0:00

Welcome to this League uncut

0:03

in the rule.

0:04

Of twenty four hour NBA News.

0:05

This is you, Chris

0:08

Haynes. It's time, work's

0:11

time, it's some time. This

0:17

League uncut is underway in on fire.

0:21

This should be a good one.

0:24

Welcome in everyone to the latest

0:27

edition of this League

0:29

Uncut, A very special edition of

0:32

this League Uncut. I have to say from the

0:34

jump, Chris Haynes is not

0:37

here for this recording. We

0:39

are doing this on a Thursday afternoon.

0:41

Later tonight, Chris will be on the sidelines

0:44

in Sacramento. But don't

0:46

worry because I am joined by

0:48

Absolute NBA Broadcasting

0:51

Royalty. In our midst we were

0:53

colleagues together at ESPN for

0:55

several years. We covered some Olympic

0:58

basketball together in Rio in

1:00

twenty sixteen. But basketball

1:02

fans, real hoopeeds. You

1:06

know her as one of the faces of

1:08

NBC's wonderful coverage

1:11

of the NBA in the nineties,

1:13

throughout the last dance glory days

1:15

of the Chicago Bulls, and her

1:18

basketball journey actually stretches much

1:20

farther back than that, all the way back

1:22

to the Red, White.

1:23

And Blue ABA. She's going to cover

1:25

it all.

1:28

From the time that there were two professional

1:30

basketball leagues in this country to

1:32

the modern day. It is all found

1:35

in her new long form podcast series,

1:37

NBA DNA, produced

1:39

by iHeart all Right, I have babbled on long

1:42

enough. Let's just welcome her in, Hannah

1:44

Storm. So great to be with you again

1:47

after a long long time.

1:48

I know, Mark, it's so great because I

1:51

follow you from Afar, but we haven't

1:53

seen each other in person for

1:55

a while. But it's

1:57

awesome to be chatting with you again. We did

2:00

have a lot of fun back in the day at

2:02

ESPN covering some of the

2:04

same events and you

2:07

know, run it in all those same basketball

2:09

circles.

2:10

Thanks for having me, except now I think this

2:12

interaction might be the first where I am the

2:14

one who has to ask the questions.

2:16

So I know, I hope I am

2:18

to the task.

2:19

But look, I have to say first, congratulations

2:21

on this podcast series, because you are doing

2:23

something I hope to do someday.

2:25

I would love to do a long

2:28

form series that traces

2:30

history. I love basketball history,

2:32

and you're taking it even farther back

2:35

than my experience because you know, I don't

2:37

have any ABA stories to tell, so

2:40

just share with us.

2:41

Like what was the genesis behind

2:43

even doing.

2:44

This, well, for years, I

2:46

have wanted to tell the story of the

2:49

ABA. My dad was the fifth commissioner

2:51

of the ABA, and he always used to tell

2:53

us all these stories growing up. He'd well,

2:56

we were at basketball games for as long as

2:58

I can remember, when it wasn't a school night. And

3:00

that's why I actually at

3:02

a time when women were not sportscasters,

3:05

it really was not a career option. I

3:08

was determined to do sports because I

3:10

had grown up around it. I just associated

3:12

sports with it was really fun, right,

3:15

and I was super, super comfortable with it, and

3:17

it's something that my dad and I always shared. And

3:20

I was like a lot of the people that were

3:22

involved in the ABA were getting

3:24

older, and as

3:27

I went on and covered the NBA

3:29

and of course understood at a

3:32

very visceral level everything

3:34

in the NBA that's derivative of the old

3:36

ABA, I just really wanted to tell

3:38

that story. And I've done a lot of documentaries,

3:41

I've directed and so forth

3:44

over the course of the last fifteen years. And

3:47

so when I brought this story to the

3:49

NBA, they said, can you

3:51

just write us an essay about

3:54

your life in basketball, not just the ABA,

3:56

but everything that happened after that, and I said sure,

3:58

so I like banged out this essay and

4:01

they said this is really interesting

4:04

and unusual and this could make

4:06

a great podcast, and so

4:09

I partnered with them. And it's it's

4:11

twelve parts, probably could be a lot more

4:13

than that. So it's kind of

4:16

like different, right because it's through my

4:18

lens and the things that I

4:20

did. So there are

4:22

teams, like my first big full

4:24

time job was Sean Hornet's right

4:27

their first year in existence,

4:29

So we talked to Rex Chapman and Del Curry

4:31

like things that you don't necessarily expect,

4:33

you know, I just did a dream

4:36

Team episode, right. I came to

4:38

NBC in ninety two to cover the Olympics.

4:41

That was my first big assignment then, so

4:44

really fun. But going all the way back to

4:46

my childhood and the ABA.

4:48

Yeah, and look, I don't want to ask you to give away

4:50

a bunch of secrets from the podcast, because.

4:52

I correct, I want people.

4:53

To listen to the podcast.

4:55

But it's commissioners commissioner's

4:57

daughter. I don't know that I've ever met a commissioner's

4:59

dog. So and again, like I said, my

5:02

my basketball fandom started right

5:04

right like the season before the merger,

5:07

so I I wish I had seen.

