John Sterling may come out of retirement to call the New York Yankees’ postseason, according to sources briefed on WFAN, the Yankees and Sterling’s plans.

Early this season in April, Sterling, 86, stepped away from the booth after 36 years. The Yankees held a retirement ceremony for him. A trio of Rickie Ricardo, Justin Shackil and Emmanuel Berbari has replaced him.

This week, Sterling made a brief appearance in the Yankees booth, teaming up with analyst Suzyn Waldman to call a few innings.

Over the next few days, he is expected to discuss with Audacy New York president Chris Oliviero if he will return for the playoffs, according to a person briefed on the plans. Oliviero, who oversees WFAN, has not officially asked Sterling yet.

“The ball is in their court,” Sterling said. “They would have to ask. I would feel bad for the guys who have done the games all year.”

Oliviero declined to comment.

While it is possible that WFAN and the Yankees could have Sterling call home playoff games, initial indications from those briefed on discussions is that he would need to commit to all home and road playoff games. Travel was one of the major reasons Sterling retired in April. On Thursday, via phone, he said the scheduling of the playoffs makes that aspect easier.

If he returns, Sterling could call a few regular-season games to tune up.

Regardless of whether he returns or not in October, Sterling is expected to resume retirement after the season.

The Yankees and WFAN would then consider Ricardo, Shackil and Berbari for the job while also conducting a national search.

Recently, WFAN and the Yankees had FS1 “Breakfast Ball” co-host Craig Carton call some games. While Carton is not a full-time candidate, team and radio executives liked what they heard and would invite him back. It is unlikely to happen this season as Carton’s “Breakfast Ball” responsibilities go into full swing in September.

Required reading

(Photo: Brandon Sloter / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Last week new Michigan coach Dusty May spent a day with the Miami Heat staff, then flew to Pittsburgh to trade ideas with Utah Jazz coach Will Hardy and Charlotte Hornets assistant Josh Longstaff. May will read any book or study any basketball team’s film if he thinks it might equip him with an idea or a play or a leadership tactic.

And part of his continuing education is a podcast from two coaches most basketball fans have never heard of.

While driving to lunch last February, May listened to Olympia Milano coach Ettore Messina break down the spacing concepts in his offense. The previous week, the voice of Tokyo Hachioji Bee Trains head coach Tyler Gatlin had come through May’s speakers. The next week he would hear from former NBA head coach Stan Van Gundy.

The globe-spanning lessons came from the Slappin’ Glass Podcast, which has turned into a word-of-mouth hit for coaches at every level of the sport, four years and 201 episodes in.

“I listen to every episode,” May said. “My staff listens to just about every episode. I think a majority of college coaches probably listen to it regularly.”

Jeff Van Gundy stumbled upon one of the hosts’ video breakdowns — they also have a weekly newsletter and YouTube channel — and was so impressed he called them up to say how great it was. Since then, he has encouraged some of his best friends in the business to go on their show, which is how two obscure basketball coaches who played together at Division III Chapman University end up on a call with Hall of Fame football coach Bill Parcells.

“Everybody’s wary of going on a podcast where they veer off into things that they aren’t able to discuss,” Van Gundy said. “They know they’re going to be straight basketball. There’s no ‘gotcha’ questions. It’s not overly dramatic clickbait, like ‘who’s the best player?’ … They’re truly trying to help coaches coach better.”

The show’s guest list features some of the most respected basketball coaches in the country — Brad Stevens, Geno Auriemma, Rick Pitino, Tom Thibodeau, Mike D’Antoni, the Van Gundy brothers, John Beilein, to name a few — and just as many big names in the international game. What started as a self-improvement project for the hosts has become a shop-talk paradise for coaches and hoops diehards at every level.

“You can put one of those on in an hour and you’re generally a better coach by the end of it,” said Saint Louis coach Josh Schertz.

Dan Krikorian’s initial plan was to be a musician when he graduated from Chapman in 2007. Between tours, he made extra money giving shooting lessons, coaching a youth team, and eventually coaching the junior varsity team at his high school alma mater. “Once I stepped foot in the gym to coach, I was like, ‘OK, this is what I want to do,’” he said. In 2013, Krikorian returned to Chapman as an assistant coach. This summer, he was elevated to head coach.

