Susan Larkin

Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, AUDACY INC

Throwing Bagels Episode 33- Susan Larkin

🎥 Mar 24, 2024 📺 Throwing Bagels Podcast ⏱ 59m 👁 4 views

Audacy Chief Operating Officer and fellow SUNY Oswego grad Susan Larkin joins the Throwing Bagels Podcast to talk about ...

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About Susan Larkin

Susan Larkin, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Audacy, discussed the company’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a September 2024 podcast, describing it as “the best possible case scenario” and “not disruptive to our day-to-day operations,” and said it positions the company for “meaningful growth and success in 2024 and beyond.” She stated that Audacy has 221 radio stations in 45 markets, reaches 200 million people per month, and employs about 5,000 people. Larkin noted that radio advertising is evolving, with linear listening declining a few percent annually, while the company plans to grow its digital platform at a greater rate, and she described radio personalities as “the original influencers” representing a key monetization opportunity. She said Audacy is exploring AI for tasks such as copywriting and gathering interview questions, but within guidelines and with a focus on automation to ease task work rather than replace people. In September 2023, Larkin appeared at the Hollywood Bowl for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, where she said Audacy had raised $1.5 million for the organization and emphasized the role of audio in supporting mental health and saving lives. She promoted the 988 suicide prevention hotline, stating that Audacy’s personalities and artists can help spread awareness. In a July 2025 video, Larkin highlighted the wellness center and gym at the Solemar development, describing it as “packed with state-of-the-art equipment” and noting the “epic ocean views” as her favorite feature. She has also spoken about her career path, including breaking into radio sales in the mid-1980s and advancing into management, and she said that more women are in senior leadership positions today compared to the 2000s)Skip

Source: AI-verified profile updated from Susan Larkin's recent appearances. Browse all interviews →

Transcript (66 segments)

Jason0:06

Welcome to another edition of the Throwing Bagels podcast. Jason Heo here along with Kevin Mooney. Kevin, how are you doing?

Kevin Mooney0:12

I am good, Jason. How are you?

Jason0:15

I'm doing great, thanks. And Chris Daglas, how are you, Chris?

Chris Daglas0:19

I'm doing well.

Jason0:22

We have another great guest on today. I would say the highest executive we've ever had on the podcast: the Chief Operating Officer of Odyssey, on the executive committee of the Radio Advertising Bureau, once named one of Radio Ink's Most Influential Women in Radio, and most importantly, Oswego's class of 1985, Susan Larkin. Susan, how are you doing tonight?

Susan Larkin0:48

I'm great. But by the way, I don't love that the year I graduated is now attached to me, because it tells people how old I am.

Jason0:55

Oh, don't worry about age. Age is just a number.

Susan Larkin1:00

Just a number.

Jason1:04

First and foremost, Susan, what is your message to Odyssey listeners and employees about the bankruptcy issues that have come up recently?

Susan Larkin1:14

Yeah, so first, let me start by saying Odyssey is a really large-scale audio and entertainment company. We have 221 radio stations in 45 markets, we have three podcast studios, and we're reaching 200 million people a month across all of our radio stations, brands, and platforms. We have between full-time and part-time employees somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 employees. So this is a really big company. I don't know how much you know about bankruptcies. I will tell you I know a lot more about them than I did before. I've been quite educated on them. A Chapter 7 is full liquidation. Chapter 11 has different versions. Our version was the best possible case scenario. We ended up in this situation, which really is not disruptive in our day-to-day at all. This positions us for really meaningful growth, innovation, and success in 2024 and beyond. We told our team to expect that it is really business as usual from an operating standpoint, and that has been very true. So employees know that we've talked about this publicly and internally, and we're running our business and excited about the growth.

Kevin Mooney2:44

Is there any hope in radio advertising bouncing back, or does Odyssey have to seek opportunities elsewhere?

