July 7, 2022 • 38 mins
On this episode, KJ chops it up with Jared Effron and Griffin Taylor co-founders of The Program NYC, a basketball initiative that will bring top-tier coaching and basketball expertise to the city's youth. #allball
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is kJ Live with Chris Johnson, and Chris is
having conversations with influencers in the sports world and entertainment industry.
Now here's Chris Johnson. You're now tuned in to kJ Live.
(00:22):
Today's guest on the show two guys that have founded
a initiative based in the New York City area that
looks to bring back and restore the city as the
mecca of basketball. Let's bring getting Griffin Taylor and Jared
Fron of the program New York City. What's good, guys,
what's going on kJ? Good to be on here, man,
(00:43):
my pleasure. What's up kJ? Happy to be here, brob man,
everything is good. I'm joining the sum of those far fellas. Uh.
It's been a great summer. Just loved these finals that
just took place. Um, a lot of good basketball. I
don't know if you guys had a dog in the fight,
but it was nice to see the Warriors get back
to the their sales and uh and not got another championship.
(01:06):
Which quick thoughts on on the finals from both of you. Jared,
you go first? Oh man? Um, you know look, I
was secretly rooting for the Warriors. UM. I don't know
how secret was, but I was. I was just happy
to see Clay, Steph and Drake you know, do it
without Katie and remind everyone that they're not going anywhere.
(01:26):
So um, that was. It was fun to watch Steph,
you know, get his own Finals m v P. And
you know, he's top ten all time. I don't even
really think there's there's any question about it anymore. Okay, okay,
top too. I g what's your thoughts on the situation's
gonna go. I'm gonna go even more aggressive to try
to get the sound bite, and I'm gonna say he's
top five all time because he changed the game of basketball.
(01:52):
I don't pretend I got enough best friends for die
hard Warriors fans, so I don't pretend to be one.
But um yeah, an echo Jay's point. You know, as
you get older, uh and I'm certainly getting older, you
appreciate things more and more. And I think we're still
in this window of appreciating greatness with Staff and and
Clay and you know, I think it was just great
(02:13):
to see them add the legacy and Jonathan Cominga's got
New York ties. Uh, so so that was cool as well.
Uh And um yeah, no, it just you know, it was.
It was a great finals, and I think the Warriors
deserved it. No, I think they did. I think they
went out and they earned it. They definitely did. This team.
They weathered all those storms that they went through in
(02:34):
the last couple of seasons. Man. And really, just like Steph,
I mean, he's incredible to me because I just all
the guys I've ever seen play, I mean, just his
ability to maneuver thirty forty ft out, just the level
of comfort he has, you know, a half cord and
through the legs behind the back, I mean the handle
you know when he's off the bounce but forty ft away,
(02:54):
it's just like dagn It's I mean it's not only that,
like he's running off picks, you can't catch your breath
for one second, the shots going up, Like I mean
you literally what where? What do you want him to do? Pick? Exactly?
It's it's crazy too. Everyone talks about his shooting and
(03:15):
he's the greatest shooter of all time. He might have
the crazy him and Kyrie, he might have the craziest
handle in the NBA. And and like it's crazy that alone,
and then also right after they want to I can't remember,
as Mark Jackson or Van Gundy who said it, but
you know the fact that when Katie came there and
Steph said, you know, hey, man, you know you can
(03:36):
take the last shot. You know this can be your team.
You can do whatever to do to get these championships.
How many guys who are already top ten, top all
time at that point in their career would be willing
to do that. And I think this championship kind of
gives him those roses and people recognize that. So it
couldn't be happy to do, no doubt. Man, Man, you're
aw some basketball officiados. I love it. I let us
(03:58):
see it. Man. Let's fast forward and talk about why
you guys are here today, which is one of the
reasons I wanted to bring you on. Shout out to
Gay Pleasant for hooking this up, but I wanted to
get just to the core, uh, the motivation inspiration behind
the program New York City that you guys uh co founded, Right,
(04:19):
I want to I want you guys. You guys can go,
you know Jared the Then Griffin just kind of tell
me what the the mission we're at your core for
this program? What is it gonna solve what are you
gonna how are you gonna help? Yeah, I mean I
think that's a great question. kJ. Um. You know, look,
Griffin and I uh grew up playing in in the
(04:42):
rec league, UM New York City leagues when we were
you know, eight all the way to sixteen, um, and uh,
you know, we would battle against each other, and um,
we love the experience of being able to you know,
play play against other kids. But UM, I think we
felt even back then, not not that specifically me, I
(05:03):
definitely wasn't good enough Griffin at least want on to
have a D three college career, but um, there didn't
seem to be a place where, um there was kind
of like the central hub of basketball for New York,
right and in a city that claims to be the
mecca of the sport. Um, I kind of always felt
that that was crazy, that there was nothing where you
(05:25):
could just um, you know, be a part of this
great basketball culture, walk into a gym, get great instruction,
um have have you know, elite amenity is that kind
of stuff, and um, you know so so really with
the impetus of it was we thought like, hey, why
are all these New York kids who are super talented
(05:47):
like not staying around. Why are they leaving to go
to the i mgs of the world, to the Oak Kills, right, Um.
And the answer was like, there was nobody really doing
what we're trying to do on a large scale and
hasn't been um. And so we thought about this, you know,
years ago when we knew very little about the world,
(06:07):
and UM, you know, I got back together, you know,
coincidentally at a wedding last summer and still had the
same idea, and I realized that the hole in the
market was still there. I'm all that all that Griffin,
um continue to kind of like back that up. But
that I would say was the real start of of
where this this all began. Well, let's touch on that
for a second. Let's talk about that, because that's interesting
(06:30):
because there was a time when New York City was
the mecca and had all the players and you had
the guy they were there at the forefront of everything,
the moves, the style, everything was based out of New York. Now,
what identified a period of time that this that started
to dissipate or that sort of started to go away
Because I'm kind of confused. I always felt like, how
did them guys get so good in the first place,
(06:51):
How do you get to the Mardel? How did you
get like Ron Art? How do you get these guys
in the first place? You know what I'm saying? How
was it established? And then what happened? I guess if
you've got something for me on that, Yeah, yeah, no doubt.
So it's funny you said Lamar odom because an iconic
moment was when Lamar came to the Rutger the year
that jay Z had his team and the Rutger and
(07:12):
he did the sham God. Everybody knows what a legend
sham God is. Then did the tenth on the layoup
with jay Z and attendance with Lebron James standing up.
That's such a sick moment. That's and and I think
John Ran a couple of months ago did the same move,
laid it and then did the same dance as Lamar.
So you know that should tell you everything about New
York City basketball culture. Right rewind ten fifteen years from
(07:35):
that moment, and you got Chris Mullen and Mark Jackson.
We run fifteen twenty years from that, and you got
Dr J at the Rutger Um. New York had a
certain swagger. You turn on the Big East Tournament, more
than half the kids went to New York City High
School fifteen. So I mean you worked with with with
lab like you know years ago. UM. I think a
big reason why it was the Mecca was there was
(07:56):
two teams. There was Riverside and there was gall Shows
and everyone in the country knows at and you had
hundreds of kids vying for twenty spots. And if you
weren't on Riversider gauchos, you weren't. I don't know if
you can curse or not on podcasts A s H
I t UM. So I think what's happened in the
last ten twenty years. I think Jared brings up a
good point. One is there's just not that many nice
(08:17):
gyms in New York right. The ones that are out there,
they're only reserved for NBA players. UM. And then you
look at these other states that are catching up to
US Jersey, they have huge high school's, huge campuses, huge gym's.
That's one factor. Another factor is, UM, there's more AU
teams and there are good players in New York. There's
more coaches saying they're quote unquote AU coaches not to
(08:38):
throw any shade at anyone UM, and you just have
a saturation in the market. Right, it's not the same
thing that it used to be UM. And then I
think three to Jared's point, like a lot of kids
who come up here that are super talented, they're going
to O Kill, They're going to you know, mont Ver,
They're going to i MG at a young age, and
all of a sudden you see them in March Madness
(08:58):
and you're like, damn, is that kid from New York?
You don't have that same kemba sham got kareem read
story where they come up all the way through. And
so the project that we're building is sort of designed
to address all that, starting with the construction the facility, uh,
and then how we're going about the business, which we
can both talk about a little more. Fox Sports Radio
has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch
(09:19):
all of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com
and within the I Heart Radio app search f s
R to listen live. Now, how big is this facility
and what is this like, where is it going to
be located in? What is sort of I guess the
membership structure because obviously you guys are you're gonna have
a structure, right, a membership structure. But that or how's
(09:39):
that gonna work? Somebody can explain that, can Yeah. Um,
so we are closing in on space. UM, we're we're
looking at somewhere between fourteen and sixteen thousand square feet. UM.
