first pick. And we'll talk about that a little bit down the line here. So he's got he's got one more eighty one and you know, more connections than I have.
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Speaker 2: Bro.
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Speaker 3: You know, it's a fair point.
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Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. I'll trade my eighty one pick for your pick.
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Speaker 6: Oh there it is.
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Speaker 2: I love it to do it. You have to do it, se.
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Speaker 4: I have to do it, Jimmy. We have a running joke on this show. We get these guys who, like we're undrafted rookie free agents. They have these unbelievable stories of overcoming all odds, and I like to give my partner here a hard time about the joys of being a first round pick when they roll out the red carpet and they fly in and they take it to all the you know, all the fancy stuff, and he's kind of tired of hearing at it.
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Speaker 1: And like you just said, well, mine was a little different. I mean when I got drafted, I was a third round pick, eighty first choice, as you said, and my plane got the laid out of Pittsburgh. I came to Opa Loaca with a cab and back then, Opa Loaca wasn't exactly the garden spot of the world. And George Young had told me on the phone that he would leave a key. It was three o'clock in the morning, come on a key at the at the Kiosk security area. Well, there was nobody there, and the cab driver said, hey, buddy, I don't think I should leave you here. And I said, I said, is there a hotel closed by? He's the other one up the street there was. It's not the stadium hotel up there. It was a holiday in then, right, so I didn't know what time I had to be back for the beginning of mini camp. So I just sat in a chair for three hours. Six o'clock, got a cab, went back, started walking around the campus with my bags, and shoelases me and he says, hey, did we draft you? And I said, yeah you did. He said, what are you doing? I told him the story, So come on, let's have breakfast. So I sat that breakfast with you at like six thirty in the morning. And so that was my believable They didn't roll at the red car before me. Seven.
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Speaker 6: In other ways.
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Speaker 3: Very different than unbelievable. I love that the cab driver was concerned.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, you no idea where.
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Speaker 1: I was, no idea if I should be, you know, worried or not.
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Speaker 6: I didn't know what I was going to do. Well, he did rock me, and I just left me.
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Speaker 3: You know, he certainly did. Oh god, that's good.
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Speaker 2: You know, we're going to get into a lot of that. I love that. I love that, Jimmy.
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Speaker 5: But let's let's go back a little bit here, you know, because I know you've got a lot of incredible story.
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Speaker 2: We got we set.
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Speaker 5: I mean, my goodness, the research we could have probably done about two hours of Jimmy, couldn't we set? I mean that we've we've run into and stuff. And of course your hist your here with the Miami Dolphins is as rich as it gets. The new season's coming up, twenty twenty four seasons coming up, and we're all excited about that, see what's in store for the team. But what we have to look forward on the field is that this would be your twentieth season the radio voice of the Miami Dolphins.
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Speaker 2: Man, I mean, what does that mean to you?
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Speaker 5: Haven't served in that role, you know, calling games for the Dolphins fans across the world for two decades.
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Speaker 1: Well, it's shocking to me. I mean, you know, I was working at Channel ten. Of course, I'd come from NBC. I was doing games with Charlie Jones, and I went to do game shows and did Donald Trump's first show, Trump Card. People forget about that one CBS show. And when that went away, I got the job at Channel ten, and they didn't like sports much and the news director cut away the five o'clock sports, cut away the five thirty sports, cut the six o'clock sports from four minutes to two minutes, and generally you.
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Speaker 6: Got about a minute.
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Speaker 1: When we all came down to it, and the Dolphins offered me this job. I went to him, I said I want to do this. He said, well, you can't do both. I said, why, it's no good for Channel ten. He said, we don't think it is, which I didn't understand, right, And I had a seven year no cut contract, damn. So they paid him with ten paid me out and I went to work for the Dolphins. And that's the way it worked. I haven't told him, I mean, I haven't told that story in a long time.
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Speaker 2: No, that's right, man. First of all, man, who's your agent?
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Speaker 7: Bro?
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Speaker 6: It was me.
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Speaker 3: I think you're looking at him.
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Speaker 1: To know. I had one agent back when I was with NBC. His name was Ed Hookstratt and they called him the Hook and he was a tough solb. He was very good. But from then on it was just.
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Speaker 4: Me, Wow, that's crazy that they didn't see I mean when I worked for the team. Yeah, it just blows.
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Speaker 1: My mom said, well, you know what you can get out to the stuff on the ESPN. I said, not if you want to get the Dolphins and the Marlins and eat and the panthers in the University of Miami and all that stuff. No, you ge't a way through hours of stuff to get what you want. I said, what about weather? I get the weather every seven or eight minutes, right, and what are you talking about?
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Speaker 3: Right?
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Speaker 1: But they were just were not sports fans.
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Speaker 6: That's it.
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Speaker 3: That is absolutely crazy to me.
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Speaker 4: But well, congratulations on twenty years of entertaining Dolphins fans and and you know, I mean someone which has changed now with radio broadcasts and we always have fun coming into the booth after and seeing you and Joe, especially when it's a good game and everybody's happy and we come on the air right after, you know, on iHeart right after you guys sign off. But people are listening across the world. You know, we're in an age now with the Internet. They're listening across the world. If they can't see the game, you're their eyes and and you and Joe are entertaining them. And you know, two decades of that is really special.
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Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I get stuck with that knucklehead for twenty years.
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Speaker 4: What I mean we're going to talk about We're definitely going to talk about the sentence.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, so hilarious, hilarious.
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Speaker 4: So Juice mentioned how you do have this incredible story. And as I told you before we jumped on air here, I just was. I learned things that I didn't even know, and knowing you as long as I have. But let's go back to where it all started, and that was Pittston, Pennsylvania. Hopefully I'm starting that correctly, Pittston, Pennsylvania. And and I the first thing I see, the first article that pops up is Jimmy the Jet, and which you know, understanding the context was okay. Nowadays, I don't like thinking about you and the Jets and being associated with that, But Jimmy the Jet and Jimmy You were like a celebrity. At fourteen years old, you get your first rep in a varsity football game, and you go eighty yards for a touchdown and you're only a sophomore in high school and you basically never look back. The town kind of fell in love with you. Clearly they had to love football. But is this accurate that there were like fifteen thousand people showing up for your high school football games in this little coal mining guy.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, they you know, the stadium itself held I don't know, hater nine thousand. And then they would park the buses, the school buses, around the track surrounding the field, and people would climb up on that and sit on the buses, on top of the buses, and I mean, you couldn't get a ticket, You couldn't get a seat. You couldn't I mean, it was pretty crazy. After that first game, you know, there were I think five of us were sophomores who started because the team wasn't great, and then we made them pretty good. I started getting letters from schools. The first one I got was from UCLA. I was fourteen, got one from Hawaii, and then it all started to fall in place. And by the time I was a senior. I was recruited by a little over one hundred schools. You know, I ran track. I was in the state finals for the one hundred three years in a row. So for all those reasons, and because it was a small town, because it was a coal mining town, because it was a ninety nine percent Italian American town, there were a lot of things that were Can I tell you a story that I had not told many people either? Please'm it's my sixteenth birthday, and you know I was in Sports Illustrated. I was a lot of things. I did something called thirty minutes, which was sixty minutes on a they did it for kids. It was called thirty minutes. So I was featured in that and all this stuff. So I get a call from the team doctor. Someone would like to throw you a sixteenth birthday party. Okay, who Russell Buffalino. Well, for those of you who have watched the Irishman, Russell Buffalino.
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Speaker 6: Was the top guy.
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Speaker 1: So Rolls Royce pulls up in front of my parents' apartment. Basically, it was half a double, oh j I don't know if they had them in Cleveland. Half a double is a house split into two. Were apartment on one side, apartment on the other side, and I get in somebody else it's not Russell. Drive to Scram Club C and see. I still remember walked there and everybody's.
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Speaker 6: Sitting not doing anything.
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Speaker 1: Just waiting for Russell to come in. And he eventually did. This was fifty years.
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Speaker 3: Ago now and you're sixteen years old.
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Speaker 6: Sixteen wow. Yeah.
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Speaker 4: So just for people who are listening, and if you didn't know the Irishman, and I wasn't gonna bring it up, Jimmy, because I didn't. I was like, I don't, but I was reading about the town and you know who are famous people that have come out of Pittston and the Buffalo crime family.
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Speaker 3: Was like, that was a big deal.
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Speaker 6: It was a big deal.
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Speaker 2: That was a bit. It was a big deal.
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Speaker 1: Fast forward, OJ, you appreciate this. Penn State is nineteen seventy nine. I guess playing for the National Championship against Alabama maybe or Georgia, one of the two the Sugar Bowl. So it's the hottest ticket in America, right. I go to the game and I get a call at my hotel, same guy, team Doctor, come back home. Russell would like four tickets for tomorrow night's game.
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Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, I.
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Speaker 1: Said, And where do you think I'm going to get those? He said, I don't know, but Russell would like to get them. So I scrounged and I you know, I paid four hundred dollars a ticket back then, OJ, that was a lot of money and a lot of money playing football in nineteen seventy nine. So I called a doctor and I said, okay, I got him. He calls me back and says, right, Russell, I want to know if you're in New Orleans. Yes I am, He'll find you. So now I keep the tickets in my inside jacket pocket. Wherever I was. I'm walking toward Bourbon Street and limbousine pulls up and two goons get out, can run, of course, and the window rolls down. Russell always wore sunglasses. It was about ten o'clock at night. He's still had sunglasses. You got, mister Buffalo News tickets? Yeah, I got them right here?
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Speaker 6: What is he nothing? It's on me.
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Speaker 1: It's good. And that was the last time I saw Russell.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, lose my number like in a respectful way.
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Speaker 4: Right, wow, unbelievable man.
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Speaker 1: And the last time I had any contact whatsoever I was working at NBC. I was doing a show called NBC News at sunrise six am, so I was off the air. And at nine o'clock I was able to go home. And I walked someplace and I not far from rock Feller Center, and I stopped for breakfast and I'm seeing the guy comes over and he says, Jimmy, Yeah. He said, Hi, I'm so and so I'm Russell Buffalina's attorney. I'm on my way up to Danbury to see him. He's in prison up there. And I said, how's he doing? He said, well, not well, that's probably the last time I'm going to see him. I said, we'll tell him I settlo and thank him for everything he did for me. And that was it.
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Speaker 6: Wow.
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Speaker 1: I've always wondered whether or not the irishman was driving that car in New Orleans.
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Speaker 6: My guess is he waly.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, there's probably a good or was sitting in the back seat somewhere. That is wild. That is a wild, wild story.
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Speaker 5: Okay, Now by all is said and done, man, I mean, Jimmy the jet is the top high school recruit in the country, and I mean there are obvious comparisons of Charlie Trippy and you I mean, he's the Hall of Famer who was actually the original Pride of Pittston Man in the mid to late thirties, well before you, Jimmy right.
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Speaker 1: In fact, I played in Charlie Trippy Stadium. That was the name of the stadium.
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Speaker 2: Well there you go.
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Speaker 5: I mean, I mean everybody had to expect that you'd be going to University of Georgia and following his footsteps.
