Full Show - 2/8/2025

Full show from the Donovan & Jorgenson Heating & Cooling Studio: Saturday, February 8th, 2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And welcome to the Varsity Blitz High School sports show,
presented as always by your local Pick and Save and
Metro Market stores on Fox Sports ninety twenty, your iHeartRadio
app coming live from the Donovan and Jorgensen Heating and
Cooling Studios forty years. They're celebrating forty years in business
and what that tells me is they do things right.

(00:21):
The largest employee owned HVAC company in the state of Wisconsin.
Any issues you have with your HVAC system, go to
Donovan Jorgensen dot com. At ten o'clock will introduce you
to our Cernel Electric superhero of the Week from Greenfield
High School. She would be in studio of this at
ten twenty, steph Grady is coming in. Influential Athlete is

(00:43):
the name of her company, and I'm really looking forward
to having her come in because I don't know a
lot about nil and all of that stuff, and that's
what she's doing now. And I've known her husband, Joe Grady,
was the athletic director at Dominican for a while and
looking forward to having Stephanie come in at ten twenty
to talk about this company that she has started. The

(01:05):
entire first hour, though we're talking Wallwood To's to East
girls basketball. And I've known about Mary Murg a long
time because I know her dad and I used to
coach against and then my son played with Alex Murg,
who was one heck of a basketball player in studio
with us. Now the head coach of the twenty and

(01:27):
one Wallwa To's the East girls basketball program, she is
Mary Murg coach. How you been I've been good.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
It's been a fun season, little changes here and there,
and I think as the season's progressing, we're just having
a lot more fun playing with each other, gelling with
each other, and we're really excited.

Speaker 4 (01:46):
How is your dad doing.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
I know Alex is working for the Boston Celtics from
what I hear, and he's doing really well. I'll tell
you what, man, your dad and I coached against each
other a lot. I'll tell you one really funny story.
First game I think that my kids ever played, my son, Matthew.
We put this team together. We were in a tournament
at Saint Margaret Mary and our first game was against

(02:08):
Randy and Brian Staffeldt and Alex and dust into those guys,
and I'd never really coached in the fourth grade level before,
so I didn't know. And we got on top of
them pretty pretty by a lot, and we kept pressing,
and I didn't know. Could a fourth grade team come
back from twenty five?

Speaker 4 (02:27):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Well, I have it on video, and Matthew and Alex
were playing in Dallas in an AAU tournament alongside with
for Brian Staffelt and all those a lot of those kids.
So I brought the video and I invited all of
them over to my room and I put it in
and staff Fellow was yelling at me, going, why were
you still pressing? I said, I didn't know if you

(02:49):
guys could come back. He said, you guys were up
like forty to fifteen.

Speaker 4 (02:53):
And I go, yeah, but you had Alex murk. You
never know when that kid's going to go off for
twenty five.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
And I'm a big fan of your dad, I'm a
big fan of your brother and Mary.

Speaker 4 (03:04):
I have to tell you, I've told.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
For three weeks. We've been going back and forth trying
to get this set up, and I've told a lot
of people that I'm trying really hard to get you
in and man, that your reputation is so strong, you
never know what people say about you when they can't
smell your perfumer cologne, right, I can tell you that
I had and I'll tell you during the break I

(03:26):
had breakfast with somebody who told me a story about you.
That man, he just raved about you, and I thank
you for that. The program when you took over seven
years ago at Tosa East was really different to where
it is today. And if you talk to other coaches
about building a program, how do you think this the

(03:46):
transition from you know, a program that was struggling a
little bit a lot actually to where it is today
where I say, look, you're twenty and one and you
don't blink like you were like, yeah, I kind of
thought we thought maybe might be twenty two and no,
maybe work for the least guys. They're really good, by the way, Yeah,
that's a good team. When somebody, a younger coach who's

(04:09):
trying to build a program might come to you and
say how did you do it? What would you tell them?

Speaker 5 (04:14):
You have to surround yourself with good people. It is
just not me. I'm not a one woman show, you know.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
And so I think five years ago or so or
six years you know, we had to surround ourselves with
good people who really had the vision and really had
the work ethic and the drive, you know, And that
goes from youth coaches, that goes from my high school
coaching staff, and that goes to the players. And I
think if you get players just to work hard, have fun,

(04:40):
do all the little things, and then you work with
the youth program, you work with your high school coaches,
things just start to build. Momentum starts to build, and
I think just excitement for the game of basketball and
the wanting to be better really shines.

Speaker 5 (04:56):
So I just think it's good people.

Speaker 4 (04:58):
I do you know.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
I love that answer. Who where did you learn that?
From your mentors? And give me your background? Were you
played and why coaching and stuff like that, so before
we get to the mentor park because that's a great answer.
By the way, coach, thank you for that. Where did
you play and how did you get involved in coaching?

Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yeah, you know, I'm a local person. I'm from Greendale
High School from my Panthers there you go. I played
college at Wisconsin Whitewater, Okay under carry Corrala.

Speaker 5 (05:29):
We're very successful there to.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
National two final four appearances, left as the all time
leading scorer back in twenty fourteen.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
Thought I will still shoot a little bit for the
most part. Yes, you play horse.

Speaker 4 (05:43):
Against your brother Alex? Who wins?

Speaker 5 (05:45):
Alex?

Speaker 3 (05:45):
Yeah he sometimes he just shoots free throws the entire time,
so then it's a mind game.

Speaker 4 (05:50):
Yeah, that makes me laugh again.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
I've known Alex forever and doesn't surprise me that that's
what he would do.

Speaker 4 (05:59):
So I'm sorry all time. Leaning score at UW Whitewater History.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
And then decided did you know in college that coaching
was something you wanted to pursue?

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah? I think you know.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
I actually always wanted to be a coach, and I
didn't know what form. I think my earliest was a
first grade what do you want to be when you
grow up? And it was a coach, and at that
time it was a soccer coach. I loved soccer, but
I always knew I wanted to coach in some fashion.
And so when I left college, you know, my high school,
my varsity coach at the time was like, hey, like,

(06:29):
I think you'd be good as a college coach. So
I did that for a couple of years at Saint
Mary's University of Minnesota, saw a small private D three
for a year, and then I went out to California
at Stanford University under Tara van Derveer for two years
as a graduate assistant.

Speaker 5 (06:46):
Okay, and so yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
So when I asked you, I'm going to come back
to the mentor thing again because of the answer that
you gave me. And look, I I've known your dad again,
and your brother and your family a long time. It
doesn't surprised me that you said, well, it's all these
other people that are doing this. I happen to be
the head coach. But let me give them all the credit.

(07:09):
And but some of your answer to me when when
you build the youth program and you have good quality
coaches and then you have kids that want to somebody
taught a lot of this to you. And maybe as
a player and as a coach, you took a little
from everybody. But is there one or two mentors that
you would look back and say, look who I am

(07:31):
and my mission statement on how to build a program
kind of came and started here.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
Honestly, when I think of back are to coaches, the
first coach would be my mother. To be honest, my
mother was my youth coach for a long time back
when you didn't have a lot of moms coaching youth
sports back and you know, twenty years ago, thirty years ago,
and I just learned a lot of like what to do,
want not to do, how to build a team, and

(07:58):
things like that, you know, really has shaped me to
who I am today.

Speaker 4 (08:03):
What is your mom's first nime?

Speaker 5 (08:04):
Jean?

Speaker 1 (08:05):
And I know Jean, And I don't think Jean liked
me a whole lot early on to see, you know,
because Randy would be mad at me all the time. Yeah,
your dad could play. Your dad was a player man,
And and and I love the fact he's gotta love
the fact that his son's working for Boston. His daughter's
a big time college or a high school basketball coach

(08:25):
on a team that's twenty and one right now and
doing great things that at Wawood Toast.

Speaker 4 (08:30):
He's he's got it. Just does he come to games.

Speaker 5 (08:33):
He comes to a lot of these quiet.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
Because he's a lot I would say he's quieter than
back when I played.

Speaker 5 (08:41):
It's a different kind of my parents.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Is a different Watching your daughter coach than watching your
daughter play is a totally different.

Speaker 4 (08:48):
Could you hear more in the crowd your mom or.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
Dad oh, my father.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
But it wasn't a crazy amount.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
But yes, no, no, he was never a crazy person.
But he was a loud and he he he questioned
the refs every once in a while. He questioned him
about as much as I did. And yeah, it was
fun to compete against him. And he have staff felt
on his bench with him. And when I took the
job at Heritage, Christian Brian was one of the first

(09:17):
guys I called asks, come joined my staff. He's a
better coach than I am, and I wanted him on
the bench with me and I loved it. So when
you talk about mentors, you talk about your mom and
what a great way to start because you learned that
servant leadership hart from her, And I think that's such
a big part of coaching.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah, yeah, and I really like think back. I think
I learned a lot of the coaching mindset from my
college coach in Carri Crollo, and I learned a ton
of exes and o's and just I feel like at
Tara Vanderveer at Stanford was a whole new game for me,
and I learned so many things at a different level,
you know, And there's definitely plays that we run from Stanford.

(09:57):
There's plays from Whitewater, you know, and there's plays kind
of from all over, concepts from all over, and you know,
I'm also not afraid to reach out to a local
head coach and you know the defense we run. I
you know, met with a local head coach because I
liked what he was doing and we met over coffee
and I'm like, I'm going to steal this and he
was like sure, so you yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
We don't invent any I used to go to so
many clinics and steal out of bounce play and then
steal you know, if we're going to run a one
three one half court, when do what our triggers? When
do we do we just trap in the corner? Or
do we want to trap here too? And I would
steal all that and make it my own and then
develop my own. If somebody asks you, Mary, what kind

(10:42):
of coach you are? Are you an uptempo coach? Are
you a man a man? Are you a zone? Are
you a mixture? What kind of coach do you think
you would be? Or do you are you flexible and
nimble to your your talent?

