Another Smith, another overnight story
Spinning off today's Daily News column on how Jason Smith pulls off the nightly 11 p.m.-to-3 a.m. sports show gig for ESPN Radio, Dave Smith knows all too well about having his life turned upside down for the sake of the business -- and staying employed.
Dave Smith, ranked No. 1 in the annual Daily News sports-talk poll in 2001, ‘03 and ’04 when he was apart of late, great KMPC-AM (1540) and XTRA-AM (1150) lineups, recently had the 3-to-6 a.m. shift for the Sporting News Radio Network. Since the network no longer has an L.A. affiliate, the only way to hear Smith was via audio stream on the website (www.radio.sportingnews.com), or the Mighty 1090-AM signal out of San Diego.
“I had to re-arrange my whole day,” said Smith, who has a wife and 8-year-old daughter at their home in Chatsworth. “I made the decision to stay up all night and sleep when I got home. If I went to bed at 7 p.m. and woke up at 1 a.m., I’d never see my family.
“Changing the sleeping habits were tough. I’d get home from the studio in Santa Monica at about 7 a.m., which wasn’t a tough drive at the time because traffic was going in the opposite direction, just as my daughter was going to school. The first few months I was lucky to get two or three hours a day sleep and was really run down. I finally adjusted. The only challenge was staying awake going home.
“Following sports was easy because I stayed up all night before the shift, so I watched the games, surfed the Internet and spoke with my producer. I didn’t miss anything, but I would have had I gone to sleep early.”
Smith was moved to the overnight from the midday shift last summer as the station looked for a stronger lead-in to their morning drive host, Tony Bruno.
“I felt like a vampire doing that shift, because no one was on the road and no one was in the studio except me and my producer," said Smith. "We had the run of the place and could have done just about anything in there without getting caught.
“The interesting part was that almost all the calls came from the South and the East – where it was morning drive. That was a real adjustment, having a conversation with people who couldn’t care less about L.A. sports. It was all SEC football, the NFL, non-sports stuff. I found that people all over the country have a sense of humor and thought my bits and political rants were just as funny as my L.A. audience.”
Smith maintains a connection to listeners during “normal” hours on his website (www.thesportsgod.com).