All Episodes

March 26, 2025 93 mins
This is the full episode of The Morning Show with Preston Scott for Wednesday, March 26th.

Our guests today include:
- Michael Alford





Follow the show on Twitter @TMSPrestonScott. Check out Preston’s latest blog by going to wflafm.com/preston. 
Listen live to Preston from 6 – 9 a.m. ET and 5 – 8 a.m. CT!
WFLA Tallahassee Live stream: https://ihr.fm/3huZWYe
WFLA Panama City Live stream: https://ihr.fm/34oufeR Follow WFLA Tallahassee on Twitter @WFLAFM and WFLA Panama City @wflapanamacity and like us on Facebook at
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Hi. Wednesday morning on the Morning Show with Preston Scott.
It is March the twenty sixth. He's Jose, I'm Preston.
It is a show fifty three forty four. We'll get
to this day and history in mere moments, but we
start with some scripture and we're going through just today

(00:37):
it will be the last day. We go through this
little section of Titus where we have been as a church,
looking at the pastoral letters that Paul wrote to Timothy
and in this case Titus. Titus was performing ministry on
the island of Crete, and he's talked about Paul has

(00:57):
has written about in struct actions to Titus, about how
to instruct old older men and older women. And we
have laughingly accepted that some of us are just that.
Now there's certainly a group that don't accept that. And

(01:19):
and I'm not talking about trying to again stay in shape,
be active, but there's a there's a limit, right, and
we've seen people cross that line. We've seen people and
you just think to yourself, I wonder what those surgeries cost,

(01:42):
and I wonder how much time is in the tanning bed,
and it's like, okay, all right, little in love with
self you know, beyond the point of normal. But this
is about not robbing the body of Christ to the
experiences that you acquire through living your life, good and bad.

(02:05):
Much is to be learned out of making poor choices.
And I think oftentimes people are robbed because they suppress
those things and they don't just step back and say, yeah,
that was a bad choice. What went into that? Okay,
check check check, And now you've got a little bit
of a learned experience that you can share with others.

(02:30):
But now we go to younger people, and we kind
of overlapped into that yesterday. And this is tightest two,
and it talks about how older women are to be
teaching younger women. And now we get to instructions to
younger women to love their husbands in verse four, and

(02:50):
children to be self controlled, pure, working at home, kind
and submissive to their own husbands. That the word of
God may be may not be reviled. And again, remember
this was in a context where there were women that
were having multiple affairs, the new Roman woman, and this

(03:15):
is saying, now, this is not the way to live
one's life. And so these instructions are to counter a
trend in culture at that time. Likewise, urge the younger
men to be self controlled, show yourself in all respects
to be a model of good works, and in all

(03:36):
your teachings, show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot
be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to
shame having nothing evil to say about us. Ooh, that
is crucial. Paul has talked about older men, older women,
younger women, younger men, and he says, what's crucial here

(04:01):
is that everyone understand the role that they play individually
in how the collective Christian Body of Christ is viewed.
If people in a community don't see any difference between

(04:21):
the church and the Rotary Club, there's a problem. If
they don't see a difference between the Body of Christ
and the Elks lodge membership, what are we doing? And
so that's what I want to leave you with is

(04:42):
that you play a very important role in not just
your own witness as an ambassador for Christ, but you
play a role in the larger picture of the Body
of Christ being revealed to an area, to a region,
to a community, to others. People judge Jesus by what

(05:06):
they see in you, right or wrong, just is what
it is. Ten past the hour. That's Titus two, by
the way, might ruminate on that for a while. It's
The Morning Show with Preston Scott. Eleven past the Hour,

(05:33):
twenty sixth day of the month of March eighteen eighty five.
The Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company of Rochester, New
York begins commercial production of flexible photographic film. You know what,
this is what I was laughing at when I started
the show. Okay, inside the Morning Show with Preston Scott,

(05:56):
I come on the air, and you the first thing
you heard was here's why I'd opened up the American
Patriots Almanac in advance of this segment, and I read
this first entry Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company. Today, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft.

(06:22):
You know, we've got these brands, and you're like, Oracle,
what is that? Back in the day, the names of
these companies are so big because they have to tell
you what they are. The Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company,
it would become Eastman Kodak Kodak. But it's interesting how

(06:48):
early on, and we're talking eighteen eighty five, you had
to kind of you had to name your business in
such a way that you would explain to people so
that they're not like huh so yeah. Nineteen fifty three,
doctor Jonah Salk announces he had successfully tested vaccine against polio.

(07:10):
That is a vaccine. It ended polio. My brother had
a touch of polio, my late brother Bill. It affected
him below the waist, and so I'm acquainted. You know,

(07:35):
my brother did not benefit fully from that vaccine. But
that's what a vaccine is. It stops something most all
the time, as opposed to a shot or a jib.

(07:58):
Channeling my inner Fauci. Nineteen seventy nine, at the White House,
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begem Menachem Began, Egyptian President Anwar
Sadad signed the Camp David Peace Treaty broken by President Carter,
ending decades of hostilities between the two countries. It cost

(08:20):
Saddada his life. You can see video of the assassination
of the Egyptian president. He would be assassinated for entering
into that accord. It would happen years later, but he
was gunned down at a ceremony nineteen eighty two, groundbreaking
ceremony held at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.

(08:47):
One of the most emotional things you'll ever do is
sit and watch veterans, families at that wall, touching the
name of a loved one, a friend, and just grab
a seat on a bench and have your hankies, your
tissues ready, because that's just I've done it, watched it.

(09:09):
My brother's name should be on that wall, but to
the shame of the United States Navy and thousands, hundreds
of thousands of others are not listed because they were
victims of Agent Orange and died years later from serving

(09:29):
in Vietnam and being exposed to agent Orange, which was
a defoliant that killed all the vegetation in the jungles
where they were fighting, and so they got cancer. And
my brother died at the age of forty nine with
cancer in every major organ of his body. It ravaged him. Anyway,
Today is National Little Red Wagon Day, so get that

(09:51):
red wagon out. It's Epilepsy Awareness Day, National Nugat Day,
so eat a candy bar with a nugget. Nugat is underrated,
why because nugat is a weird word. What's in that?
And nugat just sounds icky. Today's National Spinach Day and

(10:17):
Manatee Appreciation Day. Do you hear that? Sweetheart? My wife's definitely
listening right now. Manatee Appreciation Day, So a special tip
of the cap to Alfred, who is forever immortalized in
a painting but done by our friend Randy Breenan. My
wife's encounter with Alfred, we named him Alfred, a manatee

(10:39):
out in the wild that my wife encountered on a
dive with manatees that we did, and Alfred just loved
on my wife and would not let her go. I
am not making that up. Seventeen passed the hour. It
was love at no sight because manatees can hardly see

(11:07):
twenty two past the hour. Michael Alford, athletic director, Florida
State University in the third hour today. We've got much
to discuss between now and then, and much to discuss
then with Michael. Is the stadium going to be ready
for Alabama to start the football season. I got a

(11:32):
sneaky feeling about this football season. I think we're going
to be like one of the big stories of the
year in a good way. I think it's going to
be a rebound year in a very strong way. I'm
reading enough sources. I have sources, Yes, I do. I

(11:52):
think it's going to be fun, and I will make
this prediction. Florida State will beat Alabama and that will
be the headline of the first week, the bounce back
of Florida State. They'll be talking about could it really be?
I believe that. Is there a little Homer in me?

