Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Chris “Mad Dog” Russo is a sports media legend who’s spent more than four decades as a talking head. He may know a lot about the world of athletics, but he’s severely lacking in the skills department based on what unfolded when he attempted a half-court shot ahead of a basketball game at Arizona State.
There are plenty of professional athletes who’ve decided to pivot to broadcasting after their career came to an end, and that realm is also home to a ton of trained professionals who decided to devote their lives to covering sports after realizing playing one for a living probably isn’t in the cards.
You don’t need to be able to play a sport at a high level to earn the right to analyze it, but plenty of people in that second category have been subjected to criticism from people in the first over their lack of athletic prowess.
In 2024, the Pelicans dunked on Stephen A. Smith over the numbers he posted as a high school basketball player, and Skip Bayless was once subjected to plenty of mockery when he made the ill-fated decision to call attention to a career where he averaged 1.4 points per game on the hardwood as a senior.
Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, on the other hand, was largely focused on a future covering sports when he was a kid as opposed to playing them, and it’s easy to see why that was the case based on what unfolded when he stopped by Northern Arizona’s practice ahead of their showdown with ASU on Tuesday.
Chris “Mad Dog” Russo showed why he talks about sports for a living instead of playing them while attempting a half-court shot
Russo is a sports radio icon who spent 19 years complementing fellow legend Mike Francesa as the co-host of Mike and the Mad Dog on WFAN in New York. He struck out on his own with Sirius XM after the show came to an end in 2008, and he eventually linked up with MLB Network before branching out by becoming a regular contributor to First Take on ESPN.
According to an interview he gave in 2022, Russo played “some Little League, some basketball, and a lot of tennis” when he was a kid, but he was always primarily interested in the career path he ended up embarking on in the 1980s.
His son Tim, on the other hand, played basketball at New Canaan High School before turning his attention to coaching after serving as the student manager for the men’s basketball team at the University of Tampa while earning a degree in sports management.
He subsequently served as a graduate assistant at UConn, and he’s been an assistant coach at the University of Northern Arizona since linking up with the Lumberjacks ahead of the 2023-24 season.
His dad made the trek to Arizona State on Tuesday night to watch NAU face off against the Sun Devils, and while Tim’s team walked away with the loss in a lopsided 73-48 contest, it had nothing on the L he took after he was filmed trying to heave up a shot from half court.
This is one of more un athletic things I’ve seen @MadDogUnleashed pic.twitter.com/oBbCBLl8ww
— Eddie (@edwarderickson) December 9, 2025
Russo went viral for all the wrong reasons as he was deservedly mocked by Dan Orlovsky and many other people who couldn’t resist piling on. He did retweet the clip, but he has not offered an explanation for his atrocious form as of this writing.