SoFi: The Toll Stadiums Take on a City

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
On this episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly, g Q staff
writer Tyler Times joins us to discuss former Dolphins head
coach Brian Flores and the lawsuit he filed against the
NFL and three teams alleging racist hiring practices, and later
as one of four members of the wildly popular Around
the NFL podcast. Chris Westling was one of the best

(00:25):
and most beloved football broadcasters in the world. He was
also my friend. Sadly, Chris died from cancer two days
before last year's Super Bowl. He was forty six. I'm
joined by his wife, Lakeisha and our a t N
family to remember Wes and celebrate his life. But first,
the Super Bowl will be held at SOFI Stadium this Sunday.

(00:47):
It's a beautiful new building that offers an incredible experience
for football fans, but what has the stadium meant for
the residents of Englewood. We spoke with members of the community,
the Englewood Mayor, and more about the impact of so
FI on one of the poorest neighborhoods in l A County,
and just a quick heads up. This episode features some
heavy topics and explicit language. It's February nine, I'm your

(01:11):
host John Gonzalez from Sports Illustrated and iHeart Radio. This
is Sports Illustrated Weekly. What's it like for the traffic
getting in and out on like if you do how
to go to the store or something else, It's it's

(01:33):
crazy as hell On Sunday, for the first time in
twenty nine years, the Super Bowl is back in Los Angeles.
SOFI Stadium is the NFL's shiniest new showcase. It's the
biggest and most expensive stadium in the country, if not
the world. It's also located in Inglewood, a predominantly black,
Latino and Hispanic neighborhood that is one of the poorest

(01:54):
in l A County. The Rams and Chargers both play
their games at so FI, which means that Inglewood residents
with an influx of seventy thousand visitors for each game,
a number that will balloon to a hundred thousand people
for the Super Bowl, effectively doubling the population of Englewood
that day. Everyone agrees that so FI offers an incredible
experience for football fans, But how have the people of

(02:16):
Inglewood been impacted by their new neighbor and has more
than one Inglewood resident asked me, would you want to
live next to it? I reported this story for a
written piece. You can read it right now on SI
dot com. So instead of hosting this particular segment myself,
We're going to bring in our senior producer, Dan Bloom. Hey, John,
how's it going? Thank you for doing this, my friend?

(02:38):
Are you kidding? My pleasure? Anything for you? All right? John,
Let's start with how you came up with the idea
for this story. Yeah. So I went to a game
earlier in the season. The Cardinals were playing the Rams,
and it was my first time to Sofi and I
had a great time. It was an incredible experience. The
stadium is first rate in every possible way. But on

(02:59):
the way in now you basically drive through the neighborhood
of Englewood. I mean, it's a residential neighborhood that's buttered
up right against the stadium, and I was wondering to myself, like,
what would it be like to live here and to
have all of these people who don't live in the
community come into the community every single weekend. How did
Sophi Stadium end up in Inglewood in the first place.

(03:21):
So Inglewood has a long history of sports in the community.
Maybe the most iconic thing about Inglewood prior to Sophi
Stadium coming along, was the Forum the Lakers, where the
showtime Lakers in the Los Angeles Kings played for a
long time. But then the Lakers left and the King's left,
and by Inglewood was functionally broke, and that's when Mayor

(03:43):
James Butts was elected. When I left Engwood, we had
the three p s time Lakers, we had the Kings
of Hockey. We have a race track with tin forty
three thousand people a day, six days a week. And
when I came back, functually all we had was the
Scissler and being known at our blindary name was triple
B minus at the time, which is one step above junk.

(04:03):
We had ten million dollars from the bank and we
had an eight team Millie all structural deficit, so in
by September October we would have been bankrupt. Obviously, not
great when you're touting a chain restaurant like a Sizzler
and Randy's Donut, which, while iconic in l A probably
want a little bit more than that is your main attractions.

(04:23):
But James Botts is a really interesting figure. He was
Anglewood second ever black police cadet, and then from there
he was a homicide detective and undercover officer. He led
the swat team, and then he becomes the police chief
of Santa Monica before returning to Englewood and winning election
is mayor. He also has an m b A. So
when he's elected, he's got big plans for the city.

(04:46):
Where I stand right now is going to be the
side of what we hope will be an eighty thousand
seat stadium that will spill over into the most magnificent
development here and there is going to be the stadium.
It's time for new things. Aside from Rams owner Stan Cronkie,
nobody is more responsible for bringing Sofi Stadium to Englewood
than Mayor James Bots. I mean, he is, without a doubt,

(05:09):
the biggest evangelist for that stadium. So the NFL had
long wanted to move back to Los Angeles for obvious reasons.
It's a massive market and it was an untapped market,
and it didn't make any sense for America's biggest sport
not to be there, and so Mayor Bots thought, look,
we have a long history of catering to sports teams

(05:29):
in this town. Why not put our hand up. Let's
have sports again. Let's have concerts again. Let's have people
coming to Englewood. Let's make Inglewood a destination. So they
put in the bid, and they win the bid, and
they get the stadium built in Englewood. It feels like
being inside the matrix. This is truly the resurrection of
the City of Champions. City of Champions Part two. And

(05:53):
because of that, the mayor will list off any number
of things that he sees as a positive benefit, not
just to Anglewood, but to the residents. As a result
of their relationship with Sofi Stadium, the NFL Networks left
Culver City YouTube is operating a six thousand seat performing
arts theater. We tried to the l A Philharmonic orchestra program.

(06:13):
We have the Girl Scouts, the Great Los Angeles Are
You Tennis program at every viscit park that the city
subsidizes so lore income families kids can learn tennis. There's
only three VEGA cities in this country that have had
the number of events and teams that we have at
nine Square miles and at San Francisco, New York and

(06:34):
Los Angeles. But what took them a generation? We did
in less than seven years. This is like a resurrection.
The pride in the city is just off the charts. John,
you took the time to actually go to Englewood. Can
you just paint as vivid a picture as you can

(06:55):
of just what it was like for you to go there,
park your car, walk down the street, and find and
meet people. Yeah. I wanted to get a sense of
what was going on in Inglewood for myself, so I
went there and I talked to people on a game
day about what their experiences are like living in the neighborhood.
When all these people are coming in from out of
the area, I knew that traffic was gonna be bad,

(07:17):
So I parked my car pretty far away from the
stadium and I just walked it in like fifteen or
twenty minutes. And then suddenly you're in the part of
Inglewood that's right next to the stadium, and aside from
the stadium, it's a neighborhood, not unlike other neighborhoods, and
all of Los Angeles, palm trees, the whole thing. And
then out of nowhere you see this giant edifice that

(07:38):
looks like it was plunked down from a Star Trek
movie and it's super incongruous with the rest of the neighborhood.
I mean, obviously the architecture is radically different than what
you would see first where somebody lives. And as I
was walking down the street, a guy opens up his
front door and he had a big, bushy hair do
because it looked like it was early in the morning

