Where Are They Now? Tracy Simers

In an attempt to be less reactive and more reflective, I decided that I would take one of my older posts in the mrontemp blog and revisit the person(s) or situation(s) that I was discussing at the time.

I determined that I would check Google Analytics and find the most popular blog post in the entire history of the mrontemp blog. Whatever it was, I'd write about it.

As I write these words, I still have not checked my Google Analytics tab to see what the number one post was. Time to do so.

OK. The clear winner was a May 2007 post which received a lot of activity in the fall. The post? All you need to know - the Tracy Simers Wikipedia article grows. This particular post, which for some reason ended up near the top of Google searches for Tracy Simers (and is still today the number three post for such a search), chronicled an edit by an anonymous Wikipedia user that noted that Tracy attended the University of Notre Dame.

Perhaps I should catch some of you up on this whole affair.

T.J. Simers is a sports columnist who, after several other jobs around the country, landed at the Los Angeles Times. A few years ago, Simers decided to branch into radio and decided to bring one of his daughters, Tracy Simers, along for the ride on KLAC radio. Tracy had left Notre Dame with an accounting education, and she maintained her accounting career while working weekends with Dad on the radio.

This all changed when Mancow got the boot. As I wrote a little over a year ago:

AM 570, purportedly a sports station, has now actually shifted to a sports format. Phil Hendrie has been replaced by Joe McDonnell, and Greasemancow or whatever (Mancow) has been replaced by a local show with Fred Roggin, T. J. Simers, and Tracy Simers. As far as I know, no Krystal Fernandez on the air out here (except perhaps in Lancaster).

This meant that "Roggin and Simers Squared" were working every weekday, which meant that Tracy Simers had to temporarily leave her accounting career behind as she sat in between the opinionated Roggin and the very opinionated T.J. Simers.

The show was on the air for a while, until Dan Patrick became available and Roggin and Simers Squared were bought out, although it was subsequently revealed that T.J. Simers wanted to quit the show anyway, tiring of the grind.

So, what happened to Tracy Simers? I haven't been able to find anything subsequent to her October 5, 2007 blog post.

laradio.com has the briefest of biographies:

Simers, Tracy: KLAC, 2006-07. Tracy co-hosted a morning show (Roggin & Simers Squared) on all-Sports KLAC until September 27, 2007.

And what of my famous Wikipedia article? Well, as the history notes:

• My last edit was in July, in which I made a minor change regarding the location of KLAC radio


• Some spammer made a couple of attempts to add some "ugly bitch" and "gang bang" references to the page, but they were reversed.


• On October 2, an anonymous contributor noted the end of the Roggin and Simers Squared show, and that Tracy Simers would no longer be affiliated with KLAC.


• On November 28, "CmdrObot" made a spelling correction.

Incidentally, there is still a "general notability guideline" flag on the article, dating from June 2007. Although I performed some subsequent edits to the article, I chose not to remove the flag. Considering that she has dropped out of public view, perhaps that was the best decision.

But Tracy will be happy to know that her name has now infiltrated the world of spam blog postings. Here's a sample:

...For a while, there was a lot of uncertainty of
whether freshman forward Tracy Smith would qualify academically. He
did and now the Detroit native is expected to bring some
inside-outside scoring punch off the bench this year. ...
.. tracy
sherrod literary agent tracy sherrod literary services tracy shreve
tracy silverman tracy silverman violin tracy simers tracy simers photo
tracy simmons tracy site myspace.com tracy slocum tracy slone tracy
smith tracy smith ...

If I may paraphrase Barry Manilow, looks like she made it.

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My Tracy Simers post for 2009

After reading a ReadWriteWeb post on Wikipedia's policies regarding blogs, and thinking back on Wikipedia's removal of my Tracy Simers article (she didn't meet the notoriety guideline or some such), I ended up doing a search for Simers. In the process, I found a Google cache of what might have been her last blog post at the AM 570 radio site. Dated May 18, 2008, it begins as follows:

With Roggin & Simers Squared off the air, I have now returned to a normal life. I'm back to my 10-key working as an accountant and that's okay with me. I check in with Fred every now and then through email and he's always got some new project that he's working on. Thankfully my dad and I are no longer co-workers and have found our way back to having the best father/daughter relationship of anyone I know. I was thrilled to see that Ginger Chan is now doing traffic on tv. Since the show's been off the air, I've taken a bit of a break from my sports watching. Would you believe I haven't seen all four quarters of any Laker game this season? And as for the Dodgers and Angels - are they playing? I did follow USC basketball - love Tim Floyd and Dad and I made our annual trip to Vegas for the first and second rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament. And I can definitely promise that my mini sports vacation will come to an end when football season comes back around.