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Speaker 1: In fact, Charlie recruited me at Georgia. I went to dinner in this whole while, and I decided I was going to Georgia. Now, back then, an alumni from the school could recruit you. You can't do that anymore, I don't think. But then you could. John Cappelletti recruited me, but he was my guy at Penn State. So I decide, I'm going to go to Georgia great journalism school, which is what I wanted to major in Charlie Trippy. You know, people will help me out if I'm getting in trouble there, you know, I mean, homesick whatever, right, the Italian connection there a great story. So I fly back on a Sunday night and my parents aren't at this little airport to pick me up. Instead, it's a cousin exacting kind of weird, drops me off in front of my parents' place. The lights are out except for in the kitchen. It's ten o'clock on the Sunday night, so I'm excited to going tell my parents I'm going to Georgia. Walked into the kitchen and seeing there is Joe paternal of course, and my mother is ladling sauce over his pasta, and my father's pouring a glass of his homemade wine, and Joe ignores me, looks at my mother and says, missus Cephalo, this pasta is better than missus Capelletti. And that was the end of that tune. The recruited my mother, He didn't recruit me. He could care less about me.
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Speaker 3: Right, does it does? Well?
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Speaker 6: It?
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Speaker 3: It certainly worked.
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Speaker 4: And we have to apologize to Anne Nolan, who was probably getting excited with hearing about.
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Speaker 3: The University of Georgia stuff I forgot she did. But it's brilliant. Get in there and and make mom love.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's he did that to everybody. Recruited moms, recruited the kids, recruited moms, and and it worked. I mean, he used to brag he only recruited within one hundred and fifty miles of the campus. That's it. And it was rare that somebody from outside of that radius wind. So that's where Joe concentrated. I think it's just because he didn't want to travel much anymore, you know what I mean?
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Speaker 6: I think he.
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Speaker 3: Probably, But he also had well he's lucky. There was a lot of good ball players.
00:15:08
Speaker 1: Pittsburgh, he had Scranton, Wilkesbury, he had you know, Long Island and all of that area in New York City had a lot of great players come.
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Speaker 2: Out of Yeah. What about Ohio though, I mean.
00:15:17
Speaker 1: Ohio, Yeah, of course it's Cleveland.
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Speaker 6: What do you want.
00:15:25
Speaker 3: Too good? Too good?
00:15:26
Speaker 4: Well, look, you had I guess your share, I would say, of ups and downs there, yeah, you know, some great experiences. But ultimately there were enough ups for Don Shula and the Miami Dolphins to say, hey.
00:15:37
Speaker 1: Right, well, my freshman year I started for Joe. I was the first freshman to start for Joe in the modern era. And then he changed the offense. He wanted me to put on twenty five pounds and become a you know, a capitality like tailback that.
00:15:51
Speaker 3: Was because you were a tailback in high school.
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Speaker 1: Right, it was one hundred and seventy pounds. I was a flanker as a freshman and really did really well during that offense. They changed it completely, so I barely touched the ball. My sophomore year, I got hurt. He wanted me the red shirt. I said, I'm not red shirty. I'm getting out of here, and he got mad at me. And I didn't touch the ball very much. I didn't play all that much.
00:16:14
Speaker 6: My junior year.
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Speaker 1: I played a little bit more in than my senior year.
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Speaker 6: He got stuck.
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Speaker 1: Joe was a pretty vindictive guy. I gotta tell you, I love him. He's pretty vindictive. So my senior year he needed a pump return and he put me back there against Kentucky. It was like the second game of the season, and I returned the ball for a touchdown. Now he's kind of stuck, okay, right, And I kept doing that. He I led the country and pump returns my senior year. He wasn't very happy, but eh, he got to play.
00:16:47
Speaker 3: Wow.
00:16:47
Speaker 4: So that's and that's an interesting dynamic, right, that idea of not very happy. He obviously is happy when his team is going touchdown right, turning, you know, change of possession into points.
00:16:57
Speaker 3: But but it wasn't the guy that he wanted to be doing, that is.
00:17:00
Speaker 6: What it was not.
00:17:02
Speaker 1: I mean there was only one Heisman Trophy winner at Penn State. It was John Cappelletti. Wonderful guy, great player, and uh, I think it kind of caught Joe by surprise. There was one star at ben State. His name was Joe paternal That was it, and I love but that's why it was lot.
00:17:23
Speaker 4: Well like yeah, yeah, and you've I mean you've said that time and time again. Well I'd never heard the other side of the story.
00:17:31
Speaker 1: One of the eulogies at his funeral was there. He asked for me to do it. Wow, So you know what, we respected each other. You know, it's one of those things where we had a good, warm relationship in the end.
00:17:44
Speaker 2: Yeah. Man, I think we all did.
00:17:45
Speaker 6: Man.
00:17:45
Speaker 5: I think it's it starts off off with Joe and then we all seem to have a really good relationship with Joe at the end.
00:17:49
Speaker 2: I mean that's that's fact.
00:17:51
Speaker 4: Well, fast forward to another head coach who was iconic that we all love here in Coach Sula. I loved that story about your first you know, your first interaction with him. So nineteen seventy eight, you're in there, you have the hotel thing. Fortunately that whatever concerns the taxi driver had you overcame them. But that first mini camp, from what I understand, didn't necessarily go the way you wanted it to. It was a little bit overwhelming. You started to have some maybe some if I read this correctly, a little self doubt that here you are, you know, you're with these professional players now. And you went back home after that camp to Pittston and kind of maybe you were questioning whether pro ball was for you. And again you show up at your house and Joe Paterno's in town because he's speaking at you know, there's some event that he's in town and he's speaking, and you guys have dinner together, and there was something that he said in that speech that really kind of moved you and inspired you to get over whatever you were feeling.
00:18:54
Speaker 1: Well, it was actually a private conversation between the two of us. I wasn't gonna play. I decided I wasn't going to no before even before then, before I got drafted. Oh wow, okay, and uh, you know I had my degree. I was going to go write obituaries for a small newspaper, I believe it or not. And Joe was on my case for four years. Whether I was a you know, Prease's All American as a freshman or whatever, he was, I'm on my case and uh, and he had no qualms about telling me how bad of a football player I was. So we're sitting there and he stopped at me and he said, so, why don't you want to play professional football? You could be a star in that league. And I said, now you tell me this.
00:19:42
Speaker 2: Now you tell me this.
00:19:44
Speaker 1: Four years you've been telling me the worst player you've ever recruited, and now you tell me I could be a star in the NFL. So that's where the came.
00:19:52
Speaker 2: What was the deal?
00:19:53
Speaker 4: But was it just that was his way? He felt that that's what.
00:19:56
Speaker 3: You needed to be motivated. But he believed in you the whole time.
00:19:58
Speaker 1: Most coaches think some people need a pat in the back, some need a kick in the butt. Joe only had one way.
00:20:08
Speaker 6: And it wasn't just me.
00:20:10
Speaker 1: It was Capelletti, it was Chuck Fusina, who was runner up to the Heisman Trophy too. You know, I mean all those That's the way he coached, that's the way he lived his life.
00:20:21
Speaker 4: Wow wow, Well, so you go back to camp, right, whatever it was, you were motivated enough, you go back to camp, and this is there's a heavy veteran presence on this roster in seventy eight. Bob Greasy's still quarterback. You know, you walk into your receiver room. You got nap More there. Daryl Harris, who from what we understand, has an interesting personality, right, you know, he's not the Clayton and Duber both made it very clear that Dariel wasn't putting his arm around a rookie and saying, look, kid, let me show.
00:20:49
Speaker 1: You how Dariel Harris was the worst teammate eve ever I ever.
00:20:52
Speaker 3: Hed man, Wow, man, Well there you go.
00:20:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no secret to that. Yeah, those guys.
00:20:57
Speaker 3: You're not the first guy to say on the show.
00:21:00
Speaker 7: He wouldn't help.
00:21:01
Speaker 1: I mean, nat More is the one who helped me that, you know, that became a big brother to me, still is to this day. By the way, during COVID, when we couldn't get on the team plane, I'll give an example, and I was I was pretty sick. I couldn't look the bag.
00:21:18
Speaker 6: I couldn't you know.
00:21:18
Speaker 1: I was walking with a cane doing a lot of things that flew with me to every game.
00:21:26
Speaker 6: So that he would help me.
00:21:27
Speaker 4: Wow, that says a lot that you know.
00:21:33
Speaker 1: When I got there and that's the one who helped me. One of the first things he said to me was, when Greasey is a quarterback, take and you're gonna run an out pattern, take two steps closer to the line to to the tight end. Why not because Greasey's arm is going to take that much longer there.
00:21:51
Speaker 3: So wow, I love that.
00:21:56
Speaker 4: God, I love that. But so I mean, just I'm thinking about that. You have those guys. Heck, Zanka even came back for you.
00:22:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had the locker right next to him.
00:22:05
Speaker 2: What I mean, where there you go.
00:22:06
Speaker 5: But Jimmy, we both know that in this league, it doesn't take long for guys to become the vest in the locker room. And so now it becomes your turn to minute of young players. Yeah, and in your third season, the Dolphins take a flyer in the seventh round on a bit of a wild child from Kyle Burgan. Jesus, Yeah, tell us what it was like with a young Joe Rose I mean, you guys hit it off immediately right away, and did you feel like you had to mentor him right away?
00:22:32
Speaker 1: He came, he walked into my dorm room at Biscayn College and introduced himself, and I knew we were going to be best friends. And we have been for forty years or whatever it is.
00:22:43
Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying.
00:22:44
Speaker 4: You guys have been best friends in basically teammates for the last forty five years almost.
00:22:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have, and you knew it right away.
00:22:50
Speaker 1: It's just one of those things where you meet somebody and your personalities click, and so, yeah, Joe and I have been extraordinarily tight.
00:22:57
Speaker 4: I love it well, and I you know, I think that's why for the last two we've heard that chemistry on air, and then obviously I get to I get to enjoy some of that off air chemistry that you guys have and see some of that stuff.
00:23:08
Speaker 6: Point So, so.
00:23:10
Speaker 4: Look that that leadership became more than just being a leader in the locker room. In fact, you ultimately became the player rep. Right, So you become the you know, you're the player rep for the locker room. And the eighty two season rolls around, and now as the player rep.
00:23:26
Speaker 3: You're you're smack.
00:23:27
Speaker 4: Dab in the middle of this labor disagreement between the players union and the league. Ultimately, we know there was a strike and they you know, and we're going to talk about that and what happened. But William Judson, actually, I guess he was a rookie that year and he told us this story and it was fun to go back and read it.
00:23:44
Speaker 3: I guess.
00:23:44
Speaker 4: Heading into that first preseason game, which was coincidentally against Washington, there was this There was this agreement that the players are going to meet on the field. Everybody was gonna shake hands and solidarity.
00:23:56
Speaker 3: We're a union.
00:23:57
Speaker 4: The players you know, were unified. And the league caught win to this was like, hell, no, that's not going to happen. We're letting all the clubs know to find you guys the maximum, which was like a hundred bucks, but you know it was the maximum.
00:24:07
Speaker 3: Fine.
00:24:08
Speaker 4: Coach Shula could not have been excited about.
00:24:11
Speaker 1: No, And I had a good tell him, right, So what was that like? So I walk in that little crappy office in Biscay in college and I said, Coach, the union wants us to shake hands with the Redskins before the game on Saturday night. He said, well, we're not going to have that Mickey Mouse nonsense around here. And I said, well, the players are going to vote on it. He said, good, you go talk to them. And the press wants to talk to you. They got wind to this too. They're out there waiting for you.
00:24:42
Speaker 6: I okay. So I go in.
00:24:44
Speaker 1: Players are all there, and I said, well, Union wants to shake hands before the game. And AJ Dewey says, what does Shula want? He said, he wants to do it. He said, well blank that let's shake hands, right, yeah, let's sake.