(07:59):
and maybe he had just gone up and he didn't
have a shirt on. And he leans out and he
shouts to somebody who had just parked their car, Hey,
you can't park there. And I thought he was just
aggravated by it, but he was just trying to be helpful.
And it turns out his name is Josh. Every Sunday
he's out there trying to be a good Samaritan telling people, Hey,
you can't park there. They'll tell you okay. So parking

(08:23):
is an issue. We know that, but are there any benefits? Yeah,
the parking thing, there's two sides to that, damn, Because
on the one hand, yes, it's an issue for the residents.
On the other hand, if you have a parking space
at your house somewhere for other cars to park, residents
will rent that out to people coming in on game
days and that's actually going to happen for the Super Bowl,
where the Los Angeles Times reported that some spots could

(08:45):
go for as much as five thousand dollars. I know
people dan in Inglewood who lived, you know, about a
mile and a half or so from Sofi Stadium, who
think they can fit five cars into their backyard at
a thousand dollars a pop. So you could do your
math there, that would work out great for them. But
this is still not really considering the overarching problem, which

(09:05):
is the influx of people every single game day. And
I know that some people listening to this will think, oh,
that's just people in l A whining about traffic the
way they always do. But that's not the case, because
the people of Englewood are talking about how their lives
are fundamentally altered on game days in ways that other
l A residents, including myself, don't experience because we don't

(09:25):
live near so Fa. You have to like literally sometimes
my husband get out here, like hold traffic and then
we'll just ease about. So this is Yolanda Johnson again.
She's the one we heard from at the top of
the piece who said the traffic in Inglewood is crazy
as hell. And you know what, She's right, it is
crazy as hell coming back in One night, I was
coming from work. That took me an hour just to

(09:47):
get to my app. How far always work? I work
probably like fifty minutes from here, so it was like
an hour and I didn't I want to park all
the way around the corner and back again and just
leave my car there. So I just stay, just chill
it out into the traffic diet that if you're in
Inglewood on a Sunday and you're a resident, you have
to plan ahead of time. You have to say, Okay,

(10:08):
there's a game today, I have tasks A, B and
C to accomplish. Am I doing it before the game?
Am I waiting it out? And doing it after? Whatever
day the game falls on. That is a lost day
for Englewood residents. So along the same lines, John, people
might be tempted to think that more traffic equals more business.

(10:30):
More people come into your neighborhood, they come across your storefront,
there's a higher chance they'll spend some money, right, But
you discovered that it's more complicated than that. Yes, So
as I'm walking around, I stumbled onto blessed Tropical Jamaican Cuisine,
which is a Jamaican restaurant also directly across the street
from Sophi Stadium, and the co owner was inside. Her

(10:50):
name is Sandra Estrada, and we just started talking about
how her business is doing. And I asked her what
was it like during the pandemic, and pen I mek,
we did real good. We did real good. Will you
think the pandemic effect? But he didn't. Man, we did
great during the pandemic, especially on Sundays. Sundays are her
big days. That's when she sells the most oxtail. And

(11:14):
then the stadium opened and she said, I think we're
going to do great because all these people are coming.
Seventy people every Sunday were directly across the stadium. We're
gonna do even better business. But the opposite has been true.
I used to do like five did, and the food
would finish early by seven o'clock. The food will be gone.

(11:34):
Coustumers coming and I don't have no more food now
I'm trying to see him coming. Yeah. Yeah, and this
is my life, this is my business, you know. I'm
sorry to hear that. Yeah, she's selling a fraction of
the ox tail on Sunday that she used to, and
she's not sure exactly why that is. She thinks it's

(11:55):
probably a combination of factors. Part of it is probably
that people are eating at the stadium, and part of
it is the traffic concerns because the way that the
traffic has flowed, some people going in one direction can't
make a left into her parking lot. On top of that,
the landlord for the strip mall that houses her restaurant
can make a big buck on Sunday running it out

(12:16):
to football fans, which means there are fewer spots for
people to park, to go and patronize Sandra's restaurant. Please
tell me that you tried this ox tail. One of
my great regrets in journalism and life was not getting
that oxtail. And I feel terrible about it, you know,
like that's a perfect example. I'm part of the problem.

(12:39):
I'm part of the problem because I'm going to the stadium.
I'm part of the problem because I'm consuming the NFL.
I love the NFL. The stadium is incredible. And then
on top of that, I'm part of the problem because
I didn't buy the damn oxtail that I should have bought.
You know, and it smelled amazing, all right, So what
else happened to you? Walking a oun in Inglewood on

(13:01):
an empty stomach? Yeah, so I'm walking around. I see
a bunch of cars going into a parking lot and
I figure I'll run over there and talk to some
people as they're gathering. And it turned out to be
a church, and I mean a really nice guy. His
name is Miguel Alvarado. And then what do you do
for the church? I are you the past? Okay, very
nice to meet you. His church is directly across the

(13:21):
street from Sofi Stadium. It is separated by one street,
so he's right in the thick of it. And he
said sometimes his prisoners don't want to come anymore because
it's really hard to get in and out. And then
he's had parishioners have to move. Today. I have one
person who came and he asked me that that he's
going to move to Lancaster with his family because they

(13:44):
can't afford to live in here. Yeah, Inglewood was too
expensive for them, so they decided to take their entire
life and move it two hours north. And that's a
life alter. You're now commuting back two hours to work
in Angle would or you have to find a new
job somewhere closer to where you live in Lancaster. So
your whole life has now changed now. The mayor's counterpoint

(14:07):
to that would be Inglewood's books are no longer in
the red because of the steps the city has taken,
including so far the city is financially stable and we're
able to methodically and strategically redo things like our main library,
our satellite libraries, where we trimmed about six hundred trees
a year out of a nineteen thousand tree inventory. Every

(14:29):
year we do about three thousand trees a year. We've
paved and resurfaced more lane Mills roadway, more linear feet
of sidewalk in the last seven years than the prior
forty years combined. So this has added to the quality
of life. The mayor gets that some residents have concerns,
but he ultimately lands on the trade offs being worth it.

(14:51):
No situation is ideal, but I'll tell you what. There
are a lot of cities that we want to be
in our situation. I'll tell you that as a fact, well,
he would be Mayor number sixties six who has claimed
these benefits. They're going to trickle down. This is Rick Eckstein.
He's a professor of sociology and criminology at Villanova and

(15:13):
he co wrote a book called Public Dollars, Private Stadiums.
This puffery about how communities are going to benefit, it
just doesn't happen. And even though there's this real consensus
among social scientists that these things do not bear economic
fruit in the long run. Anyway, the stadiums keep getting
built and people keep justifying it with these economic arguments.

