March 20, 2021 • 42 mins
LaVar Arrington, T.J. Houshmandzadeh and Plaxico Burress debate whether or not student-athletes deserve to get paid and try to fix the NCAA’s broken system. Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo got in a public altercation with one of his own players but was the public outrage justified?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(01:05):
then this it's the show for you. This is it's
up on game with Lavarrei, tent T, J hush Manzana
and Plaxico Burress. Did you hear that? LaVar Arrington, t
J Hodgmanzana Plexico burs. It's a show with three of
the best to ever do it on and off the field,
(01:27):
live from the Geico Fox Sports Radio Studios and now
here's Pro Bowlers Lavarrei, tent T, J. Houshman, Sanna and
Super Bowl champion Plaxico Burress. Welcome to the show. Everybody
Happy Saturday. I'm happy. I hope you're happy. I had
my first game yesterday. Yeah, I'm LaVar Arrington's we want Baron.
(01:49):
I have won the game. We won the game day
they killed from you without destroying the boys. You know,
we had we had our team up on game shots
out to Achie, said Barron Chamber. Ain't you the times
since the Bowl? Family? I mean, I guess we should
get I don't know the show. At some point we
tried to get Barron. We tried. Adn't want to deal
(02:10):
with us. He forgot he had a team time and
remember got about us. But anyways, I've even march madness
to everybody Happy Saturday. The whole lot of basketball on
and if you have enough TV monitors or if that
that picture in picture or whatever it is that you
do these days. Everybody uses monitors or whatever it may be.
(02:33):
I don't know, but enjoy it. And if you got
a nice little bracket, check it out. Like you said,
Plexus is interesting because we we figured out and we
found out that that Oregon State discovered a basketball team.
I had no idea that I had no idea that
they had a basketball program until yesterday. So here Beavers
(02:53):
shots out, shots out to Beaver's basketball. Ye Hey, what's
it like being the Oregon State Beaver Wasn't that? Like?
I know, the Michigan State Spartans are always good? How
they do? Know? They're always good? They're always but you know, hey,
this is probably this is probably probably the worst team
(03:14):
that we had in the last twenty five years. Hey,
we didn't even get invited to the to the n
i T. Hey we barely got invited to the Big ten.
Y'all get invited to the n T. That's that's brutal,
hey man, Look, and then they all went to transfer
portal like that up out of here. Bad. But anyway,
(03:37):
you're listening up on game no voices, you're here. That's T. J.
Hutchman's out of Plexico Birds we would love to be here. Uh.
In fact, we're coming to you live from the Farmers
in Shorts Fox Sports Radio Studios. When you switched the
Farmers in Shorts, you could save a bundle and all
you have to do is call one eight eight eight
Farmers and get a quote. Day. We are all right,
(03:59):
Lets so let's jump into this the whole n c
A a tournament deal like I want to. I want
to take this in a different lane. We can talk
about the shake up and in the fields and teams
being there that that you know would have never been
there before. COVID opened up the doors for some some
different things to take place, and you know, one thing
(04:21):
leads to another. But I want to focus in on
a couple of other things. All right now, there's there's
two things I want to focus in on. One is
is the whole idea of us heating in this direction
of getting paid, And and I just I'm I'm interested
in hearing what you guys have to say because basketball
(04:41):
is a much different animal in terms of exposure to
uh outside forces, will say, than than football is. And
then now when you think about other sports, which you
know that's I don't really want to get too far
off off the beating pad. But it is different in baseball.
It's different in high Key. They have developmental leagues, and
(05:02):
so does the n b A. And you have other
places where you could go play ball and and kind
of do well and find your way back over here. So,
you know, it's interesting thinking about what what could it
do to shape or or or define college basketball. JA
(05:24):
Bill has had some interesting thoughts on it. Let's take
a listen to that, and then let's kind of let's
delve into this conversation. There's just not enough money. Anytime
there's discussion and over whether the players can be compensated
beyond a scholarship and a stipend, that's always the answer.
Where's the money going to come from. There's just not
enough money. It's gonna hurt women's sports. We're gonna have
(05:45):
to cancel sports. Dogs and cats are gonna live together.
The earth will spin off of its access. If the
players get more than a scholarship and a stipend, or
allowed more than a scholarship of stipend, even if they
get n I L rights, it's gonna hurt everything. It's
gonna ruin it. All of It's true because when they
pay a huge buyout, when they spend on facilities, when
(06:05):
they hire coaches for millions upon millions of dollars. They
never say that they're gonna have to cut a program.
They never say they're gonna have to cut sports. They
never say that everything's gonna be ruined or women's sports
are gonna be hurt or cut. It's all nonsense. It's
all an excuse, it's all a rationalization. That's what I
mean when I say there's not enough money, because that's
(06:26):
what the n c double administrators say every time the
compensation is brought up. You know, I tend to agree
what what what say? U? T J agree with? Uh
ja he he. If you think about this, man, March
madness didn't take place in because of COVID, and you
(06:48):
look at what it's such a revenue generator and the
problem this is going to be the biggest problem with
this is the disparity and paid at One player may
get when you're talking another player in one group of
teammates may get when you're talking to other teams. But
life isn't fair. Um, when you move the needle, you
(07:10):
deserve to be paid more than the next uh the
next person that's just what it is. They have to
figure something out because exactly what he said, when you
can pay coach ten fifteen million dollars to not coach,
you damn shark, and play a player to play, when
he the the players are the ones that are bringing
in all this revenue, and oh, you get a free education.
(07:34):
You think if the only revenue that I was bringing
in was worth the free education, that they would be
giving me a free education. No, you would be getting
a partially free education. And so this system has been
wrong for years and I mean years. They need to
figure out a way to fit. It will get fixed eventually,
it's just a matter of time. But they need to
do this now because the players, more than ever deserved
(07:57):
to be paid. There's just more awareness. Man. Guys are
and girls are more aware of their worth and their value,
and they need to be compensated for that period. Yeah,
it's something that I've been you know, uh thinking about
and you know, really trying to put it all together
of how do you, just like you said to you, thin,
(08:18):
how do you decide who was paid? What? You know,
you have guys who don't get scholarships, who walk onto
programs and and they then you know, a year or
two later, they get a scholarship. So how do you decide,
Like you said, who makes what? And you know, I
just look back at the situation when I was in college,
(08:39):
and you know, I ran into the same kind of
situation similar to what Chris Webber you know, was in.
You know, you're in college and you're generating all this
money to this program, to these programs, and yet you know,
after you know, the training table closes or whatever you like, Yo,
I'm hungry, I want to get something to eat, but
you don't have any money. But yet you know, you
(09:02):
know that, you know you can go to the next
level in the NBA or the NFL and make that
decision to go pro. And you walk by the bookstore
and your jerseys on on sale in the bookstore for
a hundred and fifty dollars and you don't even have
any money to go eat. So so so then you
know and make sure this is a little bit easy,
Like you know what, you know, I'm not getting paid,
(09:24):
I'm not getting any money here. I might you can,
they can sell my jersey in the bookstore for a
hundred and fifty bucks. I might as well just go pro.