00:25:00
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:25:01
Speaker 1: And Eddie Newman judge, Eddie Newman was the assistant player up. So he comes back with me and we walk in and She'll said, well, Jimmy, would they decide? I said, they're gonna shake hands, and she will looked at Eddie and he said, Eddie, could you please leave Jimmy and I alone?
00:25:20
Speaker 3: And Eddie excuse me?
00:25:22
Speaker 6: And he backed up.
00:25:22
Speaker 1: I mean he was like he was going to block an uncharging outside linebacker. He didn't turn around, just backed up and bounced into the door and then ran out.
00:25:35
Speaker 3: I couldn't wait to get out of there. And what were you thinking here it comes right, I'm.
00:25:41
Speaker 1: Twenty four years old or something, and what in the world that I get myself into here? So Sheilla looks at me and he says, I'm going to have to reevaluate the way I treat you and the rest of this team. I get the hell out of my house and go talk to the mell what you're gonna do. So I walk out and the press is all there. Someone said, so, you're gonna shake hands on Saturday night. Yeah, we are. And the reporter said, well, it's kind of like being a communist, isn't it. And when I shook his hand and I said, this is not the Kremlin. Well, the headline the newspaper next day was Cephalo to Shula, this is not the Kremlin.
00:26:19
Speaker 2: Wow, Oh come on.
00:26:21
Speaker 1: So Saturday night the place was packed. It was like a regular season game, and people had signs go back to Russia, Jimmy.
00:26:31
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:26:32
Speaker 1: The whole Kremlin thing took the life of its own.
00:26:36
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:26:36
Speaker 4: I mean, that's like we're right in the middle of a Cold War right there. So I mean that's what they like in shaking hands.
00:26:42
Speaker 1: Mark Murphy was the was the rep for the Redskins. Now Mark is now the president of the Green Bay Packers. So so I'm before the game, said, Mark, how we gonna do this? He said, well, I'll start out. You start out, and our teams will follow us. I said, well, she has been broadbagness all week long, right, and the finest and everything else. I said, I'm not sure how many guys are going to are going to be behind me. I know the Redskins were Washington was a big union town. So I started, Mark, starts out. I started out, the booze rained down. The whole Redskins team is coming at me. I don't know who's behind me. I turned around in the all but six or seven guys came.
00:27:20
Speaker 6: He came with me.
00:27:22
Speaker 1: So on Monday it was a cutdown day. Shuler cut all those guys except for Bob Kuchenberg because he couldn't cut Cooch.
00:27:30
Speaker 4: The six guys.
00:27:31
Speaker 2: The guys didn't.
00:27:33
Speaker 1: And he said, look, if you're going to do something, don't let somebody tell.
00:27:37
Speaker 6: You not to do it.
00:27:38
Speaker 1: If you believe in it, that do it. And I thought it was a great leadership lesson.
00:27:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, because those guys, he felt, weren't supporting their teammates, right, I mean, that's what it came down to, you know, and coach was just.
00:27:51
Speaker 1: Good, you find everybody fifteen to find me one hundred, which was later rescinded by the National Labor Relations Board.
00:27:57
Speaker 6: I'm happy to tell you.
00:27:58
Speaker 1: So, you know, it's like, it's the things I learned playing for the Dolphins and at Penn State for that matter, will go well beyond the football team.
00:28:08
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
00:28:09
Speaker 1: If you learn a lot of things about about teamwork and leadership and skills that I never thought I developed as a football.
00:28:18
Speaker 4: Player, I can only imagine. And you weren't. I mean, you were a player, and you were the player rep. But you also were organizing like these off site practices, so in a lot of ways you were kind of a director of football operations as well because you're reporting back to Shula. And it worked out because even though it was a strike shortened season, this team that you were responsible for in so many ways go seven and two. You've got the killer Bees defense, you got a heavy dose of and Franklin a young Tony Nathan.
00:28:51
Speaker 3: You lead the team in receiving yards.
00:28:52
Speaker 4: David Woodley kind of takes the league by storm as this dual threat quarterback, and you guys run through the playoffs and now you're facing Washington again, but instead of it being the first preseason game, you've made it to the super Bowl, you know. So, I mean that's kind of a remarkable feat in and of itself.
00:29:09
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and you know during the strike, the strike lasted nine weeks. Then they had a round robin tournament as the playoffs to get in and.
00:29:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, we like twelve teams. I think, yeah, something fourteen teams.
00:29:22
Speaker 3: Something crazy.
00:29:23
Speaker 1: So halfway through the strike, I get a call from WTVJ asking me if I would audition for a show called PM Magazine, and I did and I got the job.
00:29:35
Speaker 6: So he talked to Shola again. She was.
00:29:39
Speaker 3: In the middle of the strike.
00:29:40
Speaker 6: Yeah. I talked to Shoes all the time.
00:29:42
Speaker 1: Because when those practices were organized by Nat Moore, don Strock myself, I mean that's really who it was. I had to go report to Shulo about what we did at practice. Every day you go in and say, what did you do? You run gassers?
00:29:53
Speaker 6: Yeah, did you know? Basically all kinds of drills. So they want to know what we did, and.
00:29:58
Speaker 1: We organized it like you would anyway, he said, as long as it doesn't interfere with football when it comes back.
00:30:04
Speaker 6: Sure.
00:30:05
Speaker 1: So we arranged the schedule with TVJ where I would work on Mondays, which was our day off, I would record three shows, and then Tuesday, after practice, I would record two shows, so we'd have five for the week. And I did that for a long time, so I really worked two jobs.
00:30:22
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:30:23
Speaker 4: Well, and we're going to get into that second career that you had. But I can't skip over the fact in the Super Bowl that it didn't take long for you to make your presence right, and so I think it was the second possession that Miami had. It's the first game both team's trade punts. You got to talk about that play because it's it. Look, it's a Super Bowl. You're trying everything you can to be a champion. But here you are, like the game has just started and something happens that you are remembered for essentially for the rest of your life.
00:30:57
Speaker 1: Well, it was it was a hitch. Oj that the play was. It was a flanker hitch. So but what what the Redskins did was they rolled up the cornerback. They they ran double's own. So the cornerback comes into my face and when that happens, you've got to release and try to get in between the cornerback and the safety, because you can't run a hitch with a cornerback.
00:31:21
Speaker 6: Standing right over you.
00:31:23
Speaker 1: And Mark Murphy was the safety. Mark Murrafer played a role in my life, and I don't think I've talked to him since the day of the Super Bowl. And Woodley overthrew me and by some miracle, was able to grab the football. I mean, I was so wide open because Murphy was a bit confused by the play. They faked something to the left and came back to the right side. And one of the last times I talked to Shula was he said, hey, Jimmy, in that play, what happened to the safety?
00:31:55
Speaker 6: I said, Oh, I out ran his ass and Shoot laughed like it.
00:31:58
Speaker 3: He just laughed, like I love it.
00:32:01
Speaker 1: I was probably the second flowest guy in the field. Mark Murphy was the first, and he's the one.
00:32:05
Speaker 6: That was charged to catch me.
00:32:06
Speaker 1: So I was good, perfect, It worked, but you know what, but the whole thing is it would have been so much sweeter had we won the football game. And I think Shula regretted not pulling Woodley at halftime. He was going to, apparently, but the foot Walker, the late foot Walker returned a kickoff for a touchdown and it changed the complexity of the game. So sul has decided to stay with Woodley because remember that was Woodstock, It was Woodley and Don Strock. He wanted to throw it and we were open all day long. Daryl Harris and I were so wide open. Bruce Halready, the rest of them all day long. They couldn't cover us to save their lives. And David just completed four passes all day. Four passes.
00:32:50
Speaker 5: That's not a good day, not a good day. That's not a good day, right, you know. And at first you said the best Jimmy there and there weren't moments like that. You know, we're in Super Bowl again. You walk off the field against Washington and they're the champs. While Miami did what you know teams do and tried to do determine what could get them over the top, right, and so they decided that, you know, they were going to need a new quarterback, and boy did and boy did things fall our way. Right as the first round is coming to a close, Damn Marino is somehow still sitting there and offensive football in Miami and really the entire league would never be the same man and as a receiver. As a receiver, you know, it was part of the offense that really was a you know, built on a run first mentality.
00:33:35
Speaker 7: How quickly did you guys realize that things are going to change and we had to go that route and stay with Dan Marino?
00:33:41
Speaker 1: The first mini camp, I still remember it. I was standing behind Shula and they put the second team in, and so Dan comes up and throws his first pass out of practice field in a dolphin jersey, and Chilla turned around and looked at all of us like, oh my god, what did we into? Yeah, and so it didn't take long for Dan to be the guy and for Woodley to get traded ironically to Pittsburgh, right Oh yeah.
00:34:11
Speaker 5: You know, because you know there was always that that scuttle butter why Pittsburgh didn't take Danny. Everybody was like they were there's a lot of conversation about that man.
00:34:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, but we knew right away. I mean, you just had to watching Throll football. Well you're still watching Throll football. He'll throw back football today better than half of the starting quarterbacks in the NFL.
00:34:29
Speaker 3: And tell us about it.
00:34:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's not shy about it, but he's right.
00:34:35
Speaker 5: And you know what's crazy though, too, Jimmy's like even the second season. You know, Danny, you were part of all this legendary stuff in the second season and you were on the receiving end of this. You know, his record breaking thirty seven touchdown that year. Man, I mean being part of history. Like me, I'm proud of the three ninety nine, four hundred and for one, But anytime you're part of a Marino record, it's it's it's amazing stuff.
00:34:56
Speaker 1: White Tittle had the record and they were like odds and laws Vegas about who was going to catch this pass because they knew it was going to be that week. And I was like eight hundred to one or something.
00:35:05
Speaker 6: I was like last on the board. You know, it was Duper was playing. It was Nad it was d it was.
00:35:13
Speaker 1: Joe Rose, I don't believe. And we ran a play that always goes to the weak side of the formation, I mean always, and I was on the strong side of the formation. But there was no place to go and Dan had he threw a bullet to the corner and I caught it and knew right away it was the record breakers. So I went to give him the football. Well, Dan got his bell wrong on the play. He didn't have any idea what was going on. I was picking, like, you know, grass out of his helmet and stuff like that. So but yeah, and uh, he thinks he got the real football.
00:35:53
Speaker 6: But I actually have the real football.
00:35:55
Speaker 3: He did a little. I love it.
00:35:58
Speaker 4: He did a little like the uh in baseball Juice for the base Bobby.
00:36:03
Speaker 6: Bobby finally a fifty bucks to what the heck? You know?
00:36:06
Speaker 2: Oh, it's so good.
00:36:07
Speaker 3: Bobby was happy to take it. I'm sure, Oh that's too funny.
00:36:11
Speaker 4: Well so, so that magical eighty four season ends with you guys back in the Super Bowl. But unfortunately, just like Juice described in your previous trip to the Big Dance, the Dolphins finished that game on the wrong side of the scoreboard. And as legend has it, like you guys fly back and you get to Miami and basically walk into Coach Shula's office and tell him you're hanging up your cleats that that you know, you're already as you described earlier, you were doing PM magazine, and you know, Coach was kind of shocked that you told him.
00:36:42
Speaker 3: You have enough.
00:36:42
Speaker 1: What happened was. I came back and I got a call from NBC asked me if I would go and do a vacation relief for the guy who was doing NBC News and suff Okay. The host was Connie Chuck.
00:36:54
Speaker 3: Okay.
