From his sportscast on KRFH, to doing morning news and sports for a handful of Eureka stations, he is how parents found out that their kid won their game. Or lost.
He’s how people from all walks of life start their day, even if that day starts at 6:00am.
Today on Talk Humboldt, Mathers tells Keith and Mike that his workflow isn’t that mysterious, and then as any veteran interviewer would - he turns the tables on the hosts.
Disclosure: Along with high school teams, Mathers has called games for both College of the Redwoods and Cal Poly Humboldt.
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MATHERS: [sportscast excerpt]: 10 seconds to go, dribbles, drives, no good JACKS WIN! [crowd noise]
ANNCR: For Humboldt Radio listeners JB Mathers has just always been there. From a sports cast on crave H to doing morning news and sports for a handful of Eureka radio stations.
He is how parents found out that their kid won their game. He's had people from all walks of life start their day, even if that day starts at 6 a.m..
MATHERS: [CAR NOISE] This is J.B. Mathers with your news. Firefighters continue battling...
ANNCR: Today on Humboldt: Mathers tells Keith and Mike that his radio workflow isn't that mysterious. And as any veteran interviewer would, he flips the script on the hosts.
In the interest of disclosure, Mathers has called games for both College of the Redwoods and Cal Poly Humboldt. From Eureka, this is Talk Humboldt.
SPAGNA: Hi, I'm Mike Spagna, interim president of Cal Poly Humboldt, and I'm here with my friend and colleague.
FLAMER: Keith Flamer, our president at College of the Redwoods.
SPAGNA: And we're here today interviewing J.B. Mathers, who is the voice of Humboldt Sports.
MATHERS: Gentlemen, thanks for having me.
FLAMER: What's it like in a day of your life if I tune in the radio? Yeah, I would have ten minutes of you.
What's the prep time for that?
MATHERS: Yeah. I would love to tell you that it's this long, arduous process.
FLAMER: You mean it's not?
MATHERS: It's not, it's not. So I wake up Monday through Friday. My routine is I wake up at 5 a.m.
Now, nice thing about radio - I literally roll out of bed and go to work. Check the station email first. You hope you just got a good old fashioned press release from the sheriff's office or whatever. Then I'm going to go scour the internet.
Kym Kemp, Redheaded Blackbelt - I think she does a great job. You got the Lost Coast, obviously, the San Francisco Chronicle. And you always have to make sure you cite your sources, and then you get the news out of the way, and then you're going to cover the sports. And the first and foremost is local stuff. A lot of the coaches are great and send me stuff. And 5:55 comes hopefully I've got two minutes worth of news and sports put together. I record it and it airs on two stations that's recorded and the other stations I'm live on. Once an hour, big Red, Power 96 and Cool 105, and I just do the rounds.
FLAMER: If I had a student who wanted to get into broadcasting, what would you have me tell them to do?
SPAGNA: How would they start?
MATHERS: You intern. Start doing some high school soccer games, do some high school and build your resume and build your tape. And like anything. Listen to yourself, call the games and just to get to know yourself. Just like when you played sports, you watched film.
I would say, just get your tape together and work on your tape and then you start sending it out. I would love to tell you that, like people heard my voice and heard me call a game and like, oh, that's great. Well, that's not how it happened. I was in the right place at the right time period.
SPAGNA: And putting yourself in that place.
FLAMER: In the right place.
SPAGNA: Yeah. Now, you had a question for us.
MATHERS: Yes, I do, and I think this is, again, I like to think I stand for the people. So my question is where do athletics fit on on a campus at higher education?
SPAGNA: Clearly it is the front porch of the university. It's the place that everyone sees and it galvanizes the community. You see students, their families, the community get excited about. It's the great convener.
FLAMER: Ditto. Absolutely true.
MATHERS: Follow up - I'm sure you got a lot of heat bringing football back, but you brought in Jason White to lead your program.
FLAMER: And Coach Wheeler, who I love to death from his days at Humboldt. Actually, I didn't get a lot of heat for bringing it back.
MATHERS: Okay …
FLAMER: Actually, actually, I got heat for suspending it for two years, but I brought it back because I got Jason White.
MATHERS: Great work.
