November 28, 2024 • 41 mins
Actor Rob Lowe joins the show in studio to talk about his legendary career in Hollywood and being a devoted sports fan in LA.
Legendary Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski joins The Herd to talk about how the game has evolved, coaching special players, life after basketball and more
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to The Herd podcast. Be sure to
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Speaker 2 (00:21):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
So I'm gonna go fanboy on this. Okay, just right,
tolerate my nonsense for five minutes. He's a great storyteller.
So there are movies that just wear well, and then
there's great movies that don't. When you were making Tommy Boy, okay,
so I think that's just like it's like hangover Tommy Boy.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Jack Jack Lemon had a couple of these in his day,
a couple of comedies that you could watch them today
and you're like, this, Mary Tyler Moore is still funny today. Yes,
they're cheers, two cheers.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Did you know during tom was there a moment with
you spa and you're like, oh, this is gonna be huge.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
No, never a moment ever, not one, not one. I mean,
the notion of that movie has become what it has become,
and it is. I mean it, I have people all
walks of life consistently stopped me. Same with Spade, and
it just has become a beloved movie. And we never
(01:24):
would have thought ever, I mean, we thought we were
making something that could be good, but never saw it,
never saw it coming having the staying power ever.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Now, you were Outstanding Lead Actor Emmy nomination for West Wing,
which is one of the great in my opinion, is
one of the seminal last great American television shows. That
Sopranos was HBO, So it's one of the last shows.
It's like I'm watching network. Cheers had this when I
was younger.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
It was the last great network show.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Yes, I think Modern Family was damn funny. Yes, it
was Modern Family. Steve leavittan the writer. That was damn funny.
So when you were on the West Swing, it also
stories I've read. It's a it's a lot more than
people think. It's egos writing. Was that enjoyable or was
it just successful?
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Here's okay. The way I always put it is, no
one ever wants to hear how hard it was to
be in the Beatles.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Right? You had all these great actors. Nobody wants to.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Here, nobody.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
They just want to love the show, which is great.
It happened to be a very complicated set for any
number of reasons, but the work was always so amazing,
and we all knew how grateful we were. We were
all very grateful to be on it. So we were
under no illusion. That's one. We knew we were making
(02:50):
something great. We knew we were making something great. Meanwhile,
the thing of you never want to hear how they
make the sausage, right, that wasn't very pretty. But but
but the outcome, I mean, it is one of the thing.
It's probably the thing I'm most proud of.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Still. Now you knew the Austin Power stuff because Mike
Myers was red hot, He's brilliant. You knew that was
gonna be big.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
I I did the studio, didn't, I mean think about
I think just go back. I know it's almost impossible
because of what that movie became and what it was.
But like, here's the pitch. So it's a it's a
James Bond parody of a of a guy with bad
teeth with a Cockney accent. And then there's a ball
guy named doctor. People are like what, but we all
(03:32):
knew it would work on the set.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Yes, just funny.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Oh I will never forget being there when he was
ad libbing as Doctor Evil to little Vern Treuer. That
looks like a baby in me. I'd like to eat
that baby.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
I mean, you just die right. You knew it was big? Yeah,
so you you know it's you had a you know,
like a lot of young stars in Los Angeles. You know,
it is impossible not to dabble in the crazy side
of life, but you actually are a doting dad husband
(04:12):
it is Do you ever think if you I mean,
you had the self awareness to get it right?
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Yeah, I've been sober thirty four years.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, what got you?
Speaker 5 (04:24):
There? Was there?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
An epiphany, a moment, a party? Yes? Oh really?
Speaker 4 (04:28):
And what's interesting about they call them? You know when
you hit your bottom, right, and everybody has a different bottom.
Some are really really you know, they're in jail. They
some of them are really bad. Mind. What wasn't all
that bad? But it was enough for me to go,
you know what, this is untenable. I'm never going to
have the kind of life I dream about. I'm never
going to be able to make it work with one
(04:49):
woman and it was just as simple as my beloved
grandfather had had a heart attack. And my mom was
calling me in the days of answering machines, and I
could hear her on the answering machine saying pick up,
pick up, pick up. But I was in no shape
to do it, so I didn't pick up. And I
just hated that about myself and I went into the bathroom.
(05:12):
I looked myself in the mirror like a bat. It
was like a bad movie. It was like an after
school special. I literally went in and looked at myself
in the mirror and was like, this is this has
got to end, and made a phone call, went to rehab,
which I loved. I treated like training camp, training camp
for life. Loved it. And that was thirty four years ago.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Good for you, thanks for sharing that. Speaking of you
said bottom and when you said that, I thought floor
and you you are on This is fascinating. So you
did a game show and people think, oh, Rob went
around the corner. No, you actually went to dublind tell
people about this show is hot and sticky.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Yeah, it's amazing. How how embraced this this.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Thing you basically you send everybody that Ireland.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
This show has become a phenomenon. I I never saw
that talking about not seeing it coming. I knew this
the game was great, super addicting. I knew people liked it,
but you never know if it's going to pop off
like it has. And what's so interesting is is we
shoot it in Ireland, and we go to Ireland because
it makes financial sense to do it. But it's just
one of the great sort of inside Hollywood stories that
(06:22):
that that's that's where we do it is just kind
of like.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Like what really And you shoot a season very quickly.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
We can shoot a season in ten days.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
It's a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Take your golf clubs. I sure did, because you're a
great golfer.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
How about this. I got off the an international flight,
went right to a run through, went to the hotel,
just pulled out my golf clothes. There was a course
right next to the hotel, and went and shot tied
my career best shot, a seventy nine. You're jut legged.
Jut Leg's great for the golf swing.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
That slows it down. You're on a short list of
the best celebrity golfers. You just on a tournament, didn't you?
Didn't you I did.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
They can't take it away from me. Riviera at riv
I won a golf tournament at Riff Now it was
it was my son, John Owen, Michael Crabtree. Yeah, she's
an athlete. And then, okay, I'm gonna what is this
amazing actress's name is a great golfer. Newton is her
last name. I'll think of her first name. But she's
a stick. We basically won because she was such a stick,
(07:26):
but still a win's win. I'm taking it.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, you're a huge You're a big We talked about
this at lunch. You're a big baseball fan. Love baseball,
you love Did you play it?
Speaker 4 (07:34):
I did? I played it up until coaches started saying
you missed practice for your auditions, and they kicked me
off the team.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, Walker Bueller just went to practice. You had audition,
Walker Buller went to practice.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
I had auditions. I could have been Walker Bueler.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
You were on NBA commercials years and years and years ago.
NBA is fantastic. Yes, it's hard to explain to people
because people think Los Angeles it's the beat. They don't
care about sports, right. The Lakers, when they're hot, will
always be number one. In the city, not the NFL,
not the Dodgers. Take people back. It's it's incredible to
the Magic Johnson. I mean, they're making movies about it.
(08:14):
Take them back to that.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
I don't even know where to begin. I mean, what
what Magic meant to this town When he arrived here,
it was like Santa Claus had arrived. And then he
lived up to it. What he did in that Game
six in Philadelphia, where he played all five positions.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Forty two point seventeen boards, he played center basically center.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
In his rookie year, you just can't believe. And then,
of course the style of play which has now you know,
been you know, every other team is adapted that run
and gun was not a thing.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
That's right, it was.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
It did not exists.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Amazing. There are athletes, infrequent, but athletes. If you go
back and look at Magic's rookie year, second year rob
like most of that stuff, Like Jim Brown, people say
could play today, Magic would still be today. If you
look at it, usually things don't age well. Bed best
(09:17):
player in the league, said, Michael and Magic are much closer.
Michael got the nine finals. No, no, no, Magic did
Michael got the six The Blackhawks are in the Western
Conference in hockey, if the Bulls were in the Western Conference,
Michael goes to a final or two and loses to
Bird or Isaiah and we get out over this six
for six thy Magic was in the finals nine times
(09:39):
and retired early.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Yes, he could have played as long as you wanted to.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Have You ever been to an event with Magic in
LA When Magic enters Staples, they stand, Yes, they do
to this day.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
They do it all over the world. I've seen him
in Europe and I mean, first of all, he can't hide.
