The Origin of the "Balltrain"

I've been asked several times over the years how the nickname "balltrain" came about. You may or may not care but I anticipate for some it might be a somewhat entertaining story.

 

In the late 90's there was a dance club on the west side of what is now the Gateway called Club Axis. We didn't hit this place up often (my memories were more at The Bay on 4th south at least until we all actually turned 18 at which point the dance clubs didn't seem as cool anymore). I want to say this was Sophomore year for me but it might have been Junior year. A group of us where at Club Axis dancing. The club was obviously dark with lots of strobe lights everywhere. There was a stage as well as some pedestals at each corner of the stage. I found myself on a pedestal dancing with a group of girls. Truly I was king of the moment! That moment lasted but a mere instant as I somehow lost my balance and started shuffling backwards, sending the girls behind me off the pedestal and down onto the floor below. As I stumbled backwards, about to fall off myself, I of course flailed my arms out and grabbed the girl(s) in front of me in an effort to balance myself. Turns out a 200+ lb dude is more of an anchor for a couple teenage girls and I dragged them down with me, creating a train of sorts of people falling off the pedestal onto the ground. Luckily nobody was seriously injured (my memory of course is the pedestal being way high off the ground. . . reality is that it was likely 1/2 a step above the stage and only marginally higher above the ground).  My pride of course was seriously injured and I'm pretty sure I didn't dance with anybody the rest of the night. Not only were the girls no longer interested in my sweet dance moves, my friends were VERY interested in mocking me relentlessly for creating a falling train of sorts at the dance club. Thus the "balltrain" was born.

 

The story above is true and undeniably had an impact on this nickname gaining legs and now becoming my lifelong nickname such that all my social media handles are based off balltrain and even my wife has had to adopt the rachetrain moniker. Also I'm a big guy which I'm sure helps a nickname like "train" stick around. We probably aren't comparing the small skinny kid to a train. Nevertheless, I feel a long overdue confession is in order of the true origin of the name.

 

Most readers of this post will be familiar with Saved by the Bell and it's overwhelming popularity in the 90's. I was a huge fan and continued to be a fan of "T-NBC" Saturday morning programs long after the original Saved by the Bell closed out its series. In fact, the original Saved by the Bell ended in 1992 and it was really Saved by the Bell: The New Class that carried from 1993-2000 which were my prime teen years. (143 episodes of The New Class vs only 86 of the original). I loved watching T-NBC as well as some cartoons and finished off Saturday mornings with NBA Inside Stuff. Great times indeed. There was a second show on right after Saved by the Bell: The New Class called City Guys. This show was basically Saved by the Bell but set in New York City. I watched both of these shows basically all the way through and I must have blended them together in my mind for quite some time. There is a character on City Guys called "El-Train" (I always thought it was just L-Train but IMDB corrected me). I certainly didn't realize it at the time because I had never been to New York but I'm imagine the L-Train character name had something to do with the subway system. I liked the character and in particular I liked the nickname (the characters "real name" was Lionel Johnson in the show).

 

Somewhere along the line of our growing up years we do stupid stuff or make up stupid lies and we end up being embarrassed about them. I don't remember exactly when but I do know that somewhere along the line in high school (and definitively before the above mentioned Club Axis incident) I started referring to myself at school as "ball-train". Yep, there it is. I gave myself the nickname and somehow (surely with the help of the Club Axis incident) the name stuck and became in some ways an identity of its own. My very first email I setup for myself was balltrain@hotmail.com. . . my personal email that I still use to this day and people always joke to me "you still use hotmail?"

 

I had a long period where I doubted myself as I got deeper into my adult years. I could've sworn the character was from Saved by the Bell: The New Class. When IMDB first came around I kept searching through that series and cast and characters over and over and couldn't find the "L-Train" character anywhere. I was so frustrated as I just KNEW I had grabbed that name from Saved by the Bell. I don't know how many times I tried to look it up but it was a LOT as I for whatever reason wanted that confirmation that my memory was correct. Memories are funny things.

 

Quick sidebar- I just KNEW the time I went to Britney Spears with my buddies on the front row in 2000 was on August 18th. I knew it because it was my mom's birthday so easy to remember, right? Imagine my surprised a year or so ago when I pulled up the setlist to see it was August 14th, 2000 not August 18th. Trippy but clearly our memory fails us.