For those who haven't heard of Tracy Simers - which, by definition, would be most of you - Simers is the daughter of Los Angeles Times sports columnist T.J. Simers. Tracy herself was not in the limelight until she joined her father for a weekend radio show a few years back. Eventually, the two Simers joined Los Angeles television sportscaster Fred Roggin, replacing Mancow, on a morning drive-time show on Los Angeles radio - a show that was eventually replaced by Dan Patrick (amid comments that T.J. Simers was tiring of the show anyway).

From the post, Tracy Simers appears to be happy with the way things turned out, both professionally and personally. This is good.

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Reaction to the Roggin and Simers Squared Cancellation

As I previously noted, KLAC AM 570 has cancelled Roggin and Simers Squared in favor of Dan Patrick. Subsequent to my original posting, there have been other reactions.

Awful Announcing:

Dan Patrick is officially on KLAC-AM in Los Angeles and to make room the roster is getting trimmed. T.J Simers Fred Roggin are the first show hosts to get the ax from a major market and there will certainly be more to come....

So that's one radio show axed. How many more do you think will perish at the hands of DP? I'm officially calling this the Dan Patrick Effect and hope everyone in radio doesn't hate him for firing half of the country's Sports Talk hosts.

SoCalSportsObserved:

Personally, I had enjoyed listening to Fred Roggin, TJ Simers, and his daughter Tracy Simers for the past few months in the morning. They really seemed to coming into their own. It was fun listening to the dichotomy between Roggin and TJ, two very different LA sports personalities, while Tracy acted as the voice of reason in the crew. They discussed more than just sports, and they made my slow morning crawl across the 101 just a bit easier.

Also see Farther Off the Wall.

And there has been reaction from the hosts. SoCalSportsObserved quoted T.J. Simers:

"I made it very clear to management that this was killing me. I'm an old man. This was a tall order we took on. It was bigger than I thought. As recently as a couple of weeks ago I told them I couldn't do it every day. So I think it was pretty much understood that we were not going to continue in the same format," Simers said.

And Fred Roggin (Sports by Brooks is blocked by a corporate firewall, so I'm getting this from Awful Announcing):

"This is going to be our final show together on KLAC. Yesterday, [we received] the somewhat sobering, yet exciting news. As many of you know, Dan Patrick, who worked for ESPN for many years, left that network and became a free agent and decided to go with syndicated radio."

"As the story goes, as the crow flies, as the wind blows, Clear Channel, which owns this station, signed Dan Patrick. Dan Patrick needed a Los Angeles home. Given the fact that from the very beginning of our go-round here, it had been trumpeted that it was only going to last a year."

I haven't seen any reaction from Tracy Simers yet. The last post in her blog concerned pole dancing.

Will I try it again? Absolutely...after another shopping trip to TJ Maxx for stripper clothes!

However, most of the comments to this post had nothing to do with pole dancing.

Tracy,

My daughter and I listen to you, your dad and Fred each morning while I am taking her to school.

Your show was a refreshing way to start the morning.

We hope that you and your co-horts pick up another time frame....

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Reality Radio - Petros and Money Didn't Have This on Fight Club

One of the things that radio broadcasters (as opposed to radio "personalities") try to do is to inject some reality into their shows. Rather than playing the consistent superficial happy guy, they refrain from masking their feelings. I'll grant that this reality can itself be faked, but nevertheless it makes for more interesting radio than, say, Rick Dees. (Then again, things can be a little too real - take Tracy Morgan.)

Whether by design or by accident, Don Martin has assembled an interesting bunch of radio broadcasters at KLAC, including Joe McDonnell, who is never afraid to speak his mind, and T.J. Simers, who makes a living out of speaking his mind.

Hence the on-air fight between T.J. and his show's producer, with Tracy Simers aligning with her father on this one.

The producer, identified only as "Producer Laura," is usually only heard when she does one of the inane promotions (This segment brought to you by StubHub), at which point Fred Roggin provides an attaboy for her excellence in reading from the script.

However, this is only a minor part of a radio producer's job. One of Laura's major responsibilities is to arrange for guests to appear on the show. This can be difficult at times, because of a variety of circumstances - for example, if your team has lost a big game, you may not be so charged up about going on the radio.

For the last few days, T.J. Simers has been asking why Karl Dorrell wouldn't appear on the Roggin and Simers Squared radio show after UCLA's loss to Utah.

