 Growing up in Pittsburgh, I don't folks realize it sounds as crazy as sports signers. They see the terrible tiles and okay, but it's really unbelievable there. I grew up not liking it because I grew up in Indianapolis, was a Colts fan, and been my office burger. Being in the Colts, that took years off my life back in the day. What was it like growing up in a crazy sports city like Pittsburgh? I mean it was great. It's why I'm the sports fan that I am. Obviously, I watched Jason's career, but I grew up around women who were crazy sports fans. I mean everyone in Pittsburgh is a sports fan. You might not be a crazy fanatic, but everyone's watching the stealer game. Everyone's paying attention to everything that's going on. I mean they wrap the babies in terrible tiles in the hospital. It's not an option. My grandmother, my aunts, when the game was on, whatever was going on, how did you get shut down? We're watching the game. If the stealer's lost, it's gonna be a bad week in the house. Everyone plays sports for the most part too. It's very active town. You're playing basketball. It's huge obviously for youth football, Western Pennsylvania. It was a great place to grow up. A blue collar city. People just keep it a buck and work hard and love sports. I love Pittsburgh. Got to be cool growing up with a brother that has such a successful end of the career and finds himself in the football hall of fame. What influence did he have on you and the great relationship that you two have? He's a big brother. He's always been very serious about his career, which was a great lesson for me. He was very good with the media. He was very respectful. He cares a lot about being a good example to others. I think that really is reflected in how people view his career and still treat him and speak about him to this day. He's a very self-aware person in that space. Also, I've seen from where we came from, where we grew up, to him getting drafted in the third round, having to make the team, struggling initially in camp and not even wanting to know if he could do it, getting cut, getting traded, finishing his career. I was with him when he got the knock on the door that he was making into Hall of Fame. It's an incredible journey. It's a massive privilege to be able to see someone start from essentially nothing to a Hall of Fame career and handle it the way that he's handled it. It's been a good lesson for me. He's opened my eyes to a lot of different perspectives, especially in my business. When I talk about players, when I talk about organizations, when I talk about coaches, I do keep in mind these are human beings. These are people with families. These are people with kids who are in school. They are humans, and this is real. This is their job. It's my job to talk about their job, but I try actively to remain in a respectful space. I treat all of these things as if the person that I'm talking about is hearing what I'm saying, as if I'm saying it to their face, because they might be. There's a very good chance they are listening to what I'm saying. Because he played and sometimes with the power of a media's perspective on coaching regime or ownership regime or any of these things, it can change things. He definitely has given me that perspective as well. The Joy Taylor show on Fox Sports Radio, how sweet did that sound to you when that agreement came together? It's exciting. It's exciting. It's important for me, obviously, being in the radio business, having your own show is a big step, no matter if it's local or national. Of course, being a Black woman, being able to host the show by myself and Fox Sports Radio, giving me that opportunity on Saturdays was a big deal. I take it very seriously. I'm very honored to have the opportunity to do that and to be in that lineup. It's also fun. I really love radio. It's my first love in the business doing radio. I like the theatrics of radio, bringing people into the room with you, being a part of people's routine and what they automatically do when they get in their car, or they start to work out, or whatever it is they're doing, wherever they're listening. I love radio and the opportunity that it gives to really show your personality and to get out your thoughts. It's a long-form media. I'm excited to be able to do it. Do it on Fox Sports Radio. I love the ability to do both. Television has a limited amount of time, depending on the show. To get your thoughts back on the radio, you have an extended time to get into things. Get into some personal things a little bit and have a deeper dive into some topics. One of the things that's also special is that every show has its own vibe, has its own culture. What do you envision the culture of the Joy Taylor show and your listeners name? I want it to be a good hang. Obviously, we're on Saturdays during the College Football Saturday slate. It's also important to be informative of what's happening with all the games. I like to keep people updated. Also, give them a different perspective, my perspective on what's happening in the sports world, particularly with the NFL games, coming up each week. I just try to bring my personality, be a good hang, have some good guests, some good conversations, and keep everybody informed because it's a busy day that we're on. What's the best part of the show that you've been able to work on, starting with Colin Cowherd and then what you're doing with NFL Prime as well? With Prime Video during Thursday Night Football, we just announced that that starts this week with Bucky Brooks and Daniel Jeremiah. I'm very excited about that. I've been really blessed to work with a lot of great talent and Skip and Shannon and Colin have been great mentors to me and been really gracious and helpful for me throughout my career, just not just obviously being on the show with them, but just being able to observe them, how they go about doing their shows and how they prepare, how they handle themselves and business and all of that has been really, really big for me. It's changed a lot of the ways that I've approached my own shows and what I do every day. For example, obviously we know Skip gets up extremely early in the morning. I do not get up at two o'clock in the morning, but he is a very routine person. He's very Steve Jobs-like and I adapted that whenever I started on Undisputed, just getting the same thing for breakfast every morning, getting on a very strict schedule. This minute we're going here and then I go to this part and then this is when we do the prep and just doing the same routine things every day so that you save your energy for the space where you're supposed to be creative, which is the show. Colin is very similar in that