 

So anyway somehow within the last few years I was determined once again to find this mysterious L-Train character and this time instead of Saved by the Bell on imdb I realized I needed to search for TNBC or 90's Saturday Morning NBC lineups. And there it was: City Guys. I knew immediately "This is the ONE!". Took it straight to IMDB and there was the character name I knew I had latched onto.

 

So why haven't I shared this before? Easy answer. I was more embarrassed about making up my own nickname than I was about a public embarrassment incident that I couldn't hide anyway. Nobody ever needed to know about the City Guys and their great character nickname development. Even the great Rachetrain herself was only made privvy to this story earlier this year when I finally broke down and shared it for the first time.

 

I turned 41 years old today. It was a great birthday and I'm grateful to be alive. I hope I can continue to share fun memories (and continue to gain new ones) as I move forward in life with wonderful friends and family around me. Hope I was able to give back a bit to everyone that gives to me with this story so call it my birthday present to everyone!

 

Memories of Gerry Lind

 

                                     (Gerry visiting me on my 40th Birthday. This is the last picture I have with him)

The pain of this experience is very real and very deep. I know the deepest pain is being felt by immediate family and to all of them I send my love, support, and condolences. I feel like I’ve been permanently wounded and I’m not sure at what point it will heal. I’m sure with time that will come but the scar will remain forever.

This past Friday was definitely in the top few worst days of my life. Anything that could come close is certainly before any of my kids were born as I know they’ve never seen the level of hard crying they’ve seen over the past few days. You feel fine for a minute. You steel yourself and get yourself focused on something. Then an opportunity for your mind to drift comes along and in reality you couldn’t focus on anything else anyway and suddenly you’re back to sobbing.

From the time I got my drivers license and through my Junior year (Gerry was a grade older than me) I’d pick up Gerry to go to school and drop him off on the way home. Typically I’d hang out for a while and we’d play tennis or video games or just talk. I’d say 99% of the time in the morning when I’d pull up to his door he’d open his front door and give me a 1-minute finger asking me to wait. Who knows what he was doing that he could open the door and ask me to wait but not be ready to just come out. I’d yell at him getting in the car that we were running late and it was his fault. I never did drive off and leave him at home despite the threats to do so. I’d wait, we’d head to school, have a great day and better afternoon hanging out after. The image keeps popping up in my mind but now I’m screaming at him “Wait! Just wait! Please wait!” and then I’m sobbing. I just think when you lose somebody close to you, regardless of circumstances, you can’t help but attempt to rewind time and wonder what you could’ve done differently. I know I’ve been doing the same mental gymnastics related to my dad now for 30 years. . . wondering if I could somehow go back and do something to change the trajectory.

He and I along with Jake Cantwell went to the Tool concert just a couple weeks ago. It was circumstantial that he could come as the ticket was original Ben Gehrke’s but Ben was out of town and we were looking for somebody that actually liked Tool. I was pumped when he said he wanted to come. We attended so many concerts together in our teen years I can’t really name them out. We made the X96 Big Ass Show an annual event.  We saw Morrisey at Salt Air (His favorite band was The Smiths. Sidebar is the opening band for that show was a group called the Smoking Popes. We liked their sound and I bought a beanie at that show. I’ve used that Beanie as my main ski/snowboard beanie ever since up through and including yesterday on the slopes with my son at Sundance. I thought about Gerry and that concert every time I hit the slopes before and certainly will going forward. We loved skiing and boarding together. Second sidebar is on my older son’s playlist during that trip he played “How Soon is Now” and I pretty much lost it).

                                                      Smoking Popes (with Drew on the lift)

Back to Tool. We met up for dinner before hand at R&R and had a great dinner and conversation together. Gerry and I weren’t uncomfortable talking religion and spirituality together frequently and we had a level of that discussion with Jake that night, mostly based on meditation and the positive effects it can have. We joked it was a pretty deep conversation to have heading into a death metal concert. The concert was great and the entire evening felt perfect. I had for myself been through a rough couple of days at work and remember thinking as I drove home how great it was to take my mind off things for a night and just enjoy being with my friends. I hope he felt the same. As with anybody close, if I had known that was the last time I was ever going to see him I probably wouldn’t have left his car all night.

