Coach Gottlieb gives credit to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for taking the NFL from a pro sports powerhouse and growing it into the Death Star that it is today, and ex[plains why the NCAA Tournament expanding to 76 teams isn't outrage worthy.
Then, he’s joined by UWGB Assistant Andy Ground to discuss what he’s learned in his 1st year as a DI hoops coach following 40-years in coaching, the biggest surprises, where he’s evolved the most this year with the Phoenix, his 35-year relationship with Doug, including coaching him in HS, and what it’s like coaching as an assistant for his former player.
Finally, 7-time MLB All-Star Matt Holliday discusses the Pirates and 19 yo budding star Konnor Griffin agreeing to a 9-year $140 million contract, if he would have taken the deal at 19, and his early MLB takes less than a month into the season.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
It's the Doug Olib Show.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
And I was.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
I was watching the NFL Draft while working last weekend,
and obviously, if you are a resident of Green Bay
or you were in and around the Foxford Valley last year,
you're like, hey, we had that that happened. I was here,
I went, and I was there when Mark Murphy announced
we were taking a wide receiver with our first round pick.
(00:34):
I remember where I was. And something else kind of
became obvious in my mind that people in my position
the last twenty some odd years don't do, which is
people don't credit the NFL. And I think you got
(00:55):
to credit Roger Goodell with just some absolutely brilliant business
moves that excuse me, at the time, I don't know
if people saw them becoming this successful. And last weekend
or last year's NFL draft on location is an absolute
(01:16):
stunning success because they list the I don't know, six
hundred thousand people in Green Bay last year and nine
hundred thousand people, and it becomes a lot like McDonald's,
you know, the McDonald's where it used to be, you know,
like twenty million served, over thirty million served at some point,
like McDonald what's the Seinfeld line. At some point, you're
just showing off. Look, we've made a lot of cheeseburgers.
(01:37):
Do you have to do the hundreds of millions and
millions served? So does it matter if it's six hundred
people in Green Bay or eight hundred thousand people in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
It doesn't. What does matter is.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Literally everything the NFL has done has been brilliant, and
you're like, what is that. Well, they expanded the schedule,
which get created more inventory, which created more which created
more TV partners right there on Netflix, Amazon, Peacock, as
well as NBC, ESPN, ABC, CBS, and Fox. Like they're
(02:16):
on every network and seemingly every streaming service. And it
doesn't whether waters down the product or not, is doesn't
seem to really be important. What is important is that
instead of having the old thought was you'd get more
value after just having a select one or two TV partners,
the NFL has destroyed that model and proven it to
(02:39):
be completely false. Now they're all paid because they all
you have to have the NFL. Nobody watches anything else.
Then they start moving the NFL Draft, which doesn't even
involve the game. There's nothing because the old the belief
has always been that the value to the NFL is
and that everybody gambles on the end. It's just like
(03:01):
the NCAA tournament, which we'll get to in a second,
but this is not a gambleable event. It's just calling names.
It does set the table for your fantasy football season.
It does set the table for that same sort of
drafting system, but there's no live game, and yet it's
incredibly popular. So when you watch these events and you
(03:21):
yearn for last year, like that was awesome that the
Packers got to host the NFL Draft, that the Steelers
got to host it this year, that it's moving and
it's instead think of it as this. The NFL is
a wildly successful business, and it's because people have had
the foresight to stretch out the season, play more games,
(03:43):
put them in foreign locations. Despite the fact that domestically
we were critical of them, those are a success too.
And oh yeah, by the way, those are new TV
windows which create new revenue streams, which creates more inventory
financially for TV and streaming services, which is more money
for the players and the owners and everything else. It's
brilliant business. So I thought this was kind of the
(04:09):
appropriate time to dig into the mind of a friend
but also a mentor and a colleague, so any ground
joins us for people who follow our basketball program. He was,
of course, my high school coach, went on to be
an elite coach in the junior college ranks in California
(04:32):
and joined US essentially a year ago and has been
probably the most important piece in the transformation of the
program because he's not only guided the defense, but also
guided me in terms of becoming a better coach. With
forty years or thirty twenty years you claim experience, it's
a long long time, but I am fascinated as you
(04:55):
kind of look back at the at a year because
you know you have you've gone to so many Division
on programs to study along your own path, but this
was your first chance to get a part of your
own program at the Division one level. What surprised you?
What did you not know that you now know a
(05:16):
year in?
Speaker 4 (05:19):
I would say that UH basketball is basketball at at
all the different levels. It's all the same x's and
o's for the most part. It's just the speed and
the size of the guys that are that as you
go to.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
From UH division division, from like the high school to
the JC too. It's just really maybe the quickness of
some of the guys and the variety of different styles
that you have to play against.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
But did you so you didn't know that?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Well? I assumed it.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
However, Uh, you know, when you're not you're not doing it,
You're you're you're watching.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yeah, I mean, like, I think that that's the thing
probably fans don't know the least, is that they don't
understand the difference in the low major, mid major, high major.
And it's like, when you're down on the court, you're like, oh,
well that's that's like a bigger version of what's at
the other end of the court.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
There is a you.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Walk in and the gist I think the expression is
there's sneakers squeak different and it does it really does happen.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
You didn't like to travel?
Speaker 1 (06:25):
I did not. That's the toughest part really for an
older guy sitting in.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Airports, uh for four hour delays and waiting for the
commercial lights to do I send.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
In all the things you have to deal with weather
in the Midwest.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Okay, So what was something that you you didn't know
that surprised you in a positive sense. You're like, oh,
I didn't. I had no idea or you didn't expect
because for me, obviously two I have two different years
of experience of it. And I thought you become you
(07:06):
become close for your staff. I had no idea the
amount of time you spend with your staff, and so
if everybody's not kind of getting along as one, it
just it just gets awkward. I've never it was really
interesting that I felt like you and keel Gans became
you guys are say, like the little threesome you and
(07:29):
Curse carry Rup. I thought that was something that I
didn't know could exist in a relationship, could be built
that quickly and uh and could be that type.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Well, we spend so much time together every day Monday
through Sunday, we're in the office breaking down film and.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
It was just a great relationship all the way around.
It seems like that we had been working together for
many years. Because that's the personalities of guys there. They
don't have there. You have a lot of sense of humility,
they don't have egos, They just we just want to
figure out the best way to attack things. Well.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
If the personality, though is it's a hard one to
figure out as a boss, to put together, right, absolutely,
because you can like different people, yes, but those people
don't necessarily work together.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Well.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Yes, but I think that you did a great job
of figuring out, uh, getting guys with not huge egos
that they're not going to be upset on jokes and
and we.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
All had great working relationships weight around a lot.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, but I don't think I knew that don't begin
with No, you wouldn't.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
However, that's something for you to look forward to as
you select staff, as.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
You move on. You got to have those guys that
that mesh together. Well, no, no question, no question.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Have you evolved at all on I mean, look, you're
defense nailed shoer, like grind it out sort of guy.
But I have noticed a little sort of twinkle in
your eye about offense and three point shooting, which is
it feels like there's a little evolution there. And I
don't I don't know if Kerry Rep's getting to you.
What's what's going on there? Well, maybe just the tat
(09:16):
of that.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
However, my head coach has a different little philosophy than me.
He loves guys that really shoot the ball well, and
so I have to be somewhat flexible in knowing what
he wants when we recruit guys, and I just want space.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
That's I want space, that's the that's the key.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
I still want to guard, be tough, knock the snot
out of people if they come across the lane, block
out hard. I want to be able to defend at
a high level.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Okay, so so let's let's let's discuss that because you
are you're a guy who believes that nobody guards anybody anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Correct. Yeah, it's it's pretty much close to that.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Okay. Is it the rules?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Is it the way we're coaching them? Why do you
why do you think it is a much more finessful game.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Well, it's partly the way the game is being played
by the three point line now and less post up
type plays. But it's also.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Coaches not demanding and on the defensive end, they're more
worried about getting shots and playing at a high pace.
A lot of there's not a lot of coaches I
see now that we're going to make guys play deep
into the shot clock because the players.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Don't like it. They don't want to move the ball
from side to side. They want to come down and
jack up post.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
The reason, you know, it's interesting that I do feel
and obviously we were a lot more conservative this year,
and we're we're sort of conservative the end of last year,
but we were very conservative in terms of the pace.
On the other hand, I thought we did we took
very very good shots considering what we had. But it
(10:57):
is interesting that I always I learned that watching Sean
Sutton take over for coach for my coach for coach Sutton,
where it's like every young coach makes the same mistake
where you're like, when.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I get in charge, we're gonna play faster.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
When I get in charge, what's going one hundred to night, this,
that the other thing? And then get and then you
get in there and you're like, yeah, we scored ninety,
they scored one hundred and ten, Like that was not fun.
We got to guard somebody. If we want to actually
win a basketball game.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I would say that the game, no matter what level
it is, it comes down to executing the fundamental game
both offensively offensively and if you do both well, got
a chance to win every game.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
You survived a Green Bay winter, how I was that
for you? And I mean, you gotta don't take off
the league coaching. I'm trying to be a nice guy.
And how was it for you, as somebody who has
spent the better part of your life in southern California?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
What was that like for you?
Speaker 1 (11:56):
It was a little shocking at first? What did happen?
