The 2025 NBA Finals tip-off tonight with the Indiana Pacers versus the Oklahoma City Thunder, so we look back at when Mike Breen, the voice of the NBA Finals, hit South Beach Sessions with a BANG. Originally recorded on June 6, 2023, and now, broadcasting his 20th NBA Finals, he will be more than comfortable calling the games, but sitting down with Dan to talk openly about HIMSELF? That's history in itself too. Mike shares with Dan how he still feels like the shy kid who is simply a fan of the game, and the love he has for his broadcast brothers, Jeff Van Gundy & Mark Jackson, even when they won't say it back. Mike also talks about how from the devastating ashes of his family's home, deep gratitude rose. Watch the 2025 NBA Finals as the Indiana Pacers battle the Oklahoma City Thunder LIVE on ABC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Who is Mike Breen and why is he a legend?
I'm asking the questions, Mike. You're not volunteering this. I'm doing it with a crowbar. Like I'm sticking a crowbar in the side of your mouth and extracting it from you. Your reluctance is duly noted.
Continue. Okay, don't yell at me. So it became difficult because I felt bad. I'm asking my brother. Und jedes Mal habe ich eine Mutter und einen Vater, um Geld für den Renten zu zahlen. Und wiederum, die Begründung der Poughkeepsie-Town-Board-Meetings ist nicht das, was ich im Kopf hatte. Ich war in einigen Sporten tätig, aber es hat einfach nicht funktioniert.
Und dann kam der Villanova-Basketball-Play-by-Play-Job. Und ich habe mich dafür eingeladen. Und ich wurde erzählt, dass ich einer der letzten zwei Kandidaten war. Und ich denke, das ist es. Und ich bekomme den Brief, dass, danke, aber nein, Bill Schweitzer, der ein toller Broadcaster war, den ich bei WCBS interniert habe, als ich bei Fordham war, er hat ihn bekommen. Und das war wie die...
This was the one I thought I was going to get. Because half the time you send out tapes and resumes, you don't even get a response. So it's very discouraging. So at that point it was just really, really difficult. Thinking that I'm going to spend the next 20, 30 years in Poughkeepsie doing a radio station that... doing news that I didn't want to do.
So it was, I wasn't depressed by any mean, but it was discouraging and I'm thinking, I can't keep asking for money. I've got to get a job that's going to pay the bills on my own.
Is the not wanting to talk about yourself a combination of shyness and the job or is it one or the other where you're sitting down for something that is meant to be a Revealing of who you are, how you are and what shaped you, whatever the discomforts of that are. Is it something else or you just don't like people knowing too much about you? You want to be careful about what people know about you?
That might be part of it. I actually think, and this is why I was, you know...
half serious when I told you about just run Ernie's interview again because like I find Ernie fascinating and interesting and even though I've been in this business for a long time and I've been so blessed to have accomplishments I'm just like who'd be interested I was asked to write a book Bob Wolf's son Rick Wolf who just recently passed away a wonderful man who was a book editor he tried to get me to write a book for years
Und meine gleiche Antwort zu ihm war, niemand ist interessiert in einem Buch, das ich schreiben würde. Und das ist so, wie ich mich fühle.
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