Episode 2 - Ryan McGee

Ryan McGee is a senior writer for ESPN and the co-host of the Marty & McGee show on ESPN Radio. He is best known for his work with NASCAR and college football.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everybody, Welcome to episode two of The Matt Jones Show.
Thank you guys very much for making episode one and
the show successful. You can subscribe on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.
It's been it's been wonderful to get the response. This
is what we were hoping for. So every week we're
going to do two episodes, one of which will air

(00:21):
on the radio in Kentucky and then the other of
which we'll be on here, and we'll put both episodes
on the podcast feed, but really they'll only be there'll
be one that is kind of podcast only, and we're
going to start this one with an old friend of mine,
Ryan McGee. He's done right writing for ESPN for a
long time. Used to work on RPM tonight. He covers

(00:42):
college football and auto racing more importantly, a smart guy
with a good southern North Carolina roots, and there's not
a lot of us in sports media actually from the South.
Worked with him on ESPN and he actually put me
on the radio for my first time with ESPN. So
we talked to him a little bit earlier today. And
it's a big week with all the motorsports on Memorial Day,

(01:06):
so we'll check it out and then on episode three,
we'll have Crystal Ball, my good friend who works in politics.
So we go from Bomani to Ryan to crystal Ball.
That episode should be out probably Thursday nine or so.
So with that, Ryan McGee, all right, episode two here
of the Matt Jones Show. And you know, when I
started these, I wanted to get people early on that

(01:28):
I knew who've done these before, who I know I
can talk to and are fun to be around and interesting.
And Ryan McGee of ESPN fits all of those. He
does college football, he does auto racing, and he's also
a good Southerner, one of the few people on ESPN
with a voice sounding like mine. Ryan, Thank you very much.

(01:48):
How you been.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
I'm good. Yeah, No, it's I always. I'm petty enough
that I hope that all of the professors that I
had said I could never or and the people I
interviewed with for jobs you said I could never be
on air because of the way it sounded. I'm petty
enough to hope that they.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, screw those people. When I went to law school
and I was going to Duke, it wasn't like I
was going up in the northeast. Yeah, my professor said
to me, you you need to like work on your
voice or all of those folks will think you're dumb.
And I and I actually thought that was bad advice
because I thought the voice kind of helped people like
underestimate you, Ryan and then you can prove them wrong.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
No, no, I said all the time when I when
I'm I went I went to I went to Connecticut
to work at ESPN. Uh at the Death Star, right, Uh,
I mean basically a year out of college and in
the company. ESPN is so much different now than it
was thirty years ago. People from all over the country
and you know, but but back then it was basically
just me and a bunch of guys who'd gone to

(02:51):
school at Syracuse and Columbia. And everyone treated me like
a pharnic shange dident like they literally would would speak
loud and slow to me, like.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
They really like you couldn't understand sandwiches.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
So if I if I just did my job, they
thought I had overcome some obstacle, right, So yeah, no, no,
so yeah it worked out for.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
They need you need you needed to be rescued by
them or something like that. I like that. Well, so
I have a lot of stuff I want to talk
to you about you, but real quick on the on
the being Southern and on ESPN. I joke you, we're
on ESPN radio. You do Marty and McGee, uh, and
I do Matt and Myron. Did you know where the

(03:30):
two longest running ESPN radio shows?

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Now?

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Did you know that?

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah? So, so for years on Saturday we would lead
into Darml with her buddies, you know, dary Noka and
Mel Kuyper. And when Dari and Mel ended, I guess
was in twenty twenty four. All of a sudden, I
was like Marty McGee a show that quite frankly, there
were people at the time didn't really want us on

(03:57):
their radio.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
I understand.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
And we and we've been on now long than I mean,
it's not even really close. We've been on now. We've
been on since Marty and I were telling me to
day we started doing a podcast no one listened to,
like more than a dozen years ago.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
You've been on since twenty fifteen. Yeah, I'm the ring.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Then we moved to Saturday afternoon, like at three o'clock
in the afternoon, which the family really liked. And then
but then we moved to Saturday morning. Yeah, I tell
you a story about that. So the hilarious thing is
all of my friends know I'm not a morning person
at all, and I co host a morning show, and
but my family am. I'm in a house of night people,

(04:37):
like we sleep in, but we work all night. And
my jobs have mostly been like that. But my wife
was so mad when I told her one night at dinner,
I go, hey, they're thinking about moving Marty McGee to
Saturday morning at seven o'clock in the morning. Oh my god,
you know Friday nights when we go out and this.
I'll go, yeah, you're right, you're right. And so I
didn't bring it up again, and uh, later on we're

(04:59):
at dinner and she goes, what did they decide to
do with the show? I said, they decided to move
it to seven am. Ah, she's what are they gonna
do it? I go, they did it five weeks ago.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
She didn't even know. Okay, no, my family, my family
sleeps in. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
So I come home from the show at ten thirty
in the morning or whatever, and I'm waking her boy up.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
You're twenty fifteen. We started in twenty eighteen, and not
only are we the two longest, we're the only shows
that have survived COVID right like is which is crazy,
shows you how much turnover is in that business. And
it's interesting. It really has changed because when we started,
you guys, I thought were the only people doing like
a personality based not just sports thing. And then the

(05:41):
first after a couple of years, I tried to do it.
I didn't feel comfortable doing that the first time because
I thought they wanted me to be football guy. And
now it feels like everyone's trying to do that. I
think that's I got in trouble.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
So Marty, Marty and I were getting and rightfully so
Marty and I were getting feedback. Sometimes, hey, you have
to at least occasionally.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
You mentioned sports.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
If we'll ron drop sixty four on Friday night, you
probably should mention it on Saturday morning. But there was
one week where you subbed for Marty and you and
I literally talked about like county fairs.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yes, it was awesome. I remember that it was awesome.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
But that was the one time where they were like, okay,
you literally did not mention sports for two hours. I'm like, okay,
you know what that's that's that's right.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
But you guys, I do appreciate this, and I thank
you for this. My first handful of episodes on ESPN
were on your show. You guys would be gone. It
would usually be around Derby or pretness or something, and
they'd have me on. The worst episode of radio I've
ever done in my life was well on your show,
which was the very first one with Nicole Brisco, who