There's no one who looks like him. Everybody knows looks
like smile, big smile, smile, the energy. I mean, my
two guys growing up were Magic and Sugar Ray Leonard.
Oh yeah, those are the guys I never bet against.
They were the classiest, best in class. And to have
(10:14):
had floor seats for that run and even into Shaq
and Kobe, we'll never see anything like it again.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Has there ever been a sports movie you wanted to
be in or you were offered and didn't you have
a favorite sports movie?
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Well, what I'm what I want to do is I
want to remake the all time greatest sports movie. I'm
too old for it now. Brian's song, Oh God, I cry.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
I watched that as a kid. We all cried to it.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Okay, this is my philosophy. Is you ask any boomer male.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
It was the first sports movie. It was the first
movie we cried to.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Right, I'm not crazy.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
No, Brian's song is. In fact, I not joking. I
looked it up on YouTube a month ago. I was
sitting there getting nostalgic. These guys are looking at me.
They're all on their third You have no idea what
brian song is.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
For all listeners' viewers out there, find it. I think
it's on YouTube. Yeah, it is James Cohn.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
At the Peak, Billy d will Williams at the Peaks,
Gail Sailors, Brian Piccolo.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
It's Gail Sayers, Brian Piccolo, Chicago Bears it is. It's
by far, hands down, not close, the best sports movie
ever made.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
I'm not arguing a month ago. I looked it up.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
By the way, this is a man who makes his
living being a contrarian, and he is not arguing. That
is an I'm glad. I feel like I've accomplished something here.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I mean, I like Hoosiers, but I didn't cry. The
natural I liked it. Miracle I think is great. Yes, Miracle,
you've got one, Rudy, They're all good. None of them
made me cry. That's not that's you know. Okay, you've
aged well. Rob Actor Filmmaker podcast host the Floor Season
(11:55):
two premiere on September twenty fifth, here on Fox and
what a pleasure see again.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Man, Yes, I love coming here and talk at sports you.
It's just the best.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
One of the great lunches of all time. My wife's
rarely jealous of me. I mentioned multiple times. Guess we
had lunch today with shut up? Yeah, Rob Low.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
We'll do it again and more lections to come.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
This is the Herd Best. To be sure to catch
live editions of The Herd weekdays and noon eastern non
am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio FS one and the
iHeartRadio app. This is the Herd Best.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
So Mike Krzyzewski was at Duke for forty two years,
five national championships, three time Olympic gold medal winner as
team's USA's head coach, the greatest college basketball coach along
with John Wooden of all time. He's joining US live,
So you know, Mike, what's interesting even though you often
(12:51):
had some of the same stars. It does feel like
every Olympic experience, even if you have Lebron on two teams,
feels different to me. You have different chemistry, different expectations,
different playing time. Take me back to your first Olympic
experience and to your last and the different challenges you
(13:13):
sometimes face even though you have a wonderful roster.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
Well, the main challenge you have to face is the
fact that you're playing a game that's different. You know,
it's still called basketball, but it's FEBA basketball, the Federation
of International Associations of Basketball and a different ball, two
more panels administered just a little bit differently with referees,
(13:42):
and so you are the team that's adjusting the international teams,
that's how they play. So there's a period of adjustment
that needs to be made. And the fact that one
of the main things is a lot of the teams
that you play against they have the same core people
over and over. Like the two top teams that we
(14:05):
played against during my time were Spain and Argentina by
far and same guys. It was like a brotherhood for them,
and now it was I mean the Gasols played forever.
Genoble skull on all these guys for Argentina. And so
what Jerry Colangelo tried to do when he took over
(14:26):
USA basketball in two thousand and five was to create
some level of continuity. So I became the first national coach.
That means you had a four year run, just like
Steve Kerr has a four year run. And that created continuity,
and then could you get some of the same players.
So in eight with the Redeemed team, five of those
(14:49):
players ended up being on the London team. In twelve
and five players from our World championship team in Istanbul
also came. So I had ten players who understood foba,
understood foba and that helps, and that's what's helping Steve Kerr.
(15:10):
Right now, you have Kevin durant Is going for his
fourth gold medal, Lebron going for his third. You have guys,
you know Curry. A lot of people said he's going
for his first goal, but he has two goals. He
won the World Championship in ten and in fourteen, So
he understands FOBA, and so does Anthony Davis. The veterans
(15:34):
on that team, and a couple of the guys who
played for coach Popovich for pop In winning in Tokyo.
Are on the team, so there's some level of familiar
familiarity Colin, and that is really very very important.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
So I think it's difficult. It's only forty minutes long.
Everybody's great. Steve Kerry the other day literally apologize for
not getting Jason Tatum in. But sometimes it's matchups. Sometimes
I felt bad for him because I'm thinking to myself, well,
right now Derek White and Drew Holliday work in this rotation.
Is did you find when you were coaching you wouldn't
(16:15):
do this at Duke, but you were looking down the
bench thinking I got this great all star, I got
to get him in the game. Did you coach sometimes
like that?
Speaker 5 (16:24):
You know, I'll be honest with you, I did not.
But when we met as a team and developed standards
of how we were going to live together, and we
were bonded by the fact that we wanted to win
the goal and really the only question that will be
asked of a player, say I played in the Olympics
(16:47):
in twenty twenty four, They're going to ask did you win.
They're not going to ask how much you played, how
much you scored? Did you win? And so I asked
each of the guys to give me their word, to
pledge that they would do anything that was needed less minutes,
more minutes not playing playing to win the gold medal,
(17:10):
and they all did. And we tried to come up
with a rotation of probably nine guys and maybe ten
and who started and to give some level of continuity.
And then a key thing in the real close games
was to have a closing unit in the last six
(17:31):
minutes or so that we're accustomed to playing with one
another that would be somewhat different from the starters. And
I tried to use that throughout and I never really
I didn't worry about the playing time of players because
they shouldn't be worried about it. They should only be
(17:54):
worried about one thing, and that's winning. And I think
this team has that mentality. And I can tell you
that the five teams side coach, all those guys were
terrific in handling that.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
So international you can't worry.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
About you cannot worry about playing time. You be worried
about defending the three and not committing too many team
files that give them free throws. And if we do
those two things, then we're going to win.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
International basketball has exploded. I can remember twenty five years
ago when people talked about international players, they were like, oh,
they're soft, Domestic players are tougher. Well, now we're adopting
and adapting to their game. I watch Wemby sometimes block
shots in the NBA with his elbow, do you remember,
(18:44):
I mean, it's insane. He doesn't look like any player
I've seen, even a chet Holmgren, who was terrific at
Gonzaga and Oka see doesn't really compare. Do you remember
the first time you heard about Wemby? I mean, what
have you? What do you make when you watch them?
Speaker 3 (18:59):
What?
Speaker 1 (18:59):
What was the first time when you heard about Wemby?
Speaker 5 (19:02):
Yeah, a few years ago when I had not seen
him yet. And then in seeing him for the first
time and where he's like maybe four or five inches
taller than go back, I said, oh my god. And
then he's dribbling the ball and shooting jump shots and
going behind his back. I said, all right, this is
(19:24):
there's nobody like this guy. Yeah, but you know, Colin,
one quarter of the NBA players are international players, and
that's only going to increase because the international players are
are taught differently. They're not in a scholastic and academic
(19:48):
environment that regulates how much they can practice, how much
they can play, So in some respects there they have
a greater continuity of being coached. And we need to
change in our country in men's college basketball and not
having twenty hours a week only of practice or four
(20:08):
hours a week during the summer, it's outdated. It's it's ridiculous,
and we need to have shot clocks in every state.
