3 Guys Before The Game - WVU Athletic Director Wren Baker (Episode 641) - 3 Guys Before The Game

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Showtime in the Big City. We welcome you into three
guys before the game. Our summer series continues, and oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Let me say it. Go ahead, we got a good
one for you today.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
We do have a good one for you. The vice
president and Athletic Director of West Virginia University, Wren Baker,
is with us. This would be third appearance or fourth appearance.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Huh third. This one's a little better than the one before.
I think we'll see if this one continues.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
You've changed. I went and looked at the thumbnails of
past episodes.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
You you know, at Big twelve meetings, the s WA's
the senior women administrators told me I was in the
midst of a glow up. I had to go and
google what that got.

Speaker 4 (00:51):
Ye, a glow up, glow up a compliment?

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Yeah, it is a compliment. Yeah, he looks good.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
It's kind of like that. So you the way that
you've evolved is kind of like the Bob Dylan's song
I was so much older than I'm younger than that now.
It's kind of like how you're doing. You're getting it right, hop.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, And he does have he has a healthy glow
about him right now. Yeah, I mean you know as
opposed to me pasty and kind of like green.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
You need to spend some time at the beach, hopy
he twentieth anniversary last week for actually yesterday for Heather
and I congratulations, thank you, but we celebrated last week.
We took a few days there in Nantucket. Two decades,
two decades. Twentieth anniversary, putting.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Up with you seems like twenty to rent.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Seems like in honor of that home run. Three or
four popcorns off the day.

Speaker 4 (01:41):
What's sold out? That's the last bag sold?

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Actually walk into the store. This is confirmed sold out.

Speaker 4 (01:49):
It did sell out, not available. It's a last back.
Happy anniversary from us.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Yeah, thank you giving that to Heather show like that
three guys before the game. Brought to us by Jan
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Speaker 3 (02:15):
You've been invited on Brad's boat yet.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Haven't got into it yet me neither. Free guys brought
to us by either Gomart I get a Gomart Rewards card.
Go to gomart dot com for details or just download
the app. Three guys also brought to us by Tutors
Biscuit World. Start your day the homemade way with a
Tutor's biscuit. Let's jump on in. Great to have you

(02:38):
here with us.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
It's always good to be with you.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Guys.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
You know something stunned me? Stunned me, I tell you, yes,
and my research and preparation for today's show.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Do your own research?

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, I do? Would it surprise you? Okay, I'm going
to ask this to Brad who you I'm gonna ask
you over under West Virginia University over under a number
of athletic directors in school history. The number is the
number number is pasted at eleven and a half over

(03:11):
under under. Actually I messed with you. You're the thirteenth.
But still to me, that is extremely surprising. You've been
in the business of intercollegiate athletics for well over one
hundred years and just to be the thirteenth that surprised me.
Surprise you, hop Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
I'd have to think about that. But you had a couple.
I mean, we've been through this, Perer, we had a
couple here for you know, the last fifteen years, right
three and fifteen years, and then we.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
Had thirty years or you know where you had two.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
So yeah, and I'm making those numbers up.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
I just think it seems like a small number.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
I will tell you. The national trend is that ten
years are getting shorter and shorter.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Unfortunately, like the like the preacher to move on after
a while.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
No, in all seriousness, you followed data, what is the
average shelf life of a power for.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
A d right around six years?

Speaker 1 (04:03):
Six? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (04:06):
What if what if the football or basketball coach has
a losing record? What's the then? What's the tender?

Speaker 3 (04:10):
It probably takes a nosedive. Uh And in those times, for.

Speaker 4 (04:15):
Sure, football basketball coach would be a little bitless than that,
I would think, right, what's yeah?

Speaker 3 (04:18):
For they're about saying And actually college presidents are kind
of in and around there now, they're they're they're much
shorter tenures. You know, I mean, listen, social media all
that stuff has put so much pressure on public positions
that you know, they just they just turn over more.
And you know, and so I think Uh, that's all.

(04:39):
That's all part of it. And that's why I always
say you can't do uh this job looking over your shoulder,
because it's a it's a sure fireway to get yourself
upside down. You just have to make the best decisions
you can with with the most data that you can
and and hope that ultimately that that leads you down
the right path.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Right.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
And I would imagine the short tenure is a result
of a couple of things, some of them being that
the money has increased so much that businesses now and
corporate sponsors have a larger say or desire to say
that didn't exist in the past. You get you get

(05:21):
peripheral sources now making suggestions. Were in the past you
had the old retired coach who was the athletic director.
And now you guys, basically you're you're your businessman. Your
CEOs is what you are. You can call yourself ad
but you're a CEO of a major business. And as
a result, more dollars, more pressure, more visibility.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
Yeah, and your knowledge of that criticism is much greater
now because of coverage and social media and talk radio
and message board. I mean, go back to the last
fifteen twenty years and you know, used to you had
to actually go pick up a newspaper and read it,
and you know you likely didn't read all the newspapers
across the state. Now you know, there's there's instant criticism,

(06:04):
whether it's through your email or or social media or whatever.
So I think I think it's twofold. I think probably
institutions are are a little quicker to to to want
to move in a different direction than they used to be,
But individuals also probably feel pressure in a different way
and want to hit reset quicker than you spend. It's

(06:25):
why I'm very, very intentional, and Tony knows this. During seasons,
if we're going through a time when it's not great,
I really do build a wall around myself to the
extent that I can, because I recognize that sports what's
what's really special about it is allows people uh to
be passionate and emotional, irrational, and and that's that's great

(06:50):
for them. But but part of your job is to
to really try to drill down on the data and
make analytical decisions to the best you can and put
all that aside.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
You're looking to me, I'm looking to you. You're looking
at me.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
You want me to get right into it.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
I mean when he wins wears lavender. You know they
always say when you're gonna fire somebody, you should wear
like a color like purple or pink.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Ye hadn't heard that.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
You can google that, And so I feel like Hoppy
wore his purple shirt today because he's just gonna be
firing hard.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
Could see he sees on his haunches, he's ready to
launch them. What do you have over there, Sparky?

Speaker 2 (07:30):
I just have, mister chairman, how much time do I
have because I have a lot. I got a lot
of questions.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
You do? What?

Speaker 2 (07:34):
What do you want? You? To? Go ahead and get
Brad involved and then I'll get to it.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
You can't.

Speaker 4 (07:39):
You can't sit over here with four pages of notes
and be ready to fire and then say get everybody else.
So go ahead. The legal pad. He's got handwritten lists
on there.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
A couple of things, A couple of things.

Speaker 4 (07:51):
I see my time on the floor to the gentleman.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
From since since he went into this what he calls
semi retire, he's changed a lot. He's a little bit
more difficult to to handle. Is that true?

Speaker 4 (08:07):
I don't know if that's true.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
He brings his lunch to work even though he doesn't
work here anymore. He doesn't have an office, and so
he just kind of just kind of like mingles around
the walls of the building. And it's kind of fun.
It's kind of sad and funny, both at the same kind.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
I will say this for Hoppy. He called me last week.
I still don't know exactly what for, because I had
It was the day I arrived at Nantucket and I
and he said, he asked what I was doing. I said, well,
I just got to Nantucket. Heather and I are celebrating anniversary.
And Hoppy, to his credit, said let's connect when you

(08:44):
get back. This is not urgent, but I have some
questions now. It kind of still run the anniversary sit around.
Had to sit around and think, Okay, what's this. What's
this guy got going now? Good job, hop nice But
at least he decided only partially run.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
Well, now you've reconnected, and now he's got questions. I
will take a step back.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Go ahead. I think that it has been erroneous on
the part of me and others to say how you're
going to raise twenty and a half million dollars when
I think it is more accurate to say you got
a budget one hundred and ten million dollars, you can
get one hundred, you can get twenty eight million dollars
this afternoon. This afternoon. The key is how do you backfill? Okay,

(09:28):
so I think the new word is backfill of not
twenty and a half, because you're going to have some
natural growth anyway and revenue. So the fifteen million dollars
has to come from somewhere, and it's I think it's
relatively well known that you're looking at foundation and MAC,
you're looking at institutional help, you're looking at naming rights.

(09:49):
So as much as you're comfortable with be specific on
where that backfill money comes from.

Speaker 3 (09:54):
Yeah, it really is a combination of everything above. Man,
if you want to go back a year so ago,
we had Heuron come in and do a massive deep
dive into the athletic department and assessment really for the
board for president GIF. We knew there'd be a new
president for a new president to come in, and we
specifically selected here on There was an RFP put out

(10:16):
because they're not an athletics traditional based firm. We wanted
the data to be unimpeachable and so here On is
the leading national consultant for higher education for campus and
so they come in and we said, we want to know,
like grade us out, how did how are we doing
in a variety of metrics, What does the future look

(10:39):
like for us if we want to want to be
competitive And you know, and and it's confirmed a lot
of things that that we've said before. We are we
do a really good job of raising money when compared
to peer institutions, especially when you factor in that we
have less premium seating than other institutions. Go to that

(11:00):
if we had more premium seating, that's gonna drive donations.
It's going to drive what you require annually, but also
it's going to drive people trying to get in jockeying
in position to get their hands on those. But one
of the other things it found is that our campus investment,
the average big twelve campus investment at this point is

(11:21):
somewhere and this is student fees plus plus campus support
around forty million dollars and we're way less than twenty
five percent of that. And so I do think it
was eye opening for the board. Now you know, there's
a lot of priorities on campus, a lot of things
that are important. But as we're at this situation, uh,
in time you hear this squeaken, is this hoppies? Is

(11:45):
he over here?