(15:33):
People can talk about it all they want, but the
data just aren't there. And that's why stadiums are built
where they're built. They build it in places like Englewood.
They're not gonna build it at Beverly Hills. Put it
that way, Rick said, when you look at the people
who are coming into the stadium for games, whether it's
on game day during the regular season or the tourists
coming in for the Super Bowl, these are people who
obviously don't live in Englewood. Some of them probably have

(15:57):
stereotypical fears of the areas since it is majority minorities,
some say, and they don't want to go to the
Jamaican restaurant. I was looking at some of the restaurants
in the area. Most of them are chains, and that's
an issue too, right that money spending a national chain
doesn't usually stay in the local community. It gets sucked
out to wherever the headquarters happened to be and wherever

(16:18):
the executives happened to be. Whenever a stadium is built,
someone somewhere who's associated with the stadium will put out
an economic impact report and everything will be glowing and
rosy and say, by building the stadium in your neighborhood,
oh man, everybody's gonna get rich. Some people are gonna

(16:39):
get rich, but it's not everybody. These economic impact reports, unsurprisingly,
are very favorable to the people who are commissioning these
economic impact reports. And they're even favorable to the economists
who are commissioned to do the reports, because Rick Eckstein says,
they can literally plan for retirement with the money they
earned from doing the work. I'm no name names here,

(17:00):
but there was someone who was was really prominent in
being critical stadiums back years ago. He started doing research
for the teams and I asked him, I said, well,
why do you do that. That's where the money is.
I'm making tens of thousands of dollars doing these advocacy studies,
and I want to retire. That's where the money's, Like,
you know why you rob banks, because that's where the

(17:22):
money is. When I was talking to Rick Exstein, I
asked him what's the future look like for Englewood, because again,
if you read the economic impact reports, everything sounds like
Englewood is going to be the city of the future.
And next time said, look at the Barclay Center in
Brooklyn that was built in a very middle class, working

(17:43):
class area of Brooklyn with all the promises that there's
gonna be all this stuff going on and all the
people are just gonna be riding at Gravy Train is
gonna be great. Well they're gone now and they got
priced out of the market. They don't live there anymore.
So is there anyone in Inglewood trying to make sure
that their community does not go down the same road

(18:03):
as Brooklyn with the Barclays Center. Yeah, yeah, there's a
lot of people. I mean, there's all kinds of activists
in Englewood and people in the community who feel that
they have ownership of Englewood and want to make sure
that they don't get pushed out of town. And one
resident who's working really hard on that front is a
guy named Derek Steele. He's lived in Inglewood since two
thousand eight and he's an activist for a group called

(18:24):
Uplift Englewood, which is an organization that was created in
and what they try to do is work with all
of these companies that are coming into Englewood, like Sofi Stadium,
to make sure that the residents of Inglewood have a
voice and a seat at the table. We have to
be along this journey together with the rams coming in
the new stadium being built, people were really excited about

(18:47):
what it can actually mean for the city. Most of
the people in Englewood that I spoke with just had
a lot of concerns. They had concerns about how much
they were going to have to spend stay in Englewood
in terms of housing, the impact on their businesses, the
impact on their community. But Derek Steele was saying, you know,
I've been to the stadium too, and it was an

(19:09):
amazing experience. Man. So I think if people have the
opportunity to live here and and have those types of
experiences is really a net positive because it is bringing resources,
it is bringing jobs, it is bringing opportunity, and as
long as we're able to be here to be a
part of that, it's always going to be a net positive.

(19:30):
He said something that I had heard from a number
of people that I had spoken with in Inglewood, which
is people are leaving Englewood to find cheaper places to live.
He told me a story about his daughter who's a
grade schooler, and how she had a friend who her
parents decided to move. And that's what it was real
to me, Like you could actually see it in real

(19:51):
life happening, and it's like, well, why do they have
to move? Oh? Yeah, the rent went up a thousand dollars,
like a thousand dollars, Like come on, you know, And
so we got to figure out what we're gonna do here.
This is not hyperboctly, this is not being made up.
People are really suffer. We gotta figure out what we're
gonna do here. But the mayor, James Butts, didn't exactly

(20:11):
agree with that, did he. No, not really. He points
out that Englewood is still cheaper to live in than
some of the surrounding areas. Engwood has a three cap
on rents, the lowest in the state of California. We
have more affordable housing units per captain and in whole
numbers than anywhere in the South Bay. Also, our average

(20:33):
is are the lowest in the South Bay. So it
seems john from the outside like the mayor and activists
like Derek Steele wouldn't agree on a whole lot. I mean,
they do and they don't. Dan They both clearly want
what's best for Inglewood, but they obviously differ on how
to get there and what that looks like. I want
to make sure that people are good. They deserve to

(20:54):
be made whole because they've done the work. They've done
a due diligence to be a part of all the
activity that's happened over the years when or wasn't anything,
and now that there is something, we should make sure
that they're able to stay here to Not every conversation
has been easy, and there's been some frustration along the way,
but I think as long as we continue to keep
the lines of communication open, we can get to a
point where people can be really be taken care of.

(21:20):
So what does Derek Steele mean when he says there's
been some frustration. Mayor Botts is a colorful figure and
sometimes speaks more bluntly than you would expect other politicians
to speak, and there have been multiple city council sessions
where he will dress down his constituents. There was one
city council meeting where a constituent had suggested the Rams

(21:45):
pay for the extension of the nearby crunchhaw line that
would serve as a people mover that would in theory,
cut down on some traffic. Right, instead of driving into
Englewood for the game, you hop on the train and
all of a sudden you're at Sofi Stadium. If I
were a Wood resident, I might think the same thing.
And the mayor, in no uncertain terms, told this resident

(22:06):
what a bad idea that was. This is something that
will be in play six or five days a year
to deal with the blessings and riches that we have
worked ourselves into. Okay, this is our responsibility. It's not
enough to say, oh, somebody else should pay for it.
That's not what mature adults do. They handle their responsibilities,

(22:29):
and the council is handling its responsibility. There's another city
council session that really got contentious. There was a resident
in Inglewood that was displeased with Inglewood giving the Clippers
use of city land in order to hold the press
conference to discuss their pending stadium the Intuit Doom, and
at the end of the city council session, the mayor

(22:52):
got caught on a hot mic telling this person, go
choke yourself, Diane, and not surprisingly, that's not got a
great look politically. The optics of that aren't fantastic. Most
politicians that I've interacted with are more times than not

(23:13):
going to be extremely careful with their words, and James
Butts is the opposite. Will you get what James Butts is?
This was a great idea, We needed this in our
city and I would do it again exactly the same way,
every single time. And apparently the Caribbean restaurants be damned
because Mayor Butts, in my view, is running a serious
risk of being labeled as anti ox tail. Yeah. I

(23:37):
asked him about that, and when I tried to pin
him down specifically on Sandra's restaurant, I was sort of struck.
Businesses operate under the system of capitalism we have in
this country, and no one guarantees anyone everything will always
say in the same and their time will adjustments have
to be made. Very sorry, that business was better before

(23:59):
the crowds. From so far, it's a little difficult to
understand how so many businesses benefit from all the additional traffic.
So I don't know how to respond to one individual situation,
but I would tell you this, you have more opportunity
if you sell things if tens of thousands of cars

