He left the Cal Fall football training camp, undetected, in the middle of the night and hitchhiked back to Los Angeles after being homesick after one week.
In the 2000 season, USC won its opening game against Penn State in the Kickoff Classic with a score of 29–5 at the Meadowlands.
[4] Papadakis's first experience of broadcasting occurred when he was a tailback for the USC football team, where he became a popular interviewee among media in Los Angeles.
When questioned about his popularity, Papadakis replied, "I just feel like the media is starved for somebody to say something different than, 'We really have to play hard this week.'
In 2004, Fox Sports Net hired him to comment on national Pac-10 games alongside Barry Tompkins.
[6] In late 2008, the network announced it would replace Papadakis with former New York Giants defensive end Michael Strahan for the show's fourth season.
[8] In the autumn of 2007, Papadakis appeared on KNBC Channel 4 as Fred Roggin's co-host on The Challenge, which followed NBC's Football Night in America on Sunday evenings.
In 2005, he guest starred on the CBS hit series CSI: NY, where he played a sports talk radio host.
He co-hosted the weekly USC Insider with Pete Arbogast on the now defunct station KMPC-1540 AM, called "The Ticket".
Papadakis also became a regular guest on the Kevin and Bean morning show on KROQ-FM in Los Angeles.
It was produced by Craig Larson and featured Cornelius (CORN DOGG) Edwards and traffic reporter Sabina Mora.
In addition to his other media duties, Papadakis worked part-time for the USC men's basketball team as its public address announcer from 2004 to 2016.