NOTES
- The ad was reproduced for a magazine profile of Don Imus. See Mort Drucker, “We've Got New York Sports by the…,” 1990, in Dinitia Smith, “Morning Mouth,” New York, June 24, 1991, 29.
- WFAN launched on July 1, 1987, at 1050 AM but moved to 660 AM on Oct. 7, 1988. See Tim Sullivan, Imus, Mike and the Mad Dog, & Doris from Rego Park: The Groundbreaking History of WFAN (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2013), 8, 22.
- For Somers's popularity, see Sullivan, Imus, Mike and the Mad Dog, & Doris from Rego Park, 81–98. For Somers's daytime forays between Imus in the Morning and Mike and the Mad Dog, see Sullivan, Imus, Mike and the Mad Dog, & Doris from Rego Park, 84.
- WFAN inherited the Rangers from its predecessor on 660 AM, WNBC, and continued to air Rangers games through the 2003–04 season. After a lockout canceled the 2004–05 season, the Rangers headed to ESPN Radio and WFAN picked up the New Jersey Devils. For more on the Rangers parting ways with WFAN, see “ESPN Radio to Carry Garden Teams' Games,” New York Times, Feb. 5, 2004.
- For a discussion of Americans' obsession with sports, see Robert F. Potter and Justin Robert Keene, “The Effect of Sport Fan Identification on the Cognitive Processing of Sports News,” International Journal of Sport Communication 5 (2012): 348.
- Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet, The People's Choice, 3rd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), xxv–xxvi, 151.
- Elihu Katz, “The Two-Step Flow of Communication: An Up-to-Date Report on an Hypothesis,” Public Opinion Quarterly 21, no. 1 (1957): 61, 63.
- Janice Peck, “The Oprah Effect: Texts, Readers, and the Dialectic of Signification,” The Communication Review 5, no. 2 (2002): 144. For Winfrey's ratings in the early 1990s, see Brian Stelter, “A Faded Dominance after ‘Oprah,’” New York Times, June 11, 2012.
- Julie Bosman, “Serious Book to Peddle? Don't Laugh, Try a Comedy Show,” New York Times, Feb. 25, 2007.
- James H. Fowler, “The Colbert Bump in Campaign Donations: More Truthful than Truthy,” PS: Political Science and Politics 41, no. 3 (2008): 533–39.
- For the size of Limbaugh's audience, see David C. Barker, “Rushed Decisions: Political Talk Radio and Vote Choice, 1994–1996,” The Journal of Politics 61, no. 2 (1999): 528. For Limbaugh's comments on Zoe Baird, see Susan J. Douglas, Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination, from Amos ‘n’ Andy and Edward R. Murrow to Wolfman Jack and Howard Stern (New York: Random House, 1999), 300. For Limbaugh's comments on Bob Dole, see David Barker and Kathleen Knight, “Political Talk Radio and Public Opinion,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 64, no. 2 (2000): 167.
- John K. Wilson, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2011), 266.
- Ibid.
- Barker and Knight, “Political Talk Radio and Public Opinion,” 151.
- Rick Reilly, “Look Out for the Bull! The Prattle Emanating from Sports Talk Shows is Polluting the Air Waves,” Sports Illustrated, March 14, 1994, 28.
- Douglas Pils, “WIP, Philadelphia: ‘The Station with a Big Mouth and an Even Bigger Heart,’” in Sports-Talk Radio in America: Its Context and Culture, ed. John Mark Dempsey (New York: The Haworth Press, 2006), 111, 120–21. Both Daulton and Kruk made the All-Star Game roster as reserves.
- Max Utsler, “WHB, Kansas City: ‘World's Happiest Broadcasters,’” in Dempsey, ed., Sports-Talk Radio in America, 170–71.
- Matthew Flamm, “Sports Talk Radio Goes Head-to-Head,” Crain's New York Business, June 25, 2012.
- Philip A. Lieberman, Radio's Morning Show Personalities: Early Hour Broadcasters and Deejays from the 1920s to the 1990s (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 1996), 1.
- Paul Brownfield, “Joe McDonnell and Doug Krikorian Speak to a Certain Kind of Fan: The Die-Hard Obsessed with LA Teams,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 1, 2004.
- Pamela Haag, “‘The 50,000-Watt Sports Bar’: Talk Radio and the Ethic of the Fan,” The South Atlantic Quarterly 95, no. 2 (1996): 466.