Yesterday, T.J. Simers interviewed Dorrell in connection with Simers' other job at the Los Angeles Times, and ended up writing a column about it.

During and after the interview, Simers got the impression that Dorrell would appear on Roggin and Simers Squared today (Wednesday), and (according to Simers) Don Martin got the same impression.

When Dorrell cancelled his appearance, Simers wanted to know why, so Producer Laura was brought on-air. As Laura talked, she mentioned that the cancellation was probably due to "T.J. Fatigue."

Well, that did it.

While some people are clearly fatigued by T.J., Simers (and his daughter) maintained that Karl Dorrell, Pete Carroll, and Phil Jackson didn't fall into that category. T.J. emphasized the relationships that he has built up with these people over the years, and stated that he knew more about Dorrell's feelings than Producer Laura, who only deals with the PR people and not with the guests themselves.

All in all, a very interesting exchange, with Fred Roggin sitting on the sidelines, trying to (in Dorrell's words) "move on."

Did anyone else hear this exchange? What were your impressions?

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Radio Professionals

(Off-topic comment - titles appear to be working fine now.)

I just got in to work after listening to KLAC radio on the way, and I just heard the most bizarre half hour of radio that I've ever heard (with the exception of the time that I broadcast a Radio Shack children's story on KRRC a quarter century ago).

First, let's note that there are a lot of asynchronous communications going around KLAC, where the hosts on one radio show say something about hosts of another radio show, then the hosts on the other radio show do a "Guess what THEY said?!?" routine, ad nauseum.

So apparently the question of radio professionalism has been the subject of one of these debates. The players are Steve Hartman of the Loose Cannons, Petros Papadakis, and T.J. and Tracy Simers. Some of the questions floating around:

• Are T.J. and Tracy correct when noting that if the two of them can host a radio show, anyone can do it?


• Does Petros' approximately four years of radio experience make a difference?

Fred Roggin was beginning to weigh in on the latter issue when my car radio started broadcasting static. After checking the other stations, I confirmed that KLAC's broadcast wasn't going over the air.

This serves as a reminder - you can get any yahoo (even, for several years, myself) in front of a microphone, but if you don't have the engineers doing their thing, it will all be for naught.

For the next several minutes, the KLAC frequency broadcast nothing but static. (Yes, I'm a masochist, or I'm easily entertained, or something.) After a few minutes, I heard Tracy's voice for about five seconds, then things went quiet again. For the next several minutes, the voices cut in and out, continuing their conversation as if nothing was amiss. Either they didn't know that they weren't broadcasting, or there's some professional code where you don't acknowledge it, or perhaps I'm the only person who listens to radio over the air any more, and everyone else was listening on their computers.

In retrospect, I probably should have fired up the web browser on my Motorola Q; KLAC has an available feed through the California page at tuned.mobi.

Well, eventually KLAC got their act together and were broadcasting with no problems - just in time for the Roggin and Simers Squared interview with Tracy Morgan.

I guess the KLAC engineers must have what Martin Gore would call a "sick sense of humour." That was one of the more bizarre interviews from radioland.

The main point of the interview was to ask Tracy Morgan about his ankle bracelet. It turns out that Morgan is wearing an ankle bracelet due to a previous arrest for drunk driving.

So the interview began with Roggin letting Morgan know who was interviewing him. It's standard practice for someone to be interviewed by several radio stations in a row, and Roggin courteously clues his interviewees in on who they're talking to.

After Roggin and Simers Squared brought up the ankle bracelet, Morgan launched into some cross between a comedy routine, a rant, and a therapy session. After Tracy Morgan stated how funny he was, Tracy Simers made a point of mentioning another comedian (Bill Bellamy) who declared he was funny when he wasn't funny at all.

Morgan didn't take the hint, and continued to declare his wit. My favorite example:

(shouting) I MADE LORNE MICHAELS FART!

And trust me, it got worse. As T.J. was probably fervently praying for a commercial, he (and his daughter) deferred to Fred to continue with the interview. Fred said nothing.

So, how would Steve Hartman or Petros Papadakis have handled that interview?

[27 SEPTEMBER 2007 - OR HOW WOULD DAN PATRICK HANDLE IT? ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END.]

klac

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Because Dog Deux

Followup.

It was sharing time on Roggin and Simers Squared (KLAC AM 570) this morning, and T.J. Simers shared a story with Fred Roggin and Tracy Simers. Specifically, he shared an editorial written by Joe Hawk of the Las Vegas Review Journal.