Susan Larkin2:50

So radio advertising or audio advertising? Because we are focused on audio and on radio, because radio are brands and the linear product that you're listening to in your car or on some other type of non-digital device. Smart speakers have replaced radios in the home, and 48% of ad-supported audio listening on smart speakers comes from AM/FM stations. So when we think about all of it as an opportunity, we sell all of it. What distinguishes Odyssey from other companies, and what we believe we are absolutely the best at, is creating premium audio content. If you think about our brands and the ability to extend those brands from a distribution standpoint over platforms, we're reaching 200 million listeners a month, and that's real money in terms of being able to monetize. In-car listening went through a complete disruption during COVID, and it came back, but our linear listening is not at the same levels. It's diminished by a couple percent every year, so we plan for that. But our plan is to grow that listening on our digital platform at a much greater rate. Advertisers want to buy it. They want targeted campaigns, they want a return on ad spend. Our personalities are the greatest influencers, the original influencers. Advertisers want to buy endorsements. Our ability to have Boomer Esiason, who hosts the morning show Boomer and Gio on WFAN in New York City, he also hosts a football show with Mike Valente, who's a huge personality for us on afternoon drive with The Ticket in Detroit. They do a weekly show, and that's brand extension for both of them, and that's an opportunity for us to monetize as well. There are a thousand of these stories. So I think your point about the ad market, we're bullish and confident because revenue chases audience. As long as we can create amazing content, provide the campaigns that advertisers want, the reporting they expect, and prove their ad spend, then we should be able to grow our share and be successful.

Kevin Mooney6:07

I was looking at Odyssey's website earlier. There are some really legendary sports and news radio stations in the portfolio, like in New York City there's WFAN, there's WCBS, 1010 WINS, there's WIP in Philly, KX in St. Louis, EEI in Boston, WGR in Buffalo, KCBS in San Francisco, so many more. And there are also famous music stations too, like KROQ in Los Angeles and WCBS or WNEW in New York. What are the approaches in managing those music stations versus the news and talk stations?

Susan Larkin6:48

Yeah, so as you said, we have 43 sports stations, eight all-news, and 20 news-talk, and then the rest of the portfolio of the 221 is music. It is much harder to launch a news-talk station or an all-news station or sports station from the ground up right now, almost impossible. Not only do we have the benefit of these great storied brands, but we spend a lot of time thinking about strategy, looking at research, understanding what our audiences want from us, and evolving these stations. While every single one is not necessarily number one, most are absolutely top performers. Our sports stations are the best sports stations in the country, the best portfolio. Nobody else has eight all-news stations. Nobody else is doing that. We're the only ones. The investment that has occurred over many years is the benefit we have now because the brands are so well established. If we can evolve those brands, it's not easy to do because you have to modernize the content, you want to reach a diverse audience, but you don't want to blow off people either. You have to accommodate being available anytime anywhere. On-demand is a huge thing. If you look at our sports stations, all of our spoken word stations on our app, you will see a unique product called Rewind and chapters. You can go back to one of our sports stations and just look on the app and see different stories that were covered and go to those stories. We're constantly evolving our product. There is a lot that goes into our strategy overall, our content management, helping to grow our personalities and coach them. It takes a lot of research, marketing, and being able to execute that strategy flawlessly. It is not for the faint of heart. It's sophisticated and complex. I've been in this business my entire career and I've seen it all. We have the best and brightest working at this company. If you did it 15 years ago in a different way, it's not the same. It's so much more complex now. That part has been great because it's helped people grow. There's so much work involved in spoken word. Someone's got to edit those interviews, edit those highlights, run those highlights, write sports updates, news updates top of the hour, every 20 minutes, 10 minutes, you name it. There's so much that goes on behind the scenes at those stations versus a music station. Our music morning shows, especially, there is a tremendous amount of prep that goes into the work they do. But on the spoken word side, it takes more people to do the work. We hope that in the future there are opportunities with AI, not to replace people, but to take some of the task work and automate it. It's really more about automation than anything else. But we're not going to find ourselves in a Sports Illustrated situation with fake AI reporters. We're really proud of our journalism with a capital J. We care about it, and we care very much about our reporters and anchors and the authenticity and credibility of the work they're doing. If we could help make some things easier with authenticated research or different things that might help them be more productive, that would be great.

Kevin Mooney11:35

Are any of the stations currently already using AI like ChatGPT for anything, like gathering questions for interviews or things like that?

Susan Larkin11:40

We've given our team the opportunity to experiment within guidelines. We want our team to experiment. For example, back in the day when I first started out in sales, I was writing my commercials, in some cases I was voicing them. You were doing it all. Now in production, we don't want our AEs writing commercials. God bless them, but they're not the best copywriters. If AI can help with copywriting, all the better. Those are things we've said: sure, absolutely experiment with it, see if it helps you be more productive. We have a team working together on that and has provided guidelines to our team on how to experiment.