(24:22):
come down your street, then if none come down. It
reminded me of the old adage that if you want
to make an omelet, you're gonna have to break some eggs.
It wouldn't have surprised me to hear that come out
of his mouth exactly, But in that instance, those eggs
are his constituents, those are his voters. Inglewood didn't have

(24:42):
a vote on this. There's a loophole in California state
law that allows cities like Inglewood to gather signatures from
the residents. By doing that, it allowed city council and
the mayor to vote it up or down. Thereby bypassing
putting it on the ballot, and not surprisingly, the mayor
and city council voted for it unanimously, And that's how

(25:04):
the residents of Englewood got bypassed on having a true
set in whether or not it was built in their backyard.
When I was talking to the mayor about how the
stadium got built, I called it at an end around,
and boy, he did not like that. Why not put
it on the ballot? Why was there sort of this
end around that prevented residents from voting on it? Was

(25:26):
it legal, John, for the city council to vote to
go that way? Yeah? It was okay, So it was
within the law. Now I'm amazed because I've been asked
that question before. It was smart for us to do that,
to be decisive. We had competing cities that wanted to
do it. Everything was going to go to the people

(25:48):
that were swift, and so we did what we felt
the residents wanted. And it turns out we were right.
If it was you, if you weren't Mayor Butts, if
you were just Englewood resident, James Butts, would you have
wanted to vote? I would have wanted them to do
their duty and voted the initiative of the law. Because

(26:09):
this was a dynamic time, there were competitors, and so
I dare say if we waited around for a vote,
we would have lost ground with our competitors. He is
fully committed to the idea that so far is an
overall positive and a win for Englewood. The alternative is

(26:31):
to be crime written, to have no job generating businesses
in town, to have no through traffic that spends money
or the taxes stay with the residents, and then you
know what, Then you'll have very very cheap rents, but
you'll have a very undesirable city to live in. So

(26:53):
what do you think happens, John, what happens to the
residents who live around so FI Stadium? I hope, like
Derek Steel hopes that along with Uplift what Englewood and
a bunch of the activists, they figure out a way
to stay in Englewood and make it affordable for them
and make it beneficial for them. If it's a situation
on the other side where they're getting this place from

(27:14):
it they didn't even have a say in it. Rents
are being raised in ways that they can't even take on,
and nobody's doing anything about it. Like those things are
are not good not only just for those adults in
the space, but also the youth, because what does the
future hole for them? And what are we saying to
them about what the future means to them if we're
not taking care of them in their families. But I fear,

(27:35):
like the economists that we spoke with, that a lot
of people in Inglewood who could previously afford to live
there will be pushed out because they can't anymore. This
is just the beginning for Englewood. You've got the Super
Bowl this year, next year in it will host the
College Football National Championship and WrestleMania, the l A Olympics,

(27:57):
and in you're going to add in the Clipper too.
This is what life will be like for Inglewood in
perpetuity moving forward. And James Botts is not second guessing anything,
and he will tell you so is there anything you
would do differently? I mean, because so far I'm hearing, Hey,
we nailed us. I'm sorry, I can't think of the

(28:19):
thing that we would have done differently. You can read
my story about how Sophi Stadium has impacted Inglewood on
SI dot Com. We'll link to it in our show notes.
After the break, we discussed Brian flores as lawsuit and
NFL hiring practices with g Q staff writer Tyler times Well.

(28:44):
The big story this week was Brian Flores. Brian Flores.
Brian Flores and the lawsuits against the Dolphins and also
involving the Broncos and the New York Giants. He is
a pursuit with a class actually lawsuit, basically inviting other
coaches to come in. What he's doing is for the
greater good. Uh, He's willing to sacrifice himself. The NFL

(29:06):
is struggling to integrate everywhere else besides on stages during
the halftime show and if you're not running the ball
down the field. When former Dolphins head coach Brian Flores
filed a lawsuit against the NFL and three teams alleging
racist hiring practices, he became the latest and loudest voice
to shout about the league's lack of diversity and it's

(29:28):
long overdue need for change. Tyler Times is a staff
writer for g Q who has written extensively in his
career about the lack of opportunities afforded to black athletes, coaches,
and executives in sports. I asked Tyler to join me
for a conversation about Flores and the NFL's troubling track
record when it comes to putting people of color and
positions of power all right. So, Tyler, we've talked about

(29:53):
this offline a lot of times. Opportunities that are regularly
afforded to white people in the workplace that are not
af to the black people and people of color. We've
discussed that in general. As everybody knows, last week Brian
Flores filed a class action lawsuit against the NFL and
three teams alleging racist hiring practices. Flores himself has said
the proof is in the numbers, and it is zero

(30:14):
owners in the NFL who are black. Previously one black
head coach, now there's two. Now that the Texans have
hired Lovey Smith, three black quarterback coaches, four black offensive coordinators,
six black general managers out of thirty two teams in
a league that is roughly sev black. Tyler, I wish
we could be surprised by this. Nobody who's paid attention
is surprised by this. But now Brian Flores is shouting

(30:36):
it and making people who didn't pay attention pay attention.
Do you think people will get it now? No? I mean,
there's really no reason to believe that people in this
country or even anywhere else when it comes to hiring,
actually care about hiring people that are better for their
bottom line it or for their business. We hire people
based off of what we know, and if you only

(30:57):
know white people, but then of course you're only going
to hire white people, you know. The idea behind this
is that no matter if it's journalism, members in football,
anywhere where specifically black people can exist, we were never
envisioned to have these jobs. When somebody seeks out a
job description, they're not looking for black people. Like when
you go to make the listing of how we think
about these jobs, you're not looking for black people. And

(31:19):
so you can say all what you want about the
Rooney rule, you can say all of what you want
about interview, and you can say all of what you
want about pipelines and are these people ready to take
these jobs with the reality and situation is that at
the very core of it, the centrality of the problem
right now is that there is no diversity in leadership.
If there's no diversity and leadership in the front office,
on the sidelines, and the ownership group, and specifically in
the ownership group, the people who set out to set

(31:42):
the identity of who these people are supposed to be, well,
then we're never gonna win. There could be a hundred
Brian Flores that come past until there are black and
brown owners, specifically, until there are black owners in the NFL,
multiple black owners in the NFL. We you're going to
do this every single year, every single January and February
until something changes. And for the entirety of the history

(32:03):
of the NFL, nothing on this topic has changed. I
think the position of power thing is so important, and
that's something that you always stress and we have these conversations.
The people who are in real positions of power and
privilege here are the owners, as you said, and they're
the ones who created the system that has led to
the lack of diversity. So how could we ever expect
that the very people who created this system of inequality

(32:26):
would then honestly evaluate it and fix it. Right. Every
statistic since nineteen eighty on, from Arizona State to Georgetown,
to any academic research, quantitative studies, even the studies the
NFL is paid for, points to a very specific problem,
and that is that not only do we not get
the opportunity to come into the door, not only when
we do get the opportunity to come to the door,