The editorial began as follows:

I have a confession to make, one that I am embarrassed to share: On Sept. 11, 2001, one of the most horrific days in U.S. history, when terrorists turned our pompous belief in national security upside down with hijacked air attacks that killed almost 3,000 Americans, I did not shed a tear. Not one.

And I have yet to in the nearly six years that have passed, although the magnitude of death and the global significance of the tragedy certainly is not lost on me.

Back in May 2006, standing in a cold, clinical veterinarian's examination room with my 19-year-old Shetland sheepdog, Bart Simpson, lying on a counter, a tube inserted into his tiny body to inject a chemical that would send him to eternal rest -- a decision I knew I had to make when he wouldn't eat even a nibble of cooked hot dog or lap up a drop of water -- I cried. Uncontrollably.

And I do every time I think of him, although I'm trying my best to hold back welling tears as I write this.

The editorial was given the title "Vick deserves harshest sentence," but T.J. Simers (as well as Tracy Simers) ended up focusing on the first two paragraphs more than they did on the rest of the article, basically asking why September 11, and Hawk's personal lack of feelings about it, was in any way involved with Michael Vick. I think that if the article had started with the sad story of Bart Simpson (the dog), they could have lived with it, but a comparison between the deaths of thousands of people and the deaths of several dogs just didn't seem appropriate.

As I noted in the comments to the article (currently inaccessible), Hawk crossed a line in the American civil religion by referring to the 9/11 dead in less than glowing terms.

Then I asked a second question... [LINK ADDED]

[A FEW MINUTES LATER: The page is accessible again. Here's the first part of my comment:

"This column got coverage in Los Angeles on Roggin and Simers Squared on AM 570 (T.J. Simers brought the article up), the general consensus being that the article would have been much more effective without the first two paragraphs on 9/11.

"I realize that Hawk is drawing a distinction between personal pain and general pain that doesn't directly affect you.

"However, I guess that '9/11' has become one of those parts of American civil religion that we just don't discuss in anything other than glowing terms."]

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Tracy Simers May Need Those Pole Dancing Lessons After All - Dan Patrick to Replace Roggin and Simers Squared on KLAC AM 570

My car phone charger interferes with my AM reception (except for KFI), so I didn't tune into Roggin and Simers Squared until around 6:30 this morning.

At that point I heard Fred Roggin saying good-bye.

DP will form a nasty duo with Jim Rome for Premiere Radio Networks. The new Patrick show starts on 10/1 and will lead into Rome from 9a-Noon ET.

Expect Premiere/FoxSportsRadio to strong-arm as many stations as possible to carry Patrick’s launch.

Patrick may have a real soft launch since most stations can’t make a move like this without waiting 60-90 days.

Well, KLAC AM 570 was able to make the move. While they're apparently going to pay Fred Roggin, T.J. Simers, and Tracy Simers through December, their last on-air show is Thursday. (Not sure what's going to happen on Friday.)

This will give Tracy three months to master her new skill. (Truth to tell, she may return to accounting. Or, for all we know, she may stay in radio.)

For the record, Simers did discuss the pole dancing class that she took last night. As Money would say, "It's hard." (And Jim Harrick never had to wear three inch heels when he coached basketball.)

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Time for Kobe to Emerge from the Shower

During this morning's drive, Tracy Simers and Fred Roggin were discussing this morning's Los Angeles Times article by T.J. Simers. (T.J. is not on the show this morning, for reasons that will become apparent.) At the time, the article was unavailable on the latimes.com website, so Tracy actually had to go and buy a paper during the commercial break. (Score one for old media.)

However, Tracy, having her connections, had a sneak preview of the article the night before, which dealt with the latest T.J. Simers interview with Kobe Bryant, which took place in Las Vegas. (He had interview Bryant previously, with better results.)

You may remember that Kobe had an agonizing early summer, in which he either wanted to be traded or didn't want to be traded, and was either going to play this fall or sit this fall, etc. etc. ad nauseum (and I mean that).

So warm fuzzy T.J. asked Kobe his opinion of the Kevin Garnett trade and Kobe's future with the Lakers. Because the article still isn't on the latimes.com web site as of 7:15 this morning (and because I didn't buy a paper), I can't report Kobe's exact response, but he basically said that he didn't think about the Kevin Garnett trade, and that there's no reason why he won't be at training camp.

Tracy Simers agreed with her father that these were legitimate questions to ask of Kobe, and that if he was going to throw a tantrum in the early summer, perhaps he should offer an explanation in the late summer (along the lines of "I was frustrated then, but I'm committed to the Lakers now" or some such).