Kevin Mooney12:44

Is there a lot of overlap in listenership between the talk and music stations?

Susan Larkin12:50

Yeah, there's definitely some. For instance, you mentioned a station like KROQ. KROQ is such a legendary, unbelievable, amazing brand. You have listeners that might listen to our morning show or might listen to our news station in the morning, might listen to KX in LA, and then in the afternoon they might be listening to K. You definitely see that. We promote between our brands. If you've been listening to WFAN, you hear us promoting 1010 WINS on FM, which has been on FM for a little bit of time now. We cross-promote our brands. The WNEW morning show, Karen Carson in the morning, and Karen and Johnny and Intern Anthony have sat in with Boomer and Gio on WFAN. We love doing that. They'll literally come downstairs during the show and sit and talk about something. They'll say, 'Okay, the guys upstairs are subject matter experts.' We really like to cross-promote where it makes sense.

Kevin Mooney14:14

As Jay mentioned at the top of the show, you're on the executive committee of the Radio Advertising Bureau. What are the main topics the bureau is discussing right now?

Susan Larkin14:20

The Radio Advertising Bureau serves its members mostly in services. There is so much work they are doing, particularly in sales training, providing research and category stories and presentations. They have a CRM that many broadcasters use. There are a lot of services they're providing to broadcasters. In addition to the advocacy piece, which is definitely something we're all focused on in the future, RAB has to balance because they're serving all broadcasters: the Odysseys, iHearts, and Cumuluses of the world, the big ones, and also a lot of medium-sized and small broadcasters that rely on them because they don't have the scale or resources for some of the services RAB is able to provide. Together, all of the broadcasters as an organization are really focused on moving that share of media or share of voice higher. The advocacy piece and the research and measurement piece are really important for our future.

Kevin Mooney16:04

You've held various executive positions in radio for over 25 years. What are some of the keys to your success as a leader within the industry?

Susan Larkin16:11

I think the most important thing is that I really love what I do so much. I found a career in a business that on my hardest day is better than anything else I could possibly ever do. I love it. When I was in school at Oswego, I was in the communications department. My major was broadcasting at the time. I did that because I thought I wanted to be a theater major, and my dad was like, 'No way.' I thought broadcasting is the next closest thing. I thought I would be on air. I did a few things and took a few classes. I grew up with not a lot in the way of means. I definitely wanted to make money, I wanted to be successful. My dad said, 'Look, just find something you love and go all in. Leave it all on the field. Just go all in every single day, run it hard, and I promise you you'll be successful if you love what you're doing.' That happened to me. I knew this was going to be the career I was going to be in. I also, because I've lived in a number of different cities, was flexible. I was focused. I knew early on that I had to find the things I was really good at and lean into those. But I also knew that leadership, if you're a leader, you're not doing it alone. You are curious, you're asking lots of questions, and you're surrounding yourself with people that are smarter than you. I am nearly never the smartest person in the room, but I've been really smart about who I've surrounded myself with and also the people that I want to work for. The thing I care the most about in our company is our team. It's number one. I have a lot of gratitude to be surrounded by such an incredible team. It is about collaboration, always learning and getting better, and raising the bar. But it's also about working really hard, being scrappy, having a ton of grit, and being willing to fail. There are more jobs that I didn't get than I got. There were so many failures. There were jobs that I thought I deserved, promotions that I thought I deserved that I didn't get. I feel sorry for myself for two seconds and then just keep going. I think resilience and grit are probably the things that have seen me through, but the base is the passion for the business.

Kevin Mooney19:21

Did you work in sales when you were in college? You said you wanted to be on air. Did you do sales also for the radio station?