(32:48):
that these interviews are rigged, but if we funk up
one time, we will never come back. Ever, the likelihood
of a black person getting a head coaching jobs slip
to get a second one, it's even more so. The
whole problem is how we consider football and the people
we put in charge to run these teams. They have
been about seven or eight openings this offseason for NFL

(33:11):
head coaches. Five people have been hired. None of them
have been black. Basically, you're talking about you don't trust
and African American to be a leader of men. The
National Football League players of color, seventy one percent one
head coach is black. And those opportunities that you're saying,
like when they do come, how they're treated in those opportunities,

(33:33):
what kind of opportunities they get, and getting a second
opportunity is a really important point. Brian Flores is talking
about how he was offered a hundred thousand dollars per
game to lose, right, Hugh Jackson claimed the same. Hugh
Jackson goes one and thirty one his first two seasons,
gets fired after starting to five and oneen he might
join the suit. Flora's lawyers say other coaches contacted them

(33:55):
about the same thing. So you've got the Browns, the Dolphins,
franchises that are down on their luck. They take these
jobs when those teams are down, and they offer them
to black coaches to serve as caretakers. And then immediately
when those picks come in or they start to get better,
they get moved out. And to your point, second, opportunities
don't come along. So what kind of opportunities are they

(34:17):
actually getting in the NFL? That was right? I mean,
you know, if you're David Culley, you've waited your entire life,
you're in your sixties to be a head coach, You've
gone through all of these interviews, and your first job
is with the Houston Texans in your fire the same year.
You were never set up to succeed. If Brian Floyds
his lawsuit is what he says it is, then he
was never set up to succeed, right. And and here's

(34:40):
the thing, there's a massive burden of proof to prove
only to people who don't believe in racism. When black
folks tell me that the races happens to them, I
believe them pretty quickly because I know what has happened
to me. And so there's not like some large treasure
trove of evidence. There's not like some secret, you know,
Manila envelope of money. It's sheer empathy. Do you believe

(35:00):
this man or don't you? And if you don't believe
this man, why don't you? If you can't believe this man,
why can't you believe all the other hundreds of men
who have said since the inception of football in the
modern state, since the sixties and seventies and on, that
they are not getting jobs, they are not getting a
fair shake. It is a systemic failure of the highest magnitude.

(35:22):
And the NFL is not the only league who has
to reckon move that. So Brian Flor's message Cameron Will
from the NFL network, and he said it was time
to stop being quiet about the injustices that are happening.
This was long overdue. There's plenty of racism that needs
to be exposed. And I think that's absolutely right, and
that's true. But I want to lead you into something
that you've mentioned to me that's always stuck with me.

(35:43):
That you said, when when something like this happens in sports,
with sports and ownership that's predominantly white, or fans act
out and shout something racist at Russell Westbrook Er Lebron.
The reaction of sports media is generally to run to
black athletes and coaches and say, oh, the system is broken,
how do we fix it? And your point has always
been why do the people who look like Flora's in

(36:04):
Westbrook and Lebron have to fix the broken system when
the people who set up the broken system don't look
like Flora's in Westbrook and Lebron? What else? What I'm
saying right is that, like you know, no one's asking
Bill Belichick about this. No one's not gonna Stephen Ross's
door and saying what happened? You're expecting these black people
who have been through trauma for so many different years,

(36:24):
through so many different ideas of what trauma looks like
for the black body of the United States in this history,
to go from that to then say, why don't y'all
explain to us a Majarlie white labor pool in journalism,
exactly how this goes on? Why don't you ask anybody else?
Because they have as much to say about this as
we do, and if they don't, they should because the
only way, in the only path towards any idea of

(36:46):
equity when it comes to the black body United States
and especially through athletics, is with these white people who
actually hold their power and the key to unlocking what
the future of these athletics looks like. Rod Graves, the
president of the First Pilate Alliance, always is the diversity
is good for business and that no matter what, even
if you don't want these black people, even if you
don't want us near you, that we are good for

(37:07):
your bottom line. If black people can't even be good
enough to help you make money as a white organization
in the NFL, then we are no good to this
league except as crash dummies. And a lot of these
men and a lot of these people within football at
every single level are a bit tired of being crash dummies,
and they've been a bit tired of that for a

(37:27):
very long time. So, you know, commend and respect to
Brian Flores, but nothing that we're discussing is new. Just
in the time of the Rooney Rule, we have not
accomplished that much. And so if the Rooney rule doesn't work,
if the legislation the league is putting out doesn't work,
if half hearted efforts from the people in powers to
help us out are going nowhere. We're just not wanted here. Yeah,

(37:47):
and I think that's why Brian Flora is a standing
up and speaking out. But to the earlier point about
him having to do it and do it alone, we
know what the repercussions could potentially be. I mean, Colin
Kaepernick already went down this road and then immediately not
only did he not get a job, and he still
hasn't and he won't. There was all this pushback in
propaganda about how he wasn't good enough, right, all of
a sudden he wasn't good enough, which is at or nonsense,

(38:08):
and everybody knew it to be so. And now you
have Flora's flat out saying that he knows that those
same techniques might be used against him and then he
might be torpedoing his career. I want to play you
a clip. This is what he said on ESPN. But
I understand the risks of of of uh filing a
lasso like this. Um, But I'm very um, I am hopeful. Well,

(38:29):
there's something I'm passionate about. But if change, if change comes, um,
and if I never coach again and there's change, it
it'll be worth it. Tyler. I mean again, I wish
we could be surprised, and he obviously has gone into
this eyes wide open. But what does that say about
the system when you have a guy who says, I

(38:51):
I see all this stuff. We all see it, but
I'm gonna point it out even though I know this
could be the end of my career. Yeah. I think
the most important thing that people can probably take from
this is is very simple. This is not about Brian Flores.
Like as much a people like to believe that this
is an anomaly and how we think about racism in
the United States, this is not about Brian Flores. This

(39:12):
is about the hundreds of Brian flores Is that have
come through the NFL since the sixties, seventies and on
who were never given a chance. Before we can even
get to a fair chance, they weren't even giving the
chance to come in the room. Now that we are
forced to be in the room, which only came from
a rooty rule, which only came from legislation by Johnny

(39:34):
Cochrane and Cyrus Mary excusing the threat of litigation by
those people. And that's why we have this legislation. Now.
The NFL does not care about this. There are dozens
of coaches around the NFL right now special teams coaches,
running backs coaches, defensive coordinators, cornerbacks coaches, receivers coaches who
have had these jobs for ten, fifteen, twenty years. Secial

(39:56):
teams coordinator in Tampa Bay right now has been coaching
s actual teams for thirty years. He has not had
more than five opportunities to be a head coach in
thirty years. He didn't follow lawsuit. What about Deuce Staley?
He didn't follow lawsuit. What about Rochie Morris? He didn't
follow lawsuit? And so what do we do about these

