Kevin Stoker
Welcome to Inside JMS, a podcast featuring faculty and staff at the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies. I'm Kevin Stoker, and my co-host here is Dashing Dave Nourse.
Dave Nourse
Always happy to be here, Kevin. Good to see you.
Paul Gutierrez
Dashing Dave, I like it. I like it.
Kevin Stoker
And we're really happy to have with us Paul Gutierrez, part-time instructor, teaches our sports reporting class, but I think we got to start though. We got to start at the beginning. Paul, you went to school here.
Dave Nourse
You did.
Kevin Stoker
He was an anchor on Studio G
Dave Nourse
Before it was Studio G.
Kevin Stoker
Before it was Studio G. He. set the tone for all our great sports program today. So, Paul, welcome.
Paul Gutierrez
Thanks, guys, for having me. I mean, like like I was saying before, I mean, I'm so thankful and grateful and honored to to you know be able to come back and and not only pay it back but try to pay it forward, but also learn from this crop of students because the industry just is continually evolving, so to be able to kind of go back and and hit the basics, but build upon things that have happened here already-it's been so much fun and and gratifying, really. So again, thank you for having me in more ways than one.
Kevin Stoker
So when you're growing up here in Vegas, Paul, did you ever imagine yourself being a sports writer and a sports reporter for right now the Raiders. Yeah, so
Paul Gutierrez
you know what's interesting in my my path is that I actually grew up in Barstow, two hours down the freeway that way. But I was in Vegas all the time, and I attended UNLV, obviously. But initially, I was supposed to come to UNLV straight out of high school. I was supposed to be in the band. I was going to play my trumpet. I had a band scholarship. I was the lead trumpet, a McDonald's high school all-American nominee, blah blah blah. But a couple things happened. Nobody in my family on either side had ever gone to college, let alone graduated from college. So being Mexican American in Barstow, as soon as you graduated high school, you went into the workforce. Well, I knew I wanted to go to college, so I wanted to do that. But I didn't know what I wanted to do. I love band, but I didn't love it enough to to make a career out of it, so to speak. And I knew if I came here right away, that's ultimately what I would have done. But a couple other things, I was very immature, didn't have, I didn't know what to do, and oh yeah, I still had somebody in high school that I was involved with. So I'm going to stay home and try and figure this thing out. So I took my first journalism class at Barstow Community College, and I was the only student in the class. Oh my! It was myself and Dr. Richard Reeb, and we put out a every two weeks we put out a four-page newspaper. So I learned everything from headline writing to the five Ws and the H to a nut graph to how to write a lead to literally printing the paper out on wax paper, using the exacto knife, printing it out, boom, taking the shots of it, delivering the paper on campus. So that was literally my start in the industry. So by the time I transferred here, I was writing for my hometown newspaper, and I was covering everything from going to then L.A. Raider games, Dodger games, Angel games, L.A. Kings games, L.A. Rams games, to on the weekends covering to covering Barstow High football, which was the big thing in Barstow. To oh yeah, I would go to the the animal shelter and take pictures of the dogs and cats that needed to be adopted, and I'd have to write the little fat graphs on there. Here's why Fido would make a nice pet for you. This is why Fifi should come to your home. So having all those experiences really set me up for the time when I was both physically, mentally ready, and psychologically ready to transfer to UNLV. I came, so within a semester, I became the sports editor of the school paper, which was then called the Rebel Yell. I still have this; it's a little yellow now. I showed it to the students in class the other day. Yeah, and then I was like you mentioned, it was UNLV TV News Center Four, and we were coming live on Thursday nights at 6:30 p.m. out of the basement in FDH, and then we'd go across the street and celebrate at Moose McGillicuddy's, neither of which exist anymore. So that's in a long, in a long answer to your short question. No, I did not think that I would ever be doing this, but that's not because I didn't want to do it. It's because I just didn't think about doing it. I was just taking it one day at a time.
Kevin Stoker
Did you enjoy writing in high school?
Paul Gutierrez
No, absolutely hated it. I never even took a journalism class in high school.
Kevin Stoker
Or you know, I'm sure you had an English. I had to write
Paul Gutierrez
a lot of term papers, but when I went into my local newspaper, the Barstow Desert Dispatch, and had writing samples, they were term papers, and it was like this is not journalism. This, but but we'll figure it out. So I'm coming up pretty closely here on like an anniversary of my very first ever byline in the Desert Dispatch, and thankfully what I turned in looked nothing like what appeared in the paper. So it needed a lot of work. And I look back, I look back at stuff here, you know, a couple years ago, and like, what what was I thinking? What am I doing? Just get to the point, Paul. But no, I did not enjoy writing, which is funny because I hated writing term papers, and yet now I'll I'll sit here and I'll bang out 1000 word story in an hour or whatever.
Dave Nourse
That's really impressive.
Kevin Stoker
Yeah,
Dave Nourse
Paul, you sat in a class with you and the professor, and you learned the business. Yeah, I mean everything. From, as you mentioned, the four Ws and the H to delivering the paper, really, and everything in between, everything in between, which is incredible. That experience must have been so formative. But was it at that moment? I mean, how did you go from not enjoying writing, despising
Paul Gutierrez
it, yeah,
Dave Nourse
to this is my path. This is the journey that I want to be on. I mean, talk about like a revelation that you must have had, or did it happen overnight? Was a light bulb, or was it gradual? Like, talk about that.
Paul Gutierrez
Yeah. So in high school, I always wanted to do journalism or write for the yearbook or whatever it could be, but we didn't have a zero hour, so to speak, or an extra period to do things. So my elective was always banned, but I was also playing football, or I was wrestling, or I was playing baseball, or I was in my dad's karate class at night. So, I was always busy, so I didn't have time to take on one extra thing. So, but I always had a subscription to Sports Illustrated from august 1, 1983. Details, right? Howard Cosell was on the cover, so I remember that, and like when I go to the grocery store with my mom, and I'm not trying to generalize a stereotype here, but I went to the grocery store with my mom. I'd always split off and go to the magazine section, sit down and read Sport Magazine, which was a monthly, and that was nothing but features. And I had subscription to that since I was like 10 years old. So I loved ingesting sports media. SI always showed up in the mail on Thursdays, so I loved getting home and reading Si that night. So I love the storytelling aspect of it, and I think what it was, Dave, was I liked telling my own stories, so to speak, instead of being told what to write about. So term papers in school were like, you have to do this, and you have to do that, and yet at the same time, it's setting you up for the details, for the context, for the history that you have to know of something. So I don't. It wasn't like an overnight switch, but when I was finally able to take that first journalism class, I was like, "Yeah, I kind of like this. And you know what? To be completely fair and honest, the ego kicks in, and you love seeing the byline, the native
Kevin Stoker
print. Yeah.
Paul Gutierrez
So yeah, that was that was a that was a lot of it actually.
Kevin Stoker
Did you stay in touch with that professor that you had?
Paul Gutierrez
You know, I had again little self pat on the back here thing. The Barstow College gave me an award a couple years ago for distinguished alumni, and I invited him, but he wasn't able to make it. So Dr. Richard, and the interesting thing here is not to get political or get in the weeds or anything. He is probably the most right-wing conservative man in Barstow, and I'm anything but. And yet, he is the one that set me on my path through my scholarships. Because one day in class, when it was just he and I, he goes, "Here, you might be interested in this. It was the California Chicano News Media Association was offering scholarships, and he could very easily have seen that thrown away and say, "Yeah, this kid doesn't need this. But he he introduced me to that, which then introduced me to the Freedom Forum, which then introduced me to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. So a lot of my scholarships early on and connections I made through my career were through him. And had he been able to be at the at the event that I had at Barstow College a couple years ago, I would have thanked him in person, but I did thank him in my speech.
Kevin Stoker
That's great. That's great. So tell us about making that transition from broadcast to print. It's because, or at least tell us what happened after high school or after college. I mean, after yeah. So graduated.
Paul Gutierrez
That was the thing when I was at UNLV. I knew I wanted to write, so I got on the sports staff right away my first semester, and then became the sports editor in my second semester. But I also wanted to do TV as well, and like one of my goals at that time, and this is a name that I don't even know if the students know, Bob Costas. I saw myself as kind of a Bob Costas role, where I like to write like a national type column to let my opinion be known, but also kind of get on camera and kind of opine on certain things, also, and to kind of be at certain things. So, you what UNLV gave me then was at that point we're coming towards the tail end of the Tarkanian years, and when basketball was king here in Vegas, there weren't a lot of us that were in sports journalism at that time at UNLV. So, it gave me even more opportunities. It wasn't one student in a classroom like at Barstow College, but with a handful of us doing sports journalism here for a program that was a national product, a national name, it was a working lab for us. So that gave us the opportunity to be able to take then the TV class. I had always kind of written in a style where I always, and this is something I try to tell the students: is when you write something, read it out loud. It has to have a sense. There's there's a lot of music. When I write, I listen to music, because there's something there's something musical about the way you write, and that's the way you talk and the way I'm kind of speaking right now. Right, you have to have a certain pattern to things, and that just kind of bleeds its way into broadcast, in my opinion. Whether it's broadcast, podcast, radio, you have to be able to make sense to people; otherwise, you're going to lose your audience, whether it's a reader, a viewer, a listener.
Dave Nourse
So you left UNLV,
Paul Gutierrez
yeah,
Dave Nourse
having had all of this excellent experience.