You know, we're we're hoping that uh, this location, UM,
you know comes through for us. It's in Long Island City. UM.
(10:03):
We're still you know, working out the least negotiations and stuff,
but ideally will do it there. UM and UM, Yeah,
there's gonna be a membership business, right so um similar
to like an equinox or um, you know, crawn chenny
sort of gym. It's basically gonna be a gym membership
around basketball, right. UM will have one on one coaching
(10:28):
who love leagues, who have camps. Um, we'll have a
lot of these sort of you know ala carte programming
if you want to call it that, UM, that families
and their kids can take advantage of by um paying
either annualized or monthly dues. I think we were still
figuring out what that's gonna look like. UM, to have
(10:48):
the opportunity to you know, be able to use the
gym and call themselves a member UM and then you know,
use our our our facility and and our melodies UM
as much and as often as they want, uh UM.
And so that's kind of gonna be the basis of
the membership model. But UM, something that Griff and I
are really really proud of is we actually started a
(11:08):
charitable trust UM. And what we're hoping to do is
UM have corporations and individuals donate, and then we're earmarking
actually a certain percentage UM of our memberships for inner
city kids. So UM, you know, we haven't talked about
this yet. Carmelo Is is obviously UM a big part
of what we're doing, and UM we're hoping to work
(11:30):
with him to figure out, UM, which kids and families
are deserving uh to be in the gym. UM have
access to facility, might not be able to afford it,
but obviously UM are a talented enough but be our
our good people and UM have just as much you know,
claim and right to be there as anyone else. And
and we're hoping to really you know, UM, put put
(11:53):
everyone together and UH make make this UM you know,
equal opportunity and and and uh really UM have a
diverse group of kids in our gym. Let's talk about
your team. You mentioned Carmelo is on it, J J J.
J Reddick, I saw is involved in some capacity book Richardson. Um,
(12:14):
just for minutes to talk about the team and what
everybody's kind of involvement is in the project. Yeah for sure.
So obviously, Um, you know Jared and I are the
co founders. Uh. You know Mellow somebody that was a
huge gift for us, right, you know he's wanted to
You see the clips of him working with high school
kids and how much he puts into it and how
(12:35):
much he cares and yelling at the rafts in the
Baltimore games with Will Barton next to him. Um, he
loves this. And um, you know with Kayen being uh
at Christ the King right here in Queens and you
know Mellow having wanted to build something great to give
back to the youth not only in Brooklyn but in
all of New York City. Uh, it just made a
lot of sense. Uh. You know, it's a partner with
(12:56):
him on this, and you know, we're lucky enough that
he believes in our vision and he really wants to
be involved. And uh you know we think he's going
to be a really integral part of the project moving forward. Um.
JJ is amazing. He's a great friend of Jared's. He's
got two young boys, right who are just getting into
that age where they want to get really good at basketball,
just like their dad was. And you know, he sees
a void in the market, right there's no real centralized
(13:18):
youth league in New York City. There's no hub where
he can go get them better every day. Um. Kenny
and kJ Smith obviously Kenny from left rack legend in
New York City. Um. kJ his son who played for
Damon at Pacific, then went and played at U n C.
Has just been such an integral part of the business,
connecting us with folks like Cole, Anthony uh and a
(13:38):
lot of other great people to get involved, uh, you know,
and then on the grassroots level, right, you know, just
working with guys like Book. You know, Book has coached
twenty plus McDonald's all Americans. When he speaks, kids listen, right, um,
because he has the track record to prove it. Chad Babble, right,
who runs Made Hoops, that's Nike's you know, six to
eighth grade youth division. And Dad puts on the biggest
(14:00):
events in the country for the best kids. Darren Duncan,
who runs the Battle where Brownie Jr. Just played a
few weeks ago and Queens against all the best Try
State kids. Uh. But we're really building not only a
great team on the NBA side, And you know, I
think a big reason that New York has missed the
last twenty years is there haven't been that many role models, right,
(14:20):
you know, Sebastian Telfair, Lenny Cook, some of the guys
who maybe we're supposed to get to the NBA at
that level didn't. And so I think what we're trying
to do is bring in the NBA guys who have
ties to New York and show these kids you can
touch and feel what it's like to succeed at that level. UM.
And then on the grassroots side, getting the best guys
and and and and girls into the facility who have
(14:41):
coached the most successful kids in New York. I just
feel like we're building a powerhouse team, which is what
it's going to take to accomplish this project. Absolutely. I mean,
you guys have got some key pieces, some key figures,
some influencers UM that have respect in that basketball community.
Book richardter Is some ide that have tremendous amount of
(15:01):
respect for you know, spoke with him on my show. Um,
I had an interview with him on my show as well.
Um uh, let me ask you guys this now, when
this facility get built, are there gonna be weekends where
you work with like book and some or Chad and
bring in made hoops for a weekend, or you guys
have some a U stuff you're gonna do. Or is
(15:22):
it going to strictly be uh with with your current
your members and focus on that, or will there be
like larger camps and clinics that you guys might host
or you know, block off some courts? How many courts
first of all? And then and if you guys can
just touch on that for me, yeah, for sure. You
want me to take it ja or you got you
(15:43):
gotta cool. So in terms of the facility we're building
right um, we're gonna have one gorgeous regulation court and
it's gonna host big games. If you're on that court,
you're somebody. Um. The stadium seating map that we have
right now, we're gonna have about a thousand plus seats
in the bleachers and then we're gonna have court side
seats running up and down both sides of the facility
(16:05):
underneath one set of bleachers. We're going to have an
additional court. It might be a half court, it might
be a mini full court to service younger kids. We're
not sure yet, but basically a shoot around area as well. Uh.
In terms of how in terms of how we're going
to structure the business, in terms of how we're gonna
structure the court time, it's really split in three right.
Jared laid out our membership model really nicely. There are
(16:26):
hundreds of families who are willing to pay for instruction
that just haven't been able to get guys like Book
to work with or teach their kids or j j uh.
And that's gonna be a big part of what we're
going to be doing day to day during the week
is having that group instruction in those camps and those
clinics on the weekend. There's no real centralized youth basketball
league in New York City, right, which is crazy, So
(16:47):
we want to be the spot to have the dopes
youth league in New York. I think we haven't brought
up yet and we can nowur later. Uh. The Academy. Right,
we're literally building a prep school right here in New
York City so that kids that or team fourteen years
old don't have to go to Okale, don't have to
go to Montvert. They can have this facility, they can
have book they can have a top education right to
(17:08):
get ready to go to the n c A A UM.
And so the Academy team is going to be a
big part of the facility right when they practice, when
they have home games, UM. And then I think we
should host big events, right, maybe not an entire e
y b L circuit, but the championship of y b L,
or the championship of the Battle of even the championship
of the Catholic School League, right, which still holds weight
(17:28):
in New York. Because we're gonna have the facility, because
we're gonna have the seating, I think we're absolutely gonna
be able to do all that in that space and
kind of be the hub for all of it. Wow.
So it's until the vision would be to host like
high profile games, grassroots or or stuff like that at
your spot in Long Island City. How far is Long
(17:49):
Island City from like Brooklyn or where you guys grew
up in Queens area. I love that you think we
grew up in Queens or Bronx were No, did I
bea Bronx or we're Manattan boys. Baby, That's horrible, that's horrible.
That's horrible. But I'm ashamed. I'm I went to we
(18:11):
went to school in the Bronx. I mean, we'll take
that that. I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed. I'm sure
I shouldn't know better. I was. Actually when I was
living out there, I was staying in Soho, so I
was with great laugh, like near the world, but we're
the site of the old world tracing. But so I
kind of I would take this. I would take the subway.
Then I would take a bus to get to St.
(18:31):
John's every day. So it was like a forty five
minute to an hour ride just to go. So I'm
a little turned around. What time I fell asleep and
I ended up in far Rockaway, I don't know. I
don't know if you guys know where that is, but
I woke up and it was like, we know, we
know where that is. It was sketchy, got definitely a
little off the beating bath. But Long Island City, how
far is that from like Manhattan, So it's about a
(18:57):
fifteen minute drive actually over the Queensboro Bridge, which the
way for families in Manhattan. Um, the families in downtown
Brooklyn can shoot right up the b que. It's also
about fifteen twenty minutes. Now you're asking how far? How far?
