Break, I said.

Hey, guys.

Guess what?

We've got a chance.

He was my fraternity brother.

Happy people, prosperous communities have healthy environments for us.

She lived in Traficant for four years.

I really felt for a lot of reasons, I felt, but I didn't have the guts to stand.

Northwest Florida has an impressive sports history, producing championship athletes who have excelled at the highest levels.

Not to mention the high school teams and young athletes who have achieved success in their own right.

For over four decades, no one has done more to tell their stories than sports journalist and broadcaster Dan Shugart.

Shugart intelligent and fair approach to covering sports earned him the respect of the athletes he covered and the television audience that relied upon him to tell the stories that matter.

In 2024, Shugart retired from covering sports full time, leaving an indelible mark on sports journalism and the Northwest Florida community.

The array of awards and honors received when he announced his retirement are further confirmation of the difference he made.

We welcome Dan Shugart to conversations.

Thank you, my friend, for joining us.

Thank you very, very, very generous and kind introduction.

Thank you.

You are so welcome to take me back.

Take me back.

How did Dan Shugart become a broadcaster?

How did it start?

Well, it started when I realized I wasn't a good enough to play baseball.

So now that was my freshman year at UCLA.

I. I realized that that wasn't going to happen.

And and I had started I was already looking at the radio station at, in college.

And so I started dabbling.

I did play by play.

It was very competitive getting on the air in the radio station in college, but no one could do play by play volleyball.

I couldn't either, but I could try it.

And so I did.

So that kind of I got that entree and that started it.

And it was, you know, I didn't go into TV or radio.

I went into sports and that was the way to stay in it.

You came to Pensacola.

What year?

1980.

Okay.

Graduated from UCLA in 79 after six of the best four years of my life.

And, I worked for the basketball program in 1979 80.

Larry Brown was a head coach, and and I came home for, trying to find a radio job in Southern California that wasn't working out.

Well.

My dad, who had a wonderful way of making it sound like your idea.

You know, at Christmas time, you knew I was struggling.

And he said, you know, you could come to Pensacola and you could look for a job anywhere in the country, but at least you wouldn't be paying LA rent while you're doing it.

And so when the basketball season was over, I came in and started in radio at BSR and and a year later, just as an an unbelievably lucky series of dominoes fell, I was on TV part time on the weekends meet.

You're talking about your father.

And of course, your father was an admiral.

Tell me a little bit about him.

I know he meant so much to you.

Greatest man I ever knew.

He, And, you know, we're taping this day after Father's Day, and the last conversation I had with my dad was Father's Day.

40 years ago.

He died of lung cancer 1985.

You know, grew up relatively poor and in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and was an All-American basketball player at the Naval Academy.

In 1947, they went to the NCAA tournament that year, and they only took about 12 teams, I think.

And then Navy pilot fought in Korea, fought in Vietnam.

And became an admiral and, and, was the chief of naval education and training or was deputy chief when I moved here and, chief of naval Education and Training, but, remarkable man, most humble man I ever knew.

I mean, he was an All-American basketball player.

I was 13 or 14 when I found out it wasn't dad who told me it was a friend of his who told how not I was stupid.

There was a Helms Athletic Foundation plaque up on the wall, but dad never brought it up.

I just never noticed because I was too.

Did you ever think about joining the Navy yourself?

A little bit, but I wasn't very disciplined.

I mean, I was very undisciplined, actually.

I, you know, I, I didn't have the grades in high school to go to the academy.

I don't know if I could have gotten an appointment.

I mean, I was a I was a decent student in high school.

But I, you know, I was not very diligent, so I didn't have the discipline when you had to make that decision.

I wasn't disciplined enough to make that decision.

What's the most valuable lesson your dad taught you?

Oh, well, there are a bunch.

And it's funny, they're all taught on, you know, on the golf course around lunch after golf, you know?

I remember he told me once, and it was after I started doing the sports.

I was already on the air, and he saw me on the air doing sports at channel three for a couple of years before he died.

And I remember us having a, just a philosophical talk, and he said, you know, if you're good at something, people are going to know it.