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Absolutely, But there's the analytical side of me that likes
to be right more than being a homer. I think
they will win that game. Now, I'm not prepared to
give a guess of the record for the season. I'll

(12:36):
wait and do that as I normally do with Irishchafell
when we preview the season this summer. I'm just saying,
a dad in Australia flies helicopters for the South Australia Police.
That's what he does for a living. David's sketchings. As

(12:58):
he approached his fiftieth birthday, he decided he wanted to
go for a Guinness World record. How often do we
talk about this? Only not just any Guinness record. The
record out there that he wanted to tackle is the
record of twenty four continuous loops in a glider. Now

(13:29):
that record has stood since two thousand and one. That's
actually pretty remarkable. Now if you're not familiar. Most of
the time gliders get towed up in the air by
another airplane, if not all the time. That's how they
do it. And then the tow cable is released and

(13:52):
the pilot is generally relying on or not generally is
relying on thermals air that is traveling up from the
ground to stay aloft. There's no power massive wings. These
are very light and they rely on the wings to

(14:14):
catch the thermals to then stay aloft. You absolutely have
to have a pretty significant amount of altitude, and you
have to be flying in an area that has constant
thermals or in a day that has got a lot
of thermals. Think about this. The record was twenty four

(14:44):
loop after loop. So he's flying and then he pulls
the stick back and he does a backward loop, and
then another, and then another and then another. You get
twenty four times was the record. My man broke it
with forty five. His son was in the back seat,

(15:08):
had his sixteen year old son Max with him twin
seat DG one thousand glider. I watched the video of it. Incredible,
forty five loops consecutively. His son's got a counter one

(15:28):
two three forty five in a row. Two words no chance, No, No,
I'm pretty certain I couldn't. I couldn't survive one without

(15:52):
losing my cookies. It's just no, but he said, he said.
My goal has been to be a role model for
young people, in particular my family, to show that goal setting,
working hard, having discipline, and really trying hard is way
to get to what you want to achieve. And that's

(16:14):
what we did with this record. So tip of the
cap to you, sir, get a mate, well done, Throw
a few shimp and nebabby over that one. Twenty seven,
twenty eight, Now past the hour, This Morning Show with
Preston Scott.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
Those serving communities as law enforcement officers and first responders.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
I say you are all essential workers.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
Welcome to the Morning Show with Preston Scott.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
Thirty six minutes past the hour. I just showed Jose
the photos of our trip swimming with the manatees. Was
I exaggerating when I said that that one manateee just
was hugging on my wife's arm. No, you were, And
that was the most adorable photo I've ever seen. It
was incredible, It was absolutely surreal. My wife is kind
of like a Disney character, you know, a good Disney

(17:11):
character when it comes to animals. She has this voice
and this demeanor that I it's just I've actually seen
her get a wild rabbit, a bunny to come towards her.
Camere little guy come here, and she comes hopping up.

(17:35):
It's like, are you kidding me? It's like you expect
her to sit down in the middle of a field
and birds to just come and sit around her and
start singing and chirping from the branches, and a little
baby deer and little rabbits. It's like a scene from
Bambie or something, and she's just in the middle of it.

(17:57):
It's just it's surreal. And so you know, we've we've
we've had some we've had some wonderful adventures in our time,
and it's so much fun to watch interactions with dolphins
and whales and harbor seals and by beluga whales and manatees.

(18:20):
And we are at some point going to yes, go
swimming with the pigs uh eig zuma and and and
we're gonna swim with dolphin again. And it's just it's
just gonna be fun. So anyway, all right, sorry, big
stories in the press box this. I watched some of
this yesterday Bill Barr, former attorney general, who has mixed

(18:44):
feelings about Trump, and because of that, I found his
commentary about the district judges ruling on these things. The
judge stopping attempting to stop the deep deportation flights, demanding information.
Bill Barr's comments on all of that, The Constitution gives

(19:06):
the president the power to make judgments on how we
deal with foreign nationals when we are animated by national
security concerns. It's his call, not a district court judges call.
And he singled out US District Judge James Bosburg in
part maybe because Bosburg is kind of a centerpiece in

(19:27):
the Russian collusion stuff. He's got a bit of a
past here as it relates to Trump. He said, the
President is absolutely right to be frustrated and concerned about
the way the courts are handling this. There's a pattern
whereby these district judges are trying to usurp the responsibility
of the president in the national security area. What significant

(19:52):
is this comes from a guy who tends to call
it straight down the middle. As it relates to Trump,
there's times he's been very critical of him. There's times
he's not He's been supportive, and so take what you
will from that. What's also interesting here that I bet
you haven't seen or heard in many places is a

(20:14):
little comment made in twenty twenty two during a speech
at Northwestern University to the law school there by Supreme
Court Justice Elena Kagan, a known activist judge. It can't
be right that one district judge can stop a nationwide
policy in its tracks and leave it stopped for the
years it takes to go through the normal processes. So

(20:40):
you say, Barr thinks if this gets to the Supreme Court,
it's going to be overturned and handled properly. So there
you go, one of three big stories here. We'll get
to the other two next. It's forty minutes past the hour.
I'm getting back on time, and I'm going to stay
on time here in the Morning Show.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
Good morning, and welcome to the Morning Show with Preston Scott.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Hime for the twanging guitar. Forty one minutes past. Rather
Gaines joined us yesterday on the program, and she will
be at Florida State University. Bellamie Belle, I keep doing this,
bella me Building Room twenty one. I've gotten more than

(21:31):
one email on this. It looks like they've intentionally placed
her in a room in the middle of where there's
no parking. I had someone tell me that the closest
parking is almost a half mile away. Don't know, but
I will tell you that the focus is going to

(21:53):
be the young people on campus. So it's at six
point thirty. The door's open, and it's six and you
are invited. The fight is far from over. Tour addressing
Title nine upholding fairness, safety, integrity in women's sports and
women's spaces. And so she will be at FSU on Friday,

(22:16):
so if you can go, go. I've mentioned Representative Jasmine
Crockett of Texas. She has been told by her people
to be outrageous and outlandish and controversial and say stupid

(22:39):
things to garner attention, and it's working because she's probably
or should be hit with an assault and battery charge.
Here's what happened in the bowels of Congress. She's walking
and with her is a Republican Member of Congress who
witnessed the attack, Tim Burtch. The attack, Yes, a reporter

(23:03):
with a phone in his hand, because that's what reporters use.
Now they use a recording app on their phone. Said,
asked a question. The question was really pretty straightforward. Remember
she's the one who called for Elon Musk to be
taken down on that Tesla take down group or whatever.

(23:28):
And so this reporter asked if she would condemn the violence,
and she's acting like she's not hearing it, and then
suddenly snatches the phone, grabs the phone and now you
can laugh at this and scratch the reporter's hand with
her nail. Now that technically is battery. She didn't want

(23:53):
to be asked that question, and so she's wanting attention.
She might get it. And what is it about the
left and being being so emotionally charged with a simple
set of questions or when confronted with a situation that
they act out violently. Do you realize there are still

(24:13):
people being attacked for wearing a MAGA hat in this case,
Subway writer, this just happened wearing a Make America Great Again? Hat,
Lady says to her, says to the guy, if you

(24:33):
bleeping voted for Trump, You're a racist? How can I
be a racist? Just watch the news. I'm highly educated.
Oh are you? Then? Why are you wearing that hat?
Only uneducated people wear that hat And she literally tried
to run him down when he got off the subway

(24:55):
and she fell flat on her face. It was all
captured on video bystanders recording this incident because she can't
handle the fact that the dude's wearing a hat with
a message she doesn't like. See this really distills to
the core the problem with the left in America. They

(25:16):
can't handle differing views. They can't see them, they can't
hear them. They have no way of dealing with that.
Honest and truly. You know why I've got my make
America Great hat again, Make America Great Again hat in

(25:37):
my studio here because I don't want to deal with
it with my wife. Meaning my wife doesn't want to
have to be in the middle of a situation where
someone gets gets to be a jerk and there's a confrontation.