5:09

The ABA, but I genuinely only

5:12

know what I've read.

5:13

And that's one thing in basketball, we've done

5:15

such a poor job preserving

5:17

history. And it's it really, you know, the

5:19

seventies, like there's just so you

5:22

know, I always complain that, you know, George

5:24

Gervin and David Thompson had the incredible

5:26

scoring duel at the end of the seventy seven

5:28

seventy eight season, and there isn't one

5:30

stitch of footage of that, so ABA,

5:33

it's even harder to touch that history.

5:35

So just tell us what's.

5:36

Like to be, you know, in your formative

5:39

years around the ABA

5:41

all the time.

5:42

First of all, you are you are so right,

5:44

which is why it's perfect for a podcast because we

5:46

do have radio calls and

5:48

such, including a very young Bob Costas

5:51

who was the left college to call

5:53

games for Saint Louis. But it's

5:57

the stuff kind of of legend and lore

5:59

because they didn't have a television contract,

6:01

so it's the stuff that people didn't see. It really

6:04

is stories that were passed down and

6:06

what it was was incredibly

6:08

free wheeling basketball and

6:10

the players could do a lot of things

6:12

that were not allowed in

6:15

the NBA, like dunking the basketball,

6:17

which was also not allowed in college,

6:20

or things that were not a

6:22

part of the NBA. Believe it or

6:24

not, three pointers were not

6:26

a part of the game. It was much more like

6:28

the kind of basketball that you would see at Rutger

6:31

Park or that you would see, you

6:33

know, quote unquote street basketball.

6:36

Very freewheeling, very entertaining,

6:39

and the ABA didn't have money from

6:41

a television contract, so they had to make the

6:43

game itself entertaining. And they

6:45

also brought in a lot of players who weren't eligible

6:48

for the NBA for some reason. My

6:51

dad was one of the architects of the quote unquote

6:53

hardship rule, which allowed players they did not

6:55

have to.

6:55

Finish college to be

6:58

able to go into the ABA. You know, I

7:00

e.

7:00

Doctor J So

7:03

really fun, very

7:07

loose, very

7:09

wild, very pushing the envelope

7:11

from the halftime shows and cheerleaders

7:13

and all of that was derivative of

7:16

the ABA to the Red, white and Blue basketball.

7:19

Just really free wheeling and you

7:22

know, kind of renegade.

7:23

Honestly. I mean, they

7:26

wanted to merge with the.

7:27

NBA at some point, and they wanted to prove that their

7:29

players were as good as the

7:31

NBA players, and they went after like all

7:34

the NBA refs at the time, and they

7:36

they battled them toe to toe for some

7:38

players.

7:39

But I mean, it was just a bunch.

7:41

Of guys who were like, Hey, let's

7:43

go for it and maybe maybe someday.

7:45

We'll get to merge with.

7:47

The with the NBA, and let's have a

7:49

good time and entertain people in the process.

7:52

You know.

7:52

At ESPN, I got to work with Chris

7:54

Ramsey, who son of

7:56

the legendary doctor Jack Ramsey,

7:58

and I was a Buffalo Braves so doctor

8:01

Jack having coach in Buffalo, I used to always

8:03

hit Chris up for stories. And Chris once

8:05

told me that as a kid, when

8:08

Doctor Jack was in Philadelphia, he had actually

8:10

heard some trade discussion at the house,

8:13

revealed it to his school friend and it

8:15

actually got out from there. And this is in the six

8:18

lower Twitter or anything like that. So

8:20

I have to ask you, was there any were there any

8:22

ABA secrets you heard at home that

8:25

you maybe

8:27

shared that you weren't supposed to share. How

8:29

good were you at secret keeping when you

8:31

when you heard some of the league gossip.

8:34

I was a little kid for a lot

8:36

of it.

8:37

But I'll tell you one thing that

8:39

stuck with me, and that is what it is like

8:41

when not only when you win, but how

8:43

painful it is when you lose or

8:45

when your.

8:46

Dad is run out of town. You

8:48

know that happened.

8:49

If people are holding up signs and

8:51

I tell you what, Mark, I have such an

8:55

empathy slash appreciation

8:57

slash understanding what it takes to run about

9:00

football franchise or any franchise.

9:02

And we are so critical.

9:05

Of people and and sometimes even

9:07

in the media, we like, you know, we

9:10

this guy should be fired and blah blah blah blah

9:12

blah.

9:13

I don't know.

9:13

I think it gave me a really well rounded view of the

9:15

business. But one of the things that my dad

9:17

always used to talk about was Operation Kingfish,

9:20

which is always a secret operation

9:23

that they had to try to lure

9:25

Louel Cinder. Obviously later

9:27

kareemail dul Jabbar try to lure

9:30

him too, the AVA and so

9:32

there is like this like secret document

9:34

that my dad kept in his desk and

9:36

it had everything that they were

9:39

going to do and as

9:41

legend, they did a psychological

9:43

profile of him. You know, they were going to go

9:46

meet with Leuel Cinder. What is it going to take

9:48

to get him to come to our league?