Paul Gutierrez
Absolutely, you know,
Dave Nourse
you've got a you got a demo reel that I'm sure you were really proud of that makes you cringe today. Yes, I had
Paul Gutierrez
a nice mullet, Dave. Tell you that a very nice
Dave Nourse
mother, incredibly handsome, still are. So you are you've got the kind of you've got this energy, and you've got this enthusiasm, and then you've got kind of this practical experience. Where did you go from there? And and like, did you have an end goal in mind? Like, was Sports Illustrated it? Was ESPN it? Was being the Bob Costas of I don't know ABC or CBS rather than NBC. The goal. Where were you going when you left UNLV, and kind of how did that journey? How did you shift on that journey?
Paul Gutierrez
So personally, I you know it's funny. Like I would advise students today to have a goal in mind, right? And my goal was just to be happy and do what I'm doing. I come from Barstow, 20,000 people today, as it was when I grew up, as it was when my parents grew up there. So Vegas was the big city to me. I had no goals or aspirations of going anywhere. I wanted to graduate from UNLV, get a job at the Las Vegas Sun or the RJ at the time, right? I would, I would have been totally happy doing that because that was kind of the goal, but when I get the call from Sports Illustrated, I'd already technically graduated, but I was still kind of sticking around trying to figure out what exactly I was. Am I going to get my master's? Am I going to do this? And I got the call from SI, so I went and interviewed, and then I got offered the job, which was funny because it was in the semester, spring semester of '95, I was anchoring the news with Jennifer Rehm, and I knew I was leaving. So as we signed off on the desk, I went. You know, I'm going to do a little bit of a Dennis Miller here. I got a job at SI. I am out of here, right? And nobody got the reference, and probably nobody will get it today. But I just knew that I was leaving, and I didn't even really want to go. But to go be a fact checker at Sports Illustrated was amazing because, again, how do you say no to Sports Illustrated? So I was there for three and a half years, and the main job was being a reporter, researcher, fact checker. And if you never wanted to write, you could have been set for a while. I mean, a Sports Illustrated no longer really exists in that fashion anymore. But I always had higher aspirations of wanting to write, so I got in the magazine a few times. But you use that job for one of two things: either as a springboard to a big beat job somewhere around the country, or you got promoted within. I had the opportunity to come back to Las Vegas and cover UNLV, the alma mater, when Sean Marion was on the Rebels. So I came back, and have not looked back since. And and again, when I came back, I was just happy to be here. I never wanted to leave again. Then the LA Times called. That's the paper I grew up reading, really, in Southern California. How do you say no to the LA Times? So I went there to cover everything from the Dodgers and the Angels to the Lakers. I did a lot of UNLV stories because UNLV again was still a national name, national brand at that time. Boxing, soccer, you name it. I was able to travel internationally, the Dominican Republic, to Mexico City to cover track and field, so that again, when I was there, I was part of the Latino Initiative, which the LA Times was hiring reporters to come in and more accurately cover the community in which it served. So the fact that they had to do that tells you everything you need to know about what the where the Times was in the late '90s. But I wasn't pigeonholed at all. I was able, like I said, because of my start there, I was able to become a baseball Hall of Fame voter, right? Because I covered a lot of Dodgers. So from there, then I bounced to the Bay Area, and it's you know Sacramento Bee to Comcast Sportsnet Bay Area to ESPN to now with Raiders.com and being able to to come back here and give back. So it's been a journey that I look back on, and as Tom Flores, Hall of Fame Raiders coach, told me one time about all the cool things he did, he said, as you're going through it, you don't really realize what you're doing. But at the end of the day, you kind of look back and go, you know what? Yeah, that was some pretty cool stuff I did.
Paul Gutierrez
So I'm nowhere near to being done, so to speak. But you know, when I'm able to pull up a yellowing copy of the Rebel Yell when Rolly Massimino resigned, and there we all are competing with the local papers, and compare it to what the the students today are doing, the Scarlet and Gray. It's really cool to see the connections and to see how there's good journalism will always be good journalism.
Kevin Stoker
Right. Well, tell us about tell us a little about you growing up in Barstow. Yeah. What was what you you did all these sports and everything else and
Dave Nourse
and played the trumpet yeah and played the trumpet and played the trumpet and played the trumpet McDonald's all American trumpet player in our midst coming
Paul Gutierrez
nominee nominee excuse me all right so
Dave Nourse
fact check fact
Kevin Stoker
check so who were your mentors who had the real influence on you that kind of helped you move forward in your life and your career.
Paul Gutierrez
Well, my parents, my parents obviously. Without them, I wouldn't have been able to do anything because I had their support, right? And again, being the first on either side of my family to go to college and graduate with a degree, and I claim that over my cousin Narcelina in Texas because she went to the four-year route. I got my associate's degree before she got her bachelor's, so that's why I'm claiming I got the first degree in the family. But my parents had my back through everything, and you know I was still able to live at home and and cover things. And as long as I was working and working toward a goal, that made sense. And I played baseball at Barstow College for two years too, so that really got me going in terms of being serious about school. Larry Maestas, who was the. Sports editor at the Barstow Desert Dispatch gave me my shot, and you know he was there at that dinner at Barstow College at night, and I couldn't thank him enough for giving me the shot because you always need that person to not necessarily recognize something but give you an opportunity, and then it's up to you to take advantage of that opportunity. So Larry was right there, step one. You know, like I mentioned, Dr. Richard Reeve, if he hadn't given me the the CCNMA California Chicano News Media Association scholarship opportunity, I don't know what I would be doing either. So there's people that help you along the way. Nobody ever does this in this industry by themselves. Somebody has to find them, has to find you, and give you that opportunity. Then it's up to you. Growing up in Barstow, I mean that's all I ever knew. A lot of people criticize Barstow as being in the middle of nowhere, I always look at it this way: it's halfway to everywhere. It's two hours to Vegas. It's two hours to Barstow. It's an hour to Big Bear. It's an hour and a half to Palm Springs. You can find trouble wherever you want, but if you want to find some success and find some good stories, that's up to you too. So, I I was gonna I was gonna ask. Okay, so now,
Kevin Stoker
as you're doing, what what stories have you done that have kind of had long term influence on you? So you've done all these stories. You've worked at some great places and everything else. Tell us about experiences that kind of were transformative for you.
Paul Gutierrez
Yeah, it's funny because I don't know if I could pinpoint something for me, and the way I kind of judge that is what kind of impact did it have on other people? If other people are still talking about it, in one story, it's UNLV related. This is 26 years old now, and I feel like what five years ago, 10 years ago, no, in 2000, Jr. Ryder, who was a UNLV basketball great, but you know, I'm ran into his own issues here. Is playing for the Lakers, and I'm working at the LA Times, and I broke the story that he was siding with the Lakers. So during that season, he was getting in trouble with Phil Jackson all the time, and I'm dropping names here that a lot of the students are going who. But anyway, Jr. agreed to meet with me in Oakland. He's from Oakland. He's from Alameda, the Bay Area. They're playing the Warriors, and we're going to do a day in the life of J.R. Ryder. Why he's so misunderstood? Well, he blew me off time after time after time during this day, where it just never happened. So I write that I fire off this nasty email to my my editor. I said, "Look, this isn't happening. This is what he did. He did this to me. Did that to me. And my wife, my wife, my now wife, we were engaged at the time. Amy, who's in the industry as well, she said, "That's your story. I'm like, "Yeah, crazy. There's no way. So, what do you know? My editor writes back to me. That's the story. Take some of the anger out of it. Take some of the anger out of it, and that's the story. Okay, cool. Boom. Well, I'm out of town, but I see the L.A. Times the next day. The story is the above the fold, which in journalism parlance is huge. It's above the fold, and it's a whole story. Basically, tapes the whole page. How Jr. Ryder basically, you know, sorry for the language, he screwed me on this story, and yet I'm like, oh no, I've got to be in the locker room now because I can't write something like that and not show. So I went to the locker room that and got you know got the finger wag and everything. And the only thing I regret about that story is that I brought his mom into the story because she blew me off too, and I think my line in the story was like "mother like son. That was kind of a cheap shot, and I understood that, and I apologized to Jr. for that. I said, "But nothing else. I mean, look what you did to me all day long. Thanks for the free trip to the Bay Area, I guess. But bro, really? And to this day, Jr. and I still trade messages back and forth. He just liked a when I posted on Facebook about teaching here at UNLV. Guess who liked it on Facebook? Jr. Ryder. So that's probably the big story. And the reason I mention that is because the L.A. Dodgers historian, the Dodgers historian, still to this day, whenever I see him, oh man, that J.R. Ryder story. That was something. I'm like, bro, you're the Dodgers historian. What are you talking about? So that's a big one. Being able to advocate for Tom Flores for the Hall of Fame and him getting in is is pretty big. Especially one of the lessons I impart to the students is this: you bring yourself to the table, whatever that is. My last name ends in an easy. My skin tone is a certain tone. I have experiences that nobody else could possibly have, not because I'm Mexican American or I'm from Barstow, but I am me, so I'm going to bring that to the table. I tell the students, I'm like, look, we got to take a perverse pride in being a rebel. You guys are all here in Vegas. You're out of here at a different time than I was. But when you go out into that field, guess what? You get to take into the job market. Your experience is here.