(26:02):
She just doesn't want to live in that world. And
I don't blame her. Worried up to me, I'd be
wearing that hat almost everywhere I go because I'm that way,
and I'm big enough that most people aren't going to
mess around. They're just not. But there are idiots out there.

(26:27):
There are crazy Karens, there are Margarets. There are those
people that cannot handle any view that's not theirs. And
it's a dog on shame that that's where we find

(26:48):
ourselves in America today. This is still happening forty seven
minutes after the hour.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
Okay, now I'm only a minute late. It's the Morning
Show with Preston Scott.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
Was it Monday? We were talking about Donald Trump saying
if he needs to, he'll dig into his own wallet
to pay overtime to the astronauts that were stuck up
in space. Now NASA allegedly has admitted that Biden left
him up there. That apparently they didn't want to go

(27:33):
to Elon Musk and SpaceX, even though SpaceX had offered
to solve the problem and get them back, they didn't
want to do that because Musk was a Trump supporter.
I'm learning how even in the state of Florida, people

(27:57):
will screw over other people because they don't want to
give credit to a particular opposing party person. For example.

(28:19):
I mean, if you just look at this situation here
with the astronauts, because they just didn't want to do
anything with Elon Musk because Trump and Musk were buds.
They let those people stranded up there. So is it

(28:39):
really out of the realm of possibility that politicians on
either side of the aisle will screw over people because
they don't want to give credit to somebody else. Now,
think about this, now, this is something I'm becoming a

(29:00):
little bit more informed on, not just the astronaut thing.
When you look at circumstances, whether it's in local, state
or national government, the politics behind it too often say
to you and I screw you. We're not going to

(29:23):
do the right thing because we don't want to give
somebody else any credit. I don't know who it was
that said it, but someone once said, great things can
be done if you don't care who gets the credit.

(29:53):
If you put aside left, right, middle, and you say
what's best for p people, great things can happen. But anyway,
I've mentioned that we needed to figure out what an
astronaut got paid to begin with. Listen to this. This
is sad. An astronaut makes one hundred and fifty two

(30:17):
thousand a year. Now, that's a good salary, right, but
it's not. Isn't that less than what you might expect
for an astronaut space risking life and limb and untold.
We don't know the vagaries of what we know about
about being out in space and its effect on the body,

(30:39):
we don't know, and so they have this five dollar
a day per diem. NASA said that transportation logic meals
are provided for NASA astronauts when they're official travel orders
as federal employees well in space, and the incidental rate
would presumably equate to five dollars a day. You're kidding me, right,

(31:00):
and five dollars a day for meals let alonees, lodging
and travel. Give me a break. I have more to say,
but probably not today. All right, second hour of the

(31:31):
Morning Show with Preston Scott. Let's go ahead and talk
about the signal leak, signal gate. Let's do it. I
will bring you up to up to date on what
we know so far. Some muckety MUCKs, we're talking a

(31:54):
pretty important group of people. Vice President, National Security Advisors,
Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, CIA Director White House,
Chief of Staff are having a conversation via an app
called signal Signal is and has been considered to be

(32:19):
the gold standard in communication with encryption for a long time.
It has been used by Democrat administrations, Republican administrations, by
our intelligence community reporters use it, and so the fact

(32:47):
that this communication was going on is not unusual. This
particular meeting was regarding who thies Who th These are
a group of separatists in Yemen that are supported by Iran.

(33:11):
Iran uses them as puppets to conduct violent terrorist attacks,
but allowing Iran to say, we didn't do it. It's Iran,
it just is. But it's the houthis that we are targeting.

(33:38):
Jeffrey Goldberg is the editor in chief for a publication
online and otherwise called The Atlantic. He was included by mistake.
There are guesses as to who the person was supposed
to be that was included, but National Security Advisor Michael Waltz,

(34:02):
former Florida congressman and a frequent guest on this show quote,
I take full responsibility. I built the group. It's embarrassing.
We're going to get to the bottom of it. Somehow
Goldberg was added to the list of people that were
allowed on this chat, so he wrote a piece about

(34:23):
being included. It was called who they PC small group
and they were discussing an upcoming attack everyone's up at arms.
Oh my gosh, this was a breach of National zero zero.

(34:51):
Classified information was shared, specifics were not shared, and much
has been made of it. Trump, for his part, said,
I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big
fan of The Atlantic. To me, it's a magazine that's
going out of business. It's not much of a magazine.
But I know nothing about Waltz. I can tell you

(35:19):
one hundred percent. I don't know this guy, referring to
Jeffrey Goldberg. I know him by his horrible reputation. I
know him in the sense that he hates the President.
But I don't text him. He wasn't on my phone.
We're going to figure out how this happened, he said.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but of all the people
out there, somehow this guy who has lied about the President,

(35:41):
who is lied about gold Star families, lied to their attorneys,
and gone to Russia, hoax, gone to just all kinds
of lengths to lie and smear the President of the
United States. He's the one that somehow gets somebody's contact
and then gets sucked into this group. Now, for its part,
The Atlanta said, and I quote attempts to disparage and

(36:03):
discredit the Atlantic. Our editor and our reporting follow an
obvious playbook by elected officials and others in power who
are hostile to journalists and the First Amendment rights of
the United States. How funny we just got out of
an administration that actively engaged in censoring people and the press,

(36:25):
but mostly people and their crying First Amendment. But there's
more to this story. Wilts went on to say, whether
someone did a delivery or it happened to some other
technical means is something we're trying to figure out. Lesson learned.

(36:52):
Number one, You've got journalists out there who have made
fame and fortune trying to trash this president, and so
we've got to tighten up. We are tightening up, and
we have some of the best technology minds looking at
how this happened. We made a mistake, We're moving forward.
We're going to continue to knock it out of the
park for this president. But that can't be all, because

(37:12):
there is more. This was a mistake, wasn't costly in
the sense of anything classified. No lives were put in danger.
All of the drama that you heard at the testimony yesterday,
the Democrats pontificating back and forth. No, no, none of that.

(37:33):
And I'm going to get to the aftermath and how
this story started falling apart late yesterday afternoon. Next on
The Morning Show with Preston Scott.

Speaker 4 (37:47):
It's The Morning Show with Preston Scott, turning to Matt
Espa from town Hall. He starts with this, this is
from late yesterday afternoon. So what the bleep is the story?

Speaker 1 (38:09):
Now? This story in the Atlantic that secret war plans
were disclosed to known anti Trump fake newswriter Jeffrey Goldberg,
who was accidentally added to the group, is falling apart
faster than a skiff made of paper. So Goldberg now

(38:34):
is walking back his own story. He's walking back his
war plans description. What it apparently was, and I'll read
from the tweet it sounds more like a check in
of which who the these were about to receive ordinance
and with what weapons systems and a weather update. Was

(39:01):
it an unforced error by the Trump team? Absolutely it was.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
It was.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
You know, my wife and I talked about this yesterday.
Who on staff organizing this little get together did not
do a check of who's on the list and go, wait,
who's that? I mean, let let's let's go through the names.

(39:31):
Let's just I'm gonna, I'm gonna. Jose is going to
be the person responsible under Michael Waltz for organizing the huddle.
So Jose's job is to pick a name or to
go listen to the names, to read the names, to
check the names of who's in this little meetup, and

(39:55):
decide if it's ready to go to then proceed with
the actual meeting. Vice President J. D Vance Yes or no? Nope? No?
I mean, is that is that a person that you
want in the meeting?