Speaker 3 (10:55):
It just depends on the team. You know, every years
a different puzzle. Like our team right now. We're a
very uptempo, fast paced team where we like putting a
lot of pressure on our opponents and we like putting
pressure on the rim. In terms of defense, it just
depends on our opponent and depends who we're playing, and
we're okay to be adaptive to what our defensive strategy

(11:17):
is dependent on the opponent. And I give a ton
of credit to our players to being able to be
adaptive to play different things and to understand what the
scout is and what our game plan is.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
Let me just tell you the amount of points your
team scored your first five games, So you're coming out
of the plot. Look, it always took the teams I
coached a little while. We got to get them out
of the AAU mindset where whoever gets the defensive rebound's
gonna dry, dribble the ball down and shoot. So take
the teams that I coached a little bit to get
going right first five games, right out of the shoot

(11:54):
scored eighty six, ninety four, eighty nine, eighty four, and
ninety three. Your team's hit the ground You're this team
hit the ground running, and I've got to believe that
they love the fact that, look, if we can get
the ball down the floor and get a good shot,
we can take the shot. You must do that. It's
not who's yours where you're going five passes before we

(12:17):
even look to the basket. When you're scoring that many points, look,
I don't care if it's girls or boys basketball. That's
really impressive to me. And then on the defensive end,
you gave up fifty four, forty twenty three, forty five,
thirty six as you're scoring ninety three, eighty four, ninety
ninety four. So defensively, you guys are doing all the work,
all the shells rolls know in the mankind. I'm sure

(12:40):
when I talk to the two players, I'm going to
ask them what drills they're not gonna miss after they
graduate from you, And I got a feeling a couple
of shell drills might be in there. But I love
the fact that you said, look, we don't mind getting
the ball down the floor and getting good shots and
draining them and you attack the rim, which is really
Look the analytics nowadays, and that's what your brother does

(13:00):
in Boston, so I'm sure that he might be able
to help you with the analytics. You guys, do you
guys shoot a lot of mid range shots if you
get him, or are you looking to shoot threes and
get to the right, getting to the.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
Rim, open threes, getting to the rack and going strong
two feet into the pain. If it's not, if it's
not a great shot, going up a teammate's probably open
and finding that teammate. So one thing, I think we
really proud of ourselves on our ursist.

Speaker 5 (13:23):
I mean, we're.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
Top, We got to be one of the top teams
in the state. And this is per game. Last night
we had twenty three. The other night we had thirty.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Five, thirty five assists.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
Yes, so you know we we we have a lot
of great shooters on our team and we have a
lot of players who know how to get shooters open.
And so it's just moving the ball round. Yeah, I'm
moving ball round, find the best shot.

Speaker 5 (13:48):
And yeah, if.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
I'm if I was if I'm the head girls coach
at Jermytown, I would not be happy that you guys
lost the game ahead of us, Like I'd be like,
oh no, you up one hundred and three on them,
And there had to be some frustration on the loss.
Right lost to Brookfield East who's a really good quality team,
really well coached. They got some kids. Man, I was

(14:12):
at their game again last night, so I've seen them
play twice and they got some some basketball players that
are physically and mentally tough, and so that lost to them.
We had a little discussion about it, and that gave
you my opinion about it before it went on the air.
But if I'm the girls coach at Germantown, I'm like,
oh no, darn it, we don't want you know, somebody

(14:34):
woke up that sleeping giant and you put up one
hundred and three on them. You put up eighty three
last night, put up seventy against Nonminie falls. If look
to pay the three bucks to get in and watch
the Wawoto's the East girls basketball team. We don't need
a shot clock for this team.

Speaker 5 (14:50):
Right, No, No, we don't need a shot clock.

Speaker 3 (14:53):
And I think it's for them. It's just getting great shots.
And if that's ten seconds into you know our possession.
If that's it's even better. If it's five. You know,
we love to play fast and transition. On a misshot
and on a makeshot, I mean they make a shot
the best way to kill their momentum is to fly
down the court, get an easy look and get a layup.
And now the momentum's back our way.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
Hey, when we talked on off the air and we
talked on the phone, and again similar to what you've
said this whole first segment, it's everybody else and I
just happened to be the head of it. And I
don't believe that, but I appreciate it a lot. But
you talked about what a great staff you have, and
we talked about who to bring in, and we agreed,

(15:35):
let's bring the two seniors in, one who moved into
the market, and we'll talk about the change on where
she used to go into nowadays, and then we'll talk
to our picket safe student athlete the week. But when
you talk about this team other than these two seniors,
it's a young team, and the conference is not happy
about that, by the way, not happy at all. Other

(15:59):
than Mackay and Cassie. I want to make sure that
we're talking about Emma and we're talking about Ellie, we're
talking about some of these other girls that make this
team go. And we only have a couple of minutes
in this segment. Can we highlight a couple of these
other girls that are are a big part of this team.

Speaker 5 (16:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:15):
You know, we have first off, great senior leadership with
Mackenzie and Cassie, you know, and I also see that
leadership trickle down to the class of our twenty six ers.
You know, a lot of them been on varsity since
their freshman year, and so I'm sure there's definitely a
conference coaches just itching for twenty twenty seven to appear.

Speaker 4 (16:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
Guess what though, there so you better be careful.

Speaker 4 (16:35):
There are some girls coming up in the funnel.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
That's it.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
Yeah, but yeah, a lot of our twenty twenty six classes,
they've been a tremendous class and a very unique class
that I don't think a lot of high schools see
you happen often, you know. I think we currently have
nine twenty twenty six ers on our team. Three have
been starting since their freshman year. Players like Mikaya Litza,
who is the first team All State as a sophomore

(16:59):
last year, Emma Close, who is honorable mention All State
last year as a sophomore as well. You have Audrey
Zellinger in there too, who started at our state appearance
last year. You have Sadie Kubaki who started last year
when we went to stay. You know, you have Lindia
Columbula who comes off the bench. Ellie Depri was not
really healthy last year and now she is starting. You know,

(17:23):
hot hot three point shooter.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
You know Dad could play kat okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 5 (17:30):
Derek, Yeah, we know what.

Speaker 4 (17:33):
We used to be friends.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
But he doesn't call me back anymore. He doesn't return
any messages. So I've I've stopped. I wanted to have
him and his wife and daughters in studio to talk
about the AU and the family part of it. Yeah, yeah,
I'm at him.

Speaker 3 (17:50):
But yeah we have And the cool thing is just this,
what we really talk a lot about is iron sharpens
iron and the accountability piece, how we can make each
other better and these they do. Sometimes it's just not
enough to come to practice and then go home and sleep.
You know, if you want to be great, you got
to shoot before school. So we call it the Breakfast
Club and kids can come shoot before school. That starts

(18:12):
the first day of school in September and that ends
in June.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
Do you work in the school, I do?

Speaker 4 (18:17):
What do you do?

Speaker 1 (18:17):
Then?

Speaker 5 (18:17):
I am a high school school counselor, you are yes.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
So the show before us was a home improvement show,
and I want you to know as a high school
counselor that every company that I have in this on
that home improvement show every single week says, look, we're
looking for people in high school and if they don't
want to go to college and they want to work
in this industry, you just call. If you know anybody,
you call us. So as a counselor, if there's anybody,

(18:44):
they all do ride shares too, So if there's anybody
that I can introduce some of the students that toast
the East to, you have to let me know. Last
thing as a former coach, when I would do you know,
we start scouting and start watching teams, and if I
had to coach against your team, what would give me
and keep me up at night is you have four

(19:06):
almost five players averaging double figures. So it's not like
if there's a player averaging twenty five, we can get
the way that player wants to get twenty five, we're
gonna shut everybody else down.

Speaker 4 (19:16):
We're gonna win.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
We can keep that player who's averaging twenty five to fifteen,
we're probably gonna win. The problem coaching against your group
is if I take em away, is it Makaiah?

Speaker 4 (19:28):
Yeah, if I take Makaia.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
Away, Emma La Audrey keep going right, Ellie's averaging seven,
Mackenzie's averaging almost ten, or she's averaging eight. So it's like,
how pick your poison. You want to go boxing one
or you want to pay special attention to her, or
to two and go triangle in two. I got five
other girls that are averaging double figures that we're still

(19:51):
gonna put ad up on you. That's what would keep
me up at night, having a coach against your team.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
Yeah, you know, it's funny that you say that because
that was us last year and state semifinal, Like, it
was really hard to scout Notre Dame last year because
literally their entire starting lineup averaged ten plus points And
I'm like, I don't even it's it's tough to find
a weakness and if you stop one, others are going
to rise. And I think that's a special thing about

(20:17):
this team is everybody's going to have great games on
their own, you know. And sometimes it's Emma, sometimes it's
Elie Depris, sometimes it's Macaya, it's sometimes it's McKenzie like
everything kind of. It's everybody has different games and we
just take every game as they come, and it's really
fun to watch that, to be honest.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
Well, and the other part on this is you got
to have somebody cleaning up the glass. And one of
the girls who're bringing in Kenzie Hawk, is averaging almost
double figure rebounds.

Speaker 4 (20:49):
And so if you.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
Guys don't miss a ton, but when you do and
when the other team does, she's cleaning up the glass.
We're going to talk to two seniors and they are
both big time student athletes, and I'm going to be
honest with this. When I talked with Mary about our
Pick and Save student after the week, she said, look,
we got a lot of them. I said, let me
pick one. I don't want to cause any angst in

(21:12):
the locker room. Let me do the picking. And so
we flipped a coin and if I could, if I
could offer the Pick and Save Student Athlete of the
Week to two winners, both of these seniors would be
Pick and Save Student Athlete of the Week. But one
picked heads and it came up a tail. So we'll
introduce you to our Pick and Save Metro Market Student

(21:33):
athter the week and talk to two seniors that are
a big part of this twenty and one wawoots the
East girls basketball program. And I can't thank Mary Murk
enough for coming in and again I've heard nothing but
really good things about her, and I wanted to meet
her in person. And the apple has not fallen far
from the tree. Randy and Jeanie did a great job

(21:55):
with her and for her to get this program to
where it is. It's not to wards she wants it
to be yet, but it's moving in that direction. This
is the Varsity Blitz High School Sports Show presented by
your local Pick and Save and Metro Market stores on
Fox Sports nine twenty and your iHeart Radio app. Welcome
back to the Varsity Flitz High School Sports Show, presented
by your local Pick and Save and Metro Market stores

(22:18):
on Fox Sports nine twenty. In your iHeartRadio app. First hour,
we're talking wabwoo TOASA East girls basketball and look, I
can't thank Mary Burg everybody out there who has told
me about her. You're right, You guys are right. If
you listen to the definition that she talked about how
to build a program, it is spot on and I

(22:39):
agree with her. One hundred percent. We are now joined
by two seniors. Mackenzie Hawk. How are you today, I'm good,
Thank you. Welcome to the area. So you guys, your
family moved this area from sun Prairie, Yep. Difference when
you decided to come play basketball at Toasta East. This

(23:00):
this program is in a really good place and for
you to come in and join. And when we talked
about you know, the rebounding leader on this team, you're
like double digit rebounds and I love that for a
team that scores a lot. Different program, different feel on
being part of Toast to East than where you came from.

Speaker 6 (23:18):
Yeah, so I had a really different high school experience.
I went to an upper middle school in my freshman year,
and then my sophomore year, we had just opened a
new high school in some Prairie and we started off
with a completely new program, completely new coach.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
But it was really good. Like the first two years I.

Speaker 6 (23:39):
Was there, good and we had we had a decent record.
But coming over here, like she said, with the morning
workouts and the open gyms, the work they put in
definitely shows up like in their results.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
Can I ask you I for a junior in high
school to move to a whole different area, to a
whole different program, to a whole different school. How difficult
was that for you? Mentally?