With traffic? Those are two questions in New York and
l A. Um. But but you always, we always understand
I talk about stuff. It's always a factor in traffic,
(19:19):
you know, I'm giving it about thirty forty five minutes
of just whatever. And I always get myself an hour
before I go or an hour or two, just depending
on how far I gotta go. Yeah. Plus, I mean look,
I mean I don't know if you can see the
logo on Griffin sweatshirt, but our logo is inspired by
the subway lines, right, So we um there there's a
lot of public transportation from all different borrows that run
(19:40):
right into where hopefully this location is going to be.
So we feel like it's pretty central and easy to
get to. And it's a great point because like, how
far we really go to do something like this? Right?
I think that's that's something we really asked ourselves and
thought about a lot. I'd love to hear more about
the academy that you guys are building, just the foundation
of that that you haven't obviously there's an educational component involved.
(20:02):
Would like to hear about that as well. And you
do you plan on like joining New York City leagues
or you're gonna do like a total prep school league
as far as competitively speaking, Yeah, great questions. I'm gonna
let gee, this is like his his bread and butter,
so I'll let him watch poetic Let's get I'll China later.
I'm flattered. Uh. Also, it's also the trickiest and most
(20:26):
challenging but rewarding part of the business. So I'll try
my best to tackle it. Um. I think something I
love what Jaredoise says is we know what we know,
we know what we don't know, right, um, And we're
still learning a lot about what this academy is gonna
look like. But the premise is this a lot of kids,
as you know, that grow up here, and we've mentioned
it three or four times, they leave at a young age,
(20:47):
right because there isn't that uh centralized school. Right. Whether
you want to call it an academy, whether you want
to call it a prep school. The point is that
competes on a national schedule. The Catholic schools in New
York City can only play the Catholic schools. The p
S a L can only play the p S a L. Yeah,
Like for examples, started kJ, Cole Anthony Right, there's a
(21:10):
great example of what we're trying to accomplish. Cole was
that Archbishop Um, I think until his junior year and
then you know, basically said to himself like, look, playing
against the Catholic schools is great, but like I need
this national exposure. I need to go play you know,
the Brownie sons of not Brownie's son, but um. That
(21:30):
was kind of his thinking, right, And his dad was like, look,
you're gonna go to oak Kill and get a real
prep school, you know, education and basketball experience and get
that national exposures so you can get recruited the way
that all these other kids are because there's just nowhere
in New York that does that. Right now, Sorry, Graft,
keep going, You're good. That's a great point. And so
what we're doing, kJ is we're working closely with Chad,
(21:53):
and we're working closely with book right, and we're gonna
work closely on it with Mellow because he has a
ton of experience in the space. And you know, we're
gonna build New York City's first prep school academy team,
and so on the educational side, we're talking to a
few different independent and private schools that are top schools
in the city on creating an online only curriculum for
the players on our team to actually go get those
(22:15):
core credits needed to be n c A eligible. We
think a big advantage of doing an academy in New
York City versus elsewhere where you see them is the
education system here is second and none. And so if
we can get an online curriculum from one of those
schools for the kids, were automatically the best educational basketball
academy in the country. And then from a competition standpoint,
we're gonna look to identify, you know, twelve to fourteen
(22:37):
and the most talented kids in the Tri State area. Right.
A big reason we're doing an academy team versus an
AU team is there are a lot of AU teams
in the Tri state right, so we want to be
agnostic to all of them. We want to identify the
best kids. We want to give them the best education.
They're going to be coached by book guys like Chatt
will help us with the schedule, and then they're actually
going to compete nationally on behalf of New York, right
(22:59):
against the other top powerhouse teams in the country, kind
of restoring the city's reputation that hey, we still are
in the Mecca and we still got the talent here
um and we really think, no disrespect to St. John's,
but we can be New York's team right Like on
Friday nights at the facility, that's a hot ticket because
the nationally ranked Academy team is playing a home game
in New York. So we're really excited about the potential
(23:20):
to the Academy holes. Wow, that's a so on behalf
of New York restoring the Mecca. That means you go
have some dudes out there there. Y'all gotta have some guys,
so some you know what I mean, you gotta have
I mean, listen, we you know Griffin was at the
Battle a few weeks ago. The amount of talent just
specifically on New York teams that was in that building, Um,
(23:42):
you know they were they were given it to Brownie's
son like there there is that there's some dogs who
are still here in the city. Um, you know, look,
we we think that kind of one of the bigger
problems is on Griffin mentions earlier, there's a big fracture
and there's a large amount of teams um in AU
in New York, right, so you don't get all of
the talent on one team. You get one guy here,
(24:05):
one guy there. Right, those teams don't end up making
big runs because they're just not deep enough. But if
we can kind of unite everyone and say, look, you
can play for your AU teams, but come play or
high school ball for us, and and show everyone what
still exists in the city. Like, that's kind of the
you know, the the lofty goal that we're trying to
put together a nationally um competitive team that that can
(24:27):
go go go out there and try and win championships.
I saw, no. I mean, you guys obviously have the
right pieces in place to start that. I think in
order just to go and develop something like that, you
have to, you know, start young. So if you get them,
you know, the youth development, you know, it's all about
developing dudes when you get into when we were in
(24:49):
sixth grade or fifth grade man, and then seeing it
all the way through that to me is the best way.
And if you really want to have that special, special
kind of feeling with championship team U C l A
that I play going. We had a bunch of homegrown
town and what that did was it endeared us to
the fans. It made us kind of like, you know,
l A's team. Man, we got so much love. It
was almost like we were, you know, Lakers or you know,
(25:10):
we're so you know, we were almost like you know,
pro team out there just because of the fans, and
you're nailing a cage. I like the program that's a
special name to us because we look at college basketball,
right and everyone always talks about Duke's got a great program.
You see How's got a great program? Right. Kids are
just coming in young, build them up, then they go
next next wave. Right with our membership model, you know,
(25:32):
starting with young kids right, um, all the way up
through our high school team. Like the hope is that
it will feed into each other. And you know, when
you're ten, eleven, twelve, really starting to figure out what
kind of basketball player you are, we're gonna have them
in the gym getting them better understanding their game and
hopefully preparing them to you know, hopefully be ready to
join the team when you know, when they get to
(25:53):
be that high school level. And um, you know in
the namesake like making a program that's dope, that's super
were dope. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk
lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at
Fox sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart
Radio app search f s R to listen live. So
you let's touch on you guys backgrounds just for a
(26:15):
little bit. Um is far on the basketball in business side,
So you guys are both pretty accomplished. Just wanted to
get an idea of you know what you guys careers
have looked like up to this point, and you know,
and just kind of why. I mean, I know you
guys are passionate about this, but why at this time
of your life did you decide to jump over here?
I guess we could start with Jared Yeah, sure, Um
(26:39):
great questions. Uh quick background, So you know, I grew
up in New York, went to Riverdale Country School. Um,
I won a state championship my senior in soccer. It's
pretty much my biggest athletic accomplishment. I figured I needed
to get that out there. It's no problem. Yeah, UM
went undergraduate University of Pennsylvania. UM. You know, I got
(26:59):
a great education. Was very lucky to attend that school.
And UM, I have always wanted to work in sports. UM.
You know. I worked for Jeff Schwartz UM and Excel
when I was a sophomore in college as an intern
the year they had Blake Griffin. So that was cool. UM.
And you know when I graduated, I really wanted to
be an agent. UM. That didn't work out, but I
(27:22):
did end up getting a job working for the Miami Dolphins,
UM in their corporate marketing department. So it wasn't, you know,
necessarily what I was looking for, but it was a
sports job and I got to see how a franchise
runs right, specifically on the business side. UM. Came back
home and actually worked in real estate for a few years. UM.
(27:43):
And then for the past five or six years, I've
actually been at a startup. It's a sports ticketing company
actually called Fivo, and UM I've run investor relations for
them for three or four years now. So UM, that
actually is like a good segue to now right. I
feel like I've put a lot of great things together
(28:04):
on my resume that actually are are culminating in doing
something like this, Like like you said, passion. You know,
to me, I always wanted to do something that I
loved waking up every day knowing that I'm gonna be
excited to go to work. And you know how many
people actually get to say that, right? Um, I feel like,
you know, I've had a successful career. I'm thirty thirty five,
(28:24):
my wife's about to have our first kid. You know,
I feel established. I feel like my network, um is
as really uh one of my major assets and the
ability for me to reach capital and also get to
the sorts of people that um really are our stakeholders
in New York. That that's that's really coming at the
right time now to be able to kind of put
(28:45):
all of this together. Um. So for me, you know,
that was it. Plus I just love basketball. I mean
I watch any any basketball at any level at any time.