Susan Larkin19:29

No, I didn't do sales at all. As a matter of fact, I went to Doc O'Donnell. When I was in the sales and programming class that he had, half the time was spent in programming, half the time was spent in sales. By the way, nobody comes out and says, 'I want to be in sales.' It's not necessarily something you say. I want to be on air, I want to be famous. The people that get into this business go into it wanting to be in marketing or creative. So when we had people that would come in and speak to our class, I went to Doc and said, 'I don't know what to do.' I didn't intern at school. I was in the Greek Student Association, the regular student association, I was doing a lot of things, and I was acting in plays. I didn't really have time to intern anywhere, but I did some stuff with WTOP, like anchoring, and to be honest, not that great. So I went to Doc and said, 'What do you think I should do?' He said, 'You know, if you want to make money, and I feel like with your personality, you should really think about sales.' I was like, 'Oh, well, I don't know anything about that.' He said, 'Let me connect you with an alum.' So he connected me with a woman who was selling television in Buffalo. She was in her second year. I think her name was Mora Corkran, I might be wrong. I had a wonderful conversation with her. She told me about her job and how much she loved it. She said in her second year she doubled what she was making in her first year. I was like, 'Okay, I need to check this out.' So I literally applied for a job. My then-boyfriend, now husband, who I met at Oswego, saw an ad and said, 'There's a radio sales job. Maybe you should apply for that.' I did, and the rest is history.

Kevin Mooney22:05

When you were in school, ESPN's Steve Levy was there around the same time as you. Did you cross paths with Steve at any point during your time at the school?

Susan Larkin22:18

You know, it's funny you asked that because I'm sure I did, but I don't have a recognition of that. I spent a lot of my time there with my sorority, with sororities and fraternities, with folks on some of the sports teams, baseball and hockey mostly. I actually for like two weeks I was on the swim team, and then because I grew up with sports, but the meets were on Saturday, and as a freshman I was like, 'Yeah, that's not for me.' At the time it was a club team. But I was super passionate about sports. That's part of the reason why I'm doing what I love at this particular company, because I'm super passionate about sports and sports radio. It's my number one format of choice. I love it so much. I love to talk about it, listen to it, and consume all that it is. I spent a lot of my time there. I probably was in class with him, probably met him, but I wasn't friends with him or anything.

Kevin Mooney23:29

Did you attend a few games at Romney?

Susan Larkin23:35

Of course, of course I did. That's where 'Throwing Bagels' came from.

Kevin Mooney23:40

What was the atmosphere like at that time attending hockey games in the mid-80s?

Susan Larkin23:52

It was rough and cold. When you're in that fieldhouse, it's not like what it is today. Campus when I was there was not what campus is today. It's so much nicer now. The sports facilities were old wood seating. It was rough and tumble. You bundled up, you drank a bunch of beer before you went in. Everybody was very loud and rough, and that was the crowd. But it was super fun. I'm proud of our Lakers. I believe Ed Gostic was playing. He may have graduated around '83, so he may have been on the ice when you were there in Romney. The guys I knew on the team were not famous and mostly from Canada.

Kevin Mooney25:13

The guys that didn't play as much?

Susan Larkin25:15

No, I don't know. They just weren't. They loved hockey obviously, but they also liked to have a lot of fun. We lived in a house off campus. I didn't live in the sorority house. I lived at 91 Fifth Avenue. We were a very enterprising group because we all needed to make money. The guys on the hockey team, our friends on the hockey team, helped us. We decided we would have after-parties. We convinced the beer distributor in Oswego to front us the kegs, and we would pay them after. These guys helped us as bouncers, carried kegs, and we gave them a cut. We charged a few bucks at the door at our house. That was our grocery money, our going out money. We had a little business there. It was pretty good. I think back at some of the crazy stuff that occurred back then. It was so fun. Even our hell night, it wasn't that bad. People make it out to seem like it was, but I know other fraternities that have done way worse things than my fraternity ever did. But that's a different story for another day.

Kevin Mooney27:07,

The hazing stories have to sit off to the side right now.

Susan Larkin27:10

Yeah, something like that. But look, it's really fun to be able to... What was great was when I moved back to New York City working for Odyssey, I was able to connect with some of my closest friends from Oswego because there are so many people in our industry on the sales and revenue side, on the content side. I found so many acquaintances and reconnected with friends there. That was great. When you become a bit of a nomad and live in a bunch of different cities, you don't stay as connected. That's why I didn't really stay as connected to Oswego. That's why I've been grateful that Dana Murphy has helped reconnect me with the school that I feel so grateful for the opportunity to graduate from.

Kevin Mooney28:09

You mentioned your nomadic lifestyle. Where have you gone across this country in your career?

