Flip Satchel – Flip’s radio career started in Little Rock back it 2004. He got his first job buy walking around in public while wearing a speedo, receiving an indecent exposure ticket by local law enforcement. He would later be named best dressed in the state by the Arkansas Times in their year in review edition. Naturally, this impressed local radio stations and he was hired on as a monkey boy, pulling stunts and publicity ploys like nobody’s business. The idea from the start: Push the envelope as far as possible and make it entertaining. He was good at his job, so good in fact he and the rest of the morning show was fired after going too far with one the stunts.
From there young Stachel began to make up fake radio shows and websites to get credentialed for sporting events, concerts and events across the country. Eventually his journeys led him to a writing gig with fightnews.com. From there Satchel’s fight coverage eventually led him to the Tampa Bay area for Roy Jones Jr./Antonio Tarver III. Young Satchel enjoyed the area so much he decided to make the Tampa Bay area his home.
Flip eventually landed employment as an afternoon drive board operator where he met one Mr. Bill Freitas. The rest is history, as told… now:
Bill Freitas – The voice of reason. The every man. The class clown with a mic who adopted the city of Tampa in 1985 at the hyper-hormonal age of 16 and never looked back. Bill proudly admits he’s an "unapologetic homer," yet he’s armed with the ability to be pragmatic and critical akin to an old-school father tanning the hide of the son he loves so much.
Bill Graduated in 1987 from Berkeley Prep (his athletic peak and the reason he thinks he knows everything) and from the University of Florida in 1992 after squeezing four years of college education into five. He then began a 12 year journey consisting of part-time “careers” including everything from car sales, to Kodak technical trainer, to elementary school computer and PE teacher. He always wanted to do something in the world of entertainment but was raised to believe that a career in showbiz was too flakey; evidently oblivious to the reality that bouncing from job to job, like some frog with attention deficit disorder through the lily-pads of life, by definition, is flakey.
July 13th, 2005 was the day that changed Bill’s life. He was the lucky winner of the DJ for the day contest on the Steve Duemig show, where he spent two hours gabbing about sports. From the moment the mic was turned off, he decided he was either going to get a job in broadcasting or die trying. He became a producer in 2007; that led to a full-time co-hosting gig with ESPN Radio in April of 2008. With the help of a layoff in March of 2009, Bill decided to move upward and onward, or at least laterally to 1010 where he reunited with Flip Satchel, who had also been involuntarily retired from our previous employer. Together they created, The Grind, which enjoyed 71/2 months of radio gum-bumping bliss until Flip and Bill, with a little help from an ex-Buccaneer quarterback, created the Internet*. The rest is history yet to be made. For all the juicy and sordid details of the journey, you’ll have to ask Bill personally. Bring beer.
*We didn’t actually create the Internet. Porn may have.
This article appears in Jun 10-16, 2010.