Is it like everything you ads? I now know that
twenty degrees and above I can handle no problem. And
when it gets down to the single digits, that's a
little different. Is something to deal with. But as long
(12:19):
as you have a face mask and then you pull
your hoodie up over your head and you have a
big coat, you're fine.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Okay, we met you keep saying I was fourteen. You
forget I was a holdback.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
So I was fifty to fifteen. That was fifteen, and.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Maybe me and you think you might have turned sixteen.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
No, I did turn sixteen my freshman when you.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
I met you in the summer when you came into
the program right after eighth.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Grade, right, so that was almost so.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
That would have been hold on nineteen ninety one, nineteen
ninety one, summer ninety one, So thirty five years ago,
this summer's.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Out of pay dearly for thirty five.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
That's hold on. That's crazy. Thirty five years ago, this summer.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
That's like in it was it had to be end
of June, right, that's when the summer program would start,
would be right after you'd have like a week off
of now. It was right at the end of June,
right in the middle of June.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Middle June.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Yeah, yeah, Tiller, Jim and I knew nobody. I knew
no one except I met coach Tom McCluskey. So how
did you know Tom McCluskey, Because for people don't know,
he was the head coach at testin Coach Gwen was
the assistant coach and the JV head coach.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
So how did you know McCluskey.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I met coach McCluskey at saddleback. He had played the
previous year and he was leaving and I was coming in.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Wait, so but wait, if he was leaving you were
coming in, how did you add your path Your paths
crossed because.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
I sat out the year you sat out the ear yeah,
and he actually played that that year and then he
was going to Penn State and so I.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Would so that was like your red shirt ear.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Yeah, but I just was on my own. They didn't
do at the JC. They didn't have me practice with
the team. I just was just around and way.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
You were just a student, yep, just a student.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Wait wait what ears is nineteen eighty Wait wait sir,
just a student eighty eighty one?
Speaker 2 (14:19):
What's the what's you had to have a car?
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Where? Say? Yes?
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Like, what was the car?
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Chevy Vega? Chevy three cylinders because one went out?
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Okay, Chevy Vega three cylinders. What was your hair like then? Long?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Long and out and what and out out?
Speaker 1 (14:36):
You know?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Really?
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Yeah, you know, I know, I don't know. I've never
known you. You had the the Bruce Willis for a
long time. Yeah, right, and then and then and then
now you went kojak so uh So in nineteen eighty
you're driving in Chevy Vega in South.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Orange County, YEP. Living in Irvine, living in Irvine.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Driving down the mission vehicle home, going to school.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
You just go to school. Well, how do you back then?
How did you stay in basketball shape? How did you
get ready? If you're not practicing with that?
Speaker 4 (15:05):
My dad is a military guy, so I would go
out to the base gym and the marine base and
play with the marines every day right after school.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
I'd be in the gym from you know, three to
ten every night.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So you get done in eighty one or eighty two.
It saddle back.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
I played for it saddle back eighty one through eighty three.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Okay eighty one, So eighty eighty one was your Graycier year,
as I think they would they would they.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Would call that now when you played take less than
twelve units.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Yes, gray short year. So then you played two years,
then you went to Huaihilo White HeLa. What was that
experience like?
Speaker 4 (15:39):
It was a great experience because we got to play
against Patrick Ewing and Georgetown three different times. We played
them twice in a year, and then the next year
we played him, single played Louisville, played Creighton with Benoit Benjamin.
So we've met a lot of it. They've played like
about six Division one programs every year in the preseason.
(15:59):
Who is your coach Jimmy Yagi?
Speaker 1 (16:01):
What was he like? Jimmy Yaghi was a great, great
coaches player, not a demanding guy. Defensively, was kind of
an offensive guy and his assistant coach, Bill O'Rear was
the more defensive fact.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
What is what is Helo like? Where when I where is?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
It's on the Big Island and it rains there quite
a bit. Probably one of the most rain filled places
in the United States.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
So okay, so you get you get recruited to go there. Yeah,
you get on a plane.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Had you been to Hawaii before?
Speaker 1 (16:41):
No?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Never, and then so definitely have been to the Big Island. No,
So I'm sure you thought like, this is amazing. I'm
going to be on the beach on vacation for two
years playing hoop.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah, and then what was it really like?
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Well, it was that because uh, you know, you drive
thirty minutes and you're at the best beach in the world,
a Puna beach on the Kona side of the island.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
And a great story is is that obviously all these
basketball guys we come in and they take us there
the first day for the first weekend to a Poona
beach and the water is like an eighty two degrees.
It's just crystal clear, bright blue. But we got guys
from all over and none of them brought any suntan
(17:27):
locean so they're all we're there the all day, they're
all burnt up. Now I'm smarter than that because I
live in southern California.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Of course I put my sun block on.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Everybody else. Bert Dree gris.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Burnt couldn't walk the next day. It was a little
embarrassing for them.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Uh, you get done, you get done playing at Hilo.
Then what then I went to I had an opportunity
to play in Peru, South.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
America, and I went down there.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
So what was it? What was it? What was you
like back then?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
You know, because this is mid eighties, right, Yeah, how'd you?
I mean, like, you had an agent? How did you
communicate with the agent?
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Like?
Speaker 2 (18:12):
How does that even?
Speaker 1 (18:14):
So much?
Speaker 4 (18:14):
Now?
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Is is cell.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Phones and I'm trying to think if I had an
agent before cell phones. No, I I had a basketball
agent right then, the right when I began to get
a cell phone, and you know when I was, when
I was finishing up.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
So how did it? How did it work?
Speaker 4 (18:29):
There was a JC coach out in California, that's Jim White,
and I think he was the former coach at Harbor JC,
and he would put together this summer uh and bring
invite players up to his gym. And he had a
lot of connections throughout overseas, you know, at the lower
(18:52):
level leagues, and guys would come in and watch us
play and they would decide, oh, maybe this guy would
could fit type thing. And so I was one of
twelve Americans down there.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
So you got a Peru What was that like that
third world country?
Speaker 1 (19:12):
I lived in a hotel.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
I played for Central.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Naval and uh we we were on a military base
there and and back then the MAOIs terrorists had a
big organization. And one time we're playing in a game
and the bomb goes off and all the lights go off.
They blew up the electrical center for that part of
(19:38):
the town. Yeah, it was a little different, different thing.
But we also had you know, lots of we would
we flew a little propeller plane to Custco and to
play in some event, and it was it was a
unique experience.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Okay, And then where then I came back.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
And I.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
And I worked for the probation department for the Orange
County Department of Probation Department for a couple of years,
and then then I went back to Germany and eighty
nine when the wall came down.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
So you're working as a probation.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Officer, probation counselor, probation counselor. And then we just played
in men's leagues to stay in shape.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Yeah, I played in men's leagues and I was coaching
time I saw I always had a GM.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
So you went back to Germany. You went to Germany
when the wall came down? Did you go to East Germany?
Speaker 1 (20:31):
No?
Speaker 4 (20:31):
I was in West Germany. But the wall came down
that year that I was there, eighty nine.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
What was that experience like?
Speaker 1 (20:37):
It was? You know, the there was some celebration on
some side and then there was hesitation for a lot
on the west because now you have to inherit all
the issues and the problems of so but it was
a unique experience.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Okay, but give me one one story to paint the
picture of what was so unique about it at the moment.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Well, you had a lot of reunions of people that
haven't people that haven't seen their families in many years.
And I lived in a small town, a place called
Linz on Rhine and it's outside of bond.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
It was really nice to see people get back together
because they hadn't seen their relatives in so many years.
But it was just a different time in the world.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
So did you go play again or were you done
after that?
Speaker 1 (21:43):
No? I was done after that year.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
How'd you know you were done?
Speaker 1 (21:48):
I just thought that, you know, I was twenty eight.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
I just thought to myself, you know, it's time to
find a career, and I missed the comforts of the
United State. There's nothing better when you live in a
foreign country. You're dealing with a lot of different issues,
and you don't have the convenience of doing whatever you want,
whenever you want. You're in a foreign country. In the
(22:14):
United States, there's no better place to live.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
No.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
I think that every time I come back, every time
I travel abroad, or you travel anywhere, even semi like
even this year with the Virgin Islands.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I love the Virgin Islands. But man, yeah, no place
like home.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
No place, no place like home. Did you when did
you decide I want to be a coach?
Speaker 1 (22:38):
That's a good question.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
I was playing at the beach since in the summer
tournaments all the time down Laguna, and Tim O'Brien asked me.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
After nineteen when I came back from Peru. He asked me, Hey,
I need a coach, someone to coach my sophomore team.
He interested, and I said no. I eventually thought I
was going to go to law school. Now after forty years,
(23:12):
I reel stay.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
But he asked me, would you coach my sophomore team,
and he kept bothering me every time I'd see him
at the beach on the weekends, and I go, okay.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
But I don't know anything about coaching.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Was he a SONU?
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Then No, he was at Tussin.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
He was the head coach at Tussin And that was
nineteen eighty six, And so I did his sophomore team
that year, and we won the league and we had
some success and it was fun and I enjoyed working
with the young guys, and that's how I got into it.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Okay, So then what was the next year.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
The next year I helped out. I was working for
the Probation Department. I did the JV, helped I was
an assistant at the JV because I was also going
back to school to get my teaching credential. Se your vine.
So I was doing both. And then the next year
I did the JV and Tom McCluskey took over.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Wait, so you were you're working in the probation department.
Uh huh, you're coaching JV and you're going to UC.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Yes, loot it is. Yeah, that's the story of what
I've done my life.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Or three.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
You and me both up until this year. I had
no idea what time was like, Oh my gosh, I
have time. What do I do with mine?
Speaker 2 (24:31):
I have nothing.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
I don't know what to do with myself. Okay, So
McCluskey comes, he comes, and where you did you get
your teacher certificate?
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Certificate? Right?
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Then?
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Yeah? I got mine, got Mike.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
This is nineteen eighty This was eighty eighty eight.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
I think it's his. He gets the job, and Tim
O'Brien moves to Stancia. Tom McCluskey comes over. So I
coached one season with McCluskey. Yeah. Then I went to
Germany and I came back and he got me a
full time job teaching at Tustin And that's where I
ran into you a year later there you go there?
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Yeah uh.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
And then he leaves after my first year and he
goes to a junior college.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
He goes Golden It was a saddleback, I believe. For
a couple of years I was the assistant, and then.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
He goes to Golden West.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Then he goes to Golden West when the West.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Job because he was supposed to take over for a saddleback.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Yes, it never happened. Never happened.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
No, it did it never happened. That's right, that's the
classic brumble. Yeah, I recall the Brummel what we both
had played for at saddleback, but you still didn't really
you were coaching. But when did you decide you were like,
this is what I want to do. I this is
(25:52):
what gets me up in the morning.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
I think when I when I took over the job
at Tustin, Uh, I really started to enjoy being around
young guys and coaching and joking, being on being fair
but tough, and.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
I just enjoyed that.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
I enjoyed the practices every day and to this day
that's my most favorite thing.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Yeah, that's that's gonna be the hard thing when you
do whenever you do shut it down is like the
day to day.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
That's kind of like everything.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
It is and it's uh, I've been doing it forty years,
so that is going to be tough transition.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
I don't think i've asked you this bus it'd like
to work for your former player?