Susan Larkin28:14

I started out in Syracuse, well Auburn, then Syracuse, New York. Then Tampa, Florida. The irony is when I moved to Tampa, I worked for CBS, and that was my first job. I was there for a number of years. The original CBS pre-Infinity, and now at Odyssey it's a version of CBS radio. It's interesting the full circle moment. I worked in Tampa, then I went to Columbus, Ohio. That was my first management job as a national sales manager. I started there working for Great American Cities, then Jacor, pre-Clear Channel. Then I moved to Minneapolis and worked for ABC Disney and ESPN. I started selling sports in Florida, then I was able to do that in Columbus with Ohio State Buckeyes. That was my first experience with a big college football team because we didn't have a football team at Oswego. Hockey was our jam. To be able to sit in the Shoe in Columbus, Ohio, and broadcast games and have sports coverage with some of the greats like Kirk Herbstreit and Earl Bruce as part of our talent pool was amazing. Then I moved to ABC Disney in Minneapolis. I worked for rock stations, now Cumulus stations, but we had Disney and the connection with ESPN. That's where I got to know a ton of folks from Bristol and ESPN. Then I moved to Orlando, Florida. That was my first job as a general manager and then a market manager. I was working for Cox Enterprises, Cox Media Group at the time. I was there for 11 years as a general manager, market manager, and then a regional vice president overseeing other markets. Then I joined Odyssey in 2017. My adventure started in San Francisco. I went out to San Francisco, and that was incredible. I went to work with KCBS and Alice in a really great city with an incredible team. I wasn't out there very long when our then-COO, Wheezy Kramer, asked me to come back home to New York City and run the market. I was also a regional president overseeing the New York City market. Then in 2020, I moved into my current role as COO, and I moved to Philadelphia because that's where we're based. So I've moved around a little bit.

Kevin Mooney31:09

What originally led you to go to Oswego? Were there other colleges you were interested in?

Susan Larkin31:15

That is a really interesting question. I sort of defied my parents a little bit. I wanted to go to a theater school, so I started to explore that and got shut down very quickly. My parents really wanted me to go to Cornell or Syracuse, but those schools were very expensive, and I felt that was going to be more problematic for me financially. So I applied to a whole bunch of SUNY schools and got into most of them. The reason I ended up at Oswego is that my dad knew some people that had been there and had a really good experience. He said, 'That's the one.' We went up to see the campus, and it looked cool. It was far enough away from my family but still in the state. It was a far enough drive that I was far enough away, but I could drive home if I wanted. That's how I ended up there. There was really not a lot of rhyme or reason. When I got dropped off there, I had done a tour of the campus and orientation before I actually attended. We went up to look at the campus, went to Onondaga, went to Oswego, ruled out a couple of others. I was sort of taken with spending time in New York City and Rockland County, to be on Lake Ontario, to have this beautiful scenic campus. It was very attractive. It had a very good theater program, so I thought, 'That's my way in.' And also a really good broadcasting program. So that's how I ended up there. It was the best fit for me.

Kevin Mooney33:37

When you think of your experience at Oswego, what did you learn there that you've taken with you throughout your career?

Susan Larkin33:43

It was interesting because the classes we took in the broadcasting and now Communication, Media, and the Arts program were so comprehensive. They covered everything from broadcast engineering. I remember that class. That was interesting. That class was me and like five dudes sitting around a table with a professor, basically saying, 'Okay, you're going to acquire a radio station, you're going to get an FCC license, you're going to build a tower, you're going to build a building, you're going to put a whole business plan together.' That was the engineering class, a 300-level class. It was an intimate setting where we literally sat around with a professor, as opposed to Broadcasting 101 in a huge lecture hall. I loved the smaller classes. As you went into the higher-level classes, you were able to have these smaller classes. I learned a lot about the business itself: FCC licenses, programming and sales, the mechanics of how it worked. I think it helped me BS my way into my first job. But the thing I learned the most is I did learn a lot about the business. The experiences in the theater department were very helpful to me ultimately in sales, because I also took directing classes and things like that, which helped me in leadership and management. I didn't know that at the time, but what I learned were all those skills that you need in the working world. Some of them happened to be specialized to the industry I was in. I felt really fortunate to gain book knowledge and some practical experience to be able to translate it. But more than anything else, I think I was excited about the medium itself. I knew after taking all those classes that if I could find a job in broadcasting, that's where I wanted to end up. I didn't know I was going to love it as much as I did. I just thought it was going to be a cool, fun business. It's the entertainment business. Being in a media business, I thought would be great. I had a roommate who was a marketing major and a roommate who was a business major. They went to work for ad agencies, a couple went to law school. People did different things. For me, I wanted to be on the entertainment side of things. I had no idea that I was going to love it as much as I did, and that I would end up in an executive position.

