Dave Dameshek

William David "Dr. Funny Dave" Dameshek (born June 11, 1970) is an American television writer and radio personality. Dameshek is currently a football analyst and writer for NFL.com, appearing on NFL Fantasy Live and hosting the Dave Dameshek Football Program.

Early life

Dameshek grew up on the banks of the three rivers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he became an avid Pittsburgh Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins fan. In high school and during his youth, he was a decorated swimmer – a skill that he attributes to webbing that developed on his feet as part of a birth defect. He received numerous offers from universities to swim collegiately, but decided to forgo his swimming career to pursue broadcasting and robotics full-time.^[1]

Education

Dameshek attended the Bashor Alternative School in Indiana from grades K-12. His extreme case of dyslexia made it difficult to gain rudimentary knowledge.

Dameshek received his undergraduate degree in broadcast journalism from Indiana University and moved to Chicago shortly after college.

In 2010, the National Mustard Museum awarded Dameshek an honorary doctoral degree in the field of mustard. As a result, he prefers the style of "Dr."^[2]

Professional career

Early career

Dameshek began writing for cable television hits including Fox Sports Net's Sports Geniuses and Comedy Central's Battlebots. He received his first big break in 2001 when he was hired as a writer on Comedy Central's The Man Show, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla. Dameshek was hired for his trademark "Upper Hand" routine, a bit developed from his Best Man speech. He worked as a staff writer for the third and fourth seasons of The Man Show.

While working on The Man Show, Dameshek became co-host of a Fox Sports Radio show with radio veteran Kent Voss. The late-night show aired for about four months. Dameshek also wrote and appeared in several segments with Jimmy Kimmel on Fox's NFL pre-game show. It was also at this time that Dameshek began referring to himself as "Billy D. Dameshek", an homage to the actor who played Lando Calrissian.

Dameshek moved on to write for the second and third seasons of Comedy Central's Crank Yankers, co-created by Kimmel and Carolla, as well as for I'm With Busey and Trigger Happy TV. In 2002, he began writing for Kimmel's new late-night talk show on ABC, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where he made several appearances in addition to his main responsibility of working on the show's nightly monologue.

In 2004, Dameshek became the weekly sports correspondent on the Los Angeles FM station Indie 103.1's Mighty Morning Show, hosted by Dicky Barrett, while making periodic appearances on regional and national ESPN Radio programs.

The Adam Carolla Show

The Adam Carolla Show debuted in January 2006, recorded in Los Angeles and airing in syndication on stations across the western United States. Dameshek was a regular cast member on the show from the beginning, serving as the show's official sports reporter. In December 2006, he and several other staff members were cut from the show, a move attributed to a ratings drop in the second half of the year. Dameshek wrote in a December 17 post on the show's online message board that he had been fired due to the manipulations of Teresa Strasser and would be replaced by Danny Bonaduce; CBS officially announced four days later that Bonaduce would be joining the show in Dameshek's stead. As of February 2015, Dameshek still holds the distinction of being the only man ever replaced by Bonaduce.^[3][4]

Sports radio and podcasts

From January to July 2007, Dameshek hosted Dave Dameshek's Sports Contraption on radio station WTZN (now KDKA-FM) in his hometown of Pittsburgh. The show's guests trended towards nontraditional sports personalities rather than well-known sports journalists. Regular guests included the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's Rob Rossi and John Harris, and the creators of the websites Pitt Blather and Mondesi's House. ESPN.com writer Bill Simmons guest-hosted in April.

In November 2007, Dameshek debuted a new sports-oriented radio show, The Dave Dameshek Show, broadcast by ESPN Radio on KSPN 710 AM in Los Angeles.^[5]

In June 2008, Dave Denholm and Brian Long joined Dameshek's show as co-hosts and it was renamed The Dameshek, Denholm and Long Show. Soon afterward, Dameshek left the show, which was subsequently renamed again to The Denholm and Long Show.

In July, Dameshek debuted his own podcast, Dave Dameshek On Demand. The podcast was recorded at the KSPN offices. On November 11, 2009, Dameshek had his final Dameshek on Demand podcast for ESPN. Dameshek then moved his podcast over to Accuscore. The Dave Dameshek Show Powered by Accuscore lasted 13 episodes.

On the March 1, 2010 episode of The Adam Carolla Podcast, Dameshek announced his new podcast with co-host David Feeney, known for his work on Big Wolf on Campus, would premiere March 2 on Carolla's ACE Broadcasting Network.^[6] Daves of Thunder soon became the second most popular podcast on the network. In a tragic accident, the show's producer was in his jacuzzi emailing thoughts on the September 11 attacks when he dropped his Blackberry in the water and was electrocuted immediately. Following this, the show was cancelled after a run of 64 episodes. Dameshek considers Daves of Thunder to be his magnum opus, deeming the first episode to be one of the greatest moments in his life, right behind the birth of his children and O. J. Simpson being found not guilty.

For the 2010 NFL season, Dameshek was announced as a fantasy analyst for the NFL Network. Along with Michael Fabiano, he acts as a primary analyst and commentator for fantasy football on NFL.com, including a weekly column and the Shame Report, where he shines the "white hot light of shame" on underachieving players, coaches and fans.^[7] In the following seasons Dameshek continued hosting The Shame Report,^[8] where he lists the top five biggest shames in the NFL and occasionally other areas in sports and popular culture.^[9] In the 2012 season, Dameshek added "Fantasy Shame", where he plays clips from fans who are disappointed with their fantasy players.^[10] In 2013, The Shame Report was renamed The Shek Report.^[11]

On May 7, 2011 Dameshek began hosting the Dave Dameshek Football Program for NFL.com, which is available on iTunes.^[12][13][14]

In July 2014 Dameshek coined the phase "Come on playa, what's up with dat" trying to imitate a famous saying by Deion Sanders. This has become a famous drop around many of the NFL's podcasts and has also restarted the war between the Around the League podcast and the Dave Dameshek Football Program.

Dameshek also hosts Shek to the Future, a play on the movie series Back to the Future, hosting alongside Adam Rank, predicting NFL games and scores.^[15] Dameshek also "hosts" an animated series called the N "if" L, where he describes the NFL environment if a notable event goes differently than in reality. (ex. Dwight Clark fails to make The Catch)^[16] In 2013, Dameshek started a series called The Sports Car where he films himself interviewing an NFL player from his car while driving around.^[17]

References

External links

• The Dave Dameshek Show on 710 ESPN, Los Angeles
• David Dameshek at the Internet Movie Database
• Dave Dameshek on Twitter
  
• Dave Dameshek Show Message Boards
• The Daves of Thunder Archive
• Dave Dameshek NFL Blog