(40:17):
guys who are literally just regular people who have to
exist within the NFL who will never get their fair shot.
It doesn't matter what Hugh Jackson says, and frankly, it
doesn't matter what Brian Flores says. We have decades of
anecdotal evidence and paid for data by the NFL that
says this ship is fucked up and it's not changing.
So when exactly are we going to do something? Yeah,

(40:37):
and you're right when you said the Rouoney rule was
set up to have people in the room, but being
in the room isn't real. It's just a symbol. So
that they can get around saying, oh, you know, we
haven't talked to any black people. Also, I find it
staggering that you hear a lot of things in the
NFL about, oh, these people that own the teams or

(40:58):
the general managers. Are the people who work for the
teams at a management level, they're not racist just because
they go and higher a white person. I want to
play something for you from Tiki Barber on his w
f A n show, who said he knows the Marras
the owners of the Giants, and that they're not racist.
He told the story about Wellington Mara dying and he

(41:18):
Tiki had gone to his bedside to say thank you
for making me a giant, and he was upset because
you know, Mara had died, and now all of this
stuff is coming out about the Giants, and it bothers
him that people see the mayors as racist. This is
what he said. They embraced me like like I was family,
you know what I mean, And so I know them intimately.

(41:41):
So when I say I don't believe the racist it's
because I know they're not right, and I mean they
don't have the right head coach, the black head coach.
Even though these black players. They don't have a black
general manager or a black coordinator, right. I know they're
not a racist organization, So I get that he's emotional tyler,

(42:03):
But when he outlines that they have black players but
not a black coordinator or a black head coach or
a black executive, that's the problem. He's just outlining the
system that is structurally racist. How many black head coaches
have the New York Giants ever had in their history
as a team, I don't know none. How many black
gms have the New York Giants ever had as this

(42:25):
history as a team. I'm going to take a guess
that it's also none one Jerry Reese. And so the
point here, right is that if you would like to
prove somebody is not racist, maybe the evidence that you
were reaching for should be a bit more substantial than
Nobody give a damn about what Tiki Barbara was saying.
Plenty of black folks have said that this is racist,
and one black person who had a great time the

(42:45):
Giants is not going to change that. The Marits don't
hire black people. We would not be here if the
Maras hired Brian Flores. Pretty simple thing we're choosing to
keep this lead. You know what I mean, there's an
active and subjective decision to keep this league and its
coaches white. Until that changes, I'm gonna funk about what

(43:06):
nobody else got to say. So what do you think
ultimately happens with the Florida situation? I mean, again, his
lawyers have said that other head coaches have reached out,
that others might join the class action lawsuit. Where do
you think we come down at the end of the
day with him and with this lawsuit and with the league.
I think it will be the playoffs next year. It

(43:27):
will be January three, and we will still not have
a lot of black coaches that are even at an
equitable share of what the NFL looks like. And if
that is what the case is going to be, as
it has been every single January and February, if it
last twenty or thirty years, then this isn't going to
really matter. Awareness is amazing, but the end result is opportunity.

(43:49):
We must have the opportunity to get in the room.
And if a lawsuit is not going to change that,
which the last one didn't, I'm gonna assume we're gonna
be sitting right back here January three, February three, and
every year on words until people get hired, until there's
black owners. Yeah, I think the opportunity is the key point.
And I fear that you're probably right about this. I

(44:11):
appreciate you doing this. You can find him at at
Tyler Rookie Times on Twitter, go read to stuff in
g Q, and on g Q dot com. He was
named the Big Leads Sportswriter of the Year for one
I'll take the odds on him repeating in two Tyler,
thank you, appreciate you. Nick. After a break, we remember

(44:34):
NFL podcaster and my friend Chris Westling on janu something
close to impossible happened, and now the Bengals will turn
to their rookie kicker, Evan McPherson. There we go just
a lot last game, this a lot last Gay, Let's
go to the Bowl. The Bengals are in the Super Bowl.

(44:55):
And like Rosie and I were talking about this, you
know for the A T N guys, like how powerful
this feels right like for us to watch this these
two teams play. Who would have picked us? Who would
have thought this? And like it's happening. It really does
feel like west is with us. For this. They're picking
it on third down. He was four for four. This

(45:16):
was for West. It's so much, it's so much all
at once, you know. And when McPherson hits that field
goal and we're all together, it's just like it's every emotion,
you know, it's it's such happiness. What to find West,
to me is like wanting to be around the people
that he loved. The man we're all talking about is

(45:37):
Chris Westling, better known to his friends as Wes. This
was Wesson action on the NFL Networks popular around the
NFL podcast what is up? Boys? Hey Dan? What's there
in the Midwest? Do you know where in Nashville? I mean,
I can't I hear what you're saying, but we never
heard the Midwest too. I can't take this is a

(46:00):
big spot and ate and three team on a six game?
Wouldn't Jake look up? You guys have sat behind me
or sat beside me for seven shows. You sat beside
me for a growing battle with cancer. Will you stand
beside me on the most important I don't believe in Bigfoot,
but I could spend hours on crypto zoology. I think

(46:21):
yesterday was way better than today, just because of West
of us. Really, it was phenomenal and I'm still downright giddy.
Two days before last year's Super Bowl, I got a
call from Dan hands As of the Around the NFL podcast.
It was the call we had all been dreading. Dan
told me that our friend and his podcast partner, Chris Westling,

(46:44):
had died after a long struggle with cancer. Chris was
forty six. We were all devastated, and we still are
a year later. It remains painful and hard to process.
West meant so much to so many people. For me
and our group of friends, West was family. To honor
him the best way I know how, I asked his wife, Lakeisha,

(47:07):
his a t n co hosts Dan Mark Sessler and
Greg Rosenthal, and my wife and NFL Network broadcaster Colleen
Wolf to join me and remembering and celebrating west a
man who we love deeply and who was taken from
us far too soon. All Right, So I want to
start with what we're calling the Westling Super Bowl. Chris

(47:29):
was from Cincinnati, and we can talk about how he
actually felt about the Bengals later. But they hadn't won
a single playoff game in thirty one years, and then
all of a sudden they go on this run. And
we had watched the divisional round at Lakisha's and we
started talking about wouldn't it be cool if the Bengals
played the Rams, because Keisha is a Rams fan, not
just from l A but going back to St. Louis,
And so we decided to watch the a f C

(47:50):
Championship game at Keisha's house. By the time I get there,
the Bengals are not doing great, and I asked Greg,
you know how they're doing, and he just like grunted
his rosy grunt at me. Uh, and they had gone
up I think the Chiefs are up twenty one three.
So Keisha, you were determined that it was not going
to go this way. Tell everybody what you did. You know,
you have your Sensei shirt on, You've got link in

(48:10):
your son and his little Bengals shirt looking cute. Tell
everybody what you did to change the vibes. I am
a big believer in like energy and putting out good
vibrations and energies in the world, and sage gets rid
of like the bad vibes, bad energy. So I was
just trying to do whatever it is possible to if
it's bad energy. I was going to get rid of it,

(48:31):
and that's what I did, burned it and try to
do whatever I could to get the Bengals to the
super Bowl, and it worked. It's also I didn't know
that I expected stage not to smell good. It smelled great.
It depends on who it is. My mom hates it.
The wind was kind of like blowing it over our
faces and everything too, so we kept getting waves of it.