Kevin Mooney36:45

You mentioned taking a class where it was basically you and five guys sitting around the table doing the work. When you graduated Oswego in the mid-80s, the radio industry was pretty heavily male-dominated. Did you face any barriers or challenges being a woman breaking into radio sales at that time?

Susan Larkin37:04

No, I didn't have challenges breaking into the industry at all. I think it was more challenging to break into management positions. That was a little bit harder. I always felt that there weren't a lot of people that looked like me in leadership positions. But I sort of didn't think about that at the time. I never felt that I wasn't offered a position because I was a woman. The positions I didn't get, I didn't get because I didn't have enough experience, or I was younger at the time, or whatever else. I don't think it was ever that. But I do think that especially, I've raised two kids, I've moved them around. A lot of women find that harder to do. There have been sacrifices. I've put my career first in many cases. I'm so close to my children. They're amazing, very successful people. I've always stayed really close to them, but they've known how important my career is. I've traveled a lot, worked a ton of hours. I've made my kids go to school when they were sick. I didn't care. I wanted to compete at the highest levels. But it certainly is a little bit harder for women because you're still, especially if you're a parent, the go-to mom. You have everything else you're juggling. I would sort of joke and say, 'Okay guys, it seems a little bit easier for you than it is for me.' But I feel really passionately about helping to support women grow into leadership positions and not have them feel like they can't have it all. You can have it all, you just can't have it all great all the time. That's not gender-specific. Any of us that want to forge our careers have to make sacrifices. Personal and professional, we make choices in the things we are willing to do and not willing to do based on some of those choices. I'm really passionate about helping support women.

Kevin Mooney40:21

Do you feel like the times have changed a decent amount from the 2000s on to today, where there are a lot more women in senior leadership positions?

Susan Larkin40:28

Absolutely, absolutely. I think the other thing too is I have the benefit of having a son and a daughter. My daughter is 25, and she's a badass. She was a college athlete at the highest levels, and she is in the music business now. She sees no barriers, none whatsoever. She doesn't feel like she can't do anything she wants to do. I didn't necessarily see those things as visibly, but I don't think I had the same type of aspirations. My brother and my family will tell you that I was always super determined, and they felt I would be successful because I was ambitious. I never thought that necessarily when I was younger. But when I look at her and her friends, they are going, and they don't see obstacles at all. That's great. But I do think it's harder also because folks that are just coming into the industry don't have patience. You need patience because just because you started and you're pretty good at your job, you're not getting promoted in two months, and you're not going to come in making a whole bunch of money to start. Many think that's the case.

Kevin Mooney42:04

In hindsight, you probably had that determination; you just didn't realize it, whereas you see it in your daughter now.

Susan Larkin42:10

I probably wasn't as conscious about it. But look, I've always called upon mentors and other people for advice. I've always collaborated with others in our industry and tried to be better. I think now any leaders that aren't growth-minded personally will fail. To be a successful leader, you have to be really curious, get better, and constantly raise the bar. I think that was instilled in me early on. It probably is DNA.

Kevin Mooney43:03

How important is it for you to engage with Oswego students and alumni?

Susan Larkin43:11

I will be honest with you, it hasn't been important to me. Not because I haven't cared, but it wasn't top of mind. As you're forging your career, putting kids through college, all of a sudden you become fans of their colleges. That became the priority. My husband went to the same college I did, Oswego, also. But whether it was the kids' high school or their colleges, giving back to my own university was not something I was as conscious of until recently. I've been thinking about engaging with students. I spend time with my kids' friends that want advice, mentoring people in our company or in the industry. Informally, it's like, 'Ain't nobody got time to do all of this.' So it hasn't been that I haven't cared, but I haven't carved out the time. Now I have so much time on my hands? No, I have zero time. Time is what I don't have at all. Luckily, I'm not a big sleeper, so I can just keep going. But I was excited about the opportunity to reconnect with people from Oswego, to come full circle and host that event we had recently at Odyssey in New York. Dana has helped me make that connection more. It's funny because some of my friends and sorority sisters that I had won at the event came to join me. I have a few that just couldn't make it and were so bummed out. They were excited about seeing others. I'm connected with my sorority sisters because they are my friends. In terms of current students at the school, when I first graduated, I came back multiple times and spoke and did some things. Then time went by, and I wasn't doing that anymore. I haven't been to the comms dinners or any of that either. It's really been about what's the priority: company thing, industry thing. It's not like I don't have much going on.