Because my situation isn't going to change, and it still
has a change. And you look at programs like you know,
Alabama and and and Texas. I knew five years ago
that say that the University of Texas football program generates
(09:46):
like a hundred million dollars a year. Yeah, and you're
saying to yourself, like, where's all the money going? You
know there is enough money for these players to be played,
but I don't just like you said, I don't know
how this whole thing is going to work out versus uh,
you know who gets paid what. But these coaches are
making eight nine million dollars a year and that's the problem, right,
(10:09):
And yet these players are looking at man, you know
what am I doing? Like what's gonna happen? How do
how do I feed myself in situations like that? So
I don't know how the n C double is going
to work it out, But just like you said, I
think that they will later on day on the road.
Can I say something this is to me when when
you say that the number one coaches making eight or
(10:31):
nine million dollars a year, we both know if you
don't have the players, you're not winning. If Dabbo Sweeney
and Nick Saban and all these other Ohio state if
they can't recruit the best players, they're not winning. So
you're paying them to recruit the best players, and they're
paying to recruit, and you're paying out large sums of
money to be able to do recruiting. Jens is where
(10:52):
when you start to pay the players, because if you
pay the football team, you gotta pay the basketball team,
and we're talking men's, women's, and you have to pay
all the athletes. Football is pretty much the revenue generator
at every college university. So now what what happens to
(11:14):
those sports that uses the millions that football makes to
travel um for uniforms, even though they're sponsors, they get
those sponsorships because of football. And so the coaches. If
if every coach that was making eight or nine made
four or five, you're still living great. That would be
(11:34):
a start. In my opinion, they're not gonna want to
take that haircut, but it's the right thing to do.
I remember I had a conversation with coach Spurrier one
time and he talked about how he wanted to to
be able to play pay his players. And this was many,
many many years ago, and It was at a time
I believe he was making something like five million dollars
(11:57):
a year, and he said something to the effect heck,
I'll take three million, I'll pay my players. I'll playing
with my own jacket. They la me I saw. I
started doing the math, right, I did the math on
if he took three million dollars and paid let's just
say a hundred, a hundred and eighteen players, is that
(12:21):
about right, A hundred and eighteen on the team. Yeah, no, no, no,
there's ninety scholarship players, nineties scholarship. But how many players
are on the team, how many players are contributing to
the team? Will walk on to be paid as well?
Why not? They're part of the team there and and
they walk on. They will not allow walk onto on
(12:42):
the team. Then you already know that if you have
to pay a walk on, they're not. If you have
to pay a guy, or you're gonna pay a guy
that's walking on, why would you let him walk on?
Everybody walking on? I mean, if you can make it right,
I mean, I knew when I was in college, we
had I didn't know this until I got there, But
(13:03):
you know, Nick Saban, anybody that walked onto our football team.
They were on the team. Like we We didn't cut
anybody or said or say that you couldn't play. If
you came out as a walk on, you made the team.
That was just you know how it was. I don't
know if there's I don't know if there's a number
to say you can only have five or six walk
(13:26):
ons or what of the case may be. But if
you walked onto the team on Michigan State, you were
on the team. If you got a scholarship because you
was going out and performing better than anybody thought you would,
then that was a whole different program. But you can't
play a walk on the same as a scholarship. Guy.
Let me ask that's a base salary. In my mind,
(13:46):
I could see that being a base salary. Let me
ask you this. Let me ask you this. If you
were to receive, say, fourteen hundred dollars every two weeks,
fourteen hundred dollars, how would you How would that make
you feel during the course of the year, if you're
making four hundred dollars as as as a player, we
(14:09):
got a pill grant check it what you know the
beginning of the year and how much it was thirty
five hundred. It was thirty five hundred dollars back then.
That was twenty years ago. A month no for the
return of the semester for the one. Yeah, you would
get one in September and you and you would get
one in January for the spring semester. And that that
(14:30):
was basically lit. Are you happy about that? Pealate grant? Oh?
We was rich? Okay, so if you got thirty five
hundred for but it was, but it was for a
whole semester, right, So how long? How long is it semester?
Four months? Yeah, semester? Okay, So a semester is four
months and that's two semesters and in the school year.
So you got seventy five hundred dollars, right, seven seven thousand.
(14:53):
I don't know what school you went to, but your
seventh grand and crack later seven thousand. You talk you
the schools like Basketball Indiana just fired their heir coach,
Archie Miller. Right, the Boosters are gonna pay a ten
million dollar buy out just to get rid of them
ten million dollars. And so you're paying a coach ten
(15:15):
million dollars to go bye bye. Like there's something that
can be done. I want to I want to revisit this.
If you're getting paid by weekly, four hundred dollars, that's
gonna be more than that. A pellet grant, that's gonna
be more that comes out. It comes out to roughly
like thirty three thirty four thousand dollars a year that
(15:38):
you would be paying these players. I could only assume that,
you know, this was twenty years ago the ball I
understand that we were getting alright, but every semester. But
they could definitely pay these kids us every two and
that way, and that's three million dollars. That's three million
dollars being broke up over ninety players or twelve months
(16:02):
bi weekly. So what I'm saying is is if you're
paying for their food, their clothes, clothing, their their their housing, um,
their board. So I mean that's not you wouldn't be
okay with that, just that being a starting places will be.
I would be perfectly fine with it, you know what
I mean. So it's like, here's the problem I seem
to run into every single time. I know we gotta break.
(16:24):
But the problem I see I seem to run into
is is that we always talk about how there's not
enough money. There's not enough money. But if you really
divvied it up, and if if coaches were really willing
to to to be that open about it, which there's
not that many coaches to that point that make that
type of money, where they could say, hey, I could
(16:44):
take three million dollars of the money that Nike has
given me, that the boosters are giving me, that that
Gatorade is given me, and I could could split that
up and we could pay these guys this summer money.
The problem, the problem that we're going to run into
is there's no consistency connected to it. How would you
be able to connect the consistency to the basketball program
(17:09):
that's generating money. How will we connect the consistency to
to the n c a A football players that that
are a part of this, And then how many how
many programs would really be able to execute this. I
want you all to think about this. We're not gonna
leave this conversation yet. We're gonna actually continue to have
this conversation on the other side of of this this break.
(17:29):
But I want to take a quick minute before we
take a break and let our our newest affiliate know that, Hey,
we're happy you've become our six hundred nationwide newest affiliate
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(17:53):
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Your your best convenience. You're listening to up on game.
I'm laver Iarrington, t J. Hushman's out of Plexico Burst.
(18:15):
We'll be right back. Fox Sports Radio has the best
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(18:37):
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The forest is closer than you think. Find a forest
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(21:06):
Gay Levy to t J. Hudson was out of Plexico
bers got my boy gaming back there. I was saying,
what's up, Oh, we got doing trending today, we got Ralph,
we got what ralphie his U c l A. Bruins
all right, be playing sometime today whatever. Speaking of one
(21:31):
of those historical teams and programs in the basketball round, Hey, listen, everybody,
we've been talking about, uh, some some pretty interesting things.
But before we go any further, let's talk about where
we're doing it from, and it's Farmers. We're live from
the Farmers Insurance Fox Sports Radio studios. So you can
call one eight eight Farmers to switch and you could
(21:51):
save a bundle on your auto insurance. Now, speaking of
being able to pay your auto insurance and other things,
you know that that takes place, you know, going into
the break, I was basically saying and alluding to the
fact that, well, you're talking about opportunities that could be
very limited by by scale and at each school. So
(22:12):
t J, I want to I want to throw this
out at you an inflection. You know you could jump
in on this as well. You know, there are a
lot of I've I've had this conversation with guys um
that have played in the league and have had success
and sometimes a lot of times as older guys. But
you know, they always say, I don't understand why this
is such a big topic, because there are there are
(22:34):
a lot of people out there that will fall in
line with this, this mindset and this thought process as well.