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (11:47):
Their efforts, Yeah, But as you're at this moment in time,
I think there's a value proposition to be made. How
important are some of these things? And so, you know,
I think so it'll be a common well will increase revenues.
We're down the path on one naming rights opportunity that's significant,

(12:07):
a seven figure opportunity for the Colisseum of the or
the lether Field to be named soon. But we're shopping
both of those. One of those is close, and we're
shopping other things as well. You know, we've made some
changes to our men's basketball per seat requirement. You can
anticipate at some point we'll probably do a receding there

(12:29):
and so we're going to drive revenue. We're cleaning up
some parking we have some over the years, we have
people who have found ways to land grab parking passes.
The problem is when you do that, you're cutting off
there's a significant donation requirement for the It's not just
that you're allowing Brad to buy ten thousand dollars blue
light passes, whatever those are, but we charge a certain

(12:51):
donor level to be able to buy, and then we
put a cap on those and for everybody who we
allow to exceed that cap, that's a ten thousand dollars
donor that you're losing somewhere because they'll sell out. And
so we're going back doing an audit of things like
that to clean up. And so when I have reference
in the past, we're going to have to do some
things that's gonna upset some people. It's going to make
some people uncomfortable. But we're no longer at a position

(13:14):
where we can forego revenue when there is revenue to
be had, so that's what we're focusing on. We've been
growing revenue. I think over my three budget cycles here,
we've averaged about six percent of our self generated revenue growth.
So we've done a good job, but that in and
of itself is not going to capture that. So you
saw that there's a student athletic fee, which we can

(13:35):
talk about some but then there'll be an increased campus investment.
And Campus has went to the foundation and asked for
help with that. Given campuses financial position and the Foundation
has been very generous to support us, and so it
really is everybody doing what they can to ensure that
the athletic program, which we all know is important from

(13:56):
a campus branding standpoint, from a state wide branding standpoint,
from an enrollment standpoint. Ultimately, because it is a big
attraction on the enrollment front, everybody's doing what they can
to put us in the best position possible. Are you
going to.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Ask do you have a specific proposal to bring to
the Board of governors for as you've talked about, or
do you need to bring it to the board of
governors of the premium seating or premium fan experience at
the Colosseum and at Mylin Pushcars seating, which all that
stuff is sold out. So I know you've talked generally
about expanding that higher end fan experience which we're bringing

(14:29):
a revenue and the seam of the Colosseum, So what
specifically are you thinking about this?

Speaker 3 (14:33):
So we have a very detailed kind of press box
side renovation expansion of our premium seating space that architects
have dove deep into that not just the architects that
do the renderings, but also a company called Legends which
is a combination. It's co owned by the Cowboys and

(14:53):
the Yankees. They've done a survey and they've surveyed if
we build X number of new suites, new club seats,
new what's the appetite to sell those, what premium areas
in other parts of the stadium are you vacating? And
then they look at the back field of those. So
you want to know you don't want to build a
pro forma that's built on not doing the dominoes that

(15:16):
will fall on down the line. And so the board
has seen the results of both the architectural renderings, the
cost estimates, but also an ROI and we're starting and
we've been given the green light to talk to some
donors and really that'll be what drives to how quick

(15:36):
the project goes. Do you get a couple of those
big gifts. It's like a pyramid. You're looking for one
monster gift, two big gifts, and then you know you
start to build out, build down the pyramid from there.
But what you want to do is raise as much
money as you can one you have to ensure that
the project cash flows. You'd like for it to be
a positive contributor to your annual cash flow right now,

(15:59):
and then the more more money that you can raise
on you know, on top of that, the more free
capital that it's gonna it's going to bring in. So
where we've run those exercises, we kind of know what
those numbers are. Usually you have a silent phase of
a of a fundraising campaign for a project like that,
I would say we are entering the silent phase. How

(16:20):
quick will the public roll out of that come? It
depends on how most momentum we build in the silent
phase and how quickly we build it. You stopping now
for a minute, you got more? No, I want to
just taking a breath over there.

Speaker 4 (16:33):
There's a flow here. If you've got flow or a
follow up there by all means jump in.

Speaker 2 (16:38):
No, go ahead, go ahead, I got other stuff, but
go ahead, all right, to dominate them.

Speaker 4 (16:42):
Let's move into So the revenue generation is an important piece.
The management of all of this new stuff as it
relates to nil and athletes is another part of that
announced Golden Blue Enterprises yesterday. Let's walk through what that means,
what that unit's going to do, what its purpose is.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yeah, so, all ready before we even entered into this
new world, of college athletics. There were multiple athletic departments
that have their own foundation, some that are run entirely
out of a foundation. But when when you hear A
and M reference that to do something for their athletic department,

(17:18):
they have to get permission from the twelfth Man. That
is a foundation that controls much of their premium, seeing
much of their fundraising that is connected to them, but
also separate from them. Okay, and so we have never
done that. We've run most of our operation out of
the university. W Foundation does do our fundraising in terms

(17:40):
of our MAC employees or technically WWVU Foundation employees, and
they also invest the money that US and other areas raised,
and so none of that necessarily will change. We thought
that we needed a five oh one C three set

(18:01):
up that's going to own a for profit commercial entity
for a couple of reasons. One, we want to pay
the student athletes out of there. We don't want to
be encumbered by the by the bureaucracy of a higher
education institution when these rosters are moving so fast, like
just the paperwork involved in all of that.

Speaker 4 (18:20):
I'm sorry, and you're talking about benefits packages. For lack
of a better term for athletes that are here, not
an il deals.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
That's right, the rest share payments that we're that we're
going to do so that so that's one of the
first things we wanted to do is create an entity
that could do those, could do those quickly. Did not
have a bunch of processes. Also, that did not open
you up to potential for you request where your entire payroll,
for your entire team, everybody is just out there for

(18:49):
the world to digest and make counter offers.

Speaker 4 (18:51):
And some of that is competitive reasons, not necessarily that
you want to be opaque, that's right. I mean, that's
a competitive balance there that you want to protect.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
That's right. If you're if your running backs having a
great year, you'd rather not everybody in the country that's
watching them put up big numbers know exactly what you're
given there, and so so that's part of that. But
then also I envision in this new world that we
will look more like professional sports, and we need to
be positioned to be able to take advantage of commercial opportunities.

(19:21):
So I look at some of the things from a
licensing standpoint that countryals trust is done. For instance, the beer,
the bourbon, the goat pub, bar and grill. Should there
be a bar and grill concept that potentially could use
some of our name, image and likeness and we get

(19:42):
a cut of that. Should we look at the potential
of entertainment district type stuff. You've seen a couple of
those concepts roll out. I think we should be thinking
about all of those things. Do we ultimately move in
that direction or not? And I want to be clear
that campus still will control these entities. We're not We're

(20:02):
not giving up campus involvement and control, but I think
we need the freedom and flexibility to swim in those
waters and swimming them quickly when it makes sense for
us to do it and to grow our commercial business.
You know, having an outside entity, does that open up
a Green Bay Packers ownership kind of concept at some

(20:24):
point where you know, the general public they don't get
to say they don't take dividends, but they can consider
themselves to be a shareholder at a certain value. And
so I just think as we look at the future,
it's really important to open up as many opportunities for
yourself as you can. And we were pretty limited in
the structure that we had, and if you look at

(20:46):
you know, universities or state agencies. So there's certainly lots
of guidelines, rules and regulations. But even with w Foundation,
they're very entrenched in this is what we do, and
and they have a board, and they have a policy
book and rules and regulations that they go by. And
so we need the freedom in flexibility. We're going to
compete in this new world to be much more adaptable

(21:10):
and malleable so that we can very quickly scale out
commercial business opportunities.

Speaker 4 (21:15):
Okay, makes a lot of sense from a from a
university standpoint or an athletic department. Will this new group
also work with the various organizations the corporate sponsorship sales
mac to to identify and execute on student athlete relationships.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
I do believe that, you know, and we're still getting
determinations every day. I got to invite yesterday to it
yet another lengthy session on interpretation of settlement implementation. But
the short answer to that is, yes, the rules do
allow us to do a certain amount of matchmaking for

(21:54):
those real nil opportunities. You know, the old the old
system of donors just throwing money into one big collective bundle,
thus the name collectives, and then making up some reason
to pay for play is very much the target of
the settlement implementation they want to eliminate. That is, what

(22:19):
would still be allowed is any kind of commercial forward
facing business that has goods and services for sale can
still do deals with student athletes. They have to pass
the Deloitte clearinghouse if it's greater than six hundred dollars.
They're not using the term market value, and I've heard
Brad go off on his market value analysis and we

(22:41):
may get to that a little bit. They're using range
of compensation, and they're doing that based on the universe
of similar deals in a variety of factors. And I'm
sure you guys have read some of those articles without
me going into great detail. And so those opportunities will
be a difference maker. And so I imagine we will
have some sore of entity living in golden blue enterprises

(23:03):
that help serve, as you know, a matchmaking service for
athletes and students.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
So you brought up Deloitte, and again we've been using
the term fram market value.

Speaker 3 (23:17):
But whatever the term is, they're using range of compensation.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
Range of compensation, okay, but presumably it has something it's
in some way related to market value. Presumably you would
think that to try to ensure that it is something
other than pay for play? How is that going to be?
How is that enforced? How is that enforced? And is
that subject to legal challenge? Saying well, if I wanted

(23:41):
to pay them that much and it's that that much
value to me, how how can you say this? Not? So?
How does that manage from that standpoint?

