TROY, Ala. — A Tuesday evening on the downtown square, and a comforting southern breeze mingled with the clackety-clack-clack of kids arriving for tap lessons at the corner dance studio. Further along the block, in the giant storefront window of Momma Goldberg’s Deli, the play-by-play voice of Troy University, Barry McKnight, sat cross-legged beside a tiny table and donned headsets for his weekly edition of “Trojan Talk.”
It was the first radio show after football coach Neal Brown left for West Virginia. Left for a quadrupled salary, for Power Five amenities, for the inevitable climb head coaches make by winning 31 games in three seasons at a place like Troy.