(06:44):
couldn't have been worse to me. I won't make you
comment on that, but after that, I usually worked with
you when Marty was at horse races, and that's what
ended up getting me the job. So I always have
appreciated it.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, no, and I appreciate that. Appreciate and return because
you because you know, and when when while I was
in the process of trying to convince people who let
us do radio, you know, you guys have me on
your show, and so, uh, it kind of helped me,
you know, I made this transition. So the first half
of my career I was a producer, you know, I
was always on the producer track and really enjoyed it,

(07:16):
but felt like I was pretty good at it. And
then I started writing for ESPN the magazine on the side,
like I would produce these features, uh, like like say
I'm say I'm producing a two and a half minute
story about Jeff Gordon RPM tonight. You know, back in
the day, I would call ESPN the magazine to go,
I interview Jeff Gordon for an hour and we're gonna
use We're gonna use yeah, and so let me write

(07:38):
something and so uh. And then when I when I
left the ESPN for a minute, and when I came
back and as a writer, just strictly as a writer,
no longer as a producer, they started to put me
on some shows. But it was because of guys like
you that would let me go on their shows that
proved I could talk. You know, it helped me, helped.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
Me make by. I think it's great to have the
little bit of Southern culture we bring to Bristol. And
this is a big weekend for you. You do a
lot of college football, a lot of auto racing, so
that this is the this you said to me, this
is May for college basketball people, that's what we would say.
This is March. So I want to go through on
which First of all, would you say Memorial Day Sunday

(08:16):
is the biggest day of the year for auto racing
in America?

Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, it's not even close. And I think it's for
the globe because the and I wrote this column a
few years ago, you know, right, and there are stretches
where this isn't going to happen. But but for the
most part, it's happened every Memorial Day Sunday for the
last several decades. Which is you start with the Grand
Prix Monaco in the morning from the one, and then
you have the Indianapolis five hundred, and those are two

(08:43):
races that are watched all over the world, yes, and
then you have the I still call it the World
six hundred, but the Colt six hundred here and Charlotte,
where I live, is that night. And so yeah, auto
racing starts before breakfast and it goes until way after dinner.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yeah. So what's cool is when I was a kid,
that was the only time I ever watched racing was
that day. Now that changed as I got older, but
when I was a kid, that was it.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
I think most people are like that because the reality
is is that the Monaco Race is not a great race.
Those cars, you know, these cars weren't built to race
on the streets, certainly not the streets of this whinding
but the spectacle of it is second to nine. And
then Indianapolis. You know, I think it's the greatest race
in the world and has become a phenomenal race over

(09:26):
the last decade and a half. It used to be
an endurance race. Now it's a race race. And then
you have the CO six hundred on on Soinna And
what's cool is like, for example, Sunday morning, so McLaren,
who's who's dominating from the one this year? You know
McLaren also fields Indy cars, and so I'll be watching
the Monaco Grand Prix with the McLaren guys from Indianapolis,

(09:50):
and then later on my colleague Nate Saunders will be
watching the five hundred with the McLaren guys as they're
packing up in Monaco, and then they'll all watch kox Hun.
That's what's changed over the last thirty years is all
of these racers watch different types of racing. When I
first came along, you had to make a choice. Are
you a NHR guy or a NASCAR gal, or from

(10:11):
a Warren Gay or an IndyCar guy. And now there's
so much cross pollination. Everybody watches all of it, and
that part to me, Yeah, it's I don't think it's
even close. It's the biggest day of racing in the world.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
It's also a day to kind of look back and go, Okay,
what's happened in the last few years. Let's start with
the first thing in the morning, the F one. So
I find F one racing to be horrendously boring, and
that's cause I probably grew up with NASCAR watching people
rubbins racing and passing and all that, and even on
the best tracks, there's not a lot of passing in
F one, and then you get one to Monaco, there's

(10:44):
like no passing. But it has become a spectacle and
a phenomenon because of the Netflix show. But there's also
become like a party sort of social atmosphere which I
think existed in Europe forever but now exists in America
to races. Have you been surprised how F one is
kind of captured this segment of the American sporting public.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
Oh yeah, and you mentioned COVID. That's all it is.
What people don't realize is, you know that Netflix Formula
one show, which one of Sports Emmy. You know, just
as we were recording this again, that show hit existed
for a couple of years before COVID and no one
watched it.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
Is that right?

Speaker 2 (11:25):
I didn't know when everyone was stuck at home for COVID,
They're just looking for something to binge and people started
watching it. And the attraction of Formula One has always
been two things. It's the spectacle of it. The cars
are phenomenal. They don't race particularly well against each other,
like there's not really a show, But the cars have

(11:46):
always been the most technologically advanced machines on the planet. Yes,
they're phenomenal, But the other part is the soap opera.
And you know when I was when I first started
working at ESPN in the nineties, it was Michael Schumacher
versus Damon Hill. And I just saw Damon Hill in
Miami at the former On Race a few weeks ago,
and we're talking about this. And the racing itself, with

(12:08):
the exception of a couple of races, weren't great. But
the drama, the story of Formula one was what happened
from Monday morning all the way up to the green flag,
and it was this guy doesn't like that guy or
this guy. You know, we had Spygate and we have
people stealing secrets and guys changing teams and taking technological
you know, secrets from one of the other, all this stuff,
and so what the what the Netflix show does is

(12:32):
it it underlines all that, It highlights all that, and
it and and takes these robotronic seeming people and gives
them personalities. And so yeah, the reality is that's what
they love.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
And they're good looks.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
In Miami, man, it was sixteen year old girls as
far as you could see, and they aligned the paddock
and were just screaming. That's screaming every time these drivers
came out. And that's just not that's not something over
And the.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
People that I think part of it. The people are
good looking, right, usually the drivers. It's so weird because
when we were growing up, the NASCAR drivers were the
opposite of good looking. They would be the least good
looking people on earth. These people are handsome, They have
like amazing hair, clothing, everyone it looks like they could
come out of a Chanelle ad. And I think some

(13:16):
people just like it for that. The only people I
know that go to the F one Miami Race are
women that go in the best fashion they have, And
I'm like, that's so different. Than going to Martinsville in Virginia.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah. So that weekend when we did Marty and McGee,
I was in Miami for the former one event. Marty
was at the Derby. Yeah, and Marty was like, well,
I'm at the Derby where the most beautiful people in
the world are.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
I go, I don't know if that's true anymore.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
You know. And there were a lot of people that
were at the Derby on Saturday or in Miami on Sunday.
And it was like, you know, Timothy Shalla May and
you know, he's dating one of the jenners and she
was there and it was funny as I have a
twenty year old and I'm in the paddock just kind
of you know, walking around just honest, I'm just creepily
stalking famous proops like all right, who's here, who's not?