Paul Gutierrez
So those are the big impact type stories that I recall and have a lot of pride in is being able to do those things, whether it's voting for the Baseball Hall of Fame, voting for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, voting for the Hispanic Football Hall of Fame, and and the Jr. Ryder story because it meant so much. The other one is the Fernando Valenzuela story. You know, when I was a kid, Steve Garvey was my hero on the Dodgers. Then I'm 11 years old. Fernando shows up and go, "Oh, wait a minute! He he he looks like you know he looks like he could be my uncle. He speaks Spanish. The crowd changes when he pitches. So to be able to meet him, become good friends with him, well friendly in the industry anyway. And his son played at UN. So I did a story in the LA Times again, where I'm covering baseball, my all-time favorite sport as a kid growing up, sitting with my all-time hero, baseball hero as a kid growing up, at my alma mater, writing in the LA Times. That right there, I'm like, this is 2003. I said, I don't know how it gets any better than this. It has, but that right there is a big moment for me too,
Dave Nourse
Paul. You seem like just listening to you. You're a person that is not only excited about the trajectory that you've been on, but you have the ability to kind of look back, reflect, and show gratitude at the same time. You know, the first person you thanked was your parents, right? Just having that ability again to kind of look back, recognize what you have, and say, if it weren't for this foundation, that is what essentially propelled me to where I am today. So, you work here in the School of Journalism and Media Studies as a part-time instructor now, where you can help mold and shape and foster the development of the next generation of sports media journalists. How do you encourage them not only to kind of look for those unique angles of the story, like with the assignment you were telling us just before we started recording this, but also to kind of recognize who they are, where they came from, kind of what supports they had along the way, and use that as momentum to kind of push their careers forward.
Paul Gutierrez
There's only so many, and I remember Kevin when we first spoke about when I was offered the job. There's only so many war stories you can tell before they start to tune out. So I try to mix those in, and I'm not making light of war stories, so to speak, but that's kind of what they call it in the industry. They have to want it, otherwise it doesn't matter. I could I could regale them with everything. We had Jeff Pearlman zoom in the other day, who's pretty much he and I were frenemies at Sports Illustrated. Almost threw him out the 18th floor window one day, but that's that's neither here nor there. But we're good now. We're friends. So he he zooms in, and they're like, "Wow, that's Jeff Perlman. So they can listen to my war stories and get tired of them, but when I start bringing in other people, and when it reinforces what I'm trying to tell them, hey, only you are you. You can you're bringing something to the table that's unique. That's how I try to do it is by bringing in different voices that are not only different but inspirational to them as well. So throughout the semester, I bring in a wide variety, whether it's former Sports Center anchors or people here in the local media, or my wife, who again is one of my biggest inspirations now. Amy was the in-game reporter for the San Francisco Giants for 13 seasons. She has three World Series rings, and I always kid her, "Yeah, well, you need a fourth because all three of them say Gutierrez. So that's me, that's my son Zach, who's also a senior here at UNLV in art, and our daughter Grace, who's a freshman business major at San Diego State. So you need one for yourself now, but those are the type stories she comes in and talks to him too. And a lot of you know, not the stereotype or generalize, but the young ladies in the class, like, whoa, Amy G's here, you know, and that's a cool thing to be able to do because when I was coming up in the in the industry, if I saw somebody that I gravitated toward and they actually showed an interest in me, wow! You know, Pedro Gomez, the late Pedro Gomez, a baseball writer in Arizona. As soon as I saw somebody with an easy in their last name in a baseball press box, boom! I went right to him. So that's what I'm saying: is it's up to the students as well to have that. You need to have that want. You need to have that curiosity. Which again, building upon just in the class itself, building upon institutional knowledge, context, history, details, curiosity. You have those five things, those five tenets. Now you can go. Now you now you need to know the five Ws and the H. Now you need to know what's a lead, what's a nut graft. You have to have that want within. So I can tell all the war stories in the world. I can have guests come in and tell, but unless the students really want it, it doesn't really matter.
Kevin Stoker
How how has sports reporting changed? You watched it. You watched it go from you know, like you said, you were in the print area, and it's gone from there to it's all digital and everything. And and tell me about how it's how it's evolved and changed and how it stayed the same.
Paul Gutierrez
It stayed the same because good journalism is good journalism. Nothing is going to trump good journalism at the end of the day. Storytelling, details, context. It's changed in how we deliver it. It's changed in. There's a lot more sloppiness involved now with the 24/7 availability of news. I mean, you sit and run. You're like, well, I asked the students at the beginning, how do you get your how do you get your news? TikTok, Twitter, or whatever it's called now. I'm like, okay, that's good. That's a good starting point. Same thing. Like I told him literally today, Wikipedia to me is not a source. It's a good starting point because then you any any maniac can get on Wikipedia and put anything on there. I have a Wikipedia page about myself that I have nothing to do with. So I don't know who put that stuff up there. But that's how it's changed. It stayed the same. Good journalism is good journalism, but it's changed in that there's a lot more sloppiness. Anybody can have a platform now, which is good and bad. And I've always said the internet is at once the best creation in human history, but it's also the worst because you have to do the legwork of the fact checking that comes with it. Which, again, going back to the beginning of this conversation, that's what I learned at Sports Illustrated. That's what was driven into our heads day to day. There'd be a story that would come in, and literally, you know, I'm reading here the lead for nearly a month. Valerie Pacheco, a 21-year-old UNLV student, okay, I have to highlight everything that's a verifiable fact, and I have to fact check that and make sure that's true. Okay, so that's what's changed. It's also, as a journalist, you can't just do one thing. You can't just be a print reporter because Prince going out of style, it's dying. Really, you can't just be on TV. You have to have a social media profile. You have to be able to do so many different things while staying true to yourself and doing the good journalism along the way. It's exhausting, really, but the payoff is so much fun because it's the coolest job in the world, really.
Dave Nourse
Paul, you're excited about your job. Yeah, you can tell. You've got you've got a great energy. You bring that energy into your classes. You're able to share that energy with the students. You're also able to share with them that again, that energy has to come from within. You have to have that curiosity. You have to have that love of storytelling and the commitment to getting the details right, doing your homework, making sure you have the context, making sure you verify it. When a student walks into your classroom for the first time, they're a sports media student. They're interested in sports and covering sports. What's that student going to expect? What's your teaching philosophy like? We've heard a lot about kind of what you try to do in the classroom, but what can they expect from you? What is your classroom? As
Paul Gutierrez
soon as they sit down, I hope they know who I am. Not because I need to be known, but if I'm going into a class, I want to know everything I can possibly know about the instructor because I want to know what the expectations are. So I would hope that they've done a little bit of homework on who I am, so to speak, because I'm the teacher, not because of who I am, right? But number one, take out a pencil and paper. Have our piece of paper, right? What do you guys need? You need writing intensity. You need this. Okay, do it on your phone. Whatever. We do a 10-question sports check, which is something I learned in one of my sports internships. I look at the scarlet and gray. I pull out. Okay, so what was the score of the UNLV football game at North Texas? It's right there in the lead. Read your local stuff. Go online. How do you get your sports news? SI.com, ESPN.com, and I'll give them 10 questions from that morning. It's not necessarily graded, but you see the wheels start to turn. Oh snacks! Oh, smack, snack, whatever, snap. I better be aware of what's going on around in my in my market. Number two, I express to them this is why we're doing it. You have to know what your market is about. If you want to get in this industry, you better know the context and the history of it. Number three, do you know UNLV once won a national championship in men's basketball. A lot of students, my very first class, had no idea. Do you know when even Les knew that? Okay, well we're watching this documentary that HBO did back in 2013, The Running Rebels of UNLV. That's class one. Class two, I want to see how you write. Not necessarily your writing style, but what you took away from it, what were your new sense, and then I give him another documentary that's a little more raw, and I kind of call it the mr. Miyagi way of teaching. Remember the Karate Kid, where mr. Miyagi had Daniel saw him painting the fence, he had him waxing the car, waxing off. He didn't know what he was doing, but he was learning. So that's kind of the way I'm doing. I'm I'm teaching the students a way that they don't even realize what they're doing until I'm like, okay, well now tell me about this, and it's already ingrained. They know how to do it, and maybe that's my martial arts upbringing from my dad because again, that's what I said. My dad was my teacher. He's still teaching in Barstow. So each student is different. You have to address each student a different way if they come and approach you, right? But I want them to know that we're building on something here. We're building on the history. We're building on the context. Okay, now give me some details. Okay, the five Ws and the H. Hey, AP style. Hey, now you can write a breaking news story. Now you can write a feature story. Now you can write an opinion piece because you got to work your way up there. You got to earn the right to tell people what your opinion is, and what I'm learning on my own here is I'm kind of basing this class on the class I took when I was here in 1992. Steve Karp, local legend, Hall of Famer in the Southern Nevada Sports Hall of Fame, as a reporter, I still have that syllabus, so I've just updated it to things today, whether it's social media, broadcast, on air, whatever it is. The class with Steve was just a basic news writing class. Mary House as well. So, like I said, good journalism is good journalism, and you start from there, and you just build upon
Kevin Stoker
it. So tell us how you met your wife. I mean, she's in the industry too.
Paul Gutierrez
Yeah, it's interesting because. We met at Sports Illustrated. When I'm at Sports Illustrated on my mid to late 20s, and a lot of us there, you know, we're making literally here. in In 1995, my starting salary there was 32,500 to live in New York City. So my check went to the bars and into dinners and to my rent. I wasn't saving any money, but there's a whole crew of us that's around the same age, so we, you know, if we were from the West Coast or whatever our interests were, we would kind of click and we'd go out to dinners and hang out and stuff. So one of my colleagues, her name was Kim Wong, and she was from the Bay Area, and she said, "Hey, I've got a friend that's coming into town. I saw her picture and said, 'Well, she looks like Kelly from 900 and 210. So again, references that today's students will have no idea what I'm talking about, Dave. But you knew it exact right away, and I'm proud of you for that. But you know, when we first meet, and she comes to visit Kim, and and again, we're all this group of people that we go out to dinner, and she's talking, and I man, your voice really sounds familiar, but I have never met you before, and she goes right into Kelly from 90 to 10 voice. So it had nothing to do with journalism, other than I worked at Sports Illustrated. But she was also a journalism major who had graduated from UC Davis. She communications, but she was more on the on-air track. So we meet, we date, we get married, and she's in the industry as well. She, like I said, she was in the Giants' broadcast for 13 seasons. She was an ambassador for them for like the last four. She teaches at Sonoma State as well now, as you well know. And we've we've kind of done a lot of things together. And that's and again, I don't know if a student will ever ask this, but if they ever do, what's what's a secret? The secret sauce to surviving in this industry, it's having a partner that understands it, and with her being in the industry, that is so huge because we would literally at the dinner table, if we weren't taking care of the kids when they were much littler, bounce story ideas off each other, and that's how we keep the juices flowing in that aspect. And literally last night, you know, she's the student the advisor for the student newspaper at Sonoma State, and we shared those duties last in the spring as well, and it's just it's just fun doing it that way with somebody that understands the industry as well. And again, it's funny not not to it's a humble brag totally, but I just won my first Emmy for the Raiders. It is like this very weird category shorts. All I did was like basically read something on on the Raiders owner creating the hand muffs, the hand warmers, won an Emmy for that. And I'm like, I told Amy, I said, well, now I'm only seven behind you because she has eight. And then she flipped it. She said, No, we now have nine.