- Reilly, “Look Out for the Bull!”
- Dempsey, ed., Sports-Talk Radio in America, 3.
- This brochure was mailed with a letter. See Roy L.M. Boe to Long Island executive, March 1972, box 4, folder 17, Long Island History of Sports Collections, Long Island Studies Institute, Special Collections Department, Hofstra University Libraries, Hempstead, N.Y.
- Nicholas Hirshon, Images of America: Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2010), 76–83.
- For the “Fort Neverlose” moniker, see ibid., 83. For the Islanders' victories in nineteen straight playoff series, see Jeff Z. Klein, “Islanders' Greatness Lives on in Forgetfulness,” New York Times, May 24, 2010.
- Peter Botte and Alan Hahn, Fish Sticks: The Fall and Rise of the New York Islanders (USA: Sports Publishing L.L.C., 2002), 80.
- For the Coliseum's lacrosse team, see Hirshon, Images of America: Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, 115. For the headliner concerts, see Marie Ratliff, “Boxscore: Concerts,” Amusement Business, Nov. 25, 1991, 13, and Marie Ratliff, “Top 100 Boxscores: Concert Industry Faces the Music in ‘91 — Can It Recover in ‘92?,” Amusement Business, Dec. 23, 1991, 18–22.
- Joe Lapointe, “Islanders Have Holes in Locker, and Effort,” New York Times, Nov. 29, 1993.
- Joe Lapointe, “Coliseum: It's Aging but Cozy,” New York Times, Oct. 4, 1998.
- Hilary Hartung, telephone interview by Nicholas Hirshon, Dec. 9, 2013. Hartung worked in various roles at the Coliseum, including group sales and marketing, for about fifteen years starting in 1983.
- Pat Calabria, telephone interview by Nicholas Hirshon, Dec. 10, 2013. Calabria and Lance Elder, the Coliseum's former general manager, both said in interviews that the arena was at a disadvantage from years of shoehorning more seats into the bowl, leading to less leg room, more foot traffic in the concourse, and longer lines at the bathrooms and concessions. Calabria, who was an Islanders beat reporter for Newsday before helming public relations for the team, also insisted that sports media in the New York market never cared much about the Islanders: “The influence of WFAN at the time was really quite profound. And because FAN is a city-centric station, they always are going to give more attention to the Knicks and the Rangers and the Yankees and the Mets and the Giants and the Jets than they are to the [New Jersey] Devils and the [then-New Jersey] Nets and the Islanders, particularly when those suburban franchises, or not-within-the-city-limits franchises, are struggling. The New York media has always treated the Islanders like stepchildren, even when the Islanders were successful.”
- Lieberman, Radio's Morning Show Personalities, 70.
- For Imus's roots, see ibid. For Imus's on-air persona, see Richard Woodley, “I'm Imus, I'm the Best,” Life, Nov. 3, 1972, 63–64, 66–67, 72.
- Jim Reed, Everything Imus: All You Ever Wanted to Know About Don Imus (Secaucus, N.J.: Carol Publishing Group, 1999), 21.
- Ibid., 64.
- For Imus's New York debut, see Reed, Everything Imus, 21. For the awarding of an NHL franchise to Long Island, see Gerald Eskenazi, “Hockey Expands to Long Island, Atlanta,” New York Times, Nov. 10, 1971.
- Woodley, “I'm Imus, I'm the Best.” For more on the Islanders' inaugural season, see “1972–73 New York Islanders Schedule and Results,” Sports Reference LLC, http://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/NYI/1973_games.html.
- For Imus's return to the airwaves, see Reed, Everything Imus, 30, 34. For the Islanders' first championship, see “1979–80 New York Islanders Schedule and Results,” Sports Reference LLC, http://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/NYI/1980_games.html.
- Woodley, “I'm Imus, I'm the Best,” 67.
- Ibid.
- Ibid., 72.
- Philip H. Dougherty, “Advertising: The Story of WNBC's Progress,” New York Times, July 1, 1980.
- Martha Sherrill, “Don Imus Has but One Lung to Give for His Country,” Esquire, Oct. 1994, 99–100.
- Howard Kurtz, “The I-Man and the Media Elite,” Columbia Journalism Review, January-February 1995, 7.
- Douglas, Listening In, 306.
- Woodley, “I'm Imus, I'm the Best,” 66.