9:50

You know what is what resonates with him

9:52

and George Miken

9:55

had a million dollars in a suitcase,

9:57

but he left the meeting so convinced

9:59

that Leuwell's was coming to the ABA

10:01

that he never gave him the money. And then somebody

10:03

from the NBA gave him a million dollars and he went

10:06

there, you know, stuff like that. But like my

10:08

dad, so we had

10:10

this document, this Operation Kingfish

10:12

document which I've actually seen, which he kept

10:15

in his desk. But you mentioned leaks,

10:18

so somebody had

10:20

gotten somebody was looking at the document.

10:22

He knew somebody, somebody

10:24

had kind of seen it or seen what was in

10:27

it, right, so he changed

10:29

the document.

10:30

He falsified the

10:32

document to.

10:33

Say that secretly the ABA

10:35

had already signed lou

10:38

Al Sinder and so it got

10:40

out through whatever that leak

10:42

was that they had actually signed it, when of course

10:45

they didn't. But like crazy

10:47

story, like no, no,

10:49

no, I was not the leak.

10:50

It was not me.

10:51

But like I do remember sitting at the kitchen

10:53

table and like drawing up the pacers logo, Like

10:55

how crazy is that? And it's still the same

10:57

logo, and I remember, you know, all

11:00

these guys would come over like Thanksgiving

11:02

or.

11:03

Yeah, they had nowhere to go.

11:04

They were hanging out at the house, Christmas

11:07

party, stuff like that. It

11:09

was really fun. But it kind of normalized athletes

11:12

for me. So I was never at any

11:14

point in my career. I was never like starstruck

11:16

really, you know, being around athletes. They

11:19

just felt like you know, people

11:21

that were at the house.

11:24

Well, that was the foundation for

11:26

an absolutely incredible career. You have

11:29

literally covered everything,

11:32

and I saw it just came out today you're doing the Boston

11:34

Marathon. Like I don't know what major

11:37

event there is that you have not done, and

11:39

like.

11:40

I have not done that one.

11:41

Speaking for myself, like, you know, the era

11:44

of specialization really

11:46

served me well because I'm like, you

11:49

know, basketball, soccer, tennis,

11:51

a little bit of hockey and that's it. Like you, but you've

11:53

done like twenty sports. I remember running

11:55

into you at the US Open.

11:56

You're doing tennis.

11:58

Yeah, But as you've

12:00

said in many interviews, I know the broadcasting

12:02

world was not exactly teeming with opportunities

12:05

for women as you're making your way through

12:07

the rank. So at what point did it become

12:09

real to you, when did you see that this was

12:12

actually possible.

12:13

I mean I always saw that

12:15

it was possible.

12:17

I just couldn't get other people

12:21

to see it the same way. And my dad

12:23

always told me, he said, because

12:25

I back in the day, I sent out hundreds

12:28

of tapes and resumes and all of

12:30

that, and you know, you just could get rejection letters

12:32

in the mail.

12:33

I mean that was what you did.

12:34

It.

12:34

You're answering one ads, you're sending stuff out,

12:36

and I was just getting, like, I

12:39

mean, dozens and dozens and dozens

12:42

of rejection letters and people saying, you

12:44

know, you should just be a feature reporter or

12:46

something like that. And my audience won't accept a

12:48

woman, and my sports director doesn't want to work with a

12:50

woman. And you know, nobody was very politically

12:52

correct back then, so they just they just said

12:54

it like it was. But my dad was like, you

12:56

only need one yes, like you literally

12:59

only need one single person. So if you

13:01

look at the odds that way, somebody, there's

13:03

gonna be one person along the way. And

13:05

I got my first full time job in Charlotte,

13:08

and I kind of got hired as a gimmick because it was a

13:10

new station and they were trying all these crazy

13:12

things, and they were like, wow, what if we had a woman sportscaster.

13:15

And I was like, I'm there, awesome, I'm want me to

13:18

learn NASCAR.

13:18

Let's go.

13:19

And it was the first year of the Charlotte

13:22

Hornets and that was

13:24

a pretty cool year because the NBA came

13:26

to town and I had covered

13:28

in radio. You know, I'd covered the Rockets and

13:30

stuff like that in Houston. I used to host the Rockets.

13:33

I think when I got a job part time

13:35

in Houston hosting the Rockets pregames and halftimes,

13:38

and the same station carried the Astros and

13:41

you know that being in the mid eighties, and

13:43

those teams were really good. You know, they

13:46

didn't win titles, but they got close. I

13:48

think then it became for me, like

13:50

I would say, Houston days really solidified.

13:52

And then when I got my first full time job in Charlotte,

13:55

and I was only there like a year and a half, and then I got hired

13:57

by CNN, and then that was

14:00

was really you know, the big leap was

14:02

doing late nights at CNN. And

14:04

then at the time CNN was like a viable

14:07

like it was it was ESPN versus CNN.

14:10

Like I became

14:12

I mean that I first became aware of you. I

14:15

was in college, and I mean yeah, every night,

14:17

I mean every night

14:19

late night like ESPN, you know ESPN

14:22

and CNN, Like we lived for those

14:24

shows.

