Age: 41
Where I'm from: Madison, N.J.
Where I call home: Madison, N.J.
Position: Host for SiriusXM NFL Radio & SiriusXM NBA Radio.
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Lekas built a relationship early in his career with CBS
announcer Ian Eagle |
Focusing on right now: To come up with topics that will be interesting to me and interesting for the listeners to discuss.
Best advice: If you’re going to do something and be passionate about it, you have to do it the right way. Especially in this business, a lot of times there are no second chances and if you get a chance to impress someone, doing those things can make a big difference in you having a job. It’s about dedicating yourself and doing things correctly.
A must for a new hire: From a dedication standpoint -- just preparation. I don’t want to be asked questions about things that I don’t have a good idea about for an answer. I don’t like that when I hear that on the air somewhere else. When someone brings up a name or something that’s happened, I don’t want to be the guy that doesn’t know the answer to it or doesn’t know what’s going on.
Media member I admire the most: I haven’t really had one guy. Very early in my career, I was considering taking a job out in Las Vegas and I had gotten IAN EAGLE’s number. I gave him a call and he called me back and went over things with him and there was a point where I sent him some of my material to get some feedback. I haven’t kept in touch with him over the long haul of my career, but he helped early on just giving me some guidelines and was someone to lean on with some of those decisions.
Best book I’ve read this year: One of my favorite books is “When Pride Still Mattered,” the VINCE LOMBARDI biography. There’s a biography in the last couple of years on HARRY KALAS. I love those life stories where you can get a little background on a guy, some of the hurdles they got over to get to where they are, how they became interested in what they’re doing, what their family was like.
First thing in the morning: Definitely get on the computer with a cup of coffee next to me. I’m online and on the computer. Definitely sports pages, I go to ussportspages.com, especially if there’s something in particular I’m looking for.
Talking tech: From when I started until now, when I began they were using like eight-track tapes that you were plugging in to play sounds. Now it’s all computerized. I can remember recording updates early in my career on mini disks, and now I record it into a computer system, edit it myself in two seconds and away you go.
Must have music: This might be kind of cliché since I’m from Jersey, but I do like BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN quite a bit. My wife’s a bigger fan of his than I am. I took her to a concert over a year ago at MetLife Stadium. I like the ROLLING STONES -- that’s probably more from college than anything else because my roommate was a big fan.
Food for thought: We have a 10-year-old and a 3-year-old, so I can’t say we’ve been getting out very much. But there’s a place in Madison that’s been here since I was a kid. I went to school with a kid whose dad owned it and now he and his brother own it. It’s called the Nautilus Diner. That’s a very easy in-and-out for us that we like where we can relax with the kids.
How I unwind: A lot of it is spending time with my kids and my wife. The schedule is strange for me a lot of times. I’ll work at night or in the morning. A lot of it is spending time with them, trying to coach my son’s little league team, getting him into baseball. For free time, I try to work out. I played four years of soccer in college and tried to keep that in my routine.
Day in the life: Our industry is lacking at times in creativity. I think there’s a lot of shows that are doing a lot of the same things. I don’t know if I’d call it outside-the-box thinking or just being more outgoing with opinions. People want to stand out, but I think we have a lot of sports radio these days that falls into the same mode and the same topics. You might listen to 10 shows and hear generally the same topics and opinions. People maybe don’t go the extra mile and be creative on it. I don’t think we have enough of that right now.