way as well in just the routine of everything and a large amount of prep because the more prepared you are, the better show that you're going to do. You'll notice in both of those shows that we don't do a whole lot of rambling or going down rabbit holes to fill time because we really know where the show is always going and obviously things come up, conversations happen, stories happen and we have a good time, but we really want to give the viewer what they came there for, which is us in our personalities, but of course sports and what's happening in our perspective on that. So preparation is very important and it's something that the three of them, Shannon, Skip and Colin, do masterfully and that's been awesome for me and really helped me grow as a talent. I'm sure there's a number of people who want to ask you about getting into the industry and getting into this business. It's funny advice that she would give now. There are some similarities, but there's some differences between now and let's say 10 years ago when you had in the social media component. What would you tell someone desperately wants to get into this business? Well the first thing I always tell everyone is what do you want to do? You have to know what you want to do in order to be successful at anything in life. So if you don't have a goal, a very clear goal and a plan, then you're just working. Don't mistake activity for achievement. Great, John Wooden. Don't just be busy, be working and there's a big difference. So a lot of people want to get into the business. They say they want to be on air or they want to work in sports, but what do you want to do? Don't be afraid to commit to something because there is a mentality that all of us suffer from because of social media, as you mentioned, where it's like, what's the next thing we got to do? What's the next opportunity? How do I level up? And we're all victim of that, but you have to appreciate the process and you have to work towards something. So when I say that to say, that doesn't mean that you can't change what you want to do once you accomplish something. You might get to the top and be like, I want to be a director now or I want to produce documentaries or whatever. Great, but you have to accomplish your goal first. So I always ask people, what is it that you want to do? Do you want to be a host? Do you want to be a moderator? Do you want to be an analyst? Do you want to be a sideline reporter? Do you want to do play-by-play? Do you want to be a radio host? Do you want to be a television host? Do you want to be a writer? Do you want to be a beatwriter? Do you want to be an executive producer? Do you want to be an executive? What do you want to do? Because there's so many jobs in this business and they all have great paths and they all have great experiences. But if you don't know know what you want to do. You can get lost in the business very quickly, because this is a business also of relationships, and it is a business of you got to strike jobs open, you got to get in there, got to make sure you know about it. And if you don't, someone doesn't know what you want to do, you're just hanging around the studio working, but you're like, Oh, well, I kind of want to be a reporter, but I kind of want to be a blogger, but you know, I kind of want to do a podcast, like can't help you. I don't, I don't know who to send you to. I don't know what direction or information I can give you. I don't know how to tell you to get better, because I don't know what you want to do. I don't know what you want to be better at. If you want to be a doctor, you're not going to go out, you know, to museums every day. You're going to, you're going to study to become a doctor. If you want to be a great basketball player, you're not going to go play hockey every afternoon. You're going to work on being a great basketball player. It's the same thing with anything you want to be successful at in life. You have to focus on a goal. And once that's, again, once you achieve that goal, then I do lots of things now, but I had a goal and I had to focus on that to get there. So that's the, that's the first piece of advice that I get. The social media aspect obviously is an element that I didn't have to deal with when I first came into the business, but obviously we all deal with now. And I would, I would say to just, you know, take some time to reflect on what triggers you, like what, what capacity can you handle social media? I'm built different. I don't have feelings. So you're just, you're not going to hurt them because I, I genuinely don't care not to be like tough or something, but I just, I don't care. I don't, you don't sign checks and I'm not cooking dinner for you at night. It's really kind of hard for me to get crazy about your opinion of me. But I realize everyone is not that way. So what is, what's your capacity? And there's no wrong or right answer. Maybe you don't want to read anyone's mentions. Maybe you just want to put things out and you don't read anything. And that's cool. I know very big names in this business that handle it that way. They're very successful and they have no interest in like mentions or anything like that. Trolls, they have no time for it. I know people who do the exact opposite. They're on it all day. They're going back and forth with people. That's, that's cool too. Whatever keeps your mental health in a good space, whatever keeps you focused, do that. I genuinely recommend not being emotional on social media, but it is something that you're going to have to deal with. People are going to have opinions about your work where that's the space that we're in and how much you, how much feedback you get should be up to you and you should probably establish that early in your career, what your capacity for it is. Talking about representation, I'd like to do a, where do you feel that we are right now with women in sports media? I'm on the play-by-play front. We have two women play-by-play announcers in the NBA talking to you about your success and what you're doing. Where do you feel we are right now with women in sports media? I think we're progressing. We're obviously not a hundred percent where we need to be. There's so massive gaps in representation, not just on air, but of course behind the scenes and at the executive level as well. We still need a lot of progress in those spaces because we talk a lot about what you see on camera. That's obviously very important because that is the representation that we see, but behind the scenes is just as important. Those are the decision makers. These are the people that choose and not choose, but have a large influence on topics and directions that shows