If you're good and you told them all, they're going to remember is that you told them, you know, and I just.

And why do you feel like, have to tell me that?

You know what I mean?

But the point was pretty well taken, you know, and his and dad was great at a lot of things and just but, you know, he, he just had this great command, great respect people who who love to work for him and, and, and it was, it was a lesson.

Took me a while to learn.

I had, you know, kind of a television ego for a while, but I, you know, I, I got and I had that beating out of me.

Not physically, of course, but just for sure.

So I'm kind of curious.

You grew up in Southern California.

Some of the greatest sports broadcasters.

I immediately think about, Vin Scully, what was he like?

And I know you're a big baseball guy.

So was he, like, one of your heroes?

Why didn't grow up?

I am a Navy kid, so I moved around a lot.

I was in Virginia for a lot, and.

But I was in San Diego for my senior year in high school, then went up to UCLA and, and, Vin Scully was, was, Yes.

I mean, he what I loved about he wasn't Homer.

He knew who his audience was.

He knew he was talking to a Dodger audience.

But never.

We need a Ron.

We need.

There was never a we.

He was always the Dodgers or the in the Giants or whatever.

So there's a wonderful sense of respect.

And if you weren't a Dodger fan, you didn't feel excluded.

And he also didn't get in the way of the game.

You know, he he tell he used to tell the story.

I mean, he was, in New York as an eight year old kid listening to Fordham football on the radio.

He said the most exciting part was the crowd cheering.

And so he gets out of the way and just shuts up, which is, you know, that's that's a that's a hard skill and probably an unfortunately rare skill, even with some of the top announcers just shut up and get out of the way, you know?

And Kirk Gibson hit his home run in the 1988 World Series game one against the A's, one of the greatest and most historic home runs ever.

You know, it's it's he gives it the call and the home run is she is gone one minute and eight seconds.

He doesn't say a word.

You just let's say crouch here and and you're at the game.

And I learned that was one thing you learned from them is a respect your audience enough to not not root perhaps against their interest, not root.

Don't tell them how they should feel about something.

And then the other thing was just be, you know, just be humble enough to get out of the way.

Of course, most people probably remember you from your television days as a sports director and sports anchor and whatnot, but you've done some play by play along the way.

And, you know, I've, I don't know if you remember this, but I told you this, you're very good at that.

And your in your particularly good at baseball and baseball was probably one of the hardest play by play sports to do.

What's a secret to being like a great play by play baseball or football?

Yeah, well, they're completely different and I learned not when we started to do the first three years of the Blue Wahoos.

You know, at the TV station, we did 25 televised broadcasts, and I had done some radio at UCLA.

I'd done some baseball and radio.

And I remember Don Sutton, you know, God love him, who was unbelievably good to me for a long, long, long time.

All the years.

I knew him for decades.

But he said, remember that it's an analyst medium television, baseball on TV, it's an analyst medium.

So, you know, you don't have to describe something that people can see.

So you just sort of keep the pace going.

And so the secret really in baseball, if it's TV again, you kind of, you know, you're telling stories that are that are like you're sitting next to somebody at the game, you're both watching the game, but you don't have to tell the guy that he just single to left, you know?

So it's that's the hard part.

It's just sort of again, just kind of making it conversational.

And especially if it's a 6 to 1 ball game, you, you better have some stories at that point.

Right.

So again, kind of stay out of the way of and, you know, a lot of times it's just, you know, you know, don't over describe, you know, don't you can call a line, drive base hit left field in comes Garvey, in comes, say, or, you know, as Vin Scully would say, right.

But, you know, you don't have to overdo it.

You know, then kind of get out of the way.

So radio is completely different.

You have to paint the picture.

Right.

And and I did that in pro basketball when we had the tornadoes.

That was hard.

But you know, you had to paint the you've got to paint a picture of that over the years, of all the things you did in sports broadcasting, did you have a favorite?

I love I grew up in play by play.

That's what I wanted to do.

I had to make a decision in the 80s.

In the late 80s, I was doing the play by play for the Pensacola Tornadoes.

The CBA pro basketball team.