14:24

I mean those shows.

14:26

Now now an amazing

14:28

play happens in the NBA and it circulates literally

14:30

within seconds to millions of social

14:32

media. But for our generation,

14:35

like ESPN and CNN at

14:37

night are gonna have highlights from calves

14:40

hornets. It was just it was unbetable, you

14:42

know, it was it was It was such a game changer.

14:44

Man, And we did highlights from every single game

14:47

every single night. And then, I

14:49

mean obviously then NBC

14:51

got so many properties. NBC got

14:53

the Olympics, and they got

14:56

they got the NBA, they had the NFL,

14:59

and NBC need all of a sudden found

15:01

itself like there was like a triple cast for the Olympics.

15:03

Like we need talent, like we need it like it

15:05

was nineteen ninety two, Like we have

15:08

all this stuff going on. And Dick

15:10

Eversall, who ran NBC Sports was he

15:12

didn't sleep. He never slept, so

15:15

he watched late night television all

15:17

the time.

15:17

Who was on late night?

15:19

I was on late night and so it was my husband

15:21

Dan Hicks at the time obviously not my husband.

15:24

So Dick eversall saw

15:26

me.

15:27

Like all the time and also

15:29

saw Dan and he's a guy who always

15:32

thought out of the box. And we

15:34

separately got hired by

15:37

NBC to do different things, and

15:40

hilariously, secretly we were

15:42

like dating. No one knew about it, and we

15:44

both ended up going to NBC, which was pretty

15:46

cool. But it really was the NBA

15:48

on NBC where you know, everything came

15:50

full circle. You mentioned how

15:53

different it was back then. We

15:55

had five games on a weekend when

15:57

things got really really busy, right

15:59

the playoffs, we would do a doubleheader

16:02

one day and a triple header the next

16:04

day, and that was it.

16:05

That was the only place you'd go watch the NBA. And

16:08

that was the Jordan years.

16:11

So this is literally

16:13

the glory days of basketball.

16:16

And I was hosting.

16:18

I was either hosting games or

16:20

Bob was hosting games, and if I wasn't,

16:23

I was on the sidelines like for all the

16:25

great moments, like all the great games, and it

16:27

was just, yeah, talk about shit

16:29

getting real.

16:30

Yeah, that's when it got really really real.

16:32

And I would see all these people who knew my dad. I

16:34

mean, it was just like unbelievable. It was just like

16:37

I just felt so at home.

16:38

Because you've been now with the ESPN for more than

16:41

fifteen years, so I'm guessing probably

16:43

the longest stop of your career. But it is

16:45

those NBC years have to be

16:47

incredibly meaningful because it was, Yeah,

16:49

it was such it was such a seminal

16:52

time. Yeah, for the fans,

16:54

for fans of the game, and I think people look

16:56

back on NBC's coverage

16:58

with huge funness.

17:00

Now there's just a lot of nostalgia about it.

17:02

Yeah, I mean, you know, you look back at

17:05

obviously the Last Dance was incredibly

17:07

successful because of Michael and the

17:09

Bulls, but we were the network that documented

17:12

all of that. And then obviously for

17:14

me kind of really being usedon

17:17

kind of being my adopt at hometown and then the Rockets

17:19

winning back to back titles was incredible, and

17:23

I just think that obviously,

17:25

when Magic and Bird came into the NBA, that

17:27

took the NBA to one level, and

17:30

then you know, Michael and I

17:32

think you know the

17:35

Dream Team Barcelona that

17:37

was just that was just such

17:39

a I mean there had never been

17:42

anything like that.

17:42

There never will be again.

17:44

But when you look at the audience that watches

17:47

the Olympics, right, because those are a

17:49

lot of your non traditional sports

17:52

fans, and you look at what the Olympics

17:54

and the kind of ratings that those got

17:57

back in the day, and so

17:59

all those guys who would later go on to battle

18:02

it out in all those years following, you

18:04

know, because you had Stockton.

18:05

And Malone, and you had you

18:08

Ing, and you had.

18:09

David Robinson, and you know, you had

18:11

all those guys like on that.

18:12

Dream team too.

18:13

So I think that also just kind of like

18:16

pushed it along.

18:28

Selfishly.

18:28

I have to ask you this because you worked

18:31

with some real heavyweights at NBC,

18:33

just legendary former players and

18:35

coaches. But I mean, you know

18:37

what I do for a living, so naturally my focus

18:40

was the reporting of mister Vessi, who

18:43

is a one kind character in

18:45

this league and someone who has

18:47

been a tremendous mentor to me.

18:50

But just I gotta ask, give me a tail

18:52

or two of Peter Vessi

18:54

muckraking and causing some trouble with him.

18:56

I mean, his reporting was.

18:58

Okay, real Mark Peter

19:00

Vessi is in the first three episodes

19:03

of this series. You

19:05

know, one of my first calls was Peter

19:07

Vessi. Peter Vessi was

19:11

so he was in love with my mother. He

19:14

liked my dad, He covered my dad. But

19:17

my mom was extremely

19:20

She was, you know, so glamorous.