That you're getting a free education. If you are a
scholarship player, why are you complaining about not getting paid
when you are getting paid and that payment is your
ability to go to school and do something that you
(22:55):
may not of any other way, any otherwise would have
had to oppert tunity to get that education. What would
your response be to that? I look at it like this,
when you when you any athlete, male and female, when
when you calculate the amount of hours you put in
just to get ready to play, the training, the working out,
(23:16):
well they pay you millions at the professional level just
just to get ready to play. The training, the working out,
the therapy, the massages, whatever it may be. We're not
even talking about the practices in the training and working
out that we do with the teams. You're not being
paid for that, but you're bringing in revenue. And so
the scholarship and the stipend you get is way less
(23:40):
than minimum wage. If you calculate that, and you'll get
you'll get people that say that are non athletes, Um,
they get a free education, they get a scholarship. There's
a kid that I that I mentor, and I'm not
gonna say to school because people will know, but it's
at a prestigious school, one of the best academic schools
in the country. He sends me a message. He sends
me a message of somebody sending him a message saying
(24:04):
I hate that you athletes get whatever you want. And
it's always the non athletes that are upset that the
athletes are on scholarship will be an athlete and that
that sounds cruel, but that's just what it is. Like
you and LaVar Plex, you guys were highly recruited. I
didn't play sports really organized until my senior year in
(24:26):
high school, so I was on the other other end
of the spectrum. I had to work for everything that
I got, and I wasn't the silver spoon guy growing
up or we won't TAJ on our team, or we
gotta make sure we take care of t J. When
you people have gifts and where they're athletic, they're uh, scholastic,
(24:46):
whatever it may be, use your gifts to the best
of your ability. But when you have an opportunity to
get a free education, that's just not enough. When you're
bringing then so much revenue and people are being paid
millions because of that million. Now they're being they're being
(25:08):
paid millions because of the labor and the work that
you're putting in. Period, should players be paid? I want
people out there to understand something. Just because you're a
college athlete, a student athlete, you don't like you don't
have any money. I don't think. I don't think people
(25:30):
understand that. You know, you get a scholarship, you know,
to get a free education. But on top of that,
just like you said, you know, putting in all the work,
the bringing in revenue and and and whatever you whatever
sports you may play, but you're not receiving any income.
And that that's what I want people to understand. If
(25:51):
we pick up the phone, the only people that we
can really really call to to have any money is
ours and me being that I was in there was
nobody for me to call Yeah to get any money.
So and then, but if you if you accept money
from everybody outside of your family, like you get suspended
(26:14):
or you're breaking the rules. And and and I remember
very vividly A J. Green going into his junior senior
year Georgia. He was the top Robert Sieva and all
the college football. He was entering the NFL Draft, and
he signed some some jerseys and he makes like four
hundred dollars and he gets suspended like the first three
or four games, four hundred dollars for signing his own jersey.
(26:38):
And then the same thing happened with Yeah. With Todd Gurley,
he was suspending indefinitely just for signing from helmets or
whatever the case may be. He was suspended because he
accepted money from a booster. But check this out. Nick
Saban becomes the head coach at Alabama. He goes to
Alabama and buys a home, and the next day his
(27:01):
four million dollar house is paid off by the boosters.
But think about this too, plex Peter work, if he
wins the Heisman, financially he should have won the Heisman,
but you know he went to Dillers or whatever. He didn't.
He didn't win the Heisman, wasn't even if he wins them,
discount he's financially would be taken care of by making appearances,
(27:22):
just by being a Heisman Trophy winner. That hurt him
a later. Let's tell everybody out there, because y'all throwing out,
y'all spitting some game right now. Peter Wark came out
our year in two thousand and Peter Wark is arguably
one of the greatest college football players to ever play
the game. And and and then that is not an
under state. He's the best. Um went to Florida State,
(27:45):
was was a receiver and and was the actually the
the catalyst, the guy that that helped Bobby about and
get past Michael Vicken. Virginia Tech laed Hokey's team in
the national title that year. So that's what we're talking
about right now. And we're talking about players should they
be paid, And it's it's March madness. All this money
is being generated. We're using football terminology and references as well.
(28:09):
There's so many different names. You know, Terrail Prior gets
gets suspended and gets in trouble and becomes uh someone
who is maligned because he traded autographs for tattoos suspended
like not money tattoos suspended. Reggie Bush probably the most
historic and famous one of them all to to be
(28:32):
UH basically treated the way that he was treated. They
vacated as heisman. They they basically erased him from the
USC's football history, when in that rich tradition he I mean,
he's arguably top five greatest of all time to play
in that that program, UH chase young guys suspended for
(28:55):
games because of something that had to do with UH
in opera benefits and different things like that. I'll tell
a story that's personal and it's interesting, and this one
will really really trip you out. So I do. I
have a program, and plex has been a part of
our program where we go abroad and we we teach
(29:15):
kids in different countries how to play the game. We've
been to Europe, we've been to Mexico City, We've been
to Africa, and we started actually doing camps where we
could get kids from from Africa over here to get
an education. And we were doing this for a while.
I even took one of the young men in and
(29:37):
he became actually the player of the year for California
Defensive Player of the Year and was a four or
five star recruit coming out of high school. Now, one
of the kids that that I had with men, I
won't say the name, and I won't say the school,
but one of the kids that we brought over. Now
to keep in mind, the kid was in tenth grade,
(29:58):
ninth ninth, tenth grade. He's in Lagos, Nigeria. We bring
him here. He's in school. And they used to all
come stay with me at my home on the weekends
or in the summer. And that was how we always
did it. Like they would come, they'd swim, we hang out,
(30:19):
da da da work out every single day, always working out.
And the kid was suspended for a game and had
to pay a sum to me to clear up any
improper type of benefit staying at my home when he did.
(30:41):
And I'm sitting there and and the one thing that
discussed it me from the country that you would not
even know who he is. He would not be at
the school as an employee of the n C two
A if our work, our charitable work that we make
no money and act I've spent millions of dollars going
(31:03):
around the world doing this, not being paid just just
because I wanted to touch kids. So it's not even
like I'm doing this to make money. I'm not. I'm
not even this is not even a hustle. These kids
aren't coming here as a hustle. I'm not exploiting them
to make money. I'm literally trying to give back. And
(31:24):
and I find the kid getting suspended. They tell me,
They call me and tell me because he was a
prospect when he came here. So those out there that
will throw out the rule book and well, he was
a prospect. He was in high school. This that another.
The kid was in a village in Nigeria and you
(31:44):
would have never known his name ever in life. That
is exactly what I was gonna say. If the kid
was in Lagos, Nigeria, he never would have been a recruit.
He never even would have been been on your radar.
And the kid didn't even play the Yeah, and all
you're doing is traveling all around the world trying to
(32:04):
better someone's circumstances because you see something in them that
that nobody else would would probably have seen, would have
never seen. And yet he was a prospect because he
was living with you, and you bought him from nigervity
to the United States and we call and he said,
(32:25):
he's a employee of the n C double How how
crazy does that say? Show me its tax form? If
he's an employee, there's show me, show me the tax form.
If you're an employee, period. There's got to be something
wrong with how some of this is being handled. Now.
