A little over seven minutes into his postgame press conference after defeating the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium, Aaron Rodgers looked to his right and, through a giggle, wondered aloud, “What the hell?”

“Champ! Champ! What was the key to distributing your Packer City lightning to all of your button men, like all-decade torpedo LaVern Dilweg?”

Advertisement

Rodgers responded candidly with what many of those reading this right now are thinking.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The reporter persisted.

“Packers 1920s stalwart, LaVern Dilweg, NFL all-decade tight end.”

Rodgers reiterated, this time unable to contain his smile.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s a good question though. [slight pause] What the hell?”

.@AaronRodgers12 had fun with this question 😂

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) October 7, 2019

The question came from a reporter sitting in the front row to Rodgers’ left; a veteran in the business, honing his craft since 2005. He’s previously stumped the likes of Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and Phil Mickelson in similar fashion.

With Rodgers, the legend of Scoops Callahan grew another fold.

Callahan doesn’t have a birth certificate. He’s a sports reporter from the 1920’s living vicariously through Tom Gribble, a long-time radio producer in Dallas-Ft. Worth. Gribble is currently the producer of Dennis and Cowlishaw on 103.3 FM ESPN but started channeling Callahan as the producer for BaD Radio Show on The Ticket.

Though the words come across to many as a weird jumble of the English dictionary, there’s a lot of thought that goes into this script. The language, the topic and delivery are all considerations Callahan thinks about for hours.

“The essence of the question, fundamentally, has to do with a legitimate idea surrounding the player or the team or the game,” Gribble said. “This weekend, I was tooling around with some ideas for what I was going to do, and I knew Davante Adams was probably going to be out. So, since their No. 1 receiver’s going to be out, who are his other options going to be?”

That question led him to research Packers receivers from the 1920s — his era of expertise — because he anticipated Rodgers struggling to distribute the ball without his top option. Before heading towards AT&T Stadium, the question Gribble had scripted was, “Do you wish you had another burley set of mitts out there like LaVern Dilweg?”

Advertisement

However, even without his top receiver in Adams, Rodgers showed off his brilliance, as he habitually does at AT&T Stadium, and was distributing the ball to receivers, tight ends and running backs. That’s when Gribble had to pull an audible and change to the question that was eventually asked regarding how he was able to be efficient in spreading the “Packer City lightning.”

There’s also a science to the construction of the script and which words get used. Starting the question off with “Champ, champ” happens because boxing was the popular sport a century ago. Then there are the words and phrases that are English but not quite 21^st century English. Gribble gets these through various forms of research, from scouring the Internet to movie sets of the 1920s. But a lot of it comes from the events of that era.

“A lot of the terminology has to do with Chicagoland and Al Capone-era gangsters, others have to do with the Roaring Twenties (and) Prohibition,” Gribble said. “Those are three main areas where a lot of slang came out of that era. I try to adapt the funny, more entertaining slang words or phrases I can find into the question.”

In the case with Rodgers, the entire process took about two hours. There was the original question that had to be scrapped, the question that was asked and then the one that never made it to the public ear but Gribble had prepared as a backup:

“We clearly know you’re the onions when it comes to hurling the pigskin, but what have you learned from the young Curly Lambeau, Football’s Flying Frenchman, Matt LaFleur?”

While the primary question is supposed to be game- or player-related, the backup question has a more general tone to it. If things get wacky and it isn’t fitting to ask about the game, it never fails to just ask the quarterback about his own coach. If the player or coach is really playing along, sometimes the backup question becomes the follow-up question.

Advertisement

The question’s timing is also important. Before heading to the stadium, Gribble noticed that Rodgers’ press conferences last around 10 minutes (Sunday night was just under 11 minutes). Once Rodgers steps to the podium, Gribble looks at the clock.