Speaker 3 (23:48):
Yeah, I would say everything is subject to legal challenge, right,
like what in this world isn't I would anticipate that
there will be Title nine legal challenges around certain things.
We've already seen a couple of objections to the back
damaged portion of the settlement based on that, and so, uh,

(24:09):
but you know, we are all having to do an
affirmation to be a part of the c if the
new the CFP structure, that we're going to abide by
the settlement and there is subpoena power and and so
what what will happen is you submit a deal? You
know your status as a student athlete? What sport do

(24:31):
you play? How you know how how how good are you?
How many minutes do you play? What's your what's your
status there? Your market? What command you have of that market?
So one example, I saw uh where that Graham Neft said,
who's on the settlement implementation committee, and he's the athletic
director at Clemson Georgia Tech. Student athlete is going to
get a different valuation than Georgia State even though they're

(24:54):
in the same market, because Georgia Tech has better command
of that market. And so Deloitte, I mean, if you
if you've know much about Deloitte, it's a massive company
with loads and loads of data. It's an AI based
interface and you just put the deal in and it'll
kick you out a range of conversation. So you have
really three options if if if you kick in a
deal and the range of conversations one hundred grand, and

(25:16):
you had signed this deal for two hundred grand, you
can either go back and make the deal one hundred grand.
You could change the amount of activity that you were
going to do for the one hundred grand potentially to
make more value creation there. Or you could you could
shift some of that deal if if that was part
of the conversation with student athlete, maybe to the rev

(25:37):
share side, if you can fit it in there, and
you know, if they're looking at what's my total take here?
There there are some opportunities and avenues to uh get
that done, which is why those those opportunities will continue
to still be important.

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Speaker 3 (26:27):
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Speaker 3 (26:31):
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(26:57):
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Speaker 2 (27:09):
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Speaker 1 (27:11):
They've stood the test of time forty years. They sell,
they sell the they sell the Avalon pontoon boats, which
are made one hundred percent in the United States of
the States of America in Michigan. What he's saying, well,
so the Avalon tried tooned. So any kind of thing
you need, Lou Wendell Marine, look at that.

Speaker 3 (27:26):
Yet another business opportunity. Because I will tell you, the
lovely miss Heather Baker, who has endured me for twenty
years right really wants me to buy a boat, and Heather,
I've owned we go, I've owned the boat before you have.
And if you can't use the boat regularly, it becomes
a real problem because the maintenance of those they're made

(27:48):
to be used. And so you know when I go
on some of these trips. I took my girls to
d C last year and so we chartered a boat.
Captain shows up. He's got cold drinks. If you want one,
sure they get takes you out there around the Statue
of Liberty. You take your picks. You said you're in
d C, not New York City, So yeah, so New

(28:12):
York City. So we went around Statue of Liberty all
that stuff. So I would like to charter a boat
on Cheat Lake. I mean I would you know, Brad
could the three guys perfect Captain Baker, Yeah, just a
day of you know, I can show up.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
Yeah, you can do that.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
Well.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
Lou Wendel Marine Sales happens to have the most inventory
that they have in the entire year is right now.
So if you're looking anything, I say this, from anchors
to buoys, to oil to whatever you do.

Speaker 4 (28:38):
Finders buoys on the side, that big.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
Boat, the raft thing that you pull side imaging. That's
the cats me out and fishing side imaging. Yeah, that
that tells you a little bit more fish.

Speaker 4 (28:48):
I got great fishing boats down there at lou Wendle.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
The G three John series.

Speaker 4 (28:51):
Of course you knew that.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
Can I expand on the potential of.

Speaker 3 (28:56):
Are we done hawking stuff right here?

Speaker 2 (28:57):
We've got more we have we have own revenue sharing
issue here we gotta deal with.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
We gotta get I see sometimes comments that you guys
have too many advertisements, and I'm like, do you you know?
You do know these guys, I mean they only do
this thing for the money.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
Correct, one hundred percent. I mean we're the first to
say that what we're trying to do is help businesses
in West Virginia grow, which we've done. That popcorn that
we gave you, which today is fifty percent off that mountain.

Speaker 4 (29:22):
They're sold out. Don't listen to sold out.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
Poppy Mountain and know the thing's amazing. And I'm serious.
Those kernels are grown in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. I mean
that is literally the corn is grown in West Virginia.
Those people do a wonderful job. And that's a small
small business.

Speaker 4 (29:38):
That actually is confirmed.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
It says grown, and what's how about this deal?

Speaker 4 (29:43):
It's the rare time when he confirmed something before.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
He said, listen, how about this?

Speaker 3 (29:46):
What about the strawberries Buchanan?

Speaker 2 (29:49):
I'n don't bring that up because Tony will get us
in trouble with that.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
Don't don't listen there.

Speaker 4 (29:53):
We've been on a nice run where he hasn't offended
a group.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
So just don't. Let me just tell you how we
change the way.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
I drove it through Buchanan on Sat. Saturday, Heather or Sunday.
Heather and I took off. I didn't know that, you know,
we were getting all this flooding really, so we took
off and we drove through Hodgesville. The trip we were
going on, I wanted to drive through Helvisha. Oh yeah, yeah,
went through Pickens Hoppey. Ye are you familiar with Pickens?

Speaker 1 (30:17):
I am, yes, you go near maybe uh did you
see the sign for maybe?

Speaker 3 (30:21):
I might have seen it, but you know, uh, come
back through Elkins and what's the little downtown uh bar
and grill there that's pretty well known c J.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
Yes exactly.

Speaker 3 (30:33):
I had dinner at c J. Maggie. So anyway, we
just went on a drive. Thought, hey, We're gonna go
out and explore. There's a great little winery in in Pickens,
by the way, first I've heard of that. Yeah, so
Heather brought four miss miss Baker brought four bottles of
of of uh of wine there. But anyway, we went
through Buchannan and went through down the little downtown street there.

(30:54):
What a gorgeous little downtown.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah it is.

Speaker 3 (30:57):
Why would you disparage the strawberries there?

Speaker 1 (31:00):
All I said was fact they don't. All the strawberries
that they serve at the strawberry festival aren't from Upshur
County or from West Virginia. They bring them in from Florida.
It's a fact, whether they like it or not.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
GPS, last thing I know. We got to move on.
Hoby has more questions. But GPS took us down some
dirt roads and I'd have probably been scared if I
in ups County. Yeah, if I wasn't the the athletic
director at w I feel like it's if I can
guarantee you take us to the backyard brawl, I'll be fine,
all right, you can go. But we kept seeing all

(31:32):
these little blue look like almost like an outhouse, and
I'm like, what is this, But you know, it's such
a rural area and they get so much weather. They're
little schoolhouses that they put kind of at the end
of the driveway or ever so often where when you're
waiting on the.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
School bus, oh for the bus.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
But there's actually a school in Picnic pick Away twelve yes,
twenty four students. I was gonna say small, fighting fighting.
They keep keep the school a lot of things, like
an hour and a half for some of the students.
If that school closes, the bust to the next closest school, like.

Speaker 4 (32:05):
Golden Horseshoe stuff.

Speaker 3 (32:06):
It is.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
He loves me.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
I love I love to get out and learn.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
So well, your other big thing was you bought that
four wheeler and you can drive from your house to
Bruceton Mills.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
Now, oh yeah, I've been to screech Out and I'll
have you.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Oh yeah, take a wheeler there.

Speaker 3 (32:22):
Yeah, you take your foot.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
Wait a minute, Well, some people would call it. Some
people call it. He might call it a four wheeler,
other might Others might say it's a little bit higher
and it's like it's like the g wagon of four wheels.

Speaker 4 (32:34):
It's kind of like the popemobile.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
Proof they call it a can M defender and and uh
it's a sixth seater. I actually I got it from
parks here in town. They probably they may not be
with you guys. Maybe they should, they should be. But
to show you how small of a world we live
in here in West Virginia, you know, I'm I like

(32:58):
to negotiate a little bit. So we'll get to the
end to the deal, and we negotiate a little bit
back and forth.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Sure.

Speaker 3 (33:03):
A week later, I'm at lunch with Ike Morris, well
known West Virginia, absolutely a very generous supporter to to
many causes, including w athletics. And Ike says, hey, I
hear that. Uh you're kind of a tight wad, that's
what you're talking about. He goes, well, my tractor guy
says that you squeezed him a little hard on this.

Speaker 2 (33:26):
Classic track classic West Virginia. Yeah, yep.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
He thought he thought I bought a tractor some kind.
I said, well, it wasn't. I didn't buy a tractor.
It was you know.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
But how the heck do you get to screech owl
from your house?

Speaker 3 (33:38):
You do? You go Snake Hill Road, So I go
down Cheat Lake Road. So so I paid the extra
fee to get for mine to be street legal. All
you are street So I go down, I go down
Cheat Road and then uh, right there before you get
to the Cheat Lake Vet Hospital. Yeah, uh, or see

(34:00):
the right four right after there's rock Quarry Road, I
think that's the name of it. And you take it
and you come out by the trout Pond. You know
about the trout pon.

Speaker 2 (34:09):
This is such a Virginia direction exactly. Come out with
missus Johnson used to learn at the trout Pond. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
And then when you get so from the Trout Pond school,
you run parallel, right, you know the uh you take
a road all the way to Bruceton that's two lane
road runs parallel with the interstate. I don't even know
what the road is, right, it's got something over old
Bruston Road. That and then at Bruceton you jet back
over okay, across the interstate and take the first left

(34:40):
down a county road. And from there you just pray
to God you don't make a wrong turn. But we so,
heather or not, it's that trip. Take Timelin's forty minutes.
I got a sound system put in my rig.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
Too, Stunner. That's a stunner.