My wife has routinely hit me with the clicker and said,
I can't listen to another basketball game. So, um, you know,
for me, this this is this is where my heart
is for sure. Yeah. Um, A lot of parallels honestly
(29:11):
in terms of the why. Um, In terms of my background,
I grew up in New York. Uh. My mom was
a blues musician, which is super dope. Ye. All the
talent skipped to generation, so I knew I'd have to
do something different. Um. I grew up in Manhattan, went
to high school in the Bronx. Uh played Division three basketball.
(29:31):
I thought Year would just say he played college basketball,
but he had to say Division three college basketball. Wait,
where where'd you go to? Where'd you play? I've played
at a school called Alfred Uh, and I was I
was the worst player on the team. So let's skip over.
Let's skip over those you were there, bro, That's all
that matters that I was there. Um. Coming out of college, Uh,
(29:52):
you know, I spent most of my twenties working on
a really cool shopping app called Fancy. That's actually how
I connected with LAB. We worked with tons of NBA players,
tons of entertainers. They were investors in the app, they
were customers. Um. I started out packing boxes in the
mall room. I ended up running business development there. Um.
So I made a lot of connections, brand partner connections,
(30:13):
NBA connections, music connections, and kind of always connected the
dots on that, Uh, through having my own consulting agency
the past couple of years where do the same thing. UM.
I think more relevant to this conversation is my first
unpaid job out of college was helping Greg Marius, who
recently passed away five years ago, run the EBC at
Rutger Park tournament. UM. And so I would be in
(30:36):
Soho and then I would go up to Harlem every
night and help him run that street ball tournament. And
I really fell in love with New York City grassroots basketball. UM.
I went from that to to gm NG and putting
teams and Dykeman and gersh and every single major streetball tournament,
bringing James Harden in French Montana and Clarie Kardashian to
come watch the games. Uh. It was really my life, uh,
(30:58):
you know, culminating in putting teams in the TVT tournament
on ESPN every summer. Uh. You know where I've met
a lot of St. John's guys. So um, you know,
I think this project is really the culmination of, you know,
ten plus years of living and breathing New York City
grassroots basketball and then some of my connections from my
day work Um, and to Jared's point, you know I
think why now? Well, Um, you know, I always know
(31:22):
someone in life is always going to have more money
than you. In my case, a lot of people are
gonna be better looking than you. Uh. You know, someone's
always going to have more than you, right materially, But
you could always leave the biggest impact and legacy doing
the stuff that you love. And we love New York
and we love basketball, and if we have the chance
to be the guys to bring both back, Um, that's
(31:44):
something that I'll spend every waking moment of my life doing.
And I think I'm blessed to found a business partner
who feels the same way and really wants to do
the same thing. That's dope. That's super dope. Y'all are
locked in, man, y'all sound locked in. I'm just I'm
just curious. Uh. Also, like some more details. I don't
(32:04):
know if you guys how much time you guys got,
but you know, I just wanted to kind of pick
your brain. You say, state of the art facility. Um,
what does that mean? Like state of the art facility,
like in today's language? What does that mean to you guys?
State of the art you got the dick cool for sure.
So I think you gotta look at kids, right that
(32:26):
are top kids and basketball playing kids, and what they
want and what they like, right, And so you want
to you want to build a gorgeous court, right, you
want your to be state of the art. You want
to have a cool street artist come in and design
it with your logo so it feels super dope. Um.
I think we want to have a juice bar, right
because you know right now, in the past decade, there's
a certain kick in terms of being healthier down at
(32:49):
a younger age. So you tell kids when they walk in,
you know, we don't have Derrito's in here, we don't
have Captain Crunch in here. You know, we have juice, right, Um,
and maybe some middle ground and too. Um. I think
having a turf training area, right, you know. I think
when we've talked to parents right that have elite kids,
one thing they ask is not who the basketball coach
(33:10):
is gonna be. They definitely ask that who's the strength
and conditioning coach going to be? You know what I mean?
So you know from Cardio to cry out two waits
to all that it's really important for us to the cryo.
You gonna have a cryod chamber up in there. We're
gonna have a cryod chamber. You're well, man, yeah, yeah,
better head let you lead with that. Do you know
how sick of cryo chamber is at this time of life?
(33:30):
To be able to have access to kJ, we gotta
leave some surprises. Okay, let the cat out, all right.
I got excited about that. Now, now you're good. And
then you know, I think we want our locker rooms
to be state of the art as well. Um, you
ask what state of the art means. I keep saying
state of the art, but um, you know, I think
(33:52):
you look at like you know, NBA two K and
a gaming room in a film room, right, and even
potentially a classroom depending on how much office space we
have to compliment the gym. Um, you know, what we
really want to do is build a place where look
go ahead, Jay, yeah, I mean just in college level man,
Like we we are trying to you know, emulate a
(34:13):
Duke a Kentucky that kind of you know, top tier
equipment that kind of look um almost like our own
mini little stadium, you know, little MSG whatever you wanna
call it. That's that's really what we're what we're arriving for. Dope.
I've seen I've seen like a couple of stadiums, smaller
that kind of like that one down in Atlanta. I
(34:34):
think that group has one that's sort of cool and
they've got some stuff. So that's kind of where I
was getting at the state of the art I kind
of had. I was wondering it was going to look
like that or not not look like that, but just
have all the bills and whistles, which it sounds like
it will. Um. I think that's that's a huge plus.
The other thing I was also curious about as far
as like the training curriculum or the actual is there
(34:55):
a training curriculum that you guys are gonna put your
stamp on that, you know, Book or whoever your coach
is are are going to kind of implement with the
guys or you know what, did you guys have thoughts
on regarding that? You know, I think that's a great question. Um. Like,
like Griffin said earlier, we know what we know and
we know what we don't, and I think we'll leave
the basketball instruction and training up to the professionals. But
(35:17):
you know, again, Book has been doing this for decades, UM,
and it clearly works. So you know, we'll lean on
him a lot. We'll lean on Chad Um and the
other coaches too. Yeah. We we definitely want to make
something that's ours, um. But I'm sure they'll take from
from many of the years of playing and and a
lot of the things that are going on across the
(35:38):
country and um make it ours and uh yeah, Well,
Griff and I will be at the gym, you know,
definitely yelling and hollering, but we will we will be
firmly out of the way when it comes to basketball instruction.
Well absolutely, I mean that's that's the way, that's the
way to do it. That's how you you know, you
actually let people who you hire to do the job
do the job. I mean, that's just comes down at
(35:59):
that's dope. UM. I guess one more question. I had
something you guys touched on earlier about UM kids in
the inner city scholarshipping. I believe it was what you
guys said, how many kids and what is your idea
or vision behind that initiative? UM. Yeah, I don't wanna,
you know, put our foot in our mouth. I don't
(36:19):
think we have a number yet decided. Um, like I said,
it's gonna be a percentage, and we definitely are gonna
earmark UM a large amount of that UH for inner
city scholarships. UM. You know, we'll talk to Mellow, We'll
talk with with the team and try and figure out
we would love to have a nice balance of UM,
you know, scholarship kids and and paid members. So it
(36:41):
really feels like like a family in there. But I
don't think we're specific yet on what that looks like.
But UM, you know, the idea is, you know, UM
Griffin and I are both very blessed to have grown
up in Manhattan attended UM is bron Science Private. Griff
I went to private school. Grip everyone to public, but
Bronx sign is one of the best schools in the
(37:02):
country right, UM, specifically in the city. And UM, you know,
I look back on my life and and feel so
blessed to be in the position where I'm at UM
and all the resources that I was UM able to
use to get where I'm at and not. It's it's
not lost on me that a lot of kids don't
UM and specifically in the inner city. UM. There are
(37:25):
plenty of smart, hard working kids who just don't have
the financial means to accomplish these things with the resources
that you know, people like UM, I was given when
I was growing up, so it was really important to
me to figure out a way to give back. UM.
You know, my family has been extremely philanthropic my whole life,
and and UM, they've instilled in me from a very
(37:45):
early age, like you know, it's great to do well,
but do well and do good at the same time. UM,
And you know I feel very strongly about that. Absolutely
absolutely wells UM. I appreciate both of your times today.
I feel like, you know, I have a really good understanding.
I hope the audience has an understanding what you guys
(38:07):
mission is and the motivation and the inspiration behind it.
