The world is your oyster. It’s a familiar saying that means you can do anything in life. Just be sure to take the opportunities offered to you. For Jon Marks, his oyster just happened to be an entire radio station.
A fresh graduate out of Temple University in Philadelphia, he found himself interning at SportsTalk 950, shortly after the station’s launch in 2005. He was doing anything and everything inside the station. That meant duties that ranged from putting music in the system for hosts to use coming back from breaks to producing promos and much more. He did everything a full-time employee would do without getting paid a dime. But to Marks, it was a heck of a deal. He had an entire radio station to play with. He would’ve paid the station out of his own pocket just to be there.
The new start-up station had a limited staff. There were only a couple hosts, one full-time producer and just a few part-timers. Though he was just an intern, Marks was, for the most part, more qualified than the part timers because of his experience with digital audio at Temple.
“I knew it would pay off on the backend,” said Marks. “But I wasn’t really thinking about it at that point. It was all just amazing.”
Marks couldn’t have been more right about his non-paying gig working to his benefit. Today, he’s the afternoon drive host at 94 WIP in Philly alongside Ike Reese. A reason he’s had the success he’s had is because of those early, hands-on years playing with a radio station.
Things are going extremely well for Marks at WIP and his show is enjoying well-earned success, but it’s the beginning of a new era for one of the most popular sports radio stations on the East Coast.
Spike Eskin left the station last summer to take over for Mark Chernoff at WFAN in New York, which ushered in Rod Lakin as the new brand manager. Then, longtime morning radio host and Philadelphia legend Angelo Cataldi said he was going to retire at the end of 2022.
“The question I always got about Angelo was, is he ever going to retire,” said Marks. “The answer I always gave was, yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it. He may go until he’s 80. We heard some stuff and it looked like it was going to happen and then he announced it. So I wasn’t shocked when he announced it.
“Rod Lakin was hired last year and he’s going to fill a big role. Angelo has done this for over 30 years and his show and his ratings speak for themselves. I feel like Spike, when he took over WIP, he rebuilt the lineup past Angelo. When you have a quarterback on your team, it’s easier to rebuild the defense, rebuild the wide receiving corps, fix the offensive line, etc. Angelo is more or less the quarterback at the station so it’ll be a little bit more difficult to rebuild it. But I feel great. Our staff is great, the show I’m working with Ike and my producer Jack Fritz, we’re feeling really good about our show. The midday show is successful and it’s as good of a midday show as the city has had in a long time.”
To Marks, Lakin’s initial impression has been a good one. What’s impressed him the most about the new brand manager is the fact Lakin uprooted his family during a pandemic from Phoenix, when he probably could have stayed for the rest of his career, but wanted the challenge of working in a city like Philadelphia.
“That takes balls to do that,” Marks said. “We take the games personally, we take our teams personally and sports radio is something we’ve grown up with and we love it. It really impressed me it was something he was looking to do.”
Lakin will help Marks reach his next level of success, but it was Eskin who helped him get the role he enjoys today. When Chris Carlin left WIP in 2017 to join WFAN in New York, the Eagles were in the middle of a run to the Super Bowl. Eskin decided to replace Carlin with Marks in afternoon drive alongside Ike Reese, right when the NFL season was really starting to heat up. The Eagles went on to win a title and Marks reaped the benefits of being in afternoon drive in a city that just won its first Super Bowl.
But before any of that, it was Eskin that really made the decision easier for Marks to leave 97.5 The Fanatic and join WIP across town. Marks believed in what Eskin was doing and thought Eskin could help evolve him as a host.
“I couldn’t have been more right,” Marks said. “He’s a big part of the success in my career. I remember when Chris Carlin went to New York, he told me this was one of the reasons he wanted me to be here, just in case something happens, I would be ready to go.
“But after the Super Bowl was over and after that calmed down, he brought me to his office around April or May, he said, listen, I just want you to know the show you’re doing right now is not good enough. I know you work hard and everything else, but it’s not good enough for me. Here’s what I need you to do and here’s where you need improvement. I really appreciated it. It was the first time a program director really told me how it was. He didn’t beat around the bush, and without that, I don’t know if we would’ve had the same amount of success as a show. Spike has some work to do and he’s got some big shoes to fill but he will do it. I know he will. He’s too talented and too smart of a radio guy not to.”
Marks is extremely talented, but he’s also been lucky to surround himself with other talented people. That includes his co-host, former Eagles linebacker Ike Reese. According to Marks, if you didn’t know Reese played for the Eagles, you would think he’s just a radio guy. That’s because the former player immediately embraced the business and even hosted a solo show at night from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.
“Doing four hours, especially in the dead of summer, and the baseball team stinks and there’s nothing going on, it’s not easy,” said Marks. “I think the fact Ike embraced it and became a radio guy, he’s just not a former athlete that’s on the radio. Ike really is a radio guy, so he gets what we’re doing and he understands it. He also had great energy, relatable, likable, funny and an overall good dude. You put all of those things together and it makes for a good show. It works very well for both of us.”
Though Marks is truly living his dream as an afternoon drive host in a city he always wanted to stay in, he’s more than just the Philly guy that talks Eagles, Phillies, Sixers and the other teams in town. Each Sunday morning, he gets to showcase that on CBS Sports Radio from 2-6 am. He’s been doing the shift since September after previously doing a 10 am to 2 pm shift on Sunday’s for nine months.
He enjoyed the previous shift, however, with his time slot, it meant he was preempted by local programming on several stations across the country. That rarely happens to him now he’s on from 2-6 am.
“Yes, that time slot has less listeners, but I’m not preempted by other stations, so I can talk to people all over the place,” Marks said. “Instead of solely focusing on Philadelphia like I do on WIP, I get to stretch my legs a little bit and I can talk about college football, some NFL stuff or even regular life talk, because on overnights, you have a little bit of a different crowd out there. It’s been really cool. I get a pretty good amount of phone calls. I’ve seen people that have had trouble getting guests in time slots like this, so I’ll record an interview on Friday with something that I know won’t be time sensitive and I’ll have that for interviews. It’s a dream to be working on WIP and it’s really cool to be doing a national radio show.”
Tyler McComas is a columnist for BSM and a sports radio talk show host in Norman, OK where he hosts afternoon drive for SportsTalk 1400. You can find him on Twitter @Tyler_McComas or you can email him at TylerMcComas08@yahoo.com.