Speaker 6 (24:07):
It was really difficult, especially being just a teen girl
in the world today. I was like, I didn't want
anyone think I was weird. I didn't want anyone to
think I was like some crazy person.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
Now they know you're a little weird and crazy, and
we'll find out. I'm sure Cassie will.

Speaker 4 (24:23):
Help me with that.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
I'm just kidding about that, but that I would think
that that had to be a very difficult transition for
somebody who has been around the same kind of group
of kids now in the same area for a bit,
and for you now to go have to introduce yourself
to this team. I would think as a senior in
high school had to be difficult. And I've got to

(24:45):
believe that people like Mary murg Her, your staff, your coaches,
your teammates fully embraced you come in there.

Speaker 6 (24:51):
Oh yeah, definitely. I mean with merg being the counselor,
she helped me out a lot. She put me in
classes with a lot of the basketball girls. Smart and
right off the first open gym Lindia, Lindia came up
to me, she introduced herself. She was like, do you
want to go shoot over here? And it was just
like the biggest breath of relief because I was so nervous.

(25:13):
I didn't know anyone, but she came over and helped.
And then as like the weeks went on, the full
team embraced me and they just made it like really easy.
I have so many genuine friendships with like everyone on
the team, you know.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
I thank them for that because it could have gone sideways.
It could all wait, look, we got to state last year.
We don't need anybody knew who is this and why?
And I love the fact is it Lindia that she
did that huge Look that was just an easy thing
for her. Hate let's go shoot over there. But what

(25:45):
that did for you is now you can take a
breath and say, Okay, maybe I could sit with her
at lunch now that kind of thing. And I think
I thank this team and I think this staff for
putting their arms around you in saying come be part
of what we're doing.

Speaker 4 (25:58):
And I love that. Cassie, how are you?

Speaker 7 (26:00):
I'm good?

Speaker 4 (26:01):
Yeah? How was Let's talk about this year? Cassie?

Speaker 1 (26:05):
Did you obviously knew coming in that your team had
a chance to be pretty good because of what you
did last year. Correct, Yeah, after it ended last year?
And I know that that's really hard, right, Yeah, it's
kind of heartbreaking. You get there and you don't finish
the deal. How long after the loss up at the

(26:26):
Colt or up in Green Bay? Yeah, did it take
you to start thinking, Okay, we got to get ready
for next year?

Speaker 5 (26:33):
Like right away?

Speaker 8 (26:34):
I mean like the second you get somewhere and you're
like so close yet so far, Like the second you're done,
you just want to do it all over again. You
want to go through that exact same thing again, and
you want to be able to actually like finish the
job this time and come out on top or come
out with a ball.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
You feel pretty good about where the team is at
right now. I mean, what a stupid question to ask
somebody on the team that's twenty and one. But there's
always things And I know this, I know coach MRG
is making sure that you guys, you know, your head
isn't big. You're not sigging your chest out. We haven't
accomplished Our first goal is to win the conference, right,

(27:09):
and then how far can we get in the playoffs.
So as of right now, it's twenty one. Is something
to be proud of it, but there's a lot of
work to do.

Speaker 8 (27:17):
Yeah, I mean our team we never we always take
it one game at a time, like we're never looking ahead.
We're never like, oh my goodness, we have to worry
about this team and this team and this team. We're
always like we need to focus on the next team
that we're playing, like no matter if we beat them
last time, no matter like by how much. We always
are like we need to focus on our next game.
So I feel like that's something special that our team does, Like, yes,

(27:37):
we'll talk about it, be like, oh, we might have
to play this team in the playoffs, but first we
have to win this team. First, we have to win conference.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
You realize that Mary Murk gets paid one point five
million dollars to coach, maybe not that let's coach this team.
Let her worry about what's coming. As coaches, we never
look ahead, but we work ahead. And knowing just the
amount of time I've talked with her, trust me, she
is working ahead. You guys, what you need to worry
about is Wes Salem Right, you need to worry about

(28:07):
West Ellis Hale and Divine Savior holding angels because right now,
you guys are tied for first in the conference. And
you know what, I Brookfield Least is a really good
quality team. And I did their game live against Kattamariy
and Lutheran and I was there a half hour early.
And trust me, they talked about Katamariy Lutheran a little bit,

(28:28):
but they talked about to East a lot too. A
lot of the stuff they were doing in practice was Okay,
we got it. That's the team if we want to
win a conference or at least a share of the conference,
that's who you guys have put yourself on a map.
And what's happened with this, Cassie is years ago Tosi
East was chasing everybody, right, they were hunting everybody, right, everybody.

(28:51):
And now everybody gets their schedule, they circle your game.
You're you're now the hunted. Everybody gives you their best shot.
The crowds that you get to games now are different
than the crowds that you got four years ago and
that Mary got when she first started. And people now expect,
oh well, I want to go watch Toosis because they're
one of the best teams in the state. And I

(29:13):
love the fact that you guys understand that and you
haven't missed a beat. It's not like, well last year,
you know, look how good we are so and everybody
we have coming back. We don't need to put that
much work at We're going to be good next year too.
But you guys have put all the sweat equity work
into this thing. Yeah, do you get to the breakfast
club and get some shots up?

Speaker 8 (29:34):
You do Monday and Thursday. Every Monday and Thursday morning
we head on Me and my friend Emma close, I
pick her up and we head over to the gym.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
Good for you as our pick and save student after
the week. You should have called tales by the way
over there. You called you guys, both of you, And
I'm going to ask you both the same question because
I think it's really important. It's not your right to
play basketball for coach at Tosi's. It's a privilege that
you earned by taking care of your business in the classroom,

(30:03):
being a good kid in the school, being a good
kid in our community.

Speaker 4 (30:06):
Your motivation for.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
Being such a good student athlete, where does that come from?

Speaker 8 (30:11):
Definitely my parents. My mom's a big grades over everything person.
She's like, your school comes first, like your school work
is what matters. Like she what is your mom's name, bridget.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
Hey, bridget Thank you for that? Yeah, your mom and
dad come to every game. Yes, who do you hear more?

Speaker 4 (30:29):
Who's louder in the crowd?

Speaker 1 (30:31):
Definitely my father, relate what's his first name?

Speaker 5 (30:33):
Andy?

Speaker 4 (30:34):
Andy? Well done? Well done?

Speaker 5 (30:36):
My dad. My dad used to be a lot worse.

Speaker 8 (30:39):
He's probably worse than softball, but he is loud sometimes.

Speaker 4 (30:43):
Good for him.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
Do you realize and both of you guys, you realize
this is the year of lasts for them and give
them a little bit of a break because, you.

Speaker 4 (30:52):
Know what, the last time that they're going to.

Speaker 1 (30:55):
Go watch you play at Brickfield, least the last time
they're going to watch you play against Wawuto, So West
and some of these great teams that you're playing against.
And if you see that they get a little emotional.
Give them a slide because as a freshman, you remember
senior Night and you thought, oh, that's forever, I don't
have to worry about it.

Speaker 4 (31:13):
Have you had that yet?

Speaker 8 (31:15):
No, it's our next our last home game, our last
conference home game, which is against Hale on the eighteenth.
That's our last, our first sea.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
Yeah, and understand that you know what and you guys
are the two seniors. Yes, you know your motivation Mackenzie
for being such a good student athlete.

Speaker 4 (31:32):
Where does that come from?

Speaker 6 (31:34):
Yeah, so as long as I can remember back, my
dad is always emphasized student is first. You don't call
it an athlete student for a reason.

Speaker 4 (31:43):
What is his name?

Speaker 2 (31:44):
Dan?

Speaker 4 (31:44):
Dan Man?

Speaker 1 (31:46):
I'll tell you what, Dan, And I can tell you
that the parents. I loved the answer that you guys
gave because I'm a grandfather of six and when the
kids were in school, we emphasized that. And as a
former coach, I love being able to coach kids like
you that I didn't have to check on grades all
the time. And when I talked to Coach Morgan, I said,

(32:06):
we need to come up with a pick and save
Metro Market student out through the week. And she said, look,
I've got a bunch of these girls that that understand
the importance of taking care of their their classroom.

Speaker 4 (32:17):
And I'm not I can't pick one. I said, I'll
do it. Let me doing.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Sorry that you lost that that flip, but I love
the fact that your parents emphasize that. McKenzie, do you
know what's going on with you next year yet?

Speaker 9 (32:28):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (32:29):
I am playing basketball and running track at Roosevelt in Chicago.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
It's a D two school. I'm super excited.

Speaker 4 (32:36):
Good for you.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
What about Roosevelt was the place for you?

Speaker 2 (32:40):
So?

Speaker 6 (32:41):
My older sister plays basketball there, and I love the
town of Chicago.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
I've been going there my whole life.

Speaker 6 (32:49):
The coaching there, like the track coaches, the basketball coach.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
They already feel like family to me.

Speaker 4 (32:54):
So what do you do in track?

Speaker 6 (32:55):
I do? I do the triple jump and then I
do the four by two and four by one.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
What do you like more? Track or basketball? And remember
your coach is sitting right there you love? Just say
basketball season.

Speaker 6 (33:10):
See A lot of people ask me that, and I
think I really can't pick one because I just love
different things.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
What do you better at?

Speaker 4 (33:17):
Do you think I think.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
I'm better at track personally?

Speaker 4 (33:22):
But good for you.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
Well, I I loved coaching track athletes because they can
you know, they're really athletic. They can run all day
long and and go play and obviously you're the leading
rebounding and you score a little bit on this team, and.

Speaker 4 (33:36):
I love that cassies. You know what's going on with
you next year?

Speaker 8 (33:39):
Yeah, I've committed to uh juco down in dis Plains, Illinois.
It's called Oakdon Okay, I'm going to play basketball and softball.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
Good for you. What position do you play? Softball?

Speaker 8 (33:48):
Third base?

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Yeah? Oh I hated third base a softball base. Yeah,
they the ball came way too quick for me. I
liked second base. I don't want to be in the
second base is nice? A couple extra hops, a little
bit more time to throw it. Softball or basketball your favorite?

Speaker 8 (34:05):
I honestly, I couldn't tell you. I've been playing both
since i've been for so like I just I love
them both for differently.

Speaker 4 (34:11):
You play club, yeah both?

Speaker 5 (34:14):
I played club both.

Speaker 8 (34:15):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
If you have a softball give me a basketball game
in the summertime at the same time. Where do you go?

Speaker 8 (34:21):
Depending on honestly depends on where it's at. If there's
going to be more softball like coaches there, then I'm
going to go to softball. But if it doesn't matter,
I'm probably gonna pick basketball.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
Why and I'm sorry the name of the college. You're
going to, Oakton? What about Oakton seemed like a good
fit for you?

Speaker 8 (34:40):
Honestly, it's very It's in a very nice area, and
the coaches, like their head coach, he reached out to
me a lot. He always was like, very like, I
want you to come here. I want you to come here,
and it felt really nice. And my AAU coach, I'm
very close to him, and he was like, this is
going to be a really good fit for you, Sam mackenzie.