(14:09):
And uh, you know, seeing NFL guys, guys I covered
in college in the SEC or an NFL now and
seeing it was great. But like you know, I would
I would take a picture and texted to my daughter
like who is this, Well that's so and so she
is twenty two million Instagram followers. Yeah, oh okay. But
you know, there was a lot of that.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
That's coming at the Derby too, now, like the Derby
is intentionally bringing these TikTok influencers in. And I walked
around a lot of the dirt on Oaks on Friday,
and there were all these people that people were going
crazy for, and I was like, I don't know any
of these people. And that made me feel if I
felt old at my own Kentucky Derby for the first time.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
So it was a few years ago. In fact, it
was it was twenty twenty one because it was the
first It was my first post COVID trip or during
COVID trip, and it was the Formula one opener was
in Abu Dhabi, but they were having this event in
Beverly Hills, so they sent me and Marty to Beverly
Hills and we drove around, you know, a three hundred

(15:07):
thousand dollars Aston Martin and they had a pop up
drive in movie theater on the roof of this parking
deck at this swanky mall in Beverly Hills and Hollywood
Hills all around us and the whole thing. Well, Marty
and I are, you know, six seven o'clock in the
morning on this rooftop sitt in his car. All these
other cars start pulling up and they look like Tokyo drift.

(15:30):
Look at fast and furious they start pulling up. Well,
I'm I'm posting pictures whatever on Instagram. My daughter's like, Dad,
you don't understand this girl that's in this car next
to you. She's so and so and so and so.
I'm like, okay, and and but yeah, but they they
kind of ruled the world. Now at the SEC Championship,
at the certainly at the collegeotball playoff, there'll be a

(15:52):
box of these people that all looked like they were
made in an AI machine. And it's the influencers. But
it's it's a thing.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
It is a thing, and good good luck. I mean
back in the day, yeah, you and I we could
have been influencers, Like why not? Why could we could
have been Josh Richards. We influenced the people in my house.
That's true.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
Well alone, you know, let alone three million people you
know in Tokyo.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
So the race, the F one race is always terrible
at Monica, but it's worth seeing. And I saw that
you have to pay like two hundred and eighty thousand
dollars to just pull your yacht to where you can
see it. Then you go to Indy the Indy five hundred,
And I would admit I tuned out on the Indy
five hundred for years, just kind of I think after
ari Lyondyke, I was just kind of done for a
long time. And then in the last few years I've

(16:37):
started turning it on. It may have started the COVID
year or soon after. And I do agree with you,
it's a lot more entertaining, even though I don't know
the people in it anymore. It is the racing is
like kind of crazy good. Why is that.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
They've overhauled the cars significantly? You know, they're not they're
not spec cars, but they're yeah, they are. I mean
the cars are. The cars are almost identical.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
But that's good for racing.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
It's great. No, it's great, and and and and now
I would argue the same thing about NASCAR. You know,
which is which is? You know y'all all wanted stock cars.
Well you now you've really got stock cars.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
And there as a result, what was that series where
they used to just randomly assign them the cars? Yeah,
what was that called? Uh, they'd bring people from all
the different organizations and it would be on Iraq Iraq.
It's kind of like that, right, kind of like that.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
And and also, and I think this is true in
a NASCAR too. In an IndyCar, the talent level is
through the roof. You know, you have all these guys
that were on the Formula one track that jumped to
IndyCar because there's money in it now, and there's and
there's faming it now, and now you can go from
IndyCar to Formula one if you still want to. And so,
but the cars are particularly in Annapolis where they're when

(17:48):
they're qualifying it to averaging two hundred and thirty miles
an hour on wards of the speeds that you and
I used see back in the day. But you know,
but IndyCar ripped itself in half. You know, I lived
through all that and covered all that in the late
nineties and and and you know, I'd say this all
the time in terms of collegiate athletics, which is, you know,

(18:10):
NASCAR made a lot of really bad decisions in the
mid two thousands that ran a lot of people off.
Indy Car ripped itself in half. I mean, killed the
goose looking for golden eggs. And I always throw those
out as cautionary.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
Live live in golf. I think they've done to a
smaller version. I think they've done the same thing.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, and I throw these things out as cautionary tales
to our friends in college at the collegiate athletics, because
all of these things are done with the assumption of
your core audiences. You're just gonna we can't do anything
to run them off. Yeah, you can tell you can
and and or they age out. And so the question
isn't you know what are you doing to make the

(18:48):
gray headed guys in the in the color blazers mad?
The question is what are you doing to make the
twenty year olds decide they want to do something else?
And so it's a it's a really I use it.
I wrote when Oklahoma text such when you see I
wrote that, Or it was during the is when USC
and UCLA went's the Big Toow. I wrote that column
like be careful because you think they'll just stick around

(19:08):
no matter what. But the reality is if it looks
too far away from what they grew up loving, then
they will one hundred percent go find something else.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
USC and UCLA did the Big ten, I think was
a huge mistake and well, let's just switch. Well, I'll
come back to NASCAR. And second, let's let's just take
this line of thought. And I want to see what
you think of this. This is my thesis about college
football and basketball. College basketball, I think NIL and the
transfer portal have actually oddly helped because it has made
it to where a lot more teams are good, the

(19:37):
level because guys are staying longer, the level of play
is higher. I think the last last year in college basketball,
especially the SEC, is the best it's ever been in
my opinion, So I actually think it has oddly really
helped college basketball. Now, college football, I think it's different
because it has so many players and it has so
many things you have to deal with. I I think

(20:00):
it has made it. People turn off the college football
from January to September, but yet when the game start,
I still think everybody's back. All in. The ratings were high.
I thought the quality of play was good. So while
I think it's been universally a positive for college basketball,

(20:20):
I kind of have mixed emotions about it for college football.
What do you think?

