Transcription of The Sporting Life #193
Speaker 1: You’re listening to Love Maine Radio with Dr. Lisa Belisle. Recorded in the studio of Maine Magazine at 75 Market Street, Portland, Maine. Dr. Lisa Belisle is a physician trained in family and preventative medicine, acupuncture and public health. She offers medical care and acupuncture at Brunswick Family Medicine. Read more about her integrative approach to wellness in Maine Magazine. Love Maine Radio is available for download free on iTunes. See the Love Maine Radio Facebook page or www.lovemaineradio.com for details. Now here are a few highlights from this week’s program.
Bill: I probably was a better storyteller all along than I was a sportscaster. I’m really enjoying my life and feeling very fortunate. This has worked out really well.
Brian: I was by no means the best athlete on the track on any given day, but took the fire and will to win to the next level and knowing when I found my calling in sports marketing and business I could apply that every day to the fact of providing myself and my clients with the satisfaction and pride that was instilled in those days.
Speaker 1: Love Maine Radio is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Marci Booth of Booth Maine, Apothecary by Design, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage, Harding Lee Smith of The Rooms and Bangor Savings Bank.
Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine Radio, show number one ninety-three, The Sporting Life airing for the first time on Sunday, May 24, 2015. The Sporting Life is alive and well in Maine. Some of us enjoy organized sports at the youth, school and professional levels, while others of us are passionate about the great outdoors. Today we speak with long-time Maine sportscaster Bill Green who now hosts a weekly show called Bill Green’s Maine and with Brian Corcoran of Shamrock Sports. We know that you will find their perspective on The Sporting Life enlightening. Thank you for joining us.
I must admit it’s a little intimidating to sit across the microphone from this next individual because he’s been doing something for the past forty years that I’ve been doing for the past say five. This is Bill Green who is an anchor and reporter for WLBZ2 and WCSH6 and has his own series called Bill Green’s Maine which airs Saturdays at 7:00pm. Thanks for coming in.
Bill: My pleasure. Thank you for inviting.
Lisa: I like that you’re advertising your station WCSH6.
Bill: I am. It’s a chilly day and this fleece is about the right weight.
Lisa: You’ve been a buzz in my ear for many, many years as somebody from Yarmouth. Whenever I think about sports, I think about Bill Green.
Bill: How nice.
Lisa: Bill Green’s Maine is something that you’ve been doing for how long now?
Bill: Fifteen years.
Lisa: Fifteen years.
Bill: Started in the year 2000. We’ve done three hundred thirty-six half hours.
Lisa: That’s a lot of traveling around the state.
Bill: It is indeed.
Lisa: Tell me about that. Tell me how far you’ve gone and why you’re doing this.
Bill: I’ve gone from, you know those two little points at the top of Maine, the one on the left is Estcourt Station and so I say Estcourt Station to Eliot. I think I’ve covered every town that someone lives in and most of the towns that people have. There are some townships around the St. John River I haven’t been in. I think that someday Kirk Cratty, my photographer is here today. I own him I guess and we’re going to go Kirk someday to every one of those towns that we haven’t been in and color in a DeLorme map.
Lisa: How did you end up doing this? You are a Maine boy. You were born and raised here in Maine. You’ve been here all your life.
Bill: I have been.
Lisa: How did you end up developing this whole persona, this whole job?
Bill: I think luck and circumstances. I was born in Bangor. I went to Bangor High School. I was a kid I think with some intellect, but my dad was a [railroad brakeman 00:04:12] and my mom was a housewife. I didn’t have a great academic background. I had to work my way through college. I needed a job and so I happened to get a job as a studio cameraman at Channel 2, a minimum wage job.
I was trying to get a job loading trucks and the guy said, “You know they’re looking. I didn’t want this job myself because they’re only paying minimum wage, but Channel 2 is looking for a cameraman which was a studio cameraman, not a photo journalist. I thought Hollywood man. I just couldn’t imagine. There were a couple of people that worked there that I had grown up watching, Eddie Driscoll for one who was something of a mentor to me, just I loved it from day one. I loved it from day one.
Lisa: This is something that if we’re talking forty years plus ago. This is something not everybody had on their radar. Not everybody was thinking some day I would like to be a television anchor, a news anchor.
Bill: Right. For me the first day I went in the studio, Eddie was on the air doing a show called, Dialing for Dollars which in eastern Maine he was a legendary guy who was like an old Vaudeville guy and as talented as could be. In fact, we went to Lakewood one time when Milton Berle was there, the king of television. Eddie came down to meet Milton Berle. Eddie Driscoll was funnier than Milton Berle. There was no question about it, but locked into a career in Bangor where he achieved enormous rating and things like that.
That night they asked me if I could stay late and run camera for the news. They ran a news sounder at the beginning that [dahdahdahdahdah, dahdahdahdahdah 00:05:41], this is the TV 2 News 6:00 report and I was on camera. The red light came on. I just I literally had a thought Lisa that I’m going to do this until I’m sixty-five and I’m sixty-one and a half.
Lisa: I knew you still had a few more years left in you.
Bill: I do. I hope I have one more four year contract.
Lisa: If you’re sixty-one and a half and you’ve been in Maine all of your life, some people would say, “How do you keep coming up with new ideas? How do you keep finding new people to talk to, places to go?”
Bill: The diversity of Maine is a big part of it and I’m talking about the geographic and economic diversity. There are people in the mountains. There are people on the coast. There are people in the county. There are a lot of stories to be told. I’ve done the easy ones. I’ve done George Mitchell. I’ve done Susan Collins, but I’m finding more and more interesting people. For example, I find what you do really interesting and the person we should be interviewing today is you. I want to know what you’re doing. Why don’t you just have a stethoscope around your neck listening to my heart? Why are you trying to make me well by doing this?