00:36:55
Speaker 1: At the end of the two weeks, Connie leaned over and said, do you want this job full time? And I said yes, Wow, Well I'll make it happen.
00:37:02
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:37:03
Speaker 1: So I flew back and went to his office and told him, and he said, nobody quits this game. I said, I just I just did quit.
00:37:09
Speaker 6: Coach.
00:37:11
Speaker 3: Nobody quits this game was the quote.
00:37:13
Speaker 6: Yeah, wow.
00:37:14
Speaker 4: And and so you know, like you said, it wasn't you didn't quit for PM magazine. You quit for a network gig you were calling it.
00:37:22
Speaker 1: Which is what he said to me. He said, you're not quitting to do a local local TV. I said, no, I got a network job.
00:37:27
Speaker 4: Did that make it a little more palatable for him?
00:37:33
Speaker 1: And for probably one reason. Now you got to go draft wide receiver.
00:37:37
Speaker 3: Right, you know?
00:37:38
Speaker 6: Right?
00:37:38
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:37:39
Speaker 1: And that was that was that was this year draft wide wide receiver. So yeah, he's always thinking team first, to.
00:37:46
Speaker 6: Hell with me.
00:37:46
Speaker 1: But anyway, I went up and people at NBC were great, and I spent six years in news and sports and uh got the team with Charlie Jones for five of those years. You got to work with people like Bob Costas and Marve Albert and a lot of wonderful, wonderful folks through the years. So I was very, very lucky and very fortunate, and that really did set up my career for the rest of the rest of my life.
00:38:11
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, you talk about some of that, like you talked about Big seth. I mean, I mean, come on, you co hosted the Summer Olympics and you know you're you're hosting game shows.
00:38:20
Speaker 2: You know.
00:38:21
Speaker 5: I know journalism was your major Penn State man, but was this always your didn't? I mean, this has gotta be like.
00:38:32
Speaker 1: You funny about that, Emmy. When I was doing my show at w i o D morning talk show right for six hours, four hours, and I had so many guests on through the years. The last year I had I had the guess was Jane Pauley. Well, Jane and I hosted the Today Show during the Olympics and Soul because Brian cob went to do the night time and Jane and I did the Mornings along with Gail Gardner or three of the scale was a wonderful name, and uh so we won. We won the Emmy for Writing. And when I had Jane on my morning show, I said, Jane, you know, it's been a long time. I don't know if you remember me. She said, Jimmy, I'm staring at the Emmy that you won from me on my mantle. Idn't know that she knows things about sports. She had no clue forget one person, great lady, great coworker, terrific. And then on weekends on Sunday, I did Sunday Today too, and I hosted with Maria Shriver. So we had a we had a we had a some kind of a luncheon outdoors, beautiful and soul and for all the advertisers and all the brass from NBC were there. And so I'm sitting there with Maria and uh here comes Arnold Schwarzenegger, her husband had just flown in, and he's walking over to the table, he smoking the cigar and he kisses Marie and I stand up and I said, hello, Arnold, I'm Jimmy Cefalo. I co host the show with Maria. And he said I am Arnold, and I said, no playing he was like the biggest start in America. He's introduced himself to be. So anyway, Uh yeah, I was very lucky and very fortunate. And you know's advice was, I when you go up there and learn from the best, and you know, the best you can to learn everything he can. I mean, his advice was was spot on.
00:40:21
Speaker 3: So once he got.
00:40:22
Speaker 4: Past at heart like I'm losing one of my wide outs, you know, he coached you up.
00:40:28
Speaker 1: Yeah he did.
00:40:28
Speaker 3: That's great, That is great.
00:40:30
Speaker 1: That's my whole life, I think. I mean, he really did. He always had some life advice and it was always a spot on. He was always he was like a second father to me.
00:40:39
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's awesome.
00:40:39
Speaker 5: I always loved that part too, man, because we've we've had a couple of second fathers, man, you know, from Joe to Coach Sula. You know, it's kind of crazy that we got to play with some iconic guys like that man, and so you.
00:40:50
Speaker 7: Know, they they really did more than just coach us up than Jimmy.
00:40:54
Speaker 6: Yeah, they did.
00:40:55
Speaker 1: They gave us a life beyond what we could have ever imagined. Oh, Jay, you grew up Cleveland and growing up in Pittston. I never imagined this, never dreamt this. I never thought I'd be able to, you know, do some of the things I was able to do. I'm I feel like Walter Mitty or Gump sometimes, you know, I really I'm doing here.
00:41:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:41:20
Speaker 4: Well you guys both earned it. You both earned it, and you talk about being lucky and fortunate. I think we're lucky and fortunate to have heard this story here. Jimmy, I know you've got to run. You've been so gracious with your time. We end every episode of The Fish Tank with our two minute drill, so I know you've run some two minute drills. You did it with Bob Greasie, you did it with Dan Marino. I think you're going to be able to handle this one. We're putting a proverbial two minutes up on the clock. We'll have some fast paced fun questions for you. If you can put this thing in the end zone, then we'll let you go take your daughter of the airport.
00:41:51
Speaker 5: Great, all right, all right, ready, Jimmy, you got this all right. Your hometown O Pisson is right between Scranton and Wilkesbury. By our research and the history the Miami Dolphins. There's been at least one player on the ross from each of those other two towns. Can you name them? No, One we drafted and one we acquired in a trade. All right, we got I'll give it to you. Tim Ruddy Jim Ready from right and condre Ishmael from Bury right.
00:42:19
Speaker 1: Tim Ruddy from Dunmore.
00:42:21
Speaker 4: Actually yeah he was born but yeah, exactly.
00:42:27
Speaker 1: Crowd, just a quick partner. He went to school G A R. The Grand Army of the Republic High School. When I was stabbed in the game against j R.
00:42:36
Speaker 6: When I was a junior. Yeah, that's a long story.
00:42:40
Speaker 7: In the game.
00:42:41
Speaker 3: Did they not know who was throwing your birthday parties?
00:42:43
Speaker 2: Jimmy like.
00:42:47
Speaker 6: Tough school.
00:42:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, they got stabbed in the game on the field.
00:42:51
Speaker 1: On the field run on football in a pile.
00:42:55
Speaker 3: Wow, I've always heard you never know what goes on in those piles. I didn't know that somebody might.
00:43:00
Speaker 5: That's the first time I've heard about I see. I've heard of other things said, but a stabbings, that's the first.
00:43:04
Speaker 3: That is an all timer.
00:43:06
Speaker 4: Well, okay, not only are you a well known in a file and had your legendary Cephalo's wine cellar. But your family has been in the wine business for more than one hundred and fifty years. I don't know if people realize that in more than one hundred and fifty years Cephalo family has been doing wine for anyone like me who knows nothing about wine? What is the zero don't drink it? What is the one thing? The one bottle I can't miss? If you want to recommend. If I'm going to give somebody a bottle of wine as a holiday present, what's the one bottle is I gotta go to?
00:43:38
Speaker 1: There's a bottle called Secret Door. It's done by Donald Pat's wine.
00:43:44
Speaker 3: I'm writing it down.
00:43:45
Speaker 1: Donald is a good friend and I hope and I taste wine out of the barrel with him. And I've known him for twenty years, twenty five years. Just a great guy and a superb wine maker.
00:43:56
Speaker 4: And am I gonna have to get a second job or a third job to pay for this bottle?
00:43:59
Speaker 6: I know?
00:44:00
Speaker 3: That's that's a pretty crisy one, okay, all right?
00:44:05
Speaker 1: Less expensive one A peanut the war and a shard nade called Maritana. Okay, that's from bomb Donald Pats too wonderful wine as well.
00:44:12
Speaker 3: I'm taking notes. I'm taking notes, Jimmy.
00:44:15
Speaker 7: I don't know if you I don't know if you remember this. Jimmy, I know we're in a two minute joint.
00:44:18
Speaker 3: Forget it.
00:44:18
Speaker 7: So what said?
00:44:19
Speaker 2: You know?
00:44:20
Speaker 5: I remember one time I asked you what was the best wine to get? And you were like, the one that you like. I think that was a that's a quote I think I got from you where it's like, the one that you like is the is the one that you get? You know, It's like.
00:44:30
Speaker 7: It's not a price point or anything like that, but if you like it, that's the wine for you.
00:44:35
Speaker 6: Right.
00:44:36
Speaker 1: My wife drinks eight dollar bottles of wine and drives me crazy because I like wine.
00:44:43
Speaker 3: That's all right, all right, Oh that's too funny.
00:44:46
Speaker 2: All right.
00:44:46
Speaker 5: So, as we say at the top of the show, Jimmy, this is your twentieth season as a voice to the Miami Dolphins.
00:44:51
Speaker 7: What is your all time favorite call for the Dolphins.
00:44:55
Speaker 1: Well, that's a tough one. I probably had something to do. Oh well, you know what, I think that back it was Tyreek. No, it was Jaylen Wattle last year who scored a touchdown and speed was incredible, And I remember saying on the air. There's a new cheetah in town. Was hurt and but Wattle was you know, I mean he can run too, he can. That's a track team out there.
00:45:19
Speaker 2: I can't wait to.
00:45:19
Speaker 6: See them this year and what they do.
00:45:21
Speaker 4: So fun to watch, so fun to watch. All right, final question here Early, we're going back again. Early in your media career at WNEP, you made a name for yourself with the dialing for dollars segment where you would call Gerbil races of all things, just yes, Gerbil races. You would name these Gerbils. People sitting around in bars would bet on them. If we had a Gerbil race right now and you had these, These are my three superstar Gerbils. Jimmy I got Gerbil. Number one is not more Gerbil. Number two is Jimmy Seffhalo. Gerbil number three is Joe Rose. Who are you putting your money on in a race in the three.
00:46:07
Speaker 6: Oh? I thought it was going to be a tough question.
00:46:11
Speaker 3: That is the two minute drill.
00:46:13
Speaker 4: He is Jimmy Sepphalo twenty years as the voice and Miami Dolphins were about to kick that off. It's going to be an exciting season, Jimmy. Thank you so much for spending some time with us.
00:46:22
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, thanks for having me. What a fun podcast you put on and I appreciate you having me as again means a lot.
00:46:28
Speaker 5: Hey, thanks for diving in, Jimmy, We appreciate you.
00:46:31
Speaker 1: You're now diving just like Jew said.
00:46:36
Speaker 4: 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
Speaker 1: You're now diving.
00:00:07
Speaker 2: I have been that who oh Jay, And.
00:00:17
Speaker 3: This is strictly but I'm true number one.
00:00:21
Speaker 2: Of course, this ain't the other Nevers boys talk.
00:00:23
Speaker 3: That might have been a pitch tank.
00:00:25
Speaker 4: Welcome back to the Fish Tank presented by iHeartRadio right here on the Miami Dolphins podcast network, Seth Levitt and the only podcaster the Bowl of Perfect Game and lead the NFL and Receptions. He is O J McDuffie and Juice. We handed over the guest booking to you a few weeks ago, and wouldn't you know it, something magical has happened two weeks in a row. We now have a Nitanny lyon here.
00:00:49
Speaker 2: In the fish Tan Jared Adrey.
00:00:54
Speaker 1: Okay, so I come.
00:00:57
Speaker 2: Hard to pin down, hard.
00:01:00
Speaker 4: To save, save the best for last. Is like to say, but and you hear that voice. If you're a Dolphins fan, you certainly recognize it. He is Jimmy Cephalo and Juice. You and Jimmy are connected in some special ways.
00:01:13
Speaker 2: Yes we are. You know.
