Dan Patrick was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame last week. Over the weekend, video of his induction speech was uploaded to YouTube. What was supposed to last just five minutes turned into a fourteen-minute story of influences and gratitude.
The speech began with a taped introduction courtesy of Patrick’s friend, actor Will Ferrell. Ferrell was very emotional as he told his version of the story of Dan Patrick on the radio.
“I told Will Ferrell ‘you have two minutes to introduce me’ and he went in at 1:47. I said ‘What the f***? Thirteen seconds? You left it on the floor?’” Dan Patrick said as he stepped to the microphone.
He said that his infatuation with radio began by sneaking into his brother Bill’s room when he was a kid. Patrick said he would go in for two reasons, Playboys and Bill’s record collection. After listening to legendary rock albums on vinyl, Patrick began seeking out music on the radio. He credited WSAI and WEBN in Cincinnati with changing his life.
Dan Patrick cited WEBN DJ “The Very” Kurt Gary specifically. He noted that there were times he couldn’t wait for the music to end so he could hear what Gary would say next.
“To this day, whenever I turn on a microphone, it may be once a week, it may be once a month, I think of The Very Kurt Gary,” Patrick said. “Never met him. All I know is he had this impact on me that when you turn that microphone on, you have a duty, you have an obligation, you have an opportunity to say something and it never left me.”
Howard Stern was also cited as an influence. Patrick said that the radio legend “created the blueprint” for what The Dan Patrick Show would be after leaving ESPN.
He also said that it was years of listening to Stern that helped him realize he should be honest about his health struggles with his audience. Dan Patrick had been receiving chemotherapy in 2019 to deal with polymyalgia rheumatica. The treatments had left him with memory loss, which he described as “chemo brain,” depression, and a desire to self-medicate.
Patrick described a realization that listeners had been letting him into their daily lives for years. It was time he let them into his.
“I remember that day, it was 10:02. I hit the microphone. I didn’t tell the guys I was working with, the Dannettes. I didn’t tell my wife. I didn’t tell anybody. I said ‘here it is.’”
Dan Patrick concluded by thanking all of the people that made his storied radio career a possibility. That included family as well as colleagues, bosses and listeners.