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Yeah? What? I what I worry about. I think that
while everyone is so distracted by NIL and all that stuff,
transfer portal and all that. I worry more about the calendar, okay,
because the season is getting too long. You know, the
reality is that the ratings were up until they got

(20:47):
to the NASH Championship game with two of the biggest
brands in the history of the sport. You know, in
the game, and you know, basically two weeks between the
semi finals and that, and at this point, costaball have
been going on if you go by the week zero
since the third weekend in August. So you know, the
reason that spring football games were a big deal is

(21:07):
the same reason that the NFL Draft became such a
big deal, which is it's all you had, right, you
had nothing from January first until Labor Day, and so
you're talking about your your core audience when you start
messing with the rhythms of their calendar, and now you're
you're backing the championship game up into the middle of
the NFL playoffs.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
That's true. There's a rhythm to the sports calendar all year.
We kind of know what's supposed to happen every every year,
and then when you mess that up, that's an interesting point.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
And you and you you think that that messing with
January first, which they've been doing for years now, was
not gonna be that big of a deal, and people
are kind of irritating with it. So I just those
are the things that if you once you get to
Saturdays in the fall. Last season was I thought maybe
second of maybe the two thousand and seven was the

(21:59):
most entertaining regular season we've had in my lifetime college football.
But but but but but you know, like any great movie,
if it goes on too long, goes on too long.
That's that's the part of it that I that I'm
And some of that was selfish, honestly when I when
I I was like, man, we would be done right now.
And and understanding that you know, you and I both

(22:21):
work for the company that that uh you know that
benefits from all this, and I'm all for it, but
it's gonna take a minute for people to get used
to it. And I just think you need to be
careful when you start playing a championship game on the
twenty second and twenty third and twenty fourth of January.
It's just it's getting it getting long.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
It's a really good point.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
You got to you gotta leave them hungry, right and
when the season is ending while some teams are starting
spring practice. That's that's a there's an adjustment period there.
We'll see if everybody adjust or not.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
I'm gonna give you a few arguments that I make
on my show about college sports and see if you
agree or disagree. So one was the one I just
made that. The second one is there was this word
he with the portal. Oh no, parody's gonna go away.
A few teams are going to load up. And I
actually and I actually kind of bought that, but I
actually now think the opposite is happening, at least in football.

(23:12):
Basketball is slightly different. But in football, dudes don't want
to stay and be second team at Georgia and Alabama.
They'd rather go to Kentucky and South Carolina and start.
And it's actually made it to especially as the season
goes on where injuries come into play, it has actually
added some parody. Do you agree with that?

Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yeah? I mean, listen, I was in I was in
Nashville a month ago and spent some time with Diego Pabya.
I mean that's it. I mean, you know, I write
the bottom ten for ESPN dot Com. I have written
about New Mexico. State football for ten years, right, yep,
And I knew how good Diego was at New Mexico State.
And now he's the mayor of Nashville.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
Yeah, and he's and his brother who's annoying but still
gets out of attention.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah, he's been given an opportunity to do something. And
it's interesting because you know, I cover college baseball too,
and obviously we're in the middle of the baseball postseason
now or starting cranking it up. And you know, I
remember going down to LSU when they put together their
first real giant nil class, the one that won the
College World Series that year. And I'm talking to these

(24:21):
guys that came from I mean, Skiings came from air Force,
and I'm talking to you. The kid that was the
winning pitcher in the championship game that the game won championship,
he came from UCLA. And when I talked to them,
you know, Skiings did not want to leave air Force.
He loved that place. But he said to me, he said,
you ever been a game there? I'm like yeah. He
goes how many people were at the game. I'm like
forty people. And you know, when I talked to the

(24:41):
kids from UCLA, they would play, you know, in the
UCLA's really good at baseball, and when they would play
at Jackie Robinson Ballpark on a Friday night against Stanford
in a top fifteen game, and there'd be eight hundred
people there, and they go back to their apartment and
they see the highlight of the South Carolina Kentucky and
there's nine thousand people there losing their mind, and they're

(25:04):
like and like, the Nile money's fine, but that's why
I came here.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
That's what you want.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, right, to me, it's opportunity. But then there's the
flip side of that, which is all right, now if
you're the guy that's not getting to play now because
the guy in UCLA and the guy from Mary Forest
and all I came. Well, now you're exactly right. I
can go to a Kentucky and turn them into a
College World Series team, or I can go to you know,
a Dallas Baptist and still be a top ten draft pick.
You know, So I think I think you're right. I

(25:29):
think that we're seeing a giant market adjustment. And I
think when the contracts come, because they're coming, it's also
gonna it's gonna all this is gonna hopefully level out.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
Of Yeah, I do too. I think the contracts will
be an interesting adjustment to it. But I would look
at all these sports and say, isn't it good for
football that the Indiana game mattered last year whereas it
would not have mattered. The playoff made me care about
games that I didn't care before out Before I go
to basketball and when the tournament starts, now Saint John's

(25:59):
matters that again and that hasn't happened in a long time.
And then you go to baseball and Kentucky had never
made the College World Series and they were the number
two overall seed last year. I think it just makes
more people be interested in the sport, right.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
It's the part of it I didn't see coming because
quite frankly, I did not want a fourteen playoff in
the beginning. But I came around on it. And my
argument about fourteen playoff was it should be difficult to
get into the postseason. If it's not difficult to get
into the postseason, Now you're the Stanley Cup Playoffs and
everybody's in. Right now you're the NBA Playoffs and everybody's in.