Speaker 3 (34:54):
Last time I was on the way there, we listened
to Randy Travis Essential School. Yeah. Yeah, on the way
back we did Keith Whitley.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
I thought, you're coming with a little Charles Wesley.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
You know, listen, I always mixed Charles Wesley.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yeah that's good.

Speaker 3 (35:08):
But uh yeah, so we Heather and I just got
on that thing. And then so one day we won't
take the girls, but we thought, hey, screech out's clothes,
where we take them? So we found a place called
the Scoop little ice cream and uh diner place heard
of it, Yeah, in Bruceton, also a hot spot, very
West Virginia.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
Got some machines, got a few machines out there.

Speaker 3 (35:30):
Sure, if the kids just want to take their their
two scoop cone and go back and let it ride
a little bit, they can do that.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
Also video rentals and and ammunition.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
Yeah, and so the girls are fans other than Reagan.
She she did an accounting of the ice cream flavors
at the Scoop. It's a dozen or so plenty to
choose from dozens enough. But the Mountaineer Guns Shop, oh
here in uh Morgantown has like thirty flavors.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
A bit of a line there is there this time of.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
Year, there is a bit of a line. But he's
got plenty of seats park playing, parking, plenty of seats.
And so Reagan still likes to get in the side
beside and make a trip, but she'd prefer to get
her ice cream. She wants a bigger variety of choices.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
We've been joking around here, but in all semi seriousness.
Is good for you, because that's really important. I'm glad
you and your family are enjoying it, but that's also
important to West Virginians that you embrace what we are,
what it is. You know, all the things, and there's
a lot to enjoy here, and you're you know, you're
getting into it. So good for you and your family.

Speaker 3 (36:37):
Yeah, we've seen a lot of cool stuff. In fact,
I don't even know what road we were on. We
took some road and it did come out over by
Chestnut Ridge Park. But I'm telling you this road was rough,
Like a couple of times, I was worried about the
side beside making it really and there was no way

(36:58):
I thought we could see it was a through road.
I would have bet any amount of money that there
was no house on that road. There actually was a
house about midway on the road. I'm like, man, they
have a rough commute into work every day, but we
have seen so many cool things and have already started
exploring like other places that we can go. And you know,
it's therapeutic. You learn, and that's important, but it's therapeutic

(37:22):
for me to just kind of get out and get
away from everything and just just ride and listen to tune.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
Good for you.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
I think what it does is it further underscores you
get the significance of what WVU athletics means to people.
When you get into those areas. It still matters there,
Like those are incredibly passionate fans. They're there, and so
you need to go kind of see them. We get
isolated in here and you just kind of lose sight,

(37:51):
you know. We see it best on the caravan. Yeah,
well we go all over the place and you can
just see this incredible support so far away from morgantowne.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
Heather, my wife takes way way too many photos, like
and she'll take six of the same I'm like, why
don't you just picture one that you liked best, Like,
why do you need six of these, and then she
can never find the ones that she needs because there's
too many others. But she took a lot of photos
speaking of that. On Sunday and we were on the road.
We left house a little before lunch and we didn't

(38:19):
get back till eight eight, eight o'clock.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
So it was a trick.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
Yeah, so we were out for a while, but we'd
just be in the middle of nowhere and there's a
West Virginia flag.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
Oh no, absolutely, it's undefeated.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
Somebody with a West Virginia cap or West Virginia if
I may, you want to go?

Speaker 1 (38:36):
No, go ahead, all.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
So back to some of the subjects. Although I did
enjoy hearing your stories, I don't think he did.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
Really, I don't don't pla no I did.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
I said, is that you're you're making the argument I've
heard you're making the argument. I think you've said it here.
But you're making an argument that WVU, in its entirety
of the investment in athletics on a number of levels
is below the median of the Big twelve. Okay, So

(39:06):
taking those facts, which I guess either you all worked
them up or from the consulting firm worked it up.
So that being the case, if you are not able
to do all of the things or most of the
things you want to do, does that relegate w Athletics
to the bottom tier of the Big twelve?

Speaker 3 (39:24):
No, But it does mean that we have to be
very careful in how we invest in where we invest
and we've been really really fortunate to have some wonderful
donors who who will step up and do those projects
that we cannot just fund in the budget. But you know,
let's we just finished baseball season and congratulations to the

(39:47):
regional champ Mountaineers, and you know, we run into a
little bit of a buzz solid LSU that we've seen,
so have a lot of other people. And but great
job by coach Savans in year one. But every year
we have massively increased our revenues in baseball, but we've

(40:07):
also had probably an equal or greater a mounting percentage
wise increased our expenses. And the problem is you started
with a greater expense line than you did revenue line.
So you know, I'm hearing a lot now where we
have to make sure that we keep baseball in a
position to compete, and we definitely will. But when your

(40:27):
budget is in the lower third or so of the league.
When you make a choice to fund something at the
midpoint or higher in the league, that comes at the
expense of other things, which is what you're getting to
and so you're constantly having to pick and choose. And
it's why rev share moved to the top of most
important things that we need to do. But on the

(40:48):
heels of revshare, we've got to increase scholarships. If you're
following college athletics, you know the scholarship limits have been
taken away and replaced with roster limits, but it allows
a lot more scholarship. So that'll be the next thing
that we really turn our focus and attention to, and
already are in many regards, and we still underspend in

(41:10):
some other areas. So when you said earlier you could
you have one hundred and ten million dollar budget, you
can find twenty million. That becomes tougher when you're trying
to create comparable experiences and you already spend less on
travel and many times coaching salaries. And you know, I've
said this before. I've seen a couple of athletic departments

(41:31):
that are going to try and reduce their their labor
force by ten percent. In terms of the number of people,
we already are one of the smallest in the Big twelve.
We were the smallest. I don't know what the addition
of the new schools if we still are. And so
if you enjoy the videos that we put out and
you enjoy the social media, but those all take manpower,

(41:51):
and it takes FTEs to do those things. You know,
it takes FTEs to provide sports medicine care and strength
and conditioning coaches and proper nutritionists and and so.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
It is up to full time equivalent. Uh what's up to?

Speaker 3 (42:07):
Yeah, full time equivalent? See of employees and so and so,
you know, I think it is that there is a
challenge for us. But it's why growing this premium seating
is so important because if you look at where we
stack up in other metrics, what we make from ticket
sales and the number of tickets that we sell, and
what we make from from donations that aren't tethered to

(42:29):
premium seats, uh, what our multimedia rights are, we are
very comparable in all of those categories. But we have
to we have to create some high premium, high return
opportunities to change our paradigm for the future. Uh, And
so that really is I try and tell people all

(42:51):
the time. Coaches will come in and say, well, can
we do X? And I always say we can do anything.
We can't do everything because all of these levers are connected.
So anywhere where we pull a lever, let's just say
we want to be in the top fourth of the
of the sixteen team Big twelve. So we're number four
when your aggregate is twelve. That pushes some things to fifteen,
right or sixteen. It just is the way that it works.

(43:12):
And so, but the last thing I will say is
this is not a new problem. This has been a
developing problem. And if you look at our success over
the last two or three years, it's been incredible. Rifle
championship runner up in cross country. Are you know our
coach Clear is doing a tremendous job with that program.

(43:33):
Men and women's soccer continue to have tremendous success. Baseball,
you know, our women's basketball program has been incredible. You
just go across. Men's basketball had a really strong bounce
back year this year tournament, that's no question about that. Yeah.
But and so I think our coaches and student athletes

(43:56):
and our fans who create a great home court advantage
and help in home field advantage, and help create a
great sense of pride about the program. Have they all
contribute to that? And so I always try to remind
you we don't have to be number one. We do
need to get our budget to where it's in the
top half of the league. And if we do that,
I am confident we can compete at the top end
of the big twelve across the board.

Speaker 4 (44:18):
Let let's do roster limits for just a second, take
baseball in particular, because I'm still not sure everybody understands
how that works. That it's there's twenty five guys on
the roster, but there's not twenty five full scholarships. There's
what eleven point seven to twelve point seven? So how
does that change or work in the new world going forward?

Speaker 3 (44:36):
So as part of the settlement, I think the powers
that be recognized that the next big challenge was going
to be why do you have these scholarship limits in place?
And these scholarship limits were put into place several years
ago for two things. One to create title noin equity,
because you need to be funding proportionally to your student body.

(44:59):
Both the number of ourpportunities and the number of scholarships.
And so that's why women's basketball has allowed fifteen scholarships,
men's basketball is allowed thirteen. That you get a few
more in women's golf than men's golf. They're trying to,
you know, create as system bounce tile nine.

Speaker 4 (45:13):
The other thing, because football creates a huge m ballance,
creates a huge imbalance.