19:23

She always you know, dressed to the nines

19:25

for the game, She had her wigs,

19:27

she was just you know, she was

19:29

a beauty. And so Peter

19:32

Vessi obviously never let

19:34

me forget that my mother was

19:36

really the reason why he talked to my father all

19:38

the time. But

19:41

you know, I mean, Peter's so

19:44

good in this series, Like he talks about coaching

19:46

doctor j at Rucker Park, like

19:48

the Rucker Park days, which are really

19:50

cool, which everyone should know about. I mean, talk

19:52

about legendary stuff that wasn't you

19:54

know, isn't on video anywhere, right, And

19:57

you know he was part of the you know, so Peter

20:00

and and you know Bob Costas,

20:02

I mean those guys who covered the ABA. I

20:05

mean they would go out with the

20:07

players afterwards. I mean, this wasn't and

20:09

they would. They're they're flying commercial,

20:11

they're flying early flight, they're flying the cheapest

20:13

flights possible, you know, and Peter

20:16

talks about like sleeping in.

20:18

You know, whatever clothes you were gonna wear on

20:20

that plane the next day, that's what you went

20:22

out with the night before because you were

20:24

gonna have time. You know, you were never gonna

20:26

go to bed, you were never gonna be able to change

20:28

your clothes.

20:29

And he was a good time and we

20:31

had a great time on NBC.

20:32

He called me Hannah. He never called me Hannah,

20:35

hannaer And

20:37

people just give me grief about it all the time. And then

20:39

Peter always had these sly, sarcastic

20:42

one liners that worked great in

20:44

print, and then he would say

20:46

them on the air and then we would all

20:48

like laugh, but we knew the one liner was coming

20:50

at the end of everything.

20:52

But I am telling you that guy scooped

20:54

everybody. He scooped everybody

20:57

on everything. He pissed so many

20:59

people off. People were always mad him. I

21:01

loved it. I love every time.

21:03

And he would give you this like sly little look in

21:05

his eyes, like you're not gonna believe

21:07

what I have, and then he would just boom

21:10

drop this bomb on.

21:11

The air like whatever it was, and

21:13

uh yeah.

21:14

And again it was the days of the Twitter.

21:16

There's not even no Internet, like you

21:19

could break news on TV, like

21:21

the Brian Hill, the magic, the magic

21:23

gonna fire, Brian Hill.

21:25

Just like incredible all the time, all

21:27

the time.

21:28

It couldn't happen. Now it just came.

21:30

He knew, he knew everybody and

21:32

everything, and I

21:34

don't, I don't know how. And he and we

21:36

had this tiny teeny we need little

21:38

green room at NBC.

21:40

And I mean we.

21:40

Were, like I said, we were on for tripleheaders, doubleheaders,

21:43

pregames post.

21:44

I mean we were there for hours in there.

21:46

I have spent a giant,

21:48

huge portion of my life with him. He

21:51

was in there, you know, Spider Sally,

21:54

Tom tomar Ziah Thomas,

21:56

Quinn Buckner. I mean we had all sorts

21:58

of guys sort of in and out of there as analysts,

22:01

you know, doctor J. I mean

22:04

all sorts of people. And the

22:06

one constant was Peter VESSI. He was always

22:09

there, always scooping, causing

22:11

trouble man, big trouble.

22:13

So what is the secret though, to doing like

22:15

fifteen other sports on top of basketball?

22:18

Oh, I don't. I guess work in

22:20

somewhere that has all

22:22

those sports. I don't know. I'm a big homework

22:25

person.

22:26

People always kind of tease me

22:28

or if they don't know me that well, Like I'm

22:30

like, I drilled down on everything.

22:32

So for me, I just figure,

22:35

you know what I think as.

22:36

A woman, I came in and I was

22:38

like, I can learn this stuff. And NASCAR

22:40

really taught me that, you know what I mean, Like

22:43

Witch to Charlotte through, You're you're gonna do NASCAR

22:45

specials, You're going to cover NASCAR full time. I barely

22:48

knew, like I didn't know anything about

22:50

it, but I was like, if you study hard enough

22:52

and you ask questions, you

22:54

can learn it, you know what I mean, if you're willing

22:57

to put in the work.

22:58

And so I guess I've all that way about

23:00

basically.

23:01

Every sport, every event I've ever done,

23:03

and that's just kind of how I approach it. And then

23:06

you know, if I study really hard enough

23:08

and I ask enough questions and all of that, and once

23:10

I get there, I feel comfortable and then I can

23:12

relax and cover it. But you know what sports

23:16

is. You and I are smart,

23:18

but you know what, it's not brain

23:20

surgery. It's really

23:22

not, and it's not Sports isn't really like some

23:25

secret language that only certain people can

23:27

speak.

23:28

But what it is, though, is it is something

23:30

that everyone cares about so deferent

23:32

yes, so much more than almost

23:34

anything else in life.

23:35

And that's what gets people angry.

23:37

It's sports and music. It's I think music,

23:40

right.