Pat Carney played professionally for 12 seasons in some of Germany’s top basketball leagues. In 2018 he retired and stayed in Germany to pursue a coaching career. The two young coaches and former teammates stayed connected by phone, studying other teams around the world and talking ball. Over beers one night in Berlin after Krikorian’s band had played a show, Krikorian suggested they turn those jam sessions into a podcast and interview the coaches whose systems piqued their interest.

The idea was mostly forgotten until a year later, when Krikorian and Carney were discussing the motion offense of Division III Yeshiva University, which had just gone 29-1 running a modern-day replica of Bob Knight’s system at Indiana. Krikorian and Carney wanted to pick the brain of coach Elliot Steinmetz, so they set up a Zoom. Right before the meeting, Krikorian suggested he record it. He already had all of the sound and editing equipment; if it went well, he could turn the interview into their first episode.

The pandemic had made it more commonplace for coaches across the world to connect over video call. The podcast’s first episode, published on Aug. 17, 2020, was not as polished as what the Slappin’ Glass guys produce today, but they enjoyed it so much they decided to make it a weekly routine.

The audience was small at first — “our moms,” Krikorian jokes — but they got some bumps whenever a famous guest joined the show, like Jeff Van Gundy in February of 2021. The hosts put together a list of coaches they’d love to interview, took suggestions from coaching buddies, and then started shooting their shot. To their surprise, they rarely heard no.

“They ask really good questions,” said Alabama assistant Ryan Pannone, the show’s third guest while coach of the G-League Erie Bayhawks. “And as a result, because their product is good and they’ve had good coaches speak on it, more coaches are willing to come on because they listen to it.”

Their curiosity and research seems to loosen lips. Beilein, who has always been guarded with what he shared publicly about his two-guard offense, explained the teaching points to the Slappin’ Glass guys without hesitation, then praised the questions they had asked him.

“I haven’t talked basketball to anybody like this in a bit,” Belien said near the end of the interview.

Most coaches approach podcast interviews expecting to be dragged into story time, but the Slappin’ Glass guests quickly find themselves delving into the intricacies of their methods.

“That’s the ideal for us,” Carney says. “It’s not an interview. Let’s talk some hoops.”

The show’s ethos: Everything that a coach does is interesting.

“The best thing about basketball, and what keeps us having conversations fresh and new every week, is that there’s so many ways to win,” Carney said. “There’s so many ways to teach, so we’re never assuming there’s one right way. Otherwise we would have probably had that conversation, and we would have just wrapped up shop.”

Krikorian and Carney go into every interview with a few ideas of what they want to talk about from background reading and film study, but their ability to listen and ask insightful follow-up questions carries the conversation and sometimes leads them down a rabbit hole.

“That’s our favorite part of the podcast is when it goes someplace we didn’t even expect,” Krikorian said.

They often get coaches into uncharted territory during their regular segment called “Start, Sub, Sit,” a basketball-centric variation on a common forced-choice game. When Stevens joined the show, they asked him which of three Ted Lasso quotes he would start, sub and sit. (Stevens’ Start: “You know what the happiest animal on earth is? It’s a goldfish. You know why? It’s got a 10-second memory. Be a goldfish” — because you should never worry about what someone says about you or worry about missing a shot. “I love that,” Stevens said, “Let it go. Have shot amnesia.”)

Everything always comes back to the game, never going on a tangent that wouldn’t be applicable to coaching.

“We know the coach has 45 minutes to get on the treadmill, or they’re commuting for 40 minutes to work,” Krikorian says. “We don’t want to waste one second of their time with something that’s not valuable.”

Kirkorian (left) was named the head coach at his alma mater in August. (Alex Vazquez for Chapman University)

Relationships with coaches like Van Gundy have helped Krikorian and Carney land some of their most well-known guests, but what brings them the most pride is that the show’s downloads and listens no longer depend as heavily on name recognition. And they’ve been able to give some talented but lesser-known coaches a platform to share their knowledge and ideas.