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Well, as you know, it's it's not. There's there's positives
and there's negatives. Positives are is that we have such
a great relationship where friends or buddies, but yet we
still I still have to get on you at.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
Times, no question, and so there's a fine line between
that and you're my boss, but you're also you're also
that little fifteen year old kid to me as well.
So you know, I'm constantly working that fine line. But
(27:21):
you and I have such a great relationship where I
can tell you the truth and you accept it. In
the one We're good?
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Yeah, are we?
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
You think we're good.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
That doesn't exact That's why I'm being fired. I don't
know if you remember, but we were walking out for
Kansas and I had a little moment where I was
just like, hey, man, like enjoy this. It wasn't a
super enjoyable coaching experience. I actually learned a ton in
(27:54):
what I think you can accomplish and reaffirmed some some
of the stuff we talked about beforehand, which we get
into in one second. But what was that like for
you know, a lifer, junior college guy finally be in
Division One. You walk out in your first game is
against Kansas in fall Downfield House.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Oh it was.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
It was a great experience to warm up the crowd,
you know, which you realize is that you really can't
coach your guys when the fans are so loud, and
when even during the huddles they're so loud they can
barely hear you. And what a huge advantage it is
(28:36):
for that for that program.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
And obviously just the size and the athleticism quickness of
their type of.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Players, plus that place just reeks of history, you know,
just to walk in. Wilt Chamberlain played here, just experience.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
To walk in, and they actually sit on the.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Sideline in terms of building a team. And I do
think that junior college guys are going to be successful
at this by more so than the guys that have
been Division one coaches for a long time. I think
there's a certain element of European basketball in terms of getting.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
To be a team in a short period of time.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Part of you know, as you know, in terms of
our roster construction, I'm torn because we got so much
out of guys that had come back for a second year,
and they were much tighter in itIt group.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
They also knew what we were doing.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Even though they were retaught and refined, they still had
a really good feel for the concepts that we had placed,
especially offensively in the first year. How do you construct
a team when every year you're ten new guys, nine
new guys.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Well, this is what you guys are dealing with now
at the Division one levels would junior college guys have done.
Every year you have a new team. However, we our
rules were such where you could start working with them
the day school started during your class period, and your
class periods two or three hours every day, so you
would get to work with them early.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
It's very difficult to be able to get the amount
of work needed to be really good with a brand
new group. You know, when you're doing the fundamentals daily.
You have to break it down from the fundamentals of
the game at the very start, and you have to
build from there to build whatever you're doing, both offensively etively.
(30:33):
It's a tough at this level because you have those
four hours a week and you're trying to get everything in.
So you're not going to be great early, especially when
you have a brand new group every year. So the
important thing is it's like you had four or five
guys back from last year and now, so now you're
(30:53):
building on now this year you have four or five
guys back. Those guys will help the new guys just
based on just the drillage, just the fundamentals of what
you're doing. They can just mirror what they're doing and
that will help. So it's always good to have a
nucleus back of four or five guys every.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Year if you can.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
If you could make the rules, how would you have
it with transfers and to to sit out? You can
transfer whenever you want transfer once? What would the rules
be if you were in charge?
Speaker 4 (31:31):
I would I would I would say you're allowed one
transfer a year because you're you're what you're losing, you're
what you're really cheating. I know that the student athletes
are getting money, and that's the that's the big thing.
But you're really cheating the student athlete out of the
experience of being in college and being with a group
(31:51):
of guys for two, three, four years, and those are
the guys that you remember for the rest of your life.
Those are your buddy. Now it's here. You're moving year
to year to year just to chase money. And I
understand getting money. I understand that that's important because there's
if they're smart, they'll be set up for their future
(32:12):
if they're able to invest that money and be smart
with it. But let's face it, they're eighteen, nineteen, twenty
years old, that money's going to be.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Gone now that I had to us with Jamie Dixon
a couple of nights ago, and he said, do you
think they'll be better off.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
After they're after their college career is over?
Speaker 3 (32:35):
And we all came to the conclusion now.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
Fortunately, because they don't they don't teach financial literacy in
any schools unless you're in that particular field when you
go into college. Right, so they think that money is
so much money it's going to last forever.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
They're going to blow right through them. They're going to
go get a new ar chains, new shoes, and unfortunately
that's not the smart thing to do.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
No, it's like tail as old as time, right, I mean,
and who among us hasn't first time you got it,
first time I got a check?
Speaker 1 (33:11):
And it's right, totally understandable.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
When did you switch from being a Santana guy to
being a country guy?
Speaker 2 (33:19):
And when did that happen?
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Probably about Santana was just one of many artists.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
No no, no, no, that's not you're not. No, you
were he was everything you had that Honda Civic hatchback,
black Honda Civic hatchback and you were you rolling your
ex Yeah, oh that was that was a fun little
car and you were you were like mister Santana.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Like you get it was.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Remember Woody Harrelson's character in White Man can't jumpers, like
you can't hear Jimmy. That's how you were a Santana
Like you know, you don't understand, you can't hear this.
This is this is a genius at work. It is
it is, it really is. Well, when was the moment
when then you're like, you know what, now I'm I'm
I'm going to just be straight straight country.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
That's it. Well, that's a good question. I would say
probably as my As you age, you you start finding different.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
Things that you like and you enjoy. And when one artist,
you go from one artist you find.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Out what was your what was your gateway drug to country.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
Chris Stapleton And after that I started just you know,
looking at his history and what a songwriter he was
and and uh and from Pandora to go to different.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Songs and it is amazing, like how he was an
incredible songwriter and then hey, oh, by the way, he's
even better as a singer, Like how many how many
years was he writing songs when he should have been
recording those songs.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yes, And what you really think about is is how
great he really is to this day, and he probably
always was, and he just got better and better as
he was doing his songs.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
I would imagine, well also, and he got an opportunity.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
And yeah, the opportunity came and he seized it.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
So I'm driving in like a.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
It was.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
I think it was an Impala because Impola's are big
rent If you ever rented National, you're like, oh, yeah,
I know, the impoulos are good ones. And I'm listening
to Megan Trainor and she was talking about the exact
same thing. She was a singer songwriter, not for as
long as Chris Stapleton, but some really huge hits to
(35:37):
the singer songwriter and La Reid, who's one of the
biggest producers in Hollywood in music. She was playing I'm
going to Love You like I'm going to Lose You
for La Reach. She just had like one stanza of it,
and she would play everything on her ukulele and they would,
(35:58):
you know, yes, let's record, that's send this song to
hear whatever. So it was like a day long process
of La Reid keep pushing her off, and la Reid's
system was like, he wants you to play the entire song,
so she had to learn the whole song. She played
it for him and he's like, he's perfect, let's recorded,
and they were trying to decide what artist and he
said you right. So it's that one opportunity completely changed
(36:20):
your life. Well, it was the I'm listening to this,
there's this huge thunderstorm and I'm literally not concerned with
a tornado because I'm so intrigued by the story of
the opportunity. Yes, it's like the I remember where I was.
I was working at WWLS in Oklahoma City. It was
(36:44):
two thousand and it was two thousand and one, and
I got a call from do you know my buddy Brandon,
little guy Brandon Cristal. I'm sure you've seen seen him
with me before. We've our path across. He actually went
to Golden West and Brandon called me and he was
working for a golf digest, I think, but he was
(37:07):
at the X Games. Like you know, it's just such
as such so typical of him that like, what were
you doing at the X Game? It's just like just
hanging out right writing for golf digest. He just finds
a way into whatever the big event is.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
He's there.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
So he put me on the phone with a gentleman
named Dan Steer. Dan Steer was the new courting producer
for college basketball at ESPN, and he's like, yeah, I've
been kind of looking for your number. Nobody has it.
I was like, I don't have a cell phone. I
played overseas last year. He's like, well, I'd love to
have you up and U end up doing an audition
(37:44):
for him. And that's how I that's how my TV
career really started. It was all because of one phone
call from a friend. Same thing as the Megatrainier, same thing.
I'm sure at some point Chris Tableton, who is who
is the executive, was like, hey, why don't you record this?
You know, why don't you record the song?
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Opportunity is everything.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
And then but if you've never done any work, or
you've never prepared for that moment, that when you get
that opportunity, that's that's the different thing is I honestly
believe that if you continue to work hard, whatever you're doing,
whatever your passion is, as long as you continue to
put in the work, eventually you're going to get an
opportunity season.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
I will I will point out that we have the
fittest sorry senior citizens on the bench ever. But you
are a regimented guy. So so for people who don't know,
like what is your actual fitness because you don't have
to get into what you eat and how you sleep.
But you do ten thousand steps a day, you do
(38:50):
work out every day, Like what's the what's the actual
execution on a daily basis?
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Well, I do different things in the weight room every
day Monday through Sunday. I'll do two hundred push ups
every day. Started, you like.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Pop out of bed right to push ups right there,
or you always do them in the gym.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
No, I get a cup of coffee and then I
go to work and before we start, I go in
the weight room and I lift and I do the
push ups twenty at a.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Time throughout the periodically through the day, workout the workout.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Throughout the workout.
Speaker 4 (39:25):
So I'm going to try to get forty five to
an hour in there and then I try to get
ten thousand steps during the whenever I.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
So I lift for an hour a day.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
How long does it take you to get the steps?
And would you have more steps or less. If you
stood up, probably more steps. But as that old body
is breaking new yeap, just plodding along.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Mumbling yeah, too many three balls.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
As long as the right guys are shooting at.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
But they have to make them, every one of them, yes,
or they're a bad human beings. Absolutely for a clip. Well,
I just I wanted to thank you, uh on the record.
I don't know if you understand how much I want
to appreciate the sacrifice you make to join me here,
but also how much I learned on a daily basis,
(40:29):
and and it really is it's an affirmation of of
what I've always noticed about you, is the incredible work ethic.
