The first few times of having the late Senator John McCain on my show happened after Phoenix Suns games during the Charles, Majerle, KJ timeline in 1993-1995 when I was at KTAR Radio. He knew his sports. He wasn’t just another politico trying to use sports as a means to gain favor from that sector of the marketplace. He REALLY KNEW what he was talking about on and off the field. I felt that the Senator should’ve been more vocal at times when it came to the local sports owners not paying attention to the on-the-court product. There were times where he would challenge me to “be more positive or supportive”. It was a good healthy give and take for something that wasn’t nearly as important as the State of Arizona, which was always his first priority. But he knew the space that sports took in the fabric of a society. I saw an interview with Grant Woods(great man)during Saturday nights tributes and Grant spoke eloquently about McCain’s love of the games. Jeff Scott, one of the longtime leading voices of Valley news, now at Skyview Networks, sent me an audio file of McCain’s true hatred of the Dodgers that is just priceless. We did dozens of shows through the years. A big loss on many fronts, but the sports scene wouldn’t be where it is today without two men in particular. John McCain and Jerry Colangelo…To show that people will watch just about ANYTHING when it comes to preseason NFL games, I give you the shining example of Cleveland vs Philadelphia on Thursday night. This epic battle on the gridiron, which produced a final score of 5-0, brought in the second highest FOX TV ratings for a preseason game since 2012. Of course it did. 6.52 million viewers HAD to watch. For those on the side of the street of “Football is King” I guess you win this round…
The annual Arizona State kickoff luncheon brought out the Sun Devil faithful. It was everything that the last few seasons didn’t provide. A packed room, a clear vision, no empty rah-rah-rah, nonsense. Here’s the opening comments from Athletic Director Ray Anderson “We are very excited about the leadership of our football program.
We are excited about the new and improved culture that is evolving in our football program, and while the video that just played is exciting,(highlight reel of 2017) the reason we are here quite frankly, that’s not good enough for ASU Football. We are not settling for mediocrity”. Keep speaking the truth Ray!…
ESPN Stats dropped this nugget late Friday.The D-backs remaining opponents have combined for a .520 winning pct., highest among NL West clubs (Rockies at .509 and Dodgers at .485). A 5-4 road trip in mid-August against bad teams and a putrid May surely can’t be the downfall of the 2018 Diamondbacks? Yes, it could…
Corbin and Pollock have basically played themselves out of Arizona, right? Both are going to get huge dough in November. Can’t blame them for taking the money, I just wonder if either will give the franchise the time of day in free agency?…
Friday night I sat in my office and watched our high school football video stream of Pinnacle quarterback 
Spencer Rattler play against Mountain Pointe. We’ve produced a bunch of good work on Rattler through the years including a documentary in the Spring of 2017. I watched him hobble off to the sidelines with what appeared to be an ankle injury and thought, “this might be the end of his high school career, too bad I never saw him do his thing in person or meet him in studio”. Gotta change that.
Watched Jack Miller and Kedon Slovis on Friday night too. Both looked very good at times. Both looked like high school quarterbacks trying to put it all together. Chaparral beat Desert Mountain handily on the scoreboard, but both QB’s will represent our State well at the next level.
I watched our own Jordan Hamm do the play by play of the Chandler vs Queen Creek game on the video stream. I wanted to hear how Jordan sounded in the play by play chair(great!)
I also wanted to see how Wolves QB Jacob Conover played. Queen Creek got after him a few times, but Conover showed me that BYU is getting themselves a heck of a player. The conclusion after watching the three games Friday night, how in the heck did Arizona and Arizona State not get a sniff from ANY of these quarterbacks? None of them wanted to stay at home…
Diana Taurasi has bad intentions on the floor. This isn’t breaking news, but watching her in the elimination game Thursday night only reaffirmed her “bad-ass” mentality in my mind. Should be a fun playoff series against Seattle…
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Brad Cesmat
Media personality Brad Cesmat first rose to fame in Southern California with the launching of "The Mighty 690" all-sports radio station in the late 1980's and early 90's. Brad came to Arizona in 1993 to begin a 10-year run at KTAR Radio followed by nine years at KTVK-TV in Phoenix. Brad is the Founder/ CEO of Sports360AZ.com. His vision of multi platform content marketing through sports began in September of 2011. Cesmat has served on the Advisory Board for the Salvation Army for the last 18 years. He and his wife Chris have four children.