We had to do those for five years, and I wanted to decide whether, okay, this is really what I wanted to do.

And I think I was better at that than than the TV.

The TV was paying, especially at that point, significantly more.

So I kind of had to make a decision.

All right.

You're going to are you going to roll the dice and go off in a play by play?

And we didn't have all the different ESPN and all the different opportunities to do it that, I mean, the jobs were hard to get and didn't open up very often.

And so I kind of made a financial decision, you know, do I want to pay the rent or do I want to chase this dream at age 30?

And so I kind of still dabbled in the play by play, and I'm still going to do some play by play even in retirement now.

But I had I made that decision.

And, then you mentioned the Pensacola tornadoes.

That was kind of like the first team, professional or semiprofessional team here in Pensacola.

Talk a little bit how sports, the sports scene has evolved during your career.

And start with the tornadoes and then the Ice Palace.

And yeah, it was funny because I had a conversation with Carol Pollock, who ran the Civic Center, back when the when they were out.

Do we bring hockey in or not?

Like 1994.

Team came in in 96 and, and the the tornadoes, you know, financially failed.

I mean, there's no other way to put it there.

They had some some bright moments and there was a lot of great entertainment.

A lot of people had a good time, but not enough people went, you know, they I think the best year they averaged their best average attendance was about 2700.

And and once the league expanded and you had a bunch of teams up in and, you know, the Midwest and, and they had to fly everywhere.

If it's a trip over 200 miles, had to fly.

So financially it didn't make sense.

It was tough.

They had a tough go and it just people weren't used to a pro team really, and it just didn't catch in basketball.

So I had a problem because if you're going to go to basketball, well, you could come over here and see then PJC right, or high school or what have you.

So I had this conversation with Carol Pollock in 94, and they had the scars of the tornadoes.

And what do we do?

Do you think hockey will work?

And a it was the only game in town.

If you want to see hockey, you got to go here, right?

Right.

And I also thought that it was you know, it it the game in person is, you know, especially if people have only dabbled in seeing it on TV.

You go to the game, the energy in person is just a different world.

It's a great live sport, whereas football's a great TV sport.

And, and I thought I had a pretty good chance of making it.

So you saw the evolution of, of, of basketball or they didn't quite make it.

The town grew and also became more receptive to that.

And also the sport fit.

Plus you have a Gretzky playing on the first team.

You have teams, you know, scoring with a second to go to go into overtime the first couple of years at the Ice Palace.

And then of course they got a following and took off from there.

So a lot of good things happened for them and how important do you think their success was ultimately to the Wahoos?

I think it showed what's possible, you know, and again, they're all different things basketball, hockey, baseball you know, not there is overlap and audience, but they're completely different appeals.

And you know the base audiences a lot of times is different.

But it created that possibility.

Well, we can do this.

You know, many of you, for those who were of age in the 80s, where you were a, you know, a young adult age, it was really a struggle to I mean, you know, the high schools, you know, you'd go to the high school games and that was great.

But as far as having a a city team or a professional franchise, that just wasn't something we were used to.

And so it was, you know, we didn't think we didn't know if we could support it.

And, you know, you couldn't get a ticket to the hockey games for a while.

And, and when they first came in and sort of built that momentum.

So all of a sudden now it's possible if you do it right, and if you if it's a good show and, and it's done well that that's a possibility.

Baseball had a couple of advantages.

You had kind of a little dry run with the Pelicans.

And this huge advantage.

You can't say enough about him as Quint Studer.

Yeah you know he made his first class in every single aspect his first class Double-A baseball.

But there are a lot of elements to it.

You just feel major league it just far away.

They treat people in the way they make that presentation.

So they did all the right things.

They may have had the groundwork of what's possible, but they did all the right things along the way.

And it's been hugely successful.

And as baseball.

Yeah, you talk about high school, you mention that you've covered some awesome high school players and teams over the years.

As you think back on that take, take us through.

I guess the first one that really pops to mind is, is Emmitt Smith.

Obviously.

What were those days like that?

