The Mayor of Taekwondo Takes on AAU Nationals: Triumphs, Failures, and Everything in Between

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Terrence, run to the St Louis grill.
I'm sorry, not sorry.
Ain't it funny?
Herb P on the track, my sister,ill advised opinions maybe, but
facts ain't lies, it's coldmetal mentality.
Watch the sunrise.
One of one.
I'm checking in.
So we're sitting pretty Stillme, second best in the world.
Get witty.
Face down to Ponyx.
Pressure cooking, hot, Gave mysweat, my focus, everything.

(00:24):
I got TJ Grimes.
Tj holding down the bronzeStood on the stage.
I fought the giants turned thenew page, learned to discipline,
respect for the fight.
My fight ain't lies, it'ssomething that no reality.
Deep in the sun.
I'm one of two.
I'm, in reality, just me.
Still me, stuck in the box.
There's something in this.
I'm free, let it crash, I'mfree.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
This is the warehouse 15 and the warehouse was not in
the warehouse because they wereout and about at the aau
championships in salt lake city,missing vegas.
That is a sharp differencebetween salt lake city and vegas
.
I would have preferred vegas.
How are you doing the mayor oftaekwondo?

(01:19):
I see you've changed your name.
What's going on, coach?

Speaker 3 (01:23):
I shout out to one of my friends, grandmaster Ryan
Andercheck.
He always says you're the mayorof Taekwondo.
You're the mayor of Taekwondo.
Have you talked to everyone?
So I said you know what?
You guys got cool names onthere.
I just had my boring name.
So I said you know what?
I'm the mayor of Taekwondo.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
I like it.
What's up, Mr Bronze TJ?
I noticed that you're keepingyour name.
You've embraced it, which isgood.
I think you should embrace it.
You look good.
I like your background today.
It looks good.
Nice shirt.
That's a nice shirt today.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Thank you, Thank you, I like that.
Hey man, listen.
I mean, like you know, thatbronze has been on the
scoreboard for a few years now.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
I mean, it's been on the scoreboard for a while now.
I'm just saying might be thelast thing to do, that's pretty
sure.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Ruth 16, 16 years before the last us olympic men's
medal.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Is that true?
Is that true?

Speaker 3 (02:14):
that's true I thought that was 2012 so 16, that's 4,
20 about any metal.
That is embarrassing I had theI had 92 to 2000.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
I had eight years and that was only, I think, because
there was no olympics in 96that's right, but I take it, I
own it, I love it.
You know I'm not going to sayanything.
And then, uh, but tj, you arenow the reigning king yeah, bro,
you need to change your nameking bronze, king bronze, king
bronze, I like not king lebronking lebron's dj I've been

(02:50):
arguing with my boy about lebronsince, like the last six weeks.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
I got a young kid on my team too.
Just their cycle when they hadto start this conversation
between lebron and george andthere's no conversation.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
I don't know man, it's MJ.
I don't know man, it's MJ.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
I don't know.
You could talk about it itdon't matter, but it's MJ.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
It continues to be MJ .
But, like you said, we had theAAU Nationals this week.
Tj, bronze, tj.
We had the AAU Nationals thisweek, I think.
I was there for three days,kind of long and short days all
at the same time, but, um, itwas.
It was overall, I'll say I'llsay an experience.

(03:29):
I was standing next to um danielalcovitz.
Actually he was talking to oneof his parents on his friends
and it was always good to seeyou guys like that.
You know they were around for along time competing and you
know doing the things at thislevel.
So it's funny to kind of.
I was kind of eavesdropping alittle bit on the conversation.
I ended up getting interjectedinto it a little bit.
But he made a comment.
He said um, you know it's, it's.
You know you look over and yousee, you know coach reyno and
coach lee and uh uh, coach sellwas there as well and you guys,

(03:52):
it's like to see all those guysat au standing on the fence was
kind of like I guess that likenostalgic to him or something
along the lines of that, and Iwas like that's pretty cool.
But he was telling his parentabout the um.
You know we started coming overthere because the the pipeline
for kids is better, the so I'mlike you know what.
I don't think I asked you.
I'm like you know is that thecase he goes?
It's true because then I lookat some of my guys that brought

(04:13):
their students from you knowColorado's places.
Their blue belts are havingfour or five matches.
You know five bro you know, RedBelt.
On the last day, I think, one ofthe guys told me that he had
four matches in red belt, sothat was refreshing to kind of
kind of wrap my mind around it.
I mean, I looked at itobviously through the weekend
but being a little busy with myseniors, but that's, that's the

(04:33):
good part.
I mean that that part of theorganization is definitely
healthy and I guess there's alot, of, a lot of kids.
Like I said, bluebell is myspecial one.
That's kind of like my firstnationals I.
It was good to see thatdivision still had four or five
matches in it, so it was prettycool.
That part was good.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
Good, I like that.
I think we need to talk aboutAU because there's a lot to
unpack there some good, bad andsome ugly, to be honest with you
.
But I got like a couple ofthings I want to throw out there
.
Number one I got a Joe Roganrant.
Oh, but before I start any ofthat man, just out of pure
coincidence, I was talking to aguy and he told me I said, hey,

(05:09):
how's it going?
And he's like not good.
Basically, long story short thisflooding in Texas.
One of his daughters is friendswith this younger girl on a
soccer team and they're over thehouse, they're good friends,
they're like 10, 11 years oldand she was on a Christian
retreat at the Mystic River andshe was missing that night.
He had told me and I was like,oh so then the next day I

(05:34):
checked in with him and he sentme a message that the
grandmother sent and the wholecabin was washed away and I've
been infatuated with watching it.
And we have a lot of naturaldisasters here in Florida.
I tell you what this one issuper sad because there's over
80 people who lost their livesand it happened so fast.
It's just a lot of little kidsand things like that.
I just want to send a prayer toall those people that are just

(05:56):
pure devastation and hurt.
What do you say?
It's a bad thing, it's adifficult thing.
I just want to say somethinglike that, first and foremost.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
It's heartbreaking.
It's heartbreaking when you sendyour kids away to summer camp
and you know you, when you givethat trust to anyone or anything
or just life in general, andthen something untoward happens,
and I'm not like, I'm not by.
None of this is meant to beaccusatory or placing blame,

(06:27):
because it's just ridiculous,the uh, the, the drama and and
stuff like that.
But it just reminds you to keepyour people precious and and
remember those things andmoments, because something like
this, which was unanticipatedand certainly, um, not what
people were expecting, and thenthe thought process of trying to

(06:47):
keep people safe in thatsituation but my hearts and
prayers go out to everyone.
I had, ironically, just sent anote to James Villasana on July
4th, because about this timelast year I was in Texas, or two
years ago, and I had spent sometime with James on Mother's Day
a little while back and, I know, on Father's Day actually, and

(07:10):
so I just sent him a kind of anote and I'm going to have to
reach back out to him to makesure he's OK as well.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yeah, so listen, let's go with this.
I got a Joe Rogan rant man.
Everyone knows that.
You know I'm a huge Joe Roganfan.
I love his podcast.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
Well, before we go there, I just have to share one
thing.
I apologize.
I found it and I did not know.
I had no idea.
I had no idea.
No, no, I had no idea.
I had no idea.
I have found Juan in hisoriginal days as mayor of

(07:47):
Taekwondo.
Hold on as your mayor.
I promise to uphold the valuesof discipline and respect that
define Taekwondo.
Taekwondo Dude.
That is unbelievable.
In such a short period of time,we were able to find that
footage of Taekwondo, so you got40 seconds left oh you did.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
I was 20 seconds there, alright well it was worth
it because that was Juan Morenoin front of the Korean and
Mexican flags yeah, I've hadKoreans guys, I had Mexican guys
, I had all kind of people.
Once again, I love the podcast.
I love the podcast.
You say love the podcast.
You say what everyone's talking.
So, man, I'm just so excitedabout it.
So I'm so everyone that'slistening, love you guys.

(08:30):
Glad you're enjoying it andwe're going to keep going.
But anyway, look my Joe Roganrant.
I love Joe Rogan.
He's a great jujitsu, he's anamazing analyst and during the
UFC fights he breaks it down sodetailed.
I just love everything aboutthe guy.
But as you know, he firststarted doing martial arts.
His first martial art wastaekwondo and there was some.
He's mentioned my coach before,he's mentioned you, grandmaster

(08:54):
Perez, about some things andhe's always given pretty good
respect.
And I've heard the same story in1987.
He went to the NationalsAnaheim, california.
I fought there.
Supposedly he he not,supposedly he spun hook kick.
Somebody guy went to sleep,didn't wake up.
They carried him out and Iguess that was the end of his
career.
But they were talking aboutspinning hook kicks specifically
and he basically said he wasscared after that and he just

(09:17):
thought it could have happenedto him and he decided to move on
and then he started kind oftalking some bs about about
taekwondo, saying, you know, Irealized I had a false sense of
security because I didn't knowhow to punch, so I went to
kickboxing, then Muay Thai, thenJiu-Jitsu.
Okay, that's all, that's fineand dandy.
But the guy he was interviewingasked him he's like, so wait a
minute, like did you have any,you know, aspirations to be like
a national champion or anythinglike that in Taekwondo?

(09:40):
He goes, oh no, I was anational champion, I had dreams
to go to the Olympics.
And he's like, oh wow.
And he's like the guy goes realdreams.
He says oh yeah, real dreams.
And when I heard that I hadnever heard him say that kind of
stuff, he had always givenprops.
But I'm like that's a prettyfar stretch for a guy of his

(10:06):
caliber to say that he couldhave went to the Olympics when
in he didn't even place atnationals.
You know who's to say that youcould place at nationals in 88
and win the Olympic trials in 88and go to the Olympics and blah
, blah.
It was just.
It was one of those things thatI hear a lot, especially down
here in South Florida no, no,that's my point.
So I mean, because if he hewould have said I went out and
fought in the Pan Am Champions,pan Am Qualifiers and stuff like

(10:27):
that, all this stuff and itjust I mean, it just it kind of
bothered me a little bit,because I'm like man, I get it,
he kicks, well, I mean for thatstyle.
But for him to say that he hadreal Olympic aspirations as in
he could make it, I was like, ah, I thought that was a little
bit.
What weight was he?
I don't know, he was probably awelterweight lightweight.