Speaker 3 (45:18):
The other thing that happens was it was a cost
containment measure. Literally in the eighties then say passed a
package called the cost Containment Package. And so when you're
running a foul of anti trust issues, it's reasonable to
expect that a package called the cost containment packages is
probably up on deck somewhere. So as you're looking at

(45:40):
doing this big settlement to try to settle a lot
of these issues, they said, you know what, we really
probably can't defend the scholarship limits, but we do. All
of the anti trust attorneys feel like roster limits is
very defendable. They already in place. Every sport in the
United States has a roster limit. A lot of them

(46:01):
have travel squad size, you know, or practice squads, whatever
the case may be. So they put in roster limits
for some sports, it's a little aggressive. It's gonna it's
having to change. You've seen some of the football coaches
around the country chirping about it. It's having to change
the way that they're thinking. But they did away with
the scholarship limits. So in baseball, I believe they could

(46:22):
have had previously forty okay, forty kids on the roster.
As of first day, first competition in the spring, they
had eleven point seven scholarships. So their new roster number.
And there's so many numbers in my head, so if
I get something wrong, don't send me some hateful email.
But I believe their new roster numbers thirty four. But

(46:43):
the scholarship limit's gone, so in theory, you could give
thirty four scholarships. However, the settlement says any new scholarships
you give up to the first two and a half
million dollars that comes off your twenty and a half
million dollar rev share and so, and there's no standardized
system in how people are doing it. So we have

(47:04):
not added scholarships right now. But what we did do.
The other bucket that exists out there is the Austin
Financial Awards. So a few years ago Austin which was
one of our street as fillow the suit to become
a class action suit, and you can give academic incentives,
and it's really up to you what parameters you put

(47:25):
on that as so long as fifty nine to eighty,
that's the max doesn't get excelled. So we had a
system in place at the athletic department give out a
certain number of those, and then we put parameters on.
You had to have certain GPA, whatever the case may be,
and then your coach could come on top of that
if they wanted to and put additional parameters up. They

(47:46):
had some autonomy there and you didn't have to give
fifty nine eighty to everybody. You could say, Brad, I'm
gonna give you academic incentive of one thousand dollars each semester,
but here's what you have to do to earn it.
So most everybody in this new world did away with those,
because that also counts against your cap. We elected two

(48:07):
since we weren't going to add new scholarships to keep
the Austin in place. We did that for two reasons. One,
I told our coaches we were going to try to
not cut anything from anybody, and in fact we actually
increased what we spent on Austin two. We removed all
of our restrictions and so basically the only thing that
you have to do from the athletic department standpoint is

(48:29):
being rolled and your subject to get this. And so
with a sport like wrestling, whose rest share number is smaller,
but who some of the individual athletes in wrestling command
can command some pretty good sized packages. They can almost
treat they need. If they need that Austin to be scholarship,

(48:50):
they can treat it that way. But if they need
it to be a cash payment, they can layer it
on top of the scholarship. And so that's what we've
done for this year. I and Vision and the reason
why we didn't dabbling both worlds is we didn't want
two debits against our cap, right, we didn't want Austin
and new scholarship. So we said and said, hey, we're
gonna stay with Austin because we think it gives our

(49:10):
coaches the most flexibility. I think going into next year
we will probably try to convert that Austin into financial
aid in scholarship and even increase that. But so that's
I got a little bit new there, But that's kind
of the whole thing with scholarships, But I do envision,

(49:32):
you know, I don't know that every kid on a
baseball roster, for instance, needs to be on a full scholarship,
but we probably by the time we get to next fall,
that eleven point seven number, and you know, they probably
have another five right now if you add it in,
like what the equivalency would be for their Austin allocation,
but they probably need at least twenty to twenty five

(49:53):
scholarships to remain nationally competitive by the next fall.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
Does the university charged the athletic department in state tuition
rates are out of state tuition rates?

Speaker 3 (50:06):
Yeah, so right now they charge us out of state,
but then they end up waiving that out of state
portion on the back end, and so we get a
bill that we pay, but then we get a credit
for four point two million, which is roughly what our

(50:26):
out of state portion would be. But one of the
things that we're having conversations around right now is if
you would just make the universe of athletes all eligible
for in state tuition, that is very helpful in a
variety of ways. Ones, that reduces the expense that we're paying.

(50:48):
But two, if you're allocating a dollar amount to your coaches,
it's going to make that dollar amount go further if
they're not having to spend a lot more for out
of state kids. And in a state like West Virginia,
where we don't have a real high population, thus we
don't produce a lot of Division I Power Conference prospects,

(51:10):
we're going to have always have a lot of out
of state enrollees, and so that would be very, very
helpful for us. I've had conversations with with President Gee
who's exiting here, but also with President Benson, who are
both supportive. It's just trying to figure out penciling it
because again it's hoppy indicator. Earlier, you know, the institution's
financial position has been really tough, and it's easy for

(51:33):
me to say, well, don't charge me out of state,
but they are right now, and so that's coming in
as a revenue stream. So if you know it's it's
one of those things if if I own a house
on the beach and you guys want to use it
for free, if I didn't have it, if I couldn't
sell it to somebody else, it didn't cost me anything.
But if I if I already had it sold to
somebody else that's costed me something and so it's so

(51:56):
it's kind of like that it's still lost revenue to
the institution at this point because they are they are
collecting it and we just have to figure that out.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
Three guys before the game is brought to us in
part by go mart All of us, I don't know
about Ren, but we all have the gomart app, and
Brad he's a regular, uses it regularly. And right now,
if you have that app on your phone, let me
just hit you with a couple of things. Buck off
two tick tacks, dollar off two Jolly Rancher or Twizzler bags.

(52:26):
How about this? A dollar off two king size KitKat,
payday Hershey, recey cups, dollar off two waters.

Speaker 4 (52:34):
Hold on, see that's what I was going to tell you. You
got to get on there because those recy peanut butter cups.
You're a fan as well. Oh yeah, those are on
special a lot via this app. So it's going right now?
Is that what you just said?

Speaker 1 (52:44):
Yeah? Right now? Dollar off two snapples, dollar off a
case of water. Get the gomart ad app, immediately begin
saving on your food and fuel.

Speaker 3 (52:52):
Go for good.

Speaker 4 (52:53):
Times the way there's that kit cat slipping in their
big candy hitting that kit cat. Remember I told you
Halloween the Kitkats have risen in the last couple of years.

Speaker 3 (53:00):
Speak I'm a fan of I.

Speaker 4 (53:01):
Like the kit Kats.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
Speaking of great peanut butter treats, which Tony has rolled
with me enough to know. I'm a massive fan of
anything and all things.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
How can that be? Look at you, You're wasting a
weight to nothing.

Speaker 3 (53:13):
You know, Hoppy I have at home personal attack.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
I think you go to hr on him.

Speaker 3 (53:19):
Yeah, I probably should. But so Heather has asked me
what I wanted for anniversary, and I'm really simple. I
want the same thing every time. When I was in school,
they made these little treats. They called them Pioneer bars.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
Haven't heard it.

Speaker 3 (53:32):
It's just like a probably size of a thumbnail of
peanut butter with a layer of chocolate on top.

Speaker 4 (53:39):
Can't go wrong.

Speaker 3 (53:40):
So if you just google cafeteria peanut butter bars, which
I have done and found tried multiple recipes, I think
I have the best one. I could probably get it
back these at home. Heather makes them at home and
they're incredible.

Speaker 4 (53:51):
Real peanut butter or the Peebee mix you want real
peanut butter in there?

Speaker 3 (53:55):
I think it's real peanut butter.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
Yeah, Heather in the kitchen, pretty good.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
Yeah, let's not go there out. No, I didn't say
she was I just said.

Speaker 1 (54:06):
Wow, thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
My goodness, we've done.

Speaker 4 (54:09):
We're gonna end on that.

Speaker 3 (54:12):
Un incredible.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
I just want to.

Speaker 4 (54:19):
Another question, a lot more que we just start.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
We're just gonna MIC's warm.

Speaker 4 (54:22):
Right, here's an easy one. What's going on with the calendar?
A lot of a lot of debate and questions right
now with the calendar overall in college athletics. Where do
you think that lands?

Speaker 2 (54:31):
What happens?

Speaker 3 (54:32):
I definitely think it's going to land on one portal period.

Speaker 4 (54:37):
When do you think that portal period will be?

Speaker 2 (54:39):
And only during that time?

Speaker 4 (54:41):
January? Is that a summer portal period? Is it too early?

Speaker 3 (54:45):
It's too early to get take us down a little
bit of a rabbit hole here to tell you why
there's a debate. I think it ends up being in January.
But there are some high resource institutions out there, so
so you've heard the term thrown around. I'm sure of

(55:06):
front loading. So we had this unregulated period before the
settlement went into place, and so everybody was doing these
deals where they they paid athletes up front. It exploded
the market called you know, like all of these things,
different people did different amounts of front loading. We've done
some front loading, but but not as much as some

(55:26):
other institutions. Some institutions have done the vast majority of
their roster is all front loaded. So they're sitting on
their twenty and a half million dollars rev share and
they were, and they were particularly their football portion for
and and they're thinking, hey, we're going to clean up
in this portal because we haven't used any of that.

(55:50):
We've reserved some of our of our rev share, you
know for but not near as much as some other institutions.
We've had to use a lot of it too. And
so I think most of that, uh, those that concept
occurred in the Southeastern Conference, Big shocker, and so the
Big Ten is really pushing for an April portal period

(56:13):
for those reasons. And so, but I think if you
just look holistically at what is the best date, take
that aside, I think most people would say January makes
the most sense. I think that's where this lands. I
don't believe you can create rules in a system for
what is a one time kind of anomaly that we're

(56:36):
already having to deal with it. Let's just get through
this next year and put the portal period where it
makes the most sense. And I think where it makes
the most sense is in that December January timeline.

Speaker 4 (56:46):
Does that then change the signing date? Is that is
signing date wrapped into portal opening? As I mean, it
seems like December doesn't make a lot of sense for
all this to happen, right.

Speaker 3 (56:56):
Yeah, I think January is when it makes the most sense.
And like listen, like people talk about, well there's a
disadvantage and advantage if you're on a quarter system or
if you know those schools get an advant Well, like
you can't create what got us here in the first place.
Is trying to create something that was equal there, but
it's impossible to do that, And so I think you

(57:17):
have to look at what makes sense for the greater good,
and what makes sense for the greater good is one
portal window, and probably what's most fair of the student
athletes is it being in January.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
Where do you stand on the ongoing discussion regard to
the college Football Playoff sixteen team format SEC once four.
The Big ten once for ACC and Big twelve are
being told you get two and you'll like it.