go in. There needs to be more representation at every level. I do think we are making progress, obviously. Once we get to a space where it's no longer the first woman to do this or it becomes a story that a woman is doing it as opposed to this is just a person getting this job, then I think we'll have reached a place where it feels a bit more equal. I think there needs to be more women in opinion spaces, not just analysts and reporters and really put women in spaces where they're giving their opinion and are respected in that space. Of course, those are the jobs that pay the most as well in the business, as we know. If we're really talking about equality and really talking about progress, then we obviously have to talk about what people are paid and that's in that space as well. I do think we have made a lot of progress. I think it's important to celebrate when things happen and when accomplishments are reached. I think that's important, but obviously not taking your foot off the gases just as important. Absolutely. One of the frustrating things you may see on social media from folks remaining is this whole idea of mental health and really understanding it. Really in all spectrums, but it's really been a topic of discussion in the sports spectrum, particularly lately with some amazing women with Naomi Asaka and, of course, Simone Biles. Where do you feel we are on that front in terms of education? Because it's great that people are talking about it, but at the same time you're inundated with so many people's ignorance about understanding of mental health. I think the pandemic has opened people's eyes a lot to just the importance and the essence of mental health because we were all going through some massively stressful traumatic events all at the same time all across the world. There's very rare occasions where everyone on earth can relate to the same stressful thing that's happening. It might be one country's at war, one country is dealing with this election or whatever. This is something we were all going through together. I think the pandemic in some ways opened people's eyes. Maybe we can talk about how we're not okay today. I'm not really feeling good today and I want to share that because I feel overwhelmed or I have anxiety or I feel depressed or I feel sad and it should be okay for me to say that. I think sports are often a great catalyst for change in the social space, political space, because sports is a microcosm of society. These are humans. They're just doing something that we use as entertainment and also we root for. So we put our dreams and hopes and aspirations, especially on our Olympians, they're representing our country. So them not doing what we expect of them then becomes something that we feel like is appropriate to push our animosity on to athletes. So I think it was important that Simone and Naomi Osaka talked about it because also there's an element of we're all different. One person can handle the media and loves being in front of the camera and loves being on the microphone and loves talking to big crowds. The next person can be just as talented as an athlete but doesn't like talking to the media and feels anxiety having a room full of people looking at them even though they can go out on a field and perform in front of thousands of people speaking in a small room is a different type of attention and we all are like that and we know that. We know how every different person reacts in different situations but we expect athletes to all be the same in that space because it's a part of their job. So I think having conversations about it's okay to be different, it's okay to have different stresses and different triggers and different boundaries as a person because we all do that. We all have different things that we don't accept and do accept and athletes are no different. So I think that you know those women saying what they said and doing what they did was very important. It's not the first time we've talked about mental health obviously but I do think that with the pandemic we've had we've been more open to conversations about what it really means. I mean your mind is a part of your body. It's not separate from your physical health. We think of it as something separate. If you had a heart problem and the doctor needed to prescribe a pill for you you would take it. Why would you not take it something for your brain? You know there's a stigma attached to it that you're like weak or you're not well but when it comes to something it doesn't have to do with your mind there's not a stigma just do what you need to do to be healthy. So I do think it's a lot of education removing the stigma removing the idea that you have to be perfect or you have to be on point all the time no matter what's happening you got to you know rub some dirt on it and keep it going and I think athletes being able to speak about it is very important for that. October is a domestic violence awareness month. Can you tell me about the Joy Taylor Foundation? Yes so I've worked in the charity non-profit space for a long time. My brother's had a foundation for 20 years now I think. He's at the Jason Taylor Foundation and I started working with domestic violence advocacy programs and shelters when I was in Miami probably around 2012 or 13. So it's been important for me to establish my own foundation so I can support programs that are you know near and dear to me which obviously domestic violence awareness and advocacy and homelessness and youth empowerment are my three pillars for the foundation. So I'm working on partnerships now. Our first community partner is Beauty of the Streets which is an organization that I volunteer with a lot on out here in Los Angeles and Shirley does an amazing job she's put together an incredible operation that goes down to Skid Row on Saturdays and gives out food and blankets tents they do haircuts they have access to healthcare items the toiletries water you know essentials and you know she really pours her heart and soul into the community the homeless community down there which obviously if you know anything about Skid Row Los Angeles it's a very rough place so I'm really happy to support her and what she's doing and we'll have more partnerships that we're announcing soon within those three pillars and some events as well but it's always just it's important to me to to give back and to use my voice in whatever capacity that I have to you know try and make the world a better place so that's why joy I can't I can't thank you enough for your time we had a lot of stuff I greatly greatly appreciate you and enjoy watching you it's about thank you so much thank you thank you so much for having me