I will say this, I think that it is a
(32:48):
a math equation that has to be figured out, and
and I think it should be figured out. I think
there's some of this money should go towards the educating
of of how you build a brand, how you can
build equity, and what it is. I tell my kids
in high school. I'm a high school coach. I tell
them the equity that you build as a high school
(33:08):
football player is actually just as good as the equity
that you could build as a college player. It's just
as good as the equity that you can build as
a as a pro player. Because it's all about leveraging
the fact that you play this game and it's a
connecting factor for you. So use it as an opportunity
to to you know, network, build relationships, open your mouth,
(33:30):
shake hands, be polite, open doors, be a gentleman, You
never know who you're entertaining. So the idea of it is,
these people may be more interested in getting to know you.
I can go back to Pittsburgh and I may be
more remembered for what I did in high school versus
any other level that I played at Pittsburgh. People don't
care about what Washington football teams. They don't They could
(33:52):
care less. So when you think about, Okay, well I
might not be a Penn State fan, but you're one
of ours. You're from Pittsburg, and man, I remember when
you were at North Hills. You can leverage the different
levels and whatever, whatever the support maybe right, you can
leverage that in terms of your ability to be able
to network. So my question would be, if you're not
(34:15):
going to invest the money dollars wise, growing green heard liquidity,
hard money to these these young athletes, are you putting
them in positions? Are you Are you paying for for situations, events,
programming that actually one teaches them how to become a
(34:35):
brand and how to to get these jobs and and
meet these CEOs and meet these these vps and and
presidents of these companies. Are you sitting them because the
same people you're going after and and trying to get
these these dollars from to build these big buildings and
different things like that for your school, and saying you
have no money. Those are the people that you should
(34:58):
be introducing to these players and and teaching them and
educating them on how the rules of engagement work. I
don't recall ever having anything like that. I don't I
don't recall ever being in a position where it was
very pronounced that listen, these are the people that that
put the most money into our programs. The only time
(35:19):
I saw them was when I was being paraded there
to sign autographs for them, or to accept an award
and sit at somebody's table who paid ten thousand dollars
fifteen thousand dollars a plate to be able to sit
at the table and say I sat with LaVar Arrington
at the table. Hey bro, hey bro. Another LaVar Arrington
(35:41):
possibly coming. But that's a loan. That's a deep rabbit
hole right there. That's something that we hopefully then A
will figure this out and do us right simple, do
us right there. There has to be some type of
solution that that has come to that is for certain.
That's t J. Hush as Ota that's Plexico burr'st I'm
(36:02):
LaVar Arrington. Valentine's days almost here, and you know what
that means. It's time do make her blush with fresh
blooms and gifts from pro Flowers this year. Go to
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get fifteen percent off through February fourteen on all the
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know about, and we're here to change that. I'm April Denuity,
(36:24):
host of the new podcast Navigating Adoption, presented by adopt
us Kids. Each episode brings you compelling, real life adoption
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or subscribe to Navigating Adoption presented by adopt us Kids,
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(36:47):
Act Council. Hello, hello everybody there. That's all right? Yeah?
Laugh from the Farmers in Shore's Fox Sports Right Yo
Studios call Farmer us today for a quote. Come on,
y'all for a quote. Come on, y'all for a quote.
(37:11):
Welcome back to up for a gave a lavary Tis
t J. Hush is out of Plexico Burrs. The conversation
got real, real, real spirited and real heated during the break,
And we're gonna bring Gaving into this conversation because you
know what, he's got a very very strong take on
this and I'm ready. I'm ready for this and I'm
interested in this. Uh. Before we went to the break,
(37:34):
we talked about Tom Izzo having a public situation that
took place. Gabe Brown was the player that was involved
with his coach. At the end of the half. UH,
coach is Oh took exception to a situation that that well,
you know what, Tom could tell us a little bit
(37:56):
better than than than I can. So let's take a
listen to the coaches and then let's expand on it.
You guys are beautiful. Yeah, he missed a play and
I told him, and he walked away, and so I
told him to come back. I mean we went through
this couple of years ago. UM, a game like that,
that's the question you're gonna ask me. I guess I'll
(38:18):
answer it. Because the media has the right to ask
whatevery question. But we'll get him in here and you
can ask him. I mean, it was it was a
normal nothing. It just that this day and age everything something. UM.
That was one of the most passive aggressive ways to
respond to what took place. From my estimation. Now before
(38:41):
we go before before we touch on this, if you
didn't see the video, what wasn't mentioned in the SoundBite
from Izo was when he told him to come back,
he didn't just tell him to come back. He grabbed
him by his arm and ripped him back, act to
him to talk to him, not and I could say
(39:03):
ripped him back, but it was let's just say, because
I don't want to like kind of put it in
the wrong context, but he aggressively grabbed him, and he
aggressively yankeding back towards him to continue the conversation. What
we all agree on that what we all agree on
that gap. Okay, Gavin, you felt as though what go
(39:25):
I just didn't think it was that excessive to cause
the outrage that it has. UM. But again, everyone can
see things differently. You guys are the former athletes, and
by the way, Flexico might have a very different opinion.
Might we don't even know his opinion yet to me,
it didn't look so excessive as to call for his job.
(39:46):
I'll tell you a story about Tom Izzo. I've I've
had the honor and the privilege of having a personal
relationship this man for over twenty years, for over twenty years.
And if you know, if you know Tom Izzo, he
he creates a bond with this players that their family
and a lot of people they don't they don't understand
(40:08):
the significance of what I'm saying because you don't know him.
You know as a person, how many how many coaches
in any sport that you see standing on the sideline
and Tom is doing that player get into a here
of these stage on the basketball court, and that player
comes to the sideline and puts his arm around tom
Izo and they have a conversation about what just happened
(40:31):
on the basketball court. None, you don't see it. And when, yeah, when,
when I got the Michigan State So I was declared
eligent by the n c double A, so I had
to so you know, so, uh my scholarship, I didn't
have a scholarship. I couldn't participate with the football team.
I couldn't work out in the football facility. You know
(40:53):
what I did. I played basketball with the basketball team
every day to stay in shape, and that man treated
me like I was one of his own. I had
to go to the facility to work out and to
stay in shape. I played basketball with the basketball team
every day, and that man treated me like I was
one of his own. And still to this day, if
(41:14):
I picked the phone up, the man answers the phone
and and and treats me like a son. Live from
the Farmers Insurance Fox Sports Radio Studios, Call Farmers Today
for a quote that was some some very sentimental conversation. There.
We are not done. We are just getting started. We're
on Fox Sports Radio. You're listening to up on game.
We'll be right back. Look, Valentine's Day is almost here,
(41:38):
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(41:58):
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What girls in the forest our imagination and our family bonds.
The forest is closer than you think. Find a forest
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(42:21):
what does the chicken say? Uh? Didraft draft? Really? Giraffe draft?
You're not gonna get it all right. Just make sure
you know the big stuff, like making sure your kids
are buckled correctly in the right seat for their agent's eyes.
Get it right visits n h s A dot gov.
(42:43):
Slash the Right Seat, brought to you by the National
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Valentine's Days almost here, and you know what that means.
