As Mike Golic Jr. learned at an early age, following in the footsteps of a famous parent can be tough.
Golic told the Awful Announcing Podcast this week that those lessons helped him when the former Notre Dame and NFL player joined the media world after retiring from football in 2016.
Golic Jr. spent several years at ESPN Radio in various roles and now co-hosts the GoJo and Golic podcast on the DraftKings Network.
He co-hosts the show with his father, former NFL star Mike Golic, who launched his own media career after retirement, most notably as co-host of ESPN Radio’s Mike & Mike show, along with Mike Greenberg (Golic Jr. often filled in as a guest host on the show).
Awful Announcing Podcast host Brandon Contes asked Golic Jr. if he felt any concerns from those in the media about nepotism when he joined ESPN.
“Did people inside the industry or at ESPN ever make comments or complain about it, or was it just social media comments?” Contes asked.
“Not that I ever heard,” Golic Jr. said. “It never got to me. It was never that overt. Again, I always said I never begrudged anyone for the way they felt. I understood I had to come in and prove myself before anyone was going to believe that I was anything other than Mike Golic’s son.
“But no, none of it I ever heard. From the social media stuff, listen, it has an effect. Balancing a relationship with social media I think is something that everyone, regardless of being on air or not, is kind of a part of life in 2024.”
Golic said he’d already learned how to deal with the nepotism issue when he followed in his father’s footsteps to play at Notre Dame.
“That was also something I dealt with going back to being a college football recruit,” Golic Jr. said. “I mean, there were a lot of people that were saying, ‘Hey, you’re only getting a scholarship and going to Notre Dame because your dad played there and all of that stuff.
“That part of my life, I had been strangely used to up until that point, and I was a lot more confident in my ability as a broadcaster, naturally, than I was in my ability as a football player, so that helped a little bit.”
Golic Jr. touched on several other topics in the podcast, including growing up with Mike & Mike on the radio/TV and being teammates with Manti Te’o during the infamous catfishing story.
The Awful Announcing Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you get our podcasts.
[Awful Announcing Podcast]
About Arthur Weinstein
Arthur spends his free time traveling around the U.S. to sporting events, state and national parks, and in search of great restaurants off the beaten path.