We could always talk for hours on end. Mostly football, music, politics, our kids. Finances and spirituality were frequently on the table as well when different decisions points and challenges arose. When we were kids is was mostly music, sports, girls. We constantly were discussing our need to get girlfriends and who all the hot girls were at school. Funny to think both of us ended up marrying girls from our high school but that were not our girlfriends during that time (we never had any girlfriends as high schoolers).

We had just hung out earlier in January during the College Football National Championship Game in his basement with Mike Davis and Derek Cushing. He was showing us his newly installed golf simulator and we had a great night watching the game and playing a couple rounds. We had always got together for lunch several times per year but this last year we had re-engaged in golf and date nights more than in previous years. I was excited to be spending more time with him as our kids got to ages we could go out without babysitters.

I really wish I could’ve been there more for him in that I did not know he was suffering and certainly not to a deep level. As I move forward and achieve new age milestones in my life I know it will be crossing my mind each time that I wish he was around to celebrate with me. He came to my 40^th birthday and I’m super grateful he did as that was the last time I was photographed with him. I hope he’s one of the first there to see me on the other side someday.

Gerry. I love you man. Thanks for being a great friend and a true brother.

Some great personal memories for me with Gerry in my life, in no particular order:

Football:

BYU Cotton Bowl 1996. We watched this game together on New Year’s Day 1996 and I remember us jumping up and down together when Omarr Morgan had the interception on Kansas State’s final drive to seal the game. My personal favorite BYU team ever and several members of that team are still on my personal top list of BYU players including Steve Sarkisian, Chad Lewis, Tim McTyer, and Shay Muirbrook.

Super Bowl 2000. Gerry’s mission farewell was on Super Bowl Sunday. The game was the St Louis Rams with the Greatest Show on Turf (Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk, Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt) against the Tennessee Titans. It was the game where Kevin Dyson was tackled on the final play at the 1 yard line and the Rams won. A ton of us stayed at Gerry’s house deep into the evening watching the game after being there all day for his mission farewell and luncheon after.

BYU Las Vegas Bowl 2015. We got absolutely dismantled by Utah continuing on a very long streak of heavy L’s. This was a fun weekend lots of friends were able to come down together to enjoy it. At least fresh of the loss of that game we weren’t too unhappy when Bronco announced his departure a few days later.

                                                    Las Vegas Bowl in 2015

BYU Idaho Potato Bowl 2018 vs Western Michigan. Zach Wilson’s perfect game up in Boise. Gerry took Clint and I took Cannon. We had an awesome time and I had discussed visiting Boise again this coming fall with our sons again.

                                            Idaho Potato Bowl with Clint and Cannon in 2018

Music:

Not For You Elk Ridge Middle School. Gerry and I along with Matt Hearty and Brandon Clough had formed a band and had tried out for the talent show with Amy Salles as our singer to sing the Cranberries “Zombie” as the song. We made the show but Amy ended up needing to back out so we scrambled and figured out how to play Pearl Jam’s “Not For You” on a couple days notice. Gerry took over lead singing duties and it became an all-timer for everyone that saw the performance.

Skiing/Snowboarding:

Snowbird- We loved skiing originally and Snowbird was our go-to resort. I still feel like Snowbird is the best resort Utah has to offer. In my 9^th grade year I had shoulder surgery from football and was up on the slopes probably way too early compared to my recovery needs. We hit the tram first run, I took some moguls and ate it hard and popped my shoulder out of socket bad. Gerry’s little brother Clark was with us and while he may have heard some expletives in his life before, the dude had certainly not heard a string of expletives  like what I laid out with my shoulder coming out of socket (and staying as such. I didn’t get it back in until I was at the bottom of the hill). That particular day was a short day for me with Gerry on the slopes.

    

                                                        Gerry, Me, Cush           

Brighton- Gerry decided one day that we were going to learn to snowboard. So we bought snowboards and thought we’d be pros in short order. Boy were we wrong. Our first time we went with Ben French night-boarding and we thought he could teach us a bit. I remember being unbelievably sore the next day to the point I could hardly walk because we fell so much that night at Brighton. We eventually figured it out and became decent boarders. We found a little cliff area one-time on quad-Wednesday and he called it the “Rock Garden”. He was one of the first of our group to go off the cliff that day.

