Doing Your Homework with Dave Glenn

The drive from Greensboro to the Research Triangle in North Carolina takes a little more than an hour. Last Monday night, Dave Glenn was one of many to make that drive as he headed home from ACC Media Days. Over the course of that hour, Glenn told the story of how he got where he was, leant a little advice, and offered a rundown of what to expect this football season in the ACC.

Glenn grew up a Philly sports guy, so he never got much of a taste of the ACC. He can remember watching UNC, Duke, and Jim Valvano’s NC State Wolfpack, but as an outsider to the league. Despite this geographic disadvantage, Glenn is now recognized as one of if not the expert on ACC Sports. How did he do it, you ask? He did his homework.

Glenn attended UNC for undergrad and law school, and he said his time there convinced him to invest in ACC sports. He learned a lot about the conference while at UNC, but when he decided to work in sports media he knew he would have to do his homework. Glenn said he began to seriously research the history of the ACC, as that would be the only way he would be able to give context on the events of the season. He started working for the ACC Sports Journal and then made his way into hosting a weekday radio show on the ESPN affiliate in Raleigh/Durham.

Even now after he’s covered the ACC for more than 20 years, Glenn still constantly reads up on teams and schools he covers.

“The rule of thumb that I have is...there should be one hour of preparation for every hour on the air,” Glenn said. He also said people have to continue to do their homework even after they’ve “arrived” or they risk slipping.

Glenn knows what his listeners want to hear about, and as an authority on the ACC also is a frequent guest on other shows. It is these appearances that constantly remind Glenn to do research to impress listeners of those shows. This concept also came into play at ACC Media Days, as Glenn spoke with members of the Syracuse and Pittsburgh football programs. They are new additions to the conference, so Glenn had to research them beforehand.

Even when you’re an expert, it never hurts to do your homework.

Interview:


JF: What are some of the things that go into the production of a radio show, and how do you build connections with athletes and coaches in the world of realignment in college sports?


DG:That's a lot of ground to cover, so steer me. I'm just gonna kinda launch into some things so just steer me where I need to go. But the timing of this phone call is actually very appropriate given your question, because in in-person events like this, where in one 48 hour period I can not only interview all 14 coaches including the 2 new guys, I can shake their hands, I can see them across the table from me 3 feet away, I can briefly explain to them, especially the new guys, "Hey, I've run this ACC magazine and this ACC website for 20 plus years. And there's nothing like it in the country. You know an independent magazine covering an entire conference. And that resonates with people. Even though it's the first meeting with Paul Chryst and Scott Shafer, Paul Chryst was actually taken aback at the fact that their was an ACC magazine; this quarterly, very nice looking glossy magazine that leaves an impression when it's in your hands. And he was really impressed that the ACC had an independent magazine that covered it much less that it had been in existence for 37 years and that I had run it for the last 20 years. So in this assembly line world of one radio show after another, I can guarantee you that nobody in that building could say the same thing that I said in introducing my radio show, which is state wide and that's not very common, but also the magazine and the website. That trio helps separate me and us in the eyes of the coaches who already know us and it's certainly gonna leave an impression with the coaches who are new to us, and even the media relations people, who once again, there aren't a lot of days of the year where I'm gonna be able to shake their hand and say hello and look at each other face to face, but this is one of those weekends, one of those series of days where all that can happen. And that personal punch kind of unfolds naturally when you've been in this industry for 25 years the way I have but the personal touch also matters when you're dealing with either a new coach, or in those cases, the new schools. It's probably not dramatically different than networking in most walks of life, and it certainly has worked well for us in all of those ways.


JF: Going into an event like the ACC Media Days, you know you're going to be talking to a ton of coaches and players. How do you prepare to be able to actually talk to all those people, know who they all are, know the little details about them and make sure you've actually got great information to be able to cover and pass that onto your readers and listeners?


DG: It's a combination of things, I have a pretty big staff, interns, part time people, my producer, and then I also put a lot of that burden on my own shoulders. The rule of thumb that I have for sports radio is that for every hour you expect to have on the air, so in my case a 3 hour every weekday show, there should be a minimum in my case of three hours of preparation, so in other words, one hour of preparation for every hour on the air. And you know that kinda ebbs and flows based on the kind of show you anticipate having but in my case I bog down all distractions from 9 am to noon. And of course you're doing preparation if you're either covering a game or watching a game the night before, so in my case it ends up being a lot more than 3 hours for a three hour show, but I think all of us are more impressive, smarter sounding, ask better questions the more that we have researched our subject, if that's an interview, or the more that we have researched the headlines of the day if it's just a routine sports radio show. I know that I'm a guest in radio even more often than I am a host. So I would do almost 250 radio shows a year as a host, I do more than that as a guest. And I know that I give better answers, and it's not like I'm some brain surgeon or rocket scientist, I give better answers when I have researched the topics I know my hosts are gonna ask me as their phone guest, I know that I give better answers when I have taken time to contemplate, you know, what are the biggest story lines in the ACC in football for this coming season? What statistics from last year help reinforce those storylines? Maybe I can pull out of my brain exactly at the right time either as a host or as a guest. The bottom line is that people are nervous in life in all types of situations, whether it's taking a test in school or giving a speech in front of a bunch of people, all of the things that naturally make people nervous, I think the rule applies well that the more you prepare, the less you have to be nervous about. And whether thats starting at a microphone for 3 hours a day, or interviewing some of the most famous sports figures on the planet, or speaking in front of a large crowd, or taking that test back in the educational days. There might be some nerves involved in that, some people are freaked out in large audiences, speaking engagements. I can promise you, speaking from experience in all of those situations: the nerves are minimized when you know you have done your preparation, done your homework in advance. And you know, you take 2 people of similar intelligence level and backgrounds, and expertise, and one has done his homework or her homework and the other has not, we all know who's gonna sound better, impress the listeners better, leave the better impression with the famous sports figure who's their guest, and raise their shows or magazines or whatever anything in positive direction, and those who don't prepare and just sort of rely on whatever, you know their name, their backgrounds, or they think they've sort of arrived and don't need to do their home work anymore, inevitably, they're gonna start falling back in the wrong direction.