That was the first for me, because when I became the sports director at channel three, my first football season after getting that job was Emmitt Smith's freshman year at Escambia.

It was unbelievable.

And again, it's 1983.

I hadn't had the pro teams in town yet, so it was high school was really the first, first and foremost.

So you know, you do it.

Fans up on the on the banks of MacArthur Stadium at Escambia.

You couldn't get in, you know, thousands and thousands of people there.

And that senior year they played what is probably the game of the century in high school football in Pensacola was Escambia at Pensacola High winner's going to go to the playoffs losers.

Not because you had to win your district to get into the playoffs and beat him 17 to 10.

And Escambia didn't get to the playoffs in but senior year.

And they had, you know, as an ass.

And they had people lined up ten deep everywhere.

You know, you couldn't get it.

You couldn't get into that game.

And so you had this incredible excitement around these teams, you know, you had the Escambia one back to back championships.

Emmitt, sophomore and junior years would have won two championships.

Tate had won a championship in 1980.

And you know and you know Milton before that as well before I got here, and Pine Forest won a state and national championship.

This is all in about an eight year span.

Baker won three in a row.

And you know the Fort Walton Beach at Fort Walton, winning with Danny Werfel in 91 and and choked on won the year before.

We had all these teams winning.

I had a conversation with Derek Brooks.

When, you know he played for Washington, he came along after Emmitt and right, really tail end of that pine forest dynasty of a couple of years.

And, you sort of overlapped that.

And we're at the Super Bowl after they won the Super Bowl in San Diego, and we're waiting for our live shot after the game in the end zone to the stadium.

And I ask, Derek.

Yeah, we're just chatting.

He's waiting for our window to open and, and I, you know, we're talking about that golden age.

It really was a golden age.

And I said, did you feel like you had to live up to the standard that, you know, those teams at Escambia and the wooden teams and Pi four teams are set?

And he said no, we felt like we had to exceed it, which I thought was a remarkable perspective, you know, exceeded how, you know.

But that was the mindset.

You have to be better.

You have to build on that.

And that's why we've had so much success.

I think so many great players, great coaching.

But there's just that expectation of, hey, here's the standard.

Yeah.

You know, and when you set a standard, it doesn't matter what it is in academics, whatever you set the standard.

You know you kids I think in general they will they want to have something to aspire to.

And and you know, when you think about it, I mean, I mean in not just in football but also in baseball, I mean, we're we're, you know, players from here who in the World Series, you know, Roy Jones with boxing, Bubba Watson, obviously.

I mean, the list goes on and on.

I mean, what what's your most memorable moment of covering one of these marquee stars, if you will?

You know, it's funny.

I should have an answer for that by now because people been asking me for about a year.

But it does come back.

I have a hard time narrowing down the Super Bowl with Derek Jeter, because I'd known Derek since his junior year in high school, and we, you know, we're not supposed to become friends, but do we become friends at that point?

And, and, you know, Joe Durant winning tournament.

You know, it was good because we had such a good personal relationship from way back before you came.

And, we became a great golfer.

And, so, you know, so there are lots of different events like that, you know, go into some of these games.

But really, what stands out are the people that just the exceptional people.

It's one thing to have great athletes and, you know, a lot of people and we've had per capita more than probably anybody.

But just as the kinds of people they are, I mean, whether you talk about Fred Robbins and everything he's done for the community and what Bubba does for the community as well.

And, you know, Jerry paid very quietly, did a lot of stuff.

You know, we had programs here that were as good as anybody in the country and the PGA tour.

I mean, we had Pro-Am with Joe DiMaggio, Johnny Unitas, Willie Mays, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Buffett, all the same Pro-Am, you know, Jerry Pate did that, you know, so we have we've had some remarkable stuff over all these years.

But but but really what people have covered is just what a great people, Derek Brooks, what stuff he does for charity and, and and, Joe, Joe Durant's stuff he does for people and just it goes on and on and on.

And again, it's the standard.

Yeah.

You know, here's the standard.

Be a good person.

And we've had remarkably good people, not just great athletes.

What was your approach especially on television?

What was your approach to covering sports?