(10:48):
If he was lightweight, he wasin the machine division, because
I know there was Doug Baker,greg Baker, bobby Clayton,
stephen Kaepner, kareem Jabbar,I mean there's a bunch of other
Tim Conley, and those guys wereback in those days.
There was even more people.
I can't think of them off thetop of my head, but yeah he had

(11:08):
no chance, so there's adifference between so what?

Speaker 2 (11:11):
I always tell people because I meet these guys and
most times, to be honest,they're Koreans.
The guy goes oh, the guy's aworld champion or he's a this or
he's that, and I go and I lookon the website and, sure enough,
the guy's got something upabout something he didn't do or
couldn't do or could never havedone.
And, to be honest, most ofthese guys were plumbers.
And now we're stuck with thesecond generation of those

(11:36):
instructors, which is going toget me some nonsense.
But we now have the secondgeneration of guys who were
plumbers in Korea, came here andrealized that because they were
Korean, they could put up asign and start Taekwondo the
true Taekwondo fighters thatfought in Korea and won
something legitimate.
My instructor was one of them.
Coach Sang Lee fought in Koreawas one of them.
Dongkun Park was one of themand it's limited because, put it

(11:56):
in perspective, they had thePresident's Cup, they had the
National Championship and theydidn't have a World Championship
back then.
So that was what it was.
So how did you get thatproliferation of people here
saying they did this, this andthis, when in reality they did
Taekwondo in school?
They would have been a busdriver, but instead they came
here and taught Taekwondo, andnow their second generation is,

(12:17):
you know, trying to overtakethis Kukiwon, usa, for example.
With that said, there are a lotof legitimate Taekwondo
instructors.
Example, with that said, thereare a lot of legitimate
taekwondo instructors american,korean, whatever, it doesn't
really matter, of course.
With that said, though, the onething that always has irked me
about the olympic thing is yousay you're an olympic hopeful.
So does that mean that you havea hope?
Well, I have a hope.

(12:37):
I have.
I have a hope to be a lot ofthings.
I keep playing the lottery.
I'm not a lottery winner.
I hope to win the lottery.
So there's got to be a littlebit more, and it's always
frustrated me when you see theseguys go out and they raise
money and they say this and theydo that.
And I'm an Olympic hopeful.
You got to kind of get on the.
You got to get on the playingfield and be a player, and then
you got to get to the top one,two or three or four.

(12:58):
So I've always respected Roganonly because he said kind things
about me right on his podcast.
He mentioned me as one of theguys he had watched and was a
guy that could kick and knockguys out and and I always
respected that.
It's unfortunate that if hesaid that recently, what he said
because showing up at onenationals and doing anything is

(13:21):
one nationals doing one thingyou know that it took us I don't
know how many times, especiallyin that era especially it took
me I.
I started fighting nationals in82.
It took me till 83 83 to get anational collegiate's medal and
I took that in 83, 80, 45.

(13:41):
It took me till 85 to get abronze medal at the.
At the trials I didn't runaround and say anything.
And it took me to 86 to makethe us team.
And then for the next six,eight years I was the guy.
What took you so long, dude?
It was hard.
It was, I didn't, you don'tunderstand how, on the way to
this, I did it too I did none ofthem in my house.

(14:02):
I don't have any of them in myhouse.
I don't know what those?
Are so with that.
With that said, though, youknow, like I didn't say anything
, I didn't wear a team uniform,I didn't buy an olympic training
center usa sweatshirt, I didn'tbuy anything usa until somebody
gave it to me for free.
But because I earned it.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
You know what I remember when I got a bronze
medal at nationals my first,second nationals senior
nationals.
I don't have no idea where it'sat no, but I remember the
people on the Illinois team.
People were excited for me.
They were so excited for me andI was like dude, I lost.
I didn't really understand howhard it was because I did break

(14:40):
in a little bit earlier.
But I know it's a rant, we'regoing down a rabbit hole.
But for me I was a littleshocked that he said that kind
of stuff because, like I said, Ilove the guy, I think he's so
cool, he's on the edge of somany good things, but that one
kind of threw me off a littlebit.
It's nice to see a guy in hisdefense.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
It's nice to see a guy that loves what we do as a
sport, whether it's MMA, jujitsu, whatever you're doing.
You know Kung Pao Chicken, helikes it, he's a fan.
He's made a ridiculous amountof money doing comedy, doing a
TV show, doing this.
So I never, you know, I neversweat that.
And he came from my area, rightout my way and he stepped in,

(15:23):
but in.
But you know, don't confusebeing a fan of something with
being able to do something,right.
Yeah, I like being a, I lovesoccer.
But you know, stand out thereon the stand, stand out there on
a goal line and let somebodykick a penalty kick at you, and
then you'll really understand.
So you don't pretend to be agoalie, right?
So, yeah, anyway, thumbs up orthumbs down.
Was he good?
Thumbs up for good, thumbs downfor bad, was he good?
And then you'll reallyunderstand.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
You don't pretend to be a goalie, right?
So you know.
Anyway, I'll let you guys goThumbs up or thumbs down.
Was he good?
Thumbs up for good, thumbs downfor bad.
Was he good Down?
I'm going to say bad.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
Back then it was tough to be good because there
were a lot of guys out therethat were great and in those two
divisions in particular, atleast one of those divisions
lightweight was static.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
But I'm going to say, like if you didn't place it at
nationals, how can I say you'regood, you gotta you gotta show
up to be up right.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
So you can't, you gotta.
If you didn't, if you, you knowI I hit a lot of guys and hurt
a lot of guys and the my minduntil 1991 was ouch.
I never thought that could havebeen me.
And the other thing I neversaid was oh, I felt sorry for
the guys I hit in 91.

(16:32):
That's what I'm saying like 91.
I finally felt sorry because itwas a friend of mine and then I
realized I had maybe one moreyear to fight and I should
retire that's what was soconfusing to me, if you listen
to this.

Speaker 3 (16:42):
When he said I was, I thought about it at the end of
my career, he goes I was young,I was doing it for free, I
wasn't making money, I'm like.
But then you went to kickboxing, then you went to Muay Thai,
which are technically a littlebit more brutal, and then you
went to, I mean, jiu-jitsu,which I think is obviously more
technical.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
Blah, blah blah but I .
What was his record in those?
Did he compete in those?

Speaker 3 (17:04):
I don't think he ever competed, to be honest.
After that, to his credit, hejust said he was looking for
martial art awareness and stuff.
He kept taking that next stephe realized that kickboxing was
much better because then hecould realize he could use his
taekwondo against the kickboxer,because they didn't know how to
kick.
Then I went to Muay Thai andI'm like, oh shit, they're

(17:25):
kicking my legs like that wasopen another thing.
And then he did jujitsu.
He said I think he startedjujitsu like the year after the
ufc started, 93, and now he'svery accomplished like I.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
You know, I don't like whatever they call it
throwing shade on people, Ithink it's what you guys call it
now but I don't like to do that.
Like I, I I read all theseposts, I I'm on Tik TOK and all
these other things, and then Isee these posts by these guys.
There's some guy, taekwondofury, and he posts this nonsense
and I, I try and I don't knowthe guy, so I, I actually
comment on his nonsense becausehe's horrible.

(17:57):
But he and then I this weekend,he was popular this weekend.
He was popular this weekend.
Listen the guy sucks attaekwondo.
To be honest, how do I say it?
I just said it.
He sucks at taekwondo.
Have you watched him fight atall Taekwondo?

Speaker 3 (18:16):
Fury no, I watch his videos.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
If that's his best at taekwondo.
He sucks at taekwondo.
It doesn't have far reach forme.
But like the Villa guy I watchjust via's videos and his
taekwondo, yeah, but you know,like there's stuff that he puts
up that I'm like, yeah, you know, uh, but I don't say anything
because he's actually good attaekwondo, so he's one of the

(18:40):
few guys out there that doesboth sides of the fence and
seems to, you know, be able I, Iand I, I hold myself back from
saying anything because I have alot of respect for his dad, um,
but you know, at the end of theday, you know if you're hook
kicking, the body conversation'sover for me.
So you know I don't.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
That's the day, though.
That's the whole.
I'm not gonna do it.
I won't do it.
I won't do it.
I understand, I understand, Igot, I understand, I understand.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
I got it.
If you're a vegetarian,conversation's over for me.
You're not a meat eater.
I got nothing to say to you,hey.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
I had a little girl, a 10-year-old, at dinner and
told me she's like I don't trustanyone that's a vegetarian
there you go.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
You're raising her right, whoever that is you're
raising her right yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
I'll tell her.
I'll tell her you want to getinto AU you can start, I'll
follow you.
I got a shirt.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
I got an AU.
Oh, I thought you wanted me tojoin it.
I have a shirt.
I miss Bobby.
To be honest, I like BobbyStone.

Speaker 3 (19:46):
Yeah, yeah, a good place to start.
This guy steps down and thereis a mad dash for who's going to
be the guy to fill his role,who's going to be the guy to
step in, who's going to?
You know, what's going tohappen with nationals is such a
huge event.
When he stepped down, a bunchof other people stepped down as
well, in big positions, refereechairs, I mean just a lot of
people.
So there was this big questionmark.
I mean I had the question marktoo, Like, do I want to go to an
event that's going to suck?

