Steve Duemig

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Steve Duemig is an American sports media personality. He currently co-hosts The Golf Channel's Grey Goose 19th hole, Fox Sports Radio's weekly call-in show College Game Time Warmup, and has a daily local sports talk show on AM 620 WDAE in Tampa, Florida. Duemig goes by the on-air moniker "The Big Dog."

Duemig was born in Pensacola, Florida but was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He reportedly was a fan of the Philadelphia Flyers, Philadelphia Eagles, and Philadelphia 76ers as child.

The format on Duemig's show usually revolves around the topics of the area's local sports teams (Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and the Tampa Bay Lightning), Florida's college football teams, golf, and horse racing.

He also played on the first The Big Break aired on The Golf Channel.

[edit] Criticism and controversy

Duemig's show has been criticized for its lack of basketball coverage. Callers have criticized him for not being knowledgeable about the NBA.

Critics have also questioned Dueming's lack of coverage of NASCAR, to which Dueming has responded that the sport is "...a sport for rednecks and yahoos" and that he has no interest in it.

One of Duemigs biggest criticisms is verbal on-air attacks on callers who call his show wishing to openly cheer for or discuss sports teams not based in the Tampa Bay area, and is especially harsh when those callers root for an out of area team to win against a home team (he makes exceptions for college sports, claiming people who root for their alma maters cannot realistically be expected to root for a local college team, as they have no vested interest in that school). He had admitted that he was raised in Philedelphia, and was a big fan of their local teams, but upon moving to Tampa he switched allegiances.

Duemig commits a substantial amount of air time to the discussion of topics related to golf and horse racing. Duemig is a former Head professional and a member of the PGA of America, as well as a former partner in a horse stable, and has considerable knowledge on both of these topics, but has received criticism for the amount of time he devotes to this subject as it is not perceived to be of interest to the majority of his listeners.

He frequently discusses the Las Vegas lines placed on sports games, particularly the points-spread. While Clear Channel (the company that owns and operates AM 620 WDAE) has guidelines that prohibit hosts encouraging listeners to participate in gambling activities, Duemig always prefaces these discussions as how he would "play the line" thus staying within the parameters of the guidelines. Duemig however did violate these guidelines once by making an on-air recommendation for an offshore sports book. Whether or not he was punished has not been made public.

Clear Channel has a zero-tolerance policy towards talent that uses on-air profanity that results in FCC fines. The FCC has received repeated complaints because of Deumig telling callers that he argues with over the air to "kiss my ass" among other profanities.

Once while working at a formerly competing sports-talk radio station prior to coming to Clear Channel, Duemig and his former co-host Scott Brantley had an on-air disagreement that turned into a fist fight off the air.

Deumig frequently claims that he has received many offers to leave Tampa for national syndication, though at various times officials for both Fox Sports Radio and ESPN Radio have denied any interest in hiring Deumig to host a daily show. While his College Football Pre-Game React show is nationally syndicated, it is a weekly show and is pre-empted in many markets in favor of local programming or infomercials.

In 2000, Duemig broke a controversial story revolving around the intention of Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner Malcolm Glaser planning to either sell the team or to move them to Los Angeles, California. Duemig claimed to receive his information from unnamed sources, and refused to name them because they were employees of the Buccaneers, and did not want to compromise their employment. The story generated and sustained a substantial amount of public interest for nearly two years, and even made national headlines on ESPN. The Bucs held press conferences at the end of both the 2000 and 2001 seasons to refute the claim and as of 2006, Glaser is still the owner and Los Angeles is still without an NFL franchise. Duemig to this day claims that the story was legitimate, but still cannot name his sources because they are either still employed by the Buccaneers or because upon dismissal from the organization, were forced to sign non-disclosure agreements.

Deumig also claimed at one point that a major sports magazine was going to write an expose detailing heavy gambling debts by PGA golfer Phil Mickelson, though to date no such story has been printed.

Deumig is often criticized for the fact that he will often criticize a local sports figure but then turn around and be incredibly nice to them in a later interview. This is most evident with his recent criticisms of Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Jon Gruden, who he claimed he "was not a fan of" and Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Jay Feaster who he claimed should be fired due to incompetence. In subsequent interviews within the same week, Deumig conducted "softball" interviews with the two men where he heaped praise on them.

Deumig has also devoted considerable time during political elections to discuss his admitted conservative political beliefs. During these sessions, Deumig only allowed on-air callers who wanted to talk politics, though he did acknowledge that the vast majority of callers on these shows were people wanting to talk about sports, not politics. For the 2006 political primaries, Deumig refrained from discussing politics.

To Duemig's credit, he has often broke local stories several days before the events actually take place. For example, he announced the Tampa Bay Lightning's intention to cut captain Dave Andreychuk prior to the event occurring due to what he claimed was insubordination against Lightning coach John Torterella. Lightning administrative officials initially denied it, but ended up placing him on waivers a week later, citing him as a defensive liability (at the time, Andreychuk was last on the team in +/- and was on pace to score only 11 goals, which would have been the lowest in his career).