(26:34):
What's the point. But what we saw with it expanded playoff.
Even though I hate twelve, I hate buys that conversations
maybe for later, but it opened up the conversation. You're
exactly right to us talking about all these other teams
that we would not have been talking about otherwise. Yeah,
you know, it's making people on the West Coast keep

(26:57):
an eye on Indiana football, and it's making people in
the Middle West, you know, keep an eye on Aless
football and every you know we're talking about. And even
when it came to the Sunbelt or when it came
to whomever, you got to keep an eye on teams
now that you wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
I mean, I watched Boise State play Nevada in that
last game because I wanted to see if they would
make the playoff. And you know, Kentucky was bad last year,
but I went in, I get there's a video, I
get mocked about a lot on the line, but I
started the season and I go, you know, there's a
path for Kentucky to go to the playoff. Go nine
and three, these are the games they could win. I

(27:34):
would have never had that conversation before. It's nice just
to have that possibility out there.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Yep. And this is why you'll leave it alone. You know,
if you expand a sixteen, fine, but this idea of
and I want to make sure I'm perfectly clear on this.
If if this thing is rigged so that X number
of teams SEC teams always get in and x you know,
X number of big ten t that's really great for

(28:00):
Marty McGee. I mean, it's it's it's phenomenal for Marty.
It's good, good for good, good for business. But but
for the for the overall health of college football. You know,
the system is already pretty much rigged against Coastal Carolina,
but now you're going to make it official, right, So
I just I think that keeping even if it's even
if deep down we know it's probably not gonna go down,

(28:22):
the fact that we are watching games because a team
might have the path that you're talking about, and the
more teams that are in that conversation, the better off
the sport is. And what's interesting is when you talk
to a Kirby Smart, or you talk to a stoop So,
or you talk to these coaches that would benefit from that,
what they worry about is, well, how does this affect Valdosta,

(28:44):
how does it affect Youngstown?

Speaker 1 (28:45):
Because as right, Yeah, it's kind of like the WWE.
The WWE. We all know it's fake, right, but there
are people who think they screw up when they just
acknowledge it outright. Let us live in this fantasy world.
Don't make it to where you essentially say this is fake,

(29:06):
which sometimes I think they walk the line of doing. Now.
I see you. You're a Tennessee guy. You got a
Tennessee Vall's helmet there behind you. Uh, there is this.
Maybe you know more about it than me, but I've
been struck it. How little has been reported about this
state law in Tennessee that they just passed basically saying, hey,
Tennessee doesn't have to follow any of the NCAA rules.

(29:29):
And then ross Ellinger reported that the conferences are coming
together and go make all the schools sign something that
says you follow our rules, or you are you are,
You're gone. Is that something that could happen or is
that just bluster?

Speaker 2 (29:45):
I you love politics, right?

Speaker 1 (29:47):
I like it.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
I don't know when you write a book about politics.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
Yeah, Trump era makes it worse, but yes.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
I'm not.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
I'm not.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
I hate it. I hate everything about it. I was
a Senate page when I was a high school, and
I saw enough for me.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
To go, Nope, you're in DC A center page.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah, it was a long time ago. I got a
pin right here on my wall. The Yeah, it was
just enough for me to go. Now. It's like having
an internship at like a law firm, and you go, no,
don't want to be a lawyer, you know, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
I'm not.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
I'm not built for this. But I say this knowing
that a lot of people just south of where you're
sitting there going to probably send me ugly stuff. The
Tennessee State House specializes in bluster. They just do. There's
just there's certain state houses that do that. The uh,

(30:38):
it's their job. Their job is to you know, get
the constituents fired up and make it. But the reality
is is that this is gonna be a national thing.
It's gonna be a national fight. There's gonna be things
that override whatever they say in the state House, the
state Capitol building, Capitol Hill wherever in all these states

(30:59):
at some point become become a federal deal.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
So you think that will happen. You think they will
pass federal laws on the on anil and stuff. They should,
but you think they will.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
It's coming, it's coming, and and it's and it's there's
there's too many people on Capitol Hill that represent too
many states that care. And you know that that that
are homes to these powerful schools, that it benefits them
to to come up with something. And the reality is
everybody's got to follow in line with it. And but

(31:28):
I but I I one hundred understand and I want
to understand appreciate the resolutions and that this is what
it is, and the so and so. But I think
that this story isn't reported very much because people are
just sick of it.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
Corey Booker and Corey Booker and Tim Cruz are going
to decide the future of college sports.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
It's just at some point everyone's eyes glaze over. And
that's what I'm talking about. What some of a few
minutes ago. What you can't do is you can't create
a conversation that that's all it is. Once that conversation
you're talking about starts to creep into Saturday afternoons, now
we got a problem because now that's the conversation this
time of year whatever. But once we hit l every

(32:08):
day weekend, if this is what we're talking about, then
then that's when people are gonna be like, you know what,
this sucks, I'm gonna play golf.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yeah no, that's I actually really like that. All right.
So one of the things that people want to hear
about is when you know people in actuality. So I'm
gonna ask you a couple of questions, and I want
you to give me the name that comes to your
mind first when you say this, all right, let's talk
coaches first. Who is, in your mind, the nicest coach
that you've dealt with? If you're just saying, as a

(32:36):
human being, the nicest coach.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Man. The good news is it's a lot of people.
People ask me that all the time, and I always
say that the number of jerks.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
Well, I'm gonna ask you that in a minute, but.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah, I mean, but I mean Sam Pittman, Okay, is
one of the nicest people ever out in my life.
He's well, all I ask of anyone, That's why I
like you. All I ask of anyone is just be
the genuine article. Like, if you're a jerk, be a jerk.
You know. If you're a nice guy, be a nice guy.
You know, if you if you if you're a Bible thumper,

(33:13):
thump that Bible, But don't only do those things when
the cameras are on and to be somebody else later.
And Sam Pittman is the same guy that you see
on TV that you would run into at the airport
or that you would see on his pontoon boat on
the Laker.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
You think that keeps him an extra year at Arkansas,
like they like something. It's hard to fire a nice guy.
We had that issue with Tubby at Kentucky.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
It's tough, right their root for him, yeah, root form yeah,
but it's it's it's But Sam Pittman is is I mean,
he's uh Shane Biemer And it's interesting because.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
Really because I find him see from Afar, he seems
like the worst. But is he not?