Speaker 4 (35:01):
Did you like the recruiting time?

Speaker 1 (35:04):
Did you? Because some kids it's like, man, I don't
want to be talking to anybody else. Did you Did
you enjoy the recruitment.

Speaker 4 (35:10):
Side of it?

Speaker 2 (35:11):
Truthfully?

Speaker 1 (35:12):
No, it just Cassie is shaking her head. I don't
hurt your neck with how how hard you're shaking your neck.

Speaker 4 (35:19):
You did not like it so much?

Speaker 6 (35:21):
No, just because just because it was really tedious, I
would say. And the worst part was probably the phone
calls and you'd you'd think it'd be easy just to
hop on the phone with someone, but it was just
so daunting and then you'd get on the phone and like,
as a teenager, your conversation skills are still developing, and guys.

Speaker 4 (35:42):
Would you do me a favor?

Speaker 1 (35:43):
At ten twenty today, Stephanie Grady is coming in and
she she started a company called Influential Athlete and she's
a two time Emmy winner, journalist, former gold medal figure skater,
and see all of this company. What she's doing is
working with with mostly high school athletes to discuss NIL,

(36:04):
but much more than that, to discuss the part of
how do you talk with with coaches, how do you
talk with you know, companies that might want to spend
money on with NIL and all of that. And she's
coming in at ten twenty and I would highly recommend
you guys listen to that segment or two that I'm

(36:24):
gonna have her in studio because their mission statement is
one hundred percent to help girls like you understand what
it's going to be like at the next level. Cassie,
you didn't like the recruitment either.

Speaker 8 (36:35):
Oh, it's so it's a lot of work. Like you
have to send so many emails and you have to
make it personalized so like you don't seem like just
another number to the coaches. You have to like really
stick yourself out there. You have to make videos, you
have to make a bunch of phone calls, you have
to make a bunch of visits, you have to drive everywhere.
I mean, it's a fun process, but it is. It's
a lot of work and it's really training.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
Did you like the campus of the school you're going to.

Speaker 5 (37:00):
I love it.

Speaker 8 (37:00):
It's in the middle of like some wildlife preserve.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
It's so pretty, way.

Speaker 4 (37:05):
Different than when you're you're in the middle of Chicago, right.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
I worked in Chicago for a year. Hated it. My
little Milwaukee A little stick did not go well there.
I was the general manager for an indoor soccer team
and we played at the UIC Pavilion and it was
it was a tough year for me.

Speaker 4 (37:26):
My hey, how you doing.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
Where'd you go to school? Stick did not work very well.
It was too fast for me. I'm I'm just a
good old boy from Milwaukee. We're gonna get to a break.
We're gonna ask coach Mark Mary Murg, the head basketball
coach at Tosa East, to join us. I'm going to
ask you, guys your favorite memory, and then we're gonna
maybe talk a little bit about some of the things
you're not gonna miss when it comes to coach Merk

(37:48):
and it'll be okay.

Speaker 4 (37:49):
She's not gonna make you.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
She promised me she would not put you guys on
the line for telling a few stories about her Tosa
East girls basketball. Guys, they're twenty and one right now.
If you haven't seen them play, go out and watch
them play. Support this team. And this is a really
good team. When I talked to coach murg, I said,
are you enjoying this group? And she could not say

(38:11):
enough about her staff and about these girls that are
making this team go. And I love that about this team.
Twenty and one tied for first to the Greater Metro
Conference and get a chance to play deep into the playoffs.
This is the Varsity Blitz High School Sports Show presented
by your local Picket Safe Stores and Metro Market Stores

(38:32):
on Fox Sports nine. Twenty year. I heard radio app
Welcome back to the Varsity Blitz High School Sports Show
presented by your local Picket Save and Metro Market stores,
coming live from the Donovan and Jorganson Heating and Coolian Studios. Boy,
this has been a really quick hour and I wish
we had one more hour with Mary Murk, the head
basketball coach at Wawatosa East and her two seniors. Very

(38:55):
impressed with Mackenzie Hawk and Cassie Is it Crowsy yeah,
our pick and say a better market student athlete of
the week. We will meet sometime next week you and
I'll get you my phone number. You tell me what
evening after practice. We can invite the team, invite your family,
invite the coaching staff to join us at the Pick
and Save in Wawoosa on State Street. And we were

(39:18):
there this year for a football player from Toasis, A
little guy.

Speaker 4 (39:24):
Yes, yeah, I believe that's it. Yeah, I believe.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
I'll share you the pictures.

Speaker 4 (39:29):
Yeah, a big smile.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
And I said, I said to coach Swittle, I said,
he he goes, go ahead and move on the football field.
He will light you up. That kid will. I don't
care how little is. He will light you up. So
let's talk mcken. Actually, yeah, let's start with McKenzie. If
you could pull the microphone over. You've only been part
of the TOASIS program now for this year, but your

(39:51):
favorite memory so far of being part of this program,
what would it be?

Speaker 6 (39:56):
I would have to say it was our Beaver damn
game a couple of weeks ago. It was definitely one
of our best games of the year so far. And
I think when your team is just like playing out
one hundred percent and doing all the right things and
making all the right passes and all the right shots.
You can just feel it, and I felt that we
were doing so good and everyone was just ecstatic after

(40:17):
the game. I mean, we had been game planning for
a week, but we won by like forty.

Speaker 1 (40:22):
Yeah, ninety to fifty, exactly forty, by the way, and
to beat a program, look, Beaver dam that girl's basketball
program was at the top for a really long time.

Speaker 4 (40:33):
So you know you're going.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
To get a well coached, quality team and for you
guys to put up ninety and beat them like you did,
that's a great memory.

Speaker 4 (40:43):
Yeah, it was, Cassie. How about you your favorite memory?

Speaker 1 (40:46):
You've been part of the program now for four years
and got a lot of basketball to be played yet,
but so far, favorite memory for you?

Speaker 8 (40:54):
I mean, I feel like I'd have to go state.
It's like a once in a lifetime opportunity, hopefully twice hopefully.
But it was really fun. I mean, all of our girls,
we just had a blast in the hotel, we had
a blast in the game, like even at practice. I
just felt like it was some of the like the
happiest basketball I played with that team.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Hey, coach. So we do this every week when we
have seniors, and it's interesting to me. I find out
a lot about the staff and the program from their answers. Right,
I have kids in here that go, look when I
played this game, I had seven threes and I lit
up for thirty. Hey, I played this game and I

(41:34):
had fourteen rebounds and eight of them were offensive. Do
you hear their answers?

Speaker 4 (41:40):
Team? Team?

Speaker 1 (41:42):
Yeah, and that's team.

Speaker 3 (41:43):
That's the embodiment of the seniors. You know, Cassie has
been on varsity all four years. You know, I think
she has been that constant person through our change of
our program. She does so many things that don't show
up in the statute that Cassie is. Like you think
of team Cassie, it's never about her, about her teammates.

Speaker 5 (42:01):
She's a phenomenal leader.

Speaker 1 (42:03):
This is the second time I've heard this about you,
by the way, because when we talked on the phone,
I said, who are you bringing in?

Speaker 4 (42:09):
She told me.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
I said, great, she told me about you, and she
what she just said was, this is the kind of
kid that every coach would love to have. Because you
look on the stats, yeah, oh okay, they're not going
to game. Everything she does is for our team, and
she's an incredible leader.

Speaker 4 (42:27):
And you did you know what you did?

Speaker 1 (42:29):
Good? You guys like for Mary Murg to tell me, Look,
we got a ton of really good basketball players. But
let me tell you, and who I want to bring
in are not our leading scorers. I'm going to bring
our seniors because these two girls are incredible. And I've
heard that story now twice about you and what you
mean to this team, so well you mean something there?
Well done?

Speaker 4 (42:49):
Cool.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
I love their answers, Mary, Yeah, I do. It tells
me so much about the program and the people that
are running the program that look, Mackenzie could talk about, Hey,
I had seventeen rebounds against this team and and you
know this happened, and I just I like that a lot.
Move the microphone over again. So what aren't you going

(43:12):
to miss about coach Murg? You know, does she h?
What does she yell out? Or what do drill do
you guys do every day that you're gonna be like,
all right, I don't think I'm gonna miss that.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
Let me tell you about this.

Speaker 4 (43:27):
You had this answer ready for.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
Me from the get go.

Speaker 6 (43:31):
Kobe slides it is. It is a defensive drill where
you are just closing out and doing slides for just
like two minutes straight, just a dead sprint, and you
have to go as hard as you can otherwise you're
not gonna switch. And BRG will not switch you unless
everyone is doing his dead spend.

Speaker 5 (43:51):
She'll call you out.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
She'll call you out and make me keep going. I
h you understand. You can't make them do three minutes
to Kobe slide. It's because we brought this up, Mark,
don't do that to them, Cassie same. Would that be
the same answer for you, or because you've been with
her now four years? So I don't know.

Speaker 8 (44:10):
My freshman year, we did a lot of running. We
did a lot of seventeen's. I'm really happy we don't
do those anymore.

Speaker 9 (44:17):
Those are miserable.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Guess what's coming up in the next practice. She just
forgot about those, so she's so happy that you absolutely not.

Speaker 5 (44:24):
We don't do those anymore.

Speaker 8 (44:25):
We did those a lot my freshmen and kind of
sophomore year, but we haven't done those a lot. We
have a drow called the Daisy, though, and that's that's
something else we have to do them. If we give
off an offense or rebound on like a free throw,
we have to do a down and back a ladder
and then down another down and back and out.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
It's forgiving up an offense rebound again. And you guys
don't do that in games very often, do you. No, Nope,
you can pull.

Speaker 4 (44:52):
The microphone, you know, Mark.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
I love the fact that that Mackenzie Hawks she was
ready for that, she knew. Oh, let me tell you.
She did not like Kobe slides. Where'd you come up
with Kobe slides? By the way, you know.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
I saw a video online of Kobe Bryant playing defense
for like, I don't know, three minutes straight when he
was with the Lakers, and I was like, oh, that
seems really good. And I think it's it's a physically
tough drill, but I think it's just as physically it's
a mentally tough.

Speaker 5 (45:20):
Drill, you know.

Speaker 3 (45:21):
And I tell them, like you, when you get tired,
the first thing that goes is your mind. Can you
stay focused? Can you still perform at one hundred percent?
And so I think it's just it's a physical drill,
it's also a mental drill. And at the end of
the day, I want our team to be in shape.
I want us to outrun. I want us when it's
the fourth quarter and there's two minutes left, I want
us to be mentally present just as much as physically present,

(45:45):
do you know, And.

Speaker 4 (45:46):
We talked about this.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
There are teams I coached that won a lot of
games and the kids hated each other and it was
okay when that season ended. And there are teams that
coach that didn't win very often, but the team really
kind of got And then every once in a while,
you get a team that wins a lot and the
team kind of gets They get along really well, they
hang out outside of practice and they do all this stuff.