Career:

Gerry and I talked all the time about BYU. I knew I wanted to go to BYU but didn’t know what I wanted to do for my career or major or anything else (who really does as a high schooler?). One day we were talking about it in front of Gerry’s dad Ed and he told me I should do accounting. I asked him why accounting. He said it was a great program with 100% placement. “What does that mean?” I asked. “It means if you graduate from that program you have a job when you graduate” he said. “Done. That’s what I’m doing”. And that’s the story of how I decided to major in accounting at BYU and I never wavered from that decision. It did indeed lead to a job more than a year before I graduated and has led to a great career overall.

                                             Younger (and skinner for me) times. Good times. 

End of an Era

*Sidenote to start* Rachel pointed out a couple weeks ago that my car was 2 shades of gray (hey at least it's not 50). I had never noticed that. I think in the above photo though you can see it pretty good. Maybe the shades just developed over time.

So I get home from my mission in October 2002 and my mom is helping me get a car. I'm at Bountiful Mazda basically ready to sign the paperwork on a Protege. I had wanted a single cab pickup kind of like what I had in high school (still love the Mighty Max!). My mom said I had to get a sedan for when I got married and started having kids. so we had turned away from the pickup and over to the Protege.  The only problem: I didn't have a job yet. I didn't feel comfortable pulling the trigger on a car without a job. So we waited a bit. I found a Civic (ironically for sale up in Bountiful again) in the paper a few days later (right after I had found a job at Neighborhood Grant Network). 64k miles, $10k, for sale by owner. I had always loved my step-dad Kim's Civic. I took it on the weekend all the time in high school so I could fit more friends instead of just my single cab pickup. We pulled the trigger. That was November of 2002. 12 1/2 years later, I finally decided (via the influence of a persistent wife) that it was time to move on.

There is a certain pride that starts building when you cross big mileage thresholds. After 200k miles I really started feeling like I had a winner. 250k? NBD! I was still about a year away from 300k, only 286k when I sold it yesterday but I'm confident this car will still be rolling deep into 300k territory.

I have a lot of memories in that car. Basically anybody that knows me as an adult has probably taken a ride in that car. Some of the key memories include:

- Nielsen Custard Classic- I was new at KPMG in early 2008 and the team on the Mrs. Fields audit sent me out to get some Custard from Nielsen's up in Holladay. They didn't give me any cup holders or any lids. Nielsens is like on 39th south and Mrs. Fields offices were at the 6200 South office centers. It wasn't a quick drive. By the time I got back custard of like 5 different flavors had melted all over my gear shift, seats, and cupholders. It took YEARS for me to stop finding little custard stains.

-Cannon Sharpie. Cannon was probably 2-3. On a summer day I was working in the garage and he was playing in the car (windows open). I kept peeking at him and I could only see his head. I kept thinking "He's having fun down on the floor or something!". He had found a Sharpie in my glove box and was drawing all over the seats, steering wheel, armrests, everything.  I scrubbed off what I could on the steering wheel but the marker on the seats just had to wear off over time. On the backseat just last week as I cleaned it up for sale I could still see a couple sharpie marks.

-Bend Adventure. Against Rachel's wishes I wanted to drive the Civic to Bend, Oregon in 2012 for my CPA training. It was about a 10 hour drive to the middle of Oregon. On the way in there was a sign that read something like "150 Miles Until Next Gas". We enjoyed our week in Bend at the training and did some fun hikes to waterfalls. On the way back toward Boise I passed a sign that said something like "200 Miles Until Next Gas". Wait, what? I must have missed a turn on one of those state roads. We were in the middle of nowhere for about 2 hours. No Cell service, no cars passing us in either direction. Lucky I had a full tank of gas :). Rachel wasn't pleased but we just ended up taking the scenic route back to Boise :).

-Tri Cities Trips. When I worked at KPMG from July-October I had to travel up to tri cities Washington basically weekly. Sometimes I'd drive and get the mileage reimbursement (if it was cheaper than a flight, which it usually was, I was allowed to do that). Those were 10-12 hour drives. I would always go to the library and get a couple books on tape since I could knock out listening to an entire book on one leg. I'd stop in Burley, Idaho and in Ontario, Oregon. I had tried everything to make the trip with just one gas/restroom stop. Basically impossible. So with 2 stops required regardless those both worked out as 2 roughly even stops along the way.

