Zach McCrite

Afternoon Sports Talk Radio host at 107.7 The Franchise in Oklahoma City, OK.

I've been fooling people for years and they keep giving me a job. In all seriousness, I knew I wanted to work in sports radio in some capacity for a long time.

My job is fun. My standard line is "This beats work." But make no mistake, I work my ass off to prepare for an honest, informative and, just as important, entertaining show.

So how did I get to where I'm at? I'll try to give you my life story in three minutes.

I'll never forget the moment that I decided I wanted to work in sports. My parents had bought me a Super Nintendo. Can you believe that? A Super Nintendo! My family was not rich at all, but they made me think they were rich when they bought me that state-of-the-art machine at 14. I got one video game: NBA Live '95. I played as my favorite team, the Indiana Pacers, and I found a glitch; a sweet spot on the court for Reggie Miller. He'd hit a 3 every time from that spot. Reggie scored 100 a game.

And I had the TV on mute, doing the play-by-play, trying, at that awkward age, to perfect my Bob Costas call. And my "Costas" could not believe what he was seeing every time Reggie went off for 35-of-37 from 3-point range. I wanted to be Costas.

I wanted to be a sports play-by-play announcer.

Before I turned 15, I had nailed an internship at the 40-yr mothership station of Indiana HS play-by-play. A year later, they started paying me. I was in.

In 2005, I moved to the ESPN affiliate in Louisville to try to work my way up the ladder there. As a board operator my very first week, the remote broadcast I was controlling was suffering some severe technical difficulties. Dead air. On a college football Saturday. So I played the next set of spots to fill the void, hoping that someone from that broadcast would talk back to me.

Radio silence.

With 10 seconds left in that fateful commercial break, I made an executive decision (just six days into my new job) that would change my life forever.

I opened up my mic.

Two weeks later I had a show and, over the next six years, parlayed that into hosting a show everyday at the top-rated ESPN Radio affiliate in the US.

The ride continues.