- Larry Kenney, telephone interview by Nicholas Hirshon, March 29, 2014. Except for a brief period when Kenney had his own radio show from 1979 to 1982, he consistently did impressions on Imus in the Morning from 1973 to 2008, voicing Wilford Brimley, Henry Kissinger, Rush Limbaugh, Richard Nixon, and Elvis Presley, among others. Speaking about Long Island commuter culture, Kenney said, “Long Islanders tend to be driving commuters and they tend to drive to work more than other people around here, therefore they're listening in their car, listening on their drive to work every morning.”
- Jane Gennaro, telephone interview by Nicholas Hirshon, March 27, 2014. For Gennaro's role on Imus's show, see Reed, Everything Imus, 71.
- Lance Elder, interview by Nicholas Hirshon, Dec. 27, 2013.
- For confirmation that Nassau Coliseum offered closed-circuit coverage of the Duran-Leonard match, see “The Big Money Behind Friday's Big Fight,” New York Times, June 16, 1980.
- Carl Hirsh, telephone interview by Nicholas Hirshon, Feb. 28, 2014.
- Lyndon Abell, telephone interview by Nicholas Hirshon, March 27, 2014. Abell said that he worked for WNBC from 1979 until March 1984, including two years as the Imus in the Morning producer from about 1979 to 1981. He said he did not recall the Coliseum event specifically but spoke more generally about Imus's popularity on Long Island. “Celebrities have that appeal,” he said. “Today the radio audience is splintered. It's much more fractious. Back then there were fewer stations and you didn't have Clear Channel owning nine radio stations in the same market so that they would specifically splinter them. You had people battling for top dog so you could have a radio station that had far more listeners. There were fewer choices for listening to music or entertainment: iPod didn't exist, CDs didn't exist. FM radio wasn't in every car, believe it or not. Tape decks weren't in every car, believe it or not. So you got to your car and you turned on the radio and you might have a handful of choices. Every radio didn't even have presets, believe it or not. It was a very different time.” Asked about Imus's appeal, Kenney said, “He was huge back then. He was indeed the kind of celebrity, if you will, that people were attracted to come out and see and hear what he said about certain things.”
- Hirsh telephone interview.
- Hirshon, Images of America: Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, 76–84.
- Reed, Everything Imus, 10.
- Ibid., 68. Many sources confirm that Imus was a frontrunner. For instance, he wore a New York Yankees cap in the summer of 1996, when the Yankees were headed to their first World Series title in fifteen years. This photograph can be seen in Andrea Renault, “Tennis, Anyone?,” in Everything Imus, on the fifth page of photographs following page 84. For the Yankees winning their first World Series in fifteen years, see “Championship Clubs,” New York Yankees, http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/nyy/history/championships.jsp.
- Both Elder and Hirsh recalled this in interviews with the author.
- It is not surprising that Imus turned on the Islanders so quickly. Kenney, who described Imus as mercurial, relayed an anecdote that suggests Imus never had much knowledge of hockey, even if he sporadically purported to be an Islanders fan: “Somebody took him to a hockey game when he first came to New York and he knew nothing about it. I think it was [New York Daily News columnist] Mike Lupica who tells this story. The third period ended and Imus just kept staying in his seat because he was waiting for the fourth period. They had to tell him, ‘The game's over. We leave now.’ No, he didn't care for hockey. There were not a whole lot of things he liked. As you can tell by the air, he's a curmudgeon. He doesn't like very much in life unfortunately.”
- Calabria telephone interview.
- Hirsh telephone interview.
- Kenney recalled how many targets of Imus's ire actually enjoyed the attention: “People just thought it was the greatest thing in the world. To be put down by Imus was considered an honor. ‘Did you hear what he said about me?’ People would call in and say, ‘Can I get a copy of the tape where he called me a fat bastard?’ It's a badge of honor.”
- Hirsh, telephone interview. Imus's nuke sound effect can be heard in “WNBC 66 New York — Don Imus — August 21 1981,” YouTube video, 11: 33, from the Imus in the Morning show broadcast by WNBC 660 AM on Aug. 21, 1981, posted by “Ellis Feaster,” Nov. 13, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyS4HWYvIF8. Imus begins the bit at 0: 40.