But it's really impressive to see somebody who you know,
we all have egos. You know you could you could
do my job, you could do it quite well, and
yet you sacrifice your ego for for my career and
(40:50):
for our program.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
I truly appreciated, appreciative of it.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
And then you know, just a guidance as a human being,
just as a solid dude.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
It's it means the world to me.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
And to have somebody who we've known each other this
long be a part of this process is so meaningful
because you just like you said you knew me when right, yep.
And the one thing that's interesting is, I don't know
if you remember we were at your house and Mission
Vieho with Darren Lax the palace. Right now, Here's here's
(41:26):
something you don't know. I actually monitored my house in Stillwater.
The palace. It was a little tip of the cap
to you. And just like that house, it was not
a palace.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Right.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Those wax would call it the mansion, manches, the manch,
the manch, the palace. But you you predicted that I
would be calling games during the NCAA term. You we
were watching it, but I would say it, here's what
I tell people all the time. And you tell me
if you knew me in high school? And he said,
(42:00):
what did you do with the next whatever profession of
your life? You're like, I was a broadcaster and a coach.
You're like, yep, absolutely about right.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
You had the gift of gab at the age of
fourteen fifteen.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Yes, but I think these are the only two things
I really can offer a society. Is I love basketball
and the manipulation of the whole and the motivation of
the kids.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Well, you're you're also a hell of a typer.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Do be telling the story. Let's tell the story. How
do you want to tell the story?
Speaker 1 (42:31):
As you know, I know the story. Why didn't you
tell it? Because you were in it? Involved in it.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
So, okay, here's the story. I was a high school
senior and I had to take typing. This is back
when I had to take typing. It was on computers.
And so we walk in and all the fellas were
in this one class. And by fellas I mean all
our basketball seniors. We all kind of jammed in this class.
And so it was there's four of us, myself, Raffie
(43:01):
La Lasarian who was a starter we do, and Sammy
Grease okay, and so we basically we had a United
Nations of a team.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
You know, it was.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
It was pretty cool. So probably you walk in.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
I remember walking in the first day and the teacher
is big and pregnant, and we were like, this is awesome.
She's going to be going on attorney leave. I wonder
who the long term sub is going to be.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
So I don't know.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Two weeks into the class, she's gone, and she's going
to be gone for the semester to have this.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
Baby and be back.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
So the soccer coach was our long term sub and
he was great. Like the basically was.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
Sammy Grease would make a food run every day at
that time, and we all pulled the money together and
he go because we were all low budget and we'd
get coupons whenever and he go bring back food. And
that was the soccer coach was. He was doing his
soccer thing. No one did any work, any work. So
where cruise along. We get to probably about the last
(44:05):
two weeks or two and a half weeks of the semester,
and you walk into class one day, do do in?
Speaker 2 (44:11):
There's the teacher. She's back.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Oh hold on, hold on, Betty Sue, you get six
months like, take take your time coming back. Nope, she's
a high achiever.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
She's back.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Turns out we got a final in typing.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Who knew?
Speaker 3 (44:27):
So there's two parts to the final in typing. The
first part is your raw score words per minute and
that one's simple. There's a programm you put in your
computer to type it. You're done, she comes around checks
your score. The second part to it is your actual form.
Uh oh, now we got a problem, right, So I
(44:49):
come up with the plan. I will own that it
was my plan. Of course, it was that Raffie la Lasarian,
who is an excellent student and had learned how to
type at some point during the semester when I had not,
was seated next to me, and so we switched the
type of the keyboard and monitors for each of ours.
(45:09):
So when I typed, it came up on his screen,
when he typed, it came up on my screen. So
when the teacher would come behind me, she would see
that I had the proper form. So I'm sitting there,
I got my line and I'm hitting. Meanwhile, his computer's
going BB.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Because that's what all the mistakes are. Mine looks absolutely perfect.
So she circles around and I have a's and a's
per minutent.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Now, apparently somebody in the class was not happy with
how we scan the system, and we were turned in,
we were rated out, and I think the punishment was
I was suspended for like the first half of a scrimmage.
And I did I think I got a C and.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Typing maybe B. I think you see, I got to
see and typing.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
That was all timer All the time. I thought it
was A I would have gotten away with it. Two
if it wasn't for those meddling kids. It was an
all timer.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
I can't tell your story because I don't think you
would be gainfully employed, but you know.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Of treatment.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
But it was a different time.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
It was a different era, and I don't think people
had a and appreciation for the difficulty in teaching that
level of student in testin California.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
Okay, can you, as somebody who's.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Been an educator for this long, can can you still
teach and discipline.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
Young men in high school boys and girls?
Speaker 3 (46:46):
Considering how I think how strict or sensitive a lot
of people are in how their child is taught or
disciplined from somebody who's not themselves, you can.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
You just have to be mindful. You have to be
very politically correct, you have to be neutral, and but
you have to be still demanding but fair and always
stick to your convictions of what's right and what's wrong
and go with that and let the chips fall where
(47:25):
they may.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
What's changed the most in the forty years of coaching.
Speaker 4 (47:30):
The kids are hyper sensitive now. They think when you're
correcting them, they think it's a personal attack. They think
you're criticizing them, even if you're not yelling and you're talking.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Don't like to be runned. But you know, why do you?
Why do you? Why is that we're just a little
soft in society. There's no.
Speaker 4 (47:57):
It's the everybody gets a trophy idtality.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
Here's let me flesh out a hypothesis here. Okay, I
think parents are more, not less involved than they used
to be. And I think that you told me a
long time ago. Parents are blinded by love, and some
are even more blind than others. And so I think
when you have more involved parents, which is actually a
(48:26):
good thing, right, there's like a legit support system for
a lot of these a lot of these kids that
I don't think others understand they exist. And many times
it's not the handler that it used to be. Sometimes
the mom and the dad are the handler because they
see ultimately now like gold and glory.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
But they are more involved.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
But the problem is that anytime well there's there's two
here's the societal problem. When I was a kid, if
I got in trouble in school and the teacher called home,
there was hell to pay for me. Now, if I
get in trouble in school and you call home, I
think most parents would Okay, what's this teacher's issue.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Yes, that's that's the Yes.
Speaker 3 (49:10):
So suddenly it becomes about the teacher and not about
son or daughter. Correct, So I think that's part of it.
But then I also think there is part of it
where when you have parental involvement and then they run
things back by their parents, their parents don't think they
can do anything wrong, and so though they have a
support system, that support system is really feeding something they
(49:33):
don't know anything about. No, No, you're right, trust me.
You know I have your best interest at heart when
you really need. Again, it's the same thing you need
when you talk to a parent. The parent says, just
do better, you know, and very few do that.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Yeah, I mean I have to agree with that one. No,
it's not everybody, but a big pot work portions. That's
probably correct. They're also you're also trying to you're not
letting your kid fail at all. You're not letting them
figure out things on their own. You're trying to do
everything for them.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Trying to control their success.
Speaker 4 (50:12):
And you got to let them fail a little bit.
You got to make them work. It helps in the
long run.
Speaker 3 (50:19):
Uh. You have said that when you do ultimately retire,
you're going to barbecue grill every day. Yes, the perfect
food like menu plate. I come to your house when
you spend a day grilling, is what.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
It's just gonna be. Probably steaking. Some carrots are steaking solid.
Speaker 3 (50:40):
And that actually does seem like you like I come over,
You're like, I may do the best thing.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Would you make like the three carrots, big steak?
Speaker 1 (50:47):
It's only going to be water, two things, no iced tea,
your Pernald Palmer, of course?
Speaker 2 (50:52):
Will you would make an armor poller for me? Are
you absolutely appreciate that right there? I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
That's in the fridge.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
Thanks for joining me, got it, buddy.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
So I'd leave you with this.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
This was a week where every Twitter thing, tough guy,
every writer, every probably radio host said what my initial
reaction would be, which is, expand the NCAA tournament.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
Everybody gets a participation trophy. Blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah. We have to protect the sixty four team field.
Speaker 3 (51:36):
Now, I've said this before on radio shows, on TV shows,
and I've said it on this podcast already, but I
will continue to do so. Anytime your local host says, well,
maybe there'll be fewer games, stop listening to that person.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
There's never going to be fewer NBA games.
Speaker 3 (51:53):
There's never gonna be fewer Major League Baseball games, there's
never going to be fewer NFL games. There's not gonna
be the fewer games in college football, college bat. No
one's ever doing less because everything costs more and the
only way to make more is to have more of
the event. It's not just oh, we want the NBA
to be better, so let's cut off ten games. Okay,
but they all have contracts with arenas for forty one
(52:15):
home nights plus preseason potentially postseason, and all the vendors
and all the restaurants. It all depends. It all depends
upon those forty one nights. It's not happening. Stop saying
stupid things. So first thing is we're not going back.
Second thing is it's been sixty eight for years, like oh,
at HOSTO would sixty fourty, It's still going to be
(52:35):
the same thing. They just have more play in games,
and I would I would contend that if you want
to know why, it's because the power for which is
really the power too. Conferences are very good poker players.
That's it, right, What has happened with paying off of
(53:01):
these lawsuit, right, just so you understand what the schools
at the mid major level have done. There's a lawsuit
that is what I found out. What it is a billion,
two billion dollars whatever it is, I believe it's like
a billion basically a sixty to forty ratio. The mid
(53:21):
major low majors are paying off this bill for name,
image and likeness that wasn't paid the student athletes for
fifteen years. Even though the low mid majors student athletes
don't have a name, image and likeness value. We're paying
off the bill that if anybody should be responsible for,
it's the high majors.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
So that's one part.
Speaker 3 (53:44):
Secondly, expanding the NCAA tournament, that's another part. Why are
they doing it, Well, they get more mid majors, maybe
one it's all going to be more high majors. Why
because they all need money and this is the way
to keep them happy so that for the next ten
years we still have an NCAA tournament. We still have
an NCAA. When I say the power to the SEC
(54:07):
and the Big ten are great poker players, that's because
they've bluffed people into believing that they can leave the
NCAA as organization and start some new organization on their own.
The expanding of the NCAA tournament much like the paying
off of this colossal amount of debt by lawsuits with.
Speaker 2 (54:26):
Nil.