I think your story is among the thousands and thousands of interesting stories that I may or may not get to.
Lisa: I don’t even know what to say because I’m so used to being the one who asks the questions, rather than answering them. I think I share probably a very similar interest to yours which is the story, which is finding out why people do what they do and why do they live in the state of Maine and what do they do to in my case I’m particularly interested in what do they do to keep themselves healthy and also living their lives passionately.
What I really enjoy is seeing people who are doing the best thing that they could be doing in their lives and being happy with it which is why I’m interested in you and your story. Some people would say, “I’m going to go Los Angeles next,” or “I’m going to go to New York City.”
Bill: I certainly tried. I was offered jobs in Rochester, New York, Springfield, Mass and Augusta, Georgia. I didn’t want to go to either one of those because it wasn’t the stop. If I had been offered a job in Boston when I was looking, I would have taken it. Actually after I was married and the kids were born I got offered a job in Washington D.C., but it was too late. I’m lucky that some of those things didn’t happen because I hate this expression, I don’t even think I know what it means, but I’m self actualized. I’m really enjoying my life and feeling very fortunate. This has worked out really well. Because you want to hear a funny story?
Lisa: I would love to.
Bill: I was in the Red Sox locker room. It was about 1995 and I’m trying to do Boston. I’m trying to get down there as much as I can. The guys in the circle are Mike Greenwell, Jody Reed, Roger Clemmons and Wade Boggs. They’re talking. They recognize me well enough that they recognize my face, but they don’t know who I am. I’m in that very extended group. I’m sitting there listening to them and I’m thinking if these guys weren’t playing baseball, I wouldn’t be wasting my time. It was almost like an epiphany. This is stupid. I don’t want to chase jocks.
At that point, I decided to really work on my feature story, my storytelling, my features. I probably was a better storyteller all along than I was a sportscaster. I did sports from ’75 to ’93, but it was time to get out. My children were born in the late ’80s, early ’90s. It was time as another mentor of mine said, “Go home and help with the dishes and not be away nights and weekends as much as I was as a sportscaster.” I started doing features and it’s really worked out really well.
Lisa: What I’ve enjoyed on the radio show is getting to know people and then making the connection from one person to the next person to the next person. The whole Kevin Bacon thing. Then seeing them again out in the world. I may not always remember their names or even recognize their faces, but having those connections and that for me is so great because this is Maine and we can do that.
Bill: Maine is a big small town. When you think of it that way I remember as a little boy I think paying a quarter to go to the University of Maine to see your dad play football. Charlie [Belisle 00:10:01], that’s how they used to say it he was an undersized fullback I think, maybe a running back, but I think he was a fullback. That was a great group of players that over achieved and went to the bowl game, the Tangerine Bowl.
Now here you are doing as spectacularly as you are. There are just connections everywhere you go in the state of Maine. It’s very interesting, very comfortable place to be.
Lisa: It’s also interesting for me to see the people who are drawn here. They all say, they’ll come on the show and they’ll say, “I went to Bar Harbor and I vacation in Bar harbor and then I wanted to come live here for the rest of my life.” That’s not why they stay here. They come here maybe because it’s beautiful, but they stay here because they really feel connected to the other people that they meet.
Bill: There’s a guy two houses down the street from me in North [Deering 00:10:50] and he was a I believe [help me 00:10:52] a psychology professor at Duke I believe. He knew he wasn’t going to end up at Harvard or something so he went around the country and looked at all these places and decided to move to Portland, Maine. When he told me that sitting on the steps, you know how you talk to your neighbor, I was incredulous. How much smarter than me are you that you were smart enough to think I’m going to live in the best place I possibly can? Maybe an equally intelligent person wouldn’t choose Portland but you know what I mean? I just fell here. I just landed here.
I did have an experience one time. I was at a dinner with my wife. I was the spouse and there were people from Miami, Chicago, and Washington D.C. “Where are you from?” “We’re from Maine.” “Oh, Maine,” with sixteen syllables and you know they’re looking down their nose at you. We started talking about the murder rate. Miami had just replaced Chicago as the murder capital of the world or something like that. They turned to me, “How many murders did you have in Maine this year?” I remember the number was low, “Sixteen.” They said, “Last month?” I said, “No last year.”
Then we talked about education and the kids had scored high, fifth in reading and eighth in math that year. I know that Washington is not a state but they were fifty, fifty-one and fifty-two. By the end of the conversation, I was lying because I thought they were all going to move to Maine. I thought I should be bragging about Maine. I grew up with an inferiority complex about Maine. Maine is not as good as Boston somehow or something. I just said, “I’m going to start bragging about it.” I do.
I do I think on my show I am guilty of seeing Maine through rose colored glasses, but there’s an awful lot to like about being here. I choose to take that angle. I’ll let others do the very pressing problems that we’re facing.
Lisa: I feel the same way. I think that people have asked me, “Why don’t you ask harder questions of your guests? Why don’t you do more hard hitting news?” When I write for the magazines, they’ll say the same thing. I’m to an investigative journalist. That’s not really what I need to do. Somebody else can do that job. What I really want to hear is what makes people happy? Why they come here? Why they stay here?
Bill: I pride myself. My dad was a depression guy from Orono, the basin in Orono down behind the police station, there’s a place that goes down to the river and they call it the basin. He could hunker down. My dad could do with very little. He had a union job. He had a pretty good life. He ended up becoming a golfer and went to Florida. He did okay, but he could be happy with very little. I think I can too. You intimated that a bit in our conversation at the beginning because you talked about people who are doing something that makes them healthy and well as opposed to chasing a buck perhaps or whatever it is that they might be doing. I think that’s a big part of living in Maine.
