Dr. William "Funny" David Dameshek (born June 11, 1970 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American television writer and radio personality. Dameshek is best known as the former sports reporter on the syndicated morning radio program The Adam Carolla Show.
Early life[]
Dameshek received his undergraduate degree in broadcast journalism from Indiana University and moved to Chicago shortly after college.
Professional career[]
Early career[]
In 1999, Dameshek moved to Los Angeles, where he spent the better part of his first two years writing for cable television shows including Fox Sports Net's Sports Geniuses and Comedy Central's Battlebots. He received his first big break in 2001 when he was hired as a writer on Comedy Central's The Man Show, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla. He worked there for the show's third and fourth seasons, during which he met his future wife Cindi; they married in 2006 and have a daughter (born April 29, 2007) and a son.
While working on The Man Show, Dameshek became co-host of a Fox Sports Radio show with radio veteran Kent Voss. The late-night show aired for about four months. Dameshek also wrote and appeared in several segments with Jimmy Kimmel on Fox's NFL pre-game show.
Dameshek moved on to write for the second and third seasons of Comedy Central's Crank Yankers, co-created by Kimmel and Carolla, as well as for I'm With Busey and Trigger Happy TV. In 2002, he began writing for Kimmel's new late-night talk show on American Broadcasting Company|ABC, Jimmy Kimmel Live, where he made several appearances in addition to his main responsibility of working on the show's nightly monologue.
In 2004, Dameshek became the weekly sports correspondent on the Los Angeles FM station KDLD|Indie 103.1's Mighty Morning Show, hosted by Dicky Barrett, while making periodic appearances on regional and national ESPN Radio programs.
The Adam Carolla Show[]
The Adam Carolla Show debuted in January 2006, recorded in Los Angeles and airing in broadcast syndication|syndication on stations across the western United States. Dameshek was a regular cast member on the show from the beginning, serving as the show's official sports reporter. In December 2006, he and several other staff members were cut from the show, a move attributed to a ratings drop in the second half of the year. Dameshek wrote in a December 17 post on the show's online message board that he had been fired and would be replaced by Danny Bonaduce; CBS officially announced four days later that Bonaduce would be joining the show in Dameshek's stead.[1][2] Bonaduce left The Adam Carolla Show a year later, going on to host his own one-hour program on KLSX.[3]
Sports radio shows[]
From January to July of 2007, Dameshek hosted Dave Dameshek's Sports Contraption on radio station WTZN (now KDKA-FM) in his hometown of Pittsburgh. The show's guests trended towards untraditional sports personalities, rather than well-known sports journalists. Regular guests included the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's Rob Rossi and John Harris, and the creators of the websites Pitt Blather and Mondesi's House. ESPN.com writer Bill Simmons guest-hosted in April.
In November 2007, Dameshek debuted a new sports-oriented radio show, The Dave Dameshek Show, broadcast by ESPN Radio on KSPN (AM)|710 AM in Los Angeles.[4] The following June, Dave Denholm and Brian Long (radio host)|Brian Long joined the show as co-hosts and it was renamed The Dameshek, Denholm and Long Show. With the transition, Dameshek's weekly feature "The Jerk List" was relocated from that program to The B.S. Report, an ESPN podcast hosted by Bill Simmons. Soon afterward, Dameshek left the show, which was subsequently renamed again to The Denholm and Long Show.
In July 2008, Dameshek debuted his own podcast, Dave Dameshek On Demand. The podcast is recorded at the KSPN offices. On November 11, 2009, Dameshek had his final Dameshek on Demand podcast for ESPN. Dameshek then moved his podcast over to Accuscore[1]. The new show was entitled Dave Dameshek Show Powered by Accuscore, however this show only lasted for 13 episodes. On the March 1st, 2010 episode of the Adam Carolla Podcast, it was announced that Dameshek and David Feeney would begin a show on the ACE Network beginning March 2nd. The podcast, tentatively titled, "Daves of Thunder", debuted to mixed reviews, with some listeners dissatisfied with Feeney's near-constant interruptions and angry tone.[5]