And we're looking forward to supporting and getting behind the program. UM,
ladies and gentlemen. Jared Fphron and Griffin Taylor
This is kJ Live with Chris Johnson, and Chris is
having conversations with influencers in the sports world and entertainment industry.
Now here's Chris Johnson. You're now tuned in to kJ Live.
(00:22):
Today's guest on the show two guys that have founded
a initiative based in the New York City area that
looks to bring back and restore the city as the
mecca of basketball. Let's bring getting Griffin Taylor and Jared
Fron of the program New York City. What's good, guys,
what's going on kJ? Good to be on here, man,
(00:43):
my pleasure. What's up kJ? Happy to be here, brob man,
everything is good. I'm joining the sum of those far fellas. Uh.
It's been a great summer. Just loved these finals that
just took place. Um, a lot of good basketball. I
don't know if you guys had a dog in the fight,
but it was nice to see the Warriors get back
to the their sales and uh and not got another championship.
(01:06):
Which quick thoughts on on the finals from both of you. Jared,
you go first? Oh man? Um, you know look, I
was secretly rooting for the Warriors. UM. I don't know
how secret was, but I was. I was just happy
to see Clay, Steph and Drake you know, do it
without Katie and remind everyone that they're not going anywhere.
(01:26):
So um, that was. It was fun to watch Steph,
you know, get his own Finals m v P. And
you know, he's top ten all time. I don't even
really think there's there's any question about it anymore. Okay, okay,
top too. I g what's your thoughts on the situation's
gonna go. I'm gonna go even more aggressive to try
to get the sound bite, and I'm gonna say he's
top five all time because he changed the game of basketball.
(01:52):
I don't pretend I got enough best friends for die
hard Warriors fans, so I don't pretend to be one.
But um yeah, an echo Jay's point. You know, as
you get older, uh and I'm certainly getting older, you
appreciate things more and more. And I think we're still
in this window of appreciating greatness with Staff and and
Clay and you know, I think it was just great
(02:13):
to see them add the legacy and Jonathan Cominga's got
New York ties. Uh, so so that was cool as well.
Uh And um yeah, no, it just you know, it was.
It was a great finals, and I think the Warriors
deserved it. No, I think they did. I think they
went out and they earned it. They definitely did. This team.
They weathered all those storms that they went through in
(02:34):
the last couple of seasons. Man. And really, just like Steph,
I mean, he's incredible to me because I just all
the guys I've ever seen play, I mean, just his
ability to maneuver thirty forty ft out, just the level
of comfort he has, you know, a half cord and
through the legs behind the back, I mean the handle
you know when he's off the bounce but forty ft away,
(02:54):
it's just like dagn It's I mean it's not only that,
like he's running off picks, you can't catch your breath
for one second, the shots going up, Like I mean
you literally what where? What do you want him to do? Pick? Exactly?
It's it's crazy too. Everyone talks about his shooting and
(03:15):
he's the greatest shooter of all time. He might have
the crazy him and Kyrie, he might have the craziest
handle in the NBA. And and like it's crazy that alone,
and then also right after they want to I can't remember,
as Mark Jackson or Van Gundy who said it, but
you know the fact that when Katie came there and
Steph said, you know, hey, man, you know you can
(03:36):
take the last shot. You know this can be your team.
You can do whatever to do to get these championships.
How many guys who are already top ten, top all
time at that point in their career would be willing
to do that. And I think this championship kind of
gives him those roses and people recognize that. So it
couldn't be happy to do, no doubt. Man, Man, you're
aw some basketball officiados. I love it. I let us
(03:58):
see it. Man. Let's fast forward and talk about why
you guys are here today, which is one of the
reasons I wanted to bring you on. Shout out to
Gay Pleasant for hooking this up, but I wanted to
get just to the core, uh, the motivation inspiration behind
the program New York City that you guys uh co founded, Right,
(04:19):
I want to I want you guys. You guys can go,
you know Jared the Then Griffin just kind of tell
me what the the mission we're at your core for
this program? What is it gonna solve what are you
gonna how are you gonna help? Yeah, I mean I
think that's a great question. kJ. Um. You know, look,
Griffin and I uh grew up playing in in the
(04:42):
rec league, UM New York City leagues when we were
you know, eight all the way to sixteen, um, and uh,
you know, we would battle against each other, and um,
we love the experience of being able to you know,
play play against other kids. But UM, I think we
felt even back then, not not that specifically me, I
(05:03):
definitely wasn't good enough Griffin at least want on to
have a D three college career, but um, there didn't
seem to be a place where, um there was kind
of like the central hub of basketball for New York,
right and in a city that claims to be the
mecca of the sport. Um, I kind of always felt
that that was crazy, that there was nothing where you
(05:25):
could just um, you know, be a part of this
great basketball culture, walk into a gym, get great instruction,
um have have you know, elite amenity is that kind
of stuff, and um, you know so so really with
the impetus of it was we thought like, hey, why
are all these New York kids who are super talented
(05:47):
like not staying around. Why are they leaving to go
to the i mgs of the world, to the Oak Kills, right, Um.
And the answer was like, there was nobody really doing
what we're trying to do on a large scale and
hasn't been um. And so we thought about this, you know,
years ago when we knew very little about the world,
(06:07):
and UM, you know, I got back together, you know,
coincidentally at a wedding last summer and still had the
same idea, and I realized that the hole in the
market was still there. I'm all that all that Griffin,
um continue to kind of like back that up. But
that I would say was the real start of of
where this this all began. Well, let's touch on that
for a second. Let's talk about that, because that's interesting
(06:30):
because there was a time when New York City was
the mecca and had all the players and you had
the guy they were there at the forefront of everything,
the moves, the style, everything was based out of New York. Now,
what identified a period of time that this that started
to dissipate or that sort of started to go away
Because I'm kind of confused. I always felt like, how
did them guys get so good in the first place,
(06:51):
How do you get to the Mardel? How did you
get like Ron Art? How do you get these guys
in the first place? You know what I'm saying? How
was it established? And then what happened? I guess if
you've got something for me on that, Yeah, yeah, no doubt.
So it's funny you said Lamar odom because an iconic
moment was when Lamar came to the Rutger the year
that jay Z had his team and the Rutger and
(07:12):
he did the sham God. Everybody knows what a legend
sham God is. Then did the tenth on the layoup
with jay Z and attendance with Lebron James standing up.
That's such a sick moment. That's and and I think
John Ran a couple of months ago did the same move,
laid it and then did the same dance as Lamar.
So you know that should tell you everything about New
York City basketball culture. Right rewind ten fifteen years from
(07:35):
that moment, and you got Chris Mullen and Mark Jackson.
We run fifteen twenty years from that, and you got
Dr J at the Rutger Um. New York had a
certain swagger. You turn on the Big East Tournament, more
than half the kids went to New York City High
School fifteen. So I mean you worked with with with
lab like you know years ago. UM. I think a
big reason why it was the Mecca was there was
(07:56):
two teams. There was Riverside and there was gall Shows
and everyone in the country knows at and you had
hundreds of kids vying for twenty spots. And if you
weren't on Riversider gauchos, you weren't. I don't know if
you can curse or not on podcasts A s H
I t UM. So I think what's happened in the
last ten twenty years. I think Jared brings up a
good point. One is there's just not that many nice
(08:17):
gyms in New York right. The ones that are out there,
they're only reserved for NBA players. UM. And then you
look at these other states that are catching up to
US Jersey, they have huge high school's, huge campuses, huge gym's.
That's one factor. Another factor is, UM, there's more AU
teams and there are good players in New York. There's
more coaches saying they're quote unquote AU coaches not to
(08:38):
throw any shade at anyone UM, and you just have
a saturation in the market. Right, it's not the same
thing that it used to be UM. And then I
think three to Jared's point, like a lot of kids
who come up here that are super talented, they're going
to O Kill, They're going to you know, mont Ver,
They're going to i MG at a young age, and
all of a sudden you see them in March Madness
(08:58):
and you're like, damn, is that kid from New York?
You don't have that same kemba sham got kareem read
story where they come up all the way through. And
so the project that we're building is sort of designed
to address all that, starting with the construction the facility, uh,
and then how we're going about the business, which we
can both talk about a little more. Fox Sports Radio
has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch
(09:19):
all of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com
and within the I Heart Radio app search f s
R to listen live. Now, how big is this facility
and what is this like, where is it going to
be located in? What is sort of I guess the
membership structure because obviously you guys are you're gonna have
a structure, right, a membership structure. But that or how's
(09:39):
that gonna work? Somebody can explain that, can Yeah. Um,
so we are closing in on space. UM, we're we're
looking at somewhere between fourteen and sixteen thousand square feet. UM.