It's time done make her blush with fresh blooms and
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(00:22):
Find a forest near you and start exploring a Discover
the Forest dot org brought to you by the United
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the Chicken Fell draft draft really? Giraffe? Giraffe, You're not
(00:44):
gonna get it all right. Just make sure you know
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it right. Visits n h s A dot gov slash
the Right Seat brought to you by the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration in the AD Council. You want NFL experience,
(01:05):
then this it's the show for you. This is it's
up on game with Lavarrei, tent T, J hush Manzana
and Plaxico Burress. Did you hear that? LaVar Arrington, t
J Hodgmanzana Plexico burs. It's a show with three of
the best to ever do it on and off the field,
(01:27):
live from the Geico Fox Sports Radio Studios and now
here's Pro Bowlers Lavarrei, tent T, J. Houshman, Sanna and
Super Bowl champion Plaxico Burress. Welcome to the show. Everybody
Happy Saturday. I'm happy. I hope you're happy. I had
my first game yesterday. Yeah, I'm LaVar Arrington's we want Baron.
(01:49):
I have won the game. We won the game day
they killed from you without destroying the boys. You know,
we had we had our team up on game shots
out to Achie, said Barron Chamber. Ain't you the times
since the Bowl? Family? I mean, I guess we should
get I don't know the show. At some point we
tried to get Barron. We tried. Adn't want to deal
(02:10):
with us. He forgot he had a team time and
remember got about us. But anyways, I've even march madness
to everybody Happy Saturday. The whole lot of basketball on
and if you have enough TV monitors or if that
that picture in picture or whatever it is that you
do these days. Everybody uses monitors or whatever it may be.
(02:33):
I don't know, but enjoy it. And if you got
a nice little bracket, check it out. Like you said,
Plexus is interesting because we we figured out and we
found out that that Oregon State discovered a basketball team.
I had no idea that I had no idea that
they had a basketball program until yesterday. So here Beavers
(02:53):
shots out, shots out to Beaver's basketball. Ye Hey, what's
it like being the Oregon State Beaver Wasn't that? Like?
I know, the Michigan State Spartans are always good? How
they do? Know? They're always good? They're always but you know, hey,
this is probably this is probably probably the worst team
(03:14):
that we had in the last twenty five years. Hey,
we didn't even get invited to the to the n
i T. Hey we barely got invited to the Big ten.
Y'all get invited to the n T. That's that's brutal,
hey man, Look, and then they all went to transfer
portal like that up out of here. Bad. But anyway,
(03:37):
you're listening up on game no voices, you're here. That's T. J.
Hutchman's out of Plexico Birds we would love to be here. Uh.
In fact, we're coming to you live from the Farmers
in Shorts Fox Sports Radio Studios. When you switched the
Farmers in Shorts, you could save a bundle and all
you have to do is call one eight eight eight
Farmers and get a quote. Day. We are all right,
(03:59):
Lets so let's jump into this the whole n c
A a tournament deal like I want to. I want
to take this in a different lane. We can talk
about the shake up and in the fields and teams
being there that that you know would have never been
there before. COVID opened up the doors for some some
different things to take place, and you know, one thing
(04:21):
leads to another. But I want to focus in on
a couple of other things. All right now, there's there's
two things I want to focus in on. One is
is the whole idea of us heating in this direction
of getting paid, And and I just I'm I'm interested
in hearing what you guys have to say because basketball
(04:41):
is a much different animal in terms of exposure to
uh outside forces, will say, than than football is. And
then now when you think about other sports, which you
know that's I don't really want to get too far
off off the beating pad. But it is different in baseball.
It's different in high Key. They have developmental leagues, and
(05:02):
so does the n b A. And you have other
places where you could go play ball and and kind
of do well and find your way back over here. So,
you know, it's interesting thinking about what what could it
do to shape or or or define college basketball. JA
(05:24):
Bill has had some interesting thoughts on it. Let's take
a listen to that, and then let's kind of let's
delve into this conversation. There's just not enough money. Anytime
there's discussion and over whether the players can be compensated
beyond a scholarship and a stipend, that's always the answer.
Where's the money going to come from. There's just not
enough money. It's gonna hurt women's sports. We're gonna have
(05:45):
to cancel sports. Dogs and cats are gonna live together.
The earth will spin off of its access. If the
players get more than a scholarship and a stipend, or
allowed more than a scholarship of stipend, even if they
get n I L rights, it's gonna hurt everything. It's
gonna ruin it. All of It's true because when they
pay a huge buyout, when they spend on facilities, when
(06:05):
they hire coaches for millions upon millions of dollars. They
never say that they're gonna have to cut a program.
They never say they're gonna have to cut sports. They
never say that everything's gonna be ruined or women's sports
are gonna be hurt or cut. It's all nonsense. It's
all an excuse, it's all a rationalization. That's what I
mean when I say there's not enough money, because that's
(06:26):
what the n c double administrators say every time the
compensation is brought up. You know, I tend to agree
what what what say? U? T J agree with? Uh
ja he he. If you think about this, man, March
madness didn't take place in because of COVID, and you
(06:48):
look at what it's such a revenue generator and the
problem this is going to be the biggest problem with
this is the disparity and paid at One player may
get when you're talking another player in one group of
teammates may get when you're talking to other teams. But
life isn't fair. Um, when you move the needle, you
(07:10):
deserve to be paid more than the next uh the
next person that's just what it is. They have to
figure something out because exactly what he said, when you
can pay coach ten fifteen million dollars to not coach,
you damn shark, and play a player to play, when
he the the players are the ones that are bringing
in all this revenue, and oh, you get a free education.
(07:34):
You think if the only revenue that I was bringing
in was worth the free education, that they would be
giving me a free education. No, you would be getting
a partially free education. And so this system has been
wrong for years and I mean years. They need to
figure out a way to fit. It will get fixed eventually,
it's just a matter of time. But they need to
do this now because the players, more than ever deserved
(07:57):
to be paid. There's just more awareness. Man. Guys are
and girls are more aware of their worth and their value,
and they need to be compensated for that period. Yeah,
it's something that I've been you know, uh thinking about
and you know, really trying to put it all together
of how do you, just like you said to you, thin,
(08:18):
how do you decide who was paid? What? You know,
you have guys who don't get scholarships, who walk onto
programs and and they then you know, a year or
two later, they get a scholarship. So how do you decide,
Like you said, who makes what? And you know, I
just look back at the situation when I was in college,
(08:39):
and you know, I ran into the same kind of
situation similar to what Chris Webber you know, was in.
You know, you're in college and you're generating all this
money to this program, to these programs, and yet you know,
after you know, the training table closes or whatever you like, Yo,
I'm hungry, I want to get something to eat, but
you don't have any money. But yet you know, you
(09:02):
know that, you know you can go to the next
level in the NBA or the NFL and make that
decision to go pro. And you walk by the bookstore
and your jerseys on on sale in the bookstore for
a hundred and fifty dollars and you don't even have
any money to go eat. So so so then you
know and make sure this is a little bit easy,
Like you know what, you know, I'm not getting paid,
(09:24):
I'm not getting any money here. I might you can,
they can sell my jersey in the bookstore for a
hundred and fifty bucks. I might as well just go pro.
Because my situation isn't going to change, and it still
has a change. And you look at programs like you know,
Alabama and and and Texas. I knew five years ago
that say that the University of Texas football program generates
(09:46):
like a hundred million dollars a year. Yeah, and you're
saying to yourself, like, where's all the money going? You
know there is enough money for these players to be played,
but I don't just like you said, I don't know
how this whole thing is going to work out versus uh,
you know who gets paid what. But these coaches are
making eight nine million dollars a year and that's the problem, right,
(10:09):
And yet these players are looking at man, you know
what am I doing? Like what's gonna happen? How do
how do I feed myself in situations like that? So
I don't know how the n C double is going
to work it out, But just like you said, I
think that they will later on day on the road.
