The Curious Marriage of Drew Lane and Matt Dery

Posted on by admin by

meangirls11

By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
August 1, 2013

The rumors regarding the potential lineup at the new sports talk radio station in town (ESPN 105.1) are heating up and there are some strange pairings being discussed according to industry sources.

All the DSR has been able to confirm thus far is that Drew Lane will host the PM drive show starting at 2pm sometime within the next month.  I would also set the odds of Sean Baligian getting a gig as a regular on the station and leaving his current job at the ESPN Grand Rapids affiliate at about 1-to-9.

Other than that I do not know much except the plan is for interviews to commence this weekend.  New program director Jason Dixon (from Raleigh, NC) will be in town to conduct the process and as of yet, I have not heard from Dixon when I will be interviewed.  I hope this guy realizes that I am a degenerate gambler who wagers on horses all weekend so my window of opportunity to grace his presence is limited.

The one rumor that I keep hearing is that former WDFN-1130 and WXYT-FM update guy/producer/Pistons emcee Matt “The Diesel” Dery will have some role at the station.  On Wednesday night, GreggHenson.com speculated that Dery would be the “sports guy” on Drew Lane’s PM drive show.

I have no reason to doubt Henson’s sources as he and I have combined to break every single aspect of this story online. We are like the Woodward and Bernstein of Detroit sports talk radio, if the Watergate reporters had a toxic relationship which led to vicious Twitter Wars.

But I still can’t get my head wrapped around the fact that everyone who appears involved in this endeavor was very close to Tom Kowalski before he tragically passed and Matt Dery, well, was not.

Baligian was Killer’s co-host at WDFN when Tom died of a heart attack two years ago this month.

Kowalski also had appeared as a regular guest on Lane’s long running #1 rated WRIF morning show.  Furthermore, Lane was a speaker at Killer’s memorial service outside of Cheli’s Chili Bar back in 2011.

And the guy that seems to be behind the scenes regarding all of this 105.1 shuffling is Matt Riley who was Killer’s best friend, organized the aforementioned memorial and continues to run Tom’s charities to this day.

To say that there are a lot of Team Killer people involved in the new sports talk radio station would be an understatement which is why it is odd to me that Dery is involved because he is definitely not part of THAT clique.

(Reason #6,343,981 that it sucks that Killer died way too soon is that he assuredly would have been a cornerstone piece to 105.1’s new lineup.)

Anyway, the following is a Tweet from Killer in response to a post I made the day before Tom died:

The #1 seed I was referring to was the DSR’s Tournament of 64 to determine the best Detroit Sports Media personality.  (Not that there are 64 worthy candidates or even six, but that’s a story for another day.)

The tournament (which was eventually canceled) was supposed to begin the Monday that Tom died.  The “heat” that I was getting about his #1 seed came from Matt Dery himself.

After posting the bracket early Sunday afternoon I received an unsolicited text message from Dery telling me that I was nuts for giving Killer a “coveted” number one seed.   Yes, this actually happened.

Dery went on to tell me that Kowalski was a joke and a loser.  That Tom had the same job covering the Lions for Booth Newspapers for decades and wasn’t considered a player in the Detroit market.

Dery went on to tell me that Kowalski had pathetically “hitched his wagon” to Baligian’s star with the WDFN show that at the time was in direct competition with Mike Valenti, Terry Foster and Dery.  And that they were a non-entity.

To this day I still don’t understand what motivated Dery to send those vitriolic SMS text messages.  I defended my #1 seed of Killer in those texts by saying the guy was beloved in the community, was the best beat writer in town and also had an entertaining radio presence even if it was on the #2 station in town.  I really couldn’t believe I had to debate the seeding for a totally farcical tournament in the first place, but whatever.

I honestly do not know what led Dery to denigrate Killer that Sunday afternoon but after that outburst I never really looked at Matt the same way again.

And then Tom died just hours after all of this went down and the Detroit sports world grieved his passing like nothing I had ever seen in my life.  I am not even sure that Ernie Harwell HIMSELF got the same send off.  EVERYONE loved Tom.  The fans.  His media counterparts.  EVERYONE.

This “career nobody” eventually was honored at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio and the Detroit Lions named every media related crevice in Allen Park after the big lug.

Meanwhile, while crying through a tribute I was trying to write for the DSR that Monday afternoon regarding my relationship with Killer I received a text message from Dery which said …

You were right.  I was wrong.

I would have had more respect if Dery just had said NOTHING to me about the entire episode, but to do a complete 180 just because the guy died less than 18 hours after the demeaning comments was despicable.

So, if the rumors are true that Dery is going to be partnered with Lane I just hope the topic of Killer never comes up.  Not that it would be the first time that Dery badmouthed someone and then had to backtrack because of a new vocational opportunity.   Just ask Mike Valenti.  Or Terry Foster.

And if Dery wants to tell Riley and Lane that everything in this article is bullshit and none of this ever occurred, well, the DSR Polygraph Challenge is always open for business.

As always, the DSR will pay for the lie detector test of both myself and Dery and it won’t take the expertise of Ed Torian to figure out who is being truthful in this situation.