We need to play the game the same way. In
our country it's played in so many different ways, whereas
in the other countries, if you're in France, being Italy, whatever,
(20:30):
from a youngster until you're an adult, you play the
game the same way and you're accustomed to playing with
the shot clock.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
So a couple non Olympic things to discuss. I like
JJ Reddick. I think he's smart, I.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Think he's go do I I love him.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
He's curious, he's feisty, he's competitive, all the things that
make a great coach. Some have said he can be
a little arrogant. He can be, but some of the
great players and coaches have that there's a line between
that arrogance and confidence. When you hear that when you
hear the criticisms that he's a little air again. You know,
what do you make of that? Because I always thought
(21:09):
he was super confident, But I kind of think that's
his that's his DNA, that's his edge. What do you
make of those criticisms?
Speaker 5 (21:16):
Yeah, well, yeah, I don't pay any attention to him
because you know, we're dominated by social media, So who
is making the criticism? You know where? You know, opinions
are good, But where's the opinion coming from? Right, you know?
And what's the source for mej JJ is amazingly competitive
(21:41):
and is prepared as well as any player that I
coached at Duke. He's smart, he's confident, and he understands
the game, and having fifteen years of being a pro,
he has empathy for the guy trying to make it
when he's trying to make it you make and for
(22:01):
the veteran who is still trying to trying to make it.
He was never a superstar in the NBA, but he
was certainly a superstar in the National Player of the
Year when he played in college, So I think he
has empathy for what a roster would look like. He
certainly understands the pro game, and he desperately wants to
(22:24):
be a coach, and I think he surrounded himself up
to now. I don't know his entire staff with some
veteran coaches, which will that will help him, But I
I love him. I think he's terrific and I think
he can relate to his players at the best level.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, You've had such a great opportunity and have a
relationship with Lebron James, and I've said he reminds me
a bit of Tom Brady, where he's such an adult.
He has Tom and him have such deep respect for
the game itself, for the academic scholastic side, for the
(23:08):
training side. I want you to go back because you've
had a relationship with Lebron forever, and much like Wemby,
we don't get to see practice stuff. You got to
see practice stuff with Lebron. Take me to a moment.
Maybe it was Olympics, maybe it was high school when
you recruit all these guys from Zion to Lebron, the
(23:30):
Christian Latner, who I thought still one of the greatest
college basketball players I've ever seen. Do you remember the
first glimpses of Lebron and did you not only see
athleticism but just a different mindset. He was twenty going
on forty. Did you notice it immediately?
Speaker 5 (23:48):
I noticed him when I started coaching him, how smart
he was. You know, you're you're a little bit shocked
at the athleticism and just this amazing athlete that's there.
And then you add intelligence, then you add a command voice,
(24:11):
then you add leadership, and then you add something that
a lot of people don't have, and that's the will
to prepare to win. Everyone wants to win, not everyone
will pay the price every day every year to be
at their best before practice. I mean, he has the
(24:35):
same guy helping him for two decades. You know, he
stretches for over a half hour, and he preps his
body and while he's prepping his bodies, prepping his mind
and he's just so damn prepared. He and Kobe were
(24:56):
the two guys I thought, we're just of everyone in preparation, physical, mental,
you name it. And when they were on the court
at a practice or in a game, they wanted to
be the best all the time, all the time, and
(25:17):
they paid the price for it. And you know, we
for anyone who knocks Lebron in any way, they're just crazy.
Like you know, we're not going to see anybody like him.
He's one of a kind. Just what he's doing in
the Olympics, his verve, his demeanor, his attitude. I mean,
(25:40):
he helps his team by how he looks, not just
how he plays. I want to play with a guy
who looks like him, because there's hardly anybody who looks
like that. I mean facially, not just body wise. His
the face of a champion. This guy has that face
(26:00):
of a champion.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Finally, I know, you know, we would don't want to
build up Cooper Flagg too much, but I did watch him,
and he's a really he's a really interesting player. Yeah,
so for somebody that had never seen him play, obviously
he was very good, very early, and he's going to
be the number one, two or three pick and who
knows NBA. But if i'd never seen him play, I
(26:26):
want you forty two years at Duke, I've never seen
him play, and you tell me about what would I
expect going to see Cooper? What does he do in
your labyrinth of experience? What does he do that is unique?
Speaker 5 (26:41):
Well, it's something that a lot of players are not
doing right now. And he loves to not only play,
he loves to compete. I'm talking about love, you know,
like he you know, he doesn't care who's watching, he's playing.
He loves the game. And that's that's not found as
(27:05):
much like he plays the game because he loves it,
and he's an outstanding athlete. He's positionless, and he competes
like crazy. He's got a I don't know if I
haven't coached him, but watching him, he seems to me
has a temper or an anger, a competitive anger that
(27:31):
takes him to a whole another level. Like he he's
totally immersed in playing. And then he's extremely talented. He's
not just talent, he's extremely talented, but he has all
those intangibles that I've just said. And so if you
put that in an outstanding athlete, you're going to have
(27:53):
a very special basketball player. And this kid, hopefully he
stays healthy and can tinues to maintain that in this
world of now social media, and you know, I think
people can get to a player can get too caught
up and all that and and what other people think
(28:14):
of them. Forget it. Forget it's what who what you
think of you, and what your coaches think of you,
and just be stay in that lane and keep that passion,
and this kid's going to be very very special.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
You know, I was finally I was thinking about this.
I've called her Taylor Swift in tennis shoes. Is what
I call Caitlyn Clark is that I knew she was
talented years ago, and then all of a sudden, Taylor
Swift does the ears to her and you can't get tickets.
She sells out Sofi Stadium seven seven nights in a row.
(28:51):
Everybody in LA went to it. And I watched Caitlyn
Clark a couple of years ago, and I'm like, oh,
she's fun to watch, and it is a is a
tsunamy of basketball. Were even you taken back? First of all,
she's very good, but were you taken back by what
she's done to women's basketball, because I it's got a
(29:12):
Taylor Swiftfield coach. It's like taking over the country.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
Well it does, and I think also it's the moment
to take it over. You know, women's basketball. It's terrific
and it's continued to progress, and all of a sudden,
now it seems this opening for her and it's like
(29:40):
it meshes and you know, the cool thing, one of
the cool things about her is that she was at
Iowa for a career, so she became like a cult
hero there. Yeah, so she was it was like an
off Broadway thing, you know, where she was accustomed to
the crowds and whatever. And she she handles it so well.
(30:05):
And she had like about a ten game adjustment in
the w n B A and now she's going crazy
there also. You know what she is, She's genuine and
I think her knowledge, her feel for the game. I
think the best thing she does is pass.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yes, yes, great passer.
Speaker 5 (30:26):
She's an amazing passer, and she sees things. I mean,
everyone talks about her shooting and her scoring, and obviously
she does that really well, but she makes teammates better.
And putting her on a w NBA team where you
have you know, adults, you have you have older players
(30:48):
and really talented players, you're going to see her talents
even more. And I think you're continuing to see it,
and she's going to be one of our great American players.
I know some people are angry about her not being
on the Olympic team, and the timing wasn't right yet,
(31:09):
you know, but certainly she'll be long there. And it's
kind of like in two thousand and eight, Kevin Durant
was on our select team and he almost we almost
picked him for the Redeemed team. And then he was
on the World Championship in twenty ten and let us
(31:31):
since he averaged thirty three points a game in the
medal round and then he took off. I think that
trajectory will be there for Caitlin. I really admire how
she's handled everything and she's won over the people competing
against her. They see that she's tough, she can handle it.
(31:58):
But I love her past. I think passing has become
a little bit of a lost art with all the
ball handling drills and whatever, and she sees things that
most players do not see.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Forty two years, five championships, three time Olympic gold medal
winning coach, the great Mike Kryshewski. You look great by
the way you're obviously you're you're doing something right. You're
happy and joyful because you look fantastic. You don't have
to be on the recruiting trail twenty four to seven
that you probably sleep now occasionally, right.
Speaker 5 (32:31):
That helps the recruiting trail. It's not the one I
want to be on a new one. No, I'm really lucky.
I do. I consult for the NBA. Now I speak
a lot. I still work at Duke coming my conference,
my conference from it, and I got ten grand kids
that live within ten minutes of me, so I'm busy
(32:53):
all the time.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Wow, that's a good life, great senior coach, Thank you
so much.