(46:10):
And you said, look, coach, this might be one of
those teams. These these two seniors and then these other
a lot of juniors, but they seem to get along
really well and they play for each other. And I
don't know if we get that as often as people
from the outside think as coaches we get that.

Speaker 3 (46:27):
Yeah, I think it's just a testament to our culture.
I think we talk a lot about our Tosa East
culture and what we're trying to body.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
You know.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
One of my favorite seasons was Cassie's freshman year and
we had a losing record, but I just had so
much fun and we worked really hard, and that really
showed me. You know, I definitely dropped my ego back then,
and it showed me that, you know, we're just out
here trying to have fun and get better and I
love that. And ever since her freshman year, I've just
seen our culture not just as basketball players, but as people.

Speaker 5 (46:57):
And the importance of team.

Speaker 3 (46:58):
Chemistry is huge, right, and I think we've seen that
the last couple of years. Is just how we're not
all gonna be best friends with each other, but we
respect each other, we like each other, we're unselfish on
the basketball floor.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
Well, you know, thirty five assists in a camp. Yeah,
that's I've never heard of that before. I'm just telling you,
and that that goes right into the answers that you
gave me. That's right into that. You know that that
whole team thing, there's there's definition of a team is
two or more horses pulling in a similar direction for
a common goal.

Speaker 4 (47:33):
Can you tell.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
I've used that line a few times in the locker room,
But that's what this is.

Speaker 4 (47:37):
Coach. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
I really appreciate your willingness to come in studio.

Speaker 4 (47:42):
I know you.

Speaker 1 (47:43):
I know you were a little under the weather, but
for you to make it, thank you for that.

Speaker 4 (47:47):
And you're right.

Speaker 1 (47:47):
I get it now now now I understand it. Good
luck the rest of the way. I'm going to be
in contact with you. Come playoff time, we like to
have coaches join us and just kind of hey, here's
where we're at five minutes snippets. I get so much
coach speak or the team we plays, the greatest team
in the history of you know, high school of basketball.
Then they've got three wins, and I understand the coach speak.

Speaker 4 (48:08):
But we're going to reach.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
Out to you. If it's okay, Yeah, sounds good. Massy
coach has my number. Please let me know what evening
works for you. I'll get the plaque made up. We'll
invite the team, invite the coaches, invite your family to
meet us at at the Metro Market on State Street
in Wawatosa to give you this and we highlight, promote
and celebrate our pick and save Metro Market student athletes

(48:30):
of the Week. Thank you, Yeah you bet, coach, thank you.

Speaker 5 (48:33):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (48:34):
You got it.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
We're going to get to a break. Other side of
the break will introduce you to this week's Colonel Electric
Superhero of the Week. Ray Linn is from Greenfield High
School and wait till you hear her bio. I don't
know when she sleeps. I can tell you Stephanie Grady's
going to join us. Really interesting subject. She started a
company called Influential Athlete, and I want you to take

(48:55):
a listen to what she has to say. It's really
really interesting stuff. This is the Varse People. It's high
school sports show presented by your local Picket Save stores
and Metro Market stores on Fox Sports nine twenty in.

Speaker 4 (49:06):
Your iHeart Radio app.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
Well, welcome back to the Varsity Blitz High School Sports Show,
as always presented by your local Picket Save and Metro
Market stores. Coming live from the Donovan and Jorgans and
Heating and Cooling Studios. Any issues you have Donovan Jorganson
dot com the largest employee owned HVAC company in the
state of Wisconsin. I want to thank the Wild Toast

(49:29):
East Girls basketball program and Mary Murgan her two seniors.
What a really good hour. Those are really good kids,
and I commend their families and their parents and certainly
Mary Murgan. The Wild Toast East Girls Basketball program. They're
twenty and one, and they're in that conversation, that conversation
of come playoff time. You know how far kin we go?

(49:52):
Our next guest shere's our Kernel Electric superhero of the week,
Raylan Tedden, Yes railing. She is from Greenfield High School.
Multi sport athlete, been active in sports since their freshman
year across country, basketball, and track. Sophomore year included a
duel spring varsity athletics and track and soccer. She's played

(50:15):
a lot of sports and when you read her bio,
when you go to the current Electric Facebook page and
read her bio, she's done a lot in the world
of athletics. And you can take a look at some
of the things that she has done and then read
paragraph two and three and four, and now you know.

(50:36):
For me, when I read these kids' bios, and I've
told this story a couple of times, the first thing
I do is I feel like such a loser. I
am such a loser. Look at what these kids are doing.
And then what happens is I feel so good about
her community with these superheroes. If they come back when
they get done with college and they're the future leaders
in our community. My grandkids are going to.

Speaker 4 (50:58):
Be just fine.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
How are you?

Speaker 9 (51:01):
I'm good? How are you? It's so nice to meet you.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
So when I talked to the principal at Greenfield High School,
I asked them, a kid who's really active in the school,
great in the classroom, has the servant leadership heart to
give back to people in our community. And who are
you going to miss the most when they graduate? The
legacy that you've left as a hustle and hawk is incredible.

(51:25):
You just go about your business and do what you
do right. Yeah, And when do you sleep, by the way,
you don't sleep much?

Speaker 9 (51:31):
To you?

Speaker 5 (51:32):
Not much?

Speaker 4 (51:33):
Is your room messy? Please tell me it is.

Speaker 1 (51:36):
I want it to be because and here's the reason.
When you move on and you still and maybe you
get a B minus in the class, I don't watch
you in the fetal position. Let your room be messy
for a week. Teres is over there in your mind
like shaking her head, going no, no, no, don't tell
her that. Hey, let's talk a little bit about some
of the things that that. First of all, you maintain

(51:57):
a three point nine to two, which is un believable.
Good for you, who didn't give you the A By
the way, don't give me a teacher's name because we
don't want to call them out. Don't worry about that.
Several AP classes since your freshman year. By the way,
you've received High five Hawk Award for perfect score on
an AP you.

Speaker 4 (52:17):
Got a perfect score.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
Yeah, you and I are like, we're not twins.

Speaker 4 (52:20):
I'm only kiddy, Teresa. You didn't get a perfect score,
did you.

Speaker 7 (52:24):
No, they didn't have that opportunity. But I don't think
I could have done what she's done.

Speaker 4 (52:28):
Absolutely not.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
You got to be so proud, by the way, Yeah,
I use this line a lot. We always wanted to
know that our kids are like when they can't smell
our clone, right, when they can't smell your perfume, You're okay.
You know what she's like in the school. You know
what she's like when she's gone, when she's working. Stuff
like that, and I love that. Let's talk a little
bit about some of the things that you are involved in,

(52:52):
and we don't have enough time, but let's talk National
Honor Siety, national Spanish on our saiety, athletic leadership. Come,
so is it mal Tell me what that is? Yeah,
I don't know what that is?

Speaker 9 (53:06):
What is that it's Math honored society.

Speaker 4 (53:08):
Oh, no, wonder I don't know what that is good
for you?

Speaker 1 (53:12):
Student senate volunteering is something that resonates with you.

Speaker 4 (53:16):
Can I ask why that is?

Speaker 9 (53:18):
I just really like giving back to the community.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
Where did you learn so that servant leadership? Hart, We're
not born with it. It's a learned behavior, and I'm
wondering where you learned it from.

Speaker 9 (53:29):
So I lend her from two different things. The first
one is most definitely God, just yeah, knowing that just
to be selfless and give back to everybody and love
everybody and give them other opportunities. And then my parents
for being such great role models. My mom is such
a selfless person, Like she'll be so busy and then

(53:50):
she'll come home and help us and put us first.
And my dad he spends so much time at our
athletic booster club and he's always stalking the concessions whenever
they need it. So they're just great role models of
being selfless themselves.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
Raylyn, you know you're not supposed to make the host
of this thing tier up, but I what a great answer,
What a great answer.

Speaker 4 (54:12):
So you really.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
Involved as a student athlete. Your motivation obviously for being
a good student athlete. Is I'm sure the same right, yeah.
Is to look, you're very open about your faith and
you're in a safe space here. Just so you know,
I do a show called Faith in the Zone and
we talk to men and women all over the country
that are involved in sports and will come out of

(54:35):
secular sports station and share their testimony and how their
faith has affected their lives professionally, personally. So thank you
for being I envy you because it took I'm one
hundred percent Irish, took me a long time. I was
very stubborn with that part of my life. But you're
seventy eighteen, eighteen years old, willing to come live on
a radio station and one of the first things you

(54:57):
talked about was that part of your life and how
important it is. So thank you for that. Let's talk
you do you have two.

Speaker 4 (55:04):
Jobs as well?

Speaker 9 (55:05):
Yes, I currently hope to.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
What jobs do you have right now?

Speaker 9 (55:10):
I work at Greenfield Parks and Recreation and then Princeton Club.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
My goodness, you enjoy reading, hiking, working out, cherish your
time with family and friends because you don't have a
lot of time to give, So I thank you for that.
When you talk about being able to be self motivated
and taking care of all your business. You taught yourself
how to crochet, and now you're currently teaching yourself how

(55:35):
to play the piano. What was harder?

Speaker 9 (55:38):
Well, most definitely the piano.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
Really it has.

Speaker 9 (55:41):
Yeah, it's because you have to use both hands and
everything and focus on what notes you're playing. It just
adds like way more complications compared to knitting.

Speaker 4 (55:53):
And are you having fun with it though?

Speaker 9 (55:55):
Oh yes, I love learning new things and just like
trying to grow it.

Speaker 1 (56:00):
The person why piano just because you thought, I want
to just here it is?

Speaker 4 (56:04):
I want to try it.

Speaker 9 (56:04):
I've always loved the piano. I love piano music and
there's just something about it, and I just wanted to
be a part of being able to play piano music.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
A very good friend of mine, Jeff Solely is his name.
He teaches piano and he is big time. I may
send you a cape that he did, a video that
he did one time and I thought, how do you
do that? And it's all by a ear for him
and he can read music and all that, but he's
really good at it.

Speaker 9 (56:32):
So that's cool.

Speaker 4 (56:33):
What's going on with you next year?

Speaker 1 (56:35):
Do you know.

Speaker 9 (56:36):
I know that I want a major in actuarial science,
but I don't know exactly what school yet.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
When you lay your head on the pillow, close your eyes.
If you could pick any school in the country, what
would be your go to? Where would you go?

Speaker 9 (56:52):
Well, I think it would be the two schools that
I'm still like deciding on. It's either Madison or UWM.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
Okay, yeah, what's going to be?

Speaker 4 (57:04):
And you've been accepted at both.

Speaker 9 (57:06):
I'm currently waiting back for the Madison you will be.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
You know, I can't see how they would say no
to you. I mean, read the bio. People just read
the bio and say, okay, just come on, come on,
let's go. Do you think you want to play sports
at the next level?

