Story By Jim Gazzolo • Current Images By ChrisBrennanPhoto.com
Three guys sitting around a table debating sports sounds like an average Saturday night, especially if they’re sitting in a Sportsbook, but for the past 30 years, that’s been the successful formula behind SoundOff. The local talk show has educated, entertained and (at times) infuriated Southwest Louisiana sports fans.
Interacting with a life tiger on the set in 1998
Rick Sarro, Scooter Hobbs and Kevin Guidry have navigated a changing sports landscape for three decades, starting long before such shows regularly filled the airways. With their own brand of humor and bickering, the trio have managed to create a unique style and pace. It looks a lot more like three guys verbally duking it out over a few drinks than it does professionals delivering their sports takes.
What began as an hour-long cable show called SoundOff 60, is now two 30-minute performances that air on CBS-Lake Charles at 10:05 pm on Tuesday and Thursday nights; the show is also available on YouTube.
SoundOff has changed settings, platforms and even backgrounds, but the three main guys have remained. They’ve been bantering their way through local, regional and national games, stories and individuals. It’s been the same formula since the beginning: three guys talking, often all at once, about sports.
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Guidry is the newcomer of the three. After the show’s first season, he replaced Charlie Grant. He’s been there for 29 of the show’s 30 years. Guidry is a former LSU and NFL defensive back who grew up in Lake Charles and brings a unique perspective to the show.
“I can tell people what I think was going on in the huddle,” Guidry says. “We all bring a different background to the topics.”
Scooter Hobbs is the longtime sports editor and columnist of the American Press, covering LSU and almost everything else over the years. Hobbs was inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 2018.
It’s hard to surprise someone like Hobbs, who has written about sports for 35 years in his columns. One night, while taping the show, he received the biggest surprise. “We’re in the studio late in the early years, and are just doing the show, when I look up, and there is a full-grown tiger jumping up on the desk,” Hobbs says. “I wasn’t sure what to think; I was just glad it was tame.”
While Guidry and Sarro are much more comfortable in the spotlight, Hobbs is almost reluctant. He seems like he couldn’t care less about the cameras. “I’m not really a TV guy,” Hobbs says. “When we first started the show, I had no interest in television. I prefer to write; that way Kevin can’t interrupt me.”
The digs continue throughout the trio’s lunch interview. It’s just an extension of what happens during the show. Hobbs and Guidry, especially, jab at one another like a pair of buddies eating in the high school cafeteria.
Meanwhile, you can find Sarro trying to bring them back to the intended topic. The longtime sportscaster has worked in and out of the Southwest Louisiana market, working both television and radio around the country. When playing the moderator role, Sarro is like a traffic cop trying to keep the show flowing.
“We don’t want a script; that was part of the deal,” says Sarro. “We have a rundown of topics, but we want it to be a free-flowing conversation that can get a little heated. It’s unedited, unscripted, and you know … when we disagree, we disagree.”
It’s very fitting that the trio doesn’t agree on how the show first started, but they all agree that SoundOff was Scott Alston’s brainchild. Alston was a TCI cable executive at the time. He wanted to produce a regional television version of a SoundOff column that appeared in the American Press.
The column was based on readers’ calls for their takes, which were then published. Alston, who served as the original moderator, wanted Sarro and Hobbs to key the show for national and LSU content. He also wanted Grant, who was the play-by-play voice of the McNeese Cowboys, for local flavor.
After the opening season, Alston and Grant left the show, and Sarro took over the traffic cop duties. But they still needed to fill the third seat. Hobbs knew Guidry from covering him at LSU and went after him.
“I called Kevin to see if he was interested, and I couldn’t even finish asking him the question; he said yes,” Hobbs says. “I haven’t been able to get a word in since.”
LAUGHING WITH COACH ORGERON ON THE SHOW
PHOTO BY BEVERLY DOWER
For Guidry, it seemed like a natural move. “I had seen the show and liked it,” Guidry says. “We’ve been able to do this for a long time because we get along, but we also have very different opinions. I think people like to see us argue and are interested in everything we discuss.”
Guidry and Hobbs credit Sarro for the show moving smoothly from one topic to the next. “Rick is the guy that keeps us moving along,” says Hobbs. “He is the TV guy. He keeps the time and tries to keep us on topic.”
Not all creative ideas have worked out throughout the years. “The one disaster we had was when we let people call in,” says Hobbs. “They’d always have their own topics they wanted to talk about or ask us who was going to win the Sulphur-Barbe game. That didn’t work.”
The show bounces around and covers all sports topics, and they usually tape Monday afternoons from the Caesars Sportsbook at the Horseshoe Casino. And although that’s the current location, the guys have filmed in studios and other remotes. SoundOff works well in a sports-related setting.
“I think the Caesars Sportsbook here is the perfect spot for us,” says Sarro. “With Sportsbook as our background, you get the feel of this being a sports show. It feels like three guys sitting around a bar talking sports. That’s what we want.”