“If you think about it, like the best players, they progress. They find a level. That’s not always true in coaches,” Van Gundy said. “Some do. And some, either by choice or by just lack of opportunity, don’t. But I think too many fans think the best coaches rise just like the players do. Not true.”

Krikorian and Carney have created a nice side hustle. Their podcast has multiple sponsors, and they average 30,000 to 40,000 downloads per month. Their newsletter has over 7,000 subscribers, with close to 1,000 of those paying for their premium content.

While their content is consumable for anyone who loves the game — not just coaches — it’s a niche audience. But the goal was never to become famous; it was to become better coaches.

“With coaching, you have to be proficient,” Carney says. “You have to know yourself. You have to work hard. But a lot of it is relationships, too, and this has allowed us to build genuine relationships and continue conversations past the podcast that have directly impacted our careers.”

During the interview for this story, Carney was in Poland with the German under-20 national team. The head coach of that team, Martin Schiller, was a guest in 2022 and kept in touch with Carney, eventually reaching out to ask Carney to join his staff this summer.

Krikorian says he’d be lying if he didn’t think about one day coaching at a higher level than D-III, but he’s living a pretty good life now as the head coach of his alma mater, in the backyard of where he grew up, building a sustainable business that was born from a whim during the pandemic.

“The people that I’m able to call for advice now,” Krikorian says. “It’s a dream of ours, honestly.”

ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla, a fan and two-time guest, says what the Slappin’ Glass guys have done reminds him of an era long ago when coaches like Hubie Brown and Dean Smith went overseas to teach the game.

“What’s happened over two generations or three generations is the world is now teaching the game of basketball back to us,” Fraschilla says. “Slappin’ Glass has provided an incredible menu of international basketball ideas. They are the conduit for great basketball coaching information.”

(Top illustration photos courtesy of Alex Vasquez and @ralf.zimmermann.fotografie)

FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — Terry Fontenot was playing hooky from an Atlanta Falcons OTA workout day in Cooperstown, N.Y., in June when he got a surprise in his hotel room. The Falcons’ general manager spent the day watching his son, Kaiden, play in the Cooperstown All-Star Village baseball tournament. That night, he sat down with his computer to review film of the Falcons’ on-field session he had missed back home.

“I’m watching practice, and you’ve got the different views, the sideline, the end zone, then a higher end zone view and another view right down the line of scrimmage,” Fontenot explained. “So I’m clicking through the views, and all of a sudden I hear something. I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ Then all of a sudden I’m in the huddle.”

Fontenot was hearing and then seeing the footage from cameras the Falcons have attached to the helmets of quarterbacks Kirk Cousins and Michael Penix Jr. for practice sessions this offseason.

“I knew we had talked about the possibility, but all of a sudden it’s just in our regular film,” Fontenot said.

Atlanta’s coaching staff has gained valuable insight from the footage, coach Raheem Morris said. In exchange, the coaches have had to hear an array of playful complaints from the players.

“I joke with them that it’s kind of like the KGB: ‘You guys listen to everything I say,’” Cousins said. “The huddle used to be my time, but now you guys are in there and the huddle is bugged. I tell my teammates, ‘You guys are not getting let off the hook.’ If you say, ‘What’s the play here?’ the whole building knows. It’s probably more like a spy technique than anything else, but feedback is feedback, and it’s one more tool.”

Smooth with it @themikepenix 🎯 @cwash82 pic.twitter.com/1Ouc3C1PtV

— Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) August 14, 2024

Penix, a rookie, said he has benefited from being able to hear how Cousins, a 13-year veteran, calls plays and manages the huddle and snap cadence, but he hates the sound of his own voice.

“I feel like my voice sounds different in person, but other than that, I like the view,” he said. “It’s a cool thing.”

Matthew Bergeron, a 6-foot-5, 323-pound offensive lineman, doesn’t have to worry about hearing his voice in the huddle, but he’s not sure the camera provides him the most flattering angle.

“I think it made me look weird when I watched film,” he said. “I looked a lot bigger than I thought I looked. It’s not my best angle, but it’s a good angle to watch film.”

Penix also doesn’t think the camera gives him proper credit for his canniness.

