The Jeff Smulyan Award is going to Traug Keller in 2022. The former ESPN Audio boss will receive the prize during the BSM Summit in a little over a week from now. The honor is a long time coming for Keller, and it means the sports radio industry will finally have a chance to give a collective thank you for his decades worth of leadership.

"Sometimes decisions are difficult. Other times they're not. This was one of the easiest ones I've made since launching the BSM Summit in 2018," Jason Barrett said when announcing the award back in August.

For Traug, the honor isn't just about industry recognition. There is something extra special about being recognized with an award named for Jeff Smulyan.

"Words don't do it justice. Jeff is a great friend, and to be honored with an award with his name on it, and with all he has meant not just to the sports radio industry, but to broadcasting overall is just humbling," Keller told me. "Jeff did what all too few leaders in business do, he took risk and action against all kinds of headwinds, and the rest of us in the great business of sports audio were the beneficiaries of it. No way did we at ESPN Radio have the success we had without Jeff's pioneering. So again, to receive an award with his name on it really is quite something!"

Keller served Disney faithfully for more than 25 years, leading both ABC Radio Networks and ESPN Audio during that time. He built relationships with talent and their representation that helped talk radio evolve. He built relationships with affiliates that helped them thrive. He is the blueprint for the kind of guy you honor at an event like the BSM Summit.

This is a career that's not defined by a single success. When you lead two different networks for that long, and oversee multiple milestones in their growth, it is impossible for your colleagues to thank you for just one thing.

I didn't ask Keller if there was a crowning achievement with ESPN Audio. I don't think that would be fair. Hell, he would likely still be trying to decide if I left it open-ended like that.

Instead, I asked him if he had a success he didn't see coming. His response, Mike & Mike. It wasn't a shock that the show found success, but it was exciting to see the show surpass expectations over and over again.

"I remember we were down in Orlando having a meeting with the newly acquired owned stations. They had been slated to go in the Citadel sale by ABC Radio but we convinced then head of Disney Strategy planning Kevin Mayer that keeping those major markets in the fold would benefit ESPN Radio and ESPN overall. So, this Orlando meeting was our first overall get-together where we began to develop a long-term strategy to grow the business. We narrowed it down to a few key items, and one of them was to grow this morning show that showed some signs of working. We got the stations on board, convinced programming at ESPN to simulcast the show on ESPN News, and we focused all of the marketing on the show, and committed to affiliates to get the show out on the road more. That focus, back in and around 2004 coupled with the dynamic talent of Mike and Mike, grew into something much more than we had hoped for back then: a show that all of ESPN was proud of that was setting the sports agenda for the country every morning for the next decade and a half."

While he is appreciative that the room will be filled with people that want to celebrate what he accomplished, Keller hopes attendees are there to think about the future too. I asked him if there is anything that keep him up at night when he thinks about the sports talk format. Is there something that needs to be addressed at the BSM Summit because too few programmers and executives realize it's potential impact?

Forget hesitation or fears. Traug only has one question for attendees: do you know how lucky you are?

"I have faith that the industry will continue to develop the next generation of Mike and Mike's or the Kay Show (I know I am home towning it!) or Colin or Dan or whomever. And as long as folks aren't afraid about getting them up on all platforms, the industry will continue succeeding. Remember, you are in the audio business, and there has never been a better time to be in that business."

Keller does have one concern heading into the event. He doesn't want anyone in the room to feel like their presence isn't valuable. Certainly, attendees that work at local stations will want to hear what national talent and leaders have to say, but he hopes the opposite is true too.

"Nobody gets better without listening!" he says. "Local programmers are on the front lines, and because of that, they have a better handle on the pulse of what is and isn't working for sports fans. Ignore them at your own peril. An example would be 'is there sports betting talk fatigue at the local level or is it something that leaves listeners clamoring for more? I have always found local programmers are on top of those kinds of things, and network programmers can learn from them."