Can I say something this is to me when when
you say that the number one coaches making eight or
(10:31):
nine million dollars a year, we both know if you
don't have the players, you're not winning. If Dabbo Sweeney
and Nick Saban and all these other Ohio state if
they can't recruit the best players, they're not winning. So
you're paying them to recruit the best players, and they're
paying to recruit, and you're paying out large sums of
money to be able to do recruiting. Jens is where
(10:52):
when you start to pay the players, because if you
pay the football team, you gotta pay the basketball team,
and we're talking men's, women's, and you have to pay
all the athletes. Football is pretty much the revenue generator
at every college university. So now what what happens to
(11:14):
those sports that uses the millions that football makes to
travel um for uniforms, even though they're sponsors, they get
those sponsorships because of football. And so the coaches. If
if every coach that was making eight or nine made
four or five, you're still living great. That would be
(11:34):
a start. In my opinion, they're not gonna want to
take that haircut, but it's the right thing to do.
I remember I had a conversation with coach Spurrier one
time and he talked about how he wanted to to
be able to play pay his players. And this was many,
many many years ago, and It was at a time
I believe he was making something like five million dollars
(11:57):
a year, and he said something to the effect heck,
I'll take three million, I'll pay my players. I'll playing
with my own jacket. They la me I saw. I
started doing the math, right, I did the math on
if he took three million dollars and paid let's just
say a hundred, a hundred and eighteen players, is that
(12:21):
about right, A hundred and eighteen on the team. Yeah, no, no, no,
there's ninety scholarship players, nineties scholarship. But how many players
are on the team, how many players are contributing to
the team? Will walk on to be paid as well?
Why not? They're part of the team there and and
they walk on. They will not allow walk onto on
(12:42):
the team. Then you already know that if you have
to pay a walk on, they're not. If you have
to pay a guy, or you're gonna pay a guy
that's walking on, why would you let him walk on?
Everybody walking on? I mean, if you can make it right,
I mean, I knew when I was in college, we
had I didn't know this until I got there, But
(13:03):
you know, Nick Saban, anybody that walked onto our football team.
They were on the team. Like we We didn't cut
anybody or said or say that you couldn't play. If
you came out as a walk on, you made the team.
That was just you know how it was. I don't
know if there's I don't know if there's a number
to say you can only have five or six walk
(13:26):
ons or what of the case may be. But if
you walked onto the team on Michigan State, you were
on the team. If you got a scholarship because you
was going out and performing better than anybody thought you would,
then that was a whole different program. But you can't
play a walk on the same as a scholarship. Guy.
Let me ask that's a base salary. In my mind,
(13:46):
I could see that being a base salary. Let me
ask you this. Let me ask you this. If you
were to receive, say, fourteen hundred dollars every two weeks,
fourteen hundred dollars, how would you How would that make
you feel during the course of the year, if you're
making four hundred dollars as as as a player, we
(14:09):
got a pill grant check it what you know the
beginning of the year and how much it was thirty
five hundred. It was thirty five hundred dollars back then.
That was twenty years ago. A month no for the
return of the semester for the one. Yeah, you would
get one in September and you and you would get
one in January for the spring semester. And that that
(14:30):
was basically lit. Are you happy about that? Pealate grant? Oh?
We was rich? Okay, so if you got thirty five
hundred for but it was, but it was for a
whole semester, right, So how long? How long is it semester?
Four months? Yeah, semester? Okay, So a semester is four
months and that's two semesters and in the school year.
So you got seventy five hundred dollars, right, seven seven thousand.
(14:53):
I don't know what school you went to, but your
seventh grand and crack later seven thousand. You talk you
the schools like Basketball Indiana just fired their heir coach,
Archie Miller. Right, the Boosters are gonna pay a ten
million dollar buy out just to get rid of them
ten million dollars. And so you're paying a coach ten
(15:15):
million dollars to go bye bye. Like there's something that
can be done. I want to I want to revisit this.
If you're getting paid by weekly, four hundred dollars, that's
gonna be more than that. A pellet grant, that's gonna
be more that comes out. It comes out to roughly
like thirty three thirty four thousand dollars a year that
(15:38):
you would be paying these players. I could only assume that,
you know, this was twenty years ago the ball I
understand that we were getting alright, but every semester. But
they could definitely pay these kids us every two and
that way, and that's three million dollars. That's three million
dollars being broke up over ninety players or twelve months
(16:02):
bi weekly. So what I'm saying is is if you're
paying for their food, their clothes, clothing, their their their housing, um,
their board. So I mean that's not you wouldn't be
okay with that, just that being a starting places will be.
I would be perfectly fine with it, you know what
I mean. So it's like, here's the problem I seem
to run into every single time. I know we gotta break.
(16:24):
But the problem I see I seem to run into
is is that we always talk about how there's not
enough money. There's not enough money. But if you really
divvied it up, and if if coaches were really willing
to to to be that open about it, which there's
not that many coaches to that point that make that
type of money, where they could say, hey, I could
(16:44):
take three million dollars of the money that Nike has
given me, that the boosters are giving me, that that
Gatorade is given me, and I could could split that
up and we could pay these guys this summer money.
The problem, the problem that we're going to run into
is there's no consistency connected to it. How would you
be able to connect the consistency to the basketball program
(17:09):
that's generating money. How will we connect the consistency to
to the n c a A football players that that
are a part of this, And then how many how
many programs would really be able to execute this. I
want you all to think about this. We're not gonna
leave this conversation yet. We're gonna actually continue to have
this conversation on the other side of of this this break.
(17:29):
But I want to take a quick minute before we
take a break and let our our newest affiliate know that, Hey,
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I'm laver Iarrington, t J. Hushman's out of Plexico Burst.
(18:15):
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(20:03):
What grows in the forest trees? Sure? No? What else
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The forest is closer than you think. Find a forest
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the AD Council. Welcome back to the show. Up A
(21:06):
Gay Levy to t J. Hudson was out of Plexico
bers got my boy gaming back there. I was saying,
what's up, Oh, we got doing trending today, we got Ralph,
we got what ralphie his U c l A. Bruins
all right, be playing sometime today whatever. Speaking of one
(21:31):
of those historical teams and programs in the basketball round, Hey, listen, everybody,
we've been talking about, uh, some some pretty interesting things.
But before we go any further, let's talk about where
we're doing it from, and it's Farmers. We're live from
the Farmers Insurance Fox Sports Radio studios. So you can
call one eight eight Farmers to switch and you could
(21:51):
save a bundle on your auto insurance. Now, speaking of
being able to pay your auto insurance and other things,
you know that that takes place, you know, going into
the break, I was basically saying and alluding to the
fact that, well, you're talking about opportunities that could be
very limited by by scale and at each school. So
(22:12):
t J, I want to I want to throw this
out at you an inflection. You know you could jump
in on this as well. You know, there are a
lot of I've I've had this conversation with guys um
that have played in the league and have had success
and sometimes a lot of times as older guys. But
you know, they always say, I don't understand why this
is such a big topic, because there are there are
(22:34):
a lot of people out there that will fall in
line with this, this mindset and this thought process as well.