Kevin Stoker
Oh,
Dave Nourse
sweet. That's a great partner. Yeah.
Kevin Stoker
Okay. So, long time in this industry, working in journalism, covering stories, trying to be objective, and the Raiders come calling.
Paul Gutierrez
Yeah, tell us about that
Kevin Stoker
experience.
Paul Gutierrez
Yeah, a little inside baseball on that, which is football, which is funny. But so I was at ESPN since 2013 to so 11 and a half, 12 years almost, and my contract ended, and I was told that they were not bringing me back. So I was literally outside the Raider facility when I got the news, and I was on the phone making calls, just you know, already throwing the resume out there. I'm like, well, now I'm in my 50s. How hirable am I? I know I bring a certain, you know, I bring a certain job skill set that a lot of people should want, but the market being what it is, I didn't know I was gonna do this. I was outside making calls and talking, and then the SUV rolls up and Mark Davis gets out, and he sees me, and he sees the look on my face, and he comes running over. He says, "Hey, what's going on? And I tell him, and then after he unloads a bunch of curse words, and because he can't believe that ESPN is doing this, and and not that I was I was friendly, so to speak, but I didn't carry the water. I was fair, and that's what Mark Dave always told me was that he loved that I was fair. And in his words, quote unquote, I kicked their ass when it needed to be kicked, but I praised them when they deserved to be praised. Not a lot of people did that in the industry at the time. So he told me, he literally looked at me, and he's holding an in and out bag because he always eats it in and out up on on by the facility. What's the name of the street up there? St. Rose. St. Rose. The St. Rose In and Out. You want to find Mark Dave's? He's usually eating in there. I probably shouldn't have said that, but he's he's got his In-N-Out bag in one hand, his soda in the other, and he goes, "Well, what are we going to do? I said, "Well, what do you mean? Where are we going to? I said, "Well, Amy and I are we're making calls. He goes, "No, no, no. What are we gonna do? And I looked at him. He says, "Well, your family. I love you, and we're gonna make this work. And I went, "Oh! And I kind of my knees buckled.
Dave Nourse
Did I just get a job?
Paul Gutierrez
Yeah. So he, I said, "Well, I need to talk to other people and see what's up because I don't know by all means, but just know that if and when you've got a home here. So now, from the journalistic standpoint, that crosses a line, but I also know that the world has changed, and it just it worked out. So I went there, and yeah, the first few months being there and wearing the gear and and representing the team and being for Raiders.com that was weird, because I remember the first time I asked a question of Pete Carroll. Pete Paul Gutierrez Raiders.com and I said audibly out loud, well that was weird. So that took a minute to get used to because corporate journalism is different than traditional journalism. But at the same point, what he told me later, I approached him and said, "Hey, I'm just trying to figure out what the role is here and what do you see from me. And he said, "Hey, don't lose your voice. Your voice is what got you here. Be fair. Keep doing what you're doing. I said, okay, good, thank you. He says, but when you piss me off, I'm gonna let you know. And I said, so nothing's changed. He said, absolutely. So it's about it's not carrying the water at all, but it's about a having access to certain stories and history and context and details that I didn't have access to before, and it's fun. It's a lot of fun. And when breaking news happens, and I've been doing this a long time, there is a part of me that sits back. One of the students asked me last week what the Brock Bowers story happened about him having a knee injury and missing the opener. Do you miss having to chase that, and I went not at all. But I get to make sense of it now, and put out not necessarily put out a team message, but from my own perspective as the columnist for the Raiders, what does this really mean? And that's that's what's changed. It
Dave Nourse
seems like you are at the right point in your career where you had enough not only the credibility. I mean, clearly Mark Dave's respected you as a journalist, but you had enough confidence in yourself to be able to know. All right, here's the line, and I know where I am kind of in relation to that line, and I can do this job ethically, and you know, without having to compromise anything.
Paul Gutierrez
Yeah, and that's that comes with the experience, that comes with reps, that comes with doing this for a long time. I mean, you know, the first ever Raider game I covered on a credential, I still have because I was 18 years old working at the Desert Dispatch, taking that one journalism class at Barstow College, and my dad was my driver, and he sat up in the press box and collected the notes for me. And I went down on the field and I shot the pictures. So I'd come back up, we'd leave, we'd drive back to Barstow, and I'd sit at home and and write a story and turn it in, and and it would appear in the Desert Dispatch the next afternoon. So that's how far back my coverage of the Raiders goes to 1988, really. And I'd go to games all the time, and from 88 through 91 before I transferred here, so that the way I look at that is it's just the reps. It's it's doing these things and having the confidence. I mean, I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, Dave. So having done all of these things, it's like I said about Tom Flores. Yeah, it's been pretty cool to do this. I don't see myself stopping anytime soon, unless they just drag me out and say you're done. But because I feel like I'm still learning, I'm still acquiring a different skill set every time. And teaching this class, thanks to you guys, has really helped me expand that. And as I tell the students every so often, you're always learning, what in whatever in life. If you're not learning, as my dad told me, you're either stupid or you're dead. So for me, I want to keep learning.
Dave Nourse
Well, tell us a little bit more about your family because you have your son is a senior.
Paul Gutierrez
Yep,
Dave Nourse
not a journalism and media studies student. No, we're not going to hold that.
Kevin Stoker
Yeah,
Dave Nourse
your daughter, high school senior. No,
Paul Gutierrez
she's a freshman. Hey, she's
Dave Nourse
all right, which is
Paul Gutierrez
okay since they're in a different conference now. But yes.
Dave Nourse
So as your kids have gotten older, and you've been able to kind of, you know, impart some of the things that you have learned, not only as a professional but also kind of working in a university right now, how that how's that shaped you and your wife Amy's kind of philosophy in terms of parenting and helping push them to grow to be successful, whatever it is that their their journey is going to take.
Paul Gutierrez
Yeah, and that all starts at home, anyways, from our own personal upbringings, from what I learned from my family and what Amy learned from her family, and you just kind of adapted to the times that are coming. But being able to teach and be in this industry, what's been different, and it's kind of flipped around a little bit here, is that when Amy was doing the Giants games, I mean, she was a total public figure. So anywhere she went in town, oh, Amy G, this, Amy G, that pictures, and the kids saw it up close and personal. So that's when we realized, and I feel that a little bit more now with the Raiders, not on her level, but at the opener the other day, it was it was definitely a vibe. If you're in public, you have to act above reproach, so to speak, right? And if you have your byline on something, people are looking at you a certain way that way too. So you always have to have you always have to you always have to hold yourself to a certain standard. And if you have an easy in your last name in these days and times of politics, probably even more so, but those are the those are the lessons that we've tried to impart on our on our kids are the same ones that were taught to us. Is just be be professional, for lack of a better term, be compassionate, and be real. How can anybody take those three things away from you? And as Zaga is a senior. Here at UNLV, and and he actually works with me on Sundays at the Raiders. He got a job on the game day staff, passing out stats and doing transcriptions of the interviews in the locker room. So that's very cool to me because I think back, I'm like, that's like when my dad and I used to go to the LA Coliseum to watch Raiders. Now my son and I get to go to work together at the Allegiant Stadium watching the Raiders. So those are the moments to kind of flip around. We're gonna go see Grace here at a San Diego State family weekend in a couple weeks, and looking forward to seeing that because again, full circle moment here. San Diego State recruited me for band also, so and I know Aztec Fire because in Barstow we were the Aztecs, and I know that song so, and I still have the same horn, but that's the you know roundabout way of just saying you know as long as you're just a good person, that's really the starting point as a person, as a journalist, as a professional.
Kevin Stoker
Well, our last question is always: Is there something we should have asked you that we didn't?
Dave Nourse
As a journalist, I know you appreciate that.
Paul Gutierrez
Yeah, no, I do, and that's always what I tell I tell the students too when they're doing interviews, leave it on on their doorstep. But you guys have been pretty thorough, and no notes either. I like this. I don't know. I mean, I think again, I'm just very thankful for the opportunity, not just to sit here with you guys today, but to express just kind of how passionate I really am about all of this, whether it's as a person, as a UNLV alum, as somebody from Barstow, as an instructor here, or as working for the Raiders, I just really appreciate you having a the interest and the curiosity, and letting me kind of get my message out. I guess
Kevin Stoker
it's a great message, and we appreciate you being here, Paul.
Paul Gutierrez
Thank you.
Dave Nourse
Next time you're on the show, bring your horn.
Paul Gutierrez
I will. You know what?
Dave Nourse
There you go. I have it.
Kevin Stoker
We'll expect it.
Paul Gutierrez
I have it.
Dave Nourse
Paul, thank you so much.
Paul Gutierrez
Thanks, Dave.
