-From stockbroker to one of the most recognized voices in sports talk radio, JT the Brick is our guest this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪ Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt and other supporters.

-Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

He's a real-life example of what it looks like to bet on yourself, leaving a lucrative position as a stockbroker in order to pursue a passion for sports radio.

In 1995, as a caller to the Jim Rome Show, he competed in the inaugural "Great American Smack-Off," an invitation-only contest to find the best sports talk caller of the year.

He won and used the victory to launch a sports broadcasting career spanning three decades.

John Toumour, better known as JT the Brick, Host of "Raider Nation Radio" and "Mad Dog Sports Radio Tonight," thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-Thank you.

I appreciate it.

-So "JT the Brick," that name, how'd you get it?

(John Tournour) Well, Jim Rome gave it to me when I was a caller.

"JT the Brick" rhymes with Knicks.

I was a big Knicks fan, so I always used to call in to radio shows after the Knicks would have a heartbreaking loss.

And he called the Knicks "the bricks" because they throw up bricks, and the name kind of stuck.

I was in La Jolla.

I was a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch, as you said, and I did bet on myself.

After I won that contest, I decided that I wanted to give it a chance and get into radio, ended up sending out my cassette tape back in the day.

And someone found me here in Vegas, a company called "Sports Fan Radio Network."

And I started off doing overnight radio in 1996, and I'm still here today.

-What were those early days like?

Did you leave the luxurious, I don't know, condo in La Jolla, and-- What was it like?

-It was hard.

It was hard because of the time of the shift.

I was working midnight to 5 a.m., which was 3 a.m.

to 8 a.m.

on the East Coast.

But the big break happened for me.

When I started, I was syndicated.

So this company-- Back in the day, there was only a couple of radio companies that filled in for local radio stations.

So in Boston, Detroit, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle.

Day one, I started in those markets because they didn't have the money to have an overnight host or someone on late at night.

So I made my name and my bones doing late-night radio, and that was really the launching point for me.

-And how do you establish yourself as a late-night host?

What did you learn from those overnight hours?

-Well, that was a time when you had to be really prepared, because it came on, came on after a Detroit Red Wing game.

I had to know who played for the Red Wings.

You came on after a Red Sox game in Boston.

Who hit the home run?

So I was really coming from my stockbroker career, really into preparation and reading and understanding all that.

But it was basically, I describe myself as a long-haul trucker.

I had to start the night and get to the end of the night, and a lot of that had to do with callers, because you weren't interviewing people late at night rarely here.

Maybe you could tape an interview and play it, but I counted on those truckers and those people to call in, everyone from individuals who are delivering bread to people who are getting up working the third shift.

And the third shift really had a big impact on my life, because I liked it.

I didn't mind being up late.

I just wanted to be on the radio.

And I started to realize being on late-night radio was still pretty big when you were kicking off your career.

-Yeah.

Okay.

So then back to that call, the calling into the "Jim Rome Show," and winning, being crowned the what, The King of Smack-off?

-Yeah, The King of Smack.

-That contest is still going on.

You went on the show in 2020 to mark its 25th anniversary, and you credited that experience in that moment with everything in your life, even meeting your wife.

How?

How did that lead to that?

-That was a great story.

If I don't win that contest, I'm not sitting with you today.

I don't think I would have left my career if I didn't have a jump-off point.

And that jump-off point brought me to Vegas in '96.

And then in 1998, I'm at the Hard Rock, the old Hard Rock, walking into a Rolling Stones concert, the biggest concert in the world.

They played 70,000 seats, and their last show was at The Joint at the Hard Rock.

And as I was going in, I met a woman who was there, single.

She ripped the ticket stub at the John Cougar Mellencamp show, threw it in a barrel, and they pulled her name out to go to the Rolling Stones.

And we met going in, and we've been married 26 years.

So if I didn't win that contest, I'm not in Vegas, I'm not at the Hard Rock, I'm not going to the Stones, I don't meet my wife, I don't have my two sons.

So everything changed, Amber.

I'm a big believer in fate, and I walked through a couple of doors in my life that opened.

And I've always said this, and I try to teach young broadcasters that, no matter what it looks like, there's going to be a door that opens.