-St George Christmas Snow Adventure! Rachel and I went down with her parents to St. George after Christmas one year early in our marriage and stayed a few days. On the way home was a crazy snow storm! All types of Suburbans and other SUV's sliding off the freeway. We drove slow and steady and the Civ held up great! When I finally got to Nephi I stopped at a gas station and my wheel wells were full of snow right up to scraping against the spinning wheels as I drove.

Thousands of miles and thousands of days of commutes. To Provo, Salt Lake, Park City, back to Provo. Unreal. It's been a great car and I'm sad to see it go. On to the next adventure.

Twins

Names are a funny thing. I've been fascinated during this pregnancy about how different names come up and what people's reactions to them are. It's also interesting to me that you never know what the results of naming someone might be in the long term. You can't control it since you don't name yourself, but it's with you forever.

My middle name is Andrew after one of my dad's mission companions Andrew Johnson. Well. .. .30 some-odd years later. . we have Drew Wesley Ball, primarily named after my middle name. We knew we'd call him Drew so we just named him Drew instead of the full Andrew.

James Wesley Stewart came to the Salt Lake Valley with Brigham Young. His name is on a pioneer monument downtown. He is an ancestor of Rachel's.

I have to admit when Rachel suggested Wesley I immediately thought of the initials "D.W." I thought "Why does that sound familiar?". Oh yeah, because of DW Drums! My personal drumkit is a Pearl but I have always liked DW and I have a DW double bass pedal. I got on board with the pioneer/family name and advised Rachel that I might end up calling him DW. (DW stands for Drum Workshop by the way). Maybe he will become a drummer.

Baby B's name story follows a different road. Cash Kimball Ball. Cash for a first name has no real backstory other than it just felt right. It was the first name Rachel and I really agreed on and we agreed on it right away when we first discussed it. When you are naming two you run through a million names. My personal top 2 were #1- Bo-Jackson (yes, a 2 name first name! since the Royals finally made the World Series this year I told Rachel it was fate and we had to go with Bo Jackson! She still denied.) and 2- Jalen (some say it's a girls name but I liked the sound of it and the only Jalen I knew in existence anyway was former basketball player Jalen Rose (so. . . a guy)). Rachel loved Mason. I offered up Mason for #2 to be named either of those options and she wouldn't take it. We needed to find names we both liked.  We got down to a final 4: Cash, Drew, Jace, and Jensen. Interestingly enough, we settled on Cash for "Baby B" pretty quick. Like I said it just felt right so there must be something for this kid's name. We had Cash decided at least a month ago and really the name up in the air was for "Baby A" and wasn't decided from the other 3 finalist names until we looked at him this morning after he arrived.

Kimball is named after my step dad Kimball Barrow. That was the first and only name locked from the beginning was that one would have a middle name of Kimball. He was a great influence for me personally during my teen years. I always told Rachel the one thing I regretted about waiting so long to get pregnant with Cannon was that he passed away before he could see him (obviously can't know that at the time). Our kids have other great Grandparents but Rachel and I knew he would've been a great grandpa as well.

Drew Wesley Ball

Cash Kimball Ball

These guys came rapid fire this morning. Rachel's water broke around 5:45 AM. We left to the hospital and got there around 6:15. She kept telling me to drive faster because she felt like she needed to push. Well, when we arrived there was really no time for anything and next thing I know she is pushing and Baby A (Drew) is out (about 6:35)! No time for an epidural either! They started setting her up for a C-Section since Baby B (Cash) was breach. While they were prepping her for the C-Section her water broke again! No time again for anything and next thing we know Baby B just makes his way on out breach and all! No problems luckily on either delivery and quick as can be. Both boys are hanging out in the NICU for a bit (the breathing machine on Cash for a bit to help his lungs but he's doing solid) mostly precautionary since they are a bit early.

Crazy day for sure! October 21st has changed from just another random day on the calendar to an important day in our household forever.

Grandma Ball

Today we laid to rest my paternal grandmother Vivian Guest Ball. She was 93. It’s been a great day hearing old memories, and believe it or not quite a few new stories (to me) at the funeral today with the Ball family. As I’ve thought about it the past few days I’ve realized Grandma Ball had quite the influence in my life, even on little things in life:

-I don’t use chapstick that often, but I will only use the original black label chapstick because it reminds me of Grandma Ball. Even the smell of it reminds me of her so even since I was young I would only use that chapstick.