Kevin Mooney46:13

Before we get you out of here, we like to ask all of our alumni from Oswego about food, because we are the Throwing Bagels podcast. We like bagels and all kinds of other food. Back in our tenure, the big to-do in the dining hall was the chicken patty sandwich. Was that the same back when you were in college?

Susan Larkin46:39

It was the same thing. Chicken patty sandwich with yellow American cheese, no question. The two biggest things were the chicken patty sandwich and also when there was chicken wing night. That was a huge thing for us. It would be a special thing. But yeah, that was my favorite. That was lunch every day: chicken patty with American cheese. We didn't have wing night, I don't think. They did away with that. They had wing night when we were there? I don't think so. But the most memorable thing I ate there was just American cheese, no mayonnaise, no ketchup, no lettuce, no tomato. Just cheese. I'm not a mayonnaise fan, and I couldn't think of putting anything else. The cheese sort of felt like a condiment to me. I really like ketchup, but I didn't mix that. That was pretty much it. In addition to ramen noodles and all the other stuff we ate, one of the other things I used to like to get in the dining hall was a bagel with butter, and then take barbecue potato chips and smash them in between and eat that. That was very nutritious for me.

Kevin Mooney48:13

Sounds delicious. My wife does that with potato chips also.

Susan Larkin48:17

It's the best. If you take a toasted bagel, put a little bit of butter, then take barbecue potato chips and put them in and smash them, I am telling you, it's great. Although I say this so cavalierly, it's been a hundred years since I've had it. I know it was good. She was a senior in college the last time she actually had it.

Kevin Mooney48:42

I worked in the dining hall my senior year. I worked in the sub shop and also did a little bit of banquet waitressing.

Susan Larkin48:53

Any sub shop orders? The Oswego sub shop? Yeah, first of all, way too many onions. People like way too many onions. The smell of onions was not my thing. I was definitely a turkey and cheese gal with lettuce, dressing, sort of Italian dressing, oil and vinegar. They are very heavy on the condiments there. You have to tell them to go light. Whenever I get a cheeseburger sub, I'm like, 'Lay on the lettuce,' because otherwise it's just a sandwich with lettuce. We used to get Pizza Pub pizza, the calzone that was basically the folded-over pizza. That was a fan favorite. And Pizza Hut, remember the Pizza Hut? Of course. Although I didn't like the whole wing thing. Clam bake, some good food there. Canale's, of course. Nice big chunk of lasagna. And then Rudy's and the Sand, of course. And Beb's fried fish and ice cream. That is a perfect picture of health my freshman year. I think you have to be like that if you went to Oswego. I was in sports and came from a family that liked to eat pretty healthy. I went up there and it was like, holy... I remember I came home freshman year and my parents were horrified. 'What happened to you?' Then I learned: just college. College happened.

Kevin Mooney51:19

You have to deal with the cold somehow.

Susan Larkin51:22

You have to deal with the cold somehow. Big down coat.

Jason51:25

Well, Susan, this was fantastic. We really appreciate the time and all the stories. We wish you nothing but success, and we hope to see Odyssey continue to build and grow from where you are right now.

Susan Larkin51:40

Thank you so much. This was so much fun. I appreciate you inviting me and the opportunity to meet you guys. I hope your podcast continues to go. This one no doubt is going to get so many downloads. Anyway, thank you. I've enjoyed it very much.

Jason52:06

And that was another great interview from Susan Larkin. Although she didn't really want to say it, the class of '85 Oswego graduate. Guys, that was another fantastic interview.

Kevin Mooney52:20

Agreed. Probably gonna be the highest executive we ever get on this podcast, unless we get the president of the United States. I don't know. You never know. We'll work on that one.