SPAGNA: Well, listening to other interviewers. What do you listen for?
MATHERS: I want to know about the subject. Right.
So to me, I think where a lot of interviewers get screwed up is they do not listen to what the person is saying. They know where they want to go with the interview, they know the questions they want to ask. So I like people who can a ask the right questions, get the information I want, and more importantly, get the subject to open up and get them to talk about stuff they may not talk about elsewhere.
FLAMER: So. So who who do you look up to as far as interviewers?
MATHERS: I can tell you who what got me into broadcast sports rushes. I'm convinced my mom and her old Dodge Dart did not know how to change the station for KFRC, the oldies station.
So I would catch the A's games and it was Lon Simmons and Bill King. Why watch the game when you could listen to Bill and Lorne paint a picture? It was just amazing. And so for me, those were the guys that got me hooked into sports broadcasting.
SPAGNA: Was this always something that came naturally to you, or did you have to work at it, or are there periods right now where you're just having an off day?
MATHERS: Sure, it's something you work on. I think if you, you know, would ask, you know, my girlfriend, she'd say the things she doesn't like about me the most is that there's no stop sign between my brain and my mouth.
And I laughed, I told her, I said, well, that's what makes me good at radio. She's like, well, I don't care about radio, I care about you. So it's a blessing and a curse. And look at Bill Walton, he stuttered and Bill Walton was so entertaining anytime he was on a broadcast, let's listen. Because again, the important part is the entertainment value. And Bill Walton 100% class, 100% entertainment. He is missed.
SPAGNA: So moving from his work, which was in a big time market and yeah, yeah, small town market talk a little bit about the conversion that way and covering sports in a small town.
MATHERS: Right. Well, to quote the great Drew Peterson, big time is where you're at.
And I never covered on a national basis, you could say, but I can't tell you. The fun part about small market stuff is that they love the fact that you gave the score on their kids game at Fortuna High, and, you know, the people. I think it's the sense of community and knowing what you're reporting on is affecting people in your community. And what I love about sports opposed to news.
News can be tragic. Like if I come on and say three one Dodgers lose, I think the Dodgers suck and Dodger fans will go, oh, come on, J.B. and you can have fun banter. But in the end it's a score. It's not the end of the world. And that's what I love about sports - is it's just sports and then doing it at a local angle, you're reaching local people, so you better have the local topics covered as well.
FLAMER: J.B. what's the what comes to mind is the best thing. What what pops in your mind …
MATHERS: Well, I think the best would be calling the final four game for, Humboldt State at the time, now Cal Poly Humboldt - that run and getting a chance - that team captivated this community. The football run with Rob Smith and Alex Kappa, those guys, their playoff run was awesome. And then yeah, random stuff. I mean, I've met Arnold Schwarzenegger, kicked off his gubernatorial campaign right here at the Samoa Cookhouse. I was on the front page of the New York Times with the microphone in his face, which was bananas. Right? But that wouldn't be my most memorable, but is my most noteworthy.
FLAMER: Okay, so the balance is, what's the worst memory broadcasting?
MATHERS: Oh, calling a game once at Colorado Mesa and they're just not prepared for us. So I don't think they knew we're coming.
And you're having to run phone lines 300ft from the telephone booth. That's next to the snack bar, and they're going to let you sit in the stands, and then you mispronounce someone's name, and you're sitting next to this kid's mom and they're like, tapping you on the shoulder.
SPAGNA: Move on from the blooper, acknowledge it, or it depends?
MATHERS: Oh, no, acknowledge it. Like but yeah, I think you will get more credibility with the listeners if you just admit to you're human and you made a mistake. And if I like the broadcasters I don't like are the ones who just think they are above everyone and they talk down to their audience and won't own mistakes, or they just kind of have an arrogance.
And that's someone I never want to be. I'm just like the fans. I just happen to get a better seat than they do.
ANNCR: You've been listening to veteran broadcaster JB matters conversation with Keith Flamer and Mike Spagna on Talk Humboldt. To hear more local interviews, search for Talk Humboldt wherever you get your podcasts or visit khsu.org.
ANNCR: Produced at Cal Poly Humboldt.
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