-My favorite pudding is butterscotch pudding. Grandma would frequently make butterscotch pudding with a dollup of coolwhip on it. Delicious. Whenever Rachel buys snackpaks now she knows to get me a set of butterscotch.

-Arguably my favorite candy bar is 3 Musketeers. Grandma would always take me to Albertson’s and grab a 3 Musketeers bar. 

-My favorite ice cream is chocolate chip. Russell’s chocolate chip to be exact J. The adults always ate Burnt Almond Fudge but the kids always had chocolate chip. The Smith’s brand Private Selection tastes pretty similar so I still buy that all the time.

-Grandma would always toast up her “homemade” bread (found out later in life it was Rhodes bake-n-serve bread but it was delicious all the same!), put some jam on it and cut it up into little squares and give me a toothpick to eat one square at a time with.   So delicious.  Still love toast and jam (Rachel can confirm it’s my go-to) but I haven’t cut it up in squares in years.

-Obviously I’m a sucker for Oreo’s. I’m a little curious how they kept their Oreo’s stocked with all the grandkids coming over and constantly raiding the Oreo’s in the cupboards.

-For the longest time my favorite restaurant was Tony Roma’s (probably still would be if they were around anymore in Utah). I know they ate there at locations around the world during their travels.

-I consider Diet Dr. Pepper the Ball Family Official Drink. There was always a tall glass filled with ice ready to be filled by the 2 liter of Diet Dr. by Grandma and Grandpa. They were expert fillers at getting the foam right to the brim without spilling over.

I can imagine many of these are the favorites of the other Ball grandkids as well. Certainly quite a few things to pickup over a lifetime of knowing her.

I have lots of great memories of Grandma. It’s interesting to think about the period in life when you know people. I was discussing Grandma’s life with my mom a couple nights ago and she commented how even from the time her and my dad got married Grandma and Grandpa were basically retired. It was fun today to hear mostly stories from my uncles of times growing up.

A couple other memories:

-Today one of my uncles mentioned some of her favorite scriptures. The one main one I always remember her commenting on was it said so many times in the Book of Mormon that if you keep the commandments you would prosper in the land (she knew the exact number but I can’t remember).

-She would always comment on “not if you go on a mission, but WHEN you go on a mission”. That was commented on a lot today as well and it was certainly a focus for her.

Grandma was obviously very caring. I remember the final week or two of 6^th grade we had already moved out to the South Jordan house but I was finishing up the school year at Morningside. It was one of the last few days of school and we had a dance at school the next day and I was out of deodorant  and was asking my mom to go buy me some because I didn’t want to be stinky at the dance the next day. My mom told me to just use some of Grandpa’s which I didn’t like because I thought it was gross (still do; not a fan of sharing roll-on deodorant even with a close relative). Being a whiny 12 year old I threw a fit and was sent downstairs to bed, tears flowing, knowing that the next day I would be rejected by all the girls due to my stench. As I cried to sleep, Grandma brought down to me a brand new stick of deodorant and a full glass of Diet Dr. Pepper. I admit, I “woke up” after she left the room and reviewed the AARP –brand deodorant and thought “What IS THIS?” However, I can tell you I’ve never been more fresh and dry than that day with my AARP deodorant. The dance was a success, and I used that deodorant until it was gone. Kind of a random story, but a great example of what Grandma would do for you.

A great woman and a great influence. I’m thankful to be part of her posterity.

End of 1280 The Zone

Kind of funny that today was the "end of 1280 The Zone" when the frequency and even the station title are sticking around. Really it's the end of 1320 KFAN, even if it is mostly just the KFAN guys moving over to the Zone. I have loved having both stations; both stations have had PLENTY of hours of my listening time. I'm confident to say that pretty much any commercial that has ran on either station over the past 10 years has been heard by my ears, most notably Satellite TV companies and during the housing heyday mortgage companies.