Speaker 5 (32:57):
Yeah, good being on.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
This is Heard best of one more Heard. The Herd
streams twenty four hours a day, seven days a week
within the iHeartRadio app. Search Herd to listen live or
on demand whenever you like.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Look at this guy, looks like you just got nine
holes to Aren't you a li I mean it went
to overtime? Aren't you a little beat up this morning? Kirk?
Speaker 4 (33:19):
A little?
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Oh? I definitely am. I got home about two thirty
in the morning. It was a long night, but a
fun night. And now we've got a long weekend to
rest up, and I'll be posted up with my couch
watching everybody else play football.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Do quarterbacks get into zones?
Speaker 3 (33:36):
I think you certainly can get to a place where
you feel like the game slows down and you've got
good anticipation. I think that for me. What troubled me
to start the year was I didn't feel like I
had that anticipation or that sense of where things were going.
And each week I've improved, and then I felt like
last night our offense and my own play kind of
took a big jump forward. Where I was anticipating better.
(33:58):
I was playing fast, quick, but I wasn't in a hurry,
and that's really where you want to be all the time.
But it's just taken me a few weeks to get there,
and now the challenges can we sustain over the next
few months.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
You're on a very young offense, Drake London, Kyle Pitts, Bijon,
these are kids you're like a coach. Is that hard?
Is it refreshing? How does that land for you?
Speaker 3 (34:21):
I enjoy it. I enjoyed it. I think it gives
me a chance to assert myself more as a leader.
When I was in Washington, I was playing with players
who were twice my age at those skilled positions, you know,
Vernon Davis, Pierre garcon De, Shaun Jackson. These guys had
double digit years in the league, and I was, you know,
in year four, just trying to figure it out and
hoping they weren't going to get mad at me. So
now as a thirteen year VET working with guys in
(34:42):
year two and three, it gives me a great chance
to be an encourager, to kind of help them hopefully
get to where they want to go and be a
part of that. So I enjoy that opportunity.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
There's not seven eight guys in the world right now
playing quarterback that could have done that last minute fourteen
note timeout. That is really hard. Take me to the
last minute fourteenth? Is there ramped up anxiety? What are
you looking for? Everybody was clearly on the same page.
Is that Do you get more focused in those little
micro moments?
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Well, I think you trust your training and you go
back to your process. You know, ku being the kicker,
you know that you have some grace as to how
far you need to go to get that field goal.
And then you know we're pretty well coached on you know,
those situations of when the ball's got to be out
of bounds or to the end zone and when you
know we have have to clock it. So that was
(35:38):
executed well. And to your point, the referees have gotten
a lot better, Yeah, allowing people to clock the ball quickly.
I think two or three years ago that ref might
have taken too long, we wouldn't have had a chance.
So kudos to them for kind of getting that dialed
in where he just touches the ball and enables us
to operate quickly.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
You know, I was looking at this your coaches, this
is crazy. Vey Shanahan, Lafleur, Mike McDaniel, Kevin Stefanski, Kevin O'Connor.
You have had smart dudes. You've probably and I think
Raheem Morris for a defensive coach is he was mcvay's buddy.
He's probably better than average for a defensive coach. Do
you did you take little bits and pieces out of
(36:17):
all of them? And I mean you could you say, yeah,
McVeigh showed me this, Kevin O'Connell, or if you've always
been kind of the same guy, have you borrowed things?
Do you take things when you have that many good
coaches around you.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
That's a great question. Many of them came from the
same tree, and so they were often in the same
room and as a result, we sort of speak the
same high level language with all of them. That being said,
it's been fascinating to see as they've gone their separate ways,
they've each kind of put their own spin on things.
And so I've gotten back with a Kevin O'Connell or
(36:50):
a Zach Robinson after being with Sean McVeigh and being
away from Sean for several years and then learning how
Sean and their group evolved it from where we were
when I with Sean has been really cool to see.
And then each person kind of puts their own creative
spin on it. And you know, now in Atlanta, we're
kind of trying to evolve into what the twenty twenty
(37:10):
four Falcons look like, which is, you know, different from
the twenty three Vikings, different from the twenty three Rams
that Zach Robinson was with, But keep trying to take
those steps and innovate. And then also as a copycat league,
so you try to steal from the good ideas you
see on tape. But I've been very fortunate to be
around a lot of great coaches. I throw Gary Kubiak
and Clint Kubiak and Rick Dennison into that list. Big
(37:31):
part of having success at the quarterback position is who
are your coaches? And for thirteen years I've been able
to be around a lot of good ones.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
You have a lot more records than people realize. Most
game winning drives in the history of the league in
a single season eight And you know I said this earlier.
You and Peyton Manning are very detailed, precise guys. You're smart.
You're detailed. Early in both of your careers. Sometimes instead
of the one o'clock game, you go to these primetime games.
You're sitting around all day in a hotel, and early
(37:58):
in your career, Andy's people said, well, curtin primetime games,
isn't the same quarterback? Well that's changed, and it changed
for Peyton. You go back to your first, second, third
year in the league, and now what have you done?
Because something's different. You're now one of the best in
the league. So was Peyton at the end. But in
the first couple of years there was a label Kirk Peyton.
(38:20):
They're precise, they're detailed. They don't like to be off
their you know, schedule. Was that true? What happened? What's
transformed for you?
Speaker 3 (38:27):
You know, it's hard to say. I think when you
beck and look at it, I had a couple of
clunkers in primetime when I was a young player, But
to be honest, if those games have been played at
noon or one o'clock. It probably would have been a
clunker anyways, because of how young of a player I was.
But the reality was I was playing on teams that
were five hundred teams, and in primetime we often got
scheduled to play defending Super Bowl champs and division champs
(38:50):
and you know, teams that were going to make deep
runs in the playoffs, and so it was unlikely we
were going to win going into the game, and then
when we lost, it became a you know's not great
in primetime, but if you really look at the production,
I was pretty much the same player from just a
statistical standpoint. In those primetime games, we just weren't winning.
And as of late, we've been able to kind of
(39:11):
turn the tide when it comes to finding away at
the end of the game to win. But if you know,
a call doesn't go away last night, or a break
doesn't go our away, you know, yes we lose, but
I don't walk away saying I didn't play well. I
just walk away saying we didn't do enough to win.
And I understand it's all about winning, but you know,
I wouldn't have changed my approach as to how I
played or how I prepared. So you know, as a quarterback,
(39:33):
you're gonna always kind of get too much praise, too
much criticism, and I think some of that showed up
with the primetime narrative. But I'm kind of on the
other side of it now, where now people view me as, oh,
you're playing well in primetime and I'm thinking, well, I'm
playing about the same. We're just winning, and so it
leads to a little more praise.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, clutch Kirk Cousins. By the way, about forty five
seconds left first game off of surgery, people said, look
at Kirk. He doesn't trust his body. Second game, everybody's like, Kirk, back,
we got forty seconds. But you've changed. I mean it
did look like that first game you were kind of
feeling your body out. How do you feel now? How
do you feel?
Speaker 3 (40:08):
You know, it had less to do with the achilles.
It had more to do with the fact that I
just hadn't played since Week eight of last year, and
I had won a red jersey in practice all these months,
and I didn't play in a preseason game and practice
oftentimes we were going against the twos and it was
just a lot of simulated things that weren't the real deal,
and so to be back in the fire for the
first time, I had some rusto to get off. And
(40:31):
I think each week, the last you know, several have
been an improvement, and I think last night we took
a big step forward. But now the challenges is can
we continue to maintain that standard as we move forward.
But I did feel a different level of anticipation and
playing fast last night. That is back to kind of
my old self. That I felt was we were on
(40:52):
our way there, but we hadn't really closed the gap
it felt until last night.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
By the way, Zach Robinson, maybe only throw fifty four
times next week, not fifty eight, five hundred and nine
yards four touchdowns. It's just it was remarkable and congratulations.