(20:07):
Possibly A couple of peoplethat I know got involved and
took a shot at running it and itwas big.
It was 3,400 plus.
It was like you know TJmentioned earlier.
I mean the little kidsdivisions were stacked.
There's 40 and 50 in each one.
They're having five matchesYellow belt, blue, orange belts,

(20:30):
green belts, blue.
It was crazy.
The seniors, juniors and cadetssame thing.
There's a couple of cadetdivisions.
There are 30, 40 kids.
I mean they were some reallylive divisions.
Seniors I thought the level wasa little down, but the there
was some quality matches by thesemi-final and finals.
Um, but all that.

(20:51):
Let me say that they had oneday there's a poomsae day that
finished at eight o'clock, whichis not horrible, but by au
standards it's kind of badbecause they usually finish at
five, six, um.
But other than that they reallyran the event pretty flawlessly
.
I mean, it got in and out.
I think a couple days were doneby 4 o'clock, a couple days 5

(21:13):
o'clock, maybe 6 or somethinglike that, but it wasn't the end
of the world.
When we've been to these eventsthey're 8, 9, 10 o'clock and
they're much, much smaller.
I don't care, Go ahead, andthey're much much smaller, I
don't care.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Go ahead, go ahead, finish this.

Speaker 3 (21:25):
Yeah, no, I know that that's not the mark of a
tournament, but I'm just this isthe good stuff, this is the
good stuff, and unfortunatelyI'm like I have the inside and
the outside, so I'm just goingto say that was good From that
standpoint good numbers, gooddivisions and decent time of
finishing every day For the gooddivisions and decent time of

(21:45):
finishing every day for the badDJ.
I'll let you start on that.
Unless you got some good youwant to go with first no, I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
my good was just, I think, like you said, the
grassroots um divisions beingkind of packed with like the
yellow belts you can bring.
You can bring a yellow beltthere, a green belt there and a
blue belt there and actuallyfind some matches and for the
most part they weren't likeexhibition matches, they were
like people in the same division, same weight, same same age,
all that stuff.
So that was pretty cool.
Where do I start Go?

(22:10):
I try to find my words becauseI don't think it's anyone.
I don't know if it's anyone'sfault, I just know it's not
acceptable at this level.
I mean you go all the way tonationals, you spend all this
money, you bring all thesepeople.
I mean I got, I mean even froma business standpoint and
dealing with parents and allthat stuff like that.
I'm gonna start first with thething I said it at another event
I said of other people there'sno way we're not holding matches

(22:31):
for children.
It's just there's no way yougot.
I don't, don't, you got tofigure it out.
I mean I would rather staythere longer than than after,
like let one of my seven, eightyear old you know so many
coaches, so many coaches werehey can you help me, hey can you
help me?
Like with kids that we don'tknow anything about.
And obviously as coaches weunderstand the situation and we
try to step in for each otherand do things for each other.
But, like, from a kidstandpoint I can talk about the

(22:53):
seniors.
But from a kid standpoint thatcannot be the answer, because we
harp on safety, we harp on this, we harp on that, we harp on so
many things and then we runthese matches and say we can't
hold it because your coach isn'there.
Like that's crazy to me.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
Let me say this to you, tj, because I agree with
you 1,000%.
And it's funny because, youknow, I heard that the comment
was maybe we should bring morecoaches.
I'm like, first of all me, Ihave three coaches from my gym
and then I have people like TJ,oi Russell, thomas Jenkins.
We have tons of coaches and sowe're all running around doing

(23:31):
that.
But it shouldn't be like that.
I was at a ring and I'm sittingthere.
I have a kid that's going tofight next and I see this little
kid.
He goes up there and he lookslike he's about to cry and he's
looking, looking and somebody'slike pointing he's looking
across.
Long story short.
Also, I get a tap on the backof the back my history of
spanish-speaking people and theyasked me could I sit in?
And I'm like, you know, I gotsomeone in the division that's

(23:52):
fighting next and I'm like, okay, I sat in there.
The kid was already losing thefirst round.
He lost first round.
Second round was close.
But the kid comes back and he'sabout he's getting beat pretty
bad, he about to cry, and I'mlike, okay, and here I'm trying
to console him.
I'm like, all right, here'swhat we're going to do.
He did much better.
But I'm sitting there goinglike this kid comes from
wherever he comes from, and issitting in the ring.

(24:14):
He can't be more than 12.
Sitting in the ring and he's alittle dude, little kid Sitting
by himself, no mom, no dad, nohis coach over, and then he
loses whatever.
A couple hours later the coachcomes under me, says thank you,
sir, I appreciate it, but toyour point, tj, it's got to be
the most horrible and that's.
I think I could do a prettygood job of sitting in, but what

(24:36):
a horrible feeling for that kidyou know what I'm saying, what
a horrible feeling.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
You know and I agree, you know anybody that's having
a conversation, even having aconversation with this kid,
telling them from a refereestandpoint, telling them hey,
we're gonna start this match.
I know your coach is not here.
Like he don't understand that,like he, he can't process that,
or she, he or she can't processthat, like that's just.
That part is shitty to me.
I'm not gonna lie to you, you,it can't be the case.

(25:00):
It has to be be fixed.
Children cannot start matchesby themselves, nowhere.
I don't care.
All the way up through, eventhrough juniors we can start
this way.
But all the way through juniors, there should be no way they're
allowed to start a matchwithout their coach in the ring
Period, point blank and simple,even from a rule standpoint.
Because then this kid, if noone sits down, they're foregoing
using their card ever.

(25:21):
I mean listen.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
One day I had 10 people, I had three coaches and
we were still jumping around andwe're pretty lucky with that.
But what are the chances?
I mean, some guy comes withfour people.
You think, okay, one coach forfour people and they all go to
the ring at the same time.
Stop it, man.
You got to do something.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
Now, if a guy shows up with one coach, I people in
the first match of the day inlike three, four different rings
, like like you're gonna punishhim for bringing you got, like
that's, that's punishing him andwhat he's you know, had talked
to his parents about it, likewhat he's pushed is like team
support and like being there andall this stuff like that.
And now it's first match of theday and you're splitting hairs
trying to figure it out andthere's nothing anyone can do

(25:58):
about it.
Meanwhile, my next point, andthen I'll let you.
Meanwhile, you have people onthe bracket that are not there,
didn't weigh in, weren't in theback.
You get to the ring and theirnames are still being called.
How are you still on thebracket if you didn't weigh in?
How is this listen, I got?
How's that not being removed?

(26:19):
Before getting to the point, Ilisten to you.

Speaker 3 (26:24):
You said earlier about throwing shade.
I've thrown shade at the otherorganization, so I gotta throw
shade at this organization.
I gotta be.
I gotta be open, even thoughI'm partial to one or the other.
But you are right, tj, that'sridiculous.
The minimum you could do is, ifthe system can't fix that, come
on, someone should look atthese.
There was people that didn'tjust make weight.

(26:45):
They had people that didn'tshow up.
I had one girl from Chicagothat was in the first match of
the day in the bracket.
I know you had a couple ofpeople that had two wins.
It was just crazy.
That's unacceptable.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
They shouldn't be on the bracket.
We're talking about some of thesenior divisions too.
We're talking about some of thesenior divisions.
So let's say the kids blah,blah, blah, blah, but the
seniors are slipping through thecracks.
They're not here.
They didn't weigh in.
We're at the ring.
We want to talk about delaysand holding matches, but now we
spend five or six minuteslooking for a kid that has not
been here at any level of thegame at the ring.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
Yeah, yeah, and and I mean I saw one division that
started and some kid made weightand it was actually one of my
kids division and they had toadd after a while.
The kid was like I, I didn'tfight yet and they're like what
they check the stuff?
They're like, oh, they forgot,they forgot to add them in.
So this computer system doesn'ttake people off, or didn't add
people in, or correctly.
And so, yes, you're right,today we had well, that one was

(27:39):
like I think it was a good 45minute delay, yet they can't
wait for coach x to run overhere for two minutes later so so
the question, the questionbecomes you know we're all gonna
have, oh taekwondo, fury tj,your fan, he's on my feet again.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
the um with that back hook, kick to the body and then
anyway.
So the reason.
I.
The question becomes in thesesituations is it endemic, or is
it the first time, second time,third time?
So, now that you're aware ofthis and it's happened, do you
follow up with the AAUleadership whoever that is now

(28:18):
and say to them here's whathappened, here's my experience.
What are you guys going to doto fix this in the future?
Now, if they hear that messageand they change, then they're
better.
There are organizations, um,that don't listen, don't change,
and then and that's the problemthey just take the money.
They keep going.
So, um, sometimes there'slogistics things from that you

(28:38):
know, um, like we, we went to atournament with my kids and the
tournament is in a place wherethey have thunderstorms every
time.
Now, for two years they've hadthe same thunderstorms and for
two years they've canceledmatches and for two years
they've canceled, like, full-ongames or limited the games.
So these parents who spendthousands of dollars to go to,

(29:01):
uh, tennessee, like that'sweather hold on a second, but
this is every year in the samelocation.
They know that this is rainyseason, thunderstorm and human,
and it's going to happen.
So they have a three-yearcontract with this place in
tennessee, so they have one moreyear there.
Luckily, my kids doesn't reallymatter next year, but, um, as a

(29:23):
parent, when I'm making thatdecision next year.
We had that same tournament inTexas for two years and had a
great event, right, only thingyou have is a lot of heat.
Well, at least it's notthunderstorms and rain where
you're canceling games.
You're having water breaks.
So does the organization hearthat message?
And if it does hear thatmessage, what does it do to
rectify that?
They have to have a contingencyplan and that means you have to

(29:45):
put more days and more time,and that's hard.