Welcome to Inside JMS, a podcast featuring faculty and staff at the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies. I'm Kevin Stoker, and my co-host here is Dashing Dave Nourse.
Dave Nourse
Always happy to be here, Kevin. Good to see you.
Paul Gutierrez
Dashing Dave, I like it. I like it.
Kevin Stoker
And we're really happy to have with us Paul Gutierrez, part-time instructor, teaches our sports reporting class, but I think we got to start though. We got to start at the beginning. Paul, you went to school here.
Dave Nourse
You did.
Kevin Stoker
He was an anchor on Studio G
Dave Nourse
Before it was Studio G.
Kevin Stoker
Before it was Studio G. He. set the tone for all our great sports program today. So, Paul, welcome.
Paul Gutierrez
Thanks, guys, for having me. I mean, like like I was saying before, I mean, I'm so thankful and grateful and honored to to you know be able to come back and and not only pay it back but try to pay it forward, but also learn from this crop of students because the industry just is continually evolving, so to be able to kind of go back and and hit the basics, but build upon things that have happened here already-it's been so much fun and and gratifying, really. So again, thank you for having me in more ways than one.
Kevin Stoker
So when you're growing up here in Vegas, Paul, did you ever imagine yourself being a sports writer and a sports reporter for right now the Raiders. Yeah, so
Paul Gutierrez
you know what's interesting in my my path is that I actually grew up in Barstow, two hours down the freeway that way. But I was in Vegas all the time, and I attended UNLV, obviously. But initially, I was supposed to come to UNLV straight out of high school. I was supposed to be in the band. I was going to play my trumpet. I had a band scholarship. I was the lead trumpet, a McDonald's high school all-American nominee, blah blah blah. But a couple things happened. Nobody in my family on either side had ever gone to college, let alone graduated from college. So being Mexican American in Barstow, as soon as you graduated high school, you went into the workforce. Well, I knew I wanted to go to college, so I wanted to do that. But I didn't know what I wanted to do. I love band, but I didn't love it enough to to make a career out of it, so to speak. And I knew if I came here right away, that's ultimately what I would have done. But a couple other things, I was very immature, didn't have, I didn't know what to do, and oh yeah, I still had somebody in high school that I was involved with. So I'm going to stay home and try and figure this thing out. So I took my first journalism class at Barstow Community College, and I was the only student in the class. Oh my! It was myself and Dr. Richard Reeb, and we put out a every two weeks we put out a four-page newspaper. So I learned everything from headline writing to the five Ws and the H to a nut graph to how to write a lead to literally printing the paper out on wax paper, using the exacto knife, printing it out, boom, taking the shots of it, delivering the paper on campus. So that was literally my start in the industry. So by the time I transferred here, I was writing for my hometown newspaper, and I was covering everything from going to then L.A. Raider games, Dodger games, Angel games, L.A. Kings games, L.A. Rams games, to on the weekends covering to covering Barstow High football, which was the big thing in Barstow. To oh yeah, I would go to the the animal shelter and take pictures of the dogs and cats that needed to be adopted, and I'd have to write the little fat graphs on there. Here's why Fido would make a nice pet for you. This is why Fifi should come to your home. So having all those experiences really set me up for the time when I was both physically, mentally ready, and psychologically ready to transfer to UNLV. I came, so within a semester, I became the sports editor of the school paper, which was then called the Rebel Yell. I still have this; it's a little yellow now. I showed it to the students in class the other day. Yeah, and then I was like you mentioned, it was UNLV TV News Center Four, and we were coming live on Thursday nights at 6:30 p.m. out of the basement in FDH, and then we'd go across the street and celebrate at Moose McGillicuddy's, neither of which exist anymore. So that's in a long, in a long answer to your short question. No, I did not think that I would ever be doing this, but that's not because I didn't want to do it. It's because I just didn't think about doing it. I was just taking it one day at a time.
Kevin Stoker
Did you enjoy writing in high school?
Paul Gutierrez
No, absolutely hated it. I never even took a journalism class in high school.
Kevin Stoker
Or you know, I'm sure you had an English. I had to write
Paul Gutierrez
a lot of term papers, but when I went into my local newspaper, the Barstow Desert Dispatch, and had writing samples, they were term papers, and it was like this is not journalism. This, but but we'll figure it out. So I'm coming up pretty closely here on like an anniversary of my very first ever byline in the Desert Dispatch, and thankfully what I turned in looked nothing like what appeared in the paper. So it needed a lot of work. And I look back, I look back at stuff here, you know, a couple years ago, and like, what what was I thinking? What am I doing? Just get to the point, Paul. But no, I did not enjoy writing, which is funny because I hated writing term papers, and yet now I'll I'll sit here and I'll bang out 1000 word story in an hour or whatever.
Dave Nourse
That's really impressive.
Kevin Stoker
Yeah,
Dave Nourse
Paul, you sat in a class with you and the professor, and you learned the business. Yeah, I mean everything. From, as you mentioned, the four Ws and the H to delivering the paper, really, and everything in between, everything in between, which is incredible. That experience must have been so formative. But was it at that moment? I mean, how did you go from not enjoying writing, despising
Paul Gutierrez
it, yeah,
Dave Nourse
to this is my path. This is the journey that I want to be on. I mean, talk about like a revelation that you must have had, or did it happen overnight? Was a light bulb, or was it gradual? Like, talk about that.
Paul Gutierrez
Yeah. So in high school, I always wanted to do journalism or write for the yearbook or whatever it could be, but we didn't have a zero hour, so to speak, or an extra period to do things. So my elective was always banned, but I was also playing football, or I was wrestling, or I was playing baseball, or I was in my dad's karate class at night. So, I was always busy, so I didn't have time to take on one extra thing. So, but I always had a subscription to Sports Illustrated from august 1, 1983. Details, right? Howard Cosell was on the cover, so I remember that, and like when I go to the grocery store with my mom, and I'm not trying to generalize a stereotype here, but I went to the grocery store with my mom. I'd always split off and go to the magazine section, sit down and read Sport Magazine, which was a monthly, and that was nothing but features. And I had subscription to that since I was like 10 years old. So I loved ingesting sports media. SI always showed up in the mail on Thursdays, so I loved getting home and reading Si that night. So I love the storytelling aspect of it, and I think what it was, Dave, was I liked telling my own stories, so to speak, instead of being told what to write about. So term papers in school were like, you have to do this, and you have to do that, and yet at the same time, it's setting you up for the details, for the context, for the history that you have to know of something. So I don't. It wasn't like an overnight switch, but when I was finally able to take that first journalism class, I was like, "Yeah, I kind of like this. And you know what? To be completely fair and honest, the ego kicks in, and you love seeing the byline, the native
Kevin Stoker
print. Yeah.
Paul Gutierrez
So yeah, that was that was a that was a lot of it actually.
Kevin Stoker
Did you stay in touch with that professor that you had?
Paul Gutierrez
You know, I had again little self pat on the back here thing. The Barstow College gave me an award a couple years ago for distinguished alumni, and I invited him, but he wasn't able to make it. So Dr. Richard, and the interesting thing here is not to get political or get in the weeds or anything. He is probably the most right-wing conservative man in Barstow, and I'm anything but. And yet, he is the one that set me on my path through my scholarships. Because one day in class, when it was just he and I, he goes, "Here, you might be interested in this. It was the California Chicano News Media Association was offering scholarships, and he could very easily have seen that thrown away and say, "Yeah, this kid doesn't need this. But he he introduced me to that, which then introduced me to the Freedom Forum, which then introduced me to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. So a lot of my scholarships early on and connections I made through my career were through him. And had he been able to be at the at the event that I had at Barstow College a couple years ago, I would have thanked him in person, but I did thank him in my speech.
Kevin Stoker
That's great. That's great. So tell us about making that transition from broadcast to print. It's because, or at least tell us what happened after high school or after college. I mean, after yeah. So graduated.
Paul Gutierrez
That was the thing when I was at UNLV. I knew I wanted to write, so I got on the sports staff right away my first semester, and then became the sports editor in my second semester. But I also wanted to do TV as well, and like one of my goals at that time, and this is a name that I don't even know if the students know, Bob Costas. I saw myself as kind of a Bob Costas role, where I like to write like a national type column to let my opinion be known, but also kind of get on camera and kind of opine on certain things, also, and to kind of be at certain things. So, you what UNLV gave me then was at that point we're coming towards the tail end of the Tarkanian years, and when basketball was king here in Vegas, there weren't a lot of us that were in sports journalism at that time at UNLV. So, it gave me even more opportunities. It wasn't one student in a classroom like at Barstow College, but with a handful of us doing sports journalism here for a program that was a national product, a national name, it was a working lab for us. So that gave us the opportunity to be able to take then the TV class. I had always kind of written in a style where I always, and this is something I try to tell the students: is when you write something, read it out loud. It has to have a sense. There's there's a lot of music. When I write, I listen to music, because there's something there's something musical about the way you write, and that's the way you talk and the way I'm kind of speaking right now. Right, you have to have a certain pattern to things, and that just kind of bleeds its way into broadcast, in my opinion. Whether it's broadcast, podcast, radio, you have to be able to make sense to people; otherwise, you're going to lose your audience, whether it's a reader, a viewer, a listener.
Dave Nourse
So you left UNLV,
Paul Gutierrez
yeah,
Dave Nourse
having had all of this excellent experience.