Speaker 3 (54:27):
All of that is to keep the union, just like
the United States, to keep the union of the NCAA
schools intact. So if you don't like the expansion of
the play in games, you're allowed to not like it,
but you also would have run the risk of losing
Division one sports, specifically Division one basketball.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
With a fissure that could not be closed up
Speaker 1 (55:00):
The Bosna box
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
It's the Doug Olib Show.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
And I was.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
I was watching the NFL Draft while working last weekend,
and obviously, if you are a resident of Green Bay
or you were in and around the Foxford Valley last year,
you're like, hey, we had that that happened. I was here,
I went, and I was there when Mark Murphy announced
we were taking a wide receiver with our first round pick.
(00:34):
I remember where I was. And something else kind of
became obvious in my mind that people in my position
the last twenty some odd years don't do, which is
people don't credit the NFL. And I think you got
(00:55):
to credit Roger Goodell with just some absolutely brilliant business
moves that excuse me, at the time, I don't know
if people saw them becoming this successful. And last weekend
or last year's NFL draft on location is an absolute
(01:16):
stunning success because they list the I don't know, six
hundred thousand people in Green Bay last year and nine
hundred thousand people, and it becomes a lot like McDonald's,
you know, the McDonald's where it used to be, you know,
like twenty million served, over thirty million served at some point,
like McDonald what's the Seinfeld line. At some point, you're
just showing off. Look, we've made a lot of cheeseburgers.
(01:37):
Do you have to do the hundreds of millions and
millions served? So does it matter if it's six hundred
people in Green Bay or eight hundred thousand people in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
It doesn't. What does matter is.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Literally everything the NFL has done has been brilliant, and
you're like, what is that. Well, they expanded the schedule,
which get created more inventory, which created more which created
more TV partners right there on Netflix, Amazon, Peacock, as
well as NBC, ESPN, ABC, CBS, and Fox. Like they're
(02:16):
on every network and seemingly every streaming service. And it
doesn't whether waters down the product or not, is doesn't
seem to really be important. What is important is that
instead of having the old thought was you'd get more
value after just having a select one or two TV partners,
the NFL has destroyed that model and proven it to
(02:39):
be completely false. Now they're all paid because they all
you have to have the NFL. Nobody watches anything else.
Then they start moving the NFL Draft, which doesn't even
involve the game. There's nothing because the old the belief
has always been that the value to the NFL is
and that everybody gambles on the end. It's just like
(03:01):
the NCAA tournament, which we'll get to in a second,
but this is not a gambleable event. It's just calling names.
It does set the table for your fantasy football season.
It does set the table for that same sort of
drafting system, but there's no live game, and yet it's
incredibly popular. So when you watch these events and you
(03:21):
yearn for last year, like that was awesome that the
Packers got to host the NFL Draft, that the Steelers
got to host it this year, that it's moving and
it's instead think of it as this. The NFL is
a wildly successful business, and it's because people have had
the foresight to stretch out the season, play more games,
(03:43):
put them in foreign locations. Despite the fact that domestically
we were critical of them, those are a success too.
And oh yeah, by the way, those are new TV
windows which create new revenue streams, which creates more inventory
financially for TV and streaming services, which is more money
for the players and the owners and everything else. It's
brilliant business. So I thought this was kind of the
(04:09):
appropriate time to dig into the mind of a friend
but also a mentor and a colleague, so any ground
joins us for people who follow our basketball program. He was,
of course, my high school coach, went on to be
an elite coach in the junior college ranks in California
(04:32):
and joined US essentially a year ago and has been
probably the most important piece in the transformation of the
program because he's not only guided the defense, but also
guided me in terms of becoming a better coach. With
forty years or thirty twenty years you claim experience, it's
a long long time, but I am fascinated as you
(04:55):
kind of look back at the at a year because
you know you have you've gone to so many Division
on programs to study along your own path, but this
was your first chance to get a part of your
own program at the Division one level. What surprised you?
What did you not know that you now know a
(05:16):
year in?
Speaker 4 (05:19):
I would say that UH basketball is basketball at at
all the different levels. It's all the same x's and
o's for the most part. It's just the speed and
the size of the guys that are that as you
go to.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
From UH division division, from like the high school to
the JC too. It's just really maybe the quickness of
some of the guys and the variety of different styles
that you have to play against.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
But did you so you didn't know that?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Well? I assumed it.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
However, Uh, you know, when you're not you're not doing it,
You're you're you're watching.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yeah, I mean, like, I think that that's the thing
probably fans don't know the least, is that they don't
understand the difference in the low major, mid major, high major.
And it's like, when you're down on the court, you're like, oh,
well that's that's like a bigger version of what's at
the other end of the court.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
There is a you.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Walk in and the gist I think the expression is
there's sneakers squeak different and it does it really does happen.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
You didn't like to travel?
Speaker 1 (06:25):
I did not. That's the toughest part really for an
older guy sitting in.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Airports, uh for four hour delays and waiting for the
commercial lights to do I send.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
In all the things you have to deal with weather
in the Midwest.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Okay, So what was something that you you didn't know
that surprised you in a positive sense. You're like, oh,
I didn't. I had no idea or you didn't expect
because for me, obviously two I have two different years
of experience of it. And I thought you become you
(07:06):
become close for your staff. I had no idea the
amount of time you spend with your staff, and so
if everybody's not kind of getting along as one, it
just it just gets awkward. I've never it was really
interesting that I felt like you and keel Gans became
you guys are say, like the little threesome you and
(07:29):
Curse carry Rup. I thought that was something that I
didn't know could exist in a relationship, could be built
that quickly and uh and could be that type.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Well, we spend so much time together every day Monday
through Sunday, we're in the office breaking down film and.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
It was just a great relationship all the way around.
It seems like that we had been working together for
many years. Because that's the personalities of guys there. They
don't have there. You have a lot of sense of humility,
they don't have egos, They just we just want to
figure out the best way to attack things. Well.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
If the personality, though is it's a hard one to
figure out as a boss, to put together, right, absolutely,
because you can like different people, yes, but those people
don't necessarily work together.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Well.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Yes, but I think that you did a great job
of figuring out, uh, getting guys with not huge egos
that they're not going to be upset on jokes and
and we.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
All had great working relationships weight around a lot.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, but I don't think I knew that don't begin
with No, you wouldn't.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
However, that's something for you to look forward to as
you select staff, as.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
You move on. You got to have those guys that
that mesh together. Well, no, no question, no question.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Have you evolved at all on I mean, look, you're
defense nailed shoer, like grind it out sort of guy.
But I have noticed a little sort of twinkle in
your eye about offense and three point shooting, which is
it feels like there's a little evolution there. And I
don't I don't know if Kerry Rep's getting to you.
What's what's going on there? Well, maybe just the tat
(09:16):
of that.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
However, my head coach has a different little philosophy than me.
He loves guys that really shoot the ball well, and
so I have to be somewhat flexible in knowing what
he wants when we recruit guys, and I just want space.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
That's I want space, that's the that's the key.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
I still want to guard, be tough, knock the snot
out of people if they come across the lane, block
out hard. I want to be able to defend at
a high level.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Okay, so so let's let's let's discuss that because you
are you're a guy who believes that nobody guards anybody anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Correct. Yeah, it's it's pretty much close to that.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Okay. Is it the rules?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Is it the way we're coaching them? Why do you
why do you think it is a much more finessful game.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Well, it's partly the way the game is being played
by the three point line now and less post up
type plays. But it's also.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Coaches not demanding and on the defensive end, they're more
worried about getting shots and playing at a high pace.
A lot of there's not a lot of coaches I
see now that we're going to make guys play deep
into the shot clock because the players.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Don't like it. They don't want to move the ball
from side to side. They want to come down and
jack up post.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
The reason, you know, it's interesting that I do feel
and obviously we were a lot more conservative this year,
and we're we're sort of conservative the end of last year,
but we were very conservative in terms of the pace.
On the other hand, I thought we did we took
very very good shots considering what we had. But it
(10:57):
is interesting that I always I learned that watching Sean
Sutton take over for coach for my coach for coach Sutton,
where it's like every young coach makes the same mistake
where you're like, when.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I get in charge, we're gonna play faster.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
When I get in charge, what's going one hundred to night, this,
that the other thing? And then get and then you
get in there and you're like, yeah, we scored ninety,
they scored one hundred and ten, Like that was not fun.
We got to guard somebody. If we want to actually
win a basketball game.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I would say that the game, no matter what level
it is, it comes down to executing the fundamental game
both offensively offensively and if you do both well, got
a chance to win every game.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
You survived a Green Bay winter, how I was that
for you? And I mean, you gotta don't take off
the league coaching. I'm trying to be a nice guy.
And how was it for you, as somebody who has
spent the better part of your life in southern California?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
What was that like for you?
Speaker 1 (11:56):
It was a little shocking at first? What did happen?
Is it like everything you ads? I now know that
twenty degrees and above I can handle no problem. And
when it gets down to the single digits, that's a
little different. Is something to deal with. But as long
(12:19):
as you have a face mask and then you pull
your hoodie up over your head and you have a
big coat, you're fine.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Okay, we met you keep saying I was fourteen. You
forget I was a holdback.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
So I was fifty to fifteen. That was fifteen, and.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Maybe me and you think you might have turned sixteen.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
No, I did turn sixteen my freshman when you.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
I met you in the summer when you came into
the program right after eighth.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Grade, right, so that was almost so.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
That would have been hold on nineteen ninety one, nineteen
ninety one, summer ninety one, So thirty five years ago,
this summer's.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Out of pay dearly for thirty five.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
That's hold on. That's crazy. Thirty five years ago, this summer.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
That's like in it was it had to be end
of June, right, that's when the summer program would start,
would be right after you'd have like a week off
of now. It was right at the end of June,
right in the middle of June.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Middle June.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Yeah, yeah, Tiller, Jim and I knew nobody. I knew
no one except I met coach Tom McCluskey. So how
did you know Tom McCluskey, Because for people don't know,
he was the head coach at testin Coach Gwen was
the assistant coach and the JV head coach.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
So how did you know McCluskey.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I met coach McCluskey at saddleback. He had played the
previous year and he was leaving and I was coming in.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Wait, so but wait, if he was leaving you were
coming in, how did you add your path Your paths
crossed because.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
I sat out the year you sat out the ear yeah,
and he actually played that that year and then he
was going to Penn State and so I.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Would so that was like your red shirt ear.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Yeah, but I just was on my own. They didn't
do at the JC. They didn't have me practice with
the team. I just was just around and way.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
You were just a student, yep, just a student.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Wait wait what ears is nineteen eighty Wait wait sir,
just a student eighty eighty one?
