Sunday afternoon, Floyd Reese will finally get the long-overdue appreciation of being inducted into the Tennessee Titans’ Ring of Honor. Floyd is the winningest General Manager in franchise history. He orchestrated the lone team in Oilers or Titans history to make it to the Super Bowl. He drafted the biggest stars of “The Titans Heyday”, like Steve McNair, Eddie George, Derrick Mason and Jevon Kearse, just to name a few. He’s also responsible for current GM Jon Robinson being in his position with the team. Inducting Floyd into the Ring of Honor should’ve happened years ago.
Unfortunately, Floyd won’t be there at Nissan Stadium on Sunday to hear the roar of the crowd saluting his 21 years within the Oilers/Titans franchise. He died at the age of 73 on Aug. 21 after a bout with cancer.
It’s ironic that Floyd is being inducted on Sunday. The Titans’ opponent this week is Houston, a city Floyd knew all too well from his days with the Oilers before he moved with the franchise to Tennessee; Sunday, Nov. 21, will mark the three-month mark of his passing; and what you may not know, is that Sunday marks one year exactly since he was on the air with us at 102.5 The Game.
It was the Sunday before Thanksgiving last year when Floyd co-hosted “NFL Pregame” like normal with Jared Stillman and Chris Sanders before the Titans-Ravens game. That was the last time he ever hosted a show on our airwaves.
The next morning, I received a text from Floyd saying he needed to take the week off from the afternoon show. I tried calling him back, to no avail. He later left a voicemail: “Hey Ry, it’s Floyd. Sorry about this week. I’ve got an issue we’ve got to take care of. Sorry, I know it screws you up, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Talk to ya later.”
And that was it. A few weeks later, Floyd made it official with his resignation, thus ending the “Jared & The GM” program that started in 2016 alongside Jared Stillman. We all knew something was wrong and worried for him, but we didn’t know the extent of it until the end.
Floyd first started working for 102.5 The Game in April of 2015, joining George Plaster and Willy Daunic on “Sports Night”. It just so happened that Floyd (along with Derrick Mason and Jared Stillman) joined the station at the start of the Stanley Cup Playoff series between the Nashville Predators and Chicago Blackhawks.
As Floyd’s producer at the time, it was very evident right away that he didn’t know a hockey puck from a jar of Vicks (one of Floyd’s favorite sayings around the office). I informed him on his first day that we were going to have a guest on the show to preview the playoff series. Floyd looked at me, serious as can be, and said “You want me to talk about hockey?!” I thought, “Yes, Floyd, that’s what you’ve signed up for.” Instead, I smiled, nodded and gave him three questions to ask the guest. He asked those three questions, reading from the sheet I gave him. When the guest acknowledged one with “Good question,” Floyd looked at me through the glass and gave me a thumbs up with a smile on his face.
Two years later, I wasn’t having to feed Floyd questions for hockey guests. He had become a true fan of the Predators, just in time for the team’s ceremonious Stanley Cup Final run in 2017. During the playoffs, here’s a former NFL GM that would be talking hockey for almost four hours every afternoon. And he never complained. He loved the Preds. According to his family, Floyd still watched the Preds intently this past spring, even though he wasn’t talking about them the next day at 2:00 with Jared.
Floyd always had a smile on his face and a hearty chuckle ready in his back pocket. I wish everyone could have seen him around the office before he went on the air with Jared, or “The Chunky Fella” as Floyd liked to call him. Those two would go down so many rabbit holes that had no dead end.
Jared and Floyd had great chemistry, on and off the air. They were arguably the most unique duo in local sports-talk radio – not just in Nashville, but in the country. They were polar opposites, separated by 41 years in age, providing daily entertainment for listeners on their drive home. Agreeing on some things; disagreeing on most others. But it worked.
The moments I’ll cherish the most from my time with Floyd came during the 1 pm hour in which he would sit across the table from me and we’d just talk about life. I’d pick his brain on sports, he’d ask me how my now-wife Amanda was doing, he’d tell stories about college, NFL combines and casino trips. Floyd once laughed at me and called me a “lard” for sitting down and breaking a desk chair right in front of him. We laughed about that moment for years.
The stories I could tell about my dealings with Floyd just scratch the surface of what others in our building could tell, too. Floyd wasn’t this invincible former NFL executive that was better than everyone like some might be. He may have been great friends with football giants like Bill Belichick and Nick Saban, but he treated us like great friends, too. Station employees would walk into the office, just hoping to pick Floyd’s brain for a couple minutes on football. Floyd made time for everyone and treated everyone the same. He was one of us.
That’s what made him a special person. That’s what makes this week an emotional one for many of us that worked with him.
There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t think about the impact that Floyd had on our radio station. There wasn’t (and still isn’t) another person in Nashville that could have shared the same amount of wisdom and intelligence pertaining to the sport of football as Floyd did for four hours a day. We all miss him dearly.
Our listeners were lucky to have him for their ride home each and every day. For instance: every Thursday from 5-5:30 pm he’d peel back the curtain on what life was like in football and professional sports during the ever-popular “Ask the GM” segment. He’d tell untold stories about how Eddie George impressed him at the combine, or how he almost didn’t get the chance to draft Jevon Kearse. Anyone driving around Middle Tennessee or listening across the country could have called in and asked a former NFL GM a question about anything. Where else could a sports radio listener get that kind of access?
The GM also did so much for our city. Nashville wasn’t a pro sports town when the Predators were an expansion team and the Oilers moved here in the late 90s. Floyd’s 1999 Titans team put this city on the map from a sports perspective. The names from that era that we’ll discuss ‘til the end of time – Steve, Eddie, Derrick, Frank, Blaine, Brad, Bruce, Jevon – were here in large part because of Floyd. I hope Titans fans realize and appreciate that. That’s why there’s no one who is more deserving of the Ring of Honor recognition than Floyd.
The only thing Floyd loved more than football or sports was his family. His wife Sally, his sons Jeremy and Sean and their wives, and his grandchildren. They will all be on the field for the halftime ceremony, feeling the love from Titans fans that we all wish Floyd could experience firsthand, too.
I’m sad that Floyd won’t be there as we celebrate him on Sunday. Like, really sad. He deserves to be there for this moment – his moment.
But if there’s any silver lining to him not being there, it’s that he was still alive for when the Titans announced this summer they’d be putting him in their Ring of Honor. He at least knew, before he died, he was going in. He at least knew that the franchise that he rooted on every Sunday – even after working for them – was going to finally honor what he did for the Oilers, Titans and game of football. I know that must have brought a smile to his face.
Floyd Reese: Forever a Titan. Forever Our GM.
Comments