23:40

It's like most team owners, you know,

23:42

I think when they come into the sports

23:44

world from the

23:46

business world. You they might have made bazillions

23:49

of dollars in business, but they never work.

23:51

They're never in the spotlight like they are

23:54

owning sports teams and that, you know.

23:56

I mean, some handle it better than others, and

23:58

some I've never out of my group phone

24:00

they didn't like and maybe they should

24:03

back off.

24:03

A little bit.

24:04

But yeah, being a team owner,

24:06

sometimes I just sit there and I hear the salaries,

24:08

and you know, I was just like kind of listening about,

24:10

you know, sort of what was happening with

24:13

the Timberwolves, and I

24:16

was just like, man

24:18

to like write those checks, Like wow,

24:21

I don't know, you have to be like a certain certain

24:24

kind of person to just write those

24:26

checks and take so much

24:28

grief and also lose a

24:30

lot, because you lose a lot

24:32

more than you win. You know, you

24:35

could go through your whole career and not get

24:37

that championship and not get

24:40

the success that you want, and you got to be

24:42

okay with that, because that's just the reality.

24:46

I'm sure you're sought quite

24:48

a bit, sought out by young

24:50

women who want to do some

24:53

of the things in the business that you've been able to

24:55

do. I mean, it's probably not easy to just generally

24:57

say what is your best advice? But what

24:59

kinds of things do you say?

25:02

You know, that's something I struggle with. I have, you

25:04

know, a lot of young people who

25:06

ask me for advice, and that business has changed

25:08

so much and so much so many

25:11

of them, you know, there's just so much less

25:13

media, there's so fewer places to go

25:16

than there were when when we

25:18

were trying to get started. So like, if

25:21

I ask you to maybe give us some words

25:24

of encouragement to the aspiring youth of today,

25:26

what are some of the things you tell students

25:28

who seek you out for advice.

25:30

I mean, I do think there's in some ways more

25:33

opportunities, like you don't

25:35

just have to like I

25:37

had to go to, you know, a radio

25:40

station to start off right,

25:42

or you know, I couldn't get a job in TV,

25:45

you know, and so I started off

25:47

in.

25:47

Radio my first two jobs.

25:50

But I do think like there are

25:52

more opportunities obviously with all

25:54

the expanding media and

25:56

and I think we've seen it and how successful

25:59

people can be in different

26:01

areas like you know that do

26:03

monetize like a YouTube, you know, and

26:06

there is still a ton of radio, and there's

26:09

satellite radio, and there's podcasts here

26:11

we are yay you and me, and

26:14

thank God for that, and you know, there

26:16

are opportunities out there. I would say,

26:19

you know, I always tell people that there's no substitute

26:22

for hard work, and that's very very boring answer,

26:25

it is very very true.

26:28

I do think the thing that plagues young

26:30

people today is I

26:33

think rejection is

26:36

so much a part of their lives because they

26:38

put themselves out on social media and

26:41

Instagram and things like that, where people can

26:43

be really cruel, and I think that,

26:46

you know, I think you have.

26:47

To be okay with rejection.

26:50

I think you have to be okay with the fact

26:52

that you're going to get a lot more knows than

26:54

you are. Yes is, but you still

26:56

have to put yourself out there. And I do think that

26:59

people are little bit afraid young

27:01

people at times to take risks

27:03

and put themselves out there and taking

27:05

risks and doing things that might not be

27:08

exactly what you want, but it might be a path

27:10

to getting there. And being open minded

27:12

about it is really huge. I

27:14

mean, if I didn't put

27:16

myself out there and take risks like I never would

27:18

have called NFL games for four years

27:20

at Amazon, Like that just wouldn't have happened,

27:23

you know, something that seemed terrifying but was

27:25

an opportunity, and I was like, Okay, I'm going to do this.

27:27

You know, sometimes it's hard to take a leap of faith

27:30

like that and or believe in yourself

27:32

or believe that you can do it.

27:33

You can learn it.

27:34

And I would just say, you know, to

27:37

try to get comfortable with the fact that not everybody's

27:39

going to like you.

27:40

They're not going to see your vision.

27:42

But if you see it, that's enough,

27:44

you know, and that's okay,

27:47

and just man keep at

27:49

it.

27:50

When you say radio you started off

27:52

as.

27:53

A heavy metal DJ, really,

27:56

yeah, That's where I got my name. So I

27:59

had done I had actually had

28:01

a really nice television reel coming out of

28:03

college. But again, no nobody was hiring

28:05

a girl. They just weren't doing it, and they just weren't

28:07

going to do it, you know. And again I got

28:10

told over and over you

28:12

know, my audience doesn't want this, like this isn't

28:14

happening, you know, do something different, blah

28:17

blah blah. But I had done, you know, a good amount

28:19

of work at Notre Dame, and through the four years

28:21

they had done a ton.

28:22

Of internships and stuff. So I was like. My

28:24

dad was like, hey, Hannah li In, it's

28:27

my middle name.

28:28

There's a lot more radio stations in the country

28:30

than TV stations.