I don’t care if you dropped out of school in the seventh grade and like a Maine farm now, it’s not the big just potato farm or something it’s they do pumpkins in October. They do bees all year long. They do flowers in the summer. I’m not getting some of my crops in there, but they’re community-supported agriculture in the spring and summer. It’s not just a farm. Then they’re doing hayrides and they’re doing milkshakes. You know what I mean. They’ve got nine jobs. I think a lot of people have two or three jobs and they piece together a living and they’re pretty happy sometimes, most times I think. I hope.
Speaker 1: Love Maine Radio is brought to you by Bangor Savings Bank. For over a hundred and fifty years, Bangor Savings has believed in the innate ability of the people of Maine to achieve their goals and dreams. Whether it’s personal finance, business banking or wealth management assistance you’re looking for, at Bangor Savings Bank you matter more. For more information visit, www.bangor.com.
Lisa: We at Love Maine Radio are fortunate to have a collaborative relationship with Apothecary by Design and to offer an ongoing speaker series. The next speaker in this series is me. We invite you to join me and hear more about finding wellness in water and nature. We’re going to be discussing the brain, the body and the deep blue sea.
During this event, we’ll explore the power that water has to relax, restore, and revive our spirits from a neurobiological perspective. We’ll give you some tips for putting these things into action in your own life. This event will take place on Monday, June 1, 2015 from 5 to 7pm at the offices of Maine Magazine at 75 Market Street in Portland. For more information, visit the Love Maine Radio Facebook page or lovemaineradio.com. This event is free, but we would love to know if you’re coming. We hope to see you on Monday June 1, 2015 from 5 to 7pm. It’s going to be a great time and you’ll learn a lot, plus I just like having my friends around me. Thanks.
For quite awhile, you were doing news and sports. You’ve done your own thing now for fifteen years and more than three hundred shows. How did you decide this is how I’m going to do this and how I’m going to put together something that I really enjoy doing?
Bill: One of the bad things that happened in broadcasting were rules that enabled corporations to own a lot of TV stations. That’s just my personal opinion, but anyway we have a good owner in Gannett, but we own like fifty stations. I say we, I’ve never been to the corporate office. Anyway, they bought Channel 6 and Channel 2 off the Rines-Thompson family of Maine. They were looking for a way to look local because I think to be successful in broadcasting, you need to be broadcasting pretty close to the hearts and minds of the people.
I almost think they said, “Who’s expendable?” They chose me to do this show and I happened to have a brilliant idea. I named it Bill Green’s Maine. I’m glad I didn’t name it Maine Today because it would be Maine Today with somebody good like Rob Caldwell or something, but you can’t have Bill Green’s Maine with Kathleen Shannon or Caroline Cornish, so I’ve got a monopoly going here. I was just around. I had the skillset to do it. I do think there’s some things about me. I do think I’m pretty good storyteller like my father who was a marvelous storyteller. Usually the word bull was in there when my father was telling a story, but he had the basic elements of a good story down.
The other thing is Kirk Cratty who is here with a camera today and we produce a very high volume of work. We do it at a pretty high level I think. Economically the finances of the business which I bet you’re finding a lot out about and know a lot about now after five years, we do a pretty good job and we do it relatively inexpensively. I’m pretty proud of the work that we do.
Lisa: I would agree with that. I think working with John McCain who is our audio producer but also the staff at Maine Magazine, Maine Home Design 75 Market Street we are able to do exactly what you’ve described which is create a high quality product on an ongoing basis at a really economical cost. That makes all the difference. It is amazing what you can do with people who are good at what they do and work well together.
Bill: It’s really funny to me because I use to anguish in school, “Do I have a good enough subject with this writer’s block thing?” I don’t have time for writer’s block. I’ve got to write it and if it isn’t right, I goes anyway. You’ve got to get it done. It’s really fun to be on this side of academia and just write it, get it done, move on. We’ll do another one tomorrow.
Lisa: Yeah, that’s true. In medicine, it’s very similar where you have to get right but you also have to get it done quickly. It’s actually a little bit closer to you have to get it right so when I started doing the radio show and writing for the magazines with a regular weekly deadline or a regular monthly deadline, I would focus on the getting it right, getting it right, getting it right. Then I realized you just need to get it right enough for this particular situation.
Bill: Right. I can’t imagine being a doctor though. I mean that’s serious business. There is a profound thought, but it is. I mean my goodness.
Lisa: I think a lot of family medicine is actually pretty much doing what we’re doing which is having conversations, getting information from people and really understanding what their social context is. You may be treating somebody with high blood pressure, but you’re also treating a family member who is maybe eating not the best foods and they’re not able to exercise because they have a transportation problem. They can’t get to the gym and it’s snowy out. Do you see what I’m saying? There’s a lot of crossover.
Bill: Yeah, but don’t you think that’s more of a modern philosophy towards treating patients than perhaps twenty-five years ago, thirty years ago that we find out about their hopes and wants and dreams as they’re sitting in an office and not just treating that high blood pressure, here’s your red pills.
Lisa: I actually think we’re coming around to medicine the way it used to be practiced.
Bill: Interesting.
Lisa: I think we used to not have, sure maybe twenty-five, thirty years ago, we had more technology. We had antibiotics. We had surgeries that we didn’t have before that. I think for a long, long time medicine was it was what the community doctor had to offer sitting up in Houlton, Maine. A lot of it was reassurance, was listening, was understanding context.