Speaker 2 (33:49):
Say? And I'm a little biased because I've known Shane
for a long time. You know, already played high school
football against Shane. My dad was a Big East official
and ACC football officials. I mean, Shane and I still
on sidelines together, you know, way back when I've known
Shane forever. But Shane is If Shane says he's going
to do something, he's going to do it. But I
think he is. But he also is very emotional. I

(34:12):
was at the Citress Bowl.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
Ball that I forgot about that that was a weird deal.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
But yeah, but there. But there's a lot of nice guys.
But Pim is the one. I mean, Pittman is the
guy that literally, if you had a twelve pack and
you just said, I got a couple hours, He's the
guy that if you could, you could bring him into
the room. You need to do it.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
All right, So this one you made, I want to answer,
but which one is the least nice? I'm not going
to say a jerk, but you know I've seen you.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
Urban Meyer is everything the opposite of what I just
said about Sam Pimm.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
Okay, well there he goes. I think I got that.
I think I got.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
What I really don't like is I don't I don't
care for people who really love to tell me how
to be a man, or how to be a leader,
or how to be whatever. And I mean, yeah, and
then you have your phenomenal football mind phenomenal, But I

(35:09):
just I just that that that part to me, I
don't I don't need a lecture about you know, here's
my five points of how.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
To get no self help person, especially when they need help.
Funniest coach who makes you laugh the most.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
I mean, the answer was Mike Leach. The uh, I mean,
you can't can't hardly talk to the guy he was.
And the thing about Leech was I went out to
I didn't know him, really, I didn't know him at
all when he was to Texas Tech. But I went
to I went to Pullman. If you google me and
Mike Leach, you'll get the story. I went to Pullman.

(35:47):
They had told me I had twenty minutes with him,
and I stayed for three days.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Oh that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
And we drank all the rum in Pullman, and.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
Which is like the way of Pullman. He was really
into politics.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
When yeah, you taught politics, and he knew I was not.
But but but that last night, you know, he had
this one bar. He'd go to Pullman and he would
famously walk home. It was a couple of miles walk
through the woods in the area around Pullman is stunningly beautiful.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
Yeah, and he would.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
Walk through the woods to go home at two o'clock
in the morning wherever, and I like, Coach, I'll just
drive you home. Yeah, I gotta go to Spokane, get
on a plane. In the morning. He and I sat
in the driveway somewhere. I have a recording and and
I'll never share it with anyone, but I have it.
And we talked about everything from Richard Petty to the
White House, to the NFL national anthem stuff, which is

(36:36):
kind of the big topic at the time, which seems
like five thousand years ago, to football, to Geronimo and
I said nothing for hours, and then finally the newspaper
guy like walks over to the rental car in the driveway, Hey, coach,
here's your paper. And that's when I was like, damn,
I gotta go. I got I'm gonna get to Spokane
to make my flight. Coach, I got to get out

(36:57):
of here. So yeah, But he was the one he
would just randomly texts me something at three o'clock in
the morning and I would wake up the next morning
and just that's great.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
I dated a woman who he knew, and one time
he was calling to check on the person to just
see how she was doing. And he said, she said,
I'm with so and so, and he said, let me
hand them the phone. And I did not know. Mike
handed me the phone and he said, I hear, you're
a good guy, but if you ever screw up, You're

(37:26):
gonna wish you didn't, and then that was it. That
was the other conversation. That's my only time ever interacting
with Mike Leach, so you know at least he had that.
Do you you mentioned the politics thing. I'm always fascinated
by somebody who works in college sports, especially in football,
but it'd also be true in basketball. These coaches are
dealing with groups of players, often young African American men,

(37:47):
that come from families that would tend to lean to
the left generally speaking, and a lot of coaches, if
not not all, but a lot, tend to lean the
other way politically in times like this where it seems
like that's so much more a part of the culture
than it was when you and I were kids. I
didn't know what people were growing up. Do you think
that ever comes into play or just like they just

(38:09):
put it all aside and play it kids sports.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
I think that it's not any different than I think
that's probably the situation in a lot of houses, Okay,
you know, I think that the parents might lean one
way and the kids might lean another way. You know,
when you and I were growing up, you just voted,
however your parents told you to vote. That's true, you know,
and I don't think that's the case anymore because primarily
because of social media. I mean, it's the kids are

(38:33):
so much more politically aware, active, whatever than they ever were.
But I think that the way that you the coaches
that are able to navigate that are the ones that
are willing to say, all right, I want to learn
from these kids, and and and and and on the
flip side, I want to explain to them, and they
have real discussions about it. I mean, I remember talking

(38:54):
to Gary Pinkel about that, you know, when when when
there was all that political unrest, you know, in the
state of Missouri, and how he navigated that. I think
they hit a hold the SEC story or thirty for
thirty about it. And you know, Nick Saban has talked
about it about, you know, navigating the team. All these
guys had navigate their teams through twenty twenty. Yeesh, twenty
twenty was it's easy to just go to the pandemic

(39:15):
and forget about, you know, everything else that was going on.
And it was it was an incredibly, incredibly divisive time
and it really really kind of set the stage for
all of this now. But to me, that's what it is.
I mean, you know, and I used to see that.
I talk about this all the time, all right. I
mean I was a Senate page. I was a sentate
page in the late eighties, and I was from South Carolina,

(39:38):
so a lot of times, you know, I would be
assigned to strom Thurman.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
I was gonna say, did you have Fritz or Strong?

Speaker 2 (39:43):
So so we I both, but but Strong was Strong
was was the guy that you know. And I knew
Strong's daughter, but but Strong and Ted Kennedy was cross
hallway and a lot of nights, I mean a lot
of nights, Ted Kennedy would come across the hallway after
everyone had left, and he and Strong throw one would
sit in there and have drinks and talk about stuff.