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Of course, doing a show from a remote location also has disadvantages. There have been more than a few interruptions over the years. “This one time we were taping at Walk-Ons, and this guy just walks right in front of us between the cameras and our table, doesn’t even slow down,” says Sarro. “We just left him in, and he became part of that show.”
People would often approach the guys while taping and tell them they enjoyed watching or ask questions. It was part of doing the show remotely.
“I like it better out of the studio,” says Sarro. “It feels like a better show, livelier and with more lights and colors.” It doesn’t hurt being near a casino to get guests, either.
“One time when we were taping, I saw Alex Bregman playing blackjack at one of the tables,” Guidry says. Bregman is a former LSU star baseball player who was playing for the Houston Astros at the time. Guidry and Hobbs knew him from his days playing in Baton Rouge.
“So, I went over and told him what we were doing and asked if he had time to stop by and talk with us,” Guidry adds. “He did, and he was a great guest. He’s come on a few times since.”
LES MILES ON THE SHOW
Many who watch are surprised by the guests. Some prominent names have stopped by, like Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Tony Dorsett, with whom Guidry played a season in Denver. Former LSU head coach Ed Orgeron, whose son Cody was a quarterback for McNeese, also showed up on set a couple of times.
“Ed Orgeron was perfect,” says Sarro. “He would give a great 18- to 22-second sound bite, perfect for television. But we had others, and they all seemed happy to talk to us.”
Although guests have added value and credibility to the show, the three guys are still the stars. Each brings a very different personality to each taping. Though Sarro typically wants to stay focused and guide the viewer through each topic point, he can also become feisty and passionate about his beliefs. He may be the traffic cop, but he will get into the mix at any moment.
COACH ORGERON ON THE SHOW
Hobbs is a throwback to the old traditional columnist who would rather chomp on a cigar than talk into a microphone. His stories from the past can get the show off-track, but he’s the quickest with one-liners.
Guidry brings humor to the set, and he shares a different perspective from his playing days. He’s always ready to give a conflicting opinion, and he brings the personality.
“We have a certain chemistry that works,” says Guidry. “We each have a unique take on things. “Rick comes at you with the television side of things and understanding. Scooter has experience with writing, and I come from the player’s side. We check all the boxes. We also bring up topics that people want to talk about. It’s not just what we want to talk about.”
The guys got a break back when Fox 29 picked them up and aired the show every Monday at 6:30 pm. “That really helped us find a different audience,” says Sarro. “There is nothing like being on over-the-air television.” However, that run ended two years after new ownership took over, and they were replaced by Wheel of Fortune. The guys found themselves back on regional cable.
The show was cut to 30 minutes while on Fox 29, so going back to cable allowed the trio to produce an hour-long broadcast again. A local station called about five years ago when then-KSWL general manager Rusty Kirkland inquired about moving SoundOff over.
“I thought it was lost on cable a little,” Kirkland said. “I thought it needed a network to run on and would be good for us.” The move was part of Kirkland’s desire to add local programming to the Fox 29 lineup. The station was already broadcasting the local sports show Poke Nation, which focuses on McNeese State athletics.
“I thought it was important to the community to have more local shows, whether that be sports or community news,” said Kirkland. “They were an established show with local interest. It was a good fit.”
Since Kirkland left, SoundOff has changed to the 30-minute, twice-a-week format, which seems to be working.
“It’s been great to be on CBS,” says Sarro. “Rusty was a big help to us, and the new GM, Chris Fleming, has also been a big booster. It’s great for us to be seen over six parishes; it’s really increased our exposure. You can’t beat being on TV.”
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SoundOff is the longest-running local/regional long-format TV sports show in Louisiana, outside of news programs’ nightly sportscasts. It even predates all of the current running talk shows on ESPN.
Most viewers might be surprised to hear the three stars don’t really hang out much outside of taping. They admit to being friends, but they don’t plan or talk much about the show.
“When the cameras start rolling, that’s the first time we have talked about the show at all,” says Hobbs. “We don’t see that much of each other. People ask us if we want to come by their places, but we are always in different spots doing different things.”
Perhaps that’s the secret sauce behind the show’s longevity.
“We’ve just found a way to all sit down, with no notes, no idea what the other is going to say, and debate and talk sports,” says Sarro. “We’ve found an audience for it, and it works.”
How long the three will continue to do the show depends on which one you ask. Sarro says he is close to retiring, which may give him more time to work on his TV gig. Hobbs jokes that he was ready to quit 30 years ago after the very first show, and Guidry says he’s prepared for another 10 seasons.
“As long as people are watching, we’re healthy and we’re still having fun, there’s no telling,” says Sarro. They do all agree on one thing: none of them thought their little show would last 30 years.
“It’s amazing,” says Sarro. “We had no idea what it would become.” In the last 30 years, the face of local TV sports has changed, and so has the national sports scene, but not SoundOff.
SoundOff has moved to and from different studios and remote sites and it’s kept moving forward. The show survived hurricanes and an evolving sports world all while maintaining relevance thanks to the three guys.
A group of friends sitting at a bar, talking over each other and arguing sports — it’s the perfect setting for a show.
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