- Jay Sorensen commented on the atom bomb sound effect in an email to the author on March 28, 2014. Sorensen, who worked with Imus infrequently from 1986 until WNBC's final day in 1987, attested to the popularity of nuking an on-air guest: “It IS funny (still is) and was copied by many jocks across the country. Perhaps even HE got it from someone else.” Sorensen had also praised Imus in an earlier email on March 26, 2014: “His timing is impeccable. He knows what to ask in interviews. He doesn't throw softballs like most hosts seem to do these days. I always liked his ability to catch people either off-guard, or to ask something that nobody else would think or dare to ask. He knows when there is a punch line and when to move on to another element. Ya see, when you come from a Top 40 style background, you know when it's time to hit the jingle or commercial break or song. It's instinctive. Almost unexplainable to the layman.”
- Abell interview. Abell's comments about the atom bomb sound effect evoke a political-economic relationship in which Imus rebelled against structure, in this case an arena owned by Nassau County and run by a corporate entity. “In the morning program when I worked with him, you got a program where you are broadcasting to people who are going to work and a lot of them would love to say ‘fuck you’ to their boss,” Abell said. “And it was kind of cool when he said ‘fuck you’ to his boss, because they could live vicariously through that. That doesn't mean he wanted the boss to go to hell. You know what I mean? But he could be the rebel for them in certain instances.”
- Abell also said he did not think most listeners would have taken Imus's ribbing of Hirsh very seriously. “It's a comedy show. They knew it's comedy. You make fun of some kid in school. You work with somebody and you make fun of certain things. It doesn't mean you don't like them. It doesn't mean you think that about them…. It depends on who you're talking about and how they're doing it and then to another extent the listener. I suppose some people are pretty literal and just say, ‘Wow. He thinks that guy's fat.’ But it's a comedy show and if he's saying, ‘Oh my God, you fat tub of lard. How dare you come in here? Your Coliseum stinks.’ It's so outrageous that you kind of go, ‘He's obviously giving the guy the business,’ right?”
- Elder interview.
- Douglas, Listening In, 307; and Reed, Everything Imus, 99.
- Reed, 99–100.
- Richard Sandomir, “It's a Hideous Life, and You Get to Hear All about It,” New York Times, Sept. 29, 1993.
- Reed, Everything Imus, 88–89.
- “Time's 25 Most Influential Americans,” Time, April 21, 1997, 40–61.
- Hartung telephone interview.
- Eventually Imus paid the price for running his mouth. His WFAN show was canceled in 2007 after he described the Rutgers University women's basketball team as “nappy-headed hos.” A Time story on the controversy bore the provocative headline “Who Can Say What?” above a subhead that asked, “Where's the Line and Who Can Cross It?” See James Poniewozik, “Who Can Say What?,” Time, April 12, 2007, 32–38.
- The executive producer, Thomas Bowman, wrote this in an email to the author on Jan. 6, 2014.
- Sullivan, Imus, Mike and the Mad Dog, & Doris from Rego Park, 46.
- For Mike and the Mad Dog's high ratings, see Austin Murphy, “Calls of the Wild: Their Bite Is as Good as Their Bark,” Sports Illustrated, Sept. 16, 1996, 72–81. For the show reaching male listeners in the treasured twenty-five-to-fifty-four demographic, see Richard Sandomir, “It's Rants, Raves and Ratings: After 10 Years, WFAN Radio Is Luring Listeners, Advertisers and Imitators,” New York Times, July 2, 1997.
- “2012 TALKERS Heavy Hundred of Sports Talk,” Talkers, http://www.talkers.com/2012-talkers-heavy-hundred-of-sports-talk/.
- Sullivan, Imus, Mike and the Mad Dog, & Doris from Rego Park, 134–35.
- Rich Ackerman, telephone interview by Nicholas Hirshon, Dec. 31, 2013.
- Joe Brescia, “If the Hall Calls, Piazza Wants to Enter as a Met,” New York Times, May 8, 2010.
- For Francesa's lack of interest in hockey, see Alan Hahn, “Touch Still Golden: Peca's Shorthanded Goal with 1.4 Seconds Left Gets Isles a Tie,” Newsday, Feb. 27, 2002. Francesa's rare appearance at Nassau Coliseum was referenced in a graphic titled, “Inside Game 58.” Sullivan also spoke to Francesa's disinterest in hockey.
- This definition of “white elephant” comes from the online version of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed., http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/white%20elephant.
- Hilary Hartung, telephone interview by Nicholas Hirshon, Dec. 5, 2013.
- Elder interview.
- Hartung telephone interview.
- Elder interview.