Speaker 2 (14:19):
What's the what's you had to have a car?
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Where? Say? Yes?
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Like, what was the car?
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Chevy Vega? Chevy three cylinders because one went out?
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Okay, Chevy Vega three cylinders. What was your hair like then? Long?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Long and out and what and out out?
Speaker 1 (14:36):
You know?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Really?
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Yeah, you know, I know, I don't know. I've never
known you. You had the the Bruce Willis for a
long time. Yeah, right, and then and then and then
now you went kojak so uh So in nineteen eighty
you're driving in Chevy Vega in South.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Orange County, YEP. Living in Irvine, living in Irvine.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Driving down the mission vehicle home, going to school.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
You just go to school. Well, how do you back then?
How did you stay in basketball shape? How did you
get ready? If you're not practicing with that?
Speaker 4 (15:05):
My dad is a military guy, so I would go
out to the base gym and the marine base and
play with the marines every day right after school.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
I'd be in the gym from you know, three to
ten every night.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So you get done in eighty one or eighty two.
It saddle back.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
I played for it saddle back eighty one through eighty three.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Okay eighty one, So eighty eighty one was your Graycier year,
as I think they would they would they.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Would call that now when you played take less than
twelve units.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Yes, gray short year. So then you played two years,
then you went to Huaihilo White HeLa. What was that
experience like?
Speaker 4 (15:39):
It was a great experience because we got to play
against Patrick Ewing and Georgetown three different times. We played
them twice in a year, and then the next year
we played him, single played Louisville, played Creighton with Benoit Benjamin.
So we've met a lot of it. They've played like
about six Division one programs every year in the preseason.
(15:59):
Who is your coach Jimmy Yagi?
Speaker 1 (16:01):
What was he like? Jimmy Yaghi was a great, great
coaches player, not a demanding guy. Defensively, was kind of
an offensive guy and his assistant coach, Bill O'Rear was
the more defensive fact.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
What is what is Helo like? Where when I where is?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
It's on the Big Island and it rains there quite
a bit. Probably one of the most rain filled places
in the United States.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
So okay, so you get you get recruited to go there. Yeah,
you get on a plane.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Had you been to Hawaii before?
Speaker 1 (16:41):
No?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Never, and then so definitely have been to the Big Island. No,
So I'm sure you thought like, this is amazing. I'm
going to be on the beach on vacation for two
years playing hoop.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah, and then what was it really like?
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Well, it was that because uh, you know, you drive
thirty minutes and you're at the best beach in the world,
a Puna beach on the Kona side of the island.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
And a great story is is that obviously all these
basketball guys we come in and they take us there
the first day for the first weekend to a Poona
beach and the water is like an eighty two degrees.
It's just crystal clear, bright blue. But we got guys
from all over and none of them brought any suntan
(17:27):
locean so they're all we're there the all day, they're
all burnt up. Now I'm smarter than that because I
live in southern California.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Of course I put my sun block on.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Everybody else. Bert Dree gris.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Burnt couldn't walk the next day. It was a little
embarrassing for them.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Uh, you get done, you get done playing at Hilo.
Then what then I went to I had an opportunity
to play in Peru, South.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
America, and I went down there.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
So what was it? What was it? What was you
like back then?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
You know, because this is mid eighties, right, Yeah, how'd you?
I mean, like, you had an agent? How did you
communicate with the agent?
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Like?
Speaker 2 (18:12):
How does that even?
Speaker 1 (18:14):
So much?
Speaker 4 (18:14):
Now?
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Is is cell.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Phones and I'm trying to think if I had an
agent before cell phones. No, I I had a basketball
agent right then, the right when I began to get
a cell phone, and you know when I was, when
I was finishing up.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
So how did it? How did it work?
Speaker 4 (18:29):
There was a JC coach out in California, that's Jim White,
and I think he was the former coach at Harbor JC,
and he would put together this summer uh and bring
invite players up to his gym. And he had a
lot of connections throughout overseas, you know, at the lower
(18:52):
level leagues, and guys would come in and watch us
play and they would decide, oh, maybe this guy would
could fit type thing. And so I was one of
twelve Americans down there.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
So you got a Peru What was that like that
third world country?
Speaker 1 (19:12):
I lived in a hotel.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
I played for Central.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Naval and uh we we were on a military base
there and and back then the MAOIs terrorists had a
big organization. And one time we're playing in a game
and the bomb goes off and all the lights go off.
They blew up the electrical center for that part of
(19:38):
the town. Yeah, it was a little different, different thing.
But we also had you know, lots of we would
we flew a little propeller plane to Custco and to
play in some event, and it was it was a
unique experience.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Okay, And then where then I came back.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
And I.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
And I worked for the probation department for the Orange
County Department of Probation Department for a couple of years,
and then then I went back to Germany and eighty
nine when the wall came down.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
So you're working as a probation.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Officer, probation counselor, probation counselor. And then we just played
in men's leagues to stay in shape.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Yeah, I played in men's leagues and I was coaching
time I saw I always had a GM.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
So you went back to Germany. You went to Germany
when the wall came down? Did you go to East Germany?
Speaker 1 (20:31):
No?
Speaker 4 (20:31):
I was in West Germany. But the wall came down
that year that I was there, eighty nine.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
What was that experience like?
Speaker 1 (20:37):
It was? You know, the there was some celebration on
some side and then there was hesitation for a lot
on the west because now you have to inherit all
the issues and the problems of so but it was
a unique experience.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Okay, but give me one one story to paint the
picture of what was so unique about it at the moment.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Well, you had a lot of reunions of people that
haven't people that haven't seen their families in many years.
And I lived in a small town, a place called
Linz on Rhine and it's outside of bond.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
It was really nice to see people get back together
because they hadn't seen their relatives in so many years.
But it was just a different time in the world.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
So did you go play again or were you done
after that?
Speaker 1 (21:43):
No? I was done after that year.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
How'd you know you were done?
Speaker 1 (21:48):
I just thought that, you know, I was twenty eight.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
I just thought to myself, you know, it's time to
find a career, and I missed the comforts of the
United State. There's nothing better when you live in a
foreign country. You're dealing with a lot of different issues,
and you don't have the convenience of doing whatever you want,
whenever you want. You're in a foreign country. In the
(22:14):
United States, there's no better place to live.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
No.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
I think that every time I come back, every time
I travel abroad, or you travel anywhere, even semi like
even this year with the Virgin Islands.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I love the Virgin Islands. But man, yeah, no place
like home.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
No place, no place like home. Did you when did
you decide I want to be a coach?
Speaker 1 (22:38):
That's a good question.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
I was playing at the beach since in the summer
tournaments all the time down Laguna, and Tim O'Brien asked me.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
After nineteen when I came back from Peru. He asked me, Hey,
I need a coach, someone to coach my sophomore team.
He interested, and I said no. I eventually thought I
was going to go to law school. Now after forty years,
(23:12):
I reel stay.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
But he asked me, would you coach my sophomore team,
and he kept bothering me every time I'd see him
at the beach on the weekends, and I go, okay.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
But I don't know anything about coaching.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Was he a SONU?
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Then No, he was at Tussin.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
He was the head coach at Tussin And that was
nineteen eighty six, And so I did his sophomore team
that year, and we won the league and we had
some success and it was fun and I enjoyed working
with the young guys, and that's how I got into it.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Okay, So then what was the next year.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
The next year I helped out. I was working for
the Probation Department. I did the JV, helped I was
an assistant at the JV because I was also going
back to school to get my teaching credential. Se your vine.
So I was doing both. And then the next year
I did the JV and Tom McCluskey took over.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Wait, so you were you're working in the probation department.
Uh huh, you're coaching JV and you're going to UC.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Yes, loot it is. Yeah, that's the story of what
I've done my life.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Or three.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
You and me both up until this year. I had
no idea what time was like, Oh my gosh, I
have time. What do I do with mine?
Speaker 2 (24:31):
I have nothing.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
I don't know what to do with myself. Okay, So
McCluskey comes, he comes, and where you did you get
your teacher certificate?
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Certificate? Right?
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Then?
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Yeah? I got mine, got Mike.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
This is nineteen eighty This was eighty eighty eight.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
I think it's his. He gets the job, and Tim
O'Brien moves to Stancia. Tom McCluskey comes over. So I
coached one season with McCluskey. Yeah. Then I went to
Germany and I came back and he got me a
full time job teaching at Tustin And that's where I
ran into you a year later there you go there?
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Yeah uh.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
And then he leaves after my first year and he
goes to a junior college.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
He goes Golden It was a saddleback, I believe. For
a couple of years I was the assistant, and then.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
He goes to Golden West.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Then he goes to Golden West when the West.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Job because he was supposed to take over for a saddleback.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Yes, it never happened. Never happened.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
No, it did it never happened. That's right, that's the
classic brumble. Yeah, I recall the Brummel what we both
had played for at saddleback, but you still didn't really
you were coaching. But when did you decide you were like,
this is what I want to do. I this is
(25:52):
what gets me up in the morning.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
I think when I when I took over the job
at Tustin, Uh, I really started to enjoy being around
young guys and coaching and joking, being on being fair
but tough, and.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
I just enjoyed that.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
I enjoyed the practices every day and to this day
that's my most favorite thing.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Yeah, that's that's gonna be the hard thing when you
do whenever you do shut it down is like the
day to day.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
That's kind of like everything.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
It is and it's uh, I've been doing it forty years,
so that is going to be tough transition.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
I don't think i've asked you this bus it'd like
to work for your former player?