Fred Roggin, playing devil's advocate, tried to put a positive spin on Kobe's responses. The one positive was that Kobe will be in training camp.

Um, wow.

However, since this is an El-Lay team, I have a solution for Kobe. Why doesn't he just say that the whole series of early summer interviews were just a dream?



Of course, if you're going to have dreams like that, you don't want to make enemies.



The interesting part about this whole thing is that Bryant told ESPN the following in July:

“I understand the interest in the situation, and when the time is right, I’ll be more than happy to answer those questions,” Bryant said....“Right now we have a lot to accomplish, and I don’t want to detract from that or be a distraction from that.”

Asked when exactly the time will be right, Bryant said he did not know.

If Simers' article is any indication, the time may be never.

But Bryant is apparently willing to discuss other topics...or not:

[David] Stern blamed a “rogue, isolated criminal” [Tim Donaghy] for a scandal that threatened the credibility of every referee. But players are trying not to get too caught up in it.

“Honestly, I don’t think anybody’s thinking about it. Us players, we haven’t discussed it,” superstar Kobe Bryant said. “It’s not something that’s on the radar for us. We know that the commissioner and the league and whoever else is handling the situation, they’re going to take care of it, so we don’t have much to worry about.”

So, if I follow this correctly, Bryant is perfectly willing to let the powers of the league make decisions on matters...as long as they don't affect HIM.

[27 SEPTEMBER 2007 - SORRY, KOBE. ALTHOUGH ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END, I'M SURE THAT T.J. WILL BE AT LAKER MEDIA DAY IN HIS NEWSPAPER CAPACITY.]

kobebryant

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For Wikipedia users - Beginnings of a Tracy Simers article

Knowing little about Wikipedia editing, I only did the basics when I began to write a Wikipedia article on Tracy Simers.

Tracy Simers currently co-hosts a morning sports show on KLAC with her father, Los Angeles Times sports columnist T.J. Simers, and KNBC-TV television sports anchor Fred Roggin.

If you're a Wikipedia user and want to beef it up, go for it.

[27 SEPTEMBER 2007 - THAT ARTICLE MAY NEED AN UPDATE. ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END.]

tracysimers

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When Sports Radio is Not Sports Radio

T.J. Simers and Tracy Simers had a special guest on Roggin and Simers Squared this morning - Don Martin.

No, not the Don Martin who was famous for his artwork in Mad and Cracked magazines - that Don Martin is dead. (Still dead.)

Obviously, the Don Martin that appeared with the Simers family was their boss, the ClearChannel program director for a variety (heh) of Los Angeles radio stations.

T.J., brown-noser that he is, immediately brought up one of Martin's risks that didn't pan out - namely, the Mancow morning show. In talking about Mancow, as well as some of the current radio personalities (including T.J. Simers himself, Tracy Simers, Petros Papadakis, and Matt "Money" Smith), Martin clarified that he didn't see KLAC as a sports station. He saw KLAC as a station that served the 25-54 male demographic, as well as others that are interested in the programming.

If you look at it from that perspective, then the Mancow-Hendrie era is entirely consistent with the current era, though I didn't buy that idea in the past and don't today.

But this is certainly the secular variant of some of the stuff that Reggie McNeal talks about. Don't think in terms of your own club.

[27 SEPTEMBER 2007 - OF COURSE, DON MARTIN SUBSEQUENTLY MADE A CHANGE WHEN DAN PATRICK BECAME AVAILABLE. ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END.]

donmartinclearchannel

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We aim to please

For my recent searchers looking for "tracy simers pictures" and "susan kuronen nude" -

As of today, this blog does not include any pictures of Tracy Simers. You can find a Tracy Simers picture here. (Incidentally, while Petros Papadakis has said that Tracy is a beautiful woman, he has also said that he has never seen her.)

As of today, this blog does not include any nude pictures of Susan Kuronen. As far as I know, no source has nude pictures of Susan Kuronen. (Yet.) Perhaps you're thinking about the scantily clad pictures, one of which can be found here.

tracysimers susankuronen

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And now it's time for the Family Feud?

Not really.

Actually, it's probably not much of a feud, and to their credit Fred Roggin and Tracy Simers didn't oversensationalize it, but it's interesting anyway.

In T. J. Simers' absence, Jeanie Buss was a guest host on the Roggin and Simers Squared show. And she got into some interesting territory.

Jeanie Buss said Wednesday she was hurt by comments her brother Jim Buss made on the radio last week regarding her boyfriend, Lakers Coach Phil Jackson.

She was upset that her brother had criticized Jackson for, as she put it, "calling out players in the media."