Speaker 2 (40:11):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (40:11):
Oh yes, yeah, yeah, I'm my apologies. Yes, yes, Secretary
of State Marco Rubio, absolutely, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseith Oh, yes,
CIA Director John Ratcliffe yep. White House Chief of Staff
Susie Wiles. Yeah. Jeffrey Goldberg, h exactly. You got names

(40:40):
there that you're like, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
Whoa whoa whoa, whoa whoa ho time out here? Hold on,
hold on, who's Jeffrey Goldberg? Not that Jeffrey. We're not
talking about the dude from the Atlantic. Sweet God, get
him off this. You see my point? Someone either intentionally

(41:01):
or just massively typed in a letter or two and
hit click. We've done that. We've sent an email and
it automatically loads a name and we think it's the
right name, and it's not. We've had that happen. So
I'm not convinced this was an intentional thing, but I'm
not convinced it wasn't. Bottom line is these were unclassified discussions.

(41:26):
Signal is an improved app It is, to quote Matt Vespa,
a nothing burger sixteen minutes past the hour, lesson to
be learned. Yes, but that's it. Great note from a

(41:52):
buddy who texted me. A real patriot would have immediately
spoken up and said, I don't think I should be
included in this conversation. I texted back Goldberg, Not a chance.
We're not talking about the wrestler, by the way, Yeah,

(42:22):
it's it's ridiculous again. Mistake made first. There's not a
chance Trump's leaking information.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
To the media.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
Good lord, No one on that team is. So it
was either a horrific accident or I mean, I give
it a fifty to fifty. There's a subversive in the
National Security Department under Waltz. He'll find'll, he'll trust me,
he will find out. Man's a green preak. Come on,

(43:02):
he's got a game. Hey, I want to zero back
to this or seer circle back to the restaurant rescued
astronaut thing. Here's a note I made on this, and
if you're just joining us, they get paid one hundred
and fifty two thousand a year. They were supposed to
spend about seven days in space. They spent two hundred
and eighty six days. And we're thinking they're owed a

(43:28):
little bit more than fourteen hundred and thirty dollars in
pretty impayments. That's just that's just me. I think you
get a little hazard pay, especially because they were not
expected to be there but for a week and ended
up being there nine months. But here's the thing I

(43:49):
want to point out in what I wrote in my notes. Here,
consider all of the wastes that we're uncovering by DOGE,
the fraud, bloated departments, payroll, missing payments, fraudulent payments, wrong payments,

(44:09):
and here's here's here are two people. And by the way,
they're not out there asking for this. There's just people
like you and me saying hold on here, now, I
understand one hundred and fifty two thousand dollars. It's a
nice wage. You can live on that. But here's the thing.

(44:38):
When you look at the excess spending in Washington for
things that aren't done, that are bogus and fictitious, and
you look at two people here that they were decidedly
out of the country, I think we can find the

(45:00):
money to make sure that they are compensated appropriately. What
that number is, I don't know. Maybe maybe thirty thousand apiece.
I'm just throwing a number out. I don't know, but
that it seems to me that a twenty percent bonus

(45:23):
for the mistake made seems about appropriate. Thirty thousand, and
you don't have to pay tax on it. It's it's compensation,

(45:44):
it's a gift. I don't know. I don't know. I
don't know. That part doesn't concern me. Appropriate fairness doing
the right thing does concern me. Speaking of doing the
right thing, fundraising golf tournament coming up, get this for

(46:05):
the ice Hockey Club at Florida State University. Yes, there's
a hockey there's a hockey club, and they're doing a
fundraiser golf tournaments at Capitol City Country Club on Monday,
April seventh, and they're looking for teams four man scrambles.
They are taking individual entries. They'll put together a team

(46:25):
with you and others who sign up one hundred bucks
to play two hundred for two four hundred for a
foursome Capital City, little grab and go breakfast, buffet style lunch,
and the proceeds go to the Help the Help the
hockey team. It's a club. They almost have a full field,
but they need just a few more teams. So if

(46:51):
you're interested. Everyone wants to play golf. Come on, It's
it's that time of year. The Masters is later on
that week. It's Masters Week. You got come on, you
gotta be out of the golf course, Capital City. Here's
what you do. Go to FSU Hockey Club or FSU
Hockey dot com and and sign up. You'll see a

(47:13):
tab golf tournament poop right there. Fill out, go play,
put a team together, and I'll talk more about this later,
not today, but later, like maybe next week. Twenty seven
past the album come back where youset the big stories
in the press box and move on.

Speaker 3 (47:34):
On the morning show listening to the M A D
Radio Network, you are challenged to make a difference each
and every day.

Speaker 1 (47:43):
Would you do that for us?

Speaker 2 (47:44):
Please?

Speaker 3 (47:45):
Please, just a little just try it, would you? This
is the Morning Show with Preston Scott.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
One of our research assistants chimed in and said, what
really should have happened for the astronauts as Boeing should
have stepped up and popped the bonus. After all, it
was their aircraft that remember, it was the Boeing spaceship
that went bad. They had leaks and that's what left

(48:17):
them stranded. They couldn't safely bring them back home on
the craft they came up in. So yeah, great idea,
Boeing let them foot the bill for the overtime. But no, really, seriously,
five dollars a day. Come on, you can't even buy
a happy meal for that. All right, big stories in

(48:40):
the press box this morning. First, Riley Gaines coming to FSU.
I'm gonna keep reminding you coming to town. The fight
is far from over tour going to college campuses around
the country, making the argument she remember she was a
victim of Leah Thomas. Dude Thomas. Riley was robbed, as

(49:07):
have other girls been robbed having to compete against men.
Bellamy Building Room twenty one on collegiate loop on the
campus of FSU. There will be others there. There will
be members of FSU sports teams in attendance. They have
the right to go. This is about making sure that

(49:29):
we protect women's sports. If you have a daughter, a granddaughter,
you need to be involved in this fight. I loved
her idea yesterday ten ten xx a boycott emphasis boy

(49:50):
on sports that day for all girls. Don't play, don't compete,
don't practice nothing, shut it down, send a message. This
is the reason why something like and she hasn't necessarily
said that that's what she's gonna advise and suggest and

(50:12):
try to do it. I threw it out there and
she said, well, funny you say that, because I've been
thinking about it. October tenth, ten ten x x. The
numbers of men pretending to be women is infinitesimally small.

(50:35):
It is a mental disorder. Those people that are truly
just out there deceived, they're not hurting anybody but themselves.
I'm not mad at them, I'm seriously not. I'm I'm
hopeful that someone will love on them and will help

(50:57):
them through this, that they won't do altering surgeries that
will not change their gender, they'll just maybe change their anatomy.
That's the thing. It doesn't change gender, it changes anatomy.
But the violent, the vile, that minuscule number that are

(51:22):
out there competing against girls and women, that needs to
be stopped. And this is the equivalent of the camel
getting the nose under the tent. You stop it cold
in its tracks right now. You force the governing bodies
of US women's national soccer team, which, oh, by the way,
a few years ago got embarrassed by a group of

(51:44):
fifteen and under boys. They played a warm up contest
against a group of fifteen and under boys in Texas
and got smoked. End of discussion. Let's I'm serious. Take

(52:04):
just some take some guys in their forties or fifties
that used to play college in pro basketball and put
them on the court with the best women's team in
the world. They'll smoke them. They will because they're biological differences.
You've got to support this, moms, dads, You've got to

(52:27):
get out there in this fight. She's gonna be speaking
at FSU Friday night. Doors open at six, then starts
at six thirty. Honored to have her as a friend
of this show. Representative Jasmine Crockett. She's facing some trouble.

(52:48):
She attacked a journalist yesterday. Albeit it was a scratch,
but it's an injury. You saying, Hey, the bar's low
when it comes to filing a battery charge. Who knows?
And Bill Barr blasting district judges supporting President Trump's position
on deporting illegals and that judges are making a mockery

(53:09):
of the executive branch by intervening forty one past the hour.
Come back and let's add something to a growing sab list.
Du wufla. This just stinks. The world is growing smaller.