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Well, as you know, it's it's not. There's there's positives
and there's negatives. Positives are is that we have such
a great relationship where friends or buddies, but yet we
still I still have to get on you at.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
Times, no question, and so there's a fine line between
that and you're my boss, but you're also you're also
that little fifteen year old kid to me as well.
So you know, I'm constantly working that fine line. But
(27:21):
you and I have such a great relationship where I
can tell you the truth and you accept it. In
the one We're good?
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Yeah, are we?
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
You think we're good.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
That doesn't exact That's why I'm being fired. I don't
know if you remember, but we were walking out for
Kansas and I had a little moment where I was
just like, hey, man, like enjoy this. It wasn't a
super enjoyable coaching experience. I actually learned a ton in
(27:54):
what I think you can accomplish and reaffirmed some some
of the stuff we talked about beforehand, which we get
into in one second. But what was that like for
you know, a lifer, junior college guy finally be in
Division One. You walk out in your first game is
against Kansas in fall Downfield House.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Oh it was.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
It was a great experience to warm up the crowd,
you know, which you realize is that you really can't
coach your guys when the fans are so loud, and
when even during the huddles they're so loud they can
barely hear you. And what a huge advantage it is
(28:36):
for that for that program.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
And obviously just the size and the athleticism quickness of
their type of.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Players, plus that place just reeks of history, you know,
just to walk in. Wilt Chamberlain played here, just experience.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
To walk in, and they actually sit on the.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Sideline in terms of building a team. And I do
think that junior college guys are going to be successful
at this by more so than the guys that have
been Division one coaches for a long time. I think
there's a certain element of European basketball in terms of getting.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
To be a team in a short period of time.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Part of you know, as you know, in terms of
our roster construction, I'm torn because we got so much
out of guys that had come back for a second year,
and they were much tighter in itIt group.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
They also knew what we were doing.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Even though they were retaught and refined, they still had
a really good feel for the concepts that we had placed,
especially offensively in the first year. How do you construct
a team when every year you're ten new guys, nine
new guys.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Well, this is what you guys are dealing with now
at the Division one levels would junior college guys have done.
Every year you have a new team. However, we our
rules were such where you could start working with them
the day school started during your class period, and your
class periods two or three hours every day, so you
would get to work with them early.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
It's very difficult to be able to get the amount
of work needed to be really good with a brand
new group. You know, when you're doing the fundamentals daily.
You have to break it down from the fundamentals of
the game at the very start, and you have to
build from there to build whatever you're doing, both offensively etively.
(30:33):
It's a tough at this level because you have those
four hours a week and you're trying to get everything in.
So you're not going to be great early, especially when
you have a brand new group every year. So the
important thing is it's like you had four or five
guys back from last year and now, so now you're
(30:53):
building on now this year you have four or five
guys back. Those guys will help the new guys just
based on just the drillage, just the fundamentals of what
you're doing. They can just mirror what they're doing and
that will help. So it's always good to have a
nucleus back of four or five guys every.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Year if you can.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
If you could make the rules, how would you have
it with transfers and to to sit out? You can
transfer whenever you want transfer once? What would the rules
be if you were in charge?
Speaker 4 (31:31):
I would I would I would say you're allowed one
transfer a year because you're you're what you're losing, you're
what you're really cheating. I know that the student athletes
are getting money, and that's the that's the big thing.
But you're really cheating the student athlete out of the
experience of being in college and being with a group
(31:51):
of guys for two, three, four years, and those are
the guys that you remember for the rest of your life.
Those are your buddy. Now it's here. You're moving year
to year to year just to chase money. And I
understand getting money. I understand that that's important because there's
if they're smart, they'll be set up for their future
(32:12):
if they're able to invest that money and be smart
with it. But let's face it, they're eighteen, nineteen, twenty
years old, that money's going to be.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Gone now that I had to us with Jamie Dixon
a couple of nights ago, and he said, do you
think they'll be better off.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
After they're after their college career is over?
Speaker 3 (32:35):
And we all came to the conclusion now.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
Fortunately, because they don't they don't teach financial literacy in
any schools unless you're in that particular field when you
go into college. Right, so they think that money is
so much money it's going to last forever.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
They're going to blow right through them. They're going to
go get a new ar chains, new shoes, and unfortunately
that's not the smart thing to do.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
No, it's like tail as old as time, right, I mean,
and who among us hasn't first time you got it,
first time I got a check?
Speaker 1 (33:11):
And it's right, totally understandable.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
When did you switch from being a Santana guy to
being a country guy?
Speaker 2 (33:19):
And when did that happen?
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Probably about Santana was just one of many artists.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
No no, no, no, that's not you're not. No, you
were he was everything you had that Honda Civic hatchback,
black Honda Civic hatchback and you were you rolling your
ex Yeah, oh that was that was a fun little
car and you were you were like mister Santana.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Like you get it was.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Remember Woody Harrelson's character in White Man can't jumpers, like
you can't hear Jimmy. That's how you were a Santana
Like you know, you don't understand, you can't hear this.
This is this is a genius at work. It is
it is, it really is. Well, when was the moment
when then you're like, you know what, now I'm I'm
I'm going to just be straight straight country.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
That's it. Well, that's a good question. I would say
probably as my As you age, you you start finding different.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
Things that you like and you enjoy. And when one artist,
you go from one artist you find.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Out what was your what was your gateway drug to country.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
Chris Stapleton And after that I started just you know,
looking at his history and what a songwriter he was
and and uh and from Pandora to go to different.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Songs and it is amazing, like how he was an
incredible songwriter and then hey, oh, by the way, he's
even better as a singer, Like how many how many
years was he writing songs when he should have been
recording those songs.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yes, And what you really think about is is how
great he really is to this day, and he probably
always was, and he just got better and better as
he was doing his songs.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
I would imagine, well also, and he got an opportunity.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
And yeah, the opportunity came and he seized it.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
So I'm driving in like a.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
It was.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
I think it was an Impala because Impola's are big
rent If you ever rented National, you're like, oh, yeah,
I know, the impoulos are good ones. And I'm listening
to Megan Trainor and she was talking about the exact
same thing. She was a singer songwriter, not for as
long as Chris Stapleton, but some really huge hits to
(35:37):
the singer songwriter and La Reid, who's one of the
biggest producers in Hollywood in music. She was playing I'm
going to Love You like I'm going to Lose You
for La Reach. She just had like one stanza of it,
and she would play everything on her ukulele and they would,
(35:58):
you know, yes, let's record, that's send this song to
hear whatever. So it was like a day long process
of La Reid keep pushing her off, and la Reid's
system was like, he wants you to play the entire song,
so she had to learn the whole song. She played
it for him and he's like, he's perfect, let's recorded,
and they were trying to decide what artist and he
said you right. So it's that one opportunity completely changed
(36:20):
your life. Well, it was the I'm listening to this,
there's this huge thunderstorm and I'm literally not concerned with
a tornado because I'm so intrigued by the story of
the opportunity. Yes, it's like the I remember where I was.
I was working at WWLS in Oklahoma City. It was
(36:44):
two thousand and it was two thousand and one, and
I got a call from do you know my buddy Brandon,
little guy Brandon Cristal. I'm sure you've seen seen him
with me before. We've our path across. He actually went
to Golden West and Brandon called me and he was
working for a golf digest, I think, but he was
(37:07):
at the X Games. Like you know, it's just such
as such so typical of him that like, what were
you doing at the X Game? It's just like just
hanging out right writing for golf digest. He just finds
a way into whatever the big event is.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
He's there.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
So he put me on the phone with a gentleman
named Dan Steer. Dan Steer was the new courting producer
for college basketball at ESPN, and he's like, yeah, I've
been kind of looking for your number. Nobody has it.
I was like, I don't have a cell phone. I
played overseas last year. He's like, well, I'd love to
have you up and U end up doing an audition
(37:44):
for him. And that's how I that's how my TV
career really started. It was all because of one phone
call from a friend. Same thing as the Megatrainier, same thing.
I'm sure at some point Chris Tableton, who is who
is the executive, was like, hey, why don't you record this?
You know, why don't you record the song?
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Opportunity is everything.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
And then but if you've never done any work, or
you've never prepared for that moment, that when you get
that opportunity, that's that's the different thing is I honestly
believe that if you continue to work hard, whatever you're doing,
whatever your passion is, as long as you continue to
put in the work, eventually you're going to get an
opportunity season.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
I will I will point out that we have the
fittest sorry senior citizens on the bench ever. But you
are a regimented guy. So so for people who don't know,
like what is your actual fitness because you don't have
to get into what you eat and how you sleep.
But you do ten thousand steps a day, you do
(38:50):
work out every day, Like what's the what's the actual
execution on a daily basis?
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Well, I do different things in the weight room every
day Monday through Sunday. I'll do two hundred push ups
every day. Started, you like.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Pop out of bed right to push ups right there,
or you always do them in the gym.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
No, I get a cup of coffee and then I
go to work and before we start, I go in
the weight room and I lift and I do the
push ups twenty at a.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Time throughout the periodically through the day, workout the workout.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Throughout the workout.
Speaker 4 (39:25):
So I'm going to try to get forty five to
an hour in there and then I try to get
ten thousand steps during the whenever I.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
So I lift for an hour a day.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
How long does it take you to get the steps?
And would you have more steps or less. If you
stood up, probably more steps. But as that old body
is breaking new yeap, just plodding along.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Mumbling yeah, too many three balls.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
As long as the right guys are shooting at.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
But they have to make them, every one of them, yes,
or they're a bad human beings. Absolutely for a clip. Well,
I just I wanted to thank you, uh on the record.
I don't know if you understand how much I want
to appreciate the sacrifice you make to join me here,
but also how much I learned on a daily basis,
(40:29):
and and it really is it's an affirmation of of
what I've always noticed about you, is the incredible work ethic.
But it's really impressive to see somebody who you know,
we all have egos. You know you could you could
do my job, you could do it quite well, and
yet you sacrifice your ego for for my career and
(40:50):
for our program.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
I truly appreciated, appreciative of it.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
And then you know, just a guidance as a human being,
just as a solid dude.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
It's it means the world to me.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
And to have somebody who we've known each other this
long be a part of this process is so meaningful
because you just like you said you knew me when right, yep.
