A PILLAR IN ROME'S EMPIRE.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH The Media

On his wireless BlackBerry, Jason Stewart scrolls through the list of about 500 names and contact numbers he has programmed to instantly reach some of the most in-demand sports figures and other celebrities in the world today.

``There are about 20 `A-listers' who might take weeks of phone calls before they'll finally agree, but once they do, I take a tremendous amount of pride when I can get them on,'' the 32-year-old was explaining the other day about the sometimes-grueling process by which he books guests for Jim Rome's weekday nationally syndicated sports-talk show, heard in Southern California on KLAC-AM (570) and KAVL-AM (610) from 9 a.m. to noon.

From the time he reaches the Premiere Radio Network's fifth-floor offices on Ventura Blvd. in Sherman Oaks at 6:30 a.m. each weekday and well beyond heading back to his Burbank home at about 3:30 p.m., Stewart is making and returning e-mails and calls, chasing down someone Rome requested and thinking ahead to shows three and four days away.

If a Lance Armstrong, Charles Barkley, Wayne Gretzky, Andre Agassi or Bret Favre make it on, whether it be via a direct call or contact through an agent, team executive or a close associate, Stewart has hit a proverbial home run.

Since the day about six years ago when Rome picked him from more than 12,000 applicants for a chance to join his staff with producer Travis Rodgers, Stewart has been applying tenacity and resourcefulness to keep the most talked-about sports-talk show as fresh and entertaining as possible. The job demands it, and so do the listeners.

``You'd be amazed at how much work goes into getting some of these guys, but the luxury of a show like this means you can get some of the biggest names on short notice, where producers on any other show may not even have a shot at them,'' Stewart said.

Several years of cultivating contacts while producing Ron Barr's syndicated radio show in the Bay Area and working as a production assistant at a Sacramento news station prepared Stewart well for this role with Rome. But Stewart's prep work may have come many years earlier.

Since he was in high school in Orange County, Stewart said he always dreamed of being a radio talk show host like Rome. While delivering pizzas to help get him through the broadcast journalism program at Cal State Fullerton in the early 1990s, Stewart would not just listen to Rome's local nighttime show but call in a couple times a week. Sometimes, he would even miss a campus lecture just to stay on hold for hours at a time waiting his turn.

He won the show's ``Huge Call of the Day'' several times and was established so much as a regular, he was invited to compete in what is now a Rome staple - the very first ``Smack Off'' contest in 1995, a collection of all the show's best callers to establish ``Jungle'' bragging rights.

As the 11th annual ``Smack Off'' gets under way this morning, with regulars such as Sean the Cablinasian, Irie Craig, Terrence in Sierra Madre and Iafrate working their best takes, Stewart's other important role with the show - the call screener - puts him in another enviable role. He'll be assembling the lineup and letting Rome know from the other side of the glass in the studio who's ready to bring it.

On a normal show, maybe one of 15 callers make it through Stewart's screening process. His experience as a caller puts him in the unique position to put the best - or sometimes the worst - of the clones on the air to either sink or swim.

``Jim takes the callers as a very serious way to contribute to the show's success,'' Stewart said. ``Maybe only five or six get on a show each day. I'm looking for the ones who have their takes well thought out, or the ones who'll say things that are so absurd and will lead to other callers reacting to him. Either way, it's quite an achievement just to get on the air with the hundreds who try to get in.''

The bizarre recognition Stewart now gets from the show - whether it be from clones asking for his autograph at Rome's famous ``Tour Stops,'' to landing small roles in movies or appearing on TV's ``Blind Date'' to getting a spot at the World Series of Poker - is the residue of his hard work and loyalty to Rome.

``J Stew has a job that a lot of guys would cut off their right arm for, but it's far from easy,'' Rome said. ``He slugs through it, keeps his head and keeps grinding. It takes a certain amount of mental toughness and a thick skin to hammer it out every day and he does it without complaining.