(48:52):
It was lovely. I need some of that. I don't
know what kind of magic it was. That magic work.
Though they win, they go on this crazy comeback. Colleen.
When they won, you immediately ran over and hugged Kisha
and Lank and you were crying. And then Rosie, you
went over and hugged both of them, and then I
came over and hugged all three of you guys, and
then the whole backyard was hugging and everybody was crying. Kyle,

(49:12):
it was an emotional day, it was, And just having
watched the game the previous week, Uh, sort of the
same thing happened in the divisional round when the Bengals
won that game, and that's sort of when I started
to believe that the Bengals were going to the super Bowl,
no matter what, it didn't matter who the Bengals were playing,
that they were destined to go to the super Bowl.

(49:35):
And being with Lakisha and all of you guys, I
feel like this was just a very real way of
being with West and West kind of telling us that
he's still with us, because it just felt so improbable

(49:55):
for all of this to happen, and for it to
kind of happen this way. It's so perfectly West for
him to reach out to us through football and knowing
that this would bring us all together, and that's all
West really ever wanted, was for us to be together
and experience things in each other's presence. And I think

(50:17):
he knew that this would bring us even closer. I
believe that to Colleen, Like that butterfly on the field
during the Wild Car weekend, like that just kind of
changed the whole vibe of the playoffs for me. Seeing
that right before that kick went in, It's just like, Okay,
I see the sign West like something's going on. I
don't know what it is, but I'm here for the ride.
I mean, a butterfly in you know, thirties something degree

(50:39):
temperatures not a normal event. In the Midwest down there
in Nashville. So I do think West was showing something
special to everyone. I like the year clued into normal
butterfly migration patterns. I mean, I could be way off,
but I don't. It's not want to typically tend to
see butterflies like so it's you know, it seemed like
an outlier. It's very important just to speak confidently and

(51:00):
usually that will carry the day, right, That's why we're
all there together as because of West. He was in
a lot of ways the glues that that brought us
all together. But it's happiness, it's sadness, and and it's
football too, and at least for me, like football is
just such a essential part of it. And to be
feeling like all all those sort of emotions, and I

(51:20):
know we felt it throughout the rest of the day,
it's almost like you have to come down from it.
It reminded me too of when Dan and I were
in London and seeing the reaction of West to West
there of all the people, and it's also connected and
like to me, that is West because even though he
had to some people like a gruff exterior, like he
was all about feeling all the emotions like he wanted

(51:41):
to feel everything that life had to offer, like fun, sadness, happiness,
all that stuff, Like he wanted to suck the marrow
out of life. I think also when with the Bagels,
like specifically football to me when we were doing our show,
and I mentioned this before that I if I'd offer
an opinion or say anything about football, I'd want to
know what West thought about what I said. I mean,

(52:03):
I think we all kind of felt away because if
he confirmed what you um, your suspicions or opinions, you're good.
I mean's just like I walked through the streets being
like I know my I know I'm in good shape.
But he's He's left us with the greatest, um, what
would West think moment of all because it's like, yeah,
I know what he'd think about, like the Patriots going
to the super Bowl without Brady or Brady going with

(52:23):
the Bucks, But it's like what would his thoughts be
on this? We've tried to deconstruct that mystery for weeks now,
but it only gets more and more heightened as they advanced.
So um, it's almost just another perfect wrinkle of like
everyone has the same question, where would West be with
all of this, you know, Yeah, so let's talk about
the true meaning of West of Us because we've been,

(52:45):
at least I've been sort of applying this tag to
what's been happening. But the true meaning of Westernes was
built around the Bengals being terrible and losing in the playoffs.
And really it was just an excuse for us to
gather and like over serve each other. And how do
we think West would actually feel about this, because you know,
he had complicated feelings about the Bengals and like renounced

(53:06):
his bantom at one point. But it is such an
incredible run. I think absolutely, as a football fan, he
would admire this Bengals team and really be all in
on Joe Burrow. Obviously in the casual greatness of Jamaar Chase,
I think he would really appreciate the team. But it
truly was a complicated relationship. It was a broken marriage,

(53:29):
that's how he put it. It was a dossier, a document.
It was a big Manilla folder that Lakisha still has
to this day that had three hundred to four hundred
pages of columns and newspaper write ups, and it was
explaining why he was leaving the Bengals fandom in the
early two thousand's after years of fan abuse and his
description and I remember, you know, in the last three

(53:51):
or four years of the podcast, I always used to
say to West, all right, West, come on, let's do it.
As a Jets homer, I wanted West to get back
and have his hometown team and say what about now, West,
how about now? And He's like no, no, no, no no.
And then Joe Burrow came and I was like, hey,
this Burrow kids pretty exciting. And it always went back
to his initial issues with ownership and Mike Brown and

(54:12):
all the ways that Cincinnati was behind the times, and
as someone who's a really smart man and gifted intellect
when he came to football as well, like he saw
through a lot of the facade of the Bengals even
when they were successful, which was kind of the root
of West of this, which was, yes, you're in the playoffs,
but you're not a real team, and everyone's gonna see
on the first opening window of the playoffs. That's really

(54:34):
what it was, was West proving everybody wrong that might
have even had an inkling of hope for Cincinnati. What
makes it difference is dunking on his brothers, right, I
mean others. And that's why, like, I can't I can't
say with a certainty that West would have been rooting
for the Bengals throughout this process if he was with us,
because I don't know. He was a stubborn man as well.
Maybe he would the rough exterior would have fallen away,

(54:57):
but he really did have an ax to grind with Cincinnati.
I don't what do you think, Lakisha, do you think
things would have changed with this team? I think it
changes when you become a dad like you guys are
like Link will remind him how he was as a
kid and stuff. So I feel like we would have
really butted heads because I already gave him the Reds
because you know, baseball was his number one love and
I was just like, you're not getting football, Like I'm

(55:19):
raising Link as a Rams fan. But and now this
all happens. It's just crazy. It is crazy, And I
choose to believe as Keisha does, that this is cosmic
forces and West doing this and it gets better because
Keisha there's operation gets his brothers to the super Bowl.
Tell people about that. Yeah, I didn't get a chance to,

(55:40):
like tell you guys all this. But when I was
at the Rams game, crying for their victory and making
it to the Super Bowl, this random guy, as I'm watching,
you know, the Rams celebrate after the game, walks in
front of me and says, you know, congrats on the win.
And I look and he's wearing like a Bengal shirt.
Out of the whole entire stadium, there's you know, so
many forty fans and Rams fan in this random person

(56:00):
just walks by and I'm just like, yo, no, congrats
to you too. And it's just like, as I'm leaving
the game, this weird feeling, like I really do believe,
like what's his spirit is all around this, and it
just was like, I gotta get his brothers to the game.
So like, you know, I'm texting you guys, and we're
all trying to figure out how to make this happen.
And all of his brothers are coming to the super
Bowl now, and it's just crazy we're all gonna be

(56:22):
sitting together and watching the Super Bowl and I just
onto me so full with so many different emotions and
just yeah, this is not an easy task either. They multiply.
I think there's twenty of them at this Christmas one
of seven and I've got five of them coming. That's amazing.
You gotta be ready for them to be trash talk.