00:01:14
Speaker 5: Of course the Penn State Way was as a great way of being connected. Of course we're wearing number eighty one here for the Miami Dolphins. Another way, but Jimmy has one up on me, Big Seth, being the eighty first pick. And we'll talk about that a little bit down the line here. So he's got he's got one more eighty one and you know, more connections than I have.
00:01:31
Speaker 2: Bro.
00:01:31
Speaker 3: You know, it's a fair point.
00:01:32
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. I'll trade my eighty one pick for your pick.
00:01:34
Speaker 6: Oh there it is.
00:01:36
Speaker 2: I love it to do it. You have to do it, se.
00:01:39
Speaker 4: I have to do it, Jimmy. We have a running joke on this show. We get these guys who, like we're undrafted rookie free agents. They have these unbelievable stories of overcoming all odds, and I like to give my partner here a hard time about the joys of being a first round pick when they roll out the red carpet and they fly in and they take it to all the you know, all the fancy stuff, and he's kind of tired of hearing at it.
00:02:00
Speaker 1: And like you just said, well, mine was a little different. I mean when I got drafted, I was a third round pick, eighty first choice, as you said, and my plane got the laid out of Pittsburgh. I came to Opa Loaca with a cab and back then, Opa Loaca wasn't exactly the garden spot of the world. And George Young had told me on the phone that he would leave a key. It was three o'clock in the morning, come on a key at the at the Kiosk security area. Well, there was nobody there, and the cab driver said, hey, buddy, I don't think I should leave you here. And I said, I said, is there a hotel closed by? He's the other one up the street there was. It's not the stadium hotel up there. It was a holiday in then, right, so I didn't know what time I had to be back for the beginning of mini camp. So I just sat in a chair for three hours. Six o'clock, got a cab, went back, started walking around the campus with my bags, and shoelases me and he says, hey, did we draft you? And I said, yeah you did. He said, what are you doing? I told him the story, So come on, let's have breakfast. So I sat that breakfast with you at like six thirty in the morning. And so that was my believable They didn't roll at the red car before me. Seven.
00:03:12
Speaker 6: In other ways.
00:03:15
Speaker 3: Very different than unbelievable. I love that the cab driver was concerned.
00:03:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, you no idea where.
00:03:22
Speaker 1: I was, no idea if I should be, you know, worried or not.
00:03:26
Speaker 6: I didn't know what I was going to do. Well, he did rock me, and I just left me.
00:03:29
Speaker 3: You know, he certainly did. Oh god, that's good.
00:03:33
Speaker 2: You know, we're going to get into a lot of that. I love that. I love that, Jimmy.
00:03:35
Speaker 5: But let's let's go back a little bit here, you know, because I know you've got a lot of incredible story.
00:03:40
Speaker 2: We got we set.
00:03:41
Speaker 5: I mean, my goodness, the research we could have probably done about two hours of Jimmy, couldn't we set? I mean that we've we've run into and stuff. And of course your hist your here with the Miami Dolphins is as rich as it gets. The new season's coming up, twenty twenty four seasons coming up, and we're all excited about that, see what's in store for the team. But what we have to look forward on the field is that this would be your twentieth season the radio voice of the Miami Dolphins.
00:04:05
Speaker 2: Man, I mean, what does that mean to you?
00:04:06
Speaker 5: Haven't served in that role, you know, calling games for the Dolphins fans across the world for two decades.
00:04:11
Speaker 1: Well, it's shocking to me. I mean, you know, I was working at Channel ten. Of course, I'd come from NBC. I was doing games with Charlie Jones, and I went to do game shows and did Donald Trump's first show, Trump Card. People forget about that one CBS show. And when that went away, I got the job at Channel ten, and they didn't like sports much and the news director cut away the five o'clock sports, cut away the five thirty sports, cut the six o'clock sports from four minutes to two minutes, and generally you.
00:04:41
Speaker 6: Got about a minute.
00:04:42
Speaker 1: When we all came down to it, and the Dolphins offered me this job. I went to him, I said I want to do this. He said, well, you can't do both. I said, why, it's no good for Channel ten. He said, we don't think it is, which I didn't understand, right, And I had a seven year no cut contract, damn. So they paid him with ten paid me out and I went to work for the Dolphins. And that's the way it worked. I haven't told him, I mean, I haven't told that story in a long time.
00:05:09
Speaker 2: No, that's right, man. First of all, man, who's your agent?
00:05:12
Speaker 7: Bro?
00:05:12
Speaker 6: It was me.
00:05:14
Speaker 3: I think you're looking at him.
00:05:15
Speaker 1: To know. I had one agent back when I was with NBC. His name was Ed Hookstratt and they called him the Hook and he was a tough solb. He was very good. But from then on it was just.
00:05:25
Speaker 4: Me, Wow, that's crazy that they didn't see I mean when I worked for the team. Yeah, it just blows.
00:05:32
Speaker 1: My mom said, well, you know what you can get out to the stuff on the ESPN. I said, not if you want to get the Dolphins and the Marlins and eat and the panthers in the University of Miami and all that stuff. No, you ge't a way through hours of stuff to get what you want. I said, what about weather? I get the weather every seven or eight minutes, right, and what are you talking about?
00:05:49
Speaker 3: Right?
00:05:49
Speaker 1: But they were just were not sports fans.
00:05:51
Speaker 6: That's it.
00:05:51
Speaker 3: That is absolutely crazy to me.
00:05:53
Speaker 4: But well, congratulations on twenty years of entertaining Dolphins fans and and you know, I mean someone which has changed now with radio broadcasts and we always have fun coming into the booth after and seeing you and Joe, especially when it's a good game and everybody's happy and we come on the air right after, you know, on iHeart right after you guys sign off. But people are listening across the world. You know, we're in an age now with the Internet. They're listening across the world. If they can't see the game, you're their eyes and and you and Joe are entertaining them. And you know, two decades of that is really special.
00:06:25
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I get stuck with that knucklehead for twenty years.
00:06:28
Speaker 4: What I mean we're going to talk about We're definitely going to talk about the sentence.
00:06:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, so hilarious, hilarious.
00:06:36
Speaker 4: So Juice mentioned how you do have this incredible story. And as I told you before we jumped on air here, I just was. I learned things that I didn't even know, and knowing you as long as I have. But let's go back to where it all started, and that was Pittston, Pennsylvania. Hopefully I'm starting that correctly, Pittston, Pennsylvania. And and I the first thing I see, the first article that pops up is Jimmy the Jet, and which you know, understanding the context was okay. Nowadays, I don't like thinking about you and the Jets and being associated with that, But Jimmy the Jet and Jimmy You were like a celebrity. At fourteen years old, you get your first rep in a varsity football game, and you go eighty yards for a touchdown and you're only a sophomore in high school and you basically never look back. The town kind of fell in love with you. Clearly they had to love football. But is this accurate that there were like fifteen thousand people showing up for your high school football games in this little coal mining guy.
00:07:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, they you know, the stadium itself held I don't know, hater nine thousand. And then they would park the buses, the school buses, around the track surrounding the field, and people would climb up on that and sit on the buses, on top of the buses, and I mean, you couldn't get a ticket, You couldn't get a seat. You couldn't I mean, it was pretty crazy. After that first game, you know, there were I think five of us were sophomores who started because the team wasn't great, and then we made them pretty good. I started getting letters from schools. The first one I got was from UCLA. I was fourteen, got one from Hawaii, and then it all started to fall in place. And by the time I was a senior. I was recruited by a little over one hundred schools. You know, I ran track. I was in the state finals for the one hundred three years in a row. So for all those reasons, and because it was a small town, because it was a coal mining town, because it was a ninety nine percent Italian American town, there were a lot of things that were Can I tell you a story that I had not told many people either? Please'm it's my sixteenth birthday, and you know I was in Sports Illustrated. I was a lot of things. I did something called thirty minutes, which was sixty minutes on a they did it for kids. It was called thirty minutes. So I was featured in that and all this stuff. So I get a call from the team doctor. Someone would like to throw you a sixteenth birthday party. Okay, who Russell Buffalino. Well, for those of you who have watched the Irishman, Russell Buffalino.
00:09:17
Speaker 6: Was the top guy.
00:09:19
Speaker 1: So Rolls Royce pulls up in front of my parents' apartment. Basically, it was half a double, oh j I don't know if they had them in Cleveland. Half a double is a house split into two. Were apartment on one side, apartment on the other side, and I get in somebody else it's not Russell. Drive to Scram Club C and see. I still remember walked there and everybody's.
00:09:42
Speaker 6: Sitting not doing anything.
00:09:44
Speaker 1: Just waiting for Russell to come in. And he eventually did. This was fifty years.
00:09:50
Speaker 3: Ago now and you're sixteen years old.
00:09:52
Speaker 6: Sixteen wow. Yeah.
00:09:55
Speaker 4: So just for people who are listening, and if you didn't know the Irishman, and I wasn't gonna bring it up, Jimmy, because I didn't. I was like, I don't, but I was reading about the town and you know who are famous people that have come out of Pittston and the Buffalo crime family.
00:10:08
Speaker 3: Was like, that was a big deal.
00:10:10
Speaker 6: It was a big deal.
00:10:11
Speaker 2: That was a bit. It was a big deal.
00:10:13
Speaker 1: Fast forward, OJ, you appreciate this. Penn State is nineteen seventy nine. I guess playing for the National Championship against Alabama maybe or Georgia, one of the two the Sugar Bowl. So it's the hottest ticket in America, right. I go to the game and I get a call at my hotel, same guy, team Doctor, come back home. Russell would like four tickets for tomorrow night's game.
00:10:42
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, I.
00:10:44
Speaker 1: Said, And where do you think I'm going to get those? He said, I don't know, but Russell would like to get them. So I scrounged and I you know, I paid four hundred dollars a ticket back then, OJ, that was a lot of money and a lot of money playing football in nineteen seventy nine. So I called a doctor and I said, okay, I got him. He calls me back and says, right, Russell, I want to know if you're in New Orleans. Yes I am, He'll find you. So now I keep the tickets in my inside jacket pocket. Wherever I was. I'm walking toward Bourbon Street and limbousine pulls up and two goons get out, can run, of course, and the window rolls down. Russell always wore sunglasses. It was about ten o'clock at night. He's still had sunglasses. You got, mister Buffalo News tickets? Yeah, I got them right here?
00:11:32
Speaker 6: What is he nothing? It's on me.
00:11:34
Speaker 1: It's good. And that was the last time I saw Russell.
00:11:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, lose my number like in a respectful way.
00:11:41
Speaker 4: Right, wow, unbelievable man.
00:11:44
Speaker 1: And the last time I had any contact whatsoever I was working at NBC. I was doing a show called NBC News at sunrise six am, so I was off the air. And at nine o'clock I was able to go home. And I walked someplace and I not far from rock Feller Center, and I stopped for breakfast and I'm seeing the guy comes over and he says, Jimmy, Yeah. He said, Hi, I'm so and so I'm Russell Buffalina's attorney. I'm on my way up to Danbury to see him. He's in prison up there. And I said, how's he doing? He said, well, not well, that's probably the last time I'm going to see him. I said, we'll tell him I settlo and thank him for everything he did for me. And that was it.
00:12:24
Speaker 6: Wow.
00:12:25
Speaker 1: I've always wondered whether or not the irishman was driving that car in New Orleans.
00:12:29
Speaker 6: My guess is he waly.
00:12:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's probably a good or was sitting in the back seat somewhere. That is wild. That is a wild, wild story.