I always felt like you were fair and and we work together many, many years ago, and I know that a lot of people would oftentimes say, oh, well, Shugart, you're a Florida fan or you're a Florida State fan, and most of them didn't know you were UCLA guys.

So but how did you balance that?

Well, you you well, here's you know, you do your job and you know, this this era of fake news, which just I grind on that forever.

I just I'm so annoyed at that.

It's so wrong.

Yeah, yeah, there are episodes of it, but by and large, it's, you know, it.

The people are really, really professional and take it really, really seriously.

As far as being as objectivist as you possibly can.

And that's what you do.

You know, it's, I had I not only didn't have a vested interest in rooting for anybody, I had a professional vested interest in not rooting for anybody.

You know, the one thing you have, the one thing you have is credibility.

And you lose that.

Good luck getting it back.

That's right.

And so, you know.

Yeah, that's what I tell people.

Hey, I would do UCLA, all of you can go five and five as far as I'm going.

I really I really didn't care.

Now, you know, you get people who you enjoy whether it's coach or what.

You're glad when they win.

Of course you're happy for them.

When they put it that way, you're happy for them when they win, but you're not rooting you just you just can't.

There's no you're too busy trying to do your job right.

What's your proudest moment coming out of channel three?

You were instrumental.

I mean, you were sports director, establishing a lot of shows covering high school.

Yeah, but one moment.

That's a kind of a key.

I think it's not a moment so much as it is.

You know, Doug Baldwin called or, you know, he did a I hadn't talked to Doug Baldwin, you know, Gulf Breeze star.

He's out in Seattle.

He's opened up a he funded and open up and runs a community center for kids in Seattle.

What a wonderful guy he is.

And, you know, I hadn't talked to him in years.

I didn't know if we even had really a relationship because guys go on and and he sent a message when I retired and I sent him a text, hey, my daughter's out there, in Seattle.

And, you know, when you get out here, let me know.

We'll get together for dinner.

It's those kinds of things where you feel like, hey, you know, I had somebody had enough respect for what you did that that, you know, they feel.

Yeah.

It was like to see him like to catch up, you know, that that's kind of what it is.

The relationships that you've built, with people long, long, long after the fact.

That's that's what I have learned that I value most.

When you retire, did you spend any time just kind of reflecting on the difference you made?

Because, let's face it, you you were woven into the fabric of this community because people, you know, you know, probably played high school football and you covered them and then their kids years later.

Yeah, yeah.

You think about the influence and no, I don't.

And and that's not you know, that's not false modesty or anything.

I mean a real I'm always incredibly flattered if someone says, hey, man, I, you know, you covered this back in 92 or 82 or whatever.

Well, you know, it was Marcus Broadnax, great basketball player from Fort Walton Beach.

Went up to Saint John's in the mid 80s, you know, and, and, I saw him at a Fort Walton Beach game that we were calling a few years ago.

And, and then he called me and said, hey, they're retiring my number at Fort Walton.

Would you come over?

And I said, well, you know, I retired, I'm not working anymore.

And he goes, no, no, no, I just want you to come.

I'm not asking for coverage, you know, so that that kind of thing is just, that was kind of neat.

That was really neat, actually.

But but, I made a deal and I didn't.

I discovered this, I was going through some papers, moving out of the office and clean up the office, and I went through some papers, and it was a little answer to a question, you know, what are you you know what?

What are your goals or whatever?

And I said, when I took the job, I made two vows.

One was to never take for granted the great good fortune I've been given to be able to do what I really want to do for a living.

And the other was, you know, don't ruin my dad's good name.

And those are the two.

I mean, I was dead serious, and that's, If I did that, then that's.

That's a heck of a way to look back on your life.

Yeah, yeah, well, I think you've done a marvelous job.

I mean, you've certainly represented yourself in the community very well over the years.

Tell me what you think about sports coverage in today's world.

I mean, you, you know, I mean, the landscape has changed because of technology.

What do you make of it?

Well, it's hard to make because it's still changing, you know?

I mean, if it's it's the emphasis on local news, it's I mean, you know, there was a TV station in Houston drop Sports altogether.