- Tarik El-Bashir, “Islanders Reduce Payroll, Optimism,” New York Times, Oct. 1, 1999.
- “Regular Season Attendance for NHL's Wales Conference,” Amusement Business, April 29, 1991.
- For instance, average attendance at the Coliseum was 13,117 in the 1989–1990 season, when the Islanders finished seven games below. 500 with only thirty-one wins and seventy-three points. Meanwhile, the Islanders averaged a mere 12,036 fans in 1992–1993, the team's best season of the decade, which brought forty wins, eighty-seven points, and the franchise's deepest playoff run since 1984. See “Regular Season Attendance for NHL's Wales Conference,” “New York Islanders Franchise Index,” http://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/NYI/, and “New York Islanders Yearly Attendance Graph,” http://www.hockeydb.com/nhl-attendance/att_graph.php?tmi=7085.
- “New York Islanders Franchise Index.”
- “New York Islanders Yearly Attendance Graph.”
- El-Bashir, “Islanders Reduce Payroll, Optimism.”
- Chris Botta, telephone interview by Nicholas Hirshon, Feb. 21, 2014. Botta said he worked for the Islanders in various roles from December 1988 to May 2008, including as public relations director starting in 1996 and vice president of public relations starting in 1999.
- Botta is referring to Francesa's penchant for Diet Coke, which became well known once the YES Network began simulcasting his radio show in the early 2000s. Francesa's successor on the YES Network, Michael Kay, took a dig at Francesa by trashing a bottle of Diet Coke when he took over the time slot in 2014. See Bob Raissman, “Michael Kay's Opening Salvo on YES Matters Only if He Can Crack Mike Francesa's Ratings,” New York Daily News, Feb. 8, 2014, http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/raissman-kay-diss-yes-matters-crack-pope-ratings-article-1.1607051.
- Hahn, “Touch Still Golden.”
- Chernoff wrote this in an email to the author on Jan. 23, 2014.
- Sullivan devotes a chapter to Somers's WFAN tenure in Imus, Mike and the Mad Dog, & Doris from Rego Park, 81–98. Mets broadcaster Howie Rose once described Somers as the most beloved figure in WFAN history. See Jerry Barmash, “Schmoozing S-P-O-R-T-S for 25 Years, Steve Somers and WFAN Celebrate Milestone,” FishbowlNY, June 27, 2012, http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/schmoozing-s-p-o-r-t-s-for-25-years-steve-somers-and-wfan-celebrate-milestone_b61339.
- Charles McGrath, “Time to Schmooze,” New York Times, Nov. 30, 2012.
- For Somers's nicknames, see Sullivan, Imus, Mike and the Mad Dog, & Doris from Rego Park, 86. For Somers's midday stint, see Sullivan, Imus, Mike and the Mad Dog, & Doris from Rego Park, 94.
- Budd Mishkin, “One on 1: Steve Somers More than a Schmoozer,” NY1, http://www.ny1.com/content/shows/one_on_1_archives_qz/122695/one-on-1--steve-somers-more-than-a-schmoozer?ap=1.
- Steve Somers, telephone interview by Nicholas Hirshon, Dec. 11, 2013.
- McGrath, “Time to Schmooze.”
- “2012 TALKERS Heavy Hundred of Sports Talk.”
- Russ Salzberg, who briefly cohosted a midday show with Somers, recounts this story in Joel Hollander, ed., WFAN Tenth Anniversary Commemorative Magazine (New York: WFAN, 1997), 10.
- For background on Al Cowlings's involvement in the O.J. Simpson case, see Seth Mydans, “Los Angeles Prosecutors Delay a Decision on Simpson's Friend,” New York Times, July 15, 1994.
- Somers telephone interview.
- Ibid. For confirmation of Somers's use of “Icelanders” and “Nassau Mausoleum,” see Sullivan, Imus, Mike and the Mad Dog, & Doris from Rego Park, 86.
- Somers telephone interview.
- In a telephone interview with the author on Jan. 3, 2014, journalist Tim Sullivan, who wrote a book on WFAN's history that is cited many times in this article, spoke to the role of Somers's program before the dawn of the Internet: “Steve's show became something of a message board before the Internet where fans could come literally out of the Garden or out of the Coliseum and right onto their phones to talk about the game. And it was sort of a bar without the stools, and Steve sort of ran with that.”
- Calabria telephone interview.