00:12:39
Speaker 5: Okay, Now by all is said and done, man, I mean, Jimmy the jet is the top high school recruit in the country, and I mean there are obvious comparisons of Charlie Trippy and you I mean, he's the Hall of Famer who was actually the original Pride of Pittston Man in the mid to late thirties, well before you, Jimmy right.
00:12:55
Speaker 1: In fact, I played in Charlie Trippy Stadium. That was the name of the stadium.
00:12:58
Speaker 2: Well there you go.
00:12:59
Speaker 5: I mean, I mean everybody had to expect that you'd be going to University of Georgia and following his footsteps.
00:13:05
Speaker 1: In fact, Charlie recruited me at Georgia. I went to dinner in this whole while, and I decided I was going to Georgia. Now, back then, an alumni from the school could recruit you. You can't do that anymore, I don't think. But then you could. John Cappelletti recruited me, but he was my guy at Penn State. So I decide, I'm going to go to Georgia great journalism school, which is what I wanted to major in Charlie Trippy. You know, people will help me out if I'm getting in trouble there, you know, I mean, homesick whatever, right, the Italian connection there a great story. So I fly back on a Sunday night and my parents aren't at this little airport to pick me up. Instead, it's a cousin exacting kind of weird, drops me off in front of my parents' place. The lights are out except for in the kitchen. It's ten o'clock on the Sunday night, so I'm excited to going tell my parents I'm going to Georgia. Walked into the kitchen and seeing there is Joe paternal of course, and my mother is ladling sauce over his pasta, and my father's pouring a glass of his homemade wine, and Joe ignores me, looks at my mother and says, missus Cephalo, this pasta is better than missus Capelletti. And that was the end of that tune. The recruited my mother, He didn't recruit me. He could care less about me.
00:14:25
Speaker 3: Right, does it does? Well?
00:14:27
Speaker 6: It?
00:14:28
Speaker 3: It certainly worked.
00:14:28
Speaker 4: And we have to apologize to Anne Nolan, who was probably getting excited with hearing about.
00:14:32
Speaker 3: The University of Georgia stuff I forgot she did. But it's brilliant. Get in there and and make mom love.
00:14:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's he did that to everybody. Recruited moms, recruited the kids, recruited moms, and and it worked. I mean, he used to brag he only recruited within one hundred and fifty miles of the campus. That's it. And it was rare that somebody from outside of that radius wind. So that's where Joe concentrated. I think it's just because he didn't want to travel much anymore, you know what I mean?
00:15:04
Speaker 6: I think he.
00:15:04
Speaker 3: Probably, But he also had well he's lucky. There was a lot of good ball players.
00:15:08
Speaker 1: Pittsburgh, he had Scranton, Wilkesbury, he had you know, Long Island and all of that area in New York City had a lot of great players come.
00:15:15
Speaker 2: Out of Yeah. What about Ohio though, I mean.
00:15:17
Speaker 1: Ohio, Yeah, of course it's Cleveland.
00:15:22
Speaker 6: What do you want.
00:15:25
Speaker 3: Too good? Too good?
00:15:26
Speaker 4: Well, look, you had I guess your share, I would say, of ups and downs there, yeah, you know, some great experiences. But ultimately there were enough ups for Don Shula and the Miami Dolphins to say, hey.
00:15:37
Speaker 1: Right, well, my freshman year I started for Joe. I was the first freshman to start for Joe in the modern era. And then he changed the offense. He wanted me to put on twenty five pounds and become a you know, a capitality like tailback that.
00:15:51
Speaker 3: Was because you were a tailback in high school.
00:15:53
Speaker 1: Right, it was one hundred and seventy pounds. I was a flanker as a freshman and really did really well during that offense. They changed it completely, so I barely touched the ball. My sophomore year, I got hurt. He wanted me the red shirt. I said, I'm not red shirty. I'm getting out of here, and he got mad at me. And I didn't touch the ball very much. I didn't play all that much.
00:16:14
Speaker 6: My junior year.
00:16:14
Speaker 1: I played a little bit more in than my senior year.
00:16:17
Speaker 6: He got stuck.
00:16:19
Speaker 1: Joe was a pretty vindictive guy. I gotta tell you, I love him. He's pretty vindictive. So my senior year he needed a pump return and he put me back there against Kentucky. It was like the second game of the season, and I returned the ball for a touchdown. Now he's kind of stuck, okay, right, And I kept doing that. He I led the country and pump returns my senior year. He wasn't very happy, but eh, he got to play.
00:16:47
Speaker 3: Wow.
00:16:47
Speaker 4: So that's and that's an interesting dynamic, right, that idea of not very happy. He obviously is happy when his team is going touchdown right, turning, you know, change of possession into points.
00:16:57
Speaker 3: But but it wasn't the guy that he wanted to be doing, that is.
00:17:00
Speaker 6: What it was not.
00:17:02
Speaker 1: I mean there was only one Heisman Trophy winner at Penn State. It was John Cappelletti. Wonderful guy, great player, and uh, I think it kind of caught Joe by surprise. There was one star at ben State. His name was Joe paternal That was it, and I love but that's why it was lot.
00:17:23
Speaker 4: Well like yeah, yeah, and you've I mean you've said that time and time again. Well I'd never heard the other side of the story.
00:17:31
Speaker 1: One of the eulogies at his funeral was there. He asked for me to do it. Wow, So you know what, we respected each other. You know, it's one of those things where we had a good, warm relationship in the end.
00:17:44
Speaker 2: Yeah. Man, I think we all did.
00:17:45
Speaker 6: Man.
00:17:45
Speaker 5: I think it's it starts off off with Joe and then we all seem to have a really good relationship with Joe at the end.
00:17:49
Speaker 2: I mean that's that's fact.
00:17:51
Speaker 4: Well, fast forward to another head coach who was iconic that we all love here in Coach Sula. I loved that story about your first you know, your first interaction with him. So nineteen seventy eight, you're in there, you have the hotel thing. Fortunately that whatever concerns the taxi driver had you overcame them. But that first mini camp, from what I understand, didn't necessarily go the way you wanted it to. It was a little bit overwhelming. You started to have some maybe some if I read this correctly, a little self doubt that here you are, you know, you're with these professional players now. And you went back home after that camp to Pittston and kind of maybe you were questioning whether pro ball was for you. And again you show up at your house and Joe Paterno's in town because he's speaking at you know, there's some event that he's in town and he's speaking, and you guys have dinner together, and there was something that he said in that speech that really kind of moved you and inspired you to get over whatever you were feeling.
00:18:54
Speaker 1: Well, it was actually a private conversation between the two of us. I wasn't gonna play. I decided I wasn't going to no before even before then, before I got drafted. Oh wow, okay, and uh, you know I had my degree. I was going to go write obituaries for a small newspaper, I believe it or not. And Joe was on my case for four years. Whether I was a you know, Prease's All American as a freshman or whatever, he was, I'm on my case and uh, and he had no qualms about telling me how bad of a football player I was. So we're sitting there and he stopped at me and he said, so, why don't you want to play professional football? You could be a star in that league. And I said, now you tell me this.
00:19:42
Speaker 2: Now you tell me this.
00:19:44
Speaker 1: Four years you've been telling me the worst player you've ever recruited, and now you tell me I could be a star in the NFL. So that's where the came.
00:19:52
Speaker 2: What was the deal?
00:19:53
Speaker 4: But was it just that was his way? He felt that that's what.
00:19:56
Speaker 3: You needed to be motivated. But he believed in you the whole time.
00:19:58
Speaker 1: Most coaches think some people need a pat in the back, some need a kick in the butt. Joe only had one way.
00:20:08
Speaker 6: And it wasn't just me.
00:20:10
Speaker 1: It was Capelletti, it was Chuck Fusina, who was runner up to the Heisman Trophy too. You know, I mean all those That's the way he coached, that's the way he lived his life.
00:20:21
Speaker 4: Wow wow, Well, so you go back to camp, right, whatever it was, you were motivated enough, you go back to camp, and this is there's a heavy veteran presence on this roster in seventy eight. Bob Greasy's still quarterback. You know, you walk into your receiver room. You got nap More there. Daryl Harris, who from what we understand, has an interesting personality, right, you know, he's not the Clayton and Duber both made it very clear that Dariel wasn't putting his arm around a rookie and saying, look, kid, let me show.
00:20:49
Speaker 1: You how Dariel Harris was the worst teammate eve ever I ever.
00:20:52
Speaker 3: Hed man, Wow, man, Well there you go.
00:20:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no secret to that. Yeah, those guys.
00:20:57
Speaker 3: You're not the first guy to say on the show.
00:21:00
Speaker 7: He wouldn't help.
00:21:01
Speaker 1: I mean, nat More is the one who helped me that, you know, that became a big brother to me, still is to this day. By the way, during COVID, when we couldn't get on the team plane, I'll give an example, and I was I was pretty sick. I couldn't look the bag.
00:21:18
Speaker 6: I couldn't you know.
00:21:18
Speaker 1: I was walking with a cane doing a lot of things that flew with me to every game.
00:21:26
Speaker 6: So that he would help me.
00:21:27
Speaker 4: Wow, that says a lot that you know.
00:21:33
Speaker 1: When I got there and that's the one who helped me. One of the first things he said to me was, when Greasey is a quarterback, take and you're gonna run an out pattern, take two steps closer to the line to to the tight end. Why not because Greasey's arm is going to take that much longer there.
00:21:51
Speaker 3: So wow, I love that.
00:21:56
Speaker 4: God, I love that. But so I mean, just I'm thinking about that. You have those guys. Heck, Zanka even came back for you.
00:22:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had the locker right next to him.
00:22:05
Speaker 2: What I mean, where there you go.
00:22:06
Speaker 5: But Jimmy, we both know that in this league, it doesn't take long for guys to become the vest in the locker room. And so now it becomes your turn to minute of young players. Yeah, and in your third season, the Dolphins take a flyer in the seventh round on a bit of a wild child from Kyle Burgan. Jesus, Yeah, tell us what it was like with a young Joe Rose I mean, you guys hit it off immediately right away, and did you feel like you had to mentor him right away?
00:22:32
Speaker 1: He came, he walked into my dorm room at Biscayn College and introduced himself, and I knew we were going to be best friends. And we have been for forty years or whatever it is.
00:22:43
Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying.
00:22:44
Speaker 4: You guys have been best friends in basically teammates for the last forty five years almost.
00:22:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have, and you knew it right away.
00:22:50
Speaker 1: It's just one of those things where you meet somebody and your personalities click, and so, yeah, Joe and I have been extraordinarily tight.
00:22:57
Speaker 4: I love it well, and I you know, I think that's why for the last two we've heard that chemistry on air, and then obviously I get to I get to enjoy some of that off air chemistry that you guys have and see some of that stuff.
00:23:08
Speaker 6: Point So, so.
00:23:10
Speaker 4: Look that that leadership became more than just being a leader in the locker room. In fact, you ultimately became the player rep. Right, So you become the you know, you're the player rep for the locker room. And the eighty two season rolls around, and now as the player rep.
00:23:26
Speaker 3: You're you're smack.
00:23:27
Speaker 4: Dab in the middle of this labor disagreement between the players union and the league. Ultimately, we know there was a strike and they you know, and we're going to talk about that and what happened. But William Judson, actually, I guess he was a rookie that year and he told us this story and it was fun to go back and read it.
00:23:44
Speaker 3: I guess.