“My general approach to this is to let the beat writers get their questions in,” Gribble said. “I jumped about seven or eight minutes in, and I knew there were going to be a couple of questions after that. I don’t want to step on the toes of any of the beat reporters. They have a real job going on, and they’re seriously doing stuff, so I don’t want my fun to become an ender.”

Towards the end, Gribble was ready. He doesn’t necessarily set out to memorize the question but once he settles on one, he rehearses it so much in his head that it becomes part of memory. Still, he has the yellow sheet of paper with the question written in front of him as reference, if needed.

Gribble knows that it’s possible his question could end the presser, depending on the athlete and their mood. Rodgers was going to be introduced to Callahan on Sunday, whether he won or lost. The fact it came after a win for Rodgers probably helped the quarterback take it in stride.

“If the coach or the player doesn’t take it the right way, it could be an ender,” Gribble said. “I don’t want that to happen.”

That’s the beauty of Scoops Callahan. The bit is supposed to be a light-hearted change of pace. Even though many are unable to respond with an answer, most of the athletes and coaches do take it that way. With a rare exception or two, fellow journalists also tend to get a kick out of it. That was obvious in the AT&T Stadium press box after all of the media availability was over and SportsCenter had already tweeted a video of Callahan’s question to Rodgers. Media folks from a variety of outlets were enjoying and sharing it.

“At the core, how I look at sports is like what happens on the field, between the lines, during the game, that’s deadly serious. What happens in practice, that’s all serious. I get that. There are livelihoods at stake and history at stake,” Gribble said. “But when you look at modern sports, there’s a circus surrounding it … I respect that. After the game, I respect what the beat writers are doing because they’ve got to get serious answers to serious answers and deal with all of that.

Advertisement

“But I think there is a moment, at the end of that kind of stuff, where you can interject some fun, and that’s what this is meant to do. It’s not meant to be disrespectful. I’m not trying to humiliate or upset anybody. It is just asking a pertinent question but in a fun, entertaining way. Most people get that.”

Rodgers did on Sunday. Hopefully the next athlete gets it as well.

Those who know Gribble personally get even more of a kick out of Scoops Callahan. Gribble is the utmost professional and a generally shy personality. He’s not someone who craves the spotlight, as some might assume give the nature of the bit.

This entire idea originated in 1999 when the Texas Rangers were getting ready to play the New York Yankees in the playoffs. At the time, Gribble was working with the late Kidd Kraddick and the two went into a meeting, trying to brainstorm bit ideas. The general idea of an old-time reporter asking questions of the athlete and coaches came up. Gribble and Kraddick laughed about it, but Kraddick shot it down pretty quickly, deeming it not suitable for the audience they were trying to reach.

And for six years, that’s all it was – a forgotten idea. Gribble, now with The Ticket as the producer of BaD Radio Show with Bob Sturm and Dan McDowell, was brainstorming ideas once again for a radio bit. Then it hit him. This time, Gribble did more than just bring the vague old-time reporter out; he gave him a full identity. Gribble placed him in the 1920s with a boxing edge.

“’Champ, champ’ just kind of always seemed funny to me anyways,” Gribble said.

He named him Scoops Callahan because he was a reporter, so he got scoops, and Callahan was an Irish last name that flowed.

With the character in place, Gribble looked at the schedule and noticed the then-Phoenix Coyotes were coming to town to play the Dallas Stars. They had just hired arguably the biggest name in the world of hockey, Wayne Gretzky, as their head coach. Gribble told himself that if he’s going to do this, he going to do it big.

Advertisement

That day, October 11, 2005, he made an appearance in the press box that caught Sturm and McDowell off guard. He told them he was going to try a bit, didn’t know if it was going to work but was going to give it a shot anyway. The Coyotes lost a game that left Gretzky frustrated with the officiating so Gribble wasn’t exactly catching the legend on his best day.

“Champ, how do you think the zebras called the show? Do you think their cat’s meow or did they give your boys the business?”

