Let me tell you about Holly Anderson. From just about the minute I started working for SB Nation, Holly was my Mama Shark. It's just kind of how she is, and part of what makes her so great. She was one of my guiding influences and has always been someone I look up to. Working with her -- usually alongside her on projects that took an incredible amount of time -- taught me so many valuable lessons that I use everyday.
A lot has changed in the past two years -- back when I was just starting at SBNation.com as a part-time editor working the late-night shift. We spent hours slaving over a bowl spreadsheet that will haunt all of us forever that December, but thanks to that spreadsheet and a little nudge from Holly (and others), I ended up with a full-time job.
Since then, Holly has moved on to SI.com, where she runs Campus Union. There you'll find quick hits, funny stories and a whole lot of great work. It's one of those things you should just keep open and follow along all day. It's more offbeat, and a nice break from the SUPER SERIOUS college football news. She treats college football the way it should be treated: With humor, jokes and observations about the silliness of it all.
My typical day usually involves a running GChat dialogue with Holly that, to an outsider, would probably make no damn sense. One minute we're talking about Mike Leach and the next we're brainstorming names for celebrity power-couple Joe Tessitore and Rod Gilmore (I'm a fan of Tessimore; she of GilTess).
So when brainstorming podcast guests, Holly quickly jumped to mind. The podcast is basically a typical daily conversation we have, wrapped up nicely into a 45-minute audio clip. We jump between talking about Derek Dooley's immaculate hair, the fun USC-UCLA rivalry, Washington State and Mike Leach, a little bit of Louisiana Tech (a favorite of both of ours), and some Pac-12 Network.
You'll want to listen to this one. Holly is one of the funniest people I know, and when you put her on the radio or on a podcast, she shines. Recording this podcast -- which we did early on Tuesday morning -- was the highlight of my day, and the most fun I've had in quite a while. I'm sure you'll enjoy it too.
Click on the jump to find the embedded player for listening. You also can subscribe to our podcast channel on iTunes*, or just subscribe to the feed manually (http://cougcenterpodcast.wordpress.com/feed/) through whatever podcast player you use. BeyondPod is a good one for Android -- the free version is serviceable. You also can find most of our older podcasts here.
*If you use the new Podcasts app by Apple on your iPhone, iPod or iPad, you might have already discovered that it's pretty wonky on a number of levels. There appears to be a glitch with our feed loading the proper metadata within the app. Sorry about that, but I don't know how to fix it. The best workaround seems to be downloading the individual episodes in iTunes and then listening to the episodes through the Music app as you did before the Podcasts app came around. Either that, or get a different app -- here are some suggestions from someone smarter than me.
(Just click the triangle.)