Bill: I’m telling you Lisa, you should be on your show. I don’t know how you’d do it interviewing yourself, but you’re more interesting than me.
Lisa: I don’t think so. I want to actually talk to you about something specific. One of the reasons that I was interested in having you come in was I read something that you wrote in the Notes and I know you have a regular column. I think it’s syndicated somehow because it’s in more than one newspaper.
Bill: No, it’s not. I have no ambition. It’s why I’m still working in Maine TV. I write what I feel is a somewhat usually satirical column for the Yarmouth, for The Notes of Yarmouth. It’s designed merely to make people smile.
Lisa: Then I was privileged enough to read. I read it on a regular basis. I read this particular column and it was about Little League.
Bill: Oh my goodness.
Lisa: You were talking about Little League which I have a particular interest because my son who is twenty-one went all the way up through Little League. He actually ended up being on the state championship team that went down to I think it was Connecticut. They were regional …
Bill: In Little League so they went to the [Bart 00:21:23] Giamatti Center in [where that is 00:21:22] Bristol.
Lisa: Exactly. Yes in Bristol. We spent a number of days down there. I was a Little League parent for many, many years and you were talking about some of the good things about Little League and baseball in particular and sports in particular and some of the things that you might do differently. One of the things that you were discussing was maybe we’re starting kids a little too young and asking a little bit too much of them at an age and maybe taking the fun out of it somehow.
Bill: Absolutely and it’s not because of baseball or Little League. It’s just that’s the game that we get to first. For six-year-olds, you put them on a T-ball team. We give them a shirt with the name of their team on it. We line them up and they get two at bats a game. A half inning is everybody bats once and then you go out in the field and you stand there with your parka over your shirt because it’s cold. It’s just too organized. If you played one game of wiffle ball in your backyard, you might get twenty-five to fifty at bats where in a T-ball game you get two. Obviously you’re advancing more in your backyard.
I just think it’s over organized. For example, you’re one of the I don’t know if you’re fortunate or not, but I would say you are you made it to Bristol. That’s a magnificent accomplishment to win the state championship and get to Bristol. Every other team in the state that year, every other kid that’s your son’s age … It was your son that went? Okay. They stopped playing on July 12th when you won that championship in Maine.
The organization ended July 12th. That’s the time to be playing baseball in Maine, but we’re trying out in the gyms here in another couple of weeks for what purpose, so that we can have the all star teams picked by the end of school when we really should be beginning summer ball. Then we get the districts out of the way. If you’re lucky enough to win a district and in the Yarmouth, Falmouth, Cape District in Little League there are nineteen teams. My son’s team got to the finals of the district, didn’t get to the state. I mean just to get to the finals of the district was amazing.
Then you go to the state. If you do win the state, you go to the northeast regional because [New Hampshire, 00:23:25] New York and Pennsylvania and New Jersey are there. Then you go to the Little League World Series and we play the championship game on August 18th on ABC. In order to get that game played on that day, we have to start in April and that’s wrong. We’d be better off to not go, end it with a county championship, end it with a state championship and let everybody play all summer long. That’s my theory about it. I call it parka ball. I think we’re starting really early on it.
Lisa: It’s an interesting thing for me because all of my children, two of whom are in college now and one who’s a Division I swimmer for Providence. I’ve seen them go all the way up through with sports. I love that they’re healthy. I love that they have great dedicated coaches. I love that we come from a strong sports oriented town.
I love that they have that success and they have the training that’s kept them on track, but there is something about the lack of freedom that sometimes come along with that that’s so regimented. The practices are so frequent. You end up having what’s painful for me to watch is the crossover of seasons where you have kids who are trying to play two or three sports all at the same time.
As a doctor, I’ve seen the problems with overuse injuries with eight-year-olds. I’ve seen the pitcher’s arm. I’ve seen head injuries in football players who are ten-years-old. This is for me the conflict is how do we keep kids interested and engaged and communities happy and healthy and not go too far?
Bill: I don’t know. I made a mistake with my son, Sam. He was a good athlete and he played football, basketball, baseball. If you play football, basketball, baseball, all you’ve got to do for football still is lift some weights in the off season, but if you play basketball you’ve got to play AAU. You’ve got to play summer ball. If you play baseball, you’ve got to play legion. You got to play summer ball. He’s not playing three sports, he’s playing eight. He was over scheduled. It was entirely my fault, but I had this Charlie Belisle idea that you play three sports because back in the day that was the ultimate man. We have to specialize in sports now to just play.
My recommendation would be to just play one sport. Play it and then have some off time in the season to ski with the family. You know a sport I love swimming because you end up buff. You look great if you’re a swimmer. You can regulate your schedule. I don’t know how we keep people healthy. I think we do it by limiting the number of sports they play, the old images are gone, three sports. What do you think?
Lisa: I think I just said it. It’s the equivalent of having more of a universal pitch count. The pitch count is what we instituted for young athletes in Little League. It was actually it was after my son started so it was not that long ago. I think we do something like that where we have some maximum number of minutes that young athletes are playing for any sport at any time.
Bill: I’m glad you brought this up Dr. Lisa because I also believe in meaningful, physical education. See this is when they elect me king which could be any day now that we take physical ed, the kid comes into school and it’s really a personal exercise, diet, help me with what you need, but Bill Green did not need to go into the gym and play kickball. Your child who is a Division I swimmer didn’t need physical education as we know it now. They may have needed perhaps an extra study hall in school because they’re getting their workout with the swim program or whatever.