(56:43):
And when Mick and I hate to say this, I
know you're a Rams fan, Keisha, but when McPherson hits
that fifty eight yard or to win the game at
the end, like they're gonna be all over it. I
told you, guys, I've already won like championship weekend. That
was my super Bowl and now it's just like I'm
happy with whichever alcome. And on the subject of Wes's brothers,

(57:05):
there's no way to fill the hole in the podcast
of West not being there as a friend and as
someone that was just great at what he did behind
a microphone. But we've talked about him a lot, obviously,
but also bringing in West's brothers this season, uh in
our pick segment and they have a weekly check in
where they take turns picking their lock of the week,
and that's just been such a great kind of window

(57:26):
into that family because they ended up like turning on
each other like three weeks into the season. And basically
it's a one minute recording each of them send in
and usually it's just the one bearing the other for
a poor pick the week before, or just maybe some
other bigger grievance about the person's lack of personality or
the type of apartment they live in. And it's just
like it was a reminder of like this is a

(57:47):
real family. West was part of a bunch of guys
that were just like maniacs and uh. I love that
they're kind of part of the A t N universe
as well now and a kind of another thing that
connects us to Chris. That's why I have hard time
believing like he wouldn't sorry Mark that like he wouldn't
have enjoyed it, just because how could he not be
happy to see his brothers in Spice Rack and and

(58:08):
everyone that loves the Bengals happy. I love that they've
joined the A t N universe too, and I love
the A t N universe period. Like Rosie, you're mentioning
how cool it was to see the reaction in London,
and I always think about I forgot if it was
West of Us or Westlemania. When one of the listeners
reached out, he's like living on Vancouver Island and he
reached out to us and said, I'd I'd like to come.

(58:31):
And not only did he come, he slept on was
his couch for several days and like that, I think,
I know, I know, Dan, this is a sore point
for Dan, but but he had just tell him he
was coming. He just showed up, right, But this is
who West was. It was like okay, but still, what
I'm saying is that like all of you guys in
West in particular, have such reach and like our producer

(58:53):
Cooper is a huge a t N fan, and like
people who never met him felt like they knew him
and that's a powerful thing. And I think like we
were all so lucky to have spent time with him.
That's why he was such a great hang. One of
the many reasons was it was always the more the merrier.
And like our company's softball team, the Shield, like you know,

(59:14):
West was an anchor on that team and so important
to the team because like it was, it became us
all just hanging out and then winning softball games for
seven innings. But we would hang out before the games,
after the games. It was always a good time with
Wes because that was kind of his his way to
look at life. West was just truly for me, one

(59:36):
of the most unexpected people I've ever met in my life,
because when I first started listening to a t N
it was when I got the job at NFL Network,
and I was like, well, I I gotta I gotta
figure this this out. I gotta learn way more. So
I just started. I searched NFL podcasts and Years was

(59:56):
the first one that came up, and I just started
crushing episodes on the flight to l A when I
was moving out here, and I couldn't stop listening after
I started, and I remember thinking that West was going
to probably be the most difficult. I was like, well,
I gotta be friends with these guys as soon as
I started listening, and I thought that West was going

(01:00:17):
to be the hardest person to win over. And then
as soon as I actually met you, guys, West was
the easiest person to become friends with. Out of any
Dan was the most difficult, was the hardest not to crack.
I don't like to be friends with anybody I don't know,
so that that was not personal. But with Wes, he

(01:00:41):
immediately was so warm, so welcoming. Just as you said,
it was the more the merrier with him, and he
was such a glue guy. And it's just the fact
that we all get to get together now and watch
this super Bowl and be together for it is the
best part of it. We spend a lot of time together,

(01:01:05):
We spent a lot of time talking about spending time together.
And by the time people listen to this, we will
have gathered together to remember West. I think the way
kish he would want us to. We're gonna go to
some of his favorite spots in l a and then
we're gonna go back to your place and play cornhole.
And for people who don't know, Wes was easily the
best cornhole player in our group. Uh, and then me

(01:01:26):
and then everybody else and then Danny and Humble you again, John,
We're gonna go We're gonna hang out and bust each
other's chops and and hug each other. And this is
I think what he would want, right, Definitely, all he
wants is just for us to get together and just
enjoy ourselves and have fun. And just I'm looking forward

(01:01:47):
to it all, like I love you guys so much,
and I'll be bringing the boys Jack and Harrison, who
are kind of big brothers, older cousins to link and Uh,
I just love seeing the way they play together, Lakisha,
and that is kind of a promise I made to myself,
and I think I promise we all made to each
other after West was gone to kind of be there
for Link. I'll be there for Lukisha and get through

(01:02:10):
what's been obviously a very trying a couple of years.
So I'm really looking forward to that because for a
lot of us, all of us, really our family isn't here,
so you kind of create your own family out West,
and that's certainly what we did, and that's why when
we lost West it was like losing a brother. But
these conversations I think are really good because it's it

(01:02:30):
reminds you of all the the great things that came
out and knowing him. I'm looking forward to seeing you guys, Um,
Lakisha and Colleen and Mark and Dan and Greg. I
love you guys, to love Chris, love you, John right
back at you. I mean you, guys. Colleen and Guns
are like like ten feet away saying that to each other.

(01:02:50):
That's very sweet. We couldn't share a microphone one mike
per host here. It would have been funny. Only one
host in this house work first among equals. Um as
West would say, he'd the call. Thanks for doing this, everybody.
Sports Illustrated Weekly is a production of Sports Illustrated and

(01:03:11):
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your favorite shows. And for more of Sports
Illustrated's best stories and podcasts, visit SI dot com. This
episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly was produced by Alex Kappelman,
Cooper McKim, and Isaac Lee, who was also our sound engineer.

(01:03:33):
Our senior producer is Dan Bloom. Our executive producers are
Scott Brody and me John Gonzalez. Our theme song is
by Nolan Schneider. Thanks for listening, and if you've stuck
around this long, we leave you with this from Inglewood
Mayor James Butts dot com. And you're not gonna have

(01:03:55):
my video. I don't know about the video. I do
know that you will have your audio. We're gonna have
a whole podcast on it. Okay, thank you very much.
Come on, this is my chance of being Sports Illustrated.

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