“Sometimes on the GoPro, you can’t really see what I’m reading,” the quarterback said. “Nine times out of 10, I am looking off a defender. So, my GoPro might be facing this way, but really I’m reading over there.”

(The “GoPro” camera isn’t actually a GoPro. It’s a DJI Action 2 model.)

The Falcons coaching staff tries to determine where the quarterbacks are looking with the footage, and thus how they are reading the defense and going through their passing progressions, but the most valuable aspect is the sound, first-year offensive coordinator Zac Robinson said.

“The biggest tool is hearing the communication and how the guys are getting in and out of the huddle,” Robinson said. “I know it’s big for Mike as a young guy just learning the process of what it’s supposed to sound like.”

When Fontenot heard the helmet camera suggestion, he assumed the idea started with Robinson, who followed Morris from the Los Angeles Rams’ coaching staff. Actually, the man behind the cameras is Jake Stroot, the Falcons’ fourth-year video director.

Stroot got the idea when he saw the Miami Dolphins using the cameras during joint practice sessions in Miami in 2023. He pitched them to the Falcons coaching staff, and Morris liked the idea.

“You can see exactly what the quarterbacks are looking at when they are barking through cadences,” Morris said. “You are grading your coaches there, too. You can see the flow between Zac Robinson and Kirk.”

The cameras hold 30 minutes of footage each, and Stroot’s staff has four for each quarterback, which they swap using magnetic holders multiple times each practice session. The cameras run throughout the team’s 11-on-11 practice work.

“We tried it out in the spring, and they liked it, and it has grown from there,” Stroot said. “The audio part is really special just to hear the cadence and stuff. All the guys are really digging it.”

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Watching the helmet camera footage and cutting it into clips for the coaching staff is “the most enjoyable part of my day,” Stroot said.

“The passion that Kirk shows is still very much there, and that’s very evident from hearing him talk,” Stroot said.

The helmet cameras have added four hours of footage for Stroot and his staff to work through every day. The video staff already was recording practice with nine aerial cameras and six ground cameras each day, accumulating nearly 20 hours of footage from each practice, all of which is cut into clips and made available to the coaching staff within 30 minutes of the end of practice.

The Falcons also have added sideline video screens during practice that show the previous play immediately so players and coaches can get quick reviews between snaps. Putting them in place and operating them also fell to Stroot.

“That’s just the mindset of him and his whole department,” Fontenot said. “If there’s a new person in the video department, the first thing he says is, ‘Our mantra is “no” doesn’t exist. We don’t say no.’ Somebody comes down and they ask for something, the first answer is yes and they figure it out.”

The Falcons hired Stroot away from the University of Georgia in 2021 after asking Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart for permission to talk to him.

“We interview him, it goes well, and when I called Kirby to tell him we were hiring him, there was an expletive,” Fontenot said. “He said, ‘I’m so happy for him, but man this is a tough loss.’ As soon as Jake is in the building, you see why.”

The Falcons and Dolphins are believed to be the only NFL teams currently using helmet cameras, and Stroot says no other professional teams have approached him for advice on implementation, though several colleges have.

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Defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake thought the cameras were a tool of the Falcons’ social media team when he saw them pop up on the practice field.

“But then Rah showed it in the team meeting, and it was really cool,” Lake said. “Got me thinking, ‘Maybe I want to put one of those on Jessie Bates so we can flip it the other way as a teaching tool.’ I think it’s genius.”

Bates said he might start reviewing the footage to see how he looks from a quarterback’s eyes.

“It’s cool to see,” the safety said. “Rah pulls it up in the team meeting room sometimes, and to see how Kirk processes things and how excited he gets to this day is cool. He talks a little s— as well. I need to start getting some footage of that, for sure.”

In addition to reviewing his performance for each play, Cousins uses the film to self-scout his wealth of “dad joke” comedy material.

“I get a better feel for how I come across,” the 36-year-old quarterback said. “I’ll say a joke I thought was pretty funny, and then I’ll go back and listen to it and say, ‘Don’t say that.’ I’ll watch it and think, ‘I thought I was cool, but I’m a nerd.’”

(Photo of Kirk Cousins: Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)