28:31

And I was like, you're right, dad, And.

28:33

So I there were a couple of

28:35

publications back then, broadcasting magazine and

28:37

radio and records, and they both had one ads,

28:39

and so I started, I went, I just made

28:41

a radio tape, just made a tape. And

28:43

I had done some radio and college. I had DJed

28:46

and I had a sports radio talk show at our local

28:48

Notre Dame station. So I was

28:50

like, all right, So I did sports tape

28:52

and I did a DJ tape, just made one

28:54

up, started sending those out.

28:56

I got two job offers.

28:58

One was for a station

29:01

in somewhere into

29:03

San Angelo, Texas, and the other

29:05

one was for a heavy metal rock station of Corpus

29:07

Christy will come on, I mean rock

29:10

was going to be a lot more fun, So I.

29:12

Was like going down to Corpus Christy.

29:14

They changed my aim. My name is Hannah Storn.

29:16

They changed it to Hannah Storm and

29:19

it was stormed by the c C one oh one

29:22

headbanger era. I played like Quiet

29:24

Riot, like Motley Crue, Hagar,

29:27

Shaun Eyrinson and Strieve, you know, scorpions,

29:30

like back to back to back Death Leopard, Quiet

29:33

Riot.

29:34

You get the idea, can we get some of that audio

29:36

in this podcast?

29:39

I believe it is going to make its way

29:41

in because that story is

29:44

there in the podcast.

29:45

So yes, because I mean, you

29:47

know, so every one of our.

29:49

Podcast episodes has what's called a cold

29:52

open, so it kind of opens with

29:54

something like a story or whatever. So

29:56

my first one is the story of me and Charles

29:59

and incident that happened when

30:01

I was at NBC and he's we're really good friends

30:04

now I remember, you know that incident.

30:07

The second one is about

30:09

the movie like Mike, and the

30:11

third one.

30:12

Is the story of like DJ Days

30:14

and you know, like

30:17

all of that. So it's really fun.

30:19

We're not going to do the Charles story here. Let's save that.

30:21

Yeah, yea, yeah, no, that's okay.

30:22

It's awesome, and but but yeah, but but

30:24

you know, my voice was a lot higher.

30:26

And like now that i'm they have some old

30:28

clips and stuff.

30:29

I like my voice is like I guess

30:31

your voice gets lower as you get older.

30:33

Charles sounds way different years

30:35

later than he did.

30:36

Yeah.

30:37

Yeah, he his voice was very high.

30:39

And I guess maybe we all I guess I guess.

30:41

Mark.

30:41

I'm sure if you listened to

30:44

your voice like back in the day, the octaves

30:46

would be higher. I think that's one of the

30:48

things that gets like more mellow and beautiful,

30:51

you know, with.

30:51

Age, is your voice.

30:52

But but yeah,

30:54

that was me.

30:55

I was like headbangerri era man.

30:57

I loved it.

30:58

And then and then I got my first job in Houston

31:01

doing morning and afternoon drive sports, but I

31:03

was still spinning records on the weekends, and

31:05

that was at ninety seven Rock, which was a legendary

31:08

Houston rock station Kick Ass Rock and

31:10

Roll KSRR Houston.

31:12

So you know, we've mentioned your dad many times here,

31:14

and as you said, you know, Mike Storen, former commissioner

31:16

of the ABA, your last name is actually Storin.

31:19

But so basically what you're saying is the station just

31:21

said you are now hannahs Storm and

31:23

you had to roll with it.

31:25

Well, they said, first of all, Storin does

31:27

not translate like storin like they're

31:30

like, But then, nobody was named Hannah

31:32

at the time. There were literally no Hannahs.

31:35

And I was named after my mom and my grandma. Now

31:38

it's super popular. So they

31:40

said, we would like you to be Anna Storm,

31:42

and I was like, oh, okay.

31:43

I'll change one of my names.

31:44

But I'm like, I don't want to like completely

31:47

lose myself and

31:49

be Anna Storm, Like can I be Hannah?

31:52

Can you? And they're like, oh, okay, whatever.

31:54

And so you know when you have a baby

31:56

and they have all the baby names in there and

31:59

they say, well, this person has

32:01

that name, right, like this celebrity has

32:04

that name. For a long time, I was like the

32:06

only Hannah. It was like the next

32:08

to baby Hannah. It was like Hannah Storm sportscaster

32:10

because it just wasn't like a nobody

32:13

was named Hannah. Now we've got all these great especially

32:15

like all these girls in the NCAA tournament there

32:17

were tons of Hannahs, but especially

32:19

Hannah Hadagah my favorite.

32:21

But yeah, so that

32:23

was it Anna Storm, but Hannah Storm.

32:25

So that's how I got I.

32:26

Have a TV name, and people always joke

32:28

like you should do weather.

32:30

It's amazing that it just like they just

32:32

tell you and that's the way it is.

32:33

And oh, I mean I've been told like die

32:35

your hair blonde, you know, wear

32:37

dress, don't wear you know, pants,

32:40

wear hair long, don't wear

32:42

dangly earrings. Do you know?