And when that door opens, go through it.

And especially now in the economy today and what's changing in sports radio, people are now trying to become influencers.

They want to do a podcast.

They want to try to get into the business a little bit of a different way.

And I just encourage everybody.

When that door opens-- If you lose your job, another job is going to open.

You just can't see it.

It's not there in front of you, but when that door opens, be ready.

-Where did you grow up?

-I grew up in North Massapequa, Long Island.

So Long Island, New York, about 45 minutes from Manhattan, which we didn't get to see Manhattan much.

My dad worked there.

He was a government accountant and auditor for the Department of Health and Human Services.

And a great childhood--my mom, my two younger sisters, grew up playing all sports, went to a big high school, Farmingdale High School.

And I always loved sports because of my dad.

My dad was my coach for every game I ever played--youth basketball, Little League.

He was a pretty famous coach in our town because he coached everyone in Little League.

And if it wasn't for my dad really having a passion for the Yankees and all the big sports teams and Knicks in New York, I wouldn't be here today.

-So then, what about the Raiders?

When did you become a Raiders fan?

-Well, the Raiders situation was really unique, because at the time I was on the radio late at night, the general manager at the time was a guy by the name of Bruce Allen, the son of George Allen, the Hall of Fame coach.

And he would hear me at night taking calls from Raider fans.

And he called my mentor, an individual named Andrew Ashwood, who I wrote my book, The Handoff, about.

And he called them and said, Who is this guy?

And Andrew said, Hire him.

And they got together and they hired me, as I was living in Vegas, to move to the Bay Area to take over the pre- and postgame show for the Raiders back in 1998.

And that really was the jump-off point in my career.

I was still doing late-night radio, but a little bit earlier in the evening, I started doing a local show in the Bay Area.

So I was working eight hours a day on the air and doing the Raider games on Sunday.

And if I didn't get that call from Bruce Allen, I wouldn't be with the Raiders.

And that really opened up a door for me for Raider Nation.

So fast-forward, I didn't grow up a Raider fan.

So I was a New York Giant fan as a kid, but I knew the only way this was going to work is I had a win over the Raider fans.

So I went to the head of the Black Hole, the infamous fan base, a guy named Rob Rivera, and I said, Rob, here's the deal.

I'll have your back if you have my back.

And now, after 30 years, I'm diehard Raiders, because they changed my life.

You can't have two or three teams when you work for the Raiders and you're a Raider fan.

So I had to cut the cord the way I cut the cord for the New York Islanders for our Vegas Golden Knights, and I'm all in on my team.

But the Raiders gave me the biggest break of my life.

Jim Rome gave me the big one to get into this, to walk into that portal.

But if the Raiders don't make that call, I don't have a career in the NFL that's going on, you know, almost 30 years now.

-At what point did you say, I need to meet with the head of the Black Hole?

-Right out of the gate?

-You already had the job, though?

-Yeah.

I got the job, but I knew it wouldn't work.

If you want to be authentic and real, you have to be authentic and real, and you really have to go all in.

And, you know, by the next two years, they had my name in the end zone under the Black Hole, and I was hanging over the ledge with everyone who painted their face.

And I really fell in love with it, from the tailgate parties to the travel.

Whenever I travel around the country, and I travel with the team from time to time, you've never seen a fan base like this.

If we go to New York to play the Jets or we go to San Francisco or Houston, there are Raider fans all over the world, and especially internationally.

Amber, you wouldn't believe how many Raider fans there are in the Far East, in South America, in the UK.

So Raider Nation is global, and I latched on to a pretty big fan base.

-So then, what was it like for you to live through the move from Oakland to Las Vegas?

-Another great question.

I was here, so a lot of people came up to me and said, I thought you lived in the Bay.

I lived in the Bay Area for about two years in the late '90s into 2000 when the Raiders-- The first four years I worked for the team, we went to two AFC Championship games and a Super Bowl.

So as we're talking about the Raiders' struggle now, when I jumped in on the modern era of this Raiders team with Rich Gannon, Tim Brown, Jerry Rice, they were winning a lot.

And then I was commuting.