Speaker 9 (57:24):
I I have for a while, but then it was
just kind of like a deciding factor for me, like
going to a school with a really good program or
playing athletics. And I think going to school and focus
on my schooling and then I can join in our
mural so I'll still be able to have the factors

(57:45):
of my athletics and sports.

Speaker 4 (57:48):
Okay. That was our next segment with Stephanie Grady.

Speaker 1 (57:50):
Please listen to or stay in the studio if you want,
because I think she's going to address some of that
and we'll have conversations. When you talk about sports, you've
been the captain both cross country and basketball for two
consecutive years cross country, track, soccer, basketball.

Speaker 4 (58:09):
What's your favorite?

Speaker 9 (58:10):
By the way, I would say it's either cross country
or basketball because they both have two different things that
I really like about it. I love that cross country
it's of course it's still a team, but while you're
in the race, it's really just a mental battle with
you pushing yourself and trying to get a new personal record.
And with basketball, it's like your team and you're working

(58:33):
together as a team, communicating and working towards one goal
of winning the game.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
So when my Wawotos's girls were leaving and you were
walking in, you and Cassie played AAU basketball together.

Speaker 9 (58:45):
Yeah, we did for who Wisconsin Lady shooters.

Speaker 4 (58:49):
Big smile on both your faces. You're like, what are
you doing here?

Speaker 1 (58:53):
And I love that. Hey, Teresa, talk to me about
how this, how this happened. Look, as parents, we just
we hope that our kids are really good at the
things that we you know, they want to be involved in.
Did you know early on that ray Lynn was was
somebody a little bit different because she's so active and

(59:13):
takes care of all of her business.

Speaker 7 (59:15):
Yeah, she's always had great energy and passion towards doing things.
So even if I was out for a run, she'd
be like, let's do another lab, So what are you doing?
I want to know how to do it. So she
does have siblings, of course, and that adds when they
are younger, older, So seeing them wanting to follow in
their footsteps, do what they do, if not even better,
has always been her goal.

Speaker 1 (59:36):
Yet my grandson is a cross country basketball at Lake
Country Lutheran. He's a freshman and his parents made him go.
He didn't want to play football. They said, you're going
to play a sport in the fall. It's a new school.
You're going to meet people. And he was like, I don't.
I don't like hitting people. I don't like getting hit.
So I guess I'm have to run cross country, And yeah,
he fell in love with it. And I've been to

(59:58):
a couple Do you like watching or play basketball or
run cross country more?

Speaker 7 (01:00:03):
You know, I love watching both obviously, but I myself
I am a runner, So definitely, the passion towards cross country.

Speaker 4 (01:00:10):
I didn't know what to do.

Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
I stood in one spot as other people started running,
and I'm like, where are they going?

Speaker 4 (01:00:16):
And people do you do? You go to different spots
and you.

Speaker 7 (01:00:19):
Look at the course beforehand, kind of map it out
and look to see areas that might be troublesome with
hills stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
Yeah, I waited and where they took off, they're gonna
end up coming back.

Speaker 4 (01:00:30):
That's what I thought.

Speaker 7 (01:00:30):
That's true.

Speaker 4 (01:00:31):
Yeah, I like watching.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Basketball a lot more. What position do you're playing basketball?

Speaker 9 (01:00:35):
I'm the point guard?

Speaker 4 (01:00:36):
Yeah? Gee?

Speaker 1 (01:00:37):
Are you a past first point guard? Or are you
a shoot first?

Speaker 9 (01:00:40):
A pass first?

Speaker 4 (01:00:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
My favorite? So you get in the gap and kick
kids that have You know, if somebody's hit two shots,
they know you're coming back to them, right, Yes, for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:00:49):
Have you always been a point guard?

Speaker 9 (01:00:51):
When I was younger, I was like the shooting guard,
but then as I got older, I moved to the
point guard position.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
Hey, in some one of the things that you're involved in,
And again you have two jobs and big time student
athlete and the faith side of it. Look, you're very busy.
But when we talk about the different clubs that you're
involved in, is there one that you enjoy being part
of more than the rest.

Speaker 9 (01:01:17):
I would say I really do enjoy every single one,
but my favorite has to be Student Senate because we're
actively always trying to do events for the school, like
we plan homecoming, we help with the blood drive, and
we do Senior Citizen Day, and we also have this

(01:01:39):
event where we get money and donate it to different
health causes and stuff. So it's just fun being able
to do a lot of events for the community and
just our school and making a better place.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
Would you do me a favor and reach out to me.
You have my information now if you have a fundraising
thing that you're doing that I can go on the
air and talk about and maybe help raise some money
outside of that Greenfield community that obviously knows and believes
in everything you're doing, but people that listen to the
show a lot of times feel led to help some

(01:02:13):
of the kids that we highlight, promote and celebrate, like
you as our current Electric Superhero of the Week. What
happens with this is I put your picture in bio
in front of the Cernel Electric Foundation and they will
pick a Superhero of the year and offer a five
thousand dollars scholarship to the school of your choice, and
you'll be in the running for that. I can't thank

(01:02:35):
you enough. Hey, when you do this volunteer stuff, a
lot of kids will say this to me. Look, I
didn't know how much joy I would get at giving
back until I started doing it, and I get way
more out of it than the people I'm helping.

Speaker 4 (01:02:49):
And I'm wondering if you feel the same.

Speaker 9 (01:02:51):
I would most definitely agree with that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
When you go on to college, you'll continue on this path. Right.
You'll find clubs at UWM or Madison and get involved.
I would also recommend Fellowship of Christian Athletes or Athletes
and actions, something on campus that can keep your grounded
in your faith and surround yourself with with kids that
have similar beliefs that you have.

Speaker 9 (01:03:14):
I've been already looking at like the two schools with
different clubs they have because I want to get involved.
And with all difference.

Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
I am shocked that you would be looking ahead and
trying to work ahead. I'm not that you don't get
sarcasm all the time. That was me being sarcastic. You're
going to be an empty nester, then, huh? Are you okayster?

Speaker 4 (01:03:37):
Don't you start crying on my show. You're gonna be
okay with.

Speaker 9 (01:03:40):
That, Yeah, I will.

Speaker 7 (01:03:41):
There'll be many visits though, of course.

Speaker 4 (01:03:44):
Her coming home. Are you going there? Both? That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
You did good, You did good, and you know at
Greenfield High School administration. I get it now. I understand
why you chose ray Lynn. Go on the current Electric
facebook page. Look at this beautiful photo of this guy
that's doing great work in our community. And then take
a minute and read her bio and the whole thing

(01:04:10):
that first chapter is about her basketball and sports, basketball,
cross country, all of the things she does and the
awards that she's won as a student athlete, and then
read the rest of it and understand that we're all
going to probably be working for her one day.

Speaker 4 (01:04:25):
So I want you to understand how nice I've been
to you right now?

Speaker 9 (01:04:28):
All right?

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
Yeah, and you talk about you guys do some stuff
with the with elderly people.

Speaker 4 (01:04:33):
I haven't met you yet.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
So make sure you build that circle at a little
bit larger so elderly people like me get a chance
to hang out with you. Reallyn thank you so much.
Good luck with learning the piano and continue walking worthy right,
being strong in your faith. I love that part.

Speaker 9 (01:04:51):
Congratulations, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 4 (01:04:54):
You did good.

Speaker 9 (01:04:55):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
No, no need to be nervous, right, you did good. Teresa,
thank you. It was nice to meet you. We're going
to get to a break the other side of the break.
Stephanie Grady boy two time Emmy winner, former gold medal
figure skater, and I could tell you that I've known
her husband.

Speaker 4 (01:05:12):
He all kicked his coverage by a mile.

Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
I can tell you that influential athlete is what we're
going to talk about for the next two segments with
Stephanie Grady. This is the Varsity Blitz High School Sports Show,
presented by your local Pick and Save and Metro Market
stores on Fox Sports nine twenty in your iHeart Radio app.
Welcome back to the Varsity Blitz High School Sports Show,
presented by your local Pick and Save and Metro Market Stores.

(01:05:36):
I'm Mike McGivern. I'm really excited, and I thank Stephanie
Grady for coming in studio. She's doing really good work.
And it's funny because her mission statement for this company
and the kind of the stuff we do on this
show and I have done for years, and that is
to be able to highlight prone, celebrate and help high
school aged kids kind of understand. Look to have kids

(01:05:58):
in studio and put a microphone in front of them
live radio is not easy for them. And I get
some kids that are pretty cocky about it until we
go live and then all of a sudden they don't talk.
And Stephanie, I love the fact that what you're doing
is being to be able to help kids, especially girls.
Not only girls though, but especially girls at the high

(01:06:19):
school level, kind of understand if they want to be
involved in at the next level as a student athlete,
what that looks like, and how to help them get.

Speaker 4 (01:06:29):
Ready for that.

Speaker 9 (01:06:30):
Oh.

Speaker 10 (01:06:30):
Absolutely, I mean I think even adults get nervous when
a microphone stuck in front of their face. I mean,
you and I don't because we've been doing it first.

Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
No, I still do. I still because you know what
I feel. I feel like someone's going to catch me today,
Like someone's gonna catch me.

Speaker 10 (01:06:41):
To go, You're gonna have a moment.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
You're really bad.

Speaker 4 (01:06:45):
Like why how can you still be on the air.

Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
I'm a sales guy that happened to coach high school basketball,
and Sparky over at the old station said, no, you're
going to try this. I think you'd be good at it,
and it's and it's stuck and it's been doing it.

Speaker 4 (01:06:57):
But you're right, Even adults get nervous.

Speaker 10 (01:06:59):
Isn't that so funny? But yeah, you know, when it
comes to these athletes and the skills that we teach
at our company, Influential Athlete, we teach the personal and
professional skills necessary in order to be a successful player
in the name, image and likeness industry, which has only
been around for three and a half years. It's brand new,
of course. But when it comes to working with athletes,

(01:07:19):
the skills that we teach, I could teach to all
kids because they're so incredibly necessary and are only going
to help them be successful in their future chapters professionally
and so on. But the reason why I love working
with athletes, and why we only work with athletes, is
because athletes they have something special about them. They do

(01:07:40):
They've learned and developed qualities and characteristics over their years
of training at a high level, competing at a high
level that kids who aren't involved in athletics at that
elite level don't necessarily have in general, right, And so
it's about taking these passion it's about taking the commitment,

(01:08:02):
the self discipline, the dedication and applying those qualities and
characteristics to the next chapter to be successful off the field, court, floor, pool,
whatever it might be. And that's our real focus. And
I love working with athletes because they know how to
work hard.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
As a gold medal figure skater, My niece who we
just talked about, she was a figure skater and now
is on the air in Florida, So you guys have
kind of a similar background. She went to Missouri Broadcast School.
But the work that she put in as an athlete

(01:08:40):
on the rink at hours that I couldn't believe she
had to go, I think probably molded you to where
you are now. As far as look, we had this conversation,
and you're not afraid to work. You like work like,
you want to be busy, and you want and the idea,
the mission statement, and you have it on your website.
What I love about the most is when you talk

(01:09:02):
about to build your personal brand and transform your future
beyond your sport. You had to figure out what that
was going to look like, because at one point, you know,
we can't skate anymore, we can't play football anymore, you
can't play basketball anymore. You can play golf, but that's
you know, with your buddies in some legal over at
New Berlin. Not professionally, but well, I'm shooting for the

(01:09:25):
Senior Tour. I've got to break fifty first, by the way, Grady,
I got to do that. But I love the fact
the conversation we had. We spent forty minutes on the phone,
and I talked to you about what I try to
do with this show, and you started laughing. You said, Mike,
it's very similar to what the mission statement is behind
this company that Joe and I started. It's about giving

(01:09:45):
back to these kids and getting them prepared for the
next chapter.

