I Owe Joe

I have been so very lucky to be doing this job for 30 years. Fortunate in the fact to be doing the exact thing I want to be doing for a living. It's a dream come true that I wish for everyone on earth. Many times I am asked when did I know I wanted to do this, and the answer is a slam dunk, "Wham with the right hand!" It was when I was about 9, and started listening to Joe Tait do Cavaliers games on radio.

When the Cavs came into the league the game was big, and I was small. One Christmas I got a transistor radio, complete with an earpiece, and I would listen to the Cavs at bedtime, and many times way past. With the street light peering though the window of my darkened room, and my mom telling me it was late, and to go to sleep. There was Joe Tait telling me a story about the latest Cavs adventure to Chicago or Boston. And sometimes really exotic places like Milwaukee, or Kansas City-Omaha. Plus on very cool occasions, Los Angeles, Portland or somewhere else on the West Coast. Those were my favorite. I thought it was so cool that they were just starting a game there, after everyone here went to bed.

Not many TV games in those days really. It was Joe Tait. Whether it was from the dark and dank Cleveland Arena, or later the beautiful Coliseum, eventually The Gund it was still Joe. Now that it's The Q, and LeBron marching towards the NBA Championship everything is different. The athletes, the game itself, the settings, the prices and our priorities. Everything is different, except the man at the mic. Joe Tait.

What he has done has been more than remarkable. Tait has done virtually every Cavs game in their 40 year history. He is an artist for sure. He paints the picture of what the Cavs are doing, and somehow you get it, you see it, you're there. When I was little we didn't have season tickets to the Cavs, but I felt like we did. I was listening to Joe Tait with my Cavs glass from the Shell gas station full of soda, until today when it now cost about 10 dollars to fill that glass with a beer at a game.

It's almost inconceivable to think of now, that was the only way to keep up with the Cavs then. Listening to Joe Tait on radio. Things today of course are much different. Cable TV, 100 sports Networks, The NBA Network, The Internet, Twitter, Facebook, My Space...so many ways to get info of all kinds, not just sports. Technology for the good or bad depending on your point of view has changed our view forever. When the Cavs are playing a big playoff game this year, you can't get away from it.

Hand in hand with that, there's been the various stadiums, and venues in the NBA. Teams folding, leagues merging. The Cavs going from the Horrible In East Cleveland, to The Miracle in Richfield. To almost leaving town in the 80's to being the toast of it in the early 90's. And now, complete... as we stand as the odds on favorite to do the unthinkable, win it all....Joe Tait is still painting the canvass nightly with description that makes us a little less envious we don't have a ticket to the game.

Quite simply, Joe Tait is the best. No matter what state I have lived in and teams I've rooted for while on the road, no one tells the story like Joe Tait. How lucky we are to have him, especially for this fantastic Cavalier ride the past few years. He's seen it all, from the bad...to the really bad, to the really, really bad. But now the pendulum has swung to the good. Good for us...and good for Joe.

And as for the nights when I was 9, when the Cavs were losing to the Seattle Supersonics on my transistor radio.......Thanks. And for unknowingly pointing me down a path that has been.... and is still so good to me. Thanks.

I owe Joe!