- Attesting to the notion that winning cures all, Calabria said that criticism of the Coliseum stopped during the 1993 postseason run: “I challenge anybody to say that it was the Nassau Mausoleum during the 1993 playoffs when we beat Pittsburgh in Game Six, and then went to Pittsburgh and won the series. Or that it was the Nassau Mausoleum when we were in the semifinals against Montreal. Nobody was focusing on the building's woes then. Nobody called it the Nassau Mausoleum then. No one was writing about the narrow corridors then.”
- Greg Logan, “Lady Luck Smiles on Rangers: Get Key Calls in Tie with Isles,” Newsday, Feb. 2, 1993. The earliest reference to “Nassau Mausoleum” in Newsday, and perhaps in any New York newspaper, appears to have come in a Jan. 28, 1941, article on the debate over a new courthouse in Mineola, Long Island. The article, titled “Courthouse Termed Nassau ‘Mausoleum,’” described a taxpayer who “enlivened” a Board of Supervisors' meeting in the old courthouse by “calling the new courthouse a ‘mausoleum’ and then entreated to the board and county executive to try in every way to curtail spending on the reconstruction and alteration work planned for the old building.” The article ran on page 8 without a byline.
- Sullivan figured that some listeners adopted Somers's colorful lingo about the Coliseum to prove their fandom: “It's also sort of a badge of courage. When you pull out that, when you pull out ‘Icelanders,’ when you pull out some of those other lingo items, it shows the person you're talking to how much you've listened to the FAN, how much you enjoy it, how much it's a part of your life.”
- Eddie Scozzare, telephone interview by Nicholas Hirshon, March 5, 2014. Scozzare said he began working part time at WFAN around Labor Day 1989 and became full time in November 1991, when he started as Somers's overnight producer. In 1993 he was promoted to midday board operator, and a year later he became the midday producer, eventually reuniting with Somers on The Sweater and the Schmoozer show. Somers cohosted the show with Russ Salzberg, whose penchant for wearing sweaters on the air played into the title of the program. Scozzare moved to Mike and the Mad Dog as board operator in 2004 and shifted to the morning show featuring Craig Carton and former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason in 2007.
- For the Coliseum's throwback feel, see Botte and Hahn, Fish Sticks, 89. This appears on page 85 in some copies.
- Somers is seen making this statement about twenty minutes into Oh Baby! MSG Network Presents the Stanley Cup Season of the 1993–1994 New York Rangers, produced by Joe Whelan, ABC Video, 1994, Videocassette (VHS), 60 min.
- Sullivan, Imus, Mike and the Mad Dog, & Doris from Rego Park, 94.
- Steve Zipay, “Islanders Interested in Roenick,” Newsday, July 27, 1996.
- Chris Botta, telephone interview by Nicholas Hirshon, Feb. 21, 2014. Botta also described this incident on his blog, Chris Botta, “On WFAN's Suzanne Somers: We Mean, of Course, Steve Somers,” IslandersPointBlank (blog), Oct. 26, 2008, http://islanderspointblank.com/news/on-wfans-suzanne-somerswe-mean-of-course-steve-somers/.
- Scozzare said that Somers's anti-Islanders bits would often include the sounds of ducks and sheep as well as clips from the films When Harry Met Sally (1989) and City Slickers (1991). Somers would also play portions of the song “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top” from the 1943 Broadway musical Oklahoma! The song includes the lyrics, “Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry/When I take you out in the surrey.”
- Scozzare telephone interview.
- Botta telephone interview. Botta described his call to WFAN in detail: “I'm like, ‘Dude, can Steve stop it?’ ‘Oh, it's funny.’ I'm like, ‘That's debatable, whether it's funny or not, but the bottom line is that people are calling our offices. They know Steve's joking about the sound effects, but they really think that we're making some sort of major announcement.’ We didn't have a major announcement, and he kept it going for a few minutes and then the bit just wore out after a little while.” Interestingly, in the same interview, Botta said he does not think Somers has a large listenership: “I don't know how much of an impact he made on the image of the Coliseum. FAN is 50,000 watts. They have a big reach. Steve's audience is never that big, please include that. He's still a local radio guy and the people who listen to Steve have been to the Coliseum or kind of know about it. So it's not like Steve has this nationwide reach or North American reach to damn the perception of the Nassau Coliseum.”
- Botta, “On WFAN's Suzanne Somers: We Mean, of Course, Steve Somers.”
- Zipay, “Islanders Interested in Roenick.”
