8 January 25 - 31, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents fine, but I was like everyone else I guess. It was such a jaw- dropping moment, and I couldn’t wrap my head around it.” On a morning when nothing was safe, it felt comfortable to have familiar voices behind such horrifying news. The hosts felt a similar comfort. “To me, it felt better to be with the people I wanted to dis- cuss the event with and go through it with,” Keith said. “I feel it would’ve been a lot creepier and depressing to just be at home consuming the news rather than being with guys who are all processing it in real time and talking about it. I liked the fact that there was a crew here that I loved and trusted and could talk about it together with. … And I’m glad I didn’t have to listen to Corby [Davidson, fellow Ticket host] botching it.” (Keith was laughing as he said that, ribbing his colleague.) Station Program Director Jeff Catlin, who began as a pro- ducer for The Hardline in 1994, thinks that 9/11 was a pivotal moment for 1310. “I think that was when the station sort of grew up,” he said. “The Ticket went from being the all-sports station with guys goofing around to being, it almost sounds pretentious to say, but, the station of record in town.” Of course, there have been plenty of less serious moments involving Dunham, Miller and Keith that have burned into the collective P1 memory that the hosts also hold dear. Possi- bly the most hilarious moment in Ticket history took place with one of the most no-nonsense athletes in North Texas history. In 2008, legendary Rangers pitcher Nolan Ryan joined the crew at the station’s annual Ticketstock event, and very memorably, unexpected hilarity ensued. What made this specific moment more special was that for years leading up to that appearance, the hosts had regularly in- terviewed “Fake Nolan Ryan,” a character voiced by Keith. But Keith’s impersonation of Ryan consisted not of baseball tales, but stories related to his dealings with snow monkeys. Yes, snow monkeys. To be clear, it wasn’t all fiction: Ryan had indeed been involved with the snow monkey population in Texas. For those who aren’t Ticket listeners, the previous few sen- tences sound silly, but for the thousands of P1s in attendance at the ’08 Ticketstock, getting to hear the real Nolan Ryan, com- plete with his syrupy Texas drawl, mention that he had become somewhat of a “snow monkey ambassador” was as thrilling as watching the Cowboys reach the Super Bowl. It was a quintes- sentially unique Ticket moment, one that outsiders need not try to comprehend. As Ryan dis- cussed snow mon- key birth control and how snow monkeys like Hershey’s Kisses, the thousands of peo- ple present howled with laughter. The hosts were unable to contain themselves as well, even onstage, sit- ting next to Ryan. Six- teen years later, Miller says emphatically that it was “my favorite mo- ment in Ticket history.” Dunham has also men- tioned the event as per- haps his top all-time Ticket moment. The morning hosts are still pretty sure that Ryan wasn’t totally in on the joke although everyone else was. “I think he was confused as to why his story was killing it so hard,” Keith said. “The beauty of it was that he was not in on it,” Miller added. “We were all trying to not overly laugh at him to make him uncomfortable, but we did giggle along with the story while inside we’re dying laughing.” Indeed, after 30 years, the Ticket is really its own thing, a genre of radio unto itself. As for the question of how the station has done so well for so long? To a man, each host pinpoints the complete buy-in from the personalities who have worked there over the years, as well as that of the loyal P1s. Without both factors, it’s hard to believe something so unique would live as long as it has. We talked with each of the station’s current weekday show hosts in their Vic- tory park studio recently to find out more about what has made the Ticket tick for three decades. The Early Days Perhaps it’s true of any successful media venture, but a bit of luck in the timing de- partment certainly seemed to help 1310 at- tract listeners. It also didn’t hurt that sports talk on the radio in sports-mad North Texas had been limited to only a few hours each week. Even in such a scenario, only the right mix of personalities and attitudes could get the station off the ground successfully. Gordon Keith (co-host, The Musers): “We really lucked out with the group of guys that got together at the very begin- ning. … It really became a subculture and another key ingre- dient was that the station was this scrappy underdog that had just started up, so it had this feeling of guerrilla radio.” George Dunham (co-host, The Musers): “The day that Jimmy Johnson left the Cowboys in March of ’94, I think, was a big moment for the audience in that this is why you want to have an all-sports station because the story changed throughout the day. It was such a big story, and it was such a big day and it was such a big soap opera.” Dave Lane (co-host, The Hardline): “The