The Sports Junkies are four high-school friends who grew up in the area and for three decades have hosted a sports talk-radio show, currently airing weekdays on WJFK from 6 to 10 am. As they celebrate their 30th anniversary, we asked them to share their favorite Washington sports moments from the past 30 years.
Maryland NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship, 2002
“JP Flaim and I went to Maryland at the same time, and I fell in love with college hoops. I was a diehard. I went to every game. If you look back, [coach] Gary Williams and the team always seemed to top out at the Sweet 16. Would they ever get over the hump? We actually wrote a song about that for the show. We recorded it! So I never thought we would be national champions. I cried when we won. We’ve probably interviewed Gary 25 to 30 times over the years, and I still get emotional when I see him. It’s super-embarrassing.”
—Eric “EB” Bickel
George Mason NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four Appearance, 2006
“[The Sports Junkies] office was basically a mile from campus, and we had built a relationship with coach Jim Larrañaga—he would come on and talk movies with us, not just basketball. The team made the tournament as an invite, not an automatic bid, and [basketball broadcaster] Billy Packer said they didn’t deserve it. So when they made the Sweet 16, we hung a Billy Packer doll in effigy. When they made the Final Four, the campus went nuts. We did a live broadcast from their student union. It was a historic run, unheard of for a mid-major school. It had a family feel to it, and it was like we were a part of it.”
—John-Paul “JP” Flaim
Capitals Win the Stanley Cup, 2018
“My dad was an original Caps season-ticket holder. I grew up 15 minutes from the Capital Centre and went to games as a kid. Half the building would be rooting against them, tons of Flyers and Rangers fans. The team lost a ton of games. But people fell in love with them. They became a fun team to watch, and then a serious contender when Alex Ovechkin showed up. When they broke through and finally won—after many years of playoff disappointments—that made it all the sweeter. I was watching at home, and I looked at my daughter and said, ‘We are going to Dick’s [Sporting Goods] right now to buy a bunch of way-too-expensive merchandise.’ I think my bill was, like, $450. And because our station broadcast their games, we got to ride in their victory parade, in a convertible behind the team buses. Then they brought the cup to our studio, and we got to touch it. If you had told me as a teenager that would happen, I would have said you were insane.”
—John “Cakes” Auville
Nationals Win the World Series, 2019
“Growing up, baseball was my favorite sport. My mom’s boyfriend was a huge Boston Red Sox fan, and he would take us up to Fenway every summer. He hated the Orioles, and baseball wasn’t in Washington. So I was a big Red Sox fan, too. But once the Nationals moved here, I had a local team to root for. We also did interviews with the managers and players, and we’d go down to spring training every year to do shows. You start to establish relationships—we had [former Nats team president] Mike Rizzo on a lot, and he’s a good dude. Over time, I became friends with him. That’s what made it so cool to see the team have a special season. We got to experience it with them. The coolest thing? They gave us World Series rings! They’re not as valuable as the rings the players got, I’m sure. But they are pretty effing cool.”
—Jason “Bish” Bishop
This article appears in the July 2026 issue of Washingtonian.