You've earned it. You not only deserve it for your career,
you've earned it, and I appreciate you doing this. Go
take an afternoon nap on us. We appreciate you, and
(41:17):
I will call thank you. Appreciate it you Bet Kirk Cousins.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
This is the herd, best of best
Thanks for listening to The Herd podcast. Be sure to
catch us live every weekday on Fox Sports Radio and
noon to three Eastern nine am to noone Pacific. Find
your local station for The Herd at Fox Sports Radio
dot com, or stream us live every day on the
iHeartRadio app by searching Fox Sports Radio or FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
So I'm gonna go fanboy on this. Okay, just right,
tolerate my nonsense for five minutes. He's a great storyteller.
So there are movies that just wear well, and then
there's great movies that don't. When you were making Tommy Boy, okay,
so I think that's just like it's like hangover Tommy Boy.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Jack Jack Lemon had a couple of these in his day,
a couple of comedies that you could watch them today
and you're like, this, Mary Tyler Moore is still funny today. Yes,
they're cheers, two cheers.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Did you know during tom was there a moment with
you spa and you're like, oh, this is gonna be huge.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
No, never a moment ever, not one, not one. I mean,
the notion of that movie has become what it has become,
and it is. I mean it, I have people all
walks of life consistently stopped me. Same with Spade, and
it just has become a beloved movie. And we never
(01:24):
would have thought ever, I mean, we thought we were
making something that could be good, but never saw it,
never saw it coming having the staying power ever.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Now, you were Outstanding Lead Actor Emmy nomination for West Wing,
which is one of the great in my opinion, is
one of the seminal last great American television shows. That
Sopranos was HBO, So it's one of the last shows.
It's like I'm watching network. Cheers had this when I
was younger.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
It was the last great network show.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Yes, I think Modern Family was damn funny. Yes, it
was Modern Family. Steve leavittan the writer. That was damn funny.
So when you were on the West Swing, it also
stories I've read. It's a it's a lot more than
people think. It's egos writing. Was that enjoyable or was
it just successful?
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Here's okay. The way I always put it is, no
one ever wants to hear how hard it was to
be in the Beatles.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Right? You had all these great actors. Nobody wants to.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Here, nobody.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
They just want to love the show, which is great.
It happened to be a very complicated set for any
number of reasons, but the work was always so amazing,
and we all knew how grateful we were. We were
all very grateful to be on it. So we were
under no illusion. That's one. We knew we were making
(02:50):
something great. We knew we were making something great. Meanwhile,
the thing of you never want to hear how they
make the sausage, right, that wasn't very pretty. But but
but the outcome, I mean, it is one of the thing.
It's probably the thing I'm most proud of.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Still. Now you knew the Austin Power stuff because Mike
Myers was red hot, He's brilliant. You knew that was
gonna be big.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
I I did the studio, didn't, I mean think about
I think just go back. I know it's almost impossible
because of what that movie became and what it was.
But like, here's the pitch. So it's a it's a
James Bond parody of a of a guy with bad
teeth with a Cockney accent. And then there's a ball
guy named doctor. People are like what, but we all
(03:32):
knew it would work on the set.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Yes, just funny.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Oh I will never forget being there when he was
ad libbing as Doctor Evil to little Vern Treuer. That
looks like a baby in me. I'd like to eat
that baby.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
I mean, you just die right. You knew it was big? Yeah,
so you you know it's you had a you know,
like a lot of young stars in Los Angeles. You know,
it is impossible not to dabble in the crazy side
of life, but you actually are a doting dad husband
(04:12):
it is Do you ever think if you I mean,
you had the self awareness to get it right?
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Yeah, I've been sober thirty four years.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, what got you?
Speaker 5 (04:24):
There? Was there?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
An epiphany, a moment, a party? Yes? Oh really?
Speaker 4 (04:28):
And what's interesting about they call them? You know when
you hit your bottom, right, and everybody has a different bottom.
Some are really really you know, they're in jail. They
some of them are really bad. Mind. What wasn't all
that bad? But it was enough for me to go,
you know what, this is untenable. I'm never going to
have the kind of life I dream about. I'm never
going to be able to make it work with one
(04:49):
woman and it was just as simple as my beloved
grandfather had had a heart attack. And my mom was
calling me in the days of answering machines, and I
could hear her on the answering machine saying pick up,
pick up, pick up. But I was in no shape
to do it, so I didn't pick up. And I
just hated that about myself and I went into the bathroom.
(05:12):
I looked myself in the mirror like a bat. It
was like a bad movie. It was like an after
school special. I literally went in and looked at myself
in the mirror and was like, this is this has
got to end, and made a phone call, went to rehab,
which I loved. I treated like training camp, training camp
for life. Loved it. And that was thirty four years ago.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Good for you, thanks for sharing that. Speaking of you
said bottom and when you said that, I thought floor
and you you are on This is fascinating. So you
did a game show and people think, oh, Rob went
around the corner. No, you actually went to dublind tell
people about this show is hot and sticky.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Yeah, it's amazing. How how embraced this this.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Thing you basically you send everybody that Ireland.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
This show has become a phenomenon. I I never saw
that talking about not seeing it coming. I knew this
the game was great, super addicting. I knew people liked it,
but you never know if it's going to pop off
like it has. And what's so interesting is is we
shoot it in Ireland, and we go to Ireland because
it makes financial sense to do it. But it's just
one of the great sort of inside Hollywood stories that
(06:22):
that that's that's where we do it is just kind
of like.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Like what really And you shoot a season very quickly.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
We can shoot a season in ten days.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
It's a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Take your golf clubs. I sure did, because you're a
great golfer.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
How about this. I got off the an international flight,
went right to a run through, went to the hotel,
just pulled out my golf clothes. There was a course
right next to the hotel, and went and shot tied
my career best shot, a seventy nine. You're jut legged.
Jut Leg's great for the golf swing.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
That slows it down. You're on a short list of
the best celebrity golfers. You just on a tournament, didn't you?
Didn't you I did.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
They can't take it away from me. Riviera at riv
I won a golf tournament at Riff Now it was
it was my son, John Owen, Michael Crabtree. Yeah, she's
an athlete. And then, okay, I'm gonna what is this
amazing actress's name is a great golfer. Newton is her
last name. I'll think of her first name. But she's
a stick. We basically won because she was such a stick,
(07:26):
but still a win's win. I'm taking it.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, you're a huge You're a big We talked about
this at lunch. You're a big baseball fan. Love baseball,
you love Did you play it?
Speaker 4 (07:34):
I did? I played it up until coaches started saying
you missed practice for your auditions, and they kicked me
off the team.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, Walker Bueller just went to practice. You had audition,
Walker Buller went to practice.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
I had auditions. I could have been Walker Bueler.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
You were on NBA commercials years and years and years ago.
NBA is fantastic. Yes, it's hard to explain to people
because people think Los Angeles it's the beat. They don't
care about sports, right. The Lakers, when they're hot, will
always be number one. In the city, not the NFL,
not the Dodgers. Take people back. It's it's incredible to
the Magic Johnson. I mean, they're making movies about it.
(08:14):
Take them back to that.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
I don't even know where to begin. I mean, what
what Magic meant to this town When he arrived here,
it was like Santa Claus had arrived. And then he
lived up to it. What he did in that Game
six in Philadelphia, where he played all five positions.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Forty two point seventeen boards, he played center basically center.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
In his rookie year, you just can't believe. And then,
of course the style of play which has now you know,
been you know, every other team is adapted that run
and gun was not a thing.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
That's right, it was.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
It did not exists.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Amazing. There are athletes, infrequent, but athletes. If you go
back and look at Magic's rookie year, second year rob
like most of that stuff, Like Jim Brown, people say
could play today, Magic would still be today. If you
look at it, usually things don't age well. Bed best
(09:17):
player in the league, said, Michael and Magic are much closer.
Michael got the nine finals. No, no, no, Magic did
Michael got the six The Blackhawks are in the Western
Conference in hockey, if the Bulls were in the Western Conference,
Michael goes to a final or two and loses to
Bird or Isaiah and we get out over this six
for six thy Magic was in the finals nine times
(09:39):
and retired early.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Yes, he could have played as long as you wanted to.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Have You ever been to an event with Magic in
LA When Magic enters Staples, they stand, Yes, they do
to this day.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
They do it all over the world. I've seen him
in Europe and I mean, first of all, he can't hide.