Speaker 10 (01:09:48):
That's exactly what it is. I created a solution to
a problem that I had as an athlete. So I
was a figure skater. I had been doing it since
age six. I mean at a certain point, I was
training six days a week. I was driving an hour
and a half each direction in order to train at
the University of Delaware, which was the number one training
facility on the East Coast where I grew up outside

(01:10:09):
of Philadelphia. And when I got really injured one day
and the bottom fell out and that was it. My
skating career was over. I had to figure out what
to do next. But my entire identity, all of my
value that I thought that I could give to the world,
was tied up in my identity as a skater. I
didn't understand that I had other value because of the

(01:10:30):
human being that I was to how to leverage that
and how to really kind of bridge that gap. And
so when it comes to these athletes, every athlete, I
don't care if you go professional or not. There is
an end date to your athletic career. There is a
day when that ball stops bouncing. And so it's a
matter of identifying while you're still competing and still doing
the thing that you love that's been so a part

(01:10:51):
of you since as long as you can remember. Figure
out what other value and what other things make you
the awesome human that you are, and start leveraging those
things while you're competing to sure make money with your name,
image and likeness. That's great that these kids have these
opportunities to do that sort of thing now, But what
it really does, and as a parent, if you're listening

(01:11:13):
to this, what it really does is it gets these
kids experience and exposure in the professional world while they're
still competing. So as soon as that ball does stop bouncing,
they have a resume. They know they have other value
to give to the world outside of just being an
awesome volleyball player or basketball player.

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
You know, Stephanie and we talked. The first question I said,
The first statement I said is, look, I would love
to talk to you because I don't really understand the
nil space and you know, it's these kids making money.

Speaker 10 (01:11:45):
Most people don't just you know.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
But you stopped me and said, look, this company. You're right,
I've done I know that space. I do, but this
company is not about me teaching a senior in high
school where to go to make the most amount of
mine in college. It's if they can make a little money, great,
but it's so much more than that because of what
you went through and I love that. Look, we all

(01:12:10):
go through this journey, and if we can teach young
people about some of these pitfalls and these roadblocks that
we have to avoid get I get called by young
basketball coaches a lot. Would you have a couple of
coffe I want to do what you did. I want
to coach at the high school level. I want to
get put in the Hall of Fame for this, That's

(01:12:30):
what I'm I'm striving for.

Speaker 4 (01:12:32):
Will you talk to me about it?

Speaker 1 (01:12:34):
And I get I start the conversation in a deep
dark space to make sure these guys understand what they're
getting into. And I love the fact that you're willing
to share Look on your website and I'm going to
promote this a number of times. If you google Stephanie Grady,
you can get there, but influentialathlete dot com is where

(01:12:54):
you're going to want to go. And one of the
first things that caught my eye was from a from
a former client and she said, this, my overall experience
at Influential Athlete Academy was incredibly inspiring. Her first line
is in look, I got to make three thousand dollars
playing college sports.

Speaker 4 (01:13:12):
It was.

Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
It was incredibly inspiring. Stephanie shared real life examples that
made the concepts relatable and actionable for us as college athletes.
What a great line for Mary B to be able
to say, Look, it was inspiring and I learned a
ton about what it's like to be a college athlete.

(01:13:34):
And then beyond that's the one and I haven't read
all the recommendations. There are but that's the one I
would put up on my front page as well.

Speaker 10 (01:13:44):
You know, it's really interesting when if you go to
our website, Influentialathlete dot com. The first step is if
you're like, Okay, I'm kind of interested in what you're doing.
You know, I want to figure out how this applies
to my kid, what my kid's potential is within the
NIL industry. Go to the website, schedule your free IL
strategy call. There's a bunch of buttons on the website.

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
Just click it.

Speaker 10 (01:14:03):
It pulls up a calendar. You pick a date and
time that works for you and your child. Make sure
it's a parent and a child, because we always like
to have the conversation together.

Speaker 2 (01:14:09):
Right, But.

Speaker 10 (01:14:11):
People book the call because they're like, ooh, I want
to make money. Then once they get into Influential Athlete Academy,
which is our signature program. Once they get into that
and they start learning all the things I always do,
we have a final kit delivery after the academy where
I deliver to them a very customized white glove put
together ANIL success toolkit with their personal brand, their core messaging,

(01:14:34):
their social media strategy. They're optimized bioprofessional style guys. Media
contacts everything right custom to them, and then I get
a testimonial from them because I want to know. I
want to make sure that I'm providing the value that
I promise number one, and that they're getting what they
expected out of it, if not more. And every time
I stick a mic on one of these kids to
have them explain me what was your experience with influential athlete? Right,

(01:14:57):
I'm not baiting them with specific questions to try to
get the sound by that I want every single one
of them. They don't talk about the nil deals they've
already gotten going through the academy and learning the skills
and how to pitch and what to say and all
that sort of stuff. They don't even go there. I
have to ask them about that for them to go there,
because their first thing out of their mouth is always
something along the lines of she helped me understand who

(01:15:19):
I really was and the value that I can bring.
That's what's inspiring.

Speaker 4 (01:15:24):
That that look.

Speaker 1 (01:15:26):
I don't, well, you didn't talk at all about our
faith life at all, but the something something happened to
you with that injury as a big time world class
figure skater that after you got away from being out
of the fetal position. Who am I? What am I
going to do? Something happened that now you want to

(01:15:48):
teach that to these girls. Look, these girls, these athletes
could have an acl teir tomorrow exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:15:56):
And it's done.

Speaker 10 (01:15:57):
And it's done.

Speaker 1 (01:15:58):
When I have kids in here that go, we're you know,
you're thinking about going to college. You want to play football?
Where do you want to go? And they go, well,
you know, I want to go here because of the program,
And I stop them and go, have you been on campus?

Speaker 4 (01:16:11):
Go on campus?

Speaker 1 (01:16:12):
If your football is taken away the first day of practice,
do you see yourself going to school there for four
or five or six some of these kids six years?
You know who knows double victory last? Yeah, one hundred percent.
And so that part of it, you know, as sixteen, fifteen, sixteen,
seventeen year old children, they have this idea they do, right,
I want to go to Alabama and play football. You're

(01:16:34):
not going to go to Alabama and play football. But
let's talk about playing at Whitewater and what that looks like.
I love the fact that you shut me down a
minute into our conversation because I thought nancy of doing that. No, no,
in a good way, because I thought everything you taught
was just how to make more money, and you said,
absolutely not. That's such a small part. But the NIL

(01:16:55):
world right now, it's kind of the wild wild West,
right it.

Speaker 10 (01:16:58):
Is at the college level because there's no federal mandates,
there's no concrete rules. There's a lot of lawsuits that
are currently playing out right now that will likely shape
the NIL landscape at the college level on a more
permanent basis. It's kind of a wait and see right now,
which is why it's so important that if you want
to start exploring NIL, because what we say in our

(01:17:19):
company is NIL isn't something that happens to you. It's
something you know, have the opportunity to take advantage of
if you know how and you want to. And so
this is why it's so important to make sure that
you align yourself with people who are very educated and
in the space, which is what we are. I mean,
we are experts in the NIL space. We teach these
kids what they need to do and develop the skills

(01:17:41):
they need in order to be marketable. Number one, right,
how to communicate effectively, utilize their body language, their voice,
skills on camera performance, their personal brand, how to grow
their influence aside just from social media. Okay, there's influence
within your community that we talk about and focus on
very much so, but it's so important to understand how
to navigate the rules that exist. Every college has different rules,

(01:18:03):
every state has different rules, and so you need to
make sure, as an athlete you are number one compliant
and so we very much educate them on that aspect,
and we're in their corner. I'm not getting a dime
for any deals that they make. I don't make a commission.
We're not a sports agency. We are an education based
NIL company. So our focus is making sure these kids

(01:18:26):
understand how to navigate it and how to navigate it
safely and successfully.

Speaker 1 (01:18:30):
So I want you to please repeat that you are
not an agent.

Speaker 10 (01:18:34):
We are not.

Speaker 1 (01:18:34):
You are not, And on their website this is what
it says. There's a big difference between trying to figure
it all out on your own and having someone who's
been there to guide you. And for student athletes, for parents,
for high school and university athletic programs, for clubs and organizations,
there's something for you should put grandparents.

Speaker 4 (01:18:54):
Because you know, as old people. How many kids do
you have?

Speaker 10 (01:18:56):
By the way, we have three kids. We have an
eleven year old to six year old and a three
year and so we are in it right now if
you will, and you know, it's really interesting. So we
work privately with athletes, and so I work with them
one on one. I'm the only one who does the
coaching of our female athletes. I like it that way.
I only have so much capacity. So if you're interested
book you're called, get your time, and just my little plug.

(01:19:18):
But we also are the exclusive NIL education partner with
the WIAA. They brought us on back in November because
they have proposed NIL language that's going to be voted
on come April or the annual conference, right and it
got voted down last year, and so we were brought
in by the wia Stephanie Hauser Meldow to help educate

(01:19:38):
all the ads at the wia's five hundred and fourteen
member schools as to what the language actually means because
they're so misconception of NIL. People look at the college level,
they see the transfer portal and the chaos that exists there.
They see these kids jumping from school to school, the
million dollar deals and it's it's such a misconception as

(01:20:00):
to what the reality of NIL is. That's what makes
the news. That's what you hear about. We understand because
we're in the news, right and so we get why
that's the stuff that makes the news. And so our
job with the WIA has been to number one, go
through line by line what the proposed language is, the
guardrails that have been put in place to protect not
only the student athletes from being exploited, but also to

(01:20:22):
protect undoe influence competitive equity. And so we also discussed
the potential repercussions that could come if the member schools
don't pass NIL for high schoolers in April, and the
repercussions are great. First litigation, Wisconsin's one of only eleven
states that does not allow high schoolers to monetize. And

(01:20:43):
the reason why is because you know, most states do
because they've either been forced to by some lawsuit and
a judge has filed some sort of temporary injunction being like,
you can't keep these kids from their right to publicity.
This is a American citizen's right that was determined by
the Supreme We're back in the seventies or the state
legislature takes it over and passes it themselves, which membership

(01:21:07):
doesn't want because they're not experts at the high school
level and everything that goes into that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:12):
Right coming, it's coming. We have to get to a break.