(40:05):
And all of this is while Ronald Reagan and Tip
O'Neil were doing the same thing at the White House.
You can't do it now. If you do it now,
you get you know, cable news cameras are gonna catch you,
and now you're a betrayer to the calls or whatever else.
But I think that's the perfect illustration of you don't
have to agree, but can we have a discussion about
it without immediately turning into a fight. And so I

(40:27):
think the coaches who can navigate that as teachers, because
most of these guys started as teachers, and so when
they can sit in a room with, you know, with
one hundred and fifty kids that come from a very
different type of background most of them and come from
and probably are registered a very different way to vote.
All right, let's have a discussion about that. Can we

(40:48):
talk about what this? Why I believe this, or why
you believe that, or why the nation is doing these things?
And you know, I think I think that that that
I wish everyone could do that. And reality is is
that no matter what side they're on, a politicians job
now is to keep all of us pissed off, their
all of us mad at each other all the time.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
You and I are totally agreement on that, and I
hoped it.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
In a room. Yeah. If you sit in a room
and have a conversation without it automatically being a fight, Yeah,
then that's how you grow. And so I think that's
how coaches do it. Well.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
I hope we haven't lost that because I agree.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
With you that is uh feels like we have you know.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
It does, Although I do wonder when the cameras are off,
if they're still doing it. There's a part of me
that thinks there's a guy here in Kentucky that's a representative.
Jamie Comber's very right wing, and he told me once
that AOC who's very left wing. They were on a
committee together and he talked about how much they liked
each other, and I remember thinking, then I saw him
the next day and he went on TV and he
blasted her, and I was thinking, you just told me

(41:48):
the day before that you liked her, and that annoyed
me in some ways.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
No, it's just their job is to keep us all divided.
It is because it's good for business. It's great for business.
I mean, you know, and I grew up North Carolin,
which all be in a very purple state. You know.
The other part I hate too, and I don't like
I to talk about politics. One of the great disservices
to the history of this nation is when they started
painting the states solid red, the solid blue. I live

(42:13):
in North Carolina, the state's purple. Go back and look
at the election results, and go back when I was
growing up. We always had you had Terry Sandford, you
had Jesse Helms, right. We had two Republican governors. My
entire life in North Carolina, the reality is is that
it's a purple state. But when I go to Manhattan,
everybody thinks. Everybody thinks, you know, it's not so it's

(42:34):
just I just the truth is in the middle. It's
always been in the middle, and those who live in
the middle usually end up making it work and at
very least go in the middle and have a conversation.
But it's just a man, I can't believe I'm talking
about that.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
That's okay. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
You're fine, But I think that's the answer to your question.
The answer to your question is how do how does
an old, gray headed coach who makes twelve million dollars
a year talk about serious fundamental issues with a room
full of kids who most of them come from very,
very backgrounds and those things. I think that's it. I

(43:10):
think you walk into the door with an open mind
and have those conversations. If you can't do that, then
you probably shouldn't be see.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
I think more reasonable people like you should talk about
this stuff, because you are more like most Americans than
the people we hear on TV. Let me ask you
about a completely opposite end of the serious spectrum you
are in the state. I admit to being not proud
of myself for how much I enjoy the Belichick story.

(43:40):
But I am pretty but I can't. I mean, when
I saw he've renamed his boat, like, I can't help
but want to talk about it. What do you think?
I mean, You've been around North Carolina football, and now
this whole thing has plopped in, and you talk to
college football coaches who also have to have opinions on it.
What's your take on all of it?

Speaker 2 (43:58):
Well, my take is a bigger take on Tar Hill football.
And I wrote this column when Belichick was named a
head coach because I've literally lived in North Carolina my
entire life except for us spent two years my last
year of high school were in South Carolina, barely over
the state line. And when I lived in and when

(44:18):
I went to school in Tennessee. I was born in
North Carolin, be baried in North Carolina. I am half
a century old, and I've in my lifetime North Carolina's
won one A SEC championship. My dad started officiating ACC

(44:39):
football in nineteen eighty one and retired in two thousand
and nine and never saw North Carolina winning ACC Championship football.
So when I wrote my column when Belichick got the job,
I said, it's going to be interesting to see how
Chapel Hill manages to take arguably the greatest coach in
the history of the NFL and turn it into a

(45:01):
solid eight and four Gator Bowl season. That's what they're
gonna do. We're gonna go to the mail ball. And
what I didn't see coming was all this. Now, they
might get into the season and they might roll, and
it might not matter. But the reality is is that
the last time North Carolina won the conference, Lawrence Taylor
was a linebacker. Yeah, and until and they I wrote

(45:24):
a column fifteen years ago for ESPN of magazine about
these are the ten programs that should be way better
at football than they are and I can't explain it. U,
C l A, Arizona, Arizona State. You know, I had
all these but but but at the top of the
list was North Carolina and I put in C State
in there too. It just doesn't make any sense that

(45:45):
that they're not great at football.

Speaker 1 (45:47):
And what are those all those old guys that wear
that I see at UNC basketball games that dress, you know,
in the in the quarter zips and they wear that.
What do you think they think about a circus? Because
because U and C is not a circus place. They're
a place that takes themselves seriously as an academic institution,

(46:08):
as a they think of themselves as classy and culture. Like,
what do you think they make of all this?

Speaker 2 (46:13):
Yeah? Uh, they're not enjoying it very much. They're all
just you know. And what's interesting too, is they're they're
all having to make a decision right now because the
basketball program is foundering. Yes, and so they're having to
make a decision. Right There's only so much money and
and I'm the I'm the I'm the guy that used
to own the Bank of fill in North Carolina town

(46:36):
here Monroe, and you know, and then that and then
that bank got sold to Bank of America, and now
I'm a billionaire. So I've got to decide where am
I gonna put my money? Am I going to fund? Uh?
This program? With the girlfriends? And who? By the way,
we just bought a seven built a seventy five million

(46:56):
dollars football facility and still couldn't win the ACC brought
Mack round back and still can win the SEC or
a CC. So do I put my money there? Or
do I go get us a power forward, you know?
Or do I go get us a back court, which
quite frankly, you can do much cheaper. And so I
think that's where they all are. So but I'll tell
you this again. If I was sitting here in Charlotte,

(47:18):
if North Carolina wins ten games and they play against
Clemson in the a SEC championship game and maybe have
a chance to make the playoff or whatever, I guess
none of that will matter. But but right now it is.

Speaker 1 (47:31):
But you're interesting, like it's a good room full.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
Of guys in Carolina blue. And bring up the girlfriend because.