I think we ought to incorporate physical fitness as a lifetime part of our life and start teaching that in school by looking at their day, looking at their diet, looking at what they’re doing for activity and using that hour a day and calling it physical education. How am I doing with that?
Lisa: That sounds good. I do like though what physical education, some of the things. My children would never had played say wiffle ball or they never would have played volleyball, so I think there is some nice thing about giving them access to other things that enable them to cross [stream 00:27:21]. I don’t know, there’s probably something in there amongst all that. You also have this idea about giving us an extra hour of daylight in the summer.
Bill: I believe this from the bottom of my heart just driving around. We drive about twenty-five thousand miles a year in Maine. We should go to Atlantic Savings Time from about May 15th through August 15th. It’s hard sometimes when I jump this idea on people for them to get it so basically it would give us an extra hour of light on summer evenings. The idea is you can run and walk and garden and golf and whatever you’d like to do that extra hour. With our light deprived winters that we’re now coming out of, going to Atlantic Savings or what I like to call vacation saving time would give us that extra hour.
When I retire which I hope is in 2019 I’m literally going to try this campaign statewide. I’ve talked informally to Maine innkeepers and Maine restaurant associations, Maine Golf Association and all those people want to generate more revenue so they’re for it. Look for a campaign. I don’t think as a reporter I should do that, but I am talking out on your show today.
John if I have time to say this, see Lisa you say you don’t ask hard hitting questions, but because you have a respectful intelligent approach to things, you get people to talk. I don’t think you have to beat people with a mean spirited question which is obviously going to shut them up to show how tough of a reporter you are. I think what you’ve got to do is to get people to talk. I think an intelligent conversation is a great way to get people feeling comfortable and getting them to say things that they might not normally say.
Anyway vacation saving time, Atlantic Saving Time I think would be a great idea and I think it would mean a lot to the Maine economy because we’d all be doing things more. It would enable us all to live a healthier lifestyle because I do think we all tend to lose a pound or two or three in the summer and get into those activities. I just think it’s a real natural thing for the state of Maine.
The reason we’re on the time that we’re on now is that when the railroad started to move around real quickly they couldn’t adjust their watches in each town. Railroad executives standardized time, Eastern Standard Time, Central. That had to do with railroad movement in the late nineteenth century. We’re actually living on a time that was created by some railroad executive in the nineteenth century and I don’t think that’s the healthiest way to live. What do you think of that, Dr. Lisa?
Lisa: I think it’s a great idea that you’re going to have get a lot of momentum behind. I feel positively inclined towards it. I mean you seem like someone who gets an idea in his head, follows it through, bulldog, bulldog terrier mentality. I think you probably are going to get some people to listen to you.
Bill: If anybody wants to join my campaign, drop me a note and write to Channel 6 in Portland or Channel 2 in Bangor. I’ll sign you up for this big campaign that’s coming up in my mind in 2019.
Lisa: I love it. I think it will be interesting to see how people respond to this. I mean we literally in a conversation I had earlier today were talking about ideas that people have in their minds about the way things have to be because it’s the way it’s always been and how you actually can question those ideas because in some circumstances they were put there for reasons that maybe aren’t that relevant anymore.
Bill: That’s one of the biggest obstacles that I hear when I bring it up or speak about it. They say, “Oh don’t do that to me Bill. I don’t want to change things.” I think it will be better, trust me, but you’re right. There are some people who are dead set against it just because they’re dead set against it.
Lisa: We’ll see.
Bill: We’ll see.
Lisa: Four years from now and you get to start your campaign on this. I’ll be following this all very closely and see. It will probably become known as Bill Green’s time or something like that.
Bill: That would be not good. No. Atlantic Saving Time or [inaudible 00:31:16].
Lisa: Vacation time.
Bill: I think vacation saving time, it’s got that hook, that commercial hook that will let us sell it. Actually I had some guys in Damariscotta who will probably deny it now, but they’re thinking about trying it as a town. Damariscotta some summer will just go ahead an hour just for the free publicity. “Come to Damariscotta. we’re ahead of the rest of the country.” I think it will be a great idea. We stay up until 10:00 where it’s light until 10:00.
Lisa: Maybe you could just try it as an individual and see how that works out for you.
Bill: I do. I do.
Lisa: Bill how can people find out more about Bill Green’s Maine or the work that you’re doing for WLBZ2 and WCSH6?
Bill: Websites WCSH6, WLBZ2. They can go to Food Stop in Cumberland. I can get coffee there most mornings. I’m around. Call me up. Turn it on Saturday nights at 7:00. If anyone has an idea for the show and they’d like to send me an email, it’s [email protected] and I’m always getting great ideas from people. I’m around and approachable. Give me a call. It’s not a big deal. It’s a lot of fun to do it. I’m a very fortunate person to have this job.
Lisa: I think you are fortunate to have this job, but I’m also fortunate to have my job. Talking to you I’m reminded of that and reminded that something done over a long time can still be fresh and new and exciting and interesting and it’s been great to talk to you. It really has.
Bill: Thank you. It’s been fun talking to you Dr. Lisa.
Lisa: This is Bill Green. He’s an anchor and reporter for WBLZ2 and WCSH6 who has a series called Bill Green’s Maine which airs Saturdays at 7pm and those of you who have never heard of Bill Green I can’t imagine who that would be, but if you’re listening you need to go find out more about Bill Green. Thanks Bill.
Bill: Thank you Lisa.
Lisa: As a physician and small business owner, I rely on Marci Booth from Booth Maine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marci.