Houston.

How do you do that in that town?

You know, and, and you know, they they had cut us back.

Cut me back the last, you know, just less time and less availability at, Iowa and the last couple years.

Erica, it was a little bit harder to get sports stuff on the air and do all the things I wanted to do or that we're accustomed to doing.

And, you know, I'm not, you know, that's their decision and that's based on their research.

And and so be it.

You know, but it was also pretty good sign that, okay, it's time to go.

I'll be 70 years old soon, and I want to be able to travel and see my brother and sister who, and and go see my daughters and Seattle and Tampa and travel, which we're doing a lot of.

But but as far as the business itself, it's just it's it's being de-emphasized.

I think it's a mistake.

I think because I think the audience is not just larger than I think the research tells them, but it is certainly more passionate than they're considering.

You know, and I told a jam once, I said, if you.

Yeah, well, you only 20% of people care.

I said, well, yeah.

What would you do?

What move would you make to to alienate 20% of your audience?

Because these people really, really, really care about it.

And, you know, and it was an easy it was it was this is not the current GM, their previous one.

And, and and he said, well, that's a good question, you know, and we'll find out.

Yeah, we will because local is so important.

It is it is so important.

I mean, there's plenty of national stuff and there are guys that are on YouTube and on the radio spouting off all kinds of stuff.

Never mind.

You know, some of it's even intelligent.

Yeah, yeah.

But you just have to really wonder if we don't continue to support local news and local sports coverage where where that takes us ultimately.

Well, my argument the last couple of years, you know, doing it was what is more local than 22 local kids out there on a football field playing in front of the stands full of a bunch of local parents.

What's more local than that?

And they all care, you know, by the way, you better have the score because they're going to go back and they and they, you know, they didn't sit through two hours of a game, whether it's a hockey game or an Wahoos game or a football game, they didn't see to that because they don't care about the outcome.

Right.

You know, and so, you know, so some of the national level, you know, minds that come in and shape local policy say, well, you know, we're not sure that that, you know, we're not sure the score really matters.

Well then why do they keep it?

You know?

Well, I don't quite buy that, but that's why you people so passionate about sports.

What is it?

No, I, I you know, I think it's something that very early in your life and I'm against probably speaking my own, experience, you know, very early in your life, it's the most important fun thing you do if you're into it, you know, I mean, other people might find other things to do, know, whether it's, you know, it's my daughter's in, in, you know, performing or in arts or whatever, but or but but so many people have not just it's something you're passionate from the time you're young, but there's a rooting interest in it too, you know.

And so I think that's what what happens that really, you know, it pulls you in.

And boy, once you're in, you know, it's kind of hard to let it go.

Yeah I've got about two minutes left.

And as you look back what are what are you most proud of?

You think?

I think we treated people as fairly as we possibly could.

There are some missteps that I can think of, and I, you know, I mean, 140 years ago, and it still bothers me, you know, talk to the people who were involved and apologized and but, you know, there were times and this is probably journalistically unsound, where I asked a question and I and, you know, and not with a with a major figure who should know better, you know, not with a political entity or whatever with a kid.

And you realize what he said isn't what he meant.

And it made him look really bad.

And I said, I'm not using that, you know, or you rephrase the question and, you know, and give him it, give him an out and get and, you know, and that's how I, and I guess, again, journalistically unsound, but I just didn't feel like I was in the business of catching a 16 year old and a mistake that made him look bad or look bad.

So I think I was fair to people, but I tried to be as fair as I could.

And, you know, you don't let people off the hook, but.

Right, fair be fair.

And Charles Kuralt had that line on his desk.

You don't have to hammer somebody.

Sometimes you have to, but you don't have to all the time.

You did a great job, my friend.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

You bet.

Dan Shugart, legendary broadcaster or sports journalist here in Northwest Florida.

Thank you so very much for watching.

I hope you did enjoy our program today, by the way.

You can see more of our conversations online at e.org/conversations.

We're also on the PBS video app and on YouTube.

I hope you take wonderful care of yourself.

We'll see you soon.

Thank you for watching.