The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 10
Fri, 24 Jan 2025
TRIGGER WARNING: This episode contains discussion of mental health struggles and self harm. If you or someone you know are struggling with thoughts of self harm, you can get help by calling 988 for the national Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.This episode of the Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show takes a serious turn, discussing the challenges with losing our biggest supporter at ESPN in John Skipper. Dan, Stu, and Mike Ryan re-live the unforgettable moment when Dan found out about Skipper stepping down on air and recount the fallout for the show at the worldwide leader. Mike Ryan also elaborates on some of his own mental health struggles during this period and explains how he was able to overcome them. Stick around for this episode’s supercut as well, featuring our interview with Rob Manfred, Chris Simms’ top 70 quarterbacks in the NFL, and Terry Bradshaw’s hijinx. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened when John Skipper stepped down?
So I'm not justifying my actions. I'm just saying like my standard being upheld did have us at a certain level. And my standard was Dan's standard. I was just fully indoctrinated in what Dan's standard was. And it was my job to keep all that away from Dan.
know that people were upholding his standard, but interpersonally, it did cause some strife and some resentment, some stuff that I'm still trying to dig myself out of today. It did leave me in a bit of a pickle with ESPN to circle back to the main narrative of this episode. I thought I'd get suspended at the very least from ESPN. ESPN was supportive of me. I reported directly to Liam and Amanda.
They had known for quite some time that I was not going well. How'd they know? I was honest with them. They would ask me how I'm doing. I had a trip to London. That was the lowest part of my life. It was a great trip. I went for Boxing Day. I went with my friend Eves and Chris Whittingham, and we had had a wonderful trip, but I was a fucking mess. And there was one night I came home to the flat.
I was in the shower, and next moment I was on the floor, hyperventilating, crying, looking at pictures of my family, wondering what the fuck is going on with me. I'd called Dan. I had reached out to Dan. I'm like, Dan, I don't know what's going on with me. I think I have to go to a hospital.
I was prepared to check myself in to a mental health facility across the pond because I was just in loads of despair. So Dan had also known this was prior to me walking out. This was a catalyst of me really fucking trying to dig in and help myself because I couldn't live that way. I never once ever thought about self-harm. I always knew that I could get through it.
But at that point, I was out of answers and I didn't have a playbook and I didn't know how to identify these things that were going on. So I came back and everyone had, those in my family knew, Dan knew. I let Liam and Amanda know that, look, I don't even know if I should be here right now, but I'm seeking this treatment. And ESPN didn't really have those programs in place for me.
They were supportive of it, but this was a different time. And they found out about that and
you know they knew that I could have handled that a lot better but they backed me up and Liam had been executive producer Mike and Mike a different standard but he knew and he was also overseeing our show for a time so he knew the stuff that I was keeping away from Dan and the pressure cooker that I was under so he was very comforting in that moment and I had support in the right places.
And I also had support from Dan, even though he's crying on the floor, thinking that he might've been the catalyst for something really awful. It was coming from a good place. He was caring. All of this stuff came from Dan caring about me in ways that no one had ever really cared about me in my life. I didn't have that relationship with my dad.
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Chapter 2: How did Dan Le Batard react to the news?
Yeah, well, they pulled a trick on me. I had to go so bad. When you're 69 and got prostate issues, you just pee a lot. And they pulled the car up. All the jerks, my buddies, they pulled the car up in Hawaii, and there I was standing right there as the car came by. I mean, seriously. And then I turned around and peed all over my pants. Oh, three oddest places you've peed.
Three oddest places I've peed. Let me think. We've got plenty of time. Here's one. Here's one. All right. Top of the house. What? Top of the house. I was going to pee over the edge, but I ended up peeing in the gutter, which is kind of cool. Okay. Top of the house. That's the one I knew for sure. That's a good one. How about the sink? Ever in the sink? Ever in the sink of the house? Oh, of course.
Of course I peed in the sink. Do you even use a bathroom anymore? I get this. In college, we had a sink, and the bathroom was right outside my door, and I'd get up, my roommate, he'd be asleep, and I'd just get up and pee in the sink. Wash it out good, though.
Terry, Terry, Terry, when's the last time you peed the traditional way?
In a toilet. In a place where human beings are.
You mean like go to the bathroom? I hate to hear that noise, that pee noise when it hits the water. Oh, yeah. I don't like that. So I sit down. I have a bad back anyway. Oh, you're sitting down?
Terry, you are so revealing. You just volunteer everything.
I said, well, it's 2 o'clock in the morning. I'm sleepy. I don't want to stand up there and make all that noise and wake everybody up.
You understand, though, that usually if I say four-time Super Bowl champion, that's a person who doesn't want to be associated with peeing sitting down.
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Chapter 4: How did the show navigate changes at ESPN?
I just look at him like a beaten puppy, and I just shake my head like, no. Oh, my gosh. He berated me with four-lettered words and just embarrassed me in front of the whole team. But now looking back on it, great moments.
Terry Bradshaw is with us here. Again, as Stugatz said, Fox NFL Sunday is where you catch a four-time Super Bowl champion. I've seen you nude. Yeah. Wide aside. Wide aside. Is there any good story that you could tell us from failure to launch and you being nude when you did that scene? Was it uncomfortable? What happened?
Okay, here's the story. So the director, Tom Day, comes to me and says, when I read for that part, Failure to Launch, and I actually got it. I did lie. I did get a role. I did get the role for two movies by reading. But anyway, he said, look, there's a scene where we're going to have a naked room. And you have a choice.
We know that you're Baptist and a Christian and your family might not approve. But we would prefer you be a naked and otherwise wear some boxer shorts. And I said, whoa, boy, my mom and dad would not approve of me being naked. He says, can we do the boxers? Well, we won't worry about it. It's going to be the last day of the shoot. So I go down to New Orleans. I'm there six weeks.
filming the movie so we've got the scene uh in the naked room and and so um tom day comes to me he says have you given any thought i said well you know what this will be my last movie i ever do and i think it would be really funny fun to be naked in the movie because nobody expects me to go naked in a movie he says now we obviously then are going to show you know your your private parts but
He says, we're going to shoot this thing and we're going to shoot it low and go up over your butt. And then you'll end up behind the fishbowl and we'll shoot. And I said, so he says, OK, go back and we're set up. So I go back to my trailer to get my house, my robe. And I look on my on my bed and there's three penis socks. One is about 18 inches long.
One is about 12 inches long, and one is about 4 inches long. And I'm looking, and I'm going, you have got to be kidding me. I've got to pick one of these and put on my penis. And I went, holy cow. Now, if I take the big one, everybody in the world knows that there's just no way that that's possible. I've got horses that couldn't feel that thing out.
So I said, if I take the little one, they're going to laugh at me because it's not very long. And I know the wardrobe people are going to gather around and go, so which one did he go with? Obviously, I went with the middle one. And I put that stupid thing on. I got up there to do the seams. And I had a penis sock on, and I've never been more uncomfortable in my life.
So when Matthew comes out around, I do my scenes wearing the penis sock, and they go cut. Now it's time to turn the cameras around and do Matthew McConaughey. And so they got the camera over my shoulder, and Matthew comes in, and he sees me naked. Well, he sees me naked and we do the lines and he tells Tom Day, hey, you know, it just doesn't work for me because I had on boxers.
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