There's no one who looks like him. Everybody knows looks
like smile, big smile, smile, the energy. I mean, my
two guys growing up were Magic and Sugar Ray Leonard.
Oh yeah, those are the guys I never bet against.
They were the classiest, best in class. And to have
(10:14):
had floor seats for that run and even into Shaq
and Kobe, we'll never see anything like it again.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Has there ever been a sports movie you wanted to
be in or you were offered and didn't you have
a favorite sports movie?
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Well, what I'm what I want to do is I
want to remake the all time greatest sports movie. I'm
too old for it now. Brian's song, Oh God, I cry.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
I watched that as a kid. We all cried to it.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Okay, this is my philosophy. Is you ask any boomer male.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
It was the first sports movie. It was the first
movie we cried to.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Right, I'm not crazy.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
No, Brian's song is. In fact, I not joking. I
looked it up on YouTube a month ago. I was
sitting there getting nostalgic. These guys are looking at me.
They're all on their third You have no idea what
brian song is.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
For all listeners' viewers out there, find it. I think
it's on YouTube. Yeah, it is James Cohn.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
At the Peak, Billy d will Williams at the Peaks,
Gail Sailors, Brian Piccolo.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
It's Gail Sayers, Brian Piccolo, Chicago Bears it is. It's
by far, hands down, not close, the best sports movie
ever made.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
I'm not arguing a month ago. I looked it up.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
By the way, this is a man who makes his
living being a contrarian, and he is not arguing. That
is an I'm glad. I feel like I've accomplished something here.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I mean, I like Hoosiers, but I didn't cry. The
natural I liked it. Miracle I think is great. Yes, Miracle,
you've got one, Rudy, They're all good. None of them
made me cry. That's not that's you know. Okay, you've
aged well. Rob Actor Filmmaker podcast host the Floor Season
(11:55):
two premiere on September twenty fifth, here on Fox and
what a pleasure see again.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Man, Yes, I love coming here and talk at sports you.
It's just the best.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
One of the great lunches of all time. My wife's
rarely jealous of me. I mentioned multiple times. Guess we
had lunch today with shut up? Yeah, Rob Low.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
We'll do it again and more lections to come.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
This is the Herd Best. To be sure to catch
live editions of The Herd weekdays and noon eastern non
am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio FS one and the
iHeartRadio app. This is the Herd Best.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
So Mike Krzyzewski was at Duke for forty two years,
five national championships, three time Olympic gold medal winner as
team's USA's head coach, the greatest college basketball coach along
with John Wooden of all time. He's joining US live,
So you know, Mike, what's interesting even though you often
(12:51):
had some of the same stars. It does feel like
every Olympic experience, even if you have Lebron on two teams,
feels different to me. You have different chemistry, different expectations,
different playing time. Take me back to your first Olympic
experience and to your last and the different challenges you
(13:13):
sometimes face even though you have a wonderful roster.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
Well, the main challenge you have to face is the
fact that you're playing a game that's different. You know,
it's still called basketball, but it's FEBA basketball, the Federation
of International Associations of Basketball and a different ball, two
more panels administered just a little bit differently with referees,
(13:42):
and so you are the team that's adjusting the international teams,
that's how they play. So there's a period of adjustment
that needs to be made. And the fact that one
of the main things is a lot of the teams
that you play against they have the same core people
over and over. Like the two top teams that we
(14:05):
played against during my time were Spain and Argentina by
far and same guys. It was like a brotherhood for them,
and now it was I mean the Gasols played forever.
Genoble skull on all these guys for Argentina. And so
what Jerry Colangelo tried to do when he took over
(14:26):
USA basketball in two thousand and five was to create
some level of continuity. So I became the first national coach.
That means you had a four year run, just like
Steve Kerr has a four year run. And that created continuity,
and then could you get some of the same players.
So in eight with the Redeemed team, five of those
(14:49):
players ended up being on the London team. In twelve
and five players from our World championship team in Istanbul
also came. So I had ten players who understood foba,
understood foba and that helps, and that's what's helping Steve Kerr.
(15:10):
Right now, you have Kevin durant Is going for his
fourth gold medal, Lebron going for his third. You have guys,
you know Curry. A lot of people said he's going
for his first goal, but he has two goals. He
won the World Championship in ten and in fourteen, So
he understands FOBA, and so does Anthony Davis. The veterans
(15:34):
on that team, and a couple of the guys who
played for coach Popovich for pop In winning in Tokyo.
Are on the team, so there's some level of familiar
familiarity Colin, and that is really very very important.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
So I think it's difficult. It's only forty minutes long.
Everybody's great. Steve Kerry the other day literally apologize for
not getting Jason Tatum in. But sometimes it's matchups. Sometimes
I felt bad for him because I'm thinking to myself, well,
right now Derek White and Drew Holliday work in this rotation.
Is did you find when you were coaching you wouldn't
(16:15):
do this at Duke, but you were looking down the
bench thinking I got this great all star, I got
to get him in the game. Did you coach sometimes
like that?
Speaker 5 (16:24):
You know, I'll be honest with you, I did not.
But when we met as a team and developed standards
of how we were going to live together, and we
were bonded by the fact that we wanted to win
the goal and really the only question that will be
asked of a player, say I played in the Olympics
(16:47):
in twenty twenty four, They're going to ask did you win.
They're not going to ask how much you played, how
much you scored? Did you win? And so I asked
each of the guys to give me their word, to
pledge that they would do anything that was needed less minutes,
more minutes not playing playing to win the gold medal,
(17:10):
and they all did. And we tried to come up
with a rotation of probably nine guys and maybe ten
and who started and to give some level of continuity.
And then a key thing in the real close games
was to have a closing unit in the last six
(17:31):
minutes or so that we're accustomed to playing with one
another that would be somewhat different from the starters. And
I tried to use that throughout and I never really
I didn't worry about the playing time of players because
they shouldn't be worried about it. They should only be
(17:54):
worried about one thing, and that's winning. And I think
this team has that mentality. And I can tell you
that the five teams side coach, all those guys were
terrific in handling that.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
So international you can't worry.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
About you cannot worry about playing time. You be worried
about defending the three and not committing too many team
files that give them free throws. And if we do
those two things, then we're going to win.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
International basketball has exploded. I can remember twenty five years
ago when people talked about international players, they were like, oh,
they're soft, Domestic players are tougher. Well, now we're adopting
and adapting to their game. I watch Wemby sometimes block
shots in the NBA with his elbow, do you remember,
(18:44):
I mean, it's insane. He doesn't look like any player
I've seen, even a chet Holmgren, who was terrific at
Gonzaga and Oka see doesn't really compare. Do you remember
the first time you heard about Wemby? I mean, what
have you? What do you make when you watch them?
Speaker 3 (18:59):
What?
Speaker 1 (18:59):
What was the first time when you heard about Wemby?
Speaker 5 (19:02):
Yeah, a few years ago when I had not seen
him yet. And then in seeing him for the first
time and where he's like maybe four or five inches
taller than go back, I said, oh my god. And
then he's dribbling the ball and shooting jump shots and
going behind his back. I said, all right, this is
(19:24):
there's nobody like this guy. Yeah, but you know, Colin,
one quarter of the NBA players are international players, and
that's only going to increase because the international players are
are taught differently. They're not in a scholastic and academic
(19:48):
environment that regulates how much they can practice, how much
they can play, So in some respects there they have
a greater continuity of being coached. And we need to
change in our country in men's college basketball and not
having twenty hours a week only of practice or four
(20:08):
hours a week during the summer, it's outdated. It's it's ridiculous,
and we need to have shot clocks in every state.
We need to play the game the same way. In
our country it's played in so many different ways, whereas
in the other countries, if you're in France, being Italy, whatever,
(20:30):
from a youngster until you're an adult, you play the
game the same way and you're accustomed to playing with
the shot clock.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
So a couple non Olympic things to discuss. I like
JJ Reddick. I think he's smart, I.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Think he's go do I I love him.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
He's curious, he's feisty, he's competitive, all the things that
make a great coach. Some have said he can be
a little arrogant. He can be, but some of the
great players and coaches have that there's a line between
that arrogance and confidence. When you hear that when you
hear the criticisms that he's a little air again. You know,
what do you make of that? Because I always thought
(21:09):
he was super confident, But I kind of think that's
his that's his DNA, that's his edge. What do you
make of those criticisms?