(53:38):
There are fewer and fewer places that I think are
safe to go. I mentioned there's not a chance on
this side of eternity. I'm walking into Mexico, flying into Mexico.
I don't even want an airplane. I'm on stopping in Mexico.

(53:59):
No chie chants. There are parts of America I want
to go. There are cities if I'm making a drive
where I am filling up outside the city and I

(54:22):
am not having one chance of being low on fuel
inside that city, not a chance, fear h I just
I don't feel like taking chances. That's stupid now you add.

(54:46):
According to the State Department Trinidad and Tobago, it is
a Caribbean island northeast of Venezuela, United States. The State
Department has issued a Level three travel advisory to the island,
meaning Americans should reconsider travel amid quote heightened risks of

(55:10):
terrorism and kidnapping, ongoing criminal activity that threatens public safety.
In fact, apparently they are seeing regular violence, shootings, gang activity.

(55:32):
There is an ongoing state of emergency. Trinidadian officials have
the authority to arrest people on suspicion of illegal activity,
search public and private properties. Bail has been suspended if
you're accused of committing a crime. And Americans apparently are

(55:53):
targets for kidnapping, and so the State Department Foreigner in
US legal permanent residents have been recent victims of kidnapping,
said the advisory from the State Department. If you are
going against the advisory by insurance, this is from the

(56:14):
State Department. By insurance, do not display signs of wealth
like jewelry, beware of online dating scams, and there are
other recommendations. So more and more there are places that
it's like yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

(56:39):
I just and look, traveling with your firearm is a
pain in the rear. If your law enforcement it's a breeze,
you're allowed. The rest of us. You have to go
through all of this process and then you have to
have your firearm in a specified type of case that
is locked. But exceps to TSA and he's like, yeah, no,

(57:06):
I'm just I'm not going through that. I will uh,
I will drive, thank you, And I'm not driving to
Trinidad and Tobago. It's not gonna not gonna happen. It's
not an easy drive to begin with. Forty six minutes past.
Come back Animal Stories here on The Morning Show with

(57:26):
Preston Scott. Florida State Director of Athletics Michael Alford scheduled
to join me in studio in the next hour. Looking
forward to that, But first.

Speaker 3 (57:48):
In the wild or in our homes. We love them critters,
large and small. Time for another edition of Animal Stories
on The Morning Show with Dreston Scott.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
The goats make you laugh. There's certain animals that you
just you look at them and they do things that
just inherently make you laugh. Goats fall into that category. Now,
some goats have really creepy eyes, they really do. But

(58:21):
they're funny. The screaming goats ah and they fall over hilarious.
But this is a full grown goat that has now
established a Guinness World Record as the shortest living goat
in the world. It stands one foot three inches tall

(58:42):
fifteen inches and it's full grown. It is a four
year old female black pigmy goat Karumbi and one of
twenty three goats on the farm of Peter Lenu in Kerali, India,

(59:03):
by far the smallest of the bunch. Veterinarian confirmed the
measurement one foot three inches tall and she's pregnant. She's
gonna have a baby goat. A baby goat's gonna have
a baby goat anyway. Uh. That just would make me
laugh to see a goat that's small, and it would
be adorable because goats are Goats are fun they really are.

(59:28):
Police in England West Midlands had an escaped donkey on
their hands, causing traffic issues in the area. They've effectually
nicknamed the goat ned or not the goat the donkey
and they had to they had to entice him to

(59:49):
capture and they used mints apparently it worked. I guess
that's when you're desperately trying to catch an animal, you
do what you gotta do, and someone, some enterprising officer
or animal control person kind of was like, Okay, he's

(01:00:14):
being stubborn as a mule. Ah, And they reached in
their pocket, grabbed a mint, and next thing you know, hey,
more mints worked. He loves mints, and he was happy
to come to him once he found out they had
mints successfully captured and rescued. And then my favorite story

(01:00:40):
of the week Virginia Zoo. It's the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk.
Social media lit up a couple of weeks ago because
of a gorilla on the loose. Now, first of all,
that would be quite the story. However, here's what the

(01:01:02):
zoo replied on Facebook to the social media alerts. We
heard talk of an escape gorilla, but we think that
may have just been zoosquatch spotted on his daily run.
But don't worry, he made it back to the zoo.
Our keepers want you to know that all of our
animals are safe and accounted for, except for gorillas, because

(01:01:23):
we don't have those. Not like social media goes off
on these wild tangents of fictitious stories. Right, that was
just funny to me. Oh that escaped gorilla thing. Yeah,
we don't have gorillas, so yeah, they're none here, but

(01:01:45):
that doesn't mean they've escaped because we don't have any. Brilliant,
absolutely brilliant. I love animal stories. I first heard animal
stories when I was a kid listening to the air
checks of a radio personality named Larry Lujack in Chicago.

(01:02:05):
Larry Lujack animal stories, and I fell in love with
the concept, and so I was very happy to bring
that back here on the radio. As he would say,
all right, we're gonna turn the page here, get to
the third hour of the program. Director of Athletics Florida

(01:02:26):
State University Michael Alford will be joining me next have
a discussion on all things FSU. This is not a
State of the Knowles address, though, so stay with us.

(01:02:48):
Here we go five past the hour. It's the third
hour of the morning show with Preston Scott. Great to
be with you, and I am thrilled to have in
studio with me. This is not our annual State of
the Knowles address as it relates to Florida State Athletics,
but we're going to get to certain things surrounding the
athletic program with Director of Athletics for Florida State University

(01:03:09):
Michael Alford. Hello, friend, how are you?

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
I'm doing excellent. How are you doing?

Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
I'm doing well. You were up late last night? Huh.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
I've been up late the last couple of nights, coming
in from Baton Rouge and getting home late. With our
women's basketball program, it just continues to get better. Sure,
they were so much fun, had a great, tremendous year,
and then heading to Jacksonville to take on the Gators
and get that win last night. So it was a great,
great evening to be a null.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
Since you brought up the baseball series, I've been asked
by a lot of people. Why the decision to play
this series as a one game two weeks, one game,
two weeks, one game that way versus just back to
back to back.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
Yeah, it's something that we've done here a while apparently,
and it's something that Lincoln I have talked about. I'm
going to talk to Scott Strickland about it. Do we
go to a wee weekend series? Do we do a
weekend series home and home? Do we do a weekend
series in Tampa. What would you prefer. It really looks
at being on the Baseball Committee, and that's something that's

(01:04:12):
you take a look at. And you and I were
talking RPI and what a great win that was for
the RPI and something that we're helping that room at
the end of the year. I like best on best
and a three game series on weekend to see Jamie Arnold,
to see the pitchers go against Florida at the end
of the year could help us. Now the backup of
that both of us play in the best two leagues

(01:04:34):
in college baseball. Barnut, I mean, you look at the
Omaha for ACC teams, for SEC teams, two of us
RPIs and who we go against weekend, week out on
weekends are really hard, So I see why they did it.
Now you'd have to move it to the beginning of
the year, so you're talking early first of.

Speaker 1 (01:04:56):
The years for all of the best pictures.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
Talking pitch counts, you're really not getting because they're going
to be on sixty seventy pitch accounts to start the
season off. But still it's something to look at and
see if we can grow this rivalry by looking at it,
and it's something that we are examining.

Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
This gathering you and I because we usually meet in
July early August and talk about the upcoming sports season,
and we'll do that. But this came out of a
desire to share with people the status of what's going
on at Doe Campbell Stadium, what's happening with the new
football facility, just kind of giving people an update. Let's
back up for just a second. What went into what

(01:05:37):
informed decisions made on the renovations at Dope Campbell Stadium.
How did you come up with the plan on what
you would do? Yeah, this goes back to twenty twenty.
We hired a company CSL who does all the examine eight.
When the Raiders moved to Vegas, they go in and
look at the stadium.