Speaker 3 (29:49):
So you know like logistically that's a nice shirt
coach I like that.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
We promote getting out early.
You see this shirt.
Look at this shirt.
Do you see that shirt?
Yes, I see it.
Let me see yours.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
I see it Mine almost I want to peek one.
I want to peek one.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
But my problem is that we support and like fall
around getting out early.
I'm sure they know, but again Igo.
How do we not?
It's not just them, it's at alot of different events where
they do that, where they let thekids start.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
It's not just.
It's not just a you, it's notjust.
I just don't understand howthat could ever be.
A thing like but that was, butat this event it was a big thing
, tj right.
So I mean, we're talking aboutthis event.
This was on unacceptable.
Blah, blah, blah.
Keep moving on, because we gotwe, I'm sure we gotta get to the
big one.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
I'll flip, fly with you, you go, I'll sit back
listen.

Speaker 3 (30:38):
I just.
I mean, at the end of the day,we got to go with the referees
and I'm going to talk again.
Young, you always say, oh, wegot to have some.
Sometimes we bring up someproblems, we should have some
solutions.
I have some solutions, butstill we have to address this.
This was by far the worst AAUofficiated ever.

(30:59):
Why do you think that?
Why?

Speaker 2 (31:00):
do you think that to be the case?

Speaker 3 (31:02):
Well, that's I mean.
So I'm going to give.
The truth of the matter isthere was a huge influx of brand
new referees and because of theturnover, there was a I mean, a
lot of the old referees decidednot to come, a lot of the ones
that had been there for years, alot of the top level ones.
I'm not trying to crap on thereferees because they got a

(31:25):
tireless job.
They were there for six, sevendays.
Their last couple of days areimportant days and they're tired
and blah, blah, blah.
But I don't even think it wasthat they were tired.
I think that there was a lot ofmiscommunication, a lot of ego,
a lot of not understanding therules, a lot of when I say ego
slash not working with thecoaches literally trying to.
I mean you know what I mean.
I'm not.
I'm not very good with peoplelike look at me and tell me to

(31:45):
sit down, like I'm a fuckinglittle kid.
I mean that doesn't go overwith me real well at all.
I mean I don't care if one ofyou guys did that to me.
It's not going to be, it's notgoing to be fun.
And when I see this people andI not only that when I see about
20 year olds looking at peopledoing that kind of stuff and
giving that look in their facelike if you don't sit down, I'm
gonna smack you.

(32:05):
And they're 20 years old.
I mean it, I'll start.
It was bad.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
There was one coach.
There was one coach that wassomething was being protested.
Maybe there was a card going on.
Let's say there was a cardgoing on and he's literally
talking to his athlete in thefree time.
Has the athlete listening?
Blah, blah.
He's like yeah, do this, dothis.
The referee turns to him in thecenter, tells him to be quiet,
like calm down.
And he responds he's like,don't tell me to calm down.

(32:30):
I'm talking to my athlete likethere was no reason he wasn't
talking to the ref, there was nofighting going on.
But to think that they, whatevertheir interpretation of the
rules, of how our coach shouldact, it's twisted, it's it's,
it's, it's confusing.
And then you have, and thenwhere?
Then you watch them?
You're gonna tell me they madein their eyes.
You'd have to say they made nomistakes.
I'm watching cars and I'mwatching people lose cars and
I'm watching weird things happen.

(32:52):
You're gonna tell me you don'tunderstand anyone's frustration.
So like, yeah, you're saying,because what we're saying is
they read the game completelywrong.
Right, I watched the game beingread wrong the entire day, from
the fake low kicks to therandom holding calls to people
getting sidekick as they extendtheir arm and the punch scores
to people punching and the otherperson standing still, and then
they put it on the other sideand you try to explain to them

(33:14):
what the procedure in thatsituation is and they're telling
you and unfortunately for them,I've been able to sit in a lot
of chairs at a lot of highlevels, so I have a very good
interpretation of the rules andwhat is and what isn't, and it's
like when I listen, I have towalk away at some point because
I'm like dude, you don't evenknow the rule.
You don't even know the rule,you don't know how to handle the

(33:35):
rule, you don't know what issupposed to be interpreted and
I'm gonna go to the other side.
They were allowing some ofthese coaches to like protest
things that weren't protestableor protest the project what are
we doing so?

Speaker 2 (33:46):
the worst so the like what I do is I just vote with
my dollars, and I know you can'tdo that at the au, but I what I
will say is this historicallyone of the worst tournaments
here locally.
And it's a prestigioustournament because it's at
stanford and the only the namestanford gives it prestige and
the guy that used to run it wasthe second rate has been player

(34:06):
that never was timmy.
Timmy gormley was his name andtimmy had the world's worst
referees and they were horribleand he was terrible at taekwondo
as well, but he was so full ofhimself and taught the referees
who were basically college kids,most of them little brainiacs
that went to stanford, um, andthey I would sit in that

(34:28):
tournament or the match thingsand I'd see them misinterpret
the rules and I'd finally get upand just have enough.
And I go and talk to timmy whohates to be called timmy, by the
way, but he's my junior and soI'll call him Timmy and I think
he's like a second degree orsomething, and Timmy would
empower these little jerk-offsto believe that referees were

(34:49):
superior when they didn'tunderstand the rules.
And so I just got to the placewhere I didn't let my people go
and don't let my people go, andnow that Timmy's gone it's still
bad, but that's because whenyou've, you got to understand
where you're getting refereesfrom and when you get referees
from a place where they unlikejudo to compete, if you want to

(35:10):
ref a certain level of judowe've talked about this you have
to have had competed at it andmade it to a certain level.
So if you want to be an Olympicref at judo, you had to make it
through the first half or thefirst, or pretty high up in judo
as a competitor to referee atthat level.
And it depends on the level youhave to.
But the moment where you and Ilearned this from Sifu Vizio the
moment where you enter the ringand you allow that person to

(35:32):
judge you, you might be a worldclass competitor, you might be
an Olympic champion.
You might have an 18-year-oldkid who doesn't understand the
rules refereeing, and so as acoach, I don't sit in chairs
anymore, why?
Because I don't want to letthis little snot-nosed kid who
doesn't understand the rulesnever fought judge me.

(35:52):
Now the AAU needs to hear thatmessage.
They have to fix that.
In other words, you've got toeducate your referees and when
you lose people that it's lifeis inevitable.
You're going to lose people,political whatever, and people
are going to leave with thosepeople.
You know, unfortunately, everytime I left the room, nobody
left with me.
I was left alone, but in thissituation they've got.
It's something to be addressedif the referees don't understand

(36:13):
the rules, can't enforce therules and can't interpret the
rules, and then you have highlevel coaches who are sitting in
chairs and people that arespending thousands of dollars.
I mean, I like Salt Lake City,but I would never go to Salt
Lake.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
City unless there was a reason.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
You know what I mean.
I'm not going to Salt.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
Lake City.
But I guess if they did it witha little bit of grace, because
we as coaches are threatenedwith yellow cards and warnings
and slapped on the wrist and wegot grown-ass men being forced
to apologize for conversationsand things in debate.
That's crazy.
Like stop, let's stop.
That's what we're doing.
Like, I understand you want, asa staff member of the people in
charge, you protect your people.

(36:50):
You want to make sure that it'sfair on both sides, but don't
forget how important the coachesare and everything too.
We're not going to sit here andtake this.
We're watching the game.
You know how many coaches bittheir tongue.
You know how many conversationswe've had.
They're like oh man, if, if, if, it's this yellow card thing
and it's only played on one side.
These referees made a lot ofmistakes.
They did a lot of weird thingsand a lot of weird situations.

(37:12):
I had one guy stopping thematch.
The people were fighting.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
He would stop the match just to switch positions
and then say go like, can youimagine?
Can you imagine I want you tothink for a minute can you
imagine if there were a job thatyou had anywhere in the world
where you weren't evaluated andyou weren't challenged and you
couldn't be promoted or demoted?
The only job like that is thesupreme court and, apparently,
refereeing, steve kaepner and I.
Back back in Copenhagen WorldChampionships.

(37:42):
Steve did an evaluation of allthe refs and then we had that
video review of the refs wherewe would overturn the calls or
uphold the calls, with a referee, high-level referee and a
high-level athlete I'm talkingPasquale Hadi, me Kaepner
sitting in chairs alongside ofthem.
We overturned 60% to 70% of thecalls.

(38:03):
At the end of it, we came upwith an evaluation of the
referees, which was after that,we never saw it again.
The reason Because they wantedto be immune.
They thought they were theSupreme Court and when you put
people in a position of absolutepower, absolute power corrupts
absolutely, and that's why yougot Philippee, they, whatever

(38:23):
his name still in charge andyou're not fixing the problem.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
That's too high level , but that's where it starts.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
It starts at high level in other words, if I'm in
a job where I can say and dowhatever I want and nothing can
happen to me, you have to untilyou get to a place where
referees and we started thisback in usat so we, when I was
running the program, as you know, we did the coaching program,
we did the athlete program andwe did the ref program.

(38:47):
We had a program.
We could videotape the matches,we could see what the refs were
scoring and then after thematch we could do an evaluation
and use it as education.
We weren't trying to use it aspunishment.
I'm saying okay, now you had aref there, sit with them and say
you pressed the button for that.
Was it a mistake or why?
What's your justification?
Well, here's nobody elsepressed it and that's life.

(39:08):
But if the referee is pressingthat button nine out of ten
times, yeah, you got to educatethe ref and then you get a
better ref.
If you don't have an educationprocess where the only thing
refs back then were learningwere warnings.
They didn't learn how to scorea point.
We were the first group tryingto teach them what a point was.
So I don't know what'shappening Now.
You have a different dynamicbecause you've got the dumb

(39:30):
system that doesn't scoretechnique anymore, it just
scores foot farting.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
I think what TJ is talking about, though, is this
specific tournament.
I think what TJ is talkingabout, though, is this specific
tournament, and I think it'simportant to highlight these
individual cases that we saw,because if we just say it was
bad, then they won't get towhere you're at, Young, and I
actually have something evensimpler they won't get to the
solution or the fixing of it.
I think it has to be.
I mean, I know, in social mediait's not the best, you know,

(39:58):
because everyone thinks they'reperfect, everyone thinks that
they're right, but there was alot of very good comments
criticizing for different calls,different situations, and I
think of you know what are you?