Speaker 3 (57:42):
Yeah, I think it's really important that we push back
on that and listen, I've seen the numbers being guaranteed too.
There's some security in that our average over the last
ten years, if you Oklahoma and Texas out so like that.

(58:02):
We've had an analytics company that's run the numbers, so
we know what our number would be with the current
league composition, and it would have been two point two.
But two point two means some years you get three,
some years you get one. So having at least two
ensures that you always have at least two, and so
the years you get three, you know it's gravy. But
the problem is with each one beyond two, it's a

(58:25):
multiple of two. And here's why. On that third spot,
you're going to have two teams play for that spot
on championship weekend. So your champ game participants one and
two are going to play for your championship and for seeding.
But you're probably gonna give them those two, those first

(58:45):
two aqs, But then your third AQ, you can have
three and six play for that, and your fourth AQ
you can have four and five play, so in essence,
you create a wild card type game and you have
six teams and so the so then when you turn
back around and you look at the revenue share, which

(59:07):
you know those two leagues have already pushed and received
an unequitable revenue share based on performance, Well, we have
a look in in there, and the whole premise was
that we would have an opportunity to build up football
in the Big twelve and maybe earn a more proportionate
revenue share during the look in. Well, if they're able

(59:29):
to do that, then then they've cooked the books. And
so I think I think even though some people would
look at and say, gosh, you guys are idiots. You
could have guaranteed yourself always two and you might have
more some years, I just think one America doesn't want it.
It's not fair. It it it to me is it's

(59:53):
it just goes against everything that sports is about. I
think you earn it on the field. But then also, uh,
when I look at it, even though in the five
plus eleven the SEC could get six or seven teams in,
I get it. And and you know what, how we
land on these metrics is really important and there's a
big difference between eight conference games versus nine, or nine

(01:00:17):
p four games versus ten. Those things should all be
weighed heavily. But I just think when you look at
the totality of it, the four four two two should
be a non starter, uh for for the Big twelve
in acc so, I don't know where you guys were
on that. You guys agree, I agree completely.

Speaker 4 (01:00:39):
I agree, especially with the last statement you said, that's
just not how sports work. It just it's not how
it works.

Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
And don't want to get to the point where the
Big twelve, I mean not the Big but the SEC
and the Big ten are dictating what how it all works. Yeah. So,
the the college athletes particlarly in the in the in
the football and basketball are paid and they're performing a
service for an entity, yet they are not defined as employees,

(01:01:09):
and the House settlement did not address the issue of
whether they are employees. And Mike we talked to Mike
Fouryio yesterday and Foyo said, the schools really don't want
them to be classified as employees because that would further
they're already getting paid, but that would further empower them
and they would have more say in practices and conditions
and things like that. So, as an athletic director, are

(01:01:30):
you in a position where you you also do not
want them to be classified as employees or you would
be okay with them being classified as employees.

Speaker 3 (01:01:39):
I probably reside somewhere in the middle on this because
I feel like the exercise of some form of collective
bargaining is the only way to really fix this and
end this madness. And as somebody who has to live
and breathe this every day, it is mentally, emotionally, physically exhausting.

(01:02:03):
You know, when you say, do you think there it
will withstand legal challenges? I don't know, you know, like
I think the settlement was a really good thing, a
good first step. How good nobody knows. Courts will decide
and you know, and and so well, that will be determined,
and I would just love to have an answer. And
I think the only way to have an answer is

(01:02:25):
to set a table on bargain. I now, the people
who think that college athletics leadership are just trying to
hold the athlete benefits down. I think had we set
at a table and bargained, they would have done worse
than what's how settlement actually got them. I think Plans
Council did a really good job of protecting everything that
they had and not allowing them to have anything reduced

(01:02:48):
and giving them a significant revenue share. But employment has
massive ramifications. It makes sense for football and basketball, but
when you go down the road of employment and you
bring on those kind of benefits in those kind of processes,

(01:03:10):
For instance, if you need to move on from an employee,
you have to a lot of times do a plan
of improvement and you got to give them six months
to fix those things, and you know, like and so
you know that is problematic and different. But I think
the biggest issue that campuses have is it's not you

(01:03:30):
can't just make football and men's basketball employees. You would
be making all of your sports employees. But beyond that,
you also then set a precedent for the band to
be employees, for the theater kids to be employees, for
all these other campus organizations where it truly doesn't pencil.
So you look at wu's financial position, you look at

(01:03:52):
transformation and the things that we had to cut, and
how upsetting that was a lot of people. The amount
of student experience is that would be cut if you
made all these clubs and organizations and groups on campus.
Employees would be massive because it doesn't make financial sense
to do some of those things. And then at some
point you get to a place where I believe colleges

(01:04:18):
and part what's in the books, But I think more
than what you find in the books, it's really about
what you discover in yourself during those times when I
think back about what I learned in college. Yes, I
had some great professors that taught me great things, but
I learned so much more about myself by going through
the experiences of college than the like. If you were

(01:04:41):
to give me the tests of any class I took,
I don't think I could pass it right now, but
I do remember those experiences, and those experiences taught me
a lot. And so if you start to diminish, forget
athletics for a minute, you start to diminish those experiences
across campuses. What do we need campuses for. We could
get the world's best chemistry professor on zoom right now,

(01:05:03):
and could zoom with ten million people at once. And
so why do you need to go to a bricks
and mortar campus If you're and learn from a professor
who may be great but isn't the world's foremost expert
if not for those experiences. And so it's really presidents
and campuses that are saying the precedent that this would

(01:05:25):
set to go down the employment route would could end
in catastrophe for the student experience, which we know when
you look at student retention rates, their involvement in clubs
and organizations, their involvement in going to sporting events, like
students who are more involved stay in and have much
higher graduation rates than the kid who just sits in

(01:05:45):
their dorm room by themselves and ends up dropping out.
And so I just think that's a really important thing
that a lot of people at home miss. It's not
just about why don't you want them to be employees.
Ren Baker, athletic Director, I'm much less averse to that.
It's about the precedent of making them employees and what
that what that impact could be long term for campus.

(01:06:06):
So I think that's why when we talk about wanting
some kind of federal bill, if part of that federal
bill was we're going to give you some limited antitrust protection,
but we're going to make student athletes a special class
where they aren't employees. But they do have the ability
to collectively bargain. I think we could work this out.

Speaker 4 (01:06:25):
And so there's the way to get get that part
done without affecting all those others such. I was just
going to say, there a way to get to that point.

Speaker 1 (01:06:32):
That'll finally add some stability to the whole mess. It'll
stop being a mess. Yes, three guys before the game
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Speaker 4 (01:06:48):
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(01:07:12):
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Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
What if you'd filely claim and you're told no, good
They don't take no for an answer. That's what I thought.

Speaker 3 (01:08:00):
It's kind of simple. You were well before you start, well,
go ahead, no, go ahead. I was just gonna say,
you were talking about water consumption. Tony and I were
on top of this, Brad. Brad's aware of this massive
issue that we have in the coliseum, so Colosseum uh

(01:08:22):
in in the inside the men's basketball locker room is
a cooler with some beverages in.

Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
It, waters stuff, and there's.

Speaker 3 (01:08:30):
Smart water, which the three of us could definitely use,
but the labels are removed off all the smaller smart waters,
and smart water is kind of a boozy water, so
those labels are on there. There's a lot of it.
Sometimes you grab a water from like Sam's Club and
it just falls off right, like they.

Speaker 4 (01:08:45):
Don't club labels.

Speaker 3 (01:08:49):
But these these smart water, yes, like they try and
keep so this adhesive is very sticky. And so about
every other game, I'll grab a bottle of water and
I'll come out and I will be griping about why
do we do this?

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
And Lester Hayes of the Old Raiders days came, I
just get.

Speaker 4 (01:09:09):
Your great Gaylord Perry would love the stickiness.

Speaker 3 (01:09:11):
And and so I've started asking around, like, hey, how
did did did Coca Cola, who I'm drinking the Coca
Cola sponsor sponsored to Sawney Water right now? Like are
they did they say something? And if they did, that's fine,
we need to We probably should be drinking their waters
all the time. Probably should bet re rather smart waters.
But what I think happened is sometime along the way, somebody,

(01:09:33):
probably Brad when he was running marketing, said, Hey, you
guys need to put peel these labels off. And I
think it's just being handed down from one way, one
manager to the next. And now we have we're just
sticky bottles of water. We're like sheeple, We're just we're
just following, following the flock. Uh and we're just and
and and So I told Tony. I actually called one

(01:09:56):
of our new basketball sisters, Johnny is still over after practice.
I said, John, I need you to do me a favor.
I want you to do an informal survey here and
find out if anybody knows why we removed the labels
off these bottles of water.

Speaker 4 (01:10:08):
Well that's why you answered it. Just stick with the Dasani.
I agree. I stick with the das It's it's a
great If we're not going to remove the label, then
just that O.

Speaker 3 (01:10:16):
Those somebody who outs beside you guys most games. The
smart water is not really improving the cognitive function.

Speaker 1 (01:10:24):
Hey, while you were on vacation. While you were on vacation,
we did a three guys event and I wish you
were there.

Speaker 3 (01:10:32):
Did Hopey rode motorcycle?

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
So thank you for asking. Oh I just I just
hit my button. I just shrunk. I say, hey, Jakie baby,
get some of those pictures up there. Yeah, did he
ride a bike? Check this stuff out there. We are
on stage interviewing these dudes. These are the Lawrence brothers
who happened to be two of the biggest on the circuit.

(01:10:55):
They are from Australia, they now make their home in
the United States.

Speaker 3 (01:10:59):
Was this motorcross racing?