Ticket was such an un- derdog story at the time, and it had gained such a cult following, you definitely felt the energy and you felt like there was some- thing happening and me and Corby [Davidson] were working shitty hours for not much money as overnight board ops, but it didn’t feel like we were just treading water. It felt like we were building for something, and so it was worth it.” Rising Through The Ranks Many of today’s well-known weekday hosts began as part- time support players, with spots low on the totem pole. But in a number of cases, the allure of working for the Ticket in just about any capacity was sufficient to attract and keep them onboard. From longtime employees to more recent hires, just getting in the door to begin with was the hardest part. The draw certainly had to be strong, given that possi- bly the least-appealing job in radio, overnight board operator (more commonly known as “board op”) was how many current Ticket hosts got their start with the station. Corby Davidson (co-host, The Hardline): “I remember going to the station, not really knowing anybody and looking around. The energy that was in that place, in year one, was just crazy. I knew I wanted to be there. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, though. I was 23 years old, and I remember Pepi Harris [for- mer producer] saying to me, ‘There’s a job open- ing,” and I just said, ‘I’ll take it.” She’s like, ‘I haven’t told you what it is yet, it’s not good,’ and I just said, ‘I don’t care.’ It was the weekend overnight board op job, but I knew my foot would be in the door.” Lane: “You would do anything back then to pick up hours, and you would even show up when you’re not on the clock. We would hang out, and we had a cubicle area we called the bullpen, and you would just show up and try to hang out and try to overhear something that was going on and figure out if there was some way you could help or participate.” Sean Bass (co-host, The Sweet Spot): “I started when I was 19 as a promotions assistant, then I became an intern. So I just kind of hung around and eventually talked my way into an over- night weekend board op position while I was going to school. I didn’t major in radio, TV and film, I majored in English lit, which is pretty useless. “Friedo [former Ticket producer Mark Friedman], God rest his soul, let me start hosting a little bit during Ticket Sports Saturday with Ty Walker and Stu Cedar, and I started feeling comfortable in that role and eventually I got to do The Shake Joint with Jake [Kemp] and I filled in a bunch during dry dock [when the full-time hosts took breaks dur- ing the summer and holidays]. That’s when I started to think, OK, I feel like I can actually do this.” David Mino (co-host, The Sweet Spot): “I’d listen to the Ticket going to school every day with my dad, who was a Day 1 P1. I went to a small college in Kansas called Ottawa University, played football up there, and my freshman year is when I re- ally fell in love with The Ticket. I enjoyed it when I was in high school, but being up in Kansas and listening was kind of my way to feel comfortable, to feel like I was back home. We were a tiny school, but we had a student radio station with- out a lot of direction that I started doing a show at. “A couple years later, in 2011, I got a summer internship at The Ticket. I went back to college, graduated, and came back to start working part-time in promotions then started doing the overnight board op job. I was a part of The Ticket, and it was fun.” The “Ah-Ha” Ticket Moment Many current 1310 hosts joined the station well after it was up and running. Only Dunham and Miller remain from the original 1994 Day 1 lineup. Bob Sturn joined the Ticket in 1999, arriving from Lynchburg, Virginia. Donovan Lewis, who had been with other local radio stations owned by the same company as the Ticket, joined Sturm on the Bad Radio show in 2006. Lewis’ co-host, Matt McClearin, joined full-time last year after a couple of different part-time stints with the station and two different turns with an Alabama sports station. Many of those who have come to the Ticket from elsewhere found rather quickly that this station wasn’t like other radio stations. Jeff Catlin (program director): “Early in ’95, on the Monday that the college basketball national championship game was on TV, we all decided that we were going to watch the game at the station. This was at 7 or 8 at night, but every single person was there, and that’s when I realized, ‘Holy cow, we are just a bunch of dudes hanging out, and we’re friends.’ So much is talked about how The Ticket guys have great camara- derie, and that was apparent from the earliest days. We didn’t meet at a sports bar or Chili’s or wherever. This was us hang- ing out at work.” The Golden Ticket from p6 >> p10 Kathy Tran From left to right: Sean Bass, Dave Lane, David Mino, Bob Sturm and Corby Davidson of 1310 The Ticket are on-air every weekday afternoon and early evening. Kathy Tran Dave Lane (center) listens to Bob Sturm (left) make a sports point on The Hardline.