So I commuted for 17 years from Vegas to Oakland twice a week.

So I did that for a while, and then I got hired by Fox, Fox Sports Radio, and I worked in LA for 10 years.

So my wife, my kids were in LA, and then I got the call to come back here.

I had a chance to come back to where I wanted to live.

Fox came to me and said, after 10 years, where do you want to live?

You want to stay here?

I said, I love Sherman Oaks in LA, but I'd rather get back to Southern Nevada, just for the lifestyle, the cost of living and all that.

And my wife and kids, we moved back here in 2009.

My sons ended up graduating from Bishop Gorman.

One of my oldest sons, my oldest son graduated from Oklahoma.

My youngest son just graduated from Arizona State, so we're implanted here in Southern Nevada.

-So then you didn't have to physically move from Oakland to Las Vegas, but you did have to support the Raider fan base during that transition.

I mean, what was that like for you?

-It was tough.

That was tough because a lot of fans in the Bay Area--not a lot, but enough--were kind of hitting me up, saying, What did you know?

I didn't know anything.

This was-- I mean, I kind of knew the rumblings about the Raiders when they started the discussion here.

But in the beginning, no one thought.

Remember, we were supposed to go to Carson, California, with the Chargers, and that was happening.

And then Stan Kroenke, who owns the Rams, ended up doing SoFi by himself, and that kind of blew up the plan of the Raiders and the Chargers being in the same place, which was the greatest thing to ever happen to Raider Nation-- not, not going back to LA, which would have worked, but then to have the opportunity to go to Las Vegas.

And that's one of the great memories I have of Mark Davis, because when Mark Davis lost that vote and Stan Kroenke took control of LA, Mark said-- Mark handled it like a pro.

-It was seen as a blow to the Raiders.

-It was a blow at the time because going back to Oakland, Oakland was so politically divided when it came to sports.

I often say that some of the worst politicians in the history of sports were in the East Bay.

They couldn't find a way to keep the A's, the Warriors, and the Raiders.

And the Raiders always wanted to stay.

And when that happened and they had to come here and wanted to come here after they saw the opportunity, Mark handled that perfectly with Jerry Jones, Mr.

Kroenke, all the other owners, saw the way Mark handled what some people thought was a defeat in Carson, California.

Now think about it.

We're sitting here in the studio, and the Raiders have Allegiant Stadium.

They're in Las Vegas, compared to being in Carson, California, home of the Goodyear Blimp.

I think this is a much better move overall for the Raiders.

-Last question I want to get in, with your history as a stockbroker, I was wondering what you thought when sports betting became really big, and did you have any desire to get into sports betting?

Wouldn't that make sense for you?

-Yeah.

A lot of people don't know I've never placed a bet in my whole life.

I've never gambled.

So I've never gambled on sports or table games.

It was never my thing.

I figured if I got it-- If I went down that road, I wouldn't have got in trouble with it, but I would have thought I could outsmart everybody.

And it's almost impossible to win in sports betting.

A lot of people don't realize that.

Even the professionals are trying to be right 53% of the time.

Nothing against that.

I don't want to sit in a sportsbook for 12 hours a day to be right 53% of the time.

So it was never my thing.

But I talked to some of the biggest sports gamblers in the world weekly on my show and sportsbook directors who you know.

And if people can handle sports gambling correctly, where they use it for entertainment and it's a hobby and they don't get engulfed in it--because it can ruin people's lives--then I'm all for it.

But the evolution of sports gambling and sports gambling radio and all that really concerns me, because I think we're still in the wild Wild West period when no one knows what they're doing.

There's not-- There's regulation here in Vegas, which is great, but there's not a lot of people educated enough who can tell you how to win in the media, because if they were winning, they wouldn't be in the media.

They'd just be making millions of dollars sports gambling.

So trying to find the happy medium, to find people that could give you good advice, where you could go out and make good decisions and make money is really difficult.

So I don't recommend it to most people unless they're coming to our great economy here in Vegas and knowing that they're having fun by gambling here.

Because, as I said, it's really difficult to win.

-JT the Brick, thank you so much for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-Great to see you.

♪♪♪