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
What can you hold? What phantomenities do you want? They
do a survey. So we surveyed our fans. Doll Campbell
was aging and what do you We had three amenities.
You had a chair back, club seat. You had a
bleacher with a twenty seven inch tread depth, which modern
standards are thirty three. If you said, in those bleachers,
you understand your knees are in someone's back and yeah,

(01:06:16):
and when.

Speaker 1 (01:06:16):
You're six y five, it's worse.

Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
It's worse. You had a sixteen inch wide seat. I
don't think anyone could fit in that anymore like they
could seventy years ago. So the stadium was aging. And
we're not even going to talk about the infrastructure right
that we were going in every year with our architectural
engineers and looking at and examining every year in the
money we were pouring and just reinforcing sections of the

(01:06:41):
stadium right to keep it to cold and when you so,
we surveyed our fans and it came back the amenities
they want. And you got to understand, sixty percent of
our fan base, we lead the country in this stat.
Sixty percent of our fan base travels over three and
a half hours to get to do on a Saturday.

(01:07:02):
No other than Penn State's the next closest the amount
of people that travel the distance to get here for
a game day Saturday. Where are they coming from. They're
coming from Mercedes Benz. They're coming from Jacksonville. Only two
and a half, but they're coming from Jacksonville. They have
the amenities there. They're coming from Orlando, They're coming from Miami.
They're coming from Tampa. Those stadiums have modern nice and

(01:07:24):
that's something we had to do in Dope, and the
overwhelming survey back was we want different amenities.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
We're going to talk about those amenities and what went
into the design and kind of where they are in
the project. That's what we're doing here. We're kind of
unpacking the progress at DOPE Campbell Stadium. I mentioned it earlier,
Alabama coming to town to open the season. It's going
to be fun. Ten past the hour. Michael Alford, FSU
athletic director with me here on the Morning Show with
Preston Scott. Back with athletic director Michael Afford from Florida

(01:08:07):
State University. So you get the surveys back. How much
time did you give for people to give you feedback
and and how many meetings did you Just like you're
giving a talk, you're making the circuit and someone pulls
you to the side and they say, you know you
need to I mean, how much of that no one
ever has any idea? Yeah, no one has anything they
want to say, right, So how long did the gathering

(01:08:28):
of information take place?

Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
It took about a year. You know, we also were
second most surveys that CSL ever had returned. Our fans
really spoke up about what they wanted. And then in
part of that survey was what amenute is do you
want loas boxes? We put pricing examples, we put comparisons
in there, saying, hey, here's how many loas boxes. This

(01:08:50):
is the price at the University of Texas, this is
the price at the Dallas What range would you be
willing to pay? I mean, they were very in depth survey.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
You know, when I moved here in nineteen eighty seven,
we were at the very beginning of the Bobby Bowden
you know era of success. You know, Coach Bowden obviously
laid a lot of groundwork. But one of the things
I noted real early, because I came from Phoenix and
you've got that large metropolitan area, is I kind of
it's almost like you stand in the middle of Tallahassee

(01:09:22):
and look around and there's moving around you, and I
realized people have to make that drive. And I don't
think a lot of people understand what you were talking about,
how the drive into a football game is a is
a major event for people that support Florida State. Correct,
and you look at the commitment they make, not only monetarily,

(01:09:44):
but your time right come in here, and it's so
important that we keep them coming to tallahasse in Leon County.
We represent over one hundred million dollars in economic impact
for six ball games to this community. We have to
keep them coming. What do we compete against? We compete
against that eighty six inch HDTV.

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
That you have on the back patio in Tampa, right,
we need you to make that drive from Tampa up
here to support us and buy our season tickets. So
we had to make this commitment for the future of
Florida State athletics, future of Florida State football to make
sure we're updating into the next century.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
Take us inside that process of the surveys are back,
they tabulate the results, they spit out some kind of
spreadsheet or something. What does that look like in terms
of what kind of data are you getting back? And
then how does that inform your sticky notes on what
you put on the board of priority one, two, three,

(01:10:43):
four and so forth.

Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
Well, it comes back amenities and modernizing the stadium. But
then what they are so good at looking at the
surveys and I've used them at three different projects. We
used them at the Cowboys this companysl They were so
successful Jerry just bought them and enjoyed them so much,
so they're now part of it. He's now part of
his will. But I've used them at other places. We

(01:11:06):
use them at other renovations I've done, and they are
always spot on when they say you should have twenty
eight Founders Lows boxes and this is your price. What
did we have twenty eight Founders Lose boxes and we
sold them out. And they're just always spot on about
through their analytics of what you need and what services
you should provide at that price point.

Speaker 1 (01:11:28):
Michael, you mentioned the infrastructure as that's a given. You
have to do the infrastructure stuff, the stuff that people
don't see but literally sit on rely on being safe
and sound. How much did the infrastructure improvements that were
required for Dope Campbell impact the design of the amenities

(01:11:50):
very much so, because we need to wide our concourses.
You're looking at seventy five year old steel in there,
and it's amazing to see just the advances.

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
So when you go through to the stadium, which I'd
love to get you through a tour, you go through
and you see the wider concourses and you see the
new steal that we have, and then you look at
the erector set right around the corner that's still there,
right and it's just amazing to see the advances that
we've been able to make through technology and building materials,
and people are going to get there and see these

(01:12:21):
wide concourses you're able to move them around the stadium
is people that have taken the tours have just been
blown away of what's coming in the future.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
A tour might be in your future at some point,
but until then, we'll do our best to kind of
describe what's being done and where they are in the project.
Lots to talk about with Director of Athletics Michael Alford
from Florida State University here on the Morning Show with
Preston Scott. Michael Alford, Florida State Athletic Director, has been

(01:12:59):
kind enough to are about a good chunk of time
force this morning as we talk about the renovations at
Dope Campbell Stadium. We'll talk about a couple of other
things as well, but give everybody as best we can,
because we are a visual medium, what the expectations ought
to be when Alabama comes to town for that first game.

Speaker 2 (01:13:19):
We talk at operations of the stadium.

Speaker 1 (01:13:22):
More what they can expect to see when they walk
in that tunnel and look at the new dope Campbell
Stadium for the first time, Well, especially when you look
in the back, when you're looking at the concourse as
the wide the new concession stands. I walk through the
concessions and a tour the other day they were putting
in the tile. I mean, this stadium is going to
be ready the end of July. They turned the keys over,
so there's going to be events in it. That's going

(01:13:43):
to be fun, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
In August and getting ready, so give us time to
get prepped. But they're really going to see just all
kinds of different amenities, wider, more concessions, social gathering areas,
the club spaces because now we'll go into those amenities
that came back. They wanted spaces, So we have the
field level club. You might look familiar talk what does

(01:14:05):
that mean? So we gave every opportunity to every ticket
holder to come in and reward and we have this
is a stat that's really alarming, and we talk about
it internally, but you go through history and I think
a lot of it has to do with the distance
that traveled. We're one of the fewest season ticket holders
as far as numbers in our conference, not the country.