Paul Gutierrez
Absolutely, you know,
Dave Nourse
you've got a you got a demo reel that I'm sure you were really proud of that makes you cringe today. Yes, I had
Paul Gutierrez
a nice mullet, Dave. Tell you that a very nice
Dave Nourse
mother, incredibly handsome, still are. So you are you've got the kind of you've got this energy, and you've got this enthusiasm, and then you've got kind of this practical experience. Where did you go from there? And and like, did you have an end goal in mind? Like, was Sports Illustrated it? Was ESPN it? Was being the Bob Costas of I don't know ABC or CBS rather than NBC. The goal. Where were you going when you left UNLV, and kind of how did that journey? How did you shift on that journey?
Paul Gutierrez
So personally, I you know it's funny. Like I would advise students today to have a goal in mind, right? And my goal was just to be happy and do what I'm doing. I come from Barstow, 20,000 people today, as it was when I grew up, as it was when my parents grew up there. So Vegas was the big city to me. I had no goals or aspirations of going anywhere. I wanted to graduate from UNLV, get a job at the Las Vegas Sun or the RJ at the time, right? I would, I would have been totally happy doing that because that was kind of the goal, but when I get the call from Sports Illustrated, I'd already technically graduated, but I was still kind of sticking around trying to figure out what exactly I was. Am I going to get my master's? Am I going to do this? And I got the call from SI, so I went and interviewed, and then I got offered the job, which was funny because it was in the semester, spring semester of '95, I was anchoring the news with Jennifer Rehm, and I knew I was leaving. So as we signed off on the desk, I went. You know, I'm going to do a little bit of a Dennis Miller here. I got a job at SI. I am out of here, right? And nobody got the reference, and probably nobody will get it today. But I just knew that I was leaving, and I didn't even really want to go. But to go be a fact checker at Sports Illustrated was amazing because, again, how do you say no to Sports Illustrated? So I was there for three and a half years, and the main job was being a reporter, researcher, fact checker. And if you never wanted to write, you could have been set for a while. I mean, a Sports Illustrated no longer really exists in that fashion anymore. But I always had higher aspirations of wanting to write, so I got in the magazine a few times. But you use that job for one of two things: either as a springboard to a big beat job somewhere around the country, or you got promoted within. I had the opportunity to come back to Las Vegas and cover UNLV, the alma mater, when Sean Marion was on the Rebels. So I came back, and have not looked back since. And and again, when I came back, I was just happy to be here. I never wanted to leave again. Then the LA Times called. That's the paper I grew up reading, really, in Southern California. How do you say no to the LA Times? So I went there to cover everything from the Dodgers and the Angels to the Lakers. I did a lot of UNLV stories because UNLV again was still a national name, national brand at that time. Boxing, soccer, you name it. I was able to travel internationally, the Dominican Republic, to Mexico City to cover track and field, so that again, when I was there, I was part of the Latino Initiative, which the LA Times was hiring reporters to come in and more accurately cover the community in which it served. So the fact that they had to do that tells you everything you need to know about what the where the Times was in the late '90s. But I wasn't pigeonholed at all. I was able, like I said, because of my start there, I was able to become a baseball Hall of Fame voter, right? Because I covered a lot of Dodgers. So from there, then I bounced to the Bay Area, and it's you know Sacramento Bee to Comcast Sportsnet Bay Area to ESPN to now with Raiders.com and being able to to come back here and give back. So it's been a journey that I look back on, and as Tom Flores, Hall of Fame Raiders coach, told me one time about all the cool things he did, he said, as you're going through it, you don't really realize what you're doing. But at the end of the day, you kind of look back and go, you know what? Yeah, that was some pretty cool stuff I did.
Paul Gutierrez
So I'm nowhere near to being done, so to speak. But you know, when I'm able to pull up a yellowing copy of the Rebel Yell when Rolly Massimino resigned, and there we all are competing with the local papers, and compare it to what the the students today are doing, the Scarlet and Gray. It's really cool to see the connections and to see how there's good journalism will always be good journalism.
Kevin Stoker
Right. Well, tell us about tell us a little about you growing up in Barstow. Yeah. What was what you you did all these sports and everything else and
Dave Nourse
and played the trumpet yeah and played the trumpet and played the trumpet and played the trumpet McDonald's all American trumpet player in our midst coming
Paul Gutierrez
nominee nominee excuse me all right so
Dave Nourse
fact check fact
Kevin Stoker
check so who were your mentors who had the real influence on you that kind of helped you move forward in your life and your career.
Paul Gutierrez
Well, my parents, my parents obviously. Without them, I wouldn't have been able to do anything because I had their support, right? And again, being the first on either side of my family to go to college and graduate with a degree, and I claim that over my cousin Narcelina in Texas because she went to the four-year route. I got my associate's degree before she got her bachelor's, so that's why I'm claiming I got the first degree in the family. But my parents had my back through everything, and you know I was still able to live at home and and cover things. And as long as I was working and working toward a goal, that made sense. And I played baseball at Barstow College for two years too, so that really got me going in terms of being serious about school. Larry Maestas, who was the. Sports editor at the Barstow Desert Dispatch gave me my shot, and you know he was there at that dinner at Barstow College at night, and I couldn't thank him enough for giving me the shot because you always need that person to not necessarily recognize something but give you an opportunity, and then it's up to you to take advantage of that opportunity. So Larry was right there, step one. You know, like I mentioned, Dr. Richard Reeve, if he hadn't given me the the CCNMA California Chicano News Media Association scholarship opportunity, I don't know what I would be doing either. So there's people that help you along the way. Nobody ever does this in this industry by themselves. Somebody has to find them, has to find you, and give you that opportunity. Then it's up to you. Growing up in Barstow, I mean that's all I ever knew. A lot of people criticize Barstow as being in the middle of nowhere, I always look at it this way: it's halfway to everywhere. It's two hours to Vegas. It's two hours to Barstow. It's an hour to Big Bear. It's an hour and a half to Palm Springs. You can find trouble wherever you want, but if you want to find some success and find some good stories, that's up to you too. So, I I was gonna I was gonna ask. Okay, so now,
Kevin Stoker
as you're doing, what what stories have you done that have kind of had long term influence on you? So you've done all these stories. You've worked at some great places and everything else. Tell us about experiences that kind of were transformative for you.
Paul Gutierrez
Yeah, it's funny because I don't know if I could pinpoint something for me, and the way I kind of judge that is what kind of impact did it have on other people? If other people are still talking about it, in one story, it's UNLV related. This is 26 years old now, and I feel like what five years ago, 10 years ago, no, in 2000, Jr. Ryder, who was a UNLV basketball great, but you know, I'm ran into his own issues here. Is playing for the Lakers, and I'm working at the LA Times, and I broke the story that he was siding with the Lakers. So during that season, he was getting in trouble with Phil Jackson all the time, and I'm dropping names here that a lot of the students are going who. But anyway, Jr. agreed to meet with me in Oakland. He's from Oakland. He's from Alameda, the Bay Area. They're playing the Warriors, and we're going to do a day in the life of J.R. Ryder. Why he's so misunderstood? Well, he blew me off time after time after time during this day, where it just never happened. So I write that I fire off this nasty email to my my editor. I said, "Look, this isn't happening. This is what he did. He did this to me. Did that to me. And my wife, my wife, my now wife, we were engaged at the time. Amy, who's in the industry as well, she said, "That's your story. I'm like, "Yeah, crazy. There's no way. So, what do you know? My editor writes back to me. That's the story. Take some of the anger out of it. Take some of the anger out of it, and that's the story. Okay, cool. Boom. Well, I'm out of town, but I see the L.A. Times the next day. The story is the above the fold, which in journalism parlance is huge. It's above the fold, and it's a whole story. Basically, tapes the whole page. How Jr. Ryder basically, you know, sorry for the language, he screwed me on this story, and yet I'm like, oh no, I've got to be in the locker room now because I can't write something like that and not show. So I went to the locker room that and got you know got the finger wag and everything. And the only thing I regret about that story is that I brought his mom into the story because she blew me off too, and I think my line in the story was like "mother like son. That was kind of a cheap shot, and I understood that, and I apologized to Jr. for that. I said, "But nothing else. I mean, look what you did to me all day long. Thanks for the free trip to the Bay Area, I guess. But bro, really? And to this day, Jr. and I still trade messages back and forth. He just liked a when I posted on Facebook about teaching here at UNLV. Guess who liked it on Facebook? Jr. Ryder. So that's probably the big story. And the reason I mention that is because the L.A. Dodgers historian, the Dodgers historian, still to this day, whenever I see him, oh man, that J.R. Ryder story. That was something. I'm like, bro, you're the Dodgers historian. What are you talking about? So that's a big one. Being able to advocate for Tom Flores for the Hall of Fame and him getting in is is pretty big. Especially one of the lessons I impart to the students is this: you bring yourself to the table, whatever that is. My last name ends in an easy. My skin tone is a certain tone. I have experiences that nobody else could possibly have, not because I'm Mexican American or I'm from Barstow, but I am me, so I'm going to bring that to the table. I tell the students, I'm like, look, we got to take a perverse pride in being a rebel. You guys are all here in Vegas. You're out of here at a different time than I was. But when you go out into that field, guess what? You get to take into the job market. Your experience is here.