Chris Daglas52:33

We'll work on it. That'll take some work. But yeah, you're right. It was great that she mentioned she had a really busy schedule, and I'm sure she is. Every second is on the calendar. The fact that she took that hour out to speak with us was really phenomenal. It was really great of her to do that.

Jason52:52

Yeah, and very much appreciate it too. Like you said, she's got a million and a half things to do, especially with what her company's going through right now, just to make some time for us three knuckleheads.

Kevin Mooney53:04

Yeah, right. I met her at the event at the Odyssey offices, and I literally spoke to her for two minutes. She was all around the place, and at the end I was like, 'Hey, how you doing?' and tried to talk to her quickly and see if she'd want to join us. She said reach out to her, and that was it. I didn't get a chance to really talk to her too much that night, but I'm glad I was able to get those two minutes and quickly just say hi. It was definitely a great interview. But quickly, let's recap this past weekend in football. The Lions and the Ravens winning, great game that Lions game. Then we had the Niners and the Chiefs last night, and unfortunately the Bills once again somehow finding a way to kill themselves. Will it ever happen? That's the question. Will it ever happen? Eventually. But my main concern is, has anyone checked on Bren Ax? We need to go check on our friend Bren Ax, make sure he's still okay. We don't need him starting smoking again or getting into bad habits. But you know who's happy right now? Another friend of the podcast, Joe Juren. Oh my goodness. His Lions haven't done anything since he was 12 years old, I think, is the last time they were in this position. I saw something today where the last time the Lions were in this position, things like Twitter, Myspace, Google, and Amazon weren't even in existence. Just to put it in perspective. That is so wild to me. They have a very... if the Niners play anything like they did this week, the Lions have a fantastic opportunity to go to the Super Bowl. Look, the Lions' colors aren't in the Super Bowl logo. That means they're not... exactly. You know what? If it does happen and we do see a Niners-Ravens Super Bowl, I am very curious to see what the colors are next year, because what's gonna happen is Aaron Rodgers will just come out and start spewing BS again. So please, just make it to other teams. Can you imagine if it's all green? Then it's like Jets and Eagles fans going crazy, 'We make the Super Bowl!' The whole thing is just green, and it doesn't matter which side is which color. How do you decide who makes it? I don't know. The conspiracy theories are bound. The conspiracy theory is that the last two Super Bowl logos before this one had colors that were somewhat vaguely reminiscent of the two teams that were participating. Very vaguely. Enormous stretch. It's a symptom of people with too much time on their hands. But the conspiracy theorists love that kind of stuff. They're like, 'This is fantastic. Look at this.' What's his name, the running back that said the NFL is scripted? There's more than one, I'm sure. It was Reggie... oh man, I can't remember his name. But he came out and said the NFL is completely scripted. Come on, dude. Really? Not entirely. That's insane. You cannot script this. There's no way. Impossible. The one thing, and I know Chris has a very strong opinion on this, the refereeing has been horrendous all season. It's been pretty rough. Let's call a spade a spade. When can we just get some sort of digital marker for the football? We have old people who can barely see marking the football. They're like 70 years old. They're using a stick and chains to measure 10 yards. Meanwhile, in soccer, we have automated offsides. Why can't you use the same technology to mark the ball in a gazillion-dollar industry sport? They can't afford to do this? Baffling. You can't put a tracker in the football to determine where it is on the field? Just do the same thing that soccer does with VAR. You have people in a booth overlooking everything. If the official blatantly misses something, be like, 'Hey dude, you missed this.' 'Oh sorry, okay, we'll spot it over here instead.' It's that simple. I get it, over-refereeing stops the football every second. But if it's that blatant or that close and you need to get it right, then get it right. Some of the spotting over the weekend was just unbelievable, like a yard short here and a yard short there. Come on, man.

Jason58:48

Well, fellas, this was a fantastic episode, another fantastic episode I should say. And we have another fantastic episode coming up in two weeks. You can catch us at our email address, [email protected]. Catch us on Facebook, on Twitter, on X, whatever the hell you want to call it, on Instagram, Threads, LinkedIn, and wherever you get your podcast. You can listen on our website at throwingbagels.com. Kevin, Chris, this was a great one. Another great episode coming up in two weeks. Have a good one.

Kevin Mooney59:32

You too.

Chris Daglas59:34

See you.