Speaker 5 (21:16):
Yeah, well, yeah, I don't pay any attention to him
because you know, we're dominated by social media, So who
is making the criticism? You know where? You know, opinions
are good, But where's the opinion coming from? Right, you know?
And what's the source for mej JJ is amazingly competitive
(21:41):
and is prepared as well as any player that I
coached at Duke. He's smart, he's confident, and he understands
the game, and having fifteen years of being a pro,
he has empathy for the guy trying to make it
when he's trying to make it you make and for
(22:01):
the veteran who is still trying to trying to make it.
He was never a superstar in the NBA, but he
was certainly a superstar in the National Player of the
Year when he played in college, So I think he
has empathy for what a roster would look like. He
certainly understands the pro game, and he desperately wants to
(22:24):
be a coach, and I think he surrounded himself up
to now. I don't know his entire staff with some
veteran coaches, which will that will help him, But I
I love him. I think he's terrific and I think
he can relate to his players at the best level.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, You've had such a great opportunity and have a
relationship with Lebron James, and I've said he reminds me
a bit of Tom Brady, where he's such an adult.
He has Tom and him have such deep respect for
the game itself, for the academic scholastic side, for the
(23:08):
training side. I want you to go back because you've
had a relationship with Lebron forever, and much like Wemby,
we don't get to see practice stuff. You got to
see practice stuff with Lebron. Take me to a moment.
Maybe it was Olympics, maybe it was high school when
you recruit all these guys from Zion to Lebron, the
(23:30):
Christian Latner, who I thought still one of the greatest
college basketball players I've ever seen. Do you remember the
first glimpses of Lebron and did you not only see
athleticism but just a different mindset. He was twenty going
on forty. Did you notice it immediately?
Speaker 5 (23:48):
I noticed him when I started coaching him, how smart
he was. You know, you're you're a little bit shocked
at the athleticism and just this amazing athlete that's there.
And then you add intelligence, then you add a command voice,
(24:11):
then you add leadership, and then you add something that
a lot of people don't have, and that's the will
to prepare to win. Everyone wants to win, not everyone
will pay the price every day every year to be
at their best before practice. I mean, he has the
(24:35):
same guy helping him for two decades. You know, he
stretches for over a half hour, and he preps his
body and while he's prepping his bodies, prepping his mind
and he's just so damn prepared. He and Kobe were
(24:56):
the two guys I thought, we're just of everyone in preparation, physical, mental,
you name it. And when they were on the court
at a practice or in a game, they wanted to
be the best all the time, all the time, and
(25:17):
they paid the price for it. And you know, we
for anyone who knocks Lebron in any way, they're just crazy.
Like you know, we're not going to see anybody like him.
He's one of a kind. Just what he's doing in
the Olympics, his verve, his demeanor, his attitude. I mean,
(25:40):
he helps his team by how he looks, not just
how he plays. I want to play with a guy
who looks like him, because there's hardly anybody who looks
like that. I mean facially, not just body wise. His
the face of a champion. This guy has that face
(26:00):
of a champion.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Finally, I know, you know, we would don't want to
build up Cooper Flagg too much, but I did watch him,
and he's a really he's a really interesting player. Yeah,
so for somebody that had never seen him play, obviously
he was very good, very early, and he's going to
be the number one, two or three pick and who
knows NBA. But if i'd never seen him play, I
(26:26):
want you forty two years at Duke, I've never seen
him play, and you tell me about what would I
expect going to see Cooper? What does he do in
your labyrinth of experience? What does he do that is unique?
Speaker 5 (26:41):
Well, it's something that a lot of players are not
doing right now. And he loves to not only play,
he loves to compete. I'm talking about love, you know,
like he you know, he doesn't care who's watching, he's playing.
He loves the game. And that's that's not found as
(27:05):
much like he plays the game because he loves it,
and he's an outstanding athlete. He's positionless, and he competes
like crazy. He's got a I don't know if I
haven't coached him, but watching him, he seems to me
has a temper or an anger, a competitive anger that
(27:31):
takes him to a whole another level. Like he he's
totally immersed in playing. And then he's extremely talented. He's
not just talent, he's extremely talented, but he has all
those intangibles that I've just said. And so if you
put that in an outstanding athlete, you're going to have
(27:53):
a very special basketball player. And this kid, hopefully he
stays healthy and can tinues to maintain that in this
world of now social media, and you know, I think
people can get to a player can get too caught
up and all that and and what other people think
(28:14):
of them. Forget it. Forget it's what who what you
think of you, and what your coaches think of you,
and just be stay in that lane and keep that passion,
and this kid's going to be very very special.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
You know, I was finally I was thinking about this.
I've called her Taylor Swift in tennis shoes. Is what
I call Caitlyn Clark is that I knew she was
talented years ago, and then all of a sudden, Taylor
Swift does the ears to her and you can't get tickets.
She sells out Sofi Stadium seven seven nights in a row.
(28:51):
Everybody in LA went to it. And I watched Caitlyn
Clark a couple of years ago, and I'm like, oh,
she's fun to watch, and it is a is a
tsunamy of basketball. Were even you taken back? First of all,
she's very good, but were you taken back by what
she's done to women's basketball, because I it's got a
(29:12):
Taylor Swiftfield coach. It's like taking over the country.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
Well it does, and I think also it's the moment
to take it over. You know, women's basketball. It's terrific
and it's continued to progress, and all of a sudden,
now it seems this opening for her and it's like
(29:40):
it meshes and you know, the cool thing, one of
the cool things about her is that she was at
Iowa for a career, so she became like a cult
hero there. Yeah, so she was it was like an
off Broadway thing, you know, where she was accustomed to
the crowds and whatever. And she she handles it so well.
(30:05):
And she had like about a ten game adjustment in
the w n B A and now she's going crazy
there also. You know what she is, She's genuine and
I think her knowledge, her feel for the game. I
think the best thing she does is pass.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yes, yes, great passer.
Speaker 5 (30:26):
She's an amazing passer, and she sees things. I mean,
everyone talks about her shooting and her scoring, and obviously
she does that really well, but she makes teammates better.
And putting her on a w NBA team where you
have you know, adults, you have you have older players
(30:48):
and really talented players, you're going to see her talents
even more. And I think you're continuing to see it,
and she's going to be one of our great American players.
I know some people are angry about her not being
on the Olympic team, and the timing wasn't right yet,
(31:09):
you know, but certainly she'll be long there. And it's
kind of like in two thousand and eight, Kevin Durant
was on our select team and he almost we almost
picked him for the Redeemed team. And then he was
on the World Championship in twenty ten and let us
(31:31):
since he averaged thirty three points a game in the
medal round and then he took off. I think that
trajectory will be there for Caitlin. I really admire how
she's handled everything and she's won over the people competing
against her. They see that she's tough, she can handle it.
(31:58):
But I love her past. I think passing has become
a little bit of a lost art with all the
ball handling drills and whatever, and she sees things that
most players do not see.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Forty two years, five championships, three time Olympic gold medal
winning coach, the great Mike Kryshewski. You look great by
the way you're obviously you're you're doing something right. You're
happy and joyful because you look fantastic. You don't have
to be on the recruiting trail twenty four to seven
that you probably sleep now occasionally, right.
Speaker 5 (32:31):
That helps the recruiting trail. It's not the one I
want to be on a new one. No, I'm really lucky.
I do. I consult for the NBA. Now I speak
a lot. I still work at Duke coming my conference,
my conference from it, and I got ten grand kids
that live within ten minutes of me, so I'm busy
(32:53):
all the time.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Wow, that's a good life, great senior coach, Thank you
so much.
