The Drive with Jack

The Drive with Jack is sports talk with a Michigan address, carried on the Spotlight Radio Network and broadcast from Greater Lansing. Jack Ebeling runs the conversation. His producer, Boston Rob, is the second regular voice, and much of the show's easy rhythm comes from the two of them trading remarks around the guests. Jack will even tease him on air about the loud noises coming out of the control room. The college side covers both Michigan and Michigan State. Tony Garcia, who covers Michigan basketball and football for the Detroit Free Press, comes on the line and is asked first how his wedding shower went. He admits it was overwhelming to be one of the two people at the center of it. Tom Crawford, introduced as Bluebelly Tom and as Jack's broadcast partner of more than 24 years, joins through the hotline just back from Indianapolis after following Michigan to a national championship. He calls four weekends in a row at the tournaments a privilege. For Michigan State, the show carries a media scrum with wide receiver Rodney Bullard. Bullard walks through the confusion over his eligibility, tracing it to walking on at a Division II school, and concedes the waiting is hard to tune out while he keeps practicing. Detroit's pro teams are in the mix too. Colton Pouncy of The Athletic is asked where the Lions should look first in the draft and points to the trenches, noting the loss of Taylor Decker. A segment with Jim Stark, the show's Detroit correspondent for the Tigers and Red Wings, weighs what a pitcher can do against Sal Perez before switching to the Pistons' playoff schedule, laid out game by game. Jack, for his part, reminds Rob how fast opinion on the Tigers flipped once a 4-9 team started stacking wins. Basketball beyond Detroit gets a hearing as well, including some amazement at Porzingis pulling up from twenty-eight feet for the Warriors. The show makes no secret of being local radio. Sponsor reads for a car dealership and a northern Michigan golf resort are part of the texture, and Jack voices the dealership spot himself alongside Matt Sloan. What a listener gets is proximity: working reporters and players, questioned by someone who plainly knows them. The questions are practical and the tangents are personal. It fits best for the Michigan fan who wants the view from the beat, delivered with neighborly ease.