Marci: When was the last time you took a break from what you were doing, from the work that was piled up on your desk and just looked up. I know that during the course of my days I often forget to take a moment or two to just breathe, look up at the sky and dream. Terrible that I have to remind myself to breathe, but when I do I feel energized because in those moments I’m able to let go of the daily grind and think more about what I want to accomplish, how I want my business to grow, sometimes those are the aha moments.
If we all took a few moments out each day to stop what we were doing and dream a little about our business futures, not only would we feel a great sense of calm, but we may come to realize that these dreams can in fact come true. I’m Marci Booth. Let’s talk about the changes you need, boothmaine.com.
Speaker 1: This segment of Love Maine Radio is brought to you by the following generous sponsors: Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage in Yarmouth, Maine honesty and integrity can take you home. With RE/MAX Heritage, it’s your move. Learn more at ourheritage.com.
Lisa: As a former Little League parent and current soccer mom, current lacrosse mom, the person I have across the microphone from me today is I think he and I are going to have some commonalities. This is Brian Corcoran who is the founder and president of Shamrock Sports and Entertainment. He and his wife Melissa Smith have a son named Baxter and they live in Falmouth. I know you’re a busy guy and I know you know a lot about sports so thanks so much for coming in and talking with me.
Brian: Thanks for having me.
Lisa: As I was saying, I’m a long time sports mom, also former high school/little bit of college athlete and now I’m actually the mother of a college athlete. Sports is something that’s been in my life for a long time. My family follows the Red Sox, the Patriots, pretty much any sport that you could possibly think of even though I’m not so much into it myself. It’s part of our family. It’s part of our fabric. You have made this really part of your life to a much greater extent than many people.
Brian: Pretty much, eat, sleep and breathe sport and specifically sport business, sports marketing with an eight-month-old baby boy at home you look at life with a different perspective.
Lisa: You wife Melissa is the CEO of WEX?
Brian: Correct, yes.
Lisa: This is a pretty big job.
Brian: She’s an even better mom and wife and friend and other things.
Lisa: I was going to get to that. I wasn’t going to discount that part of things, but you have a high power job. She has a high power job. You both are very passionate about what you do and now you have an eight-month-old. How has this shifted your perspective on first of all work life balance and second of all sports?
Brian: Yeah, it’s never easy that work life balance that we all fight is never an easy thing. I think having a family that has had some recent deaths put things in perspective. You hear people talk about family first. I’d like to think that Melissa and I eat, sleep and breathe while we certainly have work weighing on our shoulders and our minds.
The fact that an eight-month-old baby boy at home brings different perspective and the fact that it’s actions not words, thinking of even the way we start our day, starts a little earlier whether we like it or not. We’re on his schedule, not ours, so while we have a work calendar, we get out at 5am with the stroller and that’s the time when we know we can spend some time together as much with him. It’s a win/win as they say.
It really makes you measure minutes, not just hours. It’s not just about looking at your Outlook calendar and what meetings I have today. It’s about how am I going to be a better husband, a better dad each day. A little easier now that he’s crawling, will be walking and running soon, but I don’t like to think that it’s something that there’s a silver bullet solution on the work life balance, but it is a choice. You make the choice to put family first and you need to make sure that your actions speak louder than words.
Lisa: You have loved sports all your life. You were a sports person. You played sports.
Brian: Yeah, ran track all the way through college. There’s a reason why my day job is on the other side of the business. It’s representing these leagues’ teams and to a certain perspective athletes, but at the end of the day I think the life lessons that I learned as a student athlete I carry with me each day, love the game of baseball, love the game of football, love the game of basketball. Ended up being a track athlete in college.
I think that will to win still burns in me every day. Yet I realize my limitations and my talents didn’t take me to that next level, but I enjoy the fact that at work and play I have an opportunity to be an influence on the business side, an influence on helping these teams, leagues, and other events get sponsorship and be well funded so they can be the best they can be. Then who knows maybe there’s a future for me on the other side as a Little League coach, that’s the next chapter.
Lisa: You grew up in Old Orchard. As you said, you were an athlete and you learned a lot of valuable lessons from being an athlete. You were an athlete in college. When did you realize, I want to do something with sports, but I’m not going to be able to continue to be an athlete in a way that I don’t know makes a living for me?
Brian: Yeah, my original come back to passion points is really the driver of all of that. I had a passion to compete initially. I think the crossroads about my junior year in college I realized I’m not going to be an Olympic athlete. I’m not going to be a professional athlete, but I love sports. I want to find a way by which this can become a passion that I can still live out. I was a sports medicine undergrad that lead into realizing that there was this thing called sports marketing and sports business.
Like most people that find their passion, I call it Irish luck stumbled across it. I had a mentor and undergrad that was on the sports marketing side of the business being actively involved in student activity, student government, fraternity, this that and whatever, got to meet a lot of people. Happened to be that they were looking for somebody in the sports marketing division of the athletic department and preferably somebody younger. Right out of undergrad, they offered me a job in the athletic department in athletic marketing and promotions.
I was this guy doing all the half time shows at all the basketball, football games and all of that. Little did I know that that was a business. More importantly for my sake was at the foundation level of sports business really being what’s now a multi-billion dollar business. Little did I know back in my naïve twenties that Shamrock and other things would be a part of my future which has been a lot of fun.
Lisa: What did you run in track?
Brian: I was an eight hundred meter, half miler and a miler. Yeah, so thought I had quite the stuff in high school. Totally different level when you get to the Division I level, still remain competitive going back to your work life. This was really where I realized I’m going to make the most of college. I like to think while I was a competitive student athlete in the classroom and on the playing field I had my share of fun too like most of us, but it was an opportunity I think as much to learn what it takes to be a better teammate. It wasn’t just about … In high school track, it was about me the half miler, me the miler and can I be a state champion? Can I do this? Can I do that?
