by Fred Seely
Editorial Director
The game is over. Now, another show is about to start.
It’s a radio show with an audience — oh, does it ever have an audience. But it isn’t the genteel Club Seat crowd that has just departed their seats on Alltel Stadium’s west side. The Jaguars, before 55,260 fans, have just lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers, 25-23.
The Club Seat crowd leaves early. In their place comes several hundred who want to hear about the game, have a few more drinks and let the traffic problems calm down.
They get in with a ticket from Pepsi but, in reality, the guards let anyone through.
“The Fifth Quarter” is about to start.
And these people, dear readers, are the real fans.
The second level of the West Club is a spacious room. Concession stands are along the walls and comfortable seating is in the middle.
A stage is backed up to the grandstand side of the room. Above it is a giant screen showing the afternoon’s late National Football League game.
On the stage are two men; a producer sits a few feet to the side.
The crowd is arrayed in chairs, forming a semicircle around the stage that goes perhaps 15 rows deep. More people are standing on the sides and in the back.
The concession stands are open but the food rarely crosses the counter: the beer and whiskey are the big sellers.
The producer, Joe Fortunato, listens to the Jaguar network. As the post-game interviews and reports wind down, he indicates that starting time is close.
Then ... 5...4...3..2..1. It is time for “The Fifth Quarter,” and often it’s as much fun as the game.
• • •
The moderator:
Cole Pepper came here in 1996 for the lure of a full-time job with AM-600. He’s 29 and wants to stay in Jacksonville for a long time.
“I had been doing a lot of part-time work in Kansas City,” he said, “and I wanted a full-time gig. Plus, I felt I needed to get away from home.
“I came here to be the producer for a sports talk show and they gave me a little air work.
“On the way back to the airport, going back to KC to get my stuff, my boss said, ‘I think we want to use you more on the air.’ I asked him, ‘Is that because I was good on the air or bad on the board [as a producer]?’ He said, ‘Answer that any way you want.’
“So I’ve been on the air since.”
He originally planned to stay here a year and then find a baseball play-by-play job, “but I found out that I loved the community. Within seven months, I got the Jaguars pregame and post-game job.”
When AM-600 was switched from all-sports to Disney last year, several found themselves out of work. Not Pepper; management shifted him to the sister station, all-talk AM-690, as the sports director. He’s also picked up the play-by-play of Jacksonville University sports.
“I bought a house, too,” he said. “I hope I’m here to stay.”
• • •
The star:
“Hands to the face! This is football. You should have hands to the inside of the nose, hands to the inside of the ears.”
The crowd loves it. Pete Banaszak is talking and, even if you’re listening on the radio, the image is right before you. A tough guy, a real tough guy who talks tough and by golly, you better listen.
Banaszak was a tough player in three parts of the nation. In high school at Green Bay, Wis., in college at the University of Miami and in the pros at Oakland.
He was a member of what probably was pro football’s last really rough, tough team, and he typified the take-no-prisoners Raiders. He played running back in 121 consecutive games, scored two touchdowns in a Super Bowl victory and was present for two of pro football’s most famous plays, the “Holy Roller” and the “Immaculate Reception.”
“The officials are idiots. The league is ruining the game. They’re taking away what made the game what it is. Football! Violence!”
More howls.
Banaszak hooked on with Crowley Maritime while he was in Oakland and the company road led to Jacksonville. He and his wife, Sue, live at Ponte Vedra Beach and he stays in the game through the radio.
During the show, he wears a hat and hunches over the microphone. He is INTO the broadcast, and only opposing players must know just how much if he was into the football game. He’s almost 60, but you suspect he’d like to show today’s players a few moves.
He does not worry about what he says, or about who. If he perceives a player as being soft, he is relentless.
The fans, too:
“Too many of our fans are what I call winesippers. They’re there just to be seen. If you’re a fan, you’ve gotta be HEARD! Be a real fan or stay home!”
“Working with Pete is the easiest thing possible,” said Pepper. “He knew his personality going in, that he was a hard-nosed guy. But he’s fair. He’s opinionated, but what he says is what he believes.”
Banaszak was a big-time Oakland Raider; Pepper grew up as a Kansas City Chiefs fan.
“His playing days were over when I was growing up,” said Pepper. “Oh, I hated the Raiders, but he was in the past . . . only a name. Now, if you had asked me to sit with Jim Plunkett or Lester Hayes, two Raiders of my era, that might be a different thing.”
Banaszak calls Pepper “Artie,” far from his real Christian names of Timothy Cole.
“He reminds me of Art Donovan [a Baltimore Colt great and a true tough guy player]. Both are pudgy,” said Banaszak.
• • •
The audience:
“They tell it like it is,” says Al Harper, who cadged game tickets from a pal. “I don’t get to come to games much, and it’s almost more fun to listen to the radio. But it’s fun being here.”
Almost everyone in the room is wearing Jaguars gear. Almost everyone has a drink, or has had plenty to drink.
The sound comes over big speakers set up to each side of the stage. The voices come across clearly, although there are a few squeaks and buzzes, and the crowd reacts, especially to Banaszak.
“We have no leadership. The Jaguars leadership is in Houston,” he growls, referring to the expansion draft which took some of the team’s experienced players. The crowd cheers its agreement.
“This is tell-it-like-it-is,” says Jack Baker, who comes from South Georgia for Jaguars games. “None of that pablum. Pete’s our man. He isn’t going to let those high-priced players get away with anything. He expects them to win. Wouldn’t it be great if he was the coach?”
Pepper loves it.
“It’s interaction,” he said. “Compare it with doing a TV show with no audience to a play. It’s fun to hear; Banaszak will say something about how the players need to be tougher, and everyone reacts. ‘Yeeaaaaahhh,’ they say.”