It was worth my time to write a quick post on The Zone because that is the station that got me into sports/talk radio.  I had heard of KFAN in high school but still pretty much listened only to music. Now I pretty much listen to only talk radio (not always sports but rarely music in the car/at work, only background when I'm doing chores or something). Soon after the mission I somehow heard there was a new sports station called 1280 The Sports Zone. I tuned in and immediately had it as my #1 preset. Ryan Hatch was the host I remember listening to the most. I liked listening to him but noticed he said "1280 The Sports Zone" pretty much every sentence. DJ & PK in the mornings, Hatch mid-day (and a spat of E-Ray and Scotty G on "the average Joe's show", this is back when Scott Gerrard was still low on the radio totem pole) and Bolerjack and Monson in the evenings. I pretty much never changed the station as back in the early/mid '00's 1320 pretty much sucked. They had "Man Made Mornings" with Alan Handy (the dude that now does the little fan-promo games at Jazz games), Ron Boone, and somebody else. They had a good thing going with Ian Fitzsimmons for a bit but it was short lived. Anyway, I was hooked on the Zone for sure. I learned today from David Locke's podcast that Boler and Monson started 1280 which I didn't know but think is pretty cool. Definitely cool that Monson saw it through to the end.

Shortly after I started listening they brought on Alema Harrington and started the Red & Blue Show with Pace Mannion and Alema's infamous "50/50" chance announcement prior to the 2004 BYU/Utah game when everyone knew going in we were going to get trounced (I don't remember the score but we definitely got our butts kicked as that was obviously the Fiesta Bowl Utes team).

Somewhere around that time I remember Jake Scott being the intern dude that would give the updates "every 20 minutes" and they also switched over from "1280 The Sports Zone" to just "1280 The Zone".

It sucked when Boler left but Kevin Graham was a pretty solid replacement. I didn't know he had helped Locke start 1320 originally that was another nugget today from Locke. Pretty cool history for sports radio in the state.

It's interesting to think that when the Jazz decided to get serious about getting their flagship station back up in the ratings they basically just raided The Zone for their talent and brought them over. I guess that's why I like all those guys (DJ, PK, Alema, Gerrard, Boler) because I first heard them on The Zone. I liked the new hosts as well, especially Jon and Hans (and later Hans and OC) and still Monson during drive time. I loved switching over to the other station once one hit commercials and picking right up in their conversations.

All afternoon Jake and Monson were taking calls from callers giving their farewells and expressing their appreciation. I was pretty surprised actually some of the callers were quite intense giving up info about about how listening to The Zone helped them through some pretty serious situations (drug addictions, deaths in the family, etc.). I kind of wished I had called in. My main memory of The Zone is listening every day on my long drives from West Jordan down to Provo during the BYU years. It definitely made the drives easier listening to Jazz, BYU, & Utah talk from local guys, and after all the years of buildup you definitely feel like you know them having heard their famous lines and slip-ups (like Monson's "Where are you right now?" interview). Even now I prefer local over national for sure even if it can be argued that the national guys are better "talent".  Sounds like most of the guys will land on their feet and change is part of life but fun to think about the impact something like a radio station can have. Not many things impact your life every day but I can definitely say I've listened to 1320/1280 on a near daily basis for 10 years now so it's obviously made an impact on me too.

We Can Build On This!

I've been reading Bill Simmon's articles on ESPN.com and Grantland.com since 2002. Have never submitted a comment or email but was prompted to do so regarding his column today were he awarded the Jazz "The Herm Edwards 'We Can Build On This!' Award for 'Things You Can't Actually Build On, Even If You Say You Can Build On Them'". My response as follows (I don't expect to make his mailbag since I didn't really ask him a question but we'll see):


First Time/Long Time (does it count in emails like it does on radio?) I want to defend (in an admittedly homerish way) the Jazz's "We can build on this" season. The Jazz organization is a winning organization and therefore chose to try to win and make the playoffs rather than lose and get their pick. Even in the hindsight of an eviscerating sweep to the Spurs (hopefully they are the eventual champs so we can say "hey, we lost to the champs"), I still applaud the move and think it's good for the long-term growth of the team. We're talking about a team that was starting Demarre Carrol down the stretch after injuries to 3 wing players (not that Bell, Miles, or Howard were necessarily upgrades). Ty Corbin has barely coached a full season's worth of basketball with no real training camp and the same can be said for Devin Harris and Derek Favors in Jazz uniforms. No shame in getting outcoached by the best active coach in basketball and no shame in losing, even badly, to the best team in the NBA. Bottom line: winning teams have winning attitudes; losing teams are the Warriors- and if karma is real the lottery will drop them to the 8th pick giving the Jazz back a pick in this draft anyway.

-Brandon
Salt Lake City