32:44

Like listen, I.

32:45

Mean I came up, you know, back in the

32:47

day when you know, like I said, a lot of people

32:50

said and a lot of things that you know, they

32:52

probably wouldn't say today. But yes,

32:54

I have been told many, many, many things

32:56

about you know everything.

33:11

Well, look, in our short time together, you've told

33:13

several great stories. And if you

33:16

enjoyed this, you can listen to the NBA

33:18

DNA podcast series, twelve

33:21

episodes worth of stories

33:23

like this from Hannah Storm, who has been around

33:26

professional basketball since the

33:28

seventies, all the way back to.

33:30

The ABA, a league

33:32

that I sadly did not get

33:34

to experience firsthand.

33:36

But now I'm going to listen to this podcast and yeah,

33:38

try to learn about it. And like you said, you know, you've got Bob

33:40

Costas on there, You've got Peter Vessi on there. These

33:42

guys are champions of the Doctor

33:45

j They all are champions of ABA

33:47

history and it's you.

33:49

No.

33:49

I am always going.

33:50

To urge listeners please learn the league

33:52

did not start with Michael Jordan. Please go

33:54

back in time and learn some

33:56

of these lessons and let me let me just say, this is my chance

33:59

to say thank you to you. I don't know if you remember

34:01

this, but for me in

34:03

Rio, I was doing both TV

34:06

and writing, and so it was it was

34:08

constant. I mean, the days were really

34:10

really long, and I am the worst

34:12

morning person ever. The sports centers

34:15

you were hosting were always in the morning, and

34:17

I'm up late at night covering games and writing.

34:20

But I remember that

34:23

mister Woodtalka, our producer, said hey, you know, Hannah,

34:26

Hannah really needs Hannah really wants

34:28

you to join her for this morning

34:31

segment.

34:31

So when once I heard that, then

34:34

sleep.

34:34

Was sleep was off the table because that was that

34:36

was a very high sorry, that was a very

34:38

high compliment to hear that you did insisting

34:41

that I should join you.

34:42

So thank you.

34:43

I did.

34:43

Well.

34:44

You were amazing, and you know, we really

34:46

kind of.

34:46

Smushed a lot of our Olympic programming into

34:48

like these special hours, so you know,

34:50

it was really important to.

34:51

Have you there, and I mean you were like

34:54

a one man band. Man. I don't know how

34:56

you did it.

34:57

I do not know how you did it because

34:59

you were you were everything. Like you

35:01

were like one person covering an entire

35:04

Olympic basketball.

35:06

Series and that was it. That was a really.

35:09

Special I remember, like

35:11

you know, interviewing coach k and some of the players

35:13

leading up to that. That was a really cool It

35:15

was a cool team.

35:17

It was a really interesting experience. Well, we'll talk

35:19

about Rio another time on our next

35:21

podcast.

35:22

Let's definitely do it again.

35:23

Seriously, congratulations on this, Thank

35:25

you this podcast. And let me also

35:28

say, you know, you recently revealed

35:30

your battle with breast cancer, and I can't

35:33

even imagine what that was like for you to

35:35

do. You're a public person, so I mean it must

35:37

make it twenty five times harder. And I really just wanted

35:39

to send you all the best wishes. And you

35:42

have a zillion fans out there who love

35:44

you, and I just again wanted to send

35:46

you all.

35:47

The best wishes and.

35:49

You're the best. Don't don't feeling great.

35:51

Don't have a don't have a elegant

35:53

way to say it, but just.

35:54

You know, what there. You know, the thing

35:56

is there. You don't have to have an elegant

35:58

way to say it.

35:59

Like what you said was incredible, and people

36:01

are like, I don't know what to say, and I'm like, say

36:04

anything, say anything, just

36:06

same thinking of you whatever, whatever you

36:08

want to say. Like just what you said was

36:10

beautiful and perfect and it

36:13

wasn't easy, but I want I just want people

36:15

to get out there and you know,

36:17

get tested, like get their mammograms, do what

36:19

you're supposed to do. And for guys, you know, if

36:22

there's a woman, a person that

36:24

you love in your family, you know, obviously men have a history

36:26

of breast cancer too.

36:27

You know they have to be very careful.

36:29

But you know, just make sure whoever

36:32

that person is in your life, support them

36:34

however you can, and make sure they're getting

36:36

tested because it really really does save lives.

36:39

Everybody, listen to Hannah Storm on matters

36:41

of life and basketball. All right,

36:44

that is going to do it for this edition

36:46

of This League Uncut. Like I told

36:49

you from the jump, Chris Haynes missed out the

36:51

legendary with

36:53

us here. Everybody, you know what to do,

36:56

follow the show, rate the show, review the

36:58

show, and listen to Hannah

37:00

Storm's NBA DNA,

37:02

a twelve part podcast series produced

37:05

by iHeart Chris and I'll be back together with

37:07

you very soon.

37:08

Thanks for listening everyone, and

37:12

that'll do it for us.

37:13

See you next time.

37:16

This league un Cutters and iHeartRadio production

37:23

Chris Hanes and Mark Stein