Speaker 2 (40:11):
doing.
I'm going to pull up somethingbecause you mentioned it.
Go ahead, and I'm going to pullup this.
I think oh, yeah, so here's acase in point right, and this is
embarrassing on so manydifferent levels, besides the
fact that this is the last matchof the day, the last of the
tournament so here's the matchboom.

Speaker 3 (40:36):
Look at his dude fall .

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Watch the scoreboard so for those of you, those of
you that are Boom, look at hisdude fall, watch the scoreboard.
So for those of you that arejust simply listening, what we
had here was a picture of aplayer getting full-on kicked in
the face, knocked to the ground, basically on the verge of

(40:58):
being unconscious, and no score,no point.
And then I'll let no point andhe's being counted out by the
way being counted out I'll letyou pick it up from there, coach
.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
No, I mean I I'll get that one later, but I mean let
me close what I would say.

Speaker 1 (41:16):
I think it's again, I think, the only thing that got
me through that weekend.
I'm going, I'm telling myselfyou know, my new motto is you
don't know what you don't know,and I can accept that as a
reasoning behind things.
But then, as you approach thegame, like you said, when you're
being not only the rules arebeing interpreted wrong and
calls are being made weird andpunches are being scored and
things are being allowed toprotest and calls are not being

(41:39):
made in there and the wrongcalls are being made, you kind
of go okay, at least have alittle humility in the process.
And I think they go the exactopposite.
They go like this guy's got tobe wrong, or or look at him,
he's angry.
You know why I'm angry?
Because I do this as aprofession.
I do this every single day,monday through Saturday.
I go to trip after trip.
I have coached at bigtournaments, I have coached at

(41:59):
the world champs, I have coachedat grand prixs and the Olympic
games, and I'm sitting heretrying to watch and figure out
the game, because the goal is towin and all the coaches in tech
want to know.
The goal is to win and we.
We are smart enough to playaround the rules and change and,
you know, focus on the match atthe moment.
But you watch these guys andthey just have no, no decor

(42:21):
about it.
They really think that theyhave rights to tell you to sit
down in situations where you'rea hundred percent right or
you're being forced not to useyour card because you know
they're going to get a hundredpercent wrong.
Like it's crazy, you know.
And that's where my issue comesin, right there.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
Now I'll add that, to listen, I I've coached a long
time too and I know you knowsometimes I was good calls and
bad calls and I was holding, hewas pushing.
You know, sometimes there'sgood calls and bad calls and I
was holding, he was pushing, andyou know it's a matter of
interpretation.
Why call it now when youhaven't called it the whole time
?
Again, all that.
I hate to say it, but I canlive with it.
I really can.
But what I can't live with iswhat you said.
That's a great point, TJ.

(42:53):
You coach every day.
You go to terms every weekend.
Most of these people at thisevent refereeing probably go to
two or three a year and thenthey're going to have the ego
because they're wearing acertain shirt in a certain
position of the ring, to look atyou and basically scold you or
tell you whatever, or even bevindictive, because when you do

(43:14):
lose your card, you know you'regetting things coming back your
way.
Or let's say, you had a problemlast match and now you're in a
new match.
They're being vindictive, cancontrol the thing.

Speaker 1 (43:22):
so for me it's like a basin.
Sorry, my bad, but that's notlike the.
They're looking at you likelike he wants another call.
Like, dude, do your job and getout of your emotions.
It's not against you, you justmade a bad call, let it go.
But like that's my issue,because I don't know why I come
from disrespect is met withdisrespect.
It's very simple.
Like I don't I.
It's a very equal equation.
And and they don't get thatbecause then when you respond to

(43:43):
them, the same energy they giveyou, then you're being told to
apologize and say sorry yeah youknow, yeah, that's what.

Speaker 3 (43:49):
That's what you're saying.
Like it's not held to the samestandard here.
We are professionals doing whatwe do I would say most of us
and these guys are volunteersand I'll get into that in a
second and very amateur in whatthey do and they still will have
these kind of emotions andfacial things and ego power
things.
I mean I don't really reviewtoo much.

(44:09):
I've reviewed so many no-come,john, for my player.
I'm basing what you calledgrabbing, pushing, falling, I
mean, and I won so many of themand I know it killed them to
come back and give me my damncard.
You know what I'm saying.
Like normally I'm like ah, butI'm like no, no, enough of this.
I mean I kind of I had to throwmy card at a few people, you

(44:31):
know.
At the end of the match I had tograb my card and look at to
quit trying to control the matchand win or lose the match for
the athlete.
The guy looks at me and I'mlike, yeah, I said that to you
because these guys are fightingbeautiful match, everything's
going and go figure, the guythat's winning gets a bad call

(44:52):
in the last 15 seconds.
You haven't called shit.
The whole event, the wholematch, and now you make yourself
seen.
And it was.
I mean, it wasn't egregious, itwasn't like he was everything
that was happening in the first30 seconds, the first 60 seconds
, the first 90 seconds.
And now here we are.
And guess what?
Bravo, mr Referee, you justgave somebody a match and took

(45:13):
somebody's match away and feelgood about it.
That's horrible, horrible,horrible, horrible.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
So that last kick you showed back to the last kick.
You showed right, yeah, yeah,so it was.
Then they had to sort of review, so it didn't score.
Obviously they looked at thescore but it didn't score.
From what I understand is theyreviewed it and then they came
back and X'd it.
In what world is that an X Like?
I don't even understand?
The medic should have beencalled.

Speaker 3 (45:47):
He should have been counted out.
He should not have probablycontinued.
He was on all fours past thenumber of counting, like he was
hit.
So this is my guy that did oneof my guys coaches my coaches.
It was his guy, young and soit's.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
We can't hear you we can't hear you, we can't hear
you the reason it didn't happenthey weren't used to seeing
anybody get kicked in the face,so that nobody ever gets kicked
in the face with power anymore.
So they were confused becauseit was like a unicorn.
It never happens and when a guyactually found down from the
blow of the kick, rather thanjust having his feelings hurt,
they didn't know what to doyoung, that was.
Ultras too, that was one of mytry to disqualify the athlete no

(46:17):
, actually my junior.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
There was a kid in 74 , a shorter guy in 74, and he
hit this kid.
I think it was like a pot ofchuggy inside or a round kick to
the body and this boy went downto his knee and the referee
just told him to stand up andeveryone was like count, count.
But it was a hard body shot.
He ate.
It laid there and they just lethim get away with it.
And I don't know if they gavethe gum john.
They might have said his handwas down before he touched the
ground or something strange.

Speaker 3 (46:40):
Yeah, yeah there was a lot of that.
So, yeah, I think, listen, thelack of respect you know, you
know both ways and the lack oflevel was, was unacceptable for
au.
I know, and I know au has a um.
So let me go back to somesolutions.
You know, young, you weretalking about big, you know kind
of things.
But listen, the only um, theonly excuse I'll give is I know

(47:03):
there was a mass exodus ofreferees and to get this 20
division I'm sorry, 20 ringevent going, the referees,
chairs or whoever, they had togo out to their states and just
work hard to get people to comeand certify them at the state
level, work a little, and thenthey threw them into the fire.

(47:23):
So that's an excuse, but it'snot an excuse because that's
your job, our job is to prepare,our job is to win, it's your
job to prepare these people toreferee properly.
So can it get better in thefuture?
I hope so.
I think that AAU is in aleadership limbo.
Like I said, I know there waslike three people that were

(47:44):
assigned to this competition toget it done.
Listen, they got peopleregistered, they got people
through the event.
It wasn't a complete disaster.
And so now we have the bigquestion, because I will tell
you this and I'm one included Ifit's anywhere close to this,
you'll never see me again.

(48:05):
There's no reason to, and I'm afan of AAU.
I want to be there, I want tohelp, I want to put my two cents
in.
I'll do whatever I can to seeit succeed, because I think it
could be something unique andsomething special With the
amount of people, the amount ofcoaches there.
Unique and something specialwith the amount of people, the
amount of coaches, and there's alot of knowledge that usually
gets listened to.
So, but it's going to bedependent on what you say young,

(48:28):
the leadership, are they goingto listen or who's going to?
Who's it going to be and what?
How are they going to utilizethe resources that they have
Because the other organization,they don't utilize their
resources and look where they'reat.
Not a good situation.
Not a good situation, but youcan't coach and play through
that chaos.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
That was probably one of the most hectic coaching
days ever.
Because I'm in limbo, tryingnot to get in trouble, not to
rip the mats up and throw themover the fence one by one.
You're just watching and then Iguess, okay, I want them to
prioritize athletes, that's it.
Because I think it was thesecond day or something they
told now, well, they brought thedivisions out early and then
told them they couldn't kick awall up at the ring.
What do you want them?
What do you want them to do?
What do you want them to do?

(49:12):
We, we've taught our kids towarm up and stretch and be ready
and get focused on this stuff,and now we go out early, and
that's a good thing because weend early.
I don't care if the event runsefficiently and it officially
has to run until 10, 11 PM.
I don't care, because it's thegame and the athletes and the
things that are going on thatday.
They're more important.
I get it.

(49:32):
I get it.

Speaker 3 (49:34):
What they wanted to do is go to that little back
area and warm up and then comeback Right behind the yeah, but
they want them to stay at thering too.
Yeah, it depends on one side.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
It was so much going on, we went from being at the
ring to not being at the ring to.
I think that creates a lot ofchaos.
I mean, I think it makes iteasier, like we were talking
about before, to get everyone inthe same place at the same time
no-transcript on and there wasa lot wrong.