"I thought that was interesting because that's what he was doing to Phil," Jeanie said while filling in as a guest host for T.J. Simers on the morning radio show with Fred Roggin and Tracy Simers on KLAC 570.

Jim Buss had made his comments on another show on the same station....

In that same segment, Jeanie Buss did acknowledge that this was an unusual situation for the Lakers. Generally she takes care of the business end and Jim takes care of the personnel end, but Jeanie's relationship with the coach makes things a little interesting. Someday, Jeanie acknowledged, Phil Jackson will no longer be coaching the Lakers, and this conflict will pass.

jeaniebuss

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You're My Perception, with footnotes (footnotes?!?) on Raggin, Roggin, and Belichick

This morning on Roggin (Raggin? [1]) and Simers Squared, Fred Roggin [2], Tracy Simers, and Dave Dameshek (T.J. Simers is in Nebraska) were discussing the popularity of NFL teams outside of their home cities. While the three noted that Americans generally like successful teams (witness the popularity of the Steelers and Cowboys in the 1970s), for some reason the New England Patriots have not been the beneficiaries of that popularity - and that was before the current videotaping scandal.

Interestingly enough, when I went to the Hewlett Packard Americas Partner Conference in June 2006, I actually saw Bill Belichick [3]. An entertaining speech, which was enjoyed by the mostly sales crowd.

And, regarding Patriots popularity - back in 2004, the Patriots were more popular than the Celtics.

In Boston.

Everyone loves a winner. The problem for the Boston Celtics is, they haven't won it all for a long, long time.

In a market that has seen two local teams take home championships in the past two years, the Celtics face a crisis of marketing: Do you hearken back to the team's Hall of Fame heritage -- or do you push the team forward, hawking its new ownership, new management and new coach?...

The Boston Celtics face a new identity or at least a rebuilding of a brand that, of late, has slipped its championship status.

I suspect that there are die-hard Patriots fans outside of New England - probably more than the die-hard Broncos fans which Tracy Simers assumes are situated throughout the land.

And no, I'm not apologizing for the footnotes.

---

[1] Just in case you didn't follow the link, I couldn't pass this up. It's from the Yankton Press, and was discussed on the radio this morning.

Our family philosophies are similar, but that isn't hard to understand. T.J. was born in Wheaton, Ill. He and his wife are very close to their two daughters, just as we are to our children. One is married with their only grandchild -- a girl. The other daughter is an accountant who is not married. Since dad feels obligated to remedy this problem, he is constantly fixing her up with dates. This daughter also works with him on an early morning drive-time talk show five days a week at an L.A. radio station -- Raggin & Simers Squared.

T.J., who called into the radio show from Lincoln this morning, obviously prefers this name to the real name of the radio show. Perhaps even Fred might get used to it.

---

[2] Can't remember if I talked about this or not earlier. I remember the story when it happened, but no one seems to talk about it any more. Ironically, the story is only preserved by the one guy (Jon Weisman) who DIDN'T cover it at the time:

Stories like Milton Bradley's domestic troubles are essentially why I left full-time sportswriting.

It wasn't as if I couldn't do them. I just didn't want them. But if you do the job, you have to take them....

I woke up on a Friday morning, like virutally every morning during my Daily News career, with that slightly nervous feeling in my stomach that wouldn't be eased until I saw the Times hadn't beaten me on a story. This Friday morning, it had. Leading Larry Stewart's TV-radio column was the news that Roggin, the KNBC sportscaster, had checked into drug rehab. Blissfully ignorant, my media column led with changes at The Sporting News.

I came downcast into work that day, churning over the reaction I would get from Rick Vacek, then the Daily News sports editor. The grief I got was even worse than I had expected. Apparently, I was the most clueless person in Los Angeles for not knowing that Roggin's need to detox was imminent.

I tried to imagine what I was supposed to do - stake out every broadcaster in Los Angeles every night and see what they were sniffing? I know there are some reporters who live for this stuff, but that was not what I got into sportswriting to do.

---

[3] If you haven't seen it, here's Belichick's statement about the recent unpleasantness:

"I accept full responsibility for the actions that led to tonight's ruling. Once again, I apologize to the Kraft family and every person directly or indirectly associated with the New England Patriots for the embarrassment, distraction and penalty my mistake caused. I also apologize to Patriots fans and would like to thank them for their support during the past few days and throughout my career. "

"As the Commissioner acknowledged, our use of sideline video had no impact on the outcome of last week's game. We have never used sideline video to obtain a competitive advantage while the game was in progress."