(01:14:26):
The ACC Clemson has fifty eight thousand season ticket holders.
We average about twenty six. Really, but you go through
history and that's always been the case. Okay, so it
has it changed a lot, and so we continue to
push people to buy season tickets. But we went to

(01:14:47):
our season ticket holders, gave them the opportunity to purchase
the new product. To look at the whole West Side collapse,
as you might know, but you had the first opportunity
we met with you face to face. That was very
important to me that we we met face to face,
showed people what we were doing. Also showed them comparisons
to where we were. We hadn't changed our season ticket price,

(01:15:07):
we hadn't changed our donation levels in year twenty years,
so looking at we were at the lowest. So if
you took a seat at the forty in the top
twenty attended stadiums in the country, we were number twenty
in twenty five margin. We're not asking to go to one,
We're not asking to go to ten, we're not asking
to go to twelve. What're just asking to go a
little bit to get us in a fair fight with

(01:15:30):
who we're competing against across the country, and continuously looked
to upgrade both. The new amenities gave us the opportunity
to do that, to go. Now you're going to have
thirty three inch seats to depth, you can move around
the stadium. You're going to have chair backs, you're going
to have club amenities. You're going to have what you
wanted in the survey. So we had those three opportunities

(01:15:53):
I talked about. We had club seats, a suite or
the bleachers. Now you're going to have about fifteen different
opportunities throughout the stadium to choose what do you want
as your amenities going into a game. So you're going
to walk in and see wider concourses, you're going to
see grand grand opening gates into it. You're going to
see club spaces. You're going to see updated concessions, easier

(01:16:14):
concession lines. Well, you can get to them and get
out quicker. When I first took over as athletic director,
going through the revenue side of things, we only had
two hundred points of sell in the stadium. Two hundred.
Let's take comparison to Tampa Bay. The Bucks who have
less seats sixty five thousand, have fourteen hundred points of

(01:16:36):
sell good grief. For a stadium our size, you need
on the average about eight hundred. We had two hundred
points of seal, which explains long lines, which explains what
and lost revenue and lost revenue. Yeah, So we're constantly
and that's not going to happen overnight. We've got it
up to about five hundred, six hundred. This is going

(01:16:58):
to allow us to get it up even more and
get closer, and we're going to continue to find where
we can do it. A lot of it's electrical. Sure,
just don't have electricity to do concessions, so you got
to pull lines. You got to work with the city
to say, hey, we need electricity here so we can
do these upgrades for our fan base. So we're continuously
pushing that envelope to get as many fan amenities as

(01:17:22):
we can to make the experience that much better.

Speaker 1 (01:17:25):
Anyone that walked in last year saw the west side
of the stadium somewhat gutted and kind of imagining, yeah,
what we're going to see the east side of the
stadium still bleacher seating. Yeah, we've gone in last year
and put in dedicated chair space for the east side,
so you have a dedicated eighteen inch chair on your seat.

(01:17:47):
You don't have a chair back, but you have a
chair stead of sitting on the bleacher. So we accommodated that.
Last year, we put in handrails throughout the stadium. We
were having issues and I got so tired of seeing
reports at the end of the game many people fell
down the.

Speaker 2 (01:18:00):
Stairs because the tread depth. Once again, it was just old.
And we fixed that, put in handrails for convenience, widen
the aisles for convenience so people can move about the
stadium a little better. So all of this was done
with the fan attending the game as our priority.

Speaker 1 (01:18:20):
So we've gone from sixteen inches to eighteen, yes, sir.
And we've widened the everything in this in and around
the stadium.

Speaker 2 (01:18:27):
Yes, even on the east side too. We're doing things
in the concourse to put a POxy coating on the
concrete and continue we're gonna paint it next year. I mean,
there's all kinds of things we have still in the
works over the next few years. And we've planned out
continuously to upgrade the stadium.

Speaker 1 (01:18:44):
More to come. With athletic director Michael Afford. Here on
The Morning Show with Preston Scott.

Speaker 3 (01:18:56):
You Mayor of Realville dispensing information, the speed of sound,
and if you're lucky, he'll be wearing his Clark Kent
glasses Today the Morning Show with Preston Scott.

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
Two more segments with Michael Alferd, director of Athletics Florida
State University. We are talking about the improvements, the renovations,
the changes at Doe Campbell Stadium, which has been a
centerpiece for this community since it was built. I mean,
you know, Bobby Bowden took that football program to a
whole new level and that was a game changer. Yes,
it was a game changer for everything. If that doesn't happen,

(01:19:38):
we're not having these discussions at all. We're kind of
wake Forest at that point, right, I mean, we really are.
And that's no disrespect. It's just with success come out
of responsibilities. And you're in the process of sort of
steering a renovation project that is a lot bigger than
a few seats in the stadium. Yes, take us beyond

(01:19:59):
the East in West. Now, let's talk about the dun
Lap Champions Club and let's talk about those future plans
you alluded to, Well, you look.

Speaker 2 (01:20:07):
At when we did the analysis of the Dad Lap
Champions Club, great idea fifty nine hundred club seats a
little too much. We were never more than fifty one
percent sold in there. The club space could only accommodate
thirty five hundred people, that's the size, so it was
always crowded. The fan experience was not what we expected there.

(01:20:31):
So we looked at renovations and that was part of
the study too, of what new products are out there.
So now the Champions Club has ledge seating, it has
new loge boxes, it has wider traditional club seats but bigger,
better space, and we went down to about thirty seven
hundred opportunities in there. There's nine different price points in

(01:20:54):
the Champions Club, so you have different entry levels. Some
people want to be I'm thirty five, got my buddies,
I want a different VP experience, then maybe the Mahogany
Club that my dad sits in, you know, just different experiences,
different family atmospheres. So we've really looked at that, examined

(01:21:16):
it hard. Those three middle sections on the top level,
we had sixteen season tickets in those three sections sold.
Those three now sold out. With the amenities that we're bringing.
We've sold out the seats, the led seating, the different
opportunities on that side. People are really excited about it.
So that's that you talk about walking into the stadium

(01:21:37):
in a different look. That's going to be a different
look and what we're to provide on the south side.
Then you look at the west, like I talked about,
we've gone through an order and now we're to the
chair backs and we just started that sold out on
the chair backs and renewals are going very well. What's

(01:21:58):
amazing stat and where Mark Cameron and our staff has
done a great job of leading this for us is
people who upgraded twenty eight percent upgraded their membership to
a different level. That's one about one in four season
ticket holders upgraded to a different level. So that tells
you they're buying into what needs to happen and what

(01:22:21):
the new amenities are.

Speaker 1 (01:22:22):
Two quick ones before we switch gears and talk about
the acc settlement with with Florida State and Clemson. Number one,
how much of this overall project is going to be
done come the start of this football season. It'll be
it'll be done more phases and so forth. So how

(01:22:44):
much of that big total project is going to be done?
Half of it, you know me very well, will never done.

Speaker 2 (01:22:49):
I'm constantly going to be walking around ask ben Zer
and bend As, who is my project manager?

Speaker 1 (01:22:55):
Well, how about this, based on what's on paper and plan,
how much of it will be done by the start
of this season.

Speaker 2 (01:23:02):
Everything will be done for this season that we've got
on plan right now. Now. Future plans are coming, okay,
and we've talked about them. We're starting to design to
look at what we can do to accommodate the east
side patrons a little more. How do we get more
electricity there? So we're going to have more concession stamp
you know. Those phases are things we are talking about

(01:23:23):
and working on.

Speaker 1 (01:23:24):
Right And then the football building, the football facility that
everyone's seeing going up behind the soccer field and near
the More center. Where are we at in that project.
It'll be finished at the end of August. The team
plans on moving into bye week. We don't really disrupt practice, okay, so.

Speaker 2 (01:23:43):
The bye week we will move the team in to
that space, but it will be finished. And that's a
great time to because it gives us the opportunity to
showcase it to our donors without the team being in
there and they can see it, touch it, and fill
it and look really forward to that. But that's progress
moving quick. Fact, we had the least amount of football

(01:24:05):
dedicated space in the ACC forty thousand feet compared Wake
Forest as one hundred and twenty thousand dedicated football space.
We had that I was making five the football space.
The problem was, over the years, we haven't been making
changes every year just to get better. And now with

(01:24:26):
the support of the President and Chairman of Collins and
our Board of trustees, laying out a plan of how
we're going to get better year by year and the
support that they have us to continue to get better
is really something that we're able to now compete with
our peers across the country and showcase what Florida State
has to off.