00:23:44
Speaker 4: Heading into that first preseason game, which was coincidentally against Washington, there was this There was this agreement that the players are going to meet on the field. Everybody was gonna shake hands and solidarity.
00:23:56
Speaker 3: We're a union.
00:23:57
Speaker 4: The players you know, were unified. And the league caught win to this was like, hell, no, that's not going to happen. We're letting all the clubs know to find you guys the maximum, which was like a hundred bucks, but you know it was the maximum.
00:24:07
Speaker 3: Fine.
00:24:08
Speaker 4: Coach Shula could not have been excited about.
00:24:11
Speaker 1: No, And I had a good tell him, right, So what was that like? So I walk in that little crappy office in Biscay in college and I said, Coach, the union wants us to shake hands with the Redskins before the game on Saturday night. He said, well, we're not going to have that Mickey Mouse nonsense around here. And I said, well, the players are going to vote on it. He said, good, you go talk to them. And the press wants to talk to you. They got wind to this too. They're out there waiting for you.
00:24:42
Speaker 6: I okay. So I go in.
00:24:44
Speaker 1: Players are all there, and I said, well, Union wants to shake hands before the game. And AJ Dewey says, what does Shula want? He said, he wants to do it. He said, well blank that let's shake hands, right, yeah, let's sake.
00:25:00
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:25:01
Speaker 1: And Eddie Newman judge, Eddie Newman was the assistant player up. So he comes back with me and we walk in and She'll said, well, Jimmy, would they decide? I said, they're gonna shake hands, and she will looked at Eddie and he said, Eddie, could you please leave Jimmy and I alone?
00:25:20
Speaker 3: And Eddie excuse me?
00:25:22
Speaker 6: And he backed up.
00:25:22
Speaker 1: I mean he was like he was going to block an uncharging outside linebacker. He didn't turn around, just backed up and bounced into the door and then ran out.
00:25:35
Speaker 3: I couldn't wait to get out of there. And what were you thinking here it comes right, I'm.
00:25:41
Speaker 1: Twenty four years old or something, and what in the world that I get myself into here? So Sheilla looks at me and he says, I'm going to have to reevaluate the way I treat you and the rest of this team. I get the hell out of my house and go talk to the mell what you're gonna do. So I walk out and the press is all there. Someone said, so, you're gonna shake hands on Saturday night. Yeah, we are. And the reporter said, well, it's kind of like being a communist, isn't it. And when I shook his hand and I said, this is not the Kremlin. Well, the headline the newspaper next day was Cephalo to Shula, this is not the Kremlin.
00:26:19
Speaker 2: Wow, Oh come on.
00:26:21
Speaker 1: So Saturday night the place was packed. It was like a regular season game, and people had signs go back to Russia, Jimmy.
00:26:31
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:26:32
Speaker 1: The whole Kremlin thing took the life of its own.
00:26:36
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:26:36
Speaker 4: I mean, that's like we're right in the middle of a Cold War right there. So I mean that's what they like in shaking hands.
00:26:42
Speaker 1: Mark Murphy was the was the rep for the Redskins. Now Mark is now the president of the Green Bay Packers. So so I'm before the game, said, Mark, how we gonna do this? He said, well, I'll start out. You start out, and our teams will follow us. I said, well, she has been broadbagness all week long, right, and the finest and everything else. I said, I'm not sure how many guys are going to are going to be behind me. I know the Redskins were Washington was a big union town. So I started, Mark, starts out. I started out, the booze rained down. The whole Redskins team is coming at me. I don't know who's behind me. I turned around in the all but six or seven guys came.
00:27:20
Speaker 6: He came with me.
00:27:22
Speaker 1: So on Monday it was a cutdown day. Shuler cut all those guys except for Bob Kuchenberg because he couldn't cut Cooch.
00:27:30
Speaker 4: The six guys.
00:27:31
Speaker 2: The guys didn't.
00:27:33
Speaker 1: And he said, look, if you're going to do something, don't let somebody tell.
00:27:37
Speaker 6: You not to do it.
00:27:38
Speaker 1: If you believe in it, that do it. And I thought it was a great leadership lesson.
00:27:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, because those guys, he felt, weren't supporting their teammates, right, I mean, that's what it came down to, you know, and coach was just.
00:27:51
Speaker 1: Good, you find everybody fifteen to find me one hundred, which was later rescinded by the National Labor Relations Board.
00:27:57
Speaker 6: I'm happy to tell you.
00:27:58
Speaker 1: So, you know, it's like, it's the things I learned playing for the Dolphins and at Penn State for that matter, will go well beyond the football team.
00:28:08
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
00:28:09
Speaker 1: If you learn a lot of things about about teamwork and leadership and skills that I never thought I developed as a football.
00:28:18
Speaker 4: Player, I can only imagine. And you weren't. I mean, you were a player, and you were the player rep. But you also were organizing like these off site practices, so in a lot of ways you were kind of a director of football operations as well because you're reporting back to Shula. And it worked out because even though it was a strike shortened season, this team that you were responsible for in so many ways go seven and two. You've got the killer Bees defense, you got a heavy dose of and Franklin a young Tony Nathan.
00:28:51
Speaker 3: You lead the team in receiving yards.
00:28:52
Speaker 4: David Woodley kind of takes the league by storm as this dual threat quarterback, and you guys run through the playoffs and now you're facing Washington again, but instead of it being the first preseason game, you've made it to the super Bowl, you know. So, I mean that's kind of a remarkable feat in and of itself.
00:29:09
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and you know during the strike, the strike lasted nine weeks. Then they had a round robin tournament as the playoffs to get in and.
00:29:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, we like twelve teams. I think, yeah, something fourteen teams.
00:29:22
Speaker 3: Something crazy.
00:29:23
Speaker 1: So halfway through the strike, I get a call from WTVJ asking me if I would audition for a show called PM Magazine, and I did and I got the job.
00:29:35
Speaker 6: So he talked to Shola again. She was.
00:29:39
Speaker 3: In the middle of the strike.
00:29:40
Speaker 6: Yeah. I talked to Shoes all the time.
00:29:42
Speaker 1: Because when those practices were organized by Nat Moore, don Strock myself, I mean that's really who it was. I had to go report to Shulo about what we did at practice. Every day you go in and say, what did you do? You run gassers?
00:29:53
Speaker 6: Yeah, did you know? Basically all kinds of drills. So they want to know what we did, and.
00:29:58
Speaker 1: We organized it like you would anyway, he said, as long as it doesn't interfere with football when it comes back.
00:30:04
Speaker 6: Sure.
00:30:05
Speaker 1: So we arranged the schedule with TVJ where I would work on Mondays, which was our day off, I would record three shows, and then Tuesday, after practice, I would record two shows, so we'd have five for the week. And I did that for a long time, so I really worked two jobs.
00:30:22
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:30:23
Speaker 4: Well, and we're going to get into that second career that you had. But I can't skip over the fact in the Super Bowl that it didn't take long for you to make your presence right, and so I think it was the second possession that Miami had. It's the first game both team's trade punts. You got to talk about that play because it's it. Look, it's a Super Bowl. You're trying everything you can to be a champion. But here you are, like the game has just started and something happens that you are remembered for essentially for the rest of your life.
00:30:57
Speaker 1: Well, it was it was a hitch. Oj that the play was. It was a flanker hitch. So but what what the Redskins did was they rolled up the cornerback. They they ran double's own. So the cornerback comes into my face and when that happens, you've got to release and try to get in between the cornerback and the safety, because you can't run a hitch with a cornerback.
00:31:21
Speaker 6: Standing right over you.
00:31:23
Speaker 1: And Mark Murphy was the safety. Mark Murrafer played a role in my life, and I don't think I've talked to him since the day of the Super Bowl. And Woodley overthrew me and by some miracle, was able to grab the football. I mean, I was so wide open because Murphy was a bit confused by the play. They faked something to the left and came back to the right side. And one of the last times I talked to Shula was he said, hey, Jimmy, in that play, what happened to the safety?
00:31:55
Speaker 6: I said, Oh, I out ran his ass and Shoot laughed like it.
00:31:58
Speaker 3: He just laughed, like I love it.
00:32:01
Speaker 1: I was probably the second flowest guy in the field. Mark Murphy was the first, and he's the one.
00:32:05
Speaker 6: That was charged to catch me.
00:32:06
Speaker 1: So I was good, perfect, It worked, but you know what, but the whole thing is it would have been so much sweeter had we won the football game. And I think Shula regretted not pulling Woodley at halftime. He was going to, apparently, but the foot Walker, the late foot Walker returned a kickoff for a touchdown and it changed the complexity of the game. So sul has decided to stay with Woodley because remember that was Woodstock, It was Woodley and Don Strock. He wanted to throw it and we were open all day long. Daryl Harris and I were so wide open. Bruce Halready, the rest of them all day long. They couldn't cover us to save their lives. And David just completed four passes all day. Four passes.
00:32:50
Speaker 5: That's not a good day, not a good day. That's not a good day, right, you know. And at first you said the best Jimmy there and there weren't moments like that. You know, we're in Super Bowl again. You walk off the field against Washington and they're the champs. While Miami did what you know teams do and tried to do determine what could get them over the top, right, and so they decided that, you know, they were going to need a new quarterback, and boy did and boy did things fall our way. Right as the first round is coming to a close, Damn Marino is somehow still sitting there and offensive football in Miami and really the entire league would never be the same man and as a receiver. As a receiver, you know, it was part of the offense that really was a you know, built on a run first mentality.
00:33:35
Speaker 7: How quickly did you guys realize that things are going to change and we had to go that route and stay with Dan Marino?
00:33:41
Speaker 1: The first mini camp, I still remember it. I was standing behind Shula and they put the second team in, and so Dan comes up and throws his first pass out of practice field in a dolphin jersey, and Chilla turned around and looked at all of us like, oh my god, what did we into? Yeah, and so it didn't take long for Dan to be the guy and for Woodley to get traded ironically to Pittsburgh, right Oh yeah.
00:34:11
Speaker 5: You know, because you know there was always that that scuttle butter why Pittsburgh didn't take Danny. Everybody was like they were there's a lot of conversation about that man.
00:34:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, but we knew right away. I mean, you just had to watching Throll football. Well you're still watching Throll football. He'll throw back football today better than half of the starting quarterbacks in the NFL.
00:34:29
Speaker 3: And tell us about it.
00:34:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's not shy about it, but he's right.
00:34:35
Speaker 5: And you know what's crazy though, too, Jimmy's like even the second season. You know, Danny, you were part of all this legendary stuff in the second season and you were on the receiving end of this. You know, his record breaking thirty seven touchdown that year. Man, I mean being part of history. Like me, I'm proud of the three ninety nine, four hundred and for one, But anytime you're part of a Marino record, it's it's it's amazing stuff.
00:34:56
Speaker 1: White Tittle had the record and they were like odds and laws Vegas about who was going to catch this pass because they knew it was going to be that week. And I was like eight hundred to one or something.
00:35:05
Speaker 6: I was like last on the board. You know, it was Duper was playing. It was Nad it was d it was.
00:35:13
Speaker 1: Joe Rose, I don't believe. And we ran a play that always goes to the weak side of the formation, I mean always, and I was on the strong side of the formation. But there was no place to go and Dan had he threw a bullet to the corner and I caught it and knew right away it was the record breakers. So I went to give him the football. Well, Dan got his bell wrong on the play. He didn't have any idea what was going on. I was picking, like, you know, grass out of his helmet and stuff like that. So but yeah, and uh, he thinks he got the real football.
00:35:53
Speaker 6: But I actually have the real football.