Speaker 3 (50:31):
That's what's weird, TJ, me and you talked this
morning when I you know we weretalking earlier that sometimes a
result isn't indicative of aperformance Just because you win
.
There's a lot of stuff thatwent wrong and you kind of got
lucky to win, or vice versa, youlose but you fought really well
.
This event, I think, finishedgood on paper, Like when you

(50:52):
said, oh, we finished at 5o'clock, Okay, great, but the
inner workings of it was rough.
And it hasn't been like that ina long time and I think it's
going to.
That's why I said leadership,give people time.
I mean to these people's credit.
You know, these guys got throwninto this thing with about four
months and to go from nothing,like I'm just in my kitchen

(51:17):
drinking coffee and all of asudden they're like hey, juan,
we need you to run this event,get your group together.
Oh shoot.
You know, kitchen drinkingcoffee and all of a sudden
they're like hey, juan, we needyou to run this event, get your
group together.
Oh shoot, you know, some ofthese guys have not run.
Well, no one's run a 3,400person event, maybe five, 600,
you know person events, 700event if you're lucky, but
that's.
You know, a seven daytournament.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
I would have loved to have seen someone tell the
referees to try to limit theirinteractions within the match.
Like I can almost deal with theno calls over, the too many
calls and all that stuff likethat.
I don't know what the approachwas, I don't know what the
conversations were, but it justseemed like I'm going to say,
from the first day I was thereThursday to Friday to Saturday
it progressively got worse andmaybe because it got to the
seniors and it's easier to seeand it's more impactful, but

(51:56):
like it just seemed like itprogressively got a little bit
more rough, listen, tired.

Speaker 3 (52:02):
They were tired, they were inexperienced.
The level is better, thecoaching is more important.
I mean there's a lot of thingsthat, just like you said, added
into that problem.
I mean, for me I have an easysolution.
Okay, you bring those people in.
I think referees have tounderstand that they are part of

(52:23):
the system, they are part ofthe brand.
They work with people, notagainst people.
You are not on your own and,yes, there's always going to be
a little adversary because thecoach thinks he's right.
The referee made their judgmentcall in the heat of the moment.
Sometimes you go okay, okay,okay, I get that.
But for me it's like, if youmake a mistake, sorry about that
.
You know, if you made a call,sorry, you didn't like it.

(52:43):
That's the way I saw it.
But there's a ways to make thisbetter.
I mean some things.
Look, I don't expect, I don't.
I'm not a referee.
I can't tell you what angle toput your hand at.
You know all that stuff, but Ithink if someone had the
conversation with them and said,listen, your job is to not be
seen, you should call itegregious.
Call People fall down.

(53:04):
Call it.
People go out of bounds.
Call it.
People leg check, call itHolding, pushing.
I mean, okay, if you see it forreal, but there's a hold and a
push on every single clinch,just like in the NFL, just like
in soccer.
We just watched USA soccer.
The ref let these guys killeach other for the first half,

(53:25):
but okay, we know that's howit's going.
So I think that if theyunderstood that they don't have
to show every deduction thatthey've learned in the match,
let it go, let these guys fight,let these kids fight.
I think if you'd call less,people would be more happy
versus calling more, you knowwhat I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
I think, like you just said, if it's stuck to the,
my issue is the proceduralstuff.
I watch matches and the refereedidn't know how to start the
guys.
He had both the kids facingeach other face forward instead
of turning them sideways, so heactually had the chest guard.
So the kids are trying to likeand it's just like.
So we don't even know how tostart the match.
And then I guess the otherthing was or finish, or finish
the match.

Speaker 3 (54:01):
Finish Just go like this.

Speaker 1 (54:02):
They're like chong-ho bow-wow, someone would spin
Both referees would stand up inthe corner and go two, two and
for whatever reason, the centerref would still take out his
card and go to the table.
I'm pretty sure if they bothagree it's on car to stop the
match.
But that's important to mebecause sometimes the cardio
thing, maybe we're down andthere's other guys tired.
Now we got a three and a halfminute break because you just

(54:24):
ignored the two people in thecorner.
That's what I mean bystructural and procedural stuff
that like just made it likemessy.
You know what I mean, that typeof stuff.

Speaker 3 (54:32):
But but what they're trying to think about is I'm
doing the right thing?
Because I'm not sure, let me gocheck, do you?
Do you understand?
But that's why I think theyneed to live it more.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
That's the corner rest.
The corner rest, I mean thecorner rest.
Both say 2-2.
They're both calling it.

Speaker 3 (54:49):
I agree, I agree, I mean, I'm just giving you like
devil's advocate.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
I agree with you.

Speaker 3 (54:52):
I mean, that should be obvious.
You know what they Like.
Look, it wasn't my call andyou're right If the other coach
goes.
No, he didn't spin.
Actually, we did that.
That's how it works, though wedid that with Coach Lee.
He got in a clinch and some kiddid one of those little back
whip kicks and hit him in thehead and the referee they put
two.
I'm like, hey, he didn't spin,he didn't spin, he just flipped

(55:13):
his leg around if you didn't payattention.
And when they reviewed it theywere like good, no, two points.
I was like, and both cornersgave those two points.
But to your point, it was up tothe other call.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
you know, coach, in that situation yeah, I think
that was the thing.
I think it was just thatuncertainty of the rules and
things that made them kind oflike, again all the checking,
all this switch.
I mean I had people like in themiddle of the fight, stop it to
go check where the people werelocated in the ring.
When they stopped it and it'sjust like, but they're still
standing.
It was just too much.
Like you said, it was just it'sjust too chaotic, it's too
crazy.
You, you can't, you can't coachat that level, let alone

(55:49):
coaching little kids at thatlevel, because everything you
said probably looks wrong tothem, you know abcdrf d minus d
minus d D man I mean, if youwant to give him like a C-minus
because of the A for effortsyndrome on a curve A for effort

(56:11):
.
You know, but like, come on, Imean that was a lot.
I'm watching again.
I'm watching matches I had toleave places in the match.
I'm watching matches beingjudged.
I'm just like this is not evenmy match.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
And I'm getting like emotionally invested because
it's like there's no way this isgoing this way.
I was watching like one coachand I'm kind of like this.
I was like, oh, I don't know,then the call would go against
other coaches.
I'm like, oh, my gosh, samething.
I was before anybody looked atme.
I was like let me go to anotherring because I was, I felt bad
for both coaches.
Man, I don't know what to tellyou guys.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
I don't know what to tell you.
One coach thought I was likekind of giving him a hard time
or something.
I'm like dude, I didn't go havea conversation with him but I'm
just looking in like oh, I waslike how deep in the levels of
this call went to the, thechanges and the switches and
what they're doing.
So I'm just sitting back likethe same thing, mouth covered,
like I can't believe it.

Speaker 3 (56:58):
You know it's funny.
I'm like I didn't have thatmany bad calls, nothing out of
the ordinary.
I had like maybe one ref that Ithought was a little bit weird,
maybe two, but I just it wasn'tlike really I saw a lot worse
for other people than me.
So I'm not, I can't, I can'tsay I was one of those guys but
I did see a lot.
So refereeing was tough.
Again, I'm not trying to bag onthe referees because I know

(57:19):
they're volunteers, I knowthey're young, I know they're
doing their best but you knowthe rule for headshotsshots when
they look at the video review,they look for the contact.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
If, for whatever reason, they can't see whether
it's scored or not, they keepthe card correct, like that's
the thing.
I think that that's philly.
I mean, it's like when theyit's like, let's say, when the
video is recording or whateverit doesn't record, they give you
your card back, right?
Yes right, yes, but if thevideo is playing and the kick is
not seen and we only have onecamera, then I lose my card and
we just move on with the day.

Speaker 3 (57:51):
See.
That's why I think, under thecircumstances of one camera,
that's not fair.
It's like saying I got onlypunch right here, I should be
able to punch everywhere.
But if you're in a realtournament and they got two
cameras front and back and theycan't see it, hey, you lose your
card.
Or if you got three or fourcameras, they can't see it, hey,
you lose your card.
If you got three or fourcameras, they can't see it
because it was a weird angle.
That's too bad, man.
But in this situation, yes,they should have.

(58:12):
Uh, do you think I wish I couldremember this, do you?

Speaker 1 (58:15):
think when they look for a contact they look at where
the foot hits.
I'm sorry.
Okay, when they review for headcontact, when they review
they're just supposed to look atit to see if the foot made
contact with the head correct.
Doesn't matter if they matter.
If it hit the front side, back,middle, it doesn't really make
a difference, right?

Speaker 3 (58:29):
Man, I'm sure if someone says, oh, it hit the
spinal cord of the back of thehead, I don't know.
I think that's what's happeningtoo.
It should just be if it hit.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
But I guess what's the rule?
Do you know the exact wordingfor it?

Speaker 3 (58:53):
They're just looking for contact.
From what I, supposedly theonly rule that says you can't
hit the back of the head is inthe clinch.
In the clinch, you can't hitthe back of the head, right?
So no, it should be.
In should be the headgear.
There's no rule, yeah, so Imean, I wish there's a.
There's a referee man I I askedhis name.
He was in the women's 67.
It was down by where uh britneywas fighting.
I don't know if you rememberwhere that was, that 17 or 19.
He's a, a smaller gentlemanfrom texas yeah, dark hair.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
I don't know where that was Was that 17 or 19?
.