- Somers telephone interview.
- Rich Ackerman, telephone interview by Nicholas Hirshon, Dec. 31, 2013. Ackerman joined WFAN in 1997.
- Mark Herrmann, “Roenick Dealt, but Not to Isles,” Newsday, Aug. 17, 1996. Botta and Somers also recounted this story in telephone interviews, and Botta mentioned the incident on his blog, “On WFAN's Suzanne Somers: We Mean, of Course, Steve Somers.”
- Jim Naughton, “Bruins Win, Then Battle with Fans at Garden,” New York Times, Dec. 24, 1979.
- Botta telephone interview. Contrary to Somers's recollection, Botta contended that Milbury would not have thrown at Somers's head: “He certainly would not have, never in a million years, have done anything to put him in danger. No…. It wasn't anything dangerous.”
- Somers telephone interview.
- Botta telephone interview.
- Botta said he once failed to prep Dave Scatchard, who played for the Islanders from 1999 to 2004, for an interview with Somers: “I had my friend Dave Scatchard on once. I might have made the mistake of just thinking that Scatch knew Somers's shtick, because he listened to the radio, he'd stay on top of things. That was a mistake by me. So he goes on and he does the thing. As soon as he's done with Steve, he calls me up and he goes, ‘Botta, so what the hell was that? Why was he saying Icelanders?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, sorry Dave, I forgot to warn you. That's what he does.’”
- Botta described his strategy on withholding interviews with Islanders players when Somers's producers called: “Occasionally when they would ask for a guest, if I had heard him recently or people that I trusted gave me reports that maybe he was over the top too much, I would let them know that I was not happy with him. When they would call to ask for a guest, there were probably a couple of times where I said, ‘No, not this week. You got a lot of nerve. You got stupid the other day with us.’ But when all was said and done, he's a decent guy.”
- Somers telephone interview.
- Ted Curtis, “The Iceman Cometh: State Judge Requires New York Islanders to Play at the Nassau Coliseum,” Sports, Parks & Recreation Law Reporter 12, no. 3 (1998): 41–43.
- Warren Strugatch, “A Potential Barrier to Coliseum Plans,” New York Times, Nov. 7, 2004.
- Ibid.
- Curtis, “The Iceman Cometh,” 42.
- Calabria telephone interview.
- Curtis, “The Iceman Cometh,” 43.
- Elder interview.
- Ibid.
- In the early 1990s, Nassau Coliseum appeared on a regular basis in the weekly lists of top-grossing concerts in Amusement Business. See, for instance, Marie Ratliff, “Boxscore: Concerts,” Amusement Business, Nov. 25, 1991, 13; and Marie Ratliff, “Top 100 Boxscores: Concert Industry Faces the Music in ‘91—Can It Recover in ‘92?,” Amusement Business, Dec. 23, 1991, 18–22. A decade later, however, Nassau Coliseum had all but disappeared from these lists. For example, in the first seven weeks of 2001, the Coliseum did not appear once among the top-grossing concerts. See Bob Allen, “Boxscore: Concerts,” Amusement Business, Jan. 8, 2001, 15; Bob Allen, “Boxscore: Concerts,” Amusement Business, Jan. 15, 2001, 7; Bob Allen, “Boxscore: Concerts,” Amusement Business, Jan. 22, 2001, 11; Bob Allen, “Boxscore: Concerts,” Amusement Business, Jan. 29, 2001, 11; Bob Allen, “Boxscore: Concerts,” Amusement Business, Feb. 5, 2001, 11; Bob Allen, “Boxscore: Concerts,” Amusement Business, Feb. 12, 2001, 7; and Bob Allen, “Boxscore: Concerts,” Amusement Business, Feb. 19, 2001, 7.
- Botte and Hahn, Fish Sticks, 93.
- See Lapointe, “Coliseum: It's Aging but Cozy,” and Robin Finn, “Bargain Basement is a No-Win Deal: Butch Goring Learns to Lose with Isles,” New York Times, Nov. 1, 1999.
- Darren Rovell, Twitter post, “Nothing like a Steve Somers monologue. Enjoyed his tribute to the ‘Icelanders’ and ‘Nassau Mausoleum.’” Rovell's original tweet could not be found, but it was included in a tweet by Andrew Fried, Oct. 24, 2012, 8:31 p.m., https://twitter.com/Andrew_Fried/status/261263673698430976.