You know, we're we're hoping that uh, this location, UM,
you know comes through for us. It's in Long Island City. UM.
(10:03):
We're still you know, working out the least negotiations and stuff,
but ideally will do it there. UM and UM, Yeah,
there's gonna be a membership business, right so um similar
to like an equinox or um, you know, crawn chenny
sort of gym. It's basically gonna be a gym membership
around basketball, right. UM will have one on one coaching
(10:28):
who love leagues, who have camps. Um, we'll have a
lot of these sort of you know ala carte programming
if you want to call it that, UM, that families
and their kids can take advantage of by um paying
either annualized or monthly dues. I think we were still
figuring out what that's gonna look like. UM, to have
(10:48):
the opportunity to you know, be able to use the
gym and call themselves a member UM and then you know,
use our our our facility and and our melodies UM
as much and as often as they want, uh UM.
And so that's kind of gonna be the basis of
the membership model. But UM, something that Griff and I
are really really proud of is we actually started a
(11:08):
charitable trust UM. And what we're hoping to do is
UM have corporations and individuals donate, and then we're earmarking
actually a certain percentage UM of our memberships for inner
city kids. So UM, you know, we haven't talked about
this yet. Carmelo Is is obviously UM a big part
of what we're doing, and UM we're hoping to work
(11:30):
with him to figure out, UM, which kids and families
are deserving uh to be in the gym. UM have
access to facility, might not be able to afford it,
but obviously UM are a talented enough but be our
our good people and UM have just as much you know,
claim and right to be there as anyone else. And
and we're hoping to really you know, UM, put put
(11:53):
everyone together and UH make make this UM you know,
equal opportunity and and and uh really UM have a
diverse group of kids in our gym. Let's talk about
your team. You mentioned Carmelo is on it, J J J.
J Reddick, I saw is involved in some capacity book Richardson. Um,
(12:14):
just for minutes to talk about the team and what
everybody's kind of involvement is in the project. Yeah for sure.
So obviously, Um, you know Jared and I are the
co founders. Uh. You know Mellow somebody that was a
huge gift for us, right, you know he's wanted to
You see the clips of him working with high school
kids and how much he puts into it and how
(12:35):
much he cares and yelling at the rafts in the
Baltimore games with Will Barton next to him. Um, he
loves this. And um, you know with Kayen being uh
at Christ the King right here in Queens and you
know Mellow having wanted to build something great to give
back to the youth not only in Brooklyn but in
all of New York City. Uh, it just made a
lot of sense. Uh. You know, it's a partner with
(12:56):
him on this, and you know, we're lucky enough that
he believes in our vision and he really wants to
be involved. And uh you know we think he's going
to be a really integral part of the project moving forward. Um.
JJ is amazing. He's a great friend of Jared's. He's
got two young boys, right who are just getting into
that age where they want to get really good at basketball,
just like their dad was. And you know, he sees
a void in the market, right there's no real centralized
(13:18):
youth league in New York City. There's no hub where
he can go get them better every day. Um. Kenny
and kJ Smith obviously Kenny from left rack legend in
New York City. Um. kJ his son who played for
Damon at Pacific, then went and played at U n C.
Has just been such an integral part of the business,
connecting us with folks like Cole, Anthony uh and a
(13:38):
lot of other great people to get involved, uh, you know,
and then on the grassroots level, right, you know, just
working with guys like Book. You know, Book has coached
twenty plus McDonald's all Americans. When he speaks, kids listen, right, um,
because he has the track record to prove it. Chad Babble, right,
who runs Made Hoops, that's Nike's you know, six to
eighth grade youth division. And Dad puts on the biggest
(14:00):
events in the country for the best kids. Darren Duncan,
who runs the Battle where Brownie Jr. Just played a
few weeks ago and Queens against all the best Try
State kids. Uh. But we're really building not only a
great team on the NBA side, And you know, I
think a big reason that New York has missed the
last twenty years is there haven't been that many role models, right,
(14:20):
you know, Sebastian Telfair, Lenny Cook, some of the guys
who maybe we're supposed to get to the NBA at
that level didn't. And so I think what we're trying
to do is bring in the NBA guys who have
ties to New York and show these kids you can
touch and feel what it's like to succeed at that level. UM.
And then on the grassroots side, getting the best guys
and and and and girls into the facility who have
(14:41):
coached the most successful kids in New York. I just
feel like we're building a powerhouse team, which is what
it's going to take to accomplish this project. Absolutely. I mean,
you guys have got some key pieces, some key figures,
some influencers UM that have respect in that basketball community.
Book richardter Is some ide that have tremendous amount of
(15:01):
respect for you know, spoke with him on my show. Um,
I had an interview with him on my show as well.
Um uh, let me ask you guys this now, when
this facility get built, are there gonna be weekends where
you work with like book and some or Chad and
bring in made hoops for a weekend, or you guys
have some a U stuff you're gonna do. Or is
(15:22):
it going to strictly be uh with with your current
your members and focus on that, or will there be
like larger camps and clinics that you guys might host
or you know, block off some courts? How many courts
first of all? And then and if you guys can
just touch on that for me, yeah, for sure. You
want me to take it ja or you got you
(15:43):
gotta cool. So in terms of the facility we're building
right um, we're gonna have one gorgeous regulation court and
it's gonna host big games. If you're on that court,
you're somebody. Um. The stadium seating map that we have
right now, we're gonna have about a thousand plus seats
in the bleachers and then we're gonna have court side
seats running up and down both sides of the facility
(16:05):
underneath one set of bleachers. We're going to have an
additional court. It might be a half court, it might
be a mini full court to service younger kids. We're
not sure yet, but basically a shoot around area as well. Uh.
In terms of how in terms of how we're going
to structure the business, in terms of how we're gonna
structure the court time, it's really split in three right.
Jared laid out our membership model really nicely. There are
(16:26):
hundreds of families who are willing to pay for instruction
that just haven't been able to get guys like Book
to work with or teach their kids or j j uh.
And that's gonna be a big part of what we're
going to be doing day to day during the week
is having that group instruction in those camps and those
clinics on the weekend. There's no real centralized youth basketball
league in New York City, right, which is crazy, So
(16:47):
we want to be the spot to have the dopes
youth league in New York. I think we haven't brought
up yet and we can nowur later. Uh. The Academy. Right,
we're literally building a prep school right here in New
York City so that kids that or team fourteen years
old don't have to go to Okale, don't have to
go to Montvert. They can have this facility, they can
have book they can have a top education right to
(17:08):
get ready to go to the n c A A UM.
And so the Academy team is going to be a
big part of the facility right when they practice, when
they have home games, UM. And then I think we
should host big events, right, maybe not an entire e
y b L circuit, but the championship of y b L,
or the championship of the Battle of even the championship
of the Catholic School League, right, which still holds weight
(17:28):
in New York. Because we're gonna have the facility, because
we're gonna have the seating, I think we're absolutely gonna
be able to do all that in that space and
kind of be the hub for all of it. Wow.
So it's until the vision would be to host like
high profile games, grassroots or or stuff like that at
your spot in Long Island City. How far is Long
(17:49):
Island City from like Brooklyn or where you guys grew
up in Queens area. I love that you think we
grew up in Queens or Bronx were No, did I
bea Bronx or we're Manattan boys. Baby, That's horrible, that's horrible.
That's horrible. But I'm ashamed. I'm I went to we
(18:11):
went to school in the Bronx. I mean, we'll take
that that. I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed. I'm sure
I shouldn't know better. I was. Actually when I was
living out there, I was staying in Soho, so I
was with great laugh, like near the world, but we're
the site of the old world tracing. But so I
kind of I would take this. I would take the subway.
Then I would take a bus to get to St.
(18:31):
John's every day. So it was like a forty five
minute to an hour ride just to go. So I'm
a little turned around. What time I fell asleep and
I ended up in far Rockaway, I don't know. I
don't know if you guys know where that is, but
I woke up and it was like, we know, we
know where that is. It was sketchy, got definitely a
little off the beating bath. But Long Island City, how
far is that from like Manhattan, So it's about a
(18:57):
fifteen minute drive actually over the Queensboro Bridge, which the
way for families in Manhattan. Um, the families in downtown
Brooklyn can shoot right up the b que. It's also
about fifteen twenty minutes. Now you're asking how far? How far?