"Part of my job as head coach is to ensure that our football operations are conducted in compliance of the league rules and all accepted interpretations of them. My interpretation of a rule in the Constitution and Bylaws was incorrect."

"With tonight's resolution, I will not be offering any further comments on this matter. We are moving on with our preparations for Sunday's game."

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One of these good news, bad news things

Excerpts from a post at Obscure Sports Quarterly about the end of Roggin and Simers Squared:

It was announced this morning that Dan Patrick’s new radio show will be heard on KLAC, AM 570 in Los Angeles starting Monday (Oct. 1) from 6-9 a.m. (No link is available yet, so you’ll have to trust me — I heard it on the radio this morning).

Dan Patrick’s old radio show on ESPN Radio was easily the best sports radio show in the country and I’m thrilled that not only is he returning to the airwaves, but that I will be able to listen to it....

The return of the Dan Patrick Show comes at the expense of my 2nd favorite sports radio show and the only other one I listened to consistently.

Today was the last day of the Roggin and Simers Squared show, a show by local TV sports anchor Fred Roggin, L.A. Times columnist T.J. Simers and his daughter, Tracy Simers.

The trio were highly entertaining every morning, as they’d argue with each other over little things, but in a fun, entertaining way, not the Around the Horn yelling at each other type of way.

If only there was some way for KLAC to move them to a different time slot or keep them on the air in some capacity. They were easily the best show on that station and best sports radio show in L.A.

Roggin has his work at KNBC to fall back on, and T.J. Simers his column in the L.A. Times. I wonder what Tracy will do (she was an accountant before joining her father and Roggin on the radio show).

However, if the show returns with the current hosts, it sounds like it won't be on a daily basis, at least not with T. J. Simers.

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Tracy Simers Has a Blog

Well, you don't need to come to this mrontemp blog for information on Tracy Simers any more. Tracy has her own blog. (Don't know if she has Twitter.)

She mentioned it on the show this morning, and ended up asking the question, "Do I have to write something there every day?"

Obviously she has not mastered the art of typing meaningless drivel like I have. Well, perhaps she has, but not in quantity. (If Tom Peterson were a blogger, he'd be typing, "Post in quantity!" With the arrows pointing at his fingers instead of his head.)

So what did Tracy write in her maiden (heh) post? Here are the sports-related excerpts (go to her blog to find out about taco places and Craig Shoemaker):

Okay, so my Irish suck this year...but after UCLA's ridiculous loss to Utah this weekend I now have hope that ND might end up pulling out a victory. My Broncos sure are making their games interesting....putting everything on Jason Elam's leg.

I suspect, however, that I'll have better luck as a Redskins fan than Tracy will as a Notre Dame fan.

I hope.

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The Hater Nation is no Tracy Simers fan

Just ran across this.

The Ducks win the Stanley Cup and it gets bumped from sports talk radio in Southern California for Paris Hilton updates. Figures, eh? The NHL just can’t guy a break. That’s what happens when you put broads like Tracy Simers in drive-time morning radio slots.

Ironically, Roggin and Simers Squared probably had more hockey coverage than any sports talk station, Korean or otherwise - primarily due to Fred Roggin's interest.

I'll admit, however, that I didn't watch or listen to any hockey until I heard portions of the final game. At least I'm consistent.

[27 SEPTEMBER 2007 - THE HATER NATION WILL BE HAPPY TO KNOW THAT THE BROAD IS OFF THE RADIO. ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END.]

hockey

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Search me

I used to do this all the time on my old blog, but don't think I've done it on the new (even though I have improved tracking capabilities today). Here are last week's top ten search terms used to get here:

tracy simers
mahree bok
jimmy michael giorsetti
msn photo server
susan kuronen nude
photoemailfix
alexis kouros mrontemp
jimmy giorsetti
maryam muhammad
christine penner

It's interesting to note that two of the people above (Mahree Bok and Christine Penner) technically do not exist. Also, are people STILL running into the MSN Photos Server/photoemailfix problem? And why aren't people search for nude pictures of Maryam Muhammad or Jimmy Michael Giorsetti? Do you have to have an affair with a prime minister to fall into the "people want your nude pictures" category?

And Tracy Simers was on vacation today, as were her father and Fred Roggin - hence, Kevin and "the" Bean (oh, Reege!).

One more comment - why is someone specifically searching for "alexis kouros mrontemp" multiple times? Hopefully no nude photos are involved - of either of us.

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So tell us how you REALLY feel...another view of Roggin and Simers Squared

LAist has posted a review of the Roggin and Simers Squared morning sports radio show on KLAC, to which I may have referred a time or two or three or more on this blog.

