The story behind a Miami Dolphins website and On The FinSide

Over the last couple of weeks, the gears behind the scenes began to turn and the Miami Dolphins fan podcast, On The FinSide, joined PhinPhanatic.com as the official podcast of this site. Normally, I would just let this one play out but for those of you who been readers for a while now, you probably recognized the name and the hosts.

You may also remember my voice coming through your speakers. In the last 24 hours, I have received a few emails asking if this was the FinsRadio show. The answer is yes.

Typically, I wouldn’t write something like I am about to but it is the start of the off-season and if there is one thing I can say, content breaks from mock drafts and Deshaun Watson speculation is welcome. So what are you going to learn here? Well, I’m going to take you through a pretty amazing circle that starts and ends right here with Phinphanatic and goes back almost 15 years.

I hope you will read on because honestly, this is pretty cool and I will try and keep it short (you know I can ramble).

14 years ago I started doing a guest spot on an old podcast called DolfanRadio. I was a daily contributor on the old Miami Dolphins forum at the Miami Herald and posted quite a bit of “article style” drops. I was contacted by two brothers, Zach and Adam Best about a year later asking if I would be interested in joining their “network” of blogs. At the time, that “network” was ArrowheadAddict, a Chief’s blog, and a still yet-to-be-named Dolphins blog.

They posted a message on the Herald forum and a bunch of people recommended me to them, I know, if only they knew then!  After speaking with them, I was hired and have been with them ever since. That was around the time that Nick Saban was leaving.

About a year after that, I was approached by a guy, Doug Ford, who owned and ran a top Dolphins site, Phinatics.com about possibly joining his network of Podcasts, Finsradio.net, and asked if I wanted to co-host a show. I said yes, and I began co-hosting On The FinSide with James Lancaster. He and I would do the show together for about four or five years when he wanted to bring on one of the writers from his site, Brian Catanzaro. We became a trio.

Meanwhile, the FanSided network had taken off and I was serving as the Director of NFL sites. Our lead editor for ArrowheadAddict was Patrick Allen. By now, Doug Ford had turned over the entire FinsRadio programming to me and Allen joined my network to run his Chiefs’ podcast.

Around this time I was extremely busy with the real-life paramedic and medical jobs so I handed over the FanSided keys to Patrick Allen and stepped back into my Phinphanat.com role. Best move I could have made and frankly, the FanSided network may not have become what it is had I not passed it on to Allen.

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O.k. so back to On The FinSide. James and I hosted the show with Brian Catanzaro as a third and when James left, Brian and I continued as a duo. The two of us were doing two shows a week and I was doing shows with Michael Brothers on Friday night from Sheddogs.com.

Paul Picken, Jr. applied to be a writer for PhinPhanatic and I brought him on board but sourced him out to another site that I owned at the time, the aforementioned Phinatics.com that was handed over to me by Ford. Paul cut his teeth there and then became a writer for our site here. At the time, Paul would call into our shows, and eventually, “Cat” and I opted to bring him on board as a 3rd host.

For 10 years I ran On The FinSide with either James, Brian, or Paul but after I began to lose my voice, I handed the show off to Brian and Paul who took it all over and into a new format and direction and once again, I went back to PhinPhanatic.

I haven’t done OTFS for about two years now but I was contacted last week by our network’s Vice President of Content, Patrick Allen who let me know that OTFS would be joining PhinPhanatic as the official podcast of our site.

On the FinSide was a podcast I took a lot of pride in. It was a great way to talk about the Miami Dolphins and the “DJ” in me was able to get its fix. Today, it continues to be a solid podcast that all of you should give a listen to.

Why should you care about any of this? You probably don’t but 15 years ago I started doing internet radio and through that medium and simple forum, it led to this job, and through this job, I met Brian, Paul, and Patrick. This is why you never burn bridges and why you hold on to your friendships. If not for Adam and Zach Best, I wouldn’t be here (I know some of your opinions on that).

Either way, On the FinSide, is coming back to PhinPhanatic where it belongs, and in a way, where it started. I hope you will give it a listen and I hope you will enjoy the content that Brian and Paul put out. That’s it. A circle of blogging life that took 15 year’s to complete.