With traffic? Those are two questions in New York and
l A. Um. But but you always, we always understand
I talk about stuff. It's always a factor in traffic,
(19:19):
you know, I'm giving it about thirty forty five minutes
of just whatever. And I always get myself an hour
before I go or an hour or two, just depending
on how far I gotta go. Yeah. Plus, I mean look,
I mean I don't know if you can see the
logo on Griffin sweatshirt, but our logo is inspired by
the subway lines, right, So we um there there's a
lot of public transportation from all different borrows that run
(19:40):
right into where hopefully this location is going to be.
So we feel like it's pretty central and easy to
get to. And it's a great point because like, how
far we really go to do something like this? Right?
I think that's that's something we really asked ourselves and
thought about a lot. I'd love to hear more about
the academy that you guys are building, just the foundation
of that that you haven't obviously there's an educational component involved.
(20:02):
Would like to hear about that as well. And you
do you plan on like joining New York City leagues
or you're gonna do like a total prep school league
as far as competitively speaking, Yeah, great questions. I'm gonna
let gee, this is like his his bread and butter,
so I'll let him watch poetic Let's get I'll China later.
I'm flattered. Uh. Also, it's also the trickiest and most
(20:26):
challenging but rewarding part of the business. So I'll try
my best to tackle it. Um. I think something I
love what Jaredoise says is we know what we know,
we know what we don't know, right, um, And we're
still learning a lot about what this academy is gonna
look like. But the premise is this a lot of kids,
as you know, that grow up here, and we've mentioned
it three or four times, they leave at a young age,
(20:47):
right because there isn't that uh centralized school. Right. Whether
you want to call it an academy, whether you want
to call it a prep school. The point is that
competes on a national schedule. The Catholic schools in New
York City can only play the Catholic schools. The p
S a L can only play the p S a L. Yeah,
Like for examples, started kJ, Cole Anthony Right, there's a
(21:10):
great example of what we're trying to accomplish. Cole was
that Archbishop Um, I think until his junior year and
then you know, basically said to himself like, look, playing
against the Catholic schools is great, but like I need
this national exposure. I need to go play you know,
the Brownie sons of not Brownie's son, but um. That
(21:30):
was kind of his thinking, right, And his dad was like, look,
you're gonna go to oak Kill and get a real
prep school, you know, education and basketball experience and get
that national exposures so you can get recruited the way
that all these other kids are because there's just nowhere
in New York that does that. Right now, Sorry, Graft,
keep going, You're good. That's a great point. And so
what we're doing, kJ is we're working closely with Chad,
(21:53):
and we're working closely with book right, and we're gonna
work closely on it with Mellow because he has a
ton of experience in the space. And you know, we're
gonna build New York City's first prep school academy team,
and so on the educational side, we're talking to a
few different independent and private schools that are top schools
in the city on creating an online only curriculum for
the players on our team to actually go get those
(22:15):
core credits needed to be n c A eligible. We
think a big advantage of doing an academy in New
York City versus elsewhere where you see them is the
education system here is second and none. And so if
we can get an online curriculum from one of those
schools for the kids, were automatically the best educational basketball
academy in the country. And then from a competition standpoint,
we're gonna look to identify, you know, twelve to fourteen
(22:37):
and the most talented kids in the Tri State area. Right.
A big reason we're doing an academy team versus an
AU team is there are a lot of AU teams
in the Tri state right, so we want to be
agnostic to all of them. We want to identify the
best kids. We want to give them the best education.
They're going to be coached by book guys like Chatt
will help us with the schedule, and then they're actually
going to compete nationally on behalf of New York, right
(22:59):
against the other top powerhouse teams in the country, kind
of restoring the city's reputation that hey, we still are
in the Mecca and we still got the talent here
um and we really think, no disrespect to St. John's,
but we can be New York's team right Like on
Friday nights at the facility, that's a hot ticket because
the nationally ranked Academy team is playing a home game
in New York. So we're really excited about the potential
(23:20):
to the Academy holes. Wow, that's a so on behalf
of New York restoring the Mecca. That means you go
have some dudes out there there. Y'all gotta have some guys,
so some you know what I mean, you gotta have
I mean, listen, we you know Griffin was at the
Battle a few weeks ago. The amount of talent just
specifically on New York teams that was in that building, Um,
(23:42):
you know they were they were given it to Brownie's
son like there there is that there's some dogs who
are still here in the city. Um, you know, look,
we we think that kind of one of the bigger
problems is on Griffin mentions earlier, there's a big fracture
and there's a large amount of teams um in AU
in New York, right, so you don't get all of
the talent on one team. You get one guy here,
(24:05):
one guy there. Right, those teams don't end up making
big runs because they're just not deep enough. But if
we can kind of unite everyone and say, look, you
can play for your AU teams, but come play or
high school ball for us, and and show everyone what
still exists in the city. Like, that's kind of the
you know, the the lofty goal that we're trying to
put together a nationally um competitive team that that can
(24:27):
go go go out there and try and win championships.
I saw, no. I mean, you guys obviously have the
right pieces in place to start that. I think in
order just to go and develop something like that, you
have to, you know, start young. So if you get them,
you know, the youth development, you know, it's all about
developing dudes when you get into when we were in
(24:49):
sixth grade or fifth grade man, and then seeing it
all the way through that to me is the best way.
And if you really want to have that special, special
kind of feeling with championship team U C l A
that I play going. We had a bunch of homegrown
town and what that did was it endeared us to
the fans. It made us kind of like, you know,
l A's team. Man, we got so much love. It
was almost like we were, you know, Lakers or you know,
(25:10):
we're so you know, we were almost like you know,
pro team out there just because of the fans, and
you're nailing a cage. I like the program that's a
special name to us because we look at college basketball,
right and everyone always talks about Duke's got a great program.
You see How's got a great program? Right. Kids are
just coming in young, build them up, then they go
next next wave. Right with our membership model, you know,
(25:32):
starting with young kids right, um, all the way up
through our high school team. Like the hope is that
it will feed into each other. And you know, when
you're ten, eleven, twelve, really starting to figure out what
kind of basketball player you are, we're gonna have them
in the gym getting them better understanding their game and
hopefully preparing them to you know, hopefully be ready to
join the team when you know, when they get to
(25:53):
be that high school level. And um, you know in
the namesake like making a program that's dope, that's super
were dope. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk
lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at
Fox sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart
Radio app search f s R to listen live. So
you let's touch on you guys backgrounds just for a
(26:15):
little bit. Um is far on the basketball in business side,
So you guys are both pretty accomplished. Just wanted to
get an idea of you know what you guys careers
have looked like up to this point, and you know,
and just kind of why. I mean, I know you
guys are passionate about this, but why at this time
of your life did you decide to jump over here?
I guess we could start with Jared Yeah, sure, Um
(26:39):
great questions. Uh quick background, So you know, I grew
up in New York, went to Riverdale Country School. Um,
I won a state championship my senior in soccer. It's
pretty much my biggest athletic accomplishment. I figured I needed
to get that out there. It's no problem. Yeah, UM
went undergraduate University of Pennsylvania. UM. You know, I got
(26:59):
a great education. Was very lucky to attend that school.
And UM, I have always wanted to work in sports. UM.
You know. I worked for Jeff Schwartz UM and Excel
when I was a sophomore in college as an intern
the year they had Blake Griffin. So that was cool. UM.
And you know when I graduated, I really wanted to
be an agent. UM. That didn't work out, but I
(27:22):
did end up getting a job working for the Miami Dolphins,
UM in their corporate marketing department. So it wasn't, you know,
necessarily what I was looking for, but it was a
sports job and I got to see how a franchise
runs right, specifically on the business side. UM. Came back
home and actually worked in real estate for a few years. UM.
(27:43):
And then for the past five or six years, I've
actually been at a startup. It's a sports ticketing company
actually called Fivo, and UM I've run investor relations for
them for three or four years now. So UM, that
actually is like a good segue to now right. I
feel like I've put a lot of great things together
(28:04):
on my resume that actually are are culminating in doing
something like this, Like like you said, passion. You know,
to me, I always wanted to do something that I
loved waking up every day knowing that I'm gonna be
excited to go to work. And you know how many
people actually get to say that, right? Um, I feel like,
you know, I've had a successful career. I'm thirty thirty five,
(28:24):
my wife's about to have our first kid. You know,
I feel established. I feel like my network, um is
as really uh one of my major assets and the
ability for me to reach capital and also get to
the sorts of people that um really are our stakeholders
in New York. That that's that's really coming at the
right time now to be able to kind of put
(28:45):
all of this together. Um. So for me, you know,
that was it. Plus I just love basketball. I mean
I watch any any basketball at any level at any time.
