Sports have been part of American culture, be it baseball, basketball, football, or any other game suited to one’s preference. For years, fans have customarily got news from tv or the radio. Thanks to the advent of digital online media, sports fans of all genders can access them on websites and recently, on podcasts. Richmond Weaver founded the podcast Rich Take On Sports, after seeing a need for sports enthusiasts to have a better connection with those personalities and luminaries in the sports world.
Rich Take On Sports was founded in 2017 and recently celebrated its third anniversary on May 19th with over 135 episodes with such guests as Jay Bilas, Dawn Staley, Maria Taylor, Dabo Swinney, Stewart Cink, Kelsey Plum, Grady Jarrett, and many others. Richmond started the podcast without any experience, and for him, this is now his passion — sharing the stories of how sports shapes and impacts people’s lives.
He started exploring the influence and impact of sports through conversations with various guests as they share their personal stories allowing each listener to connect on a different level. While such shows as GetUp on ESPN and The Herd with Colin Cowherd on Fox Sports examine current events in the sports world, Richmond’s podcast aims to share the positivity of sports and life not only for die-hard sports fans but also for the casual fans who enjoy storytelling and personal conversations. The name “Rich Take” is a wordplay from its founder’s name “Richmond” and the “richness” of sports.
Richmond, a graduate of Clemson University, has been involved with sports for most of his life. At an early age, that passion for sports developed, especially for basketball. While at Clemson, he worked as a student manager with the men’s basketball team under Head Coach Cliff Ellis and followed his dream of coaching college basketball after graduating. For three years, he coached at the Division I level, serving as an assistant at Fairleigh Dickinson University for one year and two years at the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore.
In 1996, the staff at UMES was fired, and life’s path then led Richmond into the healthcare industry for the next 20 years in medical device sales, holding several key sales roles before founding the medical device distributorship Touchstone Alliance and now holds a sales leadership role with Artelon.
Sports was his safe haven and escape from a dysfunctional childhood. He never knew his biological father, and his stepdad and mom battled alcoholism. Sports helped Richmond learn love, camaraderie, acceptance, fighting through the pain, facing adversity, and connecting with others, among others, to his love of sports.
Because sports had been such an integral part of Richmond’s life, he realized that there could be a lot learned from hearing other people’s stories about their own personal connection to sports. The podcast serves as a platform to share the positivity of sports and life. More importantly, it showcases that many sports celebrities — athletes, coaches, broadcasters — have probably faced the same struggles that many of the listeners go through. This storytelling technique brings fresh and new insight on the guests, and the listener gets to know the individual on a personal level.
It wasn’t long before Rich Take On Sports gained attention and was picked up by SB Nation Radio and aired on their national affiliates every Saturday morning for over a year while also working as a local sports talk show co-host on ESPN Upstate in Greenville, South Carolina, for a year and a half. That opportunity led to earning The Star Awards 2018 for “Radio Best Sports Show/Sports Talk Show” with The Huddle with Greg McKinney as a co-host.
Richmond currently lives in Greenville, South Carolina, with his wife, Karen, founder of Oase Day Spa, and their three kids. Listen to the most recent episode of Rich Take On Sports through their website.
You can follow Richmond on Twitter and Instagram, and you can get updates on Rich Take On Sports through Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.