Gretzky responded with a pale, “What?” and the next reporter quickly asked the next question. Meanwhile, a media relations official for the Coyotes pulled Gribble out of the scrum and asked him what he was trying to do.

“You got to ask the right question. Sorry, man, you got to ask the proper question.”

“I was just asking how he thought the officials called the game, whether they did —”

“Then ask that, ‘How did the officials call the game?’ I don’t know what that even was, so see you later.”

Gribble left the conversation with a laugh and the PR official called him back to get his name and report him to the Stars. That was the first of roughly 30 Scoops Callahan questions.

McDowell’s personal favorite was Callahan’s first encounter with Peyton Manning, which came in 2006. Manning’s Colts came into Texas Stadium riding a 9-0 record and lost to the Cowboys. Afterward, Gribble turned into Callahan and asked Manning a question, receiving nothing but a death stare in return. Years later, Manning now with the Broncos, the quarterback cut off Gribble as soon as he got going, recalling their 2006 encounter.

Gribble doesn’t get offended in those situations. He’s approached LeBron James as Callahan three times. The first time, James went along with it. By the third time, James was not laughing. He answered the question matter-of-factly. After the session ended, Gribble was tying his shoe and heard the Cavaliers media relations director ask James what he thought about the question from Callahan.

Advertisement

“Sometimes you got to put up with shit like that,” Gribble recalls hearing James say with a sigh.

Given the likelihood of an athlete being annoyed by it, as Manning and James did, Gribble has a rule that he does not do the bit with local athletes. He did it once with Stars legend Mike Modano, and Modano didn’t take it very well.

Gribble has two personal favorites. One featured Phil Mickelson at the Colonial Golf tournament in Ft. Worth. That brought out the famous line from Mickelson, “Why are you yelling? You’re a foot from me.”

“It’s hard not to say Mickelson wasn’t my favorite for two reasons. No. 1, he reacted so well to it, and No. 2, I was having a great time at the Colonial. It was my first pro golf tournament to go to, and I discovered the party hole. I had no idea if it was going to be good and Mickelson was my target. He comes from one shot back from 18 to win the tournament. So, I’ve got a buzz going because I had a few beers on the 13^th hole. He’s feeling great because he just won a million dollars he didn’t think he was going to win. The way it all played out was just really fun.”

But there’s another one that competes with Mickelson due to the magnitude and lasting legacy: The final postgame question Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers legendary coach Phil Jackson ever fielded as a coach was from Callahan after the Lakers got swept by the Mavericks en route to the 2011 NBA title.

“I asked the last question at his last coaching press conference. That was pretty awesome.”

Amidst all of the success, there is one regret built in. Gribble has always wanted to get Brett Favre and had the opportunity when he came to Texas Stadium on November 29, 2007. However, Favre got injured early in the game, and Sturm told Gribble that he likely wouldn’t have media availability after the game as a result. Favre did end up fielding questions, so it turned out to be a lost opportunity.

Advertisement

Ironically, the day that Favre left the game against the Cowboys, Callahan’s latest subject, Rodgers, came into the game. Eleven years later, their meeting took place at AT&T Stadium.

Gribble set the bar high for himself when he started off with Gretzky, but he’s maintained the standard. He doesn’t just get role players, but all-time greats like Brady, Belichick, Jackson, David Beckham and Rodgers.

At this point, it’s not just P1 Ticket listeners or DFW sports fans who get excited when they hear Scoops Callahan; it’s become a national phenomenon. For context, LaVern Dilweg was tweeted out 22 times in the 24 hours following the game on Sunday and one Twitter user even changed his name to “All-Decade Torpedo Lavern Dilweg.” In the almost three years prior, since 2017, his name had been tweeted by public accounts 23 times.

Callahan has come a long way since 2005, but he isn’t done yet. There are other names on the list that will be targeted in the future – there’s no question about that. How they respond is the only unknown.

Top photo courtesy: Dylan Buell/Getty Images