That you're getting a free education. If you are a
scholarship player, why are you complaining about not getting paid
when you are getting paid and that payment is your
ability to go to school and do something that you
(22:55):
may not of any other way, any otherwise would have
had to oppert tunity to get that education. What would
your response be to that? I look at it like this,
when you when you any athlete, male and female, when
when you calculate the amount of hours you put in
just to get ready to play, the training, the working out,
(23:16):
well they pay you millions at the professional level just
just to get ready to play. The training, the working out,
the therapy, the massages, whatever it may be. We're not
even talking about the practices in the training and working
out that we do with the teams. You're not being
paid for that, but you're bringing in revenue. And so
the scholarship and the stipend you get is way less
(23:40):
than minimum wage. If you calculate that, and you'll get
you'll get people that say that are non athletes, Um,
they get a free education, they get a scholarship. There's
a kid that I that I mentor, and I'm not
gonna say to school because people will know, but it's
at a prestigious school, one of the best academic schools
in the country. He sends me a message. He sends
me a message of somebody sending him a message saying
(24:04):
I hate that you athletes get whatever you want. And
it's always the non athletes that are upset that the
athletes are on scholarship will be an athlete and that
that sounds cruel, but that's just what it is. Like
you and LaVar Plex, you guys were highly recruited. I
didn't play sports really organized until my senior year in
(24:26):
high school, so I was on the other other end
of the spectrum. I had to work for everything that
I got, and I wasn't the silver spoon guy growing
up or we won't TAJ on our team, or we
gotta make sure we take care of t J. When
you people have gifts and where they're athletic, they're uh, scholastic,
(24:46):
whatever it may be, use your gifts to the best
of your ability. But when you have an opportunity to
get a free education, that's just not enough. When you're
bringing then so much revenue and people are being paid
millions because of that million. Now they're being they're being
(25:08):
paid millions because of the labor and the work that
you're putting in. Period, should players be paid? I want
people out there to understand something. Just because you're a
college athlete, a student athlete, you don't like you don't
have any money. I don't think. I don't think people
(25:30):
understand that. You know, you get a scholarship, you know,
to get a free education. But on top of that,
just like you said, you know, putting in all the work,
the bringing in revenue and and and whatever you whatever
sports you may play, but you're not receiving any income.
And that that's what I want people to understand. If
(25:51):
we pick up the phone, the only people that we
can really really call to to have any money is
ours and me being that I was in there was
nobody for me to call Yeah to get any money.
So and then, but if you if you accept money
from everybody outside of your family, like you get suspended
(26:14):
or you're breaking the rules. And and and I remember
very vividly A J. Green going into his junior senior
year Georgia. He was the top Robert Sieva and all
the college football. He was entering the NFL Draft, and
he signed some some jerseys and he makes like four
hundred dollars and he gets suspended like the first three
or four games, four hundred dollars for signing his own jersey.
(26:38):
And then the same thing happened with Yeah. With Todd Gurley,
he was suspending indefinitely just for signing from helmets or
whatever the case may be. He was suspended because he
accepted money from a booster. But check this out. Nick
Saban becomes the head coach at Alabama. He goes to
Alabama and buys a home, and the next day his
(27:01):
four million dollar house is paid off by the boosters.
But think about this too, plex Peter work, if he
wins the Heisman, financially he should have won the Heisman,
but you know he went to Dillers or whatever. He didn't.
He didn't win the Heisman, wasn't even if he wins them,
discount he's financially would be taken care of by making appearances,
(27:22):
just by being a Heisman Trophy winner. That hurt him
a later. Let's tell everybody out there, because y'all throwing out,
y'all spitting some game right now. Peter Wark came out
our year in two thousand and Peter Wark is arguably
one of the greatest college football players to ever play
the game. And and and then that is not an
under state. He's the best. Um went to Florida State,
(27:45):
was was a receiver and and was the actually the
the catalyst, the guy that that helped Bobby about and
get past Michael Vicken. Virginia Tech laed Hokey's team in
the national title that year. So that's what we're talking
about right now. And we're talking about players should they
be paid, And it's it's March madness. All this money
is being generated. We're using football terminology and references as well.
(28:09):
There's so many different names. You know, Terrail Prior gets
gets suspended and gets in trouble and becomes uh someone
who is maligned because he traded autographs for tattoos suspended
like not money tattoos suspended. Reggie Bush probably the most
historic and famous one of them all to to be
(28:32):
UH basically treated the way that he was treated. They
vacated as heisman. They they basically erased him from the
USC's football history, when in that rich tradition he I mean,
he's arguably top five greatest of all time to play
in that that program, UH chase young guys suspended for
(28:55):
games because of something that had to do with UH
in opera benefits and different things like that. I'll tell
a story that's personal and it's interesting, and this one
will really really trip you out. So I do. I
have a program, and plex has been a part of
our program where we go abroad and we we teach
(29:15):
kids in different countries how to play the game. We've
been to Europe, we've been to Mexico City, We've been
to Africa, and we started actually doing camps where we
could get kids from from Africa over here to get
an education. And we were doing this for a while.
I even took one of the young men in and
(29:37):
he became actually the player of the year for California
Defensive Player of the Year and was a four or
five star recruit coming out of high school. Now, one
of the kids that that I had with men, I
won't say the name, and I won't say the school,
but one of the kids that we brought over. Now
to keep in mind, the kid was in tenth grade,
(29:58):
ninth ninth, tenth grade. He's in Lagos, Nigeria. We bring
him here. He's in school. And they used to all
come stay with me at my home on the weekends
or in the summer. And that was how we always
did it. Like they would come, they'd swim, we hang out,
(30:19):
da da da work out every single day, always working out.
And the kid was suspended for a game and had
to pay a sum to me to clear up any
improper type of benefit staying at my home when he did.
(30:41):
And I'm sitting there and and the one thing that
discussed it me from the country that you would not
even know who he is. He would not be at
the school as an employee of the n C two
A if our work, our charitable work that we make
no money and act I've spent millions of dollars going
(31:03):
around the world doing this, not being paid just just
because I wanted to touch kids. So it's not even
like I'm doing this to make money. I'm not. I'm
not even this is not even a hustle. These kids
aren't coming here as a hustle. I'm not exploiting them
to make money. I'm literally trying to give back. And
(31:24):
and I find the kid getting suspended. They tell me,
They call me and tell me because he was a
prospect when he came here. So those out there that
will throw out the rule book and well, he was
a prospect. He was in high school. This that another.
The kid was in a village in Nigeria and you
(31:44):
would have never known his name ever in life. That
is exactly what I was gonna say. If the kid
was in Lagos, Nigeria, he never would have been a recruit.
He never even would have been been on your radar.
And the kid didn't even play the Yeah, and all
you're doing is traveling all around the world trying to
(32:04):
better someone's circumstances because you see something in them that
that nobody else would would probably have seen, would have
never seen. And yet he was a prospect because he
was living with you, and you bought him from nigervity
to the United States and we call and he said,
(32:25):
he's a employee of the n C double How how
crazy does that say? Show me its tax form? If
he's an employee, there's show me, show me the tax form.
If you're an employee, period. There's got to be something
wrong with how some of this is being handled. Now.