00:35:55
Speaker 3: He did a little. I love it.
00:35:58
Speaker 4: He did a little like the uh in baseball Juice for the base Bobby.
00:36:03
Speaker 6: Bobby finally a fifty bucks to what the heck? You know?
00:36:06
Speaker 2: Oh, it's so good.
00:36:07
Speaker 3: Bobby was happy to take it. I'm sure, Oh that's too funny.
00:36:11
Speaker 4: Well so, so that magical eighty four season ends with you guys back in the Super Bowl. But unfortunately, just like Juice described in your previous trip to the Big Dance, the Dolphins finished that game on the wrong side of the scoreboard. And as legend has it, like you guys fly back and you get to Miami and basically walk into Coach Shula's office and tell him you're hanging up your cleats that that you know, you're already as you described earlier, you were doing PM magazine, and you know, Coach was kind of shocked that you told him.
00:36:42
Speaker 3: You have enough.
00:36:42
Speaker 1: What happened was. I came back and I got a call from NBC asked me if I would go and do a vacation relief for the guy who was doing NBC News and suff Okay. The host was Connie Chuck.
00:36:54
Speaker 3: Okay.
00:36:55
Speaker 1: At the end of the two weeks, Connie leaned over and said, do you want this job full time? And I said yes, Wow, Well I'll make it happen.
00:37:02
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:37:03
Speaker 1: So I flew back and went to his office and told him, and he said, nobody quits this game. I said, I just I just did quit.
00:37:09
Speaker 6: Coach.
00:37:11
Speaker 3: Nobody quits this game was the quote.
00:37:13
Speaker 6: Yeah, wow.
00:37:14
Speaker 4: And and so you know, like you said, it wasn't you didn't quit for PM magazine. You quit for a network gig you were calling it.
00:37:22
Speaker 1: Which is what he said to me. He said, you're not quitting to do a local local TV. I said, no, I got a network job.
00:37:27
Speaker 4: Did that make it a little more palatable for him?
00:37:33
Speaker 1: And for probably one reason. Now you got to go draft wide receiver.
00:37:37
Speaker 3: Right, you know?
00:37:38
Speaker 6: Right?
00:37:38
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:37:39
Speaker 1: And that was that was that was this year draft wide wide receiver. So yeah, he's always thinking team first, to.
00:37:46
Speaker 6: Hell with me.
00:37:46
Speaker 1: But anyway, I went up and people at NBC were great, and I spent six years in news and sports and uh got the team with Charlie Jones for five of those years. You got to work with people like Bob Costas and Marve Albert and a lot of wonderful, wonderful folks through the years. So I was very, very lucky and very fortunate, and that really did set up my career for the rest of the rest of my life.
00:38:11
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, you talk about some of that, like you talked about Big seth. I mean, I mean, come on, you co hosted the Summer Olympics and you know you're you're hosting game shows.
00:38:20
Speaker 2: You know.
00:38:21
Speaker 5: I know journalism was your major Penn State man, but was this always your didn't? I mean, this has gotta be like.
00:38:32
Speaker 1: You funny about that, Emmy. When I was doing my show at w i o D morning talk show right for six hours, four hours, and I had so many guests on through the years. The last year I had I had the guess was Jane Pauley. Well, Jane and I hosted the Today Show during the Olympics and Soul because Brian cob went to do the night time and Jane and I did the Mornings along with Gail Gardner or three of the scale was a wonderful name, and uh so we won. We won the Emmy for Writing. And when I had Jane on my morning show, I said, Jane, you know, it's been a long time. I don't know if you remember me. She said, Jimmy, I'm staring at the Emmy that you won from me on my mantle. Idn't know that she knows things about sports. She had no clue forget one person, great lady, great coworker, terrific. And then on weekends on Sunday, I did Sunday Today too, and I hosted with Maria Shriver. So we had a we had a we had a some kind of a luncheon outdoors, beautiful and soul and for all the advertisers and all the brass from NBC were there. And so I'm sitting there with Maria and uh here comes Arnold Schwarzenegger, her husband had just flown in, and he's walking over to the table, he smoking the cigar and he kisses Marie and I stand up and I said, hello, Arnold, I'm Jimmy Cefalo. I co host the show with Maria. And he said I am Arnold, and I said, no playing he was like the biggest start in America. He's introduced himself to be. So anyway, Uh yeah, I was very lucky and very fortunate. And you know's advice was, I when you go up there and learn from the best, and you know, the best you can to learn everything he can. I mean, his advice was was spot on.
00:40:21
Speaker 3: So once he got.
00:40:22
Speaker 4: Past at heart like I'm losing one of my wide outs, you know, he coached you up.
00:40:28
Speaker 1: Yeah he did.
00:40:28
Speaker 3: That's great, That is great.
00:40:30
Speaker 1: That's my whole life, I think. I mean, he really did. He always had some life advice and it was always a spot on. He was always he was like a second father to me.
00:40:39
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's awesome.
00:40:39
Speaker 5: I always loved that part too, man, because we've we've had a couple of second fathers, man, you know, from Joe to Coach Sula. You know, it's kind of crazy that we got to play with some iconic guys like that man, and so you.
00:40:50
Speaker 7: Know, they they really did more than just coach us up than Jimmy.
00:40:54
Speaker 6: Yeah, they did.
00:40:55
Speaker 1: They gave us a life beyond what we could have ever imagined. Oh, Jay, you grew up Cleveland and growing up in Pittston. I never imagined this, never dreamt this. I never thought I'd be able to, you know, do some of the things I was able to do. I'm I feel like Walter Mitty or Gump sometimes, you know, I really I'm doing here.
00:41:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:41:20
Speaker 4: Well you guys both earned it. You both earned it, and you talk about being lucky and fortunate. I think we're lucky and fortunate to have heard this story here. Jimmy, I know you've got to run. You've been so gracious with your time. We end every episode of The Fish Tank with our two minute drill, so I know you've run some two minute drills. You did it with Bob Greasie, you did it with Dan Marino. I think you're going to be able to handle this one. We're putting a proverbial two minutes up on the clock. We'll have some fast paced fun questions for you. If you can put this thing in the end zone, then we'll let you go take your daughter of the airport.
00:41:51
Speaker 5: Great, all right, all right, ready, Jimmy, you got this all right. Your hometown O Pisson is right between Scranton and Wilkesbury. By our research and the history the Miami Dolphins. There's been at least one player on the ross from each of those other two towns. Can you name them? No, One we drafted and one we acquired in a trade. All right, we got I'll give it to you. Tim Ruddy Jim Ready from right and condre Ishmael from Bury right.
00:42:19
Speaker 1: Tim Ruddy from Dunmore.
00:42:21
Speaker 4: Actually yeah he was born but yeah, exactly.
00:42:27
Speaker 1: Crowd, just a quick partner. He went to school G A R. The Grand Army of the Republic High School. When I was stabbed in the game against j R.
00:42:36
Speaker 6: When I was a junior. Yeah, that's a long story.
00:42:40
Speaker 7: In the game.
00:42:41
Speaker 3: Did they not know who was throwing your birthday parties?
00:42:43
Speaker 2: Jimmy like.
00:42:47
Speaker 6: Tough school.
00:42:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, they got stabbed in the game on the field.
00:42:51
Speaker 1: On the field run on football in a pile.
00:42:55
Speaker 3: Wow, I've always heard you never know what goes on in those piles. I didn't know that somebody might.
00:43:00
Speaker 5: That's the first time I've heard about I see. I've heard of other things said, but a stabbings, that's the first.
00:43:04
Speaker 3: That is an all timer.
00:43:06
Speaker 4: Well, okay, not only are you a well known in a file and had your legendary Cephalo's wine cellar. But your family has been in the wine business for more than one hundred and fifty years. I don't know if people realize that in more than one hundred and fifty years Cephalo family has been doing wine for anyone like me who knows nothing about wine? What is the zero don't drink it? What is the one thing? The one bottle I can't miss? If you want to recommend. If I'm going to give somebody a bottle of wine as a holiday present, what's the one bottle is I gotta go to?
00:43:38
Speaker 1: There's a bottle called Secret Door. It's done by Donald Pat's wine.
00:43:44
Speaker 3: I'm writing it down.
00:43:45
Speaker 1: Donald is a good friend and I hope and I taste wine out of the barrel with him. And I've known him for twenty years, twenty five years. Just a great guy and a superb wine maker.
00:43:56
Speaker 4: And am I gonna have to get a second job or a third job to pay for this bottle?
00:43:59
Speaker 6: I know?
00:44:00
Speaker 3: That's that's a pretty crisy one, okay, all right?
00:44:05
Speaker 1: Less expensive one A peanut the war and a shard nade called Maritana. Okay, that's from bomb Donald Pats too wonderful wine as well.
00:44:12
Speaker 3: I'm taking notes. I'm taking notes, Jimmy.
00:44:15
Speaker 7: I don't know if you I don't know if you remember this. Jimmy, I know we're in a two minute joint.
00:44:18
Speaker 3: Forget it.
00:44:18
Speaker 7: So what said?
00:44:19
Speaker 2: You know?
00:44:20
Speaker 5: I remember one time I asked you what was the best wine to get? And you were like, the one that you like. I think that was a that's a quote I think I got from you where it's like, the one that you like is the is the one that you get? You know, It's like.
00:44:30
Speaker 7: It's not a price point or anything like that, but if you like it, that's the wine for you.
00:44:35
Speaker 6: Right.
00:44:36
Speaker 1: My wife drinks eight dollar bottles of wine and drives me crazy because I like wine.
00:44:43
Speaker 3: That's all right, all right, Oh that's too funny.
00:44:46
Speaker 2: All right.
00:44:46
Speaker 5: So, as we say at the top of the show, Jimmy, this is your twentieth season as a voice to the Miami Dolphins.
00:44:51
Speaker 7: What is your all time favorite call for the Dolphins.
00:44:55
Speaker 1: Well, that's a tough one. I probably had something to do. Oh well, you know what, I think that back it was Tyreek. No, it was Jaylen Wattle last year who scored a touchdown and speed was incredible, And I remember saying on the air. There's a new cheetah in town. Was hurt and but Wattle was you know, I mean he can run too, he can. That's a track team out there.
00:45:19
Speaker 2: I can't wait to.
00:45:19
Speaker 6: See them this year and what they do.
00:45:21
Speaker 4: So fun to watch, so fun to watch. All right, final question here Early, we're going back again. Early in your media career at WNEP, you made a name for yourself with the dialing for dollars segment where you would call Gerbil races of all things, just yes, Gerbil races. You would name these Gerbils. People sitting around in bars would bet on them. If we had a Gerbil race right now and you had these, These are my three superstar Gerbils. Jimmy I got Gerbil. Number one is not more Gerbil. Number two is Jimmy Seffhalo. Gerbil number three is Joe Rose. Who are you putting your money on in a race in the three.
00:46:07
Speaker 6: Oh? I thought it was going to be a tough question.
00:46:11
Speaker 3: That is the two minute drill.
00:46:13
Speaker 4: He is Jimmy Sepphalo twenty years as the voice and Miami Dolphins were about to kick that off. It's going to be an exciting season, Jimmy. Thank you so much for spending some time with us.
00:46:22
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, thanks for having me. What a fun podcast you put on and I appreciate you having me as again means a lot.
00:46:28
Speaker 5: Hey, thanks for diving in, Jimmy, We appreciate you.
00:46:31
Speaker 1: You're now diving just like Jew said.
00:46:36
Speaker 4: 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
