Gregg Giannotti, nicknamed Gio, radio talk show host on WFAN, is a Bellport native who currently resides in Sayville. Giannotti co-hosts the morning show “Boomer and Gio” with East Islip native, Boomer Esiason. Giannotti was inducted to the Suffolk Sports Hall of Fame on May 30.

SCN: Would you say growing up in Bellport may have paved the way for a career in sports media?

Giannotti: Yeah, in a different sort of way. I think the environment with the community and the football team provided me that type of stability in something that I love, but also the chops-busting all my friends did with one another in the locker room. So yes, anytime that your South Shore, Long Island, that type of age athlete thing, there’s no doubt about it. There’s probably six or seven guys on that team that could have been doing what I’m doing, but decided to do other things with their lives. So certainly, the answer to that is yes.

SCN: Talk about how you first got involved in the field?

Giannotti: Well, I guess I first got involved in the field as a listener paying attention to the radio station listening to “Mike and the Mad Dog” and always wanting to do it. And then I went up to Ithaca to be a music education major, wasn’t feeling that, and then decided to come home to go to Hofstra, and I winded up having an internship at WFAN, so I applied, got Eddie Scozzare (who now I work with every day), got his email, sent the email in and got in that building and an internship interview, and the next thing I know, I’m the morning show host a few years later. So, it all worked out.

SCN: Can you think of a favorite moment in your career, whether it was the radio station in Pittsburgh or “Boomer and Gio” or other?

Giannotti: There’s so many of them. I will say getting the phone call saying that I was going to be full-time sitting next to Boomer was probably it because that’s what I had been chasing in my career, and I think the first time we were No. 1 in a rating’s book, me and Boomer. I think those two moments. But yeah, the phone call, that it’s actually happening, you’re going to be the co-host and you’re going to have a contract and you actually made it to a drive time host on WFAN, that’s probably the one.

SCN: What’s your favorite summer activity to do on Long Island?

Giannotti: Boating and golfing. Those are the two things. I love going to the beach on the boat and I love playing golf on these beautiful courses we have on Long Island. I can’t really pick between the two because I love them both so much. If it’s a nice calm day, no wind, beautiful out, gimme the boat; if it’s a little cloudy, maybe a little chilly that day, gimme Glen Oak’s Country Club. So, both those things, we’re very fortunate to be living here in Suffolk County and having such a wonderful summer place to live.

SCN: So, you grew up in Bellport, now you reside in Sayville. Talk about what being inducted to the Suffolk Sports Hall of Fame means to you.

Giannotti: It’s such an honor because I look around, I see Danny Green is here tonight, Keith Hernandez is here, Ann Liguori, who’s been in the business at WFAN for a long time, so sometimes it’s hard for me to kind of comprehend that there are people out there that look at what Boomer and I do and put us in that type of category to be honored for something like this, so I’m always a big local guy. I absolutely loved growing up here and I wanted to come back, and I was able to come back and able to raise my family South Shore Long Island, and more than anything, that’s the thing—to be able to make a living and bring my family back to the South Shore of Long Island and raise them here and give them the stuff that I was able to have growing up is truly a gift.