In college, I think I got a different perspective of that that I was on maybe a winning relay team, maybe I was helping a teammate get better. During the two mile events, I was actually a rabbit. Since I was a half miler and a miler, I ended up being the rabbit which who would have thunk in high school being as competitive as I was that I was actually leading the pack to try to help somebody else break a school record for a two mile.
I look back and really think the very foundation of both business, work and play were fostered in a lot of those days. I was by no means the best athlete on the track on any given day, but took the fire and will to win to the next level in knowing when I found my calling in sports marketing and business I could apply that every day to the fact of providing myself and my clients with the satisfaction and pride that was instilled in those days.
Lisa: I ran track somewhat briefly in high school, although I love running, but I was more of a shorter distance person. People that I looked at with some awe were actually the middle distance people, the eight hundred, the half mile. I think my sister won the state championship in the eight hundred. What I know about my sister and people who are middle distance was that they were tenacious. You had to be fast, but you had to be strong and you had to hang in there. It was one of those hang on to the windowsill with your fingernails kind of races. You just had to keep going and fast.
Brian: The half mile is a sprint. Don’t let anybody fool you.
Lisa: It’s a long sprint.
Brian: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Lisa: When I think about what you’re describing even the personality that of that distance, it goes along with what you’re saying which is you have to really, you have to get in there and keep going.
Brian: Pretty high pain tolerance. You look at the perseverance that it takes and you know I would have loved to have been a sprinter. I just didn’t have what it took. Part of me wanted to be the two miler. I didn’t really have that either. I found my sweet spot, I think the half mile was the thing that was kinder to me, found that that was more my sweet spot. Now I love we ran the Mother’s Day 5K on Sunday and I have a lot of fun with it now.
I carry on the passion I have for running and overall wellness, but I don’t sweat the small stuff in terms of I don’t need to run those record times anymore and really have let that go in favor of spending quality time with having social runs with people when I can actually enjoy myself and stay fit, stay well along the way.
Lisa: I’m sure that you’re five years in now with Shamrock and I’m sure that that tenacity has really helped you as far as creating a startup and actually bringing a business that it’s not unknown to Maine but it’s relatively unknown to Maine. That must have helped you quite a bit.
Brian: It did. I think as you look at any business and certainly Maine has its pros, has its cons. I think the biggest challenge that we have faced is the fact that we’re fortunate enough to have a great Rolodex of relationships that we walked into. I’m here, but we have a deep bench of people that have really helped carry the flag and banner at Shamrock to the level that we’re five plus years. I look absolutely I mean the common denominator across the entire office is that at some juncture we were all student athletes. That is by we had a love for the game. We took that love for the game to the next chapter and made that a part of our livelihood as a business and I overuse the expression, but it’s do what you love and love what you do.
Our entire group, I think would say that that rock in Shamrock is really what lays the initial foundation of what we think it takes to be successful in our business. It’s that perseverance. It’s that really balancing act of perseverance and patience because at the end of the day we’re only all as good as the next sponsorship deal that we’re helping our clients cultivate. That’s something that you have to eat, sleep and breathe. While we have all of those other balancing acts with family, the I think common denominator at Shamrock that we have is the fact that we have people that truly have a passion and to your point have had past experiences that pave the way for their success.
Lisa: You brought the PBA to Portland. This is the Professional Bowlers Association and they were over at Bayside Bowl. It’s a pretty big deal because [inaudible 00:46:51] were televised events that were going all over the world really.
Brian: Yeah. It’s the first time the PBA tour has been to Maine. While we love the fact that we represent a variety, a diverse base of clients, it really instills a newer higher level of pride and joy when you can actually say, “Hey we had the home court advantage here. We brought not just economic impact which is great. The business of it’s great, not just for us but for the state and businesses,” but really what drove the needle for us was that pure emotional connection that this community had with bringing the best bowlers on the planet here to our backyard.
Hats off to the guys at Bayside. They already run just such a quality fun bowling operation, but we took it to the next level and put Maine on the global stage on ESPN, reached in our last broadcast over seven hundred thousand viewers got a chance to get a little taste of Maine and good for our state, good for tourism, getting Maine on the map as much as a lot of buzz in the bowling community of when are they coming back? We’re happy to announce they’ll be coming back again next April.
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Lisa: We’ve talked a lot about sports, but I think what you have been intimating is that really it’s more the relationship. Really for you, there’s the competitive thing. There’s the drive. There’s the persistence, but it would be nothing without the ability to collaborate and interact with other people and have solid relationship skills.
Brian: Yeah, I mean at the heart and soul I joke people about this, but really what we do at Shamrock, we’re matchmakers so while sports happens to be the product if you will and brands and companies are on the other end of the equation we really provide the matchmaking between the brands and whether it’s the Boston Marathon, it’s the PBA event, it’s an NBA thing, it’s a Nascar race we really become really we thread the needle between the two organizations to say company XYZ here’s a great opportunity with the PBA or whatever it may be.
It goes back to that leap of faith that those companies and those brands. We’re not talking about a local in many cases a five thousand dollar local sponsorship or in some cases talking millions of dollars that these companies are investing into these sports properties as we call them. That leap of faith has to your point have to be built on trust. It has to be built on a lot of the core values that we were taught back in those student athlete days and beyond. I think we’ve been fortunate enough to, we talk about our book of business, in order to be the matchmaker you’ve got to have, while we’re hired by the sports properties we’re only as good as the ability for us to have the connection and relationship and rapport that we have with those Fortune 500, Fortune 1000 companies.