My wife has routinely hit me with the clicker and said,
I can't listen to another basketball game. So, um, you know,
for me, this this is this is where my heart
is for sure. Yeah. Um, A lot of parallels honestly
(29:11):
in terms of the why. Um, In terms of my background,
I grew up in New York. Uh. My mom was
a blues musician, which is super dope. Ye. All the
talent skipped to generation, so I knew I'd have to
do something different. Um. I grew up in Manhattan, went
to high school in the Bronx. Uh played Division three basketball.
(29:31):
I thought Year would just say he played college basketball,
but he had to say Division three college basketball. Wait,
where where'd you go to? Where'd you play? I've played
at a school called Alfred Uh, and I was I
was the worst player on the team. So let's skip over.
Let's skip over those you were there, bro, That's all
that matters that I was there. Um. Coming out of college, Uh,
(29:52):
you know, I spent most of my twenties working on
a really cool shopping app called Fancy. That's actually how
I connected with LAB. We worked with tons of NBA players,
tons of entertainers. They were investors in the app, they
were customers. Um. I started out packing boxes in the
mall room. I ended up running business development there. Um.
So I made a lot of connections, brand partner connections,
(30:13):
NBA connections, music connections, and kind of always connected the
dots on that, Uh, through having my own consulting agency
the past couple of years where do the same thing. UM.
I think more relevant to this conversation is my first
unpaid job out of college was helping Greg Marius, who
recently passed away five years ago, run the EBC at
Rutger Park tournament. UM. And so I would be in
(30:36):
Soho and then I would go up to Harlem every
night and help him run that street ball tournament. And
I really fell in love with New York City grassroots basketball. UM.
I went from that to to gm NG and putting
teams and Dykeman and gersh and every single major streetball tournament,
bringing James Harden in French Montana and Clarie Kardashian to
come watch the games. Uh. It was really my life, uh,
(30:58):
you know, culminating in putting teams in the TVT tournament
on ESPN every summer. Uh. You know where I've met
a lot of St. John's guys. So um, you know,
I think this project is really the culmination of, you know,
ten plus years of living and breathing New York City
grassroots basketball and then some of my connections from my
day work Um, and to Jared's point, you know I
think why now? Well, Um, you know, I always know
(31:22):
someone in life is always going to have more money
than you. In my case, a lot of people are
gonna be better looking than you. Uh. You know, someone's
always going to have more than you, right materially, But
you could always leave the biggest impact and legacy doing
the stuff that you love. And we love New York
and we love basketball, and if we have the chance
to be the guys to bring both back, Um, that's
(31:44):
something that I'll spend every waking moment of my life doing.
And I think I'm blessed to found a business partner
who feels the same way and really wants to do
the same thing. That's dope. That's super dope. Y'all are
locked in, man, y'all sound locked in. I'm just I'm
just curious. Uh. Also, like some more details. I don't
(32:04):
know if you guys how much time you guys got,
but you know, I just wanted to kind of pick
your brain. You say, state of the art facility. Um,
what does that mean? Like state of the art facility,
like in today's language? What does that mean to you guys?
State of the art you got the dick cool for sure.
So I think you gotta look at kids, right that
(32:26):
are top kids and basketball playing kids, and what they
want and what they like, right, And so you want
to you want to build a gorgeous court, right, you
want your to be state of the art. You want
to have a cool street artist come in and design
it with your logo so it feels super dope. Um.
I think we want to have a juice bar, right
because you know right now, in the past decade, there's
a certain kick in terms of being healthier down at
(32:49):
a younger age. So you tell kids when they walk in,
you know, we don't have Derrito's in here, we don't
have Captain Crunch in here. You know, we have juice, right, Um,
and maybe some middle ground and too. Um. I think
having a turf training area, right, you know. I think
when we've talked to parents right that have elite kids,
one thing they ask is not who the basketball coach
(33:10):
is gonna be. They definitely ask that who's the strength
and conditioning coach going to be? You know what I mean?
So you know from Cardio to cry out two waits
to all that it's really important for us to the cryo.
You gonna have a cryod chamber up in there. We're
gonna have a cryod chamber. You're well, man, yeah, yeah,
better head let you lead with that. Do you know
how sick of cryo chamber is at this time of life?
(33:30):
To be able to have access to kJ, we gotta
leave some surprises. Okay, let the cat out, all right.
I got excited about that. Now, now you're good. And
then you know, I think we want our locker rooms
to be state of the art as well. Um, you
ask what state of the art means. I keep saying
state of the art, but um, you know, I think
(33:52):
you look at like you know, NBA two K and
a gaming room in a film room, right, and even
potentially a classroom depending on how much office space we
have to compliment the gym. Um, you know, what we
really want to do is build a place where look
go ahead, Jay, yeah, I mean just in college level man,
Like we we are trying to you know, emulate a
(34:13):
Duke a Kentucky that kind of you know, top tier
equipment that kind of look um almost like our own
mini little stadium, you know, little MSG whatever you wanna
call it. That's that's really what we're what we're arriving for. Dope.
I've seen I've seen like a couple of stadiums, smaller
that kind of like that one down in Atlanta. I
(34:34):
think that group has one that's sort of cool and
they've got some stuff. So that's kind of where I
was getting at the state of the art I kind
of had. I was wondering it was going to look
like that or not not look like that, but just
have all the bills and whistles, which it sounds like
it will. Um. I think that's that's a huge plus.
The other thing I was also curious about as far
as like the training curriculum or the actual is there
(34:55):
a training curriculum that you guys are gonna put your
stamp on that, you know, Book or whoever your coach
is are are going to kind of implement with the
guys or you know what, did you guys have thoughts
on regarding that? You know, I think that's a great question. Um. Like,
like Griffin said earlier, we know what we know and
we know what we don't, and I think we'll leave
the basketball instruction and training up to the professionals. But
(35:17):
you know, again, Book has been doing this for decades, UM,
and it clearly works. So you know, we'll lean on
him a lot. We'll lean on Chad Um and the
other coaches too. Yeah. We we definitely want to make
something that's ours, um. But I'm sure they'll take from
from many of the years of playing and and a
lot of the things that are going on across the
(35:38):
country and um make it ours and uh yeah, Well,
Griff and I will be at the gym, you know,
definitely yelling and hollering, but we will we will be
firmly out of the way when it comes to basketball instruction.
Well absolutely, I mean that's that's the way, that's the
way to do it. That's how you you know, you
actually let people who you hire to do the job
do the job. I mean, that's just comes down at
(35:59):
that's dope. UM. I guess one more question. I had
something you guys touched on earlier about UM kids in
the inner city scholarshipping. I believe it was what you
guys said, how many kids and what is your idea
or vision behind that initiative? UM. Yeah, I don't wanna,
you know, put our foot in our mouth. I don't
(36:19):
think we have a number yet decided. Um, like I said,
it's gonna be a percentage, and we definitely are gonna
earmark UM a large amount of that UH for inner
city scholarships. UM. You know, we'll talk to Mellow, We'll
talk with with the team and try and figure out
we would love to have a nice balance of UM,
you know, scholarship kids and and paid members. So it
(36:41):
really feels like like a family in there. But I
don't think we're specific yet on what that looks like.
But UM, you know, the idea is, you know, UM
Griffin and I are both very blessed to have grown
up in Manhattan attended UM is bron Science Private. Griff
I went to private school. Grip everyone to public, but
Bronx sign is one of the best schools in the
(37:02):
country right, UM, specifically in the city. And UM, you know,
I look back on my life and and feel so
blessed to be in the position where I'm at UM
and all the resources that I was UM able to
use to get where I'm at and not. It's it's
not lost on me that a lot of kids don't
UM and specifically in the inner city. UM. There are
(37:25):
plenty of smart, hard working kids who just don't have
the financial means to accomplish these things with the resources
that you know, people like UM, I was given when
I was growing up, so it was really important to
me to figure out a way to give back. UM.
You know, my family has been extremely philanthropic my whole life,
and and UM, they've instilled in me from a very
(37:45):
early age, like you know, it's great to do well,
but do well and do good at the same time. UM,
And you know I feel very strongly about that. Absolutely
absolutely wells UM. I appreciate both of your times today.
I feel like, you know, I have a really good understanding.
I hope the audience has an understanding what you guys
(38:07):
mission is and the motivation and the inspiration behind it.
And we're looking forward to supporting and getting behind the program. UM,
ladies and gentlemen. Jared Fphron and Griffin Taylor
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