Speaker 3 (59:10):
He's a smaller gentleman from Texas.
Yeah, dark hair.
I don't know if he's Hispanic.
I think he's a Hispanic guy.
He's from Charles, virginia.
Oh man, I don't want to say thewrong name.
So whatever his name was, thatdude is good.
He controlled the centerreferee a lot.
He brought the referee.
I saw him, for example.
He gave a come John for goingout and then he gave a come John
for kicking low and he justtold him to come in and he asked

(59:31):
him why he was like he went outof bounds.
He was like and what was theother?
He goes.
Well, he kicked them low, hegoes.
So he kicked them low before hewent out of bounds.
He's like yes, he's like okay,so you can't give him a
deduction for an illegal cameout why you dropped just little
things.
He did a really good job in thering and mentoring the other
people.
So I don't know.
Hats off to that guy.
I mean I wish I didn't know hisname because I feel stupid

(59:53):
right now.
I go.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
C C D, I get it D.
C I get the C part.
I get the D part.
I just again, I think it's justthe messiness from a procedural
standpoint, watching thingshappen that shouldn't happen.
People get away with thingsthat we would never get away
with, that like the, the middlelevel tournaments out and open.
Like there's certain thingsthat, as much as we'd like to
argue with the refs, there'ssometimes like they are right

(01:00:18):
when they tell us to be quiet.
You know what I mean and you'rewatching.
Like guys hold up matchesbecause they're misinterpreting
the rules and like they'rearguing with them and they're
trying to convince them andthey're trying to convince them
and everybody's trying toconvince everybody.

Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
But it's like there's a set of rules for a reason too
but that's that's my point,like I listen, okay, so you know
most.
I mean, we know for the mostpart, me and there's other
people.
But I saw a couple referees Icould tell they didn't know what
they were doing and they'retelling them and the referees
trying to get the answer, tryingto get there, and then kind of
grabs the card and it's likeputs it in a pocket or kind of
like okay, that's what you wantto do, knowing that it's going

(01:00:50):
to be an x, and so sometimes youknow they, you know they
they're just doing their jobs,you know.
But yeah, it was, it was roughand it was blatant and I, I,
this is just not me.
I mean, I can't tell you howmany coaches were not happy with
the refereeing part.
So, like I said, I throw someshade in the past.
Other organizations, uh, whetherit's patu, whether it's usat,

(01:01:11):
blah, blah, blah.
This time I gotta throw it atthe au.
I mean, granted, they had tobuild this thing out in three to
four months, granted, they hadto get a bunch of new people,
but nevertheless it was a.
It was a tough one to swallowfor a lot of people, but um usAT
is in two weeks.
We'll be there.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
How do you fix slippery mats?
Because I think someone needsto send a long email and let
them give them the proceduralchat.
Gpt, it look it up.
How you fix slippery Taekwondomats, because this is the second
or third year I've been to theAU and I hate the mats you can't
move.
Hairspray sometimes means nuts.
People are spraying their feetwith hairspray and wiping their
feet off because it's dirty, butthe mats are slippery.

(01:01:54):
How do we fix slippery mats?
Do you know, grandmaster, tellme how we fix slippery mats?

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
So the only thing that fixes slippery mats is wear
and tear, and we've allcompeted on slippery mats, and
humidity exacerbates thatproblem, and so there's not a
lot you can do about it.
Uh, salt lake city, yeah, butit's the mats.
You know, it's the quality ofmats.
There's not a lot you can doabout it.
But you got slippery mats,slippery socks, sucky scoring

(01:02:23):
systems, but other than that,it's a pretty good sport.
But you know, you got.
You got many things to fix, ofwhich I think the slippery mats
is the last thing to fix.
But that's the first thing well,what you would do, to be honest
, is you put stick them on, putstick them on the bottom of the
kids feet.
They were doing all that stufftheir hairspray and they get
dust and there's dust on the matand then you got to wipe it off

(01:02:47):
between right, I think there'stwo things I think you have to.

Speaker 3 (01:02:51):
there's some kind of like brush, kind of like a
bristle brush, that you can mopit off or you can kind of grind
it down a little bit.
I think there's a solution thattakes some stuff off too,
because I know like that's not aproblem at world championships
and stuff like that.
I mean, it used to be a bigproblem.
Well, now they go to thoserollout mats, which is much,
much better, but the Dolomartype of mats that your friend

(01:03:14):
Mark Swain invented.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
He's got the best.
Mats are always a tough onebecause there are better mats
and mat systems, but it meansthey've got to buy them.
What were they using puzzlemats?
Puzzle mats are always slippery.
They suck.

Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
I mean that's true, but not true For me.
I've been again.
We've been a lot of tournaments.
These are historically theslipperiest mats in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
They're cheap.
Puzzle mats.

Speaker 3 (01:03:40):
I'm going to ask that because I don't think they
bought new mats, so these musthave been from last year.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
I think they just use them for nationals and store
them.

Speaker 3 (01:03:47):
Yeah, I think so too, I'm going to find out.
I'll find out, I'll find out.

Speaker 2 (01:03:51):
Did you want to talk about the soccer thing?
Oh yeah, I want to hear this.

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
Yeah, just real fast.
Listen, the USA man wasdisappointing yesterday.
They got whooped by Mexico.
They scored the first goal inthe first three minutes and 30
seconds.
They scored against.
They scored a beautiful header.

(01:04:16):
I was like, all right, it'sgonna, you know.
But after that ball control,mexico had all the play, all the
possession, all the passing.
The usa, um, in small spaces,have horrible touches.
And you know it's funny becausemy brother-in-law's a big
soccer fan now and he was saying, you know, the new coach from
chelsea came in, um, he'sargentinian, can't think of his
last name, he's got a touchofanino or something like a
tough name, but he said he wasbrought in to have small touches
, to have, you know little,faster breaks, more ball control
, and we didn't see any of it.

(01:04:37):
Now there were some people likePulisic, or how to pronounce
his name.
He didn't play, which is he'stheir main offensive.
You know, center guy, he playsin Europe and so I'm not quite
sure why some of the other bigstars didn't play if his plan
was to give people experienceand minutes in a memorable and
meaningful event.
But man, they look bad, whichis interesting because before

(01:05:00):
this tournament started, theylost like four games in a row
and they look like crap.
Then they started runningthrough this tournament and they
looked up to pick up some steam, but last night they looked
like a bad team.
They looked really, really bad.
In mexico had a 16 year old kidon the team, bro who was killed
?

Speaker 2 (01:05:15):
who was killing it?

Speaker 3 (01:05:17):
who was killing it.
He played really well, reallywell, so who won.

Speaker 2 (01:05:22):
But the truth is that mexico came out and they played
a very aggressive game and theywere attacking from beginning
to end.
They were attacking the ball inthere and the other sides last
third and they were aggressivelyplaying and that's a.
That's a style of play that isprevalent in the East Coast and

(01:05:43):
in Europe that the Americansaren't used to playing, and so
you watch the Americans whodidn't know how to play that
style, because that style isplayed mostly on the East Coast
and in college and these playersare playing in academies that
don't play that stylenecessarily.
And then you had this guy whowas a forward and I don't want
to speak badly about him, but hesucked.

(01:06:03):
He didn't run the guy up front.
The African-American kid whowas 600 feet tall can't run.
He didn't attack the guy upfront.
The uh, african-american kid whowas yeah, 600 feet tall, can't
run, he's slow, no skills, notouch, and he missed every time
he got a one on the goalie.
He basically gave it to thegoalie.
So that guy as as they weresaying on social media, he

(01:06:25):
shouldn't be on the team nextyear.
They are guys that were on thefield Tillman and these other
guys in Adams that kind of heldit down and, to the credit of
the Mexicans, they put DiegoLuna on an island.
The guy couldn't get the ball,couldn't do anything with the
ball.
When he did get the ball, theyran at the ball because he's so
far back.

Speaker 3 (01:06:42):
Yeah, it was so far back.
They needed them.
They were afraid of the.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
Mexicans ability, ability to attack and score.
So they played a very low blockI think that's what it's called
, and they had everybody back.
And this is the truth you can'twin games if you can't score.
Defense can't be the way you'regoing to win a game.
Now, to the Americans' credit,they got a lucky first goal.
That was luck.
The ball went high, hit thepost, went in the goal and it

(01:07:08):
was a goal.
And, to the Americans' creditas well, there was a handball.
That was a handball.
No doubt it was a handball.
It the most giantest, biggestpipeline of youth involvement.

Speaker 3 (01:07:33):
You have high school, you have a great university
program, you have a professional, you have actually a semi-pro
league and a professional leaguefor a number of years.
How is America so bad in soccer?
How are we so bad?
I said that, give me that withTaekwondo, give me that with
Taekwondo you got a crazy graspwith high school collegiate

(01:07:55):
professional.
You would say that's a systemfor success.
Well, how are we so bad insoccer?
Not in America, not on thewomen's side.
Women's side, we're great.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
Well now, the women's side, women's side, we're great
.
Well, here's the, here's thequestion the, the, the.
If you are, if you are, peoplewant to say it's other sports.
So they say, because all ourbest athletes go to basketball
and football soccer can't getthat same vibe like that's what
I said.
The guys that are playing.

(01:08:27):
They wouldn't be good at soccer.
The guys who are playingbaseball wouldn't be good at
anything.
They'd suck.
The guys who are baseballplayers suck the guys who play
football.
A handful of the guys that playfootball could probably play
soccer and be good at it, andthat's.
Did I miss any professionalsports?
Is that it Baseball, soccer,football, anything else?

Speaker 3 (01:08:51):
That's it Hockey tennis.

Speaker 2 (01:08:54):
What's a hockey player going to do?
So the reality is that socceris getting the best athletes, it
can.
The direction of MLS, whichdoesn't give its elite clubs
enough help, and the directionof the academies, which makes
the academy attendance almostimpossible for kids of certain
ages.
They just haven't.

(01:09:14):
They don't fund it.
And here's the other part of it.
You want better soccer players.
Make the carrot better.
Make the service better in themiddle.
Fund the bubble.
So if you fund the bubble, youthrow money down into the lower
leagues.
Get more kids playing.
Half the country plays soccer.
The problem is the reward.
So a kid plays soccer, what'shis best hope?

(01:09:35):
He gets a homegrown contract.
He makes a hundred grand a yearfor a year or two and that's
the pipeline.
All right, or you can go tocollege.