I will say this, I think that it is a
(32:48):
a math equation that has to be figured out, and
and I think it should be figured out. I think
there's some of this money should go towards the educating
of of how you build a brand, how you can
build equity, and what it is. I tell my kids
in high school. I'm a high school coach. I tell
them the equity that you build as a high school
(33:08):
football player is actually just as good as the equity
that you could build as a college player. It's just
as good as the equity that you can build as
a as a pro player. Because it's all about leveraging
the fact that you play this game and it's a
connecting factor for you. So use it as an opportunity
to to you know, network, build relationships, open your mouth,
(33:30):
shake hands, be polite, open doors, be a gentleman, You
never know who you're entertaining. So the idea of it is,
these people may be more interested in getting to know you.
I can go back to Pittsburgh and I may be
more remembered for what I did in high school versus
any other level that I played at Pittsburgh. People don't
care about what Washington football teams. They don't They could
(33:52):
care less. So when you think about, Okay, well I
might not be a Penn State fan, but you're one
of ours. You're from Pittsburg, and man, I remember when
you were at North Hills. You can leverage the different
levels and whatever, whatever the support maybe right, you can
leverage that in terms of your ability to be able
to network. So my question would be, if you're not
(34:15):
going to invest the money dollars wise, growing green heard liquidity,
hard money to these these young athletes, are you putting
them in positions? Are you Are you paying for for situations, events,
programming that actually one teaches them how to become a
(34:35):
brand and how to to get these jobs and and
meet these CEOs and meet these these vps and and
presidents of these companies. Are you sitting them because the
same people you're going after and and trying to get
these these dollars from to build these big buildings and
different things like that for your school, and saying you
have no money. Those are the people that you should
(34:58):
be introducing to these players and and teaching them and
educating them on how the rules of engagement work. I
don't recall ever having anything like that. I don't I
don't recall ever being in a position where it was
very pronounced that listen, these are the people that that
put the most money into our programs. The only time
(35:19):
I saw them was when I was being paraded there
to sign autographs for them, or to accept an award
and sit at somebody's table who paid ten thousand dollars
fifteen thousand dollars a plate to be able to sit
at the table and say I sat with LaVar Arrington
at the table. Hey bro, hey bro. Another LaVar Arrington
(35:41):
possibly coming. But that's a loan. That's a deep rabbit
hole right there. That's something that we hopefully then A
will figure this out and do us right simple, do
us right there. There has to be some type of
solution that that has come to that is for certain.
That's t J. Hush as Ota that's Plexico burr'st I'm
(36:02):
LaVar Arrington. Valentine's days almost here, and you know what
that means. It's time do make her blush with fresh
blooms and gifts from pro Flowers this year. Go to
pro flowers dot com to use code crush fifteen to
get fifteen percent off through February fourteen on all the
best blooms and gifts. See website for details. Adoption of
teens from foster care is a topic not enough people
know about, and we're here to change that. I'm April Denuity,
(36:24):
host of the new podcast Navigating Adoption, presented by adopt
us Kids. Each episode brings you compelling, real life adoption
stories told by the families that lived them, with commentary
from experts. Visit adopt us Kids dot org slash podcast,
or subscribe to Navigating Adoption presented by adopt us Kids,
brought to you by the U. S Department of Health
and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, and the
(36:47):
Act Council. Hello, hello everybody there. That's all right? Yeah?
Laugh from the Farmers in Shore's Fox Sports Right Yo
Studios call Farmer us today for a quote. Come on,
y'all for a quote. Come on, y'all for a quote.
(37:11):
Welcome back to up for a gave a lavary Tis
t J. Hush is out of Plexico Burrs. The conversation
got real, real, real spirited and real heated during the break,
And we're gonna bring Gaving into this conversation because you
know what, he's got a very very strong take on
this and I'm ready. I'm ready for this and I'm
interested in this. Uh. Before we went to the break,
(37:34):
we talked about Tom Izzo having a public situation that
took place. Gabe Brown was the player that was involved
with his coach. At the end of the half. UH,
coach is Oh took exception to a situation that that well,
you know what, Tom could tell us a little bit
(37:56):
better than than than I can. So let's take a
listen to the coaches and then let's expand on it.
You guys are beautiful. Yeah, he missed a play and
I told him, and he walked away, and so I
told him to come back. I mean we went through
this couple of years ago. UM, a game like that,
that's the question you're gonna ask me. I guess I'll
(38:18):
answer it. Because the media has the right to ask
whatevery question. But we'll get him in here and you
can ask him. I mean, it was it was a
normal nothing. It just that this day and age everything something. UM.
That was one of the most passive aggressive ways to
respond to what took place. From my estimation. Now before
(38:41):
we go before before we touch on this, if you
didn't see the video, what wasn't mentioned in the SoundBite
from Izo was when he told him to come back,
he didn't just tell him to come back. He grabbed
him by his arm and ripped him back, act to
him to talk to him, not and I could say
(39:03):
ripped him back, but it was let's just say, because
I don't want to like kind of put it in
the wrong context, but he aggressively grabbed him, and he
aggressively yankeding back towards him to continue the conversation. What
we all agree on that what we all agree on
that gap. Okay, Gavin, you felt as though what go
(39:25):
I just didn't think it was that excessive to cause
the outrage that it has. UM. But again, everyone can
see things differently. You guys are the former athletes, and
by the way, Flexico might have a very different opinion.
Might we don't even know his opinion yet to me,
it didn't look so excessive as to call for his job.
(39:46):
I'll tell you a story about Tom Izzo. I've I've
had the honor and the privilege of having a personal
relationship this man for over twenty years, for over twenty years.
And if you know, if you know Tom Izzo, he
he creates a bond with this players that their family
and a lot of people they don't they don't understand
(40:08):
the significance of what I'm saying because you don't know him.
You know as a person, how many how many coaches
in any sport that you see standing on the sideline
and Tom is doing that player get into a here
of these stage on the basketball court, and that player
comes to the sideline and puts his arm around tom
Izo and they have a conversation about what just happened
(40:31):
on the basketball court. None, you don't see it. And when, yeah, when,
when I got the Michigan State So I was declared
eligent by the n c double A, so I had
to so you know, so, uh my scholarship, I didn't
have a scholarship. I couldn't participate with the football team.
I couldn't work out in the football facility. You know
(40:53):
what I did. I played basketball with the basketball team
every day to stay in shape, and that man treated
me like I was one of his own. I had
to go to the facility to work out and to
stay in shape. I played basketball with the basketball team
every day, and that man treated me like I was
one of his own. And still to this day, if
(41:14):
I picked the phone up, the man answers the phone
and and and treats me like a son. Live from
the Farmers Insurance Fox Sports Radio Studios, Call Farmers Today
for a quote that was some some very sentimental conversation. There.
We are not done. We are just getting started. We're
on Fox Sports Radio. You're listening to up on game.
We'll be right back. Look, Valentine's Day is almost here,
(41:38):
and you know what that means. It's timed luckily. You
know what makes her blush fresh blooms and gifts from
pro Flowers. Head over the pro flowers dot com and
use code Crush fifteen through February fourteen and get fifteen
percent off all the best blooms and gifts that will
really make your special someone on Valentine's Day. Get fresh
(41:58):
this Valentine's Day with bro Flowers. See website for details.
What girls in the forest our imagination and our family bonds.
The forest is closer than you think. Find a forest
near you and Discover the Forest dot Org. Brought to
you by the United States Forest Service and the AD Council. Mama,
(42:21):
what does the chicken say? Uh? Didraft draft? Really? Giraffe draft?
You're not gonna get it all right. Just make sure
you know the big stuff, like making sure your kids
are buckled correctly in the right seat for their agent's eyes.
Get it right visits n h s A dot gov.
(42:43):
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