Paul Gutierrez
So those are the big impact type stories that I recall and have a lot of pride in is being able to do those things, whether it's voting for the Baseball Hall of Fame, voting for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, voting for the Hispanic Football Hall of Fame, and and the Jr. Ryder story because it meant so much. The other one is the Fernando Valenzuela story. You know, when I was a kid, Steve Garvey was my hero on the Dodgers. Then I'm 11 years old. Fernando shows up and go, "Oh, wait a minute! He he he looks like you know he looks like he could be my uncle. He speaks Spanish. The crowd changes when he pitches. So to be able to meet him, become good friends with him, well friendly in the industry anyway. And his son played at UN. So I did a story in the LA Times again, where I'm covering baseball, my all-time favorite sport as a kid growing up, sitting with my all-time hero, baseball hero as a kid growing up, at my alma mater, writing in the LA Times. That right there, I'm like, this is 2003. I said, I don't know how it gets any better than this. It has, but that right there is a big moment for me too,
Dave Nourse
Paul. You seem like just listening to you. You're a person that is not only excited about the trajectory that you've been on, but you have the ability to kind of look back, reflect, and show gratitude at the same time. You know, the first person you thanked was your parents, right? Just having that ability again to kind of look back, recognize what you have, and say, if it weren't for this foundation, that is what essentially propelled me to where I am today. So, you work here in the School of Journalism and Media Studies as a part-time instructor now, where you can help mold and shape and foster the development of the next generation of sports media journalists. How do you encourage them not only to kind of look for those unique angles of the story, like with the assignment you were telling us just before we started recording this, but also to kind of recognize who they are, where they came from, kind of what supports they had along the way, and use that as momentum to kind of push their careers forward.
Paul Gutierrez
There's only so many, and I remember Kevin when we first spoke about when I was offered the job. There's only so many war stories you can tell before they start to tune out. So I try to mix those in, and I'm not making light of war stories, so to speak, but that's kind of what they call it in the industry. They have to want it, otherwise it doesn't matter. I could I could regale them with everything. We had Jeff Pearlman zoom in the other day, who's pretty much he and I were frenemies at Sports Illustrated. Almost threw him out the 18th floor window one day, but that's that's neither here nor there. But we're good now. We're friends. So he he zooms in, and they're like, "Wow, that's Jeff Perlman. So they can listen to my war stories and get tired of them, but when I start bringing in other people, and when it reinforces what I'm trying to tell them, hey, only you are you. You can you're bringing something to the table that's unique. That's how I try to do it is by bringing in different voices that are not only different but inspirational to them as well. So throughout the semester, I bring in a wide variety, whether it's former Sports Center anchors or people here in the local media, or my wife, who again is one of my biggest inspirations now. Amy was the in-game reporter for the San Francisco Giants for 13 seasons. She has three World Series rings, and I always kid her, "Yeah, well, you need a fourth because all three of them say Gutierrez. So that's me, that's my son Zach, who's also a senior here at UNLV in art, and our daughter Grace, who's a freshman business major at San Diego State. So you need one for yourself now, but those are the type stories she comes in and talks to him too. And a lot of you know, not the stereotype or generalize, but the young ladies in the class, like, whoa, Amy G's here, you know, and that's a cool thing to be able to do because when I was coming up in the in the industry, if I saw somebody that I gravitated toward and they actually showed an interest in me, wow! You know, Pedro Gomez, the late Pedro Gomez, a baseball writer in Arizona. As soon as I saw somebody with an easy in their last name in a baseball press box, boom! I went right to him. So that's what I'm saying: is it's up to the students as well to have that. You need to have that want. You need to have that curiosity. Which again, building upon just in the class itself, building upon institutional knowledge, context, history, details, curiosity. You have those five things, those five tenets. Now you can go. Now you now you need to know the five Ws and the H. Now you need to know what's a lead, what's a nut graft. You have to have that want within. So I can tell all the war stories in the world. I can have guests come in and tell, but unless the students really want it, it doesn't really matter.
Kevin Stoker
How how has sports reporting changed? You watched it. You watched it go from you know, like you said, you were in the print area, and it's gone from there to it's all digital and everything. And and tell me about how it's how it's evolved and changed and how it stayed the same.
Paul Gutierrez
It stayed the same because good journalism is good journalism. Nothing is going to trump good journalism at the end of the day. Storytelling, details, context. It's changed in how we deliver it. It's changed in. There's a lot more sloppiness involved now with the 24/7 availability of news. I mean, you sit and run. You're like, well, I asked the students at the beginning, how do you get your how do you get your news? TikTok, Twitter, or whatever it's called now. I'm like, okay, that's good. That's a good starting point. Same thing. Like I told him literally today, Wikipedia to me is not a source. It's a good starting point because then you any any maniac can get on Wikipedia and put anything on there. I have a Wikipedia page about myself that I have nothing to do with. So I don't know who put that stuff up there. But that's how it's changed. It stayed the same. Good journalism is good journalism, but it's changed in that there's a lot more sloppiness. Anybody can have a platform now, which is good and bad. And I've always said the internet is at once the best creation in human history, but it's also the worst because you have to do the legwork of the fact checking that comes with it. Which, again, going back to the beginning of this conversation, that's what I learned at Sports Illustrated. That's what was driven into our heads day to day. There'd be a story that would come in, and literally, you know, I'm reading here the lead for nearly a month. Valerie Pacheco, a 21-year-old UNLV student, okay, I have to highlight everything that's a verifiable fact, and I have to fact check that and make sure that's true. Okay, so that's what's changed. It's also, as a journalist, you can't just do one thing. You can't just be a print reporter because Prince going out of style, it's dying. Really, you can't just be on TV. You have to have a social media profile. You have to be able to do so many different things while staying true to yourself and doing the good journalism along the way. It's exhausting, really, but the payoff is so much fun because it's the coolest job in the world, really.
Dave Nourse
Paul, you're excited about your job. Yeah, you can tell. You've got you've got a great energy. You bring that energy into your classes. You're able to share that energy with the students. You're also able to share with them that again, that energy has to come from within. You have to have that curiosity. You have to have that love of storytelling and the commitment to getting the details right, doing your homework, making sure you have the context, making sure you verify it. When a student walks into your classroom for the first time, they're a sports media student. They're interested in sports and covering sports. What's that student going to expect? What's your teaching philosophy like? We've heard a lot about kind of what you try to do in the classroom, but what can they expect from you? What is your classroom? As
Paul Gutierrez
soon as they sit down, I hope they know who I am. Not because I need to be known, but if I'm going into a class, I want to know everything I can possibly know about the instructor because I want to know what the expectations are. So I would hope that they've done a little bit of homework on who I am, so to speak, because I'm the teacher, not because of who I am, right? But number one, take out a pencil and paper. Have our piece of paper, right? What do you guys need? You need writing intensity. You need this. Okay, do it on your phone. Whatever. We do a 10-question sports check, which is something I learned in one of my sports internships. I look at the scarlet and gray. I pull out. Okay, so what was the score of the UNLV football game at North Texas? It's right there in the lead. Read your local stuff. Go online. How do you get your sports news? SI.com, ESPN.com, and I'll give them 10 questions from that morning. It's not necessarily graded, but you see the wheels start to turn. Oh snacks! Oh, smack, snack, whatever, snap. I better be aware of what's going on around in my in my market. Number two, I express to them this is why we're doing it. You have to know what your market is about. If you want to get in this industry, you better know the context and the history of it. Number three, do you know UNLV once won a national championship in men's basketball. A lot of students, my very first class, had no idea. Do you know when even Les knew that? Okay, well we're watching this documentary that HBO did back in 2013, The Running Rebels of UNLV. That's class one. Class two, I want to see how you write. Not necessarily your writing style, but what you took away from it, what were your new sense, and then I give him another documentary that's a little more raw, and I kind of call it the mr. Miyagi way of teaching. Remember the Karate Kid, where mr. Miyagi had Daniel saw him painting the fence, he had him waxing the car, waxing off. He didn't know what he was doing, but he was learning. So that's kind of the way I'm doing. I'm I'm teaching the students a way that they don't even realize what they're doing until I'm like, okay, well now tell me about this, and it's already ingrained. They know how to do it, and maybe that's my martial arts upbringing from my dad because again, that's what I said. My dad was my teacher. He's still teaching in Barstow. So each student is different. You have to address each student a different way if they come and approach you, right? But I want them to know that we're building on something here. We're building on the history. We're building on the context. Okay, now give me some details. Okay, the five Ws and the H. Hey, AP style. Hey, now you can write a breaking news story. Now you can write a feature story. Now you can write an opinion piece because you got to work your way up there. You got to earn the right to tell people what your opinion is, and what I'm learning on my own here is I'm kind of basing this class on the class I took when I was here in 1992. Steve Karp, local legend, Hall of Famer in the Southern Nevada Sports Hall of Fame, as a reporter, I still have that syllabus, so I've just updated it to things today, whether it's social media, broadcast, on air, whatever it is. The class with Steve was just a basic news writing class. Mary House as well. So, like I said, good journalism is good journalism, and you start from there, and you just build upon
Kevin Stoker
it. So tell us how you met your wife. I mean, she's in the industry too.
Paul Gutierrez
Yeah, it's interesting because. We met at Sports Illustrated. When I'm at Sports Illustrated on my mid to late 20s, and a lot of us there, you know, we're making literally here. in In 1995, my starting salary there was 32,500 to live in New York City. So my check went to the bars and into dinners and to my rent. I wasn't saving any money, but there's a whole crew of us that's around the same age, so we, you know, if we were from the West Coast or whatever our interests were, we would kind of click and we'd go out to dinners and hang out and stuff. So one of my colleagues, her name was Kim Wong, and she was from the Bay Area, and she said, "Hey, I've got a friend that's coming into town. I saw her picture and said, 'Well, she looks like Kelly from 900 and 210. So again, references that today's students will have no idea what I'm talking about, Dave. But you knew it exact right away, and I'm proud of you for that. But you know, when we first meet, and she comes to visit Kim, and and again, we're all this group of people that we go out to dinner, and she's talking, and I man, your voice really sounds familiar, but I have never met you before, and she goes right into Kelly from 90 to 10 voice. So it had nothing to do with journalism, other than I worked at Sports Illustrated. But she was also a journalism major who had graduated from UC Davis. She communications, but she was more on the on-air track. So we meet, we date, we get married, and she's in the industry as well. She, like I said, she was in the Giants' broadcast for 13 seasons. She was an ambassador for them for like the last four. She teaches at Sonoma State as well now, as you well know. And we've we've kind of done a lot of things together. And that's and again, I don't know if a student will ever ask this, but if they ever do, what's what's a secret? The secret sauce to surviving in this industry, it's having a partner that understands it, and with her being in the industry, that is so huge because we would literally at the dinner table, if we weren't taking care of the kids when they were much littler, bounce story ideas off each other, and that's how we keep the juices flowing in that aspect. And literally last night, you know, she's the student the advisor for the student newspaper at Sonoma State, and we shared those duties last in the spring as well, and it's just it's just fun doing it that way with somebody that understands the industry as well. And again, it's funny not not to it's a humble brag totally, but I just won my first Emmy for the Raiders. It is like this very weird category shorts. All I did was like basically read something on on the Raiders owner creating the hand muffs, the hand warmers, won an Emmy for that. And I'm like, I told Amy, I said, well, now I'm only seven behind you because she has eight. And then she flipped it. She said, No, we now have nine.