Speaker 2 (01:21:15):
Got it?

Speaker 1 (01:21:15):
Yeah, how I apologize for me when you go on
their website. Phase one is great, discovering your your power right.
Phase two building your brand for me. Phase three perfect
your pitch, communication, mastery, trust me part of the whole thing.

Speaker 10 (01:21:33):
Oh yeah, this is where the transformation happens, you know,
with the whole personal presence and all that goes. We'll
talk more about that after the break.

Speaker 1 (01:21:40):
Well, well, and this is what the definition will prepare
you to pitch with confidence, ensuring your message resonates and
your brand shines brightly. I'm telling you this is awfully
good stuff. And going to I'm already telling her. I'm
inviting her back because if we spent an hour, I
don't think we could get through all this. And I
commend you for this. We're gonna talk more with Stephanie

(01:22:02):
Grady during the break. Go to influentialathlete dot com. Influentialathlete
dot com and take a book and like she said, look,
She is the one that goes and meets and does
all this stuff, and she's got three kids. Book this
free free nil thing now, book the meeting now with
her and then take a you know, you'll get a

(01:22:22):
good feel whether this is a good fit for you
and your family. And make sure a parent's ready. If
you're a parent or a grandparent and you have a
female sophomore, junior, junior, senior, ye that that is when
so look junior senior in high school and they have
a chance to play at the next level and want
to know more about this influentialathlete dot com Stephanie Grady

(01:22:45):
will reach back out to you and have this conversation.

Speaker 4 (01:22:48):
How's Joe doing. He's doing great.

Speaker 10 (01:22:50):
He's doing great, he says, hello, He's a good dude.

Speaker 5 (01:22:53):
He was.

Speaker 1 (01:22:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:22:53):
I mean he was an ad in wifeishbe at Dominican
High School for many, many years.

Speaker 1 (01:22:56):
So he I bring in ten years right almost.

Speaker 10 (01:22:59):
Yeah, the whole communication side and everything like that, personal branding,
being a public figure. He knows the politics of athletics
in Wisconsin. So it's this company was very much a
marriage of both of our experience and expertise.

Speaker 1 (01:23:12):
I'm gonna ask you about how the first time you
guys thought about this company and obviously it's come again.
She is Stephanie Grady, and I gotta be honest with you.
Next time brings Joe, I'd love to see him. And
you have three kids, Okay, bring them, bring them all.
This is the Varsity Blitz High School Sports Show presented
by your local Picket Save and Metro Market stores on

(01:23:33):
Fox Sports nine twenty in your iHeart Radio app. Welcome
back to the Varsity Blitz High School Sports Show presented
by your local Picket Savee and Metro Market stores. Stephanie
Grady is in studio.

Speaker 4 (01:23:44):
I love my wife. You're a close second right now,
just so you know well.

Speaker 1 (01:23:49):
And it's and it's because of because of what you're
doing and because of what your heart is. And we
had some conversations during the break and I'm I'm a
bigger fan now than I was before the break on
just who you are and what you're trying to accomplish,
not only with this company, but with your family, and
I thank you for that. Let's talk a little bit

(01:24:10):
about schools and conferences. I didn't realize coming into this
interview that not only do you work with individual players,
individual families because it's a family. It's a family thing.
Got to have mom and dad there if you can't.
But now you're starting to work with different schools and
possibly with conferences to teach all of the athletic directors

(01:24:34):
and coaches. And I think that what a huge advantage
for these schools and these conferences to have somebody who's
done all the work.

Speaker 4 (01:24:43):
You've done, all the research.

Speaker 1 (01:24:44):
And all the stuff that these guys are like, I can't,
I don't have the time to do all this.

Speaker 4 (01:24:48):
Bring in an expert.

Speaker 10 (01:24:49):
Yeah, all the ads, I mean, and I know this right,
My husband was an AD for nine plus years. Their
plates are so full, right, their plates are so full.
They have so many things that they're juggling so often,
and they don't even have help. They have no sort
of assistant or anything like that. They're doing everything themselves.
Now you add nil to the mix, which is coming.
Whether it's passed by the WIA membership or it's forced

(01:25:10):
down their throats by some lawsuit or legislation, it's coming.
And so what we're doing is we are in talks
with a lot of individual schools as well as conferences
so they can contract with us either as an individual
school if they want that very customized white Glove service
to their specific school, or they can contract with us
as a conference, which we've done a lot of contracts

(01:25:30):
like that too, And so they bring us in and look,
at the end of the day, when it comes to
WIA rules, it's on the ads to make sure that
the student athletes and their families understand them so that
they can live within those rules compliantly. And what we
do is we come in and we provide that proactive education.

(01:25:52):
We provide several in person workshops for all the student
athletes and their families for these schools or conferences, where
we teach them all about this stuff, how to navigate
it safely, what the rules are, but also how to
be successful if they want to pursue this at the
next level.

Speaker 1 (01:26:06):
Oh, you do it as a group. So if there's
you do you do individual but you do groups, right, So.

Speaker 10 (01:26:11):
When we contract with schools like for example, we just
were at Divine Savior Holy Angels who were under contract
with last Monday, and we went there. We did it
at seven o'clock at night. A bunch of the student
athletes and their parents came and I did an hour workshop.
So I provided them with a ton of value. It's
very interactive and fun. I'm not sitting up there with
a PowerPoint like just you know, making them take notes

(01:26:32):
like it's fun, right, because this is about building their
knowledge but also building their value and giving them something
to walk away with, and so we provide those. We
also provide the ads and the administration of these schools
and conferences with all the resources they could possibly need.
So when nil becomes a thing, what we suggest is, look,

(01:26:54):
make a tab on your website. Make a tab on
your conference's website, so when people ask you questions, you
can have a hub to direct them to a place
where all the information exists. Yep, go check out this
on our website. How do you populate that website?

Speaker 7 (01:27:08):
Right?

Speaker 10 (01:27:09):
We provide all of those resources, so best practices, the rules,
you know, best practices for businesses and current donors to
the schools, the things that they need to know and
how they can live within this world.

Speaker 1 (01:27:20):
So the text messages I've gotten is, hey, what what
are we looking at?

Speaker 4 (01:27:24):
Cost wise?

Speaker 1 (01:27:24):
Guys, there there are it's there's a lot of different
ways that they do this, whether it's with a group,
whether it's individual whether a conference or a school. The
best thing to do is go on this website, influentialathlete
dot com and set up a meeting called Stephanie. She
can walk you through take a look at some of
these these really good videos of the athletes and the

(01:27:47):
parents and and kind of get a feel for what
these athletes are getting out of this and what the
parents are getting out of it, and what you'll be
kind of surprised how they kind of com mingle a
little bit, like these kids are getting a lot more
out of it than just learning the NIL game. And
the parents are very happy with all of the look

(01:28:09):
to have these kids prepared for that next chapter. And
if they can make a couple bucks, great, you don't
make any money if they make a million dollars on
an NIL deal. It's not like you're getting fifteen percent.
If they need agent and fifteen percent agent, let me know.

Speaker 4 (01:28:25):
I'll make the money. I'll share it a little bit
with you.

Speaker 10 (01:28:29):
What we say is like you pay us once and
we teach you the skills that you can then capitalize
on for.

Speaker 1 (01:28:34):
The rest of your life and teach to your own.

Speaker 10 (01:28:36):
Kids exactly, and so so often parents, I mean, I'm
a parent of three kids. We try to teach our
kids something, so often it takes somebody else coming in,
an outside person with who's maybe a little bit more
relatable for whatever reason, and teach them a lot of
the same things but in different ways. And Nil makes
it cool to want to learn these things.

Speaker 1 (01:28:57):
Now, Hey, how willing are you to open up a
bus your life as a figure skater and the injury.

Speaker 4 (01:29:03):
Yeah, you're open to.

Speaker 1 (01:29:04):
Talk about that part because I think that's so important
that people get the personal side of who you are
and why you're doing this.

Speaker 10 (01:29:11):
That's how I start our academy, is that I need
to let them know why I'm the person that they
can number one relate to. But also why am I
qualified to talk to you? You're going D one, You're
the two time Gatorade Player of the Year. What makes
me a credible person to kind of speak to you
at the level that you are in terms of an athlete? Well,

(01:29:31):
I was there right and one day it all crashed
and burned. I shattered the right side of my pelvis.
It was a terrible injury, and for months I was
in this depression. I didn't know what was going on,
and it honestly took one day, my mom came in
my room, she knocked on my door, sat in the
bed next to me, took one look at me, smacked
her bed as hard as she could, and was like,

(01:29:53):
that's it. Enough is enough. You're more than skating. You've
learned and developed so many skills from your sport. Put
them to use. You have so much more going for
you than so many other people do. Don't sit here
and sul mom, figure out how to bridge the gap.

Speaker 1 (01:30:06):
Patrise, Patrece, Honey, you did so good. I hope she
hears this. Patrese, I love that this is how we
ended this show. I ask you please come back. Don't
get too big for my show. By the way, Grady,
don't be doing that sale o to your your husband.
I couldn't do what he did as an athletic director.

(01:30:28):
I'm not organized enough. And he did a really good job.
He's he's a good dude.

Speaker 10 (01:30:32):
He's a really really good dude. And is like now
that I got to know so many different ads through
this whole process and we're helping to serve them. He's
developed quite the reputation, and so I'm like, all right,
all right, you've done good for yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:30:44):
You know what, he's a good Irish boy right there.
He's good, Yeah, he is. It's really nice to meet you.
Influentialathlete dot com. Whether you're a grandparent, a parent, at
aunt and uncle, especially girls student athletes in the high
school in our area, go to that webs I set
up a free meeting with Stephanie. Let her talk to
you about what they're trying to accomplish their mission statement

(01:31:06):
of helping your kids in the next level in a
lot of different areas. It's just not nil. She's done
all the work though. Let her who did all the work?
If you did it yourself, it would take months to
do the things that she has done. Let her talk
to you about your student athlete. Keep up the good work.

Speaker 10 (01:31:26):
Oh thank you. And I just want to clarify too,
when it comes to our private coaching, we only work
with females, okay, And there's a reason for that is
because they're incredibly underserved in the NIL space.

Speaker 1 (01:31:36):
Perfect.

Speaker 10 (01:31:36):
So when it comes to us privately working with your
student athlete through our Influential Athlete Academy, it's for the
girls good and I like it that way as of
right now. At some point we might expand it, but
I want to really focus on the area that's really underserved,
and that's the females.

Speaker 1 (01:31:51):
Well there's that servant leadership part again. Well done, Thank
you so much, Stephanie Grady again influentialathlete dot com. This
is the Varsity polic High school sport Chill, presented by
your local Pick and shave, a metro market stores, on
Fox Sports ninet twenty and your iHeartRadio app.