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
Yes, sir.

Speaker 3 (01:11:01):
I've been a lot of my brother race motocross when
he was in junior high. So I've been in a
lot of motocrosses.

Speaker 1 (01:11:06):
The fifties and four fifties. Go ahead, you can flip
through that, Jake. There we are just before Hoppy got
onto his bike. He looked very like I mean, he
was ready to go.

Speaker 3 (01:11:17):
And you're supposed to have the padded pants like door
or something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
Jeans hit that hit that again there is there's the
field of competition that Hoppy. That Hoppy had the face
way yeah and there was a yeah. So that was
that was awesome. They have this great family event where
the little kids can run on the on the grass

(01:11:45):
there and it was really cute to see where was
this over it right over the border. Yeah, there's our guy.
There's a guy, mister Coombs along with Hoppy. That's the bike,
that Hoppy road.

Speaker 4 (01:11:55):
And you just said, good shoddy Hoppy. You look like
you'd absolutely know what you're doing.

Speaker 1 (01:11:59):
Right like that.

Speaker 3 (01:12:00):
About an eighty C C it was.

Speaker 2 (01:12:02):
It was then it was an electric, it was not motorized,
and it didn't have it did not have gears. I
was looking forward to changing the electric.

Speaker 4 (01:12:10):
Yeah, he just he just just had to steer.

Speaker 3 (01:12:12):
So those motocross I think it used to come like
an eighty C C one five and two fifties.

Speaker 1 (01:12:17):
Correct, these are two fifties and four to fifties. And uh,
it's it was. It was fantastic. It was a great event.
I said, no idea of my knowledge you should have.
It's good, very good. Anything else JA go through. But oh,
so you know that young lady. She is the backup mountaineer. Yeah,
the Morgans. Oh yeah, yeah, she was. Yeah, she was
front and center. And there you see that shirties were.

Speaker 4 (01:12:38):
An eft mountaineer.

Speaker 1 (01:12:39):
He's a people. He's an efforting, additional additional, the alternate.
I gotta call her alternate mountaineer, great additional mountaineer. Yeah,
you see but on those shirts they made for us,
our names around the back and all of our sponsors
around are literally all of the three guys sponsors around
the front.

Speaker 4 (01:12:56):
That's that's as good of activation as I've seen from
the event or organizer to do those shirts.

Speaker 3 (01:13:01):
That shirt's a thor shirt. That's a great brand. Fox
is another one that's made. Fox makes some great.

Speaker 2 (01:13:07):
Gear's the trophy that Tony presented to me.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
That trophy is the World? No, seriously, that's the world.
Each country races against each other each year. Australia won
last year and this year it's in Indiana coming up
in October. But that is like the Stanley Cup of Motocross,
the world championship, the world.

Speaker 2 (01:13:26):
I don't have the video of my ride? Is that unavailable? Jake?

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
Do you have the video of his ride? If you do,
we'll run that.

Speaker 3 (01:13:32):
But Hoppy, I can't belate I have seen that video
on make the rounds on social media this week. I
can't believe you would want to show that.

Speaker 2 (01:13:38):
But let's let's harsh man, it's hard.

Speaker 3 (01:13:42):
Let's go listen.

Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
But wait, but wait, there's more.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
I was impressed. Thank you, Brad, I was.

Speaker 1 (01:13:47):
Really half thank you. Oh by the way. They also
let them to kick the event off on Friday. This
thing is massive, right, This is thousands and thousands and
thousands of people over the.

Speaker 4 (01:13:55):
Weekend national event.

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
Yes, twenty or thirty thousand people. They him read the
or recite recite the pledge of allegiance over the entire
PA system to start it. Knocked it out.

Speaker 2 (01:14:09):
Well, they asked for volunteers. Nobody stepped up.

Speaker 3 (01:14:11):
So you said, he pause at the right at the
right place. You know, there's some people get real offended
if you pause.

Speaker 1 (01:14:19):
Oh, he drilled it.

Speaker 4 (01:14:19):
There is a cadence to it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:21):
Yeah, yeah, he drilled it. But but listen, if motocross
isn't your thing, you're gonna like this. On July the nineteenth,
second year in a row Stonewall Resort, WVU Medicine WV
Cancer Institute having a golf tournament. Oh yeah, because they
have a young man who passed away who was a
student here out of blood blood disease and they have

(01:14:42):
this event for him. Uh, Jake hit that baby up there.
So we're going if you'd like to join us, it's
going to sell out. There's gonna be one hundred.

Speaker 3 (01:14:49):
And twenty did the bench for coach Stuart last year.

Speaker 1 (01:14:52):
Yeah, we did very good exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:14:54):
Yes, he doesn't.

Speaker 1 (01:14:57):
Dates what July nineteenth, July nineteen. Brad and I will
be there. We'll have some special guests with us in process.
I think we're also going to do a play the pro.
I think Nate Adrian is going to be on one
of the par threes. You can you just Natal hit
a shot, You hit a shot, see how you do it.
But tickets are available for that, and we'll be there

(01:15:19):
and we're very much.

Speaker 3 (01:15:20):
We'll Brad have his pontoon boat there at the light.

Speaker 1 (01:15:22):
There is a pond. Is very great, great, that's a
great thing.

Speaker 4 (01:15:26):
So well, real quick, that's a golf event you mentioned
at one twenty that will sell out. So if you're
interested to get in and then afterwards were doing does
and answer special guest I sent you?

Speaker 2 (01:15:37):
Getting rid of wrap up? Can I ask one other thing?

Speaker 3 (01:15:39):
No? Okay, go ahead, go ahead? Hot So I hope
it's an easy one.

Speaker 1 (01:15:44):
I mean, seriously, this legal path that he brought with
them treasure trove. So I love your questions about the
way you take him so damn serious.

Speaker 4 (01:15:53):
Like mister committee chairman. Prior to your.

Speaker 2 (01:15:59):
Arrival, the naming rights, which West Virginia WVU is behind
in the whole naming rights thing. So I get it.
I understand it. You need the revenue. So do you
envision It's a two part question. Do you envision it
would be called? And I just make it up like
the Go mart Colisseum or goree Guys Colisseum or go

(01:16:19):
mart Field. And how do you think that West Virginia
fans are going to react? Because it's Mountaineer Field and
it's the WVU Colisseum And you may know this, You've
been around West Virginia a little bit, now is it?
West Virginians are a little bit hisstant on change? So
how's that going to go down?

Speaker 1 (01:16:36):
Well?

Speaker 3 (01:16:38):
So with the Colisseum, you know historically it's been WU Colisseum,
and so I think with that one three Guys Colisseum
we would go with it, and we might get a
little pushback, but I don't think people are as endeared
to that name as they are Mountaineer Field. I haven't
done a survey, but but I feel fairly confident in
saying that. I think with Mountaineer Field we would probably

(01:17:01):
try to encourage somebody to leave Mountaineer in there so
the three guys mountaineer Field something like that. But I
know that West Virginians get endeared to tradition. But I'll
tell you something else that I have found that West
Virginia's are pretty endeared too. Is winning. And so so

(01:17:23):
if somebody, you know, if the if it pencils that
an amount that makes sense for us to do, we
have to look at it, even if it's slightly adjust
some of the things on tradition. And you guys know me,
I'm always pretty honest in candid about those things. And
so yeah, so that's that's probably how it answered that. Okay, thanks, Hey,

(01:17:45):
you guys are talking about the resort and the lake,
so quick story that Tony's heard too many times. But
my wife has a convertible nineteen seventy nine.

Speaker 1 (01:18:00):
Oh, I can't wait. I want to hear the yon.

Speaker 3 (01:18:03):
Yeah MG car really yeah, her her father left it
to her her he passed away, I think three years ago,
of Mesothelioma. A great man, but he loved a tinker
with stuff. He was a fix it man, and so
he loved this car. I am not a fix it man,
and I don't want tinker with anything. Go fix it yeah,

(01:18:25):
and so, uh, this car has been the source of
probably eighty percent of mine and my wife's tense discussions
over the last three years. Really, I'm like, you know,
and I remember early on I could see where this
was headed, and I said, Hey, your dad like more
than anything, he would want you to be safe. So

(01:18:47):
I will buy let's take this car and sell it,
and I'll buy any convertible you want, because your dad
would not want you to take off in an automobile
that's not reliable. Sure, And she dead looked me in
the eye, and Tony knows, Heather she's pretty easy one,
and she said, you will never sell my daddy's car.

Speaker 2 (01:19:03):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:19:04):
So that's so we know where we're at. And I've
spent a lot of money on this car. So anyway,
finding somebody that works on these cars very very difficult.
So I won't go through every step. But I called
somebody in town here. They used to work on them.
But the guy retired. Call out, call this guy at
Point Marion Road. No, we don't work on anymore, but
you should call this guy in Fairmont. That guy says, yeah,

(01:19:27):
we don't actually work on those anymore, but but you
should call this guy in Horner, West Virginia, Horner Horner.
It's near Weston, not too far from Jane lou where
Rita Rogers j So. So anyway, the guy there, Robert

(01:19:53):
is his name. Uh, I don't know if he's a
Three Guys listener. He's originally from England, so probably you know,
I don't, I don't know, but anyway, he probably. Yeah,
he grew up working on these cars, uh, and did
an unbelievable job. Has the car up and running. It's great.
So we drove, we drove there, and so while we
were there, we just drove around a little bit and

(01:20:16):
we we end up going on this road and there's
a little lake called stone Coal, La beautiful little stone Stone. No,
that would be even better, but stone coal like coal.
So anyway, uh so shout out to there's some homes there.
A couple of W flags was up, but uh, beautiful

(01:20:37):
little lake. I don't know if there's you know, if
it's open to the public. But it was a gorgeous
little neighborhood in and around there cars working. Yeah, So
I drove there all the highway patrolman, please don't listen.
I drove there probably going eighty five I know that's
a little speed limit coming back, and we were going

(01:21:00):
in like sixty uh head winds situation because I was
following the wife and and and this car.