Speaker 3 (01:09:44):
Yeah, I still don't get it.
I still don't get it becausethey have, like I just said,
like you can't in Taekwondo.
You can't go to high school anddo Taekwondo.
You can't go to college and doTaekwondo.
You can't say I'm going to goplay overseas Taekwondo or I'm
going to play in a minor leaguesystem here.
I mean it's just, they have allthe opportunity to just develop
over from the age of 13 to 19and we just don't like nobody,

(01:10:11):
like one or two, like againPulisic.
I don't know Pulisic.
He's a, you know, prolificscorer, like in Europe, but like
nobody, nobody that's.
I mean like you can't.
You can't say one famousAmerican soccer player no,
pulisic Polisic.
Again, give me another one, giveme anybody else.

Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
Anybody, I have this.
You know, I have thisconversation endlessly and the
reason.

Speaker 3 (01:10:37):
I have it endless Donovan, landon, donovan, landon
, donovan, when he was decent.
But like this too, there'sgotta be I it's.
It's mind boggling.
It doesn't make sense to me.
I want it to make sense to me.
It's not money, it's notopportunities, it's not training
.
Is it coaching?
Is it just?
We just don't have it.
I just I can't believe that,year after year, a Brazilian kid

(01:10:57):
can learn it.
Or year after year, a Mexicankid, this 16 year old kid, can
do it A year after yearArgentinian or Croatian and
Italian, italian.
Why can't I mean OK, we've had,we've had 70 years in this, 70
years since 1950 earlier, butlet's just say 1950 to 2025, 75
years.
How long has the MLS been there?

(01:11:18):
And we still suck.
So the if America.

Speaker 2 (01:11:21):
I've had.
I always used to have theseconversations right about other
sports Right, and so I had thisconversation with a friend of
mine who was the president ofcross-country skiing and you
know I've told you that beforeand how many people do that
sport?
well, the problem is thatcross-country skiing said.
I said they said they couldnever win a medal.
And I said if you, what doesthat mean?

(01:11:41):
I said I could you give me 10million dollars?
I said, no matter, if you gaveme enough money I could win a
medal in any sport.
And if you don't believe thatto be the case, then you've got
a bigger problem, right.
And and my problem is, you canwin a medal in any sport if you
put the right energy, time andeffort and education into it.

(01:12:02):
So america's got to make achoice now to be good at soccer
and so like.
Take my son, for example, right, which we always talk about.
I know he drives you guys crazy, but my son right now is in
Japan training with aprofessional team.
Why?
Because to do that same thingin the United States would tie
him to a professional team.
So if I did it with theEarthquakes, the Earthquakes

(01:12:24):
then would hold his rights allthe way through senior year of
college.
He would have to take acontract with the Earthquakes if
they offered him a contract andhe couldn't go into the draft.
So we decided to go to Japanone of their better teams and
then we're going to Brazil withthe team that's in the
semifinals at the World Cup clubteam Fluminese Tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (01:12:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:12:46):
And Fluminese, and so that's what we decided to do to
get my son.
Now, if we were really hardcore, we'd send my son to another
country to live and train withtheir academies, because even
their third and second levelteams are better than most of
the MLS's professional teams.
Now that's not throwing shadeon the MLS.
The problem is like if they'renot going to put like I love the

(01:13:09):
earthquakes, they they scoutedmy son.
They wanted to join the u18team.
So right now I'm going throughan inner conversation about
whether that's in the bestinterest of him moving forward.
Great team, great coach, greathistory.
Fc dallas love the guy, he'sreally one of the best.
But that it pigeonholes yourson or daughter.
So, to be honest, the clubshere have to do a better job of

(01:13:33):
grooming the kids, raising thebar and doing stuff to get
people to want to be here.
So Inter-Miami, great club, butRed Bulls, great club.
All these clubs have greatprograms, but then the majority
of the other MLS programs, youknow, fcc, uh, what is it called
?
La fc, la galaxy, la galaxy.
So what are you doing to givekids a realistic don't forget

(01:13:57):
about them.
Boys, charlotte, my boy, one ofour kids, my son's teammates,
is going to charlotte right now.
This kid ateo honestly I enjoytheir games.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
I.
I take this for a little.
I think we talked about itbefore, but the crowd is fun.
The stadium is the PantherStadium.
It's nice, wide and open.
It's never overly packed.

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
What else are you doing in Charlotte?
I mean that and going to thedentist?
He's going to tech window toeverybody.

Speaker 1 (01:14:20):
Anybody want to come, I'll give you the address.

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
You have a dental plan, but I mean.
So USA soccer.
The reality is that, and youknow this, yeah, if you watch I
watch PSG play who do they play?
In the quarters of the semis,psg played another really high
level team.
I can't remember who it was,but when you watched PSG play it
was, uh, the German team.

(01:14:45):
I think it was ridiculous, likethe level of soccer was
unbelievable.
That's my point.
And then you watch Real Madridplay, and these are club.

Speaker 3 (01:14:56):
Well, real Madrid is playing PSG in the semifinals on
Wednesday, and tomorrow it'sFluminense and Chelsea.

Speaker 2 (01:15:03):
It's going to be games.
It's real games when you watchthat level of play.

Speaker 3 (01:15:08):
Watch tomorrow, because you're going to see two
different, distinct styles, sothe English style and the
Brazilian style.
It's going to be pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
Go back and watch the Mexican USA game just for 10
minutes and what you'll see isthis the difference between
Mexico and the States.
Mexico played one touch.
The ball hit the player's foot,he sent it somewhere he was
scanning before he received theball and America was trying to
play a build-out game.
And you can't play a build-outgame against that kind of game.
You can try, but the realitywas the Mexican ball handling

(01:15:38):
was superior, the Mexican shotson goal were superior, and it's
just.
It was a superior style of play.

Speaker 3 (01:15:47):
Yeah, players didn't have to play.

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
It's not the players, it's the play, it's both.
The players should be good,right, I mean, they're the best,
of the best at the level.

Speaker 3 (01:15:55):
That's my point.
They got a good USA's, got agood coach.
Now this guy's a good coach Notthat Burr Walter wasn't, I
thought he was a good coach's.
He's been coaching aroundeurope for a long time.
He's a good coach.
The players can't play rightnow at that level.
They can't do what he wantsthem to do.
That's the fact.
I mean, what was the germancoach?
Uh, my gosh, he was a famousklinsman.

(01:16:17):
Klinsman's a famous, you knowworld cup, two-time world cup
champion in germany.
He's like a legend.
He came over here, he did a lot, he made us professionalize and
how we do things, but he wasn'table to get it done.
So anyway, I'll let that go.
I just thought that I was sodisappointed yesterday, I
thought I was pretty sloppy, butstill, next year World Cup,
we're going.
Young, we're going.
Tj, you're welcome, let's do it.

(01:16:39):
That'll be fun, man, go to theWorld Cup game.

Speaker 2 (01:16:43):
TJ, do you still have a car or are you a horse and
buggy guy?

Speaker 1 (01:16:47):
I've got like six horses, six horses, six horses.
I got a black one, a white oneand a mixed one, so that's how
much I want to ride every singleday.
I'll let you borrow one if youcome out here.
I got this little donkey.
He don't got no teeth, though.
Hey yo.

Speaker 3 (01:17:03):
DJ.
He's going to USAT Nationals.
It's in California, right?

Speaker 1 (01:17:06):
I can't hear this I hear he's going everywhere.
I'm always here.
He never shows up.

Speaker 3 (01:17:11):
It's in LA, it's in Ontario.

Speaker 1 (01:17:13):
Baby, let's go, I'm going to hop skip and jump for
you.

Speaker 2 (01:17:15):
I'm already scared to go.
When is it?
When is it?
Two weeks, my students aregoing with my coaches.
You know, if I go, I'm going tohave to.
I don't want to go to jail.
I'm going to have to slapsomebody, right?
Yeah, wait for me.
I can't.
I can't go Cause somebody isgoing to say something stupid,

(01:17:35):
you know, but you would thinkthat they would have sent a
ticket to their their uh, one ofthe people that has won an
Olympic gold medal for him.
You would think that therewould be something.
I'm a lifetime member.

Speaker 1 (01:17:49):
I'm the guy that designed the programs for him,
california Heights.
Well, you know I don't want to.

Speaker 2 (01:17:51):
Nothing's happened you know I don't want to go
because I'll be cast in shade,and you know it's hard when a
bright star like me gets in theroom.

Speaker 3 (01:17:58):
It dims the stars of others, Guess who?
The AU.
Let me finish with this.
Guess who the AU.

Speaker 2 (01:18:03):
They sung me Well that where's he living now.

Speaker 3 (01:18:09):
China.
Oh, he's still in China.
Yeah, there's a rumor he mightcome back to the States, he said
, but he doesn't know yet.
But it was great to see him,man, he was so nice, he was so
complimentary, he was talkingabout history.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
Why was he at?

Speaker 3 (01:18:19):
the AAU.
He was helping some.
There was some kind of likemanagement system program that
he was kind of peddling orhelping try to tell people that
it's a great system.
So I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:18:32):
I had sent him a note .
I talked to him a little whileago.
He had told me he wanted tocome back and, uh, I, I offered
him to come back, but I didn'thear back from him I heard he
might, so let's see.

Speaker 3 (01:18:42):
If he does, it'd be all be nice to have him back.

Speaker 2 (01:18:44):
I told him he could come back and run my school in
Mountain View.
All right, all right.
Well, I think we've killed it.
It's been an hour and 15minutes.
This has been the Warehouse 15,with the mayor of Taiwan,
though, and Taiwan, though, andwith bronze TJ, who has embraced
his bronzeness both in hisdress room decor KB King bronze

(01:19:07):
King bronze.

Speaker 1 (01:19:09):
King bronze.
King LeBron's PJ.
No stop, please.
I'll just leave my name off.

Speaker 2 (01:19:18):
Oh, come on Now, don't get all.
Is your mom going to call meagain?
This has been.
Tell your mom I love you.
Tell your mom I love you.
Is your mom going to call meagain?
Yeah, all right, this has beenthe Warehouse 15.
We are out.

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