Would it give too much away if I revealed the title of the review, Why Is This Show Still On The Air??

Roggin and Simers2 (squared) is absolutely the [worst] thing in the Southern California airwaves (worse than Ryan Seacrest on KIIS-FM).

I wonder where LAist ranks Rick Dees. I'd rather listen to Seacrest do the entire play-by-play for the Super Bowl than to hear two minutes of Dees Sleaze. But I digress.

Not only is T.J. Simers a nasty, annoying, and witless personality, but it makes it worse that he drags his daughter, Tracy, and our beloved Fred Roggin into this sloppy mess....

Roggin spends most of the show defending their guests from Simer's confrontational and mindlessly abusive questions. While Tracy waits for an opportunity to talk, as her father goes on and on about whatever. Not only is this show a depressing, witless, and pathetic excuse for a program, but it is boring.

Now let's see what LAist likes:

Good radio sports talk shows should have entertainment (see The P.M.S. Show), listener interaction (see The Loose Canons), hard-hitting interviews (see Jim Rome) and intelligence (see Lee "Hacksaw" Hamilton)....

I don't like to see anyone lose their jobs, but we have to some standards. There are plenty of other intriguing sports talk hosts out there that deserve a chance in this time slot (see Roger Lodge, Lee Cline, Dave Smith, JT The Brick, etc.).

Two additional points are made, which I want to address below (I can't really say whether Roger Lodge is a better sports radio host):

The program is so bad that they don't even take phone calls from listeners....

T.J. Simers has been alienated by almost every single active athlete and coach in Southern California, which has made him irrelevant. How can someone be a sports columnist for the L.A. Times and host of morning radio show, when no one wants to talk to him?

Regarding phone calls: as long-time listeners to the show know, this is actually a source of disagreement between Fred and T.J. Roggin would like to include listener calls to the show, while T.J. argues that most listener calls are inane. Probably the best way to evaluate this is to listen to the calls from other shows that accept them, and judge whether they contribute anything or not. (In my view, the calls to Jim Rome are especially worthless; they're just a forum for the clones to do clone things, and include no interaction with Rome himself.)

Regarding T.J. and the sports community: another way to look at it is that the rest of the sports "journalists" are adept at kissing the derrieres of the active sports athletes and coaches, so some of them are going to gravitate toward the easy interviews rather than the challenging ones. In other words, it's the same thing that induces politicians to go on Larry King instead of Bill O'Reilly or 60 Minutes or whoever.

And regarding a comparison of Simers vs. other journalists, this statement from Kobe Bryant (yes, today's Simers article is finally up) pretty much says it all:

"You're the only one who is asking about the Lakers," the Kobester said. "Let it go."

That statement says volumes about the other "journalists" who are interviewing Kobe. Perhaps Kobe should be playing softball instead of basketball; he can lead the "journalist" team.

[27 SEPTEMBER 2007 - AND NOW WE HAVE DAN PATRICK. ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END.]

rogginandsimerssquared

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All you need to know - the Tracy Simers Wikipedia article grows

Followup on the Tracy Simers Wikipedia article. The history logs show that 75.41.217.84 added some information:

She attended the University of Notre Dame.

It's building up...

[27 SEPTEMBER 2007 - THAT ARTICLE MAY NEED AN UPDATE. ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END.]

tracysimers

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It's a Lonely World Out There - Dan Patrick Talking to Himself

DubaLakers has an interesting perspective on Dan Patrick replacing Fred Roggin, T.J. Simers, and Tracy Simers:

Say what you want about that boob Roggin, and yes Simers can be annoying at times, but he's more of a journalist than anyone else on the radio. At least he asks the questions, and knows what to ask.

Patrick has one talent getting anyone he wants whenever he wants he has access to so many people thru ESPN. You are the same people that like Stuart Scott and Steven A Smith. All three are blow hards.

Patrick practically flirts with the guests to get his answers with his man crushes it's pitiful.

But who does DubaLakers like?

The only true excellent sports radio is Jim Rome.

Now I've already expressed my opinion on Jim Rome, but it turns out that there's one thing that Patrick and Rome have in common.

They both work solo (as does Bill Handel and Tom Leykis for the most part).

For me, this immediately puts you at a handicap unless you're a completely riveting personality, since a solo host can't interact with anyone unless he/she takes callers (and even when Rome takes callers, he doesn't interact with them).

A group show, such as Roggin and Simers Squared, the Loose Cannons, Petros/Money, or Jeff Pope/Evelyn Erives is much more entertaining.

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