- Tony Bruno, Twitter post, Oct. 3, 2013, 8:47 a.m., “@MichelleDBeadle too bad you missed the parades in the Nassau Mausoleum parking lot in the 80's,” https://twitter.com/TonyBrunoShow/status/385747883246354432.
- Andrew Fillipponi, Twitter post, May 5, 2013, 10:28 a.m., “Press box view from the Nassau mausoleum pic.twitter.com/lmT5Y1Ifkm,” https://twitter.com/ThePoniExpress/status/331052692900286464.
- Cliff Saunders, Twitter post, May 5, 2013, 2:19 p.m., “Gotta give Islanders fans credit. The Nassau Coliseum doesn't sound like the Nassau Mausoleum I remember,” https://twitter.com/cliffsaunders/status/331111001481179136.
- Darren Meenan, “New Sec. 406 shirt: Nassau Mausoleum,” Oct. 27, 2011, http://www.the7line.com/new-sec-406-shirt-nassau-mausoleum/.
- Denis Gorman, telephone interview by Nicholas Hirshon, Jan. 3, 2014. Gorman figured that Somers ribbed the Coliseum so often because he knew it would fill empty air time during his late-night shifts: “He's trying to get people listening and talking for three, four, five hours, whatever he has, and what's an easier way to get people talking than goofing on Nassau Coliseum? You'll get the Ranger fans calling in and cracking their jokes about the Coliseum. And then Islander fans will call in to defend their team and defend the building, and pretty soon you have a couple hours of air time filled.”
- Sullivan telephone interview.
- David W. Chen and Joseph Berger, “Brooklyn Lures a Second Team to Barclays Center,” New York Times, Oct. 24, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/nyregion/islanders-to-move-to-brooklyn-from-long-island.html?_r=0.
- Gorman suggested the Islanders reinforce the “mausoleum” image: “You hear words such as dump and outdated and past its prime [among reporters]. I know the Islanders and the Barclays Center people, when they gave the NHL media and the Islander media tour of the Barclays Center prior to the Islanders' first day of training camp this year [in 2013] at Barclays, there were a lot of jokes about, ‘Well, this place is just a little bit nicer than the Coliseum.’”
- Andy Greene, “Billy Joel Announces Historic Madison Square Garden Residency,” Rolling Stone, Dec. 3, 2013, http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/billy-joel-announces-historic-madison-square-garden-residency-20131203. Before the announcement, Joel had been so linked with Nassau Coliseum that a banner was raised to the rafters on May 4, 1998, commemorating his nine sold-out shows there as part of a world tour. The banner was still hanging there at the time Joel announced his residency agreement with Madison Square Garden. See “Billy Joel Immortalized at Nassau Coliseum; Superstar Honored with Spectacular Banner,” May 6, 1998, https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.music.billy-joel/Pme5VZL650Y.
- Christopher Botta, “Ratner Makes Isles Dates Part of Arena Pitch,” Sports Business Journal, May 13, 2013, http://m.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2013/05/13/Facilities/Nassau-Coliseum.aspx.
- Katz, “Two-Step Flow,” 77.
- Ibid.
- Arbitron data shows the number of sports radio stations grew every year from 2002 to 2010, from 413 in 2002 to 634 in 2010. Sports-themed programming can also be heard online through websites such as Blog Talk Radio, which allows individuals to create their own radio shows or podcasts. More data on sports radio can be found in “Number of Dedicated Sports Radio Stations Grew Each Year from ‘02-10,” Sports Business Daily, Feb. 14, 2012, http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2012/02/14/Research-and-Ratings/Sports-radio.aspx.
- Paul M. Herr, Frank R. Kardes, and John Kim, “Effects of Word-of-Mouth and Product-Attribute Information of Persuasion: An Accessibility-Diagnosticity Perspective,” Journal of Consumer Research 17, no. 4 (1991): 454.
- On page 454 of their study, Herr, Kardes, and Kim reference previous research on the vividness effect by Richard Nisbett and Lee Ross, Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1980); Shelley E. Taylor and Suzanne C. Thompson, “Stalking the Elusive ‘Vividness’ Effect,” Psychological Review 89 (1982): 155–81; and Jolita Kisielius and Brian Sternthal, “Examining the Vividness Controversy: An Availability-Valence Interpretation,” Journal of Consumer Research 12 (1986): 418–31. More recent studies should be consulted before embarking on scholarship that attempts to link this effect to sports radio messages.
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