Kevin Stoker
Oh,
Dave Nourse
sweet. That's a great partner. Yeah.
Kevin Stoker
Okay. So, long time in this industry, working in journalism, covering stories, trying to be objective, and the Raiders come calling.
Paul Gutierrez
Yeah, tell us about that
Kevin Stoker
experience.
Paul Gutierrez
Yeah, a little inside baseball on that, which is football, which is funny. But so I was at ESPN since 2013 to so 11 and a half, 12 years almost, and my contract ended, and I was told that they were not bringing me back. So I was literally outside the Raider facility when I got the news, and I was on the phone making calls, just you know, already throwing the resume out there. I'm like, well, now I'm in my 50s. How hirable am I? I know I bring a certain, you know, I bring a certain job skill set that a lot of people should want, but the market being what it is, I didn't know I was gonna do this. I was outside making calls and talking, and then the SUV rolls up and Mark Davis gets out, and he sees me, and he sees the look on my face, and he comes running over. He says, "Hey, what's going on? And I tell him, and then after he unloads a bunch of curse words, and because he can't believe that ESPN is doing this, and and not that I was I was friendly, so to speak, but I didn't carry the water. I was fair, and that's what Mark Dave always told me was that he loved that I was fair. And in his words, quote unquote, I kicked their ass when it needed to be kicked, but I praised them when they deserved to be praised. Not a lot of people did that in the industry at the time. So he told me, he literally looked at me, and he's holding an in and out bag because he always eats it in and out up on on by the facility. What's the name of the street up there? St. Rose. St. Rose. The St. Rose In and Out. You want to find Mark Dave's? He's usually eating in there. I probably shouldn't have said that, but he's he's got his In-N-Out bag in one hand, his soda in the other, and he goes, "Well, what are we going to do? I said, "Well, what do you mean? Where are we going to? I said, "Well, Amy and I are we're making calls. He goes, "No, no, no. What are we gonna do? And I looked at him. He says, "Well, your family. I love you, and we're gonna make this work. And I went, "Oh! And I kind of my knees buckled.
Dave Nourse
Did I just get a job?
Paul Gutierrez
Yeah. So he, I said, "Well, I need to talk to other people and see what's up because I don't know by all means, but just know that if and when you've got a home here. So now, from the journalistic standpoint, that crosses a line, but I also know that the world has changed, and it just it worked out. So I went there, and yeah, the first few months being there and wearing the gear and and representing the team and being for Raiders.com that was weird, because I remember the first time I asked a question of Pete Carroll. Pete Paul Gutierrez Raiders.com and I said audibly out loud, well that was weird. So that took a minute to get used to because corporate journalism is different than traditional journalism. But at the same point, what he told me later, I approached him and said, "Hey, I'm just trying to figure out what the role is here and what do you see from me. And he said, "Hey, don't lose your voice. Your voice is what got you here. Be fair. Keep doing what you're doing. I said, okay, good, thank you. He says, but when you piss me off, I'm gonna let you know. And I said, so nothing's changed. He said, absolutely. So it's about it's not carrying the water at all, but it's about a having access to certain stories and history and context and details that I didn't have access to before, and it's fun. It's a lot of fun. And when breaking news happens, and I've been doing this a long time, there is a part of me that sits back. One of the students asked me last week what the Brock Bowers story happened about him having a knee injury and missing the opener. Do you miss having to chase that, and I went not at all. But I get to make sense of it now, and put out not necessarily put out a team message, but from my own perspective as the columnist for the Raiders, what does this really mean? And that's that's what's changed. It
Dave Nourse
seems like you are at the right point in your career where you had enough not only the credibility. I mean, clearly Mark Dave's respected you as a journalist, but you had enough confidence in yourself to be able to know. All right, here's the line, and I know where I am kind of in relation to that line, and I can do this job ethically, and you know, without having to compromise anything.
Paul Gutierrez
Yeah, and that's that comes with the experience, that comes with reps, that comes with doing this for a long time. I mean, you know, the first ever Raider game I covered on a credential, I still have because I was 18 years old working at the Desert Dispatch, taking that one journalism class at Barstow College, and my dad was my driver, and he sat up in the press box and collected the notes for me. And I went down on the field and I shot the pictures. So I'd come back up, we'd leave, we'd drive back to Barstow, and I'd sit at home and and write a story and turn it in, and and it would appear in the Desert Dispatch the next afternoon. So that's how far back my coverage of the Raiders goes to 1988, really. And I'd go to games all the time, and from 88 through 91 before I transferred here, so that the way I look at that is it's just the reps. It's it's doing these things and having the confidence. I mean, I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, Dave. So having done all of these things, it's like I said about Tom Flores. Yeah, it's been pretty cool to do this. I don't see myself stopping anytime soon, unless they just drag me out and say you're done. But because I feel like I'm still learning, I'm still acquiring a different skill set every time. And teaching this class, thanks to you guys, has really helped me expand that. And as I tell the students every so often, you're always learning, what in whatever in life. If you're not learning, as my dad told me, you're either stupid or you're dead. So for me, I want to keep learning.
Dave Nourse
Well, tell us a little bit more about your family because you have your son is a senior.
Paul Gutierrez
Yep,
Dave Nourse
not a journalism and media studies student. No, we're not going to hold that.
Kevin Stoker
Yeah,
Dave Nourse
your daughter, high school senior. No,
Paul Gutierrez
she's a freshman. Hey, she's
Dave Nourse
all right, which is
Paul Gutierrez
okay since they're in a different conference now. But yes.
Dave Nourse
So as your kids have gotten older, and you've been able to kind of, you know, impart some of the things that you have learned, not only as a professional but also kind of working in a university right now, how that how's that shaped you and your wife Amy's kind of philosophy in terms of parenting and helping push them to grow to be successful, whatever it is that their their journey is going to take.
Paul Gutierrez
Yeah, and that all starts at home, anyways, from our own personal upbringings, from what I learned from my family and what Amy learned from her family, and you just kind of adapted to the times that are coming. But being able to teach and be in this industry, what's been different, and it's kind of flipped around a little bit here, is that when Amy was doing the Giants games, I mean, she was a total public figure. So anywhere she went in town, oh, Amy G, this, Amy G, that pictures, and the kids saw it up close and personal. So that's when we realized, and I feel that a little bit more now with the Raiders, not on her level, but at the opener the other day, it was it was definitely a vibe. If you're in public, you have to act above reproach, so to speak, right? And if you have your byline on something, people are looking at you a certain way that way too. So you always have to have you always have to you always have to hold yourself to a certain standard. And if you have an easy in your last name in these days and times of politics, probably even more so, but those are the those are the lessons that we've tried to impart on our on our kids are the same ones that were taught to us. Is just be be professional, for lack of a better term, be compassionate, and be real. How can anybody take those three things away from you? And as Zaga is a senior. Here at UNLV, and and he actually works with me on Sundays at the Raiders. He got a job on the game day staff, passing out stats and doing transcriptions of the interviews in the locker room. So that's very cool to me because I think back, I'm like, that's like when my dad and I used to go to the LA Coliseum to watch Raiders. Now my son and I get to go to work together at the Allegiant Stadium watching the Raiders. So those are the moments to kind of flip around. We're gonna go see Grace here at a San Diego State family weekend in a couple weeks, and looking forward to seeing that because again, full circle moment here. San Diego State recruited me for band also, so and I know Aztec Fire because in Barstow we were the Aztecs, and I know that song so, and I still have the same horn, but that's the you know roundabout way of just saying you know as long as you're just a good person, that's really the starting point as a person, as a journalist, as a professional.
Kevin Stoker
Well, our last question is always: Is there something we should have asked you that we didn't?
Dave Nourse
As a journalist, I know you appreciate that.
Paul Gutierrez
Yeah, no, I do, and that's always what I tell I tell the students too when they're doing interviews, leave it on on their doorstep. But you guys have been pretty thorough, and no notes either. I like this. I don't know. I mean, I think again, I'm just very thankful for the opportunity, not just to sit here with you guys today, but to express just kind of how passionate I really am about all of this, whether it's as a person, as a UNLV alum, as somebody from Barstow, as an instructor here, or as working for the Raiders, I just really appreciate you having a the interest and the curiosity, and letting me kind of get my message out. I guess
Kevin Stoker
it's a great message, and we appreciate you being here, Paul.
Paul Gutierrez
Thank you.
Dave Nourse
Next time you're on the show, bring your horn.
Paul Gutierrez
I will. You know what?
Dave Nourse
There you go. I have it.
Kevin Stoker
We'll expect it.
Paul Gutierrez
I have it.
Dave Nourse
Paul, thank you so much.
Paul Gutierrez
Thanks, Dave.
