Wednesday morning, I had the opportunity to interview FOX Sports football reporter Jay Glazer to help promote “Talk Like A Pirate Day” – or #TLAPD – which is this Friday, September 19. It’s a partnership with Captain Morgan to not only encourage everyone to channel their inner buccaneer, but also raise money for charitable organizations. For every tweet that uses the hashtag #CaptainAndColaaarr, $1 will be donated to two charities that Glazer is affiliated with, NYC’s City Harvest as well as Purple Heart Homes.
Those 21 and over can also visit www.CaptainAndColaaarr.com or Captain Morgan’s facebook page to complete the Captain and Colaaarr Challenge to show off their pirate toast.
We got to talk about the campaign, and you can listen to the audio here, but I also got to ask him a few football questions as well.
On reporting on domestic violence and child abuse, rather than football.
MSF: Being an NFL reporter, what has the first couple weeks of the NFL season been like?
JG: I didn’t sign up for this. I signed up to talk about football. I didn’t sign up to be someone’s social conscience. If I wanted to report on domestic violence and child abuse cases, then I would have started interning at city hall in school and signed up for different crime beats at newspapers. It’s not what I wanted to do. I always wanted to provide a fun escapism for people. And that’s really, all sports is. We don’t count, man, we’re not saving lives.
Some people in sports take themselves so damn seriously and, they’re idiots. We’re nothing more than escapism from the real world. Unfortunately, when that escapism gets overlapped by those real world problems, it’s a little unfortunate. We don’t matter, we don’t mean a lot, but when you can use something in sports to bring attention to bigger issues, then we do matter.
I’m used to going in and talking about football, talking about Sean Payton yelling at Rob Ryan, or talk about why the Patriots could possibly lose to the Miami Dolphins, talk about the Seattle Seahawks defense, but then all of a sudden, you’re a social conscience. You talk about things that beat your soul down every week. I hate that we have to talk about these things – we do have an obligation to – but hopefully we can raise some awareness about domestic violence and about how some of the things that used to be OK about raising your kids are no longer OK.
MSF: Kind of on that same topic then – I follow you on Twitter, and you have your fair share of breaking news and developments in all of these different cases, but you also inject your own opinions and viewpoints on the matter. As a reporter, how do you feel like you need to balance those two things?
JG: Well, look. I always like to have fun on my Twitter account. I’m not like everyone else, I’m not just going to do straight reporting. I put some demented stuff up there because it’s me. I want my Twitter account to be me and who I am. Yesterday I think I got a little holier-than-thou and one point and at other times, I say “screw this” and I don’t talk about these things that hurt my soul any more and I just want to talk about charity.
I did a whole bunch of tweets yesterday that said hey, folks, for everyone that’s sick of this, I’m going to start talk about this great charity work that Captain Morgan and I are helping out with, just kept pounding out Purple Heart Homes and City Harvest, and people were like “great, thank you.” It’s funny because the fans kind of think they run your Twitter account and they don’t. Sometimes I like going back and forth with Twitter followers and if they’re going to zing me, I’m going to zing them back. FOX and I established long ago that it’s my Twitter feed and I have that salty mouth, so I’m going to use it. The fans appreciate it, because it’s real. You may not like me, you may love me, but one thing you know is it’s real.
Injecting some Packers talk into the conversation because they’re the team I follow
MSF: Kind of an interesting first couple of weeks so far, what have your impressions been on Green Bay?
JG: Look, I think everyone figured that we’re going to get lighter up front and faster on defense, but that just hasn’t been the answer. I think it was sold as hey, we brought in Julius Peppers, we’re going to be so much better but losing B.J. Raji was a huge hit. I don’t know why Aaron (Rodgers) hasn’t started clicking yet. I’m assuming he will, but it’s kind of on that. The entire teams runs on whether Aaron is going to carve you up and things just are just slightly off the same page. It’s usually like Aaron going out there like a man about to play with some kids, but now, it’s not like that. He’s just one of the kids.
On the Packers’ opponent this weekend, the Detroit Lions.
MSF: Are they any good?
JG: Oh, yeah. They’re good. And they’ve always been good, except Jim Schwartz, their former head coach, used to have a philosophy of hey, let’s just go out there and make it a fight and if you get a 15-yard penalty, don’t worry about it. If you’re too aggressive on this play and get flagged, don’t worry about it. And that’s not how you win football games. Discipline wins football games. And all of a sudden, you have a team that are not taking penalties, they’re not imploding, they’re not doing dumb things to hurt themselves, and as a result, that talent hasn’t been able to come out. Talent-wise, yeah, they’re fantastic, but they always hurt themselves. With a guy like Jim Caldwell – when you have a head coach who hasn’t succeeded, you look for the complete opposite of that guy, and that’s exactly what they did with Jim Caldwell.
On another much-anticipated game this weekend.
MSF: Super Bowl rematch with Seattle and Denver this weekend. Even with the loss to San Diego, do you still think that the Seahawks are the team to beat?
JG: Yeah, I do. The Seahawks are the most violent team in the NFL. Teams aren’t going to go 16-0, so this loss might be the best thing that can happen for them. Look how great we’ve looked in the preseason, coming off last season, and sometimes, getting punched in the mouth makes you realize you’ve got to keep your hands up more.
On his NFL viewing habits.
MSF: With a big slate of NFL games this weekend, how do you watch? Are you holed up in the studio or do you get to kick back a little bit?
JG: It’s me, Howie, Jimmy, Terry, Strahan and Curt, and we have this wall monitor, and they’re every game and there’s kind of an art to watching every game at once. You kind of focus in on two games, and use your peripherals on the rest and someone else would say, “oh, did you see what happened up there” or “oh, did you see the bottom right” and it’s kind of a collective effort. People who come in there and ask how the hell do keep up with all this, and I finally got used to it about half a year there.
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