Speaker 1 (47:37):
So you are interested in it, like don't don't Yeah, okay,
because we have a mutual friend BALMANI I had him on.
We talked about how interested we were in it. Don't
make us feel alone in this you.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
No, no, no, Andi. And BUTMONI was a triangle guy
like me. I grew up in Raleigh.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Yeah, and I lived in the Triangle. I went to
do I mean, we all.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
That's I was. That's where I spent most of my
time childhood. Was I grew up in North Carolin State fan.
That's got nothing to do with how I feel about this.
It's just it is what it is. And and I've
seen the movie so many times and you know it's
it's it's just this just isn't the movie I was
expecting to watch. But but but the end result will
probably be the same. They'll be back here in Charlotte

(48:15):
for the Duce Mayo Bowl, and God bless them.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
I mean he went to the Holiday and Express in Portland,
Maine for the Miss Main contest. I mean, Ryan, come on,
come on, like that's that's one of the craziest things
of all time.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
Well, my buddy Seth Wickersham, who uh coworker or coworker
at ESPN, who's written so many ridiculously great stories and
books and books about about uh about it. This is
the I keep telling them, this is the book I want,
I actually want to know.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
This is How could they not have done the reality show?
I would watch every episode of the reality show. She
can even be a producer, what do I care?

Speaker 2 (48:48):
Like like, she would probably sign up for that. My
daughter and I just watched The Secret Lives of the
Mormon Lives.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
You like that.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
They'll load up they'll load up mood to Chaplehill. Shoot
that right now.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
The Secret Lives of Mormon was that good? I watched
one episode now tapped out? Did you get through all?

Speaker 2 (49:03):
A little uncomfortable? Watch it with your daughter? I'll say that,
but but it was. But yeah, it's my daughter and
I have always picked one trash like reality show and
we watch it together. And and this is no this
is no slight to my friends at Hulu because they know,
they would, they know what that show is, and it's
a huge hit. But we were used to watch Selling Sunset.
I saw that.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
Yeah, I love Selling. That was a good show.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
I saw one of the twins at the Miami Grand
Prix and took a selfie with and we send it
to my daughter and he goes, you watch that show
with your daughter?

Speaker 1 (49:31):
I'm like, yeah, well ye had they girl from Kentucky
she was on there the first few years she was
she was she was great. All right? Before I let
you let you go this the NASCAR thing real quick,
you you we've had long conversations about what NASCAR can do,
what they can't do, their problems they've had, et cetera.
Is NASCAR in twenty twenty five upswing or down swing.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
No, it's up swing and it's and it's in so
much better shape now than it was in twenty nineteen.
I tell everyone it's it's hard to try to put
a positive spin on the pandemic. But the pandemic NASCAR
wisely used to grease the rails on.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
Trying stuff right, the tracks and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
You know, they were like, all right, we're gonna run
back to back races and so and so, and we're
gonna run a Wednesday night race in Martinsville, and and
then and ever since then, there's been a willingness to
try stuff. Listen, I was born, and I was born
and I will be buried in Rockingham, North Carolina. Well,
and and they just ran trucks and Infinity there a
few weeks ago. And that track was literally had a
tree going up through the backstretch a couple of years ago.
So they just ran the All Star Race in North Wilkesboro.

(50:40):
You know, I just voted on the NASCAR Hall of
Fame this week.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
And uh, I see Rick mast made it. Or is
it Harry Gan? No, the Harry Gan, Harry Gant, Handsome
Harry Gant got in. That's a name from the past.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
Handsome Harry. But yeah, but it's but they and it
goes back to what we were talking about earlier. NASCAR
has finally, after years of trying to rip it roots
out of the ground, they have finally started to figure
out the balance between you can go run a street
race at Chicago or a street race in Mexico City,
which they're going to do, if you balance it with

(51:13):
going to North Wolkesboro and going to Rockingham and running
more short track races. And so I think that that
it teaches people about the history of the sport as
opposed to trying to bury it under the ground like
they did for years, and so, so yes, will it
ever go back to nineteen ninety seven?

Speaker 1 (51:28):
No, was that the peak? I was just sitting here
talking with Billy about I said, the peak was like
ninety six to two thousand and three. Is that kind
of what you think was the peak?

Speaker 2 (51:37):
Yeah? And I rode that wave. I literally started at
ESPN and night I started ESPN the week Jeff Gordon
won the first Brickyard four hundred and that's ninety six
Nightly Motorsports Show. And I've been riding that wave ever since.
But it's it is one hundred percent. I would I would,
I would go, I would go all the way to
the two thousand and six, two thousand and seven when
the market crashed, the business crashed. But yeah, but they're

(51:59):
getting there. I mean, they're they would never get back
to where they were, but they're in way better shape
than they were even just five years ago. Littlelone ten
fifteen years.

Speaker 1 (52:08):
The most powerful moment for me as a sports fan
outside of my team, so outside of the Kentucky wins,
the eighty five Bears, et cetera. I would say Earnhart
dying is the most powerful moment of my sports fan life.
Would you agree with that? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (52:23):
And there's a I've already seen it, but I think
it drops next week or this weekend. There's a on
Amazon Prime. There's a four part Earnhardt documentary, just Toylered Earnhardt,
and it's executive produced by Ron Howard. And it is
really so good and I mean it's it's really really

(52:45):
good and it's but yeah, it take it takes you
back to that day and it's uh, yeah there. You know,
I wasn't around when Kennedy died, you know, but there's
still there's moments in your life where it's like there's
everything before something happened, everything after something happened. And February eighteenth,
two thousand and one, for a lot of us, is
that day. And that was personally, professionally all of that

(53:08):
for me most important. People People talk about the legacy
of deal Earnhardt and it's the intimidator and the man
in black and ass up. But no one has died
in a Top three NASCAR National Series since he did
that day.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
And they'd had a bunch of them leading up to it,
like Kenny Irwin and almost.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
Quit, almost quit, Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin, Tony Roper. And
it was in an Indy car folling the one I
was covering funerals monthly and I looked at my wife
and I go, I can't do this. I'm going to
cover a sport where people don't die. And then after
Ernheart died, it's when Superman died. Suddenly everybody went, oh.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
It can happen.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
Maybe we should change some stuff. But yeah, that was
That was one of the most pivotal days in the
history of sports. Litt Alone Motorsports.

Speaker 1 (53:50):
Yeah, good stuff, Ryan, Thank you very much and appreciate
your time.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
Hey, congratulations on the new show, and apparently you're not
hosting a political podcast.

Speaker 1 (54:02):
I love it. Let's do it.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
It did the impossible, all right, thanks