SiriusXM host and sports talk legend Chris Russo is celebrating the announcement he’ll be inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame later this year and took time on his podcast, Mad Dog’s Daily Bite, to reflect on the honor Tuesday.
“39 years I have been talking on the radio,” Russo said. “And all the other stuff, you know I was fortunate enough to do a couple of books…fortunate enough with (David) Letterman. 37 times. Very fortunate. You gotta be blessed. That’s all there is to it. But this is the home. Radio is the home. You can do all that other stuff. It’s fun. Love doing it. It’s a new venue. Something different. But the radio is the home.”
He detailed his rise to WFAN in New York, which began in February of 1983 with a drive in his AMC Gremlin to Jacksonville, Florida to sell advertising for the AA Jacksonville Suns with the hope to eventually become their play-by-play announcer. After being fired six weeks into the job, Russo walked into radio station WEXI 1280 in Jacksonville, where they offered him a job on St. Patrick’s Day weekend. The day he returned to begin the job, the Sports Director at the station announced his departure to become the play-by-play voice for the Washington Diplomats of the North American Soccer League.
“They had an opening where they did morning sports and weekend sports talk show with the boss’s son who loved pro wrestling on a ‘dawn-to-dusk’ station,” Russo remembered. “So I did the sports talk and I did the morning sports and I did that for about a year and I learned how to do a sports talk show. Two incoming phone lines, not a ton of guests. I lived about half a mile away from the radio station, which was in an old shopping mall. And I made about $120 a week.”
Russo, who briefly thanked his longtime partner Mike Francesa, later had strong advice for aspiring broadcasters that hope to make it in the industry.
“If you’re good, and you believe, and you’re willing to put yourself on the line. You can’t have five kids when you’re 24 years of age being in radio. It’s impossible. You can’t do it. You gotta put food on the table. But if you put that aside and understand what it takes and you love doing it? You will be successful.”