Lisa: It must be interesting for you and also for Melissa. You said she is from Winn, Maine.
Brian: Winn, Maine.
Lisa: Which is up near Lincoln?
Brian: Up near Lincoln, Maine. Yes.
Lisa: I’ve actually I’ve been to Lincoln. I don’t know that I’ve ever been to Winn. You said it’s a population of …
Brian: Four hundred.
Lisa: … four hundred maybe three ninety-nine now that Melissa has left.
Brian: Exactly.
Lisa: Both of you are working. She’s at WEX]. You’re at Shamrock, but both of you are working really with global partners. Did either one of you think as you were growing up in these towns in Maine. Yours slightly bigger older [inaudible 00:51:52] hers quite small, did you ever think that this was what was going to happen and does it somehow make sense that the two of you found each other?
Brian: Yeah. We can get philosophical or spiritual whatever you want to call. I think it was fate that we met. I mean I clearly … We both needed that missing piece of the puzzle. I’ll go as far as to call her my soul mate, really somebody to also slap me and slap each other in terms of that go back to that work life conversation that we had. I mean I think this is about finding somebody that from a checks and balance perspective puts life in perspective in the fact that there is certainly a lot of responsibility on the work front, but somebody that can really help you make better choices to the fact that you can truly have it all.
You can have a life partner that enables you to be a better business person, but more importantly be a better husband, be a better dad in this case with Baxter. I think that we have found the fact that yeah we love playing on the global stage and more importantly she stayed here as she rose through the ranks at WEX. I had to go away for twenty years. That’s my only regret is I lost twenty years of not living in Maine to get to where we got now with Shamrock, but now we have it all. I like to think that we’re young in our forties and have the world at our disposal to make a difference and help Maine, grow Maine.
At the same token, do it in a way that has global impact and do it so that it’s not just about with the business cap, but it really truly has community, well being and all the friends, family and other people that are so vitally important to us are right here which is great. Both of our families are Mainers through and through and now both have a chance to share our growing family with them and that’s pretty special.
Lisa: One last question and it’s one that I have asked other guests who have been on the show, but I think you might have a special insight. Growing up I know how important sports were to my life. I know raising my own children how important sports were to their lives, but I’ve had this sense that the balance has shifted maybe a little bit too much and that maybe the emphasis on high level achievement in kid’s sports has gone a little too far.
You’re in the sports business. You’re in sports marketing. What do you think? You have an eight-month-old and you’re probably going to be a Little League coach. What’s your perspective on that?
Brian: Winning and losing, I think there’s a fine balance. I think a lot of it goes back to while I think there is a certain cut off where I believe in winning and losing, I think where society and again I look forward to being that Little League coach to hopefully make a difference in this perspective the fact that at a younger age, it needs to be about sportsmanship, needs to be about life skills. Certainly needs to be about the values that we talk about with family.
We talk about the virtues that we want us as adults to live by that I would hope that as youth and I always define that teenager as the cutoff of hey there is a point in time where I believe that whether it’s baseball, basketball whatever your sport of choice is that there is a difference between winning and losing. As a child, I’d like to think that there’s more about that you win by being a good sport and that your coaches are mentoring you every day to be a better person first and foremost and secondly start to crank up that competitive fire but not to the degree that it’s at all cost and as importantly disgruntled parents that are there sometimes reinforcing bad behavior.
How do they create, I’m all about keeping it positive is one of my mantras. That goes through and through. It’s not just the coaches and the Little Leagues of sorts that need to live and breathe that. It’s the parents in the grandstands that need to ensure that they’re reinforcing that at all levels. I look forward to making that choice.
Lisa: As I’m sitting across from you I’m noticing your green socks and your green tie so that reminds me that I need to ask you how can people find out about Shamrock Sports? Do you have a website?
Brian: Yeah, shamrockse.com, S as in sports, E as in entertainment so shamrockse.com gives you a little flavor of who we are, what we do, most importantly who are the vitally important people that make our business tick every day. I get a chance to be the face, but they should take all the credit. They put the rock in Shamrock as I like to say.
Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Brian Corcoran. He is the founder and president of Shamrock Sports and Entertainment. He and his wife Melissa have a son named Baxter. They live in Falmouth. I appreciate your taking time out of your busy schedule to come and talk to me. I really appreciate what you’re doing to put Maine on the global stage from a sports standpoint and to really bring money into the Maine economy and help people live better lives by prospering and really living their dreams, so thank you.
Brian: We’re just getting started. Thank you.
Lisa: You have been listening to Love Maine Radio show number one ninety-three, The Sporting Life. Our guests have included Bill Green and Brian Corcoran. For more information on our guests and extended interviews visit lovemaineradio.com. Love Maine Radio is downloadable for free on iTunes. For a preview of each week’s show, sign up for our e-newsletter and like our Love Maine Radio Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter and see my running travel, food, and wellness photos as bountiful1 on Instagram. We’d love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows.
Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Sporting Life show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.
Speaker 1: Love Maine Radio is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Marci Booth of Booth Maine, Apothecary by Design, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX heritage, Harding Lee Smith of The Rooms and Bangor Savings Bank.
Love Maine Radio is recorded in the studio of Maine Magazine at 75 Market Street, Portland, Maine. Our executive producers are Susan Grisanti, Kevin Thomas and Dr. Lisa Belisle. Audio production and original music by John C. McCain. Our content producer is Kelly Clinton. Our online producer is Andrew Cantillo. Love Maine Radio is available for download free on iTunes. See www.lovemaineradio.com or the Love Maine Radio Facebook page for details.