Wright Thompson
speaker
994 appearances
3 recordings
2 series
first heard Jun 2025
last heard 17 Sep
Wright Thompson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.
Appearances
And so I'm just confident my mom is not listening to part of my take. You'd be surprised. Yeah.
And so at one of those, Wick came, was like the guest of a friend. And I was so utterly charmed by the way he talked about the Celtics, because if I owned a sports team that I grew up caring about, this is exactly how I would want to talk about it. He was so pumped to tell me sort of, you know, he bought Bob Cousy a championship ring, just like the one for the current players.
And he was pumped that in 08 when they won, he engraved Red Auerbach's name on the inside of all the rings. And like he, you know, just if I owned a team, that's how I would want to be about it. And so it really pulled like, you know, I spent a lot of time around the Celtics. You know, I grew up a Lakers fan. I don't know about like if this was true where y'all grew up, but
you know, Lakers Celtics in the eighties was very much a code, especially in the rural South for whether you were racist or not. And, you know, like the, the things people use to describe why they liked Larry Bird versus magic Johnson were like super dog whistle. So like, I always grew up kind of hating the Celtics and then found myself just utterly charmed by their culture.
And by the way that they are like so proactive about their making sure that the, the ghost and the legends feel welcome in a way that like, you know, a lot of other teams don't. And so I don't, I had a great time running around with the Celtics for a season.
I walked into a press conference and the guy next to me was like – he comes in and the guy – it's clear I don't know anything. And the guy looks next to me and goes, watch this shit. And it was like – I was watching. I was like, this is like, oh, my God. This guy is the head coach. Like, oh, my God. I love this guy. He was totally insane. I mean like –
just in a flat monotone, you know, almost like sped up, like outfit in the chipmunk speed talking. And I was like, this is great. I love this guy.
Well, it doesn't always work. I mean, you know, Tiger Woods just would never, ever, ever talk to me. Uh, sort of other than in like group settings. You know, I think like you want to... I think you want to... I mean, I'll tell you, like with Jason Tatum, I wanted to find, you got to find some tiny postage stamp of common ground.
I mean, I think if you go read the stories in The Cost of These Dreams, they all sort of have that starting place of here is something that me, human being on planet Earth, and you, human being on planet Earth, despite the fact that our jobs are very different, Here is something that we share in common on like an existential level.
And, you know, so for Jason, with Jason Tatum, it was this idea of there is a window and it's closing.
And I think everybody has that. And so I just try to find a way to connect with people. It doesn't always work. I mean, there, you know, I've walked out of interviews. I'm like, that guy hated me or thought I was insane. Or you also like, I don't know if you got like you reach a certain age and just don't care.
yeah i don't really care if jason tatum likes me yeah like at all and so that's how that's a helpful energy of you know i'm respectful i'm in awe of your work i don't particularly care about your weird modern celebrity and i have a bunch of questions that either will or won't be interesting
Well, I don't, I like to let people, you don't want to hide. That's chicken shit.
I mean, here's the story. It's a weird move because I don't want anybody to think I'm A, fishing for compliments or B, trying to sort of lead the witness. I mean, one thing that is interesting, why I want them to have the story is most people hear from people who've read it. And it's like that game of telephone, like their description of it.
You know, but I mean, I've had somebody call me furious after a story ran because their wife took the hard copy of ESPN magazine into their regularly scheduled marriage counseling session, threw it down on the desk and said, see, I told you.
Like the receipts, you know, I mean, like, like, uh, so I don't know. It's a weird thing. I'm not trying to be buddies with anybody. I sort of think the thing I owe you after being this invasive is that if you don't ever want to see me again, you don't have to, uh, you know, like maybe the only person I keep in touch with that I've written about is Pat Riley. Oh, interesting. who I just love.
I think Pat is hilarious and insane. But mostly I don't. I sort of you know, slide in and slide out.
I mean, I think the origin story – I mean, you guys have all obviously seen Hoosiers where Dennis Hopper sort of stumbles drunk out onto the court. That really happened to Pat in Schenectady, New York. His father, who was a failed Major League Baseball player – he had four at-bats, I think, and almost hated his son for his success. And Pat –
Pat was shooting free throws and he heard something behind him. And, you know, you can tell. And he turned around and his dad was drunk on the court screaming at the official. And Pat's high school basketball coach, a guy named Walt Prisbelow, who Pat just idolized, got Pat's dad off the court and got him on the bench and let the game continue.
And, you know, I think one of Walt Prisbelow's sons was a Miami Heat scout for a long time. I mean, Pat's one of those guys when his first Kentucky teammate died. I forget who it was. Might have been Frank Rams. I forget who it was. The the heater on the road playing and the family goes into whatever the Catholic church is in Kentucky where the mass is going to be.
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