Speaker 5 (32:57):
Yeah, good being on.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
This is Heard best of one more Heard. The Herd
streams twenty four hours a day, seven days a week
within the iHeartRadio app. Search Herd to listen live or
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Speaker 1 (33:10):
Look at this guy, looks like you just got nine
holes to Aren't you a li I mean it went
to overtime? Aren't you a little beat up this morning? Kirk?
Speaker 4 (33:19):
A little?
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Oh? I definitely am. I got home about two thirty
in the morning. It was a long night, but a
fun night. And now we've got a long weekend to
rest up, and I'll be posted up with my couch
watching everybody else play football.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Do quarterbacks get into zones?
Speaker 3 (33:36):
I think you certainly can get to a place where
you feel like the game slows down and you've got
good anticipation. I think that for me. What troubled me
to start the year was I didn't feel like I
had that anticipation or that sense of where things were going.
And each week I've improved, and then I felt like
last night our offense and my own play kind of
took a big jump forward. Where I was anticipating better.
(33:58):
I was playing fast, quick, but I wasn't in a hurry,
and that's really where you want to be all the time.
But it's just taken me a few weeks to get there,
and now the challenges can we sustain over the next
few months.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
You're on a very young offense, Drake London, Kyle Pitts, Bijon,
these are kids you're like a coach. Is that hard?
Is it refreshing? How does that land for you?
Speaker 3 (34:21):
I enjoy it. I enjoyed it. I think it gives
me a chance to assert myself more as a leader.
When I was in Washington, I was playing with players
who were twice my age at those skilled positions, you know,
Vernon Davis, Pierre garcon De, Shaun Jackson. These guys had
double digit years in the league, and I was, you know,
in year four, just trying to figure it out and
hoping they weren't going to get mad at me. So
now as a thirteen year VET working with guys in
(34:42):
year two and three, it gives me a great chance
to be an encourager, to kind of help them hopefully
get to where they want to go and be a
part of that. So I enjoy that opportunity.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
There's not seven eight guys in the world right now
playing quarterback that could have done that last minute fourteen
note timeout. That is really hard. Take me to the
last minute fourteenth? Is there ramped up anxiety? What are
you looking for? Everybody was clearly on the same page.
Is that Do you get more focused in those little
micro moments?
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Well, I think you trust your training and you go
back to your process. You know, ku being the kicker,
you know that you have some grace as to how
far you need to go to get that field goal.
And then you know we're pretty well coached on you know,
those situations of when the ball's got to be out
of bounds or to the end zone and when you
know we have have to clock it. So that was
(35:38):
executed well. And to your point, the referees have gotten
a lot better, Yeah, allowing people to clock the ball quickly.
I think two or three years ago that ref might
have taken too long, we wouldn't have had a chance.
So kudos to them for kind of getting that dialed
in where he just touches the ball and enables us
to operate quickly.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
You know, I was looking at this your coaches, this
is crazy. Vey Shanahan, Lafleur, Mike McDaniel, Kevin Stefanski, Kevin O'Connor.
You have had smart dudes. You've probably and I think
Raheem Morris for a defensive coach is he was mcvay's buddy.
He's probably better than average for a defensive coach. Do
you did you take little bits and pieces out of
(36:17):
all of them? And I mean you could you say, yeah,
McVeigh showed me this, Kevin O'Connell, or if you've always
been kind of the same guy, have you borrowed things?
Do you take things when you have that many good
coaches around you.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
That's a great question. Many of them came from the
same tree, and so they were often in the same
room and as a result, we sort of speak the
same high level language with all of them. That being said,
it's been fascinating to see as they've gone their separate ways,
they've each kind of put their own spin on things.
And so I've gotten back with a Kevin O'Connell or
(36:50):
a Zach Robinson after being with Sean McVeigh and being
away from Sean for several years and then learning how
Sean and their group evolved it from where we were
when I with Sean has been really cool to see.
And then each person kind of puts their own creative
spin on it. And you know, now in Atlanta, we're
kind of trying to evolve into what the twenty twenty
(37:10):
four Falcons look like, which is, you know, different from
the twenty three Vikings, different from the twenty three Rams
that Zach Robinson was with, But keep trying to take
those steps and innovate. And then also as a copycat league,
so you try to steal from the good ideas you
see on tape. But I've been very fortunate to be
around a lot of great coaches. I throw Gary Kubiak
and Clint Kubiak and Rick Dennison into that list. Big
(37:31):
part of having success at the quarterback position is who
are your coaches? And for thirteen years I've been able
to be around a lot of good ones.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
You have a lot more records than people realize. Most
game winning drives in the history of the league in
a single season eight And you know I said this earlier.
You and Peyton Manning are very detailed, precise guys. You're smart.
You're detailed. Early in both of your careers. Sometimes instead
of the one o'clock game, you go to these primetime games.
You're sitting around all day in a hotel, and early
(37:58):
in your career, Andy's people said, well, curtin primetime games,
isn't the same quarterback? Well that's changed, and it changed
for Peyton. You go back to your first, second, third
year in the league, and now what have you done?
Because something's different. You're now one of the best in
the league. So was Peyton at the end. But in
the first couple of years there was a label Kirk Peyton.
(38:20):
They're precise, they're detailed. They don't like to be off
their you know, schedule. Was that true? What happened? What's
transformed for you?
Speaker 3 (38:27):
You know, it's hard to say. I think when you
beck and look at it, I had a couple of
clunkers in primetime when I was a young player, But
to be honest, if those games have been played at
noon or one o'clock. It probably would have been a
clunker anyways, because of how young of a player I was.
But the reality was I was playing on teams that
were five hundred teams, and in primetime we often got
scheduled to play defending Super Bowl champs and division champs
(38:50):
and you know, teams that were going to make deep
runs in the playoffs, and so it was unlikely we
were going to win going into the game, and then
when we lost, it became a you know's not great
in primetime, but if you really look at the production,
I was pretty much the same player from just a
statistical standpoint. In those primetime games, we just weren't winning.
And as of late, we've been able to kind of
(39:11):
turn the tide when it comes to finding away at
the end of the game to win. But if you know,
a call doesn't go away last night, or a break
doesn't go our away, you know, yes we lose, but
I don't walk away saying I didn't play well. I
just walk away saying we didn't do enough to win.
And I understand it's all about winning, but you know,
I wouldn't have changed my approach as to how I
played or how I prepared. So you know, as a quarterback,
(39:33):
you're gonna always kind of get too much praise, too
much criticism, and I think some of that showed up
with the primetime narrative. But I'm kind of on the
other side of it now, where now people view me as, oh,
you're playing well in primetime and I'm thinking, well, I'm
playing about the same. We're just winning, and so it
leads to a little more praise.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, clutch Kirk Cousins. By the way, about forty five
seconds left first game off of surgery, people said, look
at Kirk. He doesn't trust his body. Second game, everybody's like, Kirk, back,
we got forty seconds. But you've changed. I mean it
did look like that first game you were kind of
feeling your body out. How do you feel now? How
do you feel?
Speaker 3 (40:08):
You know, it had less to do with the achilles.
It had more to do with the fact that I
just hadn't played since Week eight of last year, and
I had won a red jersey in practice all these months,
and I didn't play in a preseason game and practice
oftentimes we were going against the twos and it was
just a lot of simulated things that weren't the real deal,
and so to be back in the fire for the
first time, I had some rusto to get off. And
(40:31):
I think each week, the last you know, several have
been an improvement, and I think last night we took
a big step forward. But now the challenges is can
we continue to maintain that standard as we move forward.
But I did feel a different level of anticipation and
playing fast last night. That is back to kind of
my old self. That I felt was we were on
(40:52):
our way there, but we hadn't really closed the gap
it felt until last night.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
By the way, Zach Robinson, maybe only throw fifty four
times next week, not fifty eight, five hundred and nine
yards four touchdowns. It's just it was remarkable and congratulations.
You've earned it. You not only deserve it for your career,
you've earned it, and I appreciate you doing this. Go
take an afternoon nap on us. We appreciate you, and
(41:17):
I will call thank you. Appreciate it you Bet Kirk Cousins.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
This is the herd, best of best
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