Speaker 4 (01:21:07):
You went to get it and had to drive it
back home.

Speaker 3 (01:21:10):
Yeah, so I had it towed down there.

Speaker 4 (01:21:11):
Okay, I understood, all right, there we go.

Speaker 3 (01:21:13):
So then so Heather and I rode together go get okay,
and She's like, I'll see you at home, and I'm like,
I have no faith that this car is not going
to break down. I'm not going to leave you on
side of the road, so I'll just follow the.

Speaker 4 (01:21:22):
Respect to Robert, of course, and.

Speaker 3 (01:21:23):
I was texting her and calling her and saying, hey,
like can we can we go faster? So anyway, I
looked it up because I told her at some point
the way home, I called her and said, when we
get home, I'd like to race your car in my
side by side, kind of trying to be demeaning to
the car. And I looked it up and the side
a side does have more horsepower, so that so you

(01:21:44):
bear tread lightly. I'm back the way, so next time
you need help.

Speaker 4 (01:21:48):
We of course have listeners to the show that are
master mechanics I've had major lawnmower trouble that not many
people could have fixed. Those build like guys, yeah built,
they build race cars. Yeah, came up and fixed my
mowre problem that.

Speaker 3 (01:22:00):
They're done around Huntington. I know those people had.

Speaker 4 (01:22:02):
The lawnmower problem. I have my guy's fixing it.

Speaker 3 (01:22:05):
It was just a it was just a he knows
I met him. I know that in the Law School
Hill they did.

Speaker 4 (01:22:10):
That's what they know. They're awesome, but really unique lawnmower
situation that they handled. So if you need help to.

Speaker 3 (01:22:16):
Introduced themselves that way. I was walking Law School Hill
just uh, you know, I try to walk all of
the lots over the course of the season. So it
was late in the season my first year. Here, I'm walking,
get I stopped and talk to people. We get to
talking and uh and and they start telling me a
little bit about what they do. I said, wait a second,
are you guys that fixed Brad's lawnmore?

Speaker 1 (01:22:36):
You mean they changed you mean they told them that
the battery was dead. They the lawnmower that the one
that they said, your battery is dead, dumb ass major,
that's what they said.

Speaker 4 (01:22:44):
The lawnmore they fixed it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:45):
Yeah, it was a dead battery.

Speaker 2 (01:22:47):
You have a car problem, don't go to bread.

Speaker 4 (01:22:48):
They came all the way up fixed it. Geniuses those guys.

Speaker 1 (01:22:51):
You don't need Robert the guy with the English accent
to figure that one out.

Speaker 4 (01:22:54):
John and Jason got them.

Speaker 2 (01:22:57):
That's cool. I like that. Uh my brother had an
MG O are cool?

Speaker 3 (01:23:00):
Is he won another one?

Speaker 2 (01:23:03):
I think that we've established Wren that that is not
up for negotiation. Your wife, you say she's a Wife've
never met her. You says she's a one of his
wonderson and wonderful established.

Speaker 4 (01:23:13):
Well, it sounds like you just take that one. Do
you take the l move on?

Speaker 2 (01:23:16):
You take that? You take that? It's up seat belt?

Speaker 3 (01:23:20):
Yes, okay. So I shouldn't go in all this. I
know we got to. We probably got a wrap. We
gone all the time. But so her her father's funeral
was in Texas. We we went to the funeral. You know,
I had on a jacket. It's like August in Texas,
it's like one hundred degrees. So I show up there

(01:23:44):
and and a friend of the family said, hey, I
drove your car here. And this is like an hour
and a half from where we live, and so afterwards,
Heather's going to do some family things and and she said, hey,
you know, why don't you head back? And and I
had to drive the car back in a sport jacket.

(01:24:05):
No air conditioner in these cars, they don't have air conditions.

Speaker 2 (01:24:09):
Hit here.

Speaker 3 (01:24:11):
So it started poorly for me with this car, sweating profusely.
I look like I mean, it's a small car. It's
like a clown car with a six y three guy
in it. And uh, it's not gotten any better. You are.

Speaker 2 (01:24:26):
You are diminishing one of the traditional sports cars in
the world, the MG, which has been around four over
one hundred years.

Speaker 1 (01:24:35):
New car guy, you should see his new truck with
your wife on this His new truck completely bad.

Speaker 4 (01:24:40):
Fort Bronco's nice for Bronco.

Speaker 3 (01:24:42):
Yeah. If if I I just want something, if I
go out there and turn the key at reliably cranks,
I don't want I don't want something that's gonna It's
the reason why I don't go buy a boat. I
would love to have a boat, but I don't want
to go and get to the lake, get myself all
jazz up. And I turned the key and it doesn't start,
which is what happens when you don't use the boat.

Speaker 4 (01:25:03):
It happens from Blue Wendols.

Speaker 1 (01:25:05):
Don't they just turn out all the time?

Speaker 4 (01:25:09):
Find her fires right up, you just go.

Speaker 1 (01:25:10):
They provided all the boats for the James Bond movies.
MG's for sale near Morgan.

Speaker 2 (01:25:14):
Are you trying to sell this on line?

Speaker 4 (01:25:17):
Getting sold? He just told you how They said no, No, I.

Speaker 2 (01:25:19):
Know whither said no, I'm just looking on the line
here looks like the one you're talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:25:22):
Football season tickets will will be the best in over
a decade.

Speaker 3 (01:25:25):
Yes, we're right now. We're trending higha since twenty thirteen,
but you know, we still need to finish strong. But yeah,
that people have responded very very well. Well.

Speaker 1 (01:25:37):
The Director's Cup is a point total of every major
conference school in the country, and you get points for
every sport. Will this be the best?

Speaker 3 (01:25:46):
Undetermined that final number will come in they'll do. They'll
release that shortly after the College World Series ends because
those points are still being calculated. But going into the spring,
we were twenty second overall, second in the Big Twelve. Now,
our spring sports seasons, we don't have as many sports
in the spring, and so we typically lose a little

(01:26:07):
traction there. Like you know, much to the dismay of
many West Virginia fans. We don't have softball, for instance,
but so we may slip a little bit from from
that position. But at least through this last ranking, it
was the best best we've been in sometime.

Speaker 1 (01:26:24):
A lot of people are gonna be disappointed listening or
watching this that you did not announce the creation of
the softball program, or that you're moving the football stadium
over to Myland Park. It would be some great disappoint.

Speaker 4 (01:26:35):
Because somebody's uncle was in a meeting recently about that
new stadium.

Speaker 1 (01:26:37):
Say, I tell you the d H was there. They
staid they're going to make the road right out to that.
You ever heard of that one?

Speaker 3 (01:26:44):
I must have not been invited to the meeting. You
think I would have been included.

Speaker 1 (01:26:47):
That's like the mothman. That's like the moth man that's
just out there.

Speaker 4 (01:26:51):
You know, a bunch of people had a couple cousins
that are electricians that they were already called in and
discussed the if.

Speaker 2 (01:26:56):
You go out there, you stay there. You see where
they've already moved her.

Speaker 1 (01:27:01):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:27:02):
Why would you bring up the moth man?

Speaker 1 (01:27:05):
It makes it makes it makes it makes them nervous. Well,
we appreciate your time very much. A lot of stuff happening,
it is.

Speaker 3 (01:27:15):
But you know, I just want to say how much
I appreciate everybody at home and everything that that you
all do, because it does matter, and it matters more
now than ever that you buy tickets, you you come
to games, you donate when you can, because we we
are at a very critical time in intercalege athletics and

(01:27:37):
certainly for our program. But I do believe we have
a pathway for success and and but it's going to
take everybody doing their part. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:27:44):
Thank no, thanks for having us.

Speaker 3 (01:27:46):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (01:27:47):
We certainly appreciate that there is vice president and an
athletic director of West Virginia University. I think you know
Hoppy's got three honorary degrees. Now did you know that
shepherd West Virginia and West Virginia Wesley and three honorary degrees.
We'll make him doctor Ren.

Speaker 2 (01:28:06):
Baker, Doctor Ren Baker.

Speaker 1 (01:28:07):
You're an educated You got educate, you gotta advance. He
was a school principal. I know so school principal, Doctor
Ren Baker. Three guys brought to us by Jan Dill's
attorneys at Law. They won't take no for an answer.
Comac's Business System keeping West Virginia's business data safe, secure
and efficient for twenty five years. By Gomart Get a
Go Mack rewards card. Go to gomart dot com for details.

(01:28:30):
By Lou Wendell Marine Sales in St. Albans Day Well
they sell family fund. Visit Lou Wendellmarne Sales dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:28:37):
And renn is looking for a vote as we speak.

Speaker 1 (01:28:39):
By Tutor's Biscuit World. Start your day the homemade way
with a Tutor's biscuit. Go to that website. Vote Tutors
merch dot com, pick out what you'd like to see
from Tutors in the Merch World, and then have a
chance to win a one hundred dollars gift card. That's
it for us. Episode number six and forty one. Three
guys before the game with Wren Bay Cares, Stay well,

(01:29:01):
We will see you down the road.

Speaker 2 (01:29:03):
M hm.

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3 Guys Before The Game - WVU Athletic Director Wren Baker (Episode 641)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}3 Guys Before The Game - WVU Athletic Director Wren Baker (Episode 641)