``People hear us jock him for being in a movie, but they don't realize he has to make 20 calls to get that interview, or power through 20 callers before he finds one lucid enough to get on the air.''

When asked for any trade secrets about landing a cool job like this one, Stewart likens the requirements to that of any successful salesman or retail worker.

``You've got to be able take rejection and be motivated by it,'' said Stewart. ``It's amazing to me how little my college education is applied to this. It's not so much needing to have a Type-A personality, but having to be highly motivated and passionate in what you do. You have to be able to come up with information quickly. You have to be savvy.

``My path to this job was kind of unusual, but basically it was about establishing credentials and references and relationships. And now I'm at a job where I get paid to do something many listeners would want to do. Maybe they resent me for it, but I know I wake up every day not knowing what to expect on the show, and I have direct access to some of the biggest names in sports.

``I thought someday I'd want to be an on-air personality, but I've totally embraced this production side. I'll be here as long as Jim wants me. I know I can't go across the street and find anything better than this. In the field of sports broadcasting, I'm already at the top.''

SOUND BYTES 

WHAT SMOKES

--Sunday's Dodgers-Reds telecast from Cincinnati won't be just another Mother's Day assignment for ESPN reporter Sam Ryan. Her 3 1/2-year-old son Nicklaus and four-month old daughter Jensen will be a few hundred miles away at home in Bay Terrace, N.Y., with her husband, Jeff. ``It's tough to be away from them any time, but we'll just have to have Mother's Day on Monday,'' said Ryan, who admits that during baseball season, she does have the luxury of being at home with them five days a week before doing ESPN weekend games. Ryan was back reporting just 11 weeks after delivering Jensen - she missed the last month of the 2004 baseball season with doctor-ordered bed rest during that pregnancy - and she said she only recently started feeling physically capable of working again. ``It really wiped me out,'' Ryan said. ``But I am lucky to have the opportunity that many moms don't have with their work schedule and can stay at home a lot of the time. I'm lucky, as well, when I think about all the moms in the military overseas who don't know when they'll see their kids.''

--KMPC-AM (1540), aka ``The Ticket,'' hired Roger Nadel as its new vice president and general manager. Nadel is the former GM at KFWB-AM (980) who helped bring the Dodgers to the all-news station several years ago, and once was the executive producer on USC football and basketball games back at KNX-AM (1070).

--If you need to know, ABC will be the first to reveal the NBA's regular-season MVP at halftime of Sunday's 12:30 p.m. playoff game.

WHAT CHOKES

--Paul Sunderland said he didn't ask for an explanation, and the Lakers didn't offer one, so we may never know on the record why he wasn't asked back for a fourth season as the team's TV play-by-play man. To him, it's just very odd that all he ever got from team officials, network producers and fans who stopped him at the arena was positive feedback, so if he continues to be both bewildered and devastated by the team's decision that became official this week, it's quite understandable. Speculation as to who will replace him starts with radio play-by-play man Joel Meyers and FSN sideline reporter Bill Macdonald and includes other applicants such as up-and-comer Spero Dedes, who works for NBA TV. If Meyers is picked as expected, his radio spot with Mychal Thompson could be filled by Larry Burnett, who pinch hit for Meyers a few times while Meyers was on Westwood One NFL assignments, or even John Ireland, the KCAL Channel 9 sideline reporter who has play-by-play radio experience with the Clippers.

--``The sports world is a fast-track business - one city one night, another city another night, race to get to the airlines, drink all the way home, you get up the next day and say, 'My God, what have I been through?' '' That's how former CBS sportscaster and current entertainment show host Pat O'Brien explained the beginnings of his alcohol abuse during Wednesday's prime-time special with Dr. Phil. O'Brien, who came clean during May ratings sweeps about his rehabilitation and other scandalous matters, painted a picture of his life on the road in the `80s.

BY TOM HOFFARTH

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