And the one thing that's interesting is, I don't know
if you remember we were at your house and Mission
Vieho with Darren Lax the palace. Right now, Here's here's
(41:26):
something you don't know. I actually monitored my house in Stillwater.
The palace. It was a little tip of the cap
to you. And just like that house, it was not
a palace.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Right.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Those wax would call it the mansion, manches, the manch,
the manch, the palace. But you you predicted that I
would be calling games during the NCAA term. You we
were watching it, but I would say it, here's what
I tell people all the time. And you tell me
if you knew me in high school? And he said,
(42:00):
what did you do with the next whatever profession of
your life? You're like, I was a broadcaster and a coach.
You're like, yep, absolutely about right.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
You had the gift of gab at the age of
fourteen fifteen.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Yes, but I think these are the only two things
I really can offer a society. Is I love basketball
and the manipulation of the whole and the motivation of
the kids.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Well, you're you're also a hell of a typer.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Do be telling the story. Let's tell the story. How
do you want to tell the story?
Speaker 1 (42:31):
As you know, I know the story. Why didn't you
tell it? Because you were in it? Involved in it.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
So, okay, here's the story. I was a high school
senior and I had to take typing. This is back
when I had to take typing. It was on computers.
And so we walk in and all the fellas were
in this one class. And by fellas I mean all
our basketball seniors. We all kind of jammed in this class.
And so it was there's four of us, myself, Raffie
(43:01):
La Lasarian who was a starter we do, and Sammy
Grease okay, and so we basically we had a United
Nations of a team.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
You know, it was.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
It was pretty cool. So probably you walk in.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
I remember walking in the first day and the teacher
is big and pregnant, and we were like, this is awesome.
She's going to be going on attorney leave. I wonder
who the long term sub is going to be.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
So I don't know.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Two weeks into the class, she's gone, and she's going
to be gone for the semester to have this.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
Baby and be back.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
So the soccer coach was our long term sub and
he was great. Like the basically was.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
Sammy Grease would make a food run every day at
that time, and we all pulled the money together and
he go because we were all low budget and we'd
get coupons whenever and he go bring back food. And
that was the soccer coach was. He was doing his
soccer thing. No one did any work, any work. So
where cruise along. We get to probably about the last
(44:05):
two weeks or two and a half weeks of the semester,
and you walk into class one day, do do in?
Speaker 2 (44:11):
There's the teacher. She's back.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Oh hold on, hold on, Betty Sue, you get six
months like, take take your time coming back. Nope, she's
a high achiever.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
She's back.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Turns out we got a final in typing.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Who knew?
Speaker 3 (44:27):
So there's two parts to the final in typing. The
first part is your raw score words per minute and
that one's simple. There's a programm you put in your
computer to type it. You're done, she comes around checks
your score. The second part to it is your actual form.
Uh oh, now we got a problem, right, So I
(44:49):
come up with the plan. I will own that it
was my plan. Of course, it was that Raffie la Lasarian,
who is an excellent student and had learned how to
type at some point during the semester when I had not,
was seated next to me, and so we switched the
type of the keyboard and monitors for each of ours.
(45:09):
So when I typed, it came up on his screen,
when he typed, it came up on my screen. So
when the teacher would come behind me, she would see
that I had the proper form. So I'm sitting there,
I got my line and I'm hitting. Meanwhile, his computer's
going BB.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Because that's what all the mistakes are. Mine looks absolutely perfect.
So she circles around and I have a's and a's
per minutent.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Now, apparently somebody in the class was not happy with
how we scan the system, and we were turned in,
we were rated out, and I think the punishment was
I was suspended for like the first half of a scrimmage.
And I did I think I got a C and.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Typing maybe B. I think you see, I got to
see and typing.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
That was all timer All the time. I thought it
was A I would have gotten away with it. Two
if it wasn't for those meddling kids. It was an
all timer.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
I can't tell your story because I don't think you
would be gainfully employed, but you know.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Of treatment.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
But it was a different time.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
It was a different era, and I don't think people
had a and appreciation for the difficulty in teaching that
level of student in testin California.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
Okay, can you, as somebody who's.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Been an educator for this long, can can you still
teach and discipline.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
Young men in high school boys and girls?
Speaker 3 (46:46):
Considering how I think how strict or sensitive a lot
of people are in how their child is taught or
disciplined from somebody who's not themselves, you can.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
You just have to be mindful. You have to be
very politically correct, you have to be neutral, and but
you have to be still demanding but fair and always
stick to your convictions of what's right and what's wrong
and go with that and let the chips fall where
(47:25):
they may.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
What's changed the most in the forty years of coaching.
Speaker 4 (47:30):
The kids are hyper sensitive now. They think when you're
correcting them, they think it's a personal attack. They think
you're criticizing them, even if you're not yelling and you're talking.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Don't like to be runned. But you know, why do you?
Why do you? Why is that we're just a little
soft in society. There's no.
Speaker 4 (47:57):
It's the everybody gets a trophy idtality.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
Here's let me flesh out a hypothesis here. Okay, I
think parents are more, not less involved than they used
to be. And I think that you told me a
long time ago. Parents are blinded by love, and some
are even more blind than others. And so I think
when you have more involved parents, which is actually a
(48:26):
good thing, right, there's like a legit support system for
a lot of these a lot of these kids that
I don't think others understand they exist. And many times
it's not the handler that it used to be. Sometimes
the mom and the dad are the handler because they
see ultimately now like gold and glory.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
But they are more involved.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
But the problem is that anytime well there's there's two
here's the societal problem. When I was a kid, if
I got in trouble in school and the teacher called home,
there was hell to pay for me. Now, if I
get in trouble in school and you call home, I
think most parents would Okay, what's this teacher's issue.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Yes, that's that's the Yes.
Speaker 3 (49:10):
So suddenly it becomes about the teacher and not about
son or daughter. Correct, So I think that's part of it.
But then I also think there is part of it
where when you have parental involvement and then they run
things back by their parents, their parents don't think they
can do anything wrong, and so though they have a
support system, that support system is really feeding something they
(49:33):
don't know anything about. No, No, you're right, trust me.
You know I have your best interest at heart when
you really need. Again, it's the same thing you need
when you talk to a parent. The parent says, just
do better, you know, and very few do that.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Yeah, I mean I have to agree with that one. No,
it's not everybody, but a big pot work portions. That's
probably correct. They're also you're also trying to you're not
letting your kid fail at all. You're not letting them
figure out things on their own. You're trying to do
everything for them.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Trying to control their success.
Speaker 4 (50:12):
And you got to let them fail a little bit.
You got to make them work. It helps in the
long run.
Speaker 3 (50:19):
Uh. You have said that when you do ultimately retire,
you're going to barbecue grill every day. Yes, the perfect
food like menu plate. I come to your house when
you spend a day grilling, is what.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
It's just gonna be. Probably steaking. Some carrots are steaking solid.
Speaker 3 (50:40):
And that actually does seem like you like I come over,
You're like, I may do the best thing.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Would you make like the three carrots, big steak?
Speaker 1 (50:47):
It's only going to be water, two things, no iced tea,
your Pernald Palmer, of course?
Speaker 2 (50:52):
Will you would make an armor poller for me? Are
you absolutely appreciate that right there? I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
That's in the fridge.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
Thanks for joining me, got it, buddy.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
So I'd leave you with this.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
This was a week where every Twitter thing, tough guy,
every writer, every probably radio host said what my initial
reaction would be, which is, expand the NCAA tournament.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
Everybody gets a participation trophy. Blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah. We have to protect the sixty four team field.
Speaker 3 (51:36):
Now, I've said this before on radio shows, on TV shows,
and I've said it on this podcast already, but I
will continue to do so. Anytime your local host says, well,
maybe there'll be fewer games, stop listening to that person.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
There's never going to be fewer NBA games.
Speaker 3 (51:53):
There's never gonna be fewer Major League Baseball games, there's
never going to be fewer NFL games. There's not gonna
be the fewer games in college football, college bat. No
one's ever doing less because everything costs more and the
only way to make more is to have more of
the event. It's not just oh, we want the NBA
to be better, so let's cut off ten games. Okay,
but they all have contracts with arenas for forty one
(52:15):
home nights plus preseason potentially postseason, and all the vendors
and all the restaurants. It all depends. It all depends
upon those forty one nights. It's not happening. Stop saying
stupid things. So first thing is we're not going back.
Second thing is it's been sixty eight for years, like oh,
at HOSTO would sixty fourty, It's still going to be
(52:35):
the same thing. They just have more play in games,
and I would I would contend that if you want
to know why, it's because the power for which is
really the power too. Conferences are very good poker players.
That's it, right, What has happened with paying off of
(53:01):
these lawsuit, right, just so you understand what the schools
at the mid major level have done. There's a lawsuit
that is what I found out. What it is a billion,
two billion dollars whatever it is, I believe it's like
a billion basically a sixty to forty ratio. The mid
(53:21):
major low majors are paying off this bill for name,
image and likeness that wasn't paid the student athletes for
fifteen years. Even though the low mid majors student athletes
don't have a name, image and likeness value. We're paying
off the bill that if anybody should be responsible for,
it's the high majors.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
So that's one part.
Speaker 3 (53:44):
Secondly, expanding the NCAA tournament, that's another part. Why are
they doing it, Well, they get more mid majors, maybe
one it's all going to be more high majors. Why
because they all need money and this is the way
to keep them happy so that for the next ten
years we still have an NCAA tournament. We still have
an NCAA. When I say the power to the SEC
(54:07):
and the Big ten are great poker players, that's because
they've bluffed people into believing that they can leave the
NCAA as organization and start some new organization on their own.
The expanding of the NCAA tournament much like the paying
off of this colossal amount of debt by lawsuits with.
Speaker 2 (54:26):
Nil.
Speaker 3 (54:27):
All of that is to keep the union, just like
the United States, to keep the union of the NCAA
schools intact. So if you don't like the expansion of
the play in games, you're allowed to not like it,
but you also would have run the risk of losing
Division one sports, specifically Division one basketball.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
With a fissure that could not be closed up
Speaker 1 (55:00):
The Bosna box
Host
Doug Gottlieb
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