Speaker 1 (01:24:45):
Michael Wahlford, Director of Athletics FSU, more to come on
the Morning.

Speaker 3 (01:24:49):
Show consider him your truth Detector The Morning Show Withston
Scott on News Radio one hundred point seven.

Speaker 1 (01:25:03):
DOUBLUFLA forty two minutes past one. Last set of discussion
points here with Michael Alford, FSU Athletics. Finally, it is

(01:25:23):
to bed the litigation between the Atlantic Coast Conference, Florida
State University, and Clemson. We'll leave Clemson out of the
picture as it relates to Florida State University. Remind our
listeners what was at issue and what has been settled.

Speaker 2 (01:25:38):
Well, this is something we brought to the table three
years ago once again analytics.

Speaker 1 (01:25:43):
You know me, I'm a data guy.

Speaker 2 (01:25:45):
And when you look at the TV contract, you looked
at what our peers had in the time they were
going to have another bite at the Apple Big ten
contract comes up in twenty thirty sec contract thirty four.
We weren't coming up again to thirty six and they
just had a new contract, so ours was very dated
and working with it, there wasn't They weren't going to

(01:26:06):
give us any more money they had us till twenty
thirty six. So I went to the conference three years
ago and said, look, we're driving this media contract. When
you break it down, it's seventy five percent football, twenty
five percent, eighty twenty to Batman's basketball. That's what drives
the media contract. That's what they look at.

Speaker 1 (01:26:25):
And you also had in your pocket that people watch
the brand known as Florida State seminals.

Speaker 2 (01:26:32):
When you looked at it and broke it down, we
were twenty percent of the media value but only getting
seven percent of the revenue. So we worked with the
conference and I talked to the other eds and said, look,
we need to look to examine and do this differently.
We need to be the first conference to break up

(01:26:52):
a media contract and pay accordingly to your Nielsen rankings.
And wasn't a great ata did they didn't think at
the time, So later on as we go, left us
no choice to compete against our peers in the country,
and seeing where collegiate athletics was going, we did not
want to get left behind monetarily be able to advance.

Speaker 1 (01:27:14):
So how much of that television revenue makes up the
overall revenue stream.

Speaker 2 (01:27:20):
It's probably about forty percent.

Speaker 1 (01:27:21):
Of our revenue, so it's a significant amount of money,
significant amount of money.

Speaker 2 (01:27:25):
We didn't want to lean on our donors who are
always so awesome for us, right and contribute to make
up that difference. I mean, that's not fair. So we
went to the league and then we went through this
process and came out, now we're going to look at
the media contract. We have to go on it. We
have to perform, which I'm fine with sure, But Nielsen

(01:27:49):
rankings we broke up to sixty percent, we'll get divided up.
And if you're one or two in football, which I
will say, if you look at the past twenty years,
even last year, we were number two at a two
in ten season in the rankings of most watched games,
and I suspect that's not happening this year. So no
last year to inten.

Speaker 1 (01:28:08):
Yeah, but what I'm saying is that there's going to
be a better season, but we were still So if
we earn it by playing brands on TV, we're going
to earn sixty percent of that money. So it will
allow us to compete with our top brands across the country.
You look at the most watched over the last twenty years,
there's eighteen schools that drive fifty percent of the games

(01:28:31):
of Nielsen rankings. Were one of the eighteen schools. So
you broke it down and it gives us the opportunity now.
But also one thing I stressed, it looks at the
league to get better. The league football needs to get better.
There needs to be investments absolutely of what the old
risinghip is think and they the league needs to play

(01:28:52):
these games yep, and get out there on TV.

Speaker 2 (01:28:56):
And this encourages the league to get better in the sport.

Speaker 1 (01:29:01):
They need to think about that. With basketball. It seems
too only Duke has left in the tournament on the
men's side.

Speaker 2 (01:29:10):
That was one thing I've pointed out, yeah, years ago.
Basketball is fixable because you have more money. You can
call it talent acquisition. Got more money, you can hire
the best coaches. And you look at what the SEC
and the Big Ten have done. Look at players four
through eight that they've been able to attract. That's the
difference in those leagues, that they've been able to go

(01:29:31):
to the mid majors and get those players because they've
had more resources to provide.

Speaker 1 (01:29:36):
Them otherwise known as nil.

Speaker 2 (01:29:38):
And that's been the breakup or the advancement of our
leagues is going and attracting those players one through three.
We can compete with anyone.

Speaker 1 (01:29:46):
Sure, four through eight there's a difference. Can't wait for
our State of the Noles address coming up this summer.

Speaker 2 (01:29:51):
We do always great to spend time.

Speaker 1 (01:29:52):
Thanks you all right. Michael Alford, Athletic director of Florida State,
our guest on The Morning Show with Preston Scott. There

(01:30:20):
you go, an audio virtual tour of Dope. Campbell's statement
and what to expect. I think what fascinates me the
most about all of this is that this is what
the surveying shows that people want, and I can't wait

(01:30:44):
to see it. I'm going to take him up on
the offer to take a tour. I'm definitely going to
take a tour. I want to see what's in store
for everybody come this fall tomorrow. In store for you
Steve Stewart from Tallassie Reports much to talk about. Steven.
We're going to zero in on a couple of topics
though in particular, Doctor David Harts will join us doctor

(01:31:05):
Ed Moore. It's a day of the doctors on the program.
We're gonna do a history segment. We're going to talk
about wars and the wars that America has taken part in.
We're going to go to the Spanish American War because
the Spanish American War played a role in the Great War.
And so we'll talk through the history of wars and

(01:31:25):
our country. And Stefan Padfield with the Free Enterprise Project.
He was I believe there at the Disney shareholder meeting.
He was inside the room they made the proposal. We'll
hear what happened when the shareholders the board said no,
no to pushing away from DEI initiatives. MM. So that's

(01:31:49):
tomorrow on the Morning Show.

Speaker 3 (01:31:50):
Brought to you by Barono Heating and Air. It's the
Morning Show one on WFLA look back at the program
in one and eighty seconds or less.

Speaker 1 (01:32:09):
We started the day with Titus two. Just check out
Titus two. We continued our little journey through the first
few verses, and so we continued on verses I think three, four, five,
and six, but dealing with older men, older women, younger men,
and younger women, not in that specific order, but close
to it. Big stories in the press box today, our

(01:32:34):
visit with Michael Alford from Florida State University. What's going
on where they are the football The football facility is
going to be done this year. That thing is a structure.
Let me tell you that is a he myth of
a building. And could you believe that we were the

(01:32:56):
smallest in the acc that's nuts. Former Attorney General Bill
Barr blasting judge for usurping the authority of President Donald
Trump on national security, reminding you Riley Gaines coming to town.
Coming to the campus of Florida State University on Friday.
We'll remind you of again tomorrow. Don't go to Trinidad

(01:33:16):
and Tobago. Just saying you've been warned. The story, the
Atlantic Signal story. It fell apart yesterday afternoon, best described,
I think accurately as a giant nothing burger. So chew
or don't chew on that. I appreciate you joining us

(01:33:39):
this morning. I hope you had a good time listening
along and screaming at your radio from time to time.
Thanks so much. We will be back with you tomorrow morning.
My friends, have an awesome day.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

24/7 